SEO Werkt!

As you know, Wikipedia nofollows all their external links, so links from Wikipedia should have no impact on your rankings – be it positive or negative.

A WebmasterWorld thread have some SEOs disagreeing with that.

Some are saying because there are so many Wikipedia scrapers out there, when you get a link from Wikipedia it can hurt you.

A Junior WebmasterWorld member explained his case:

My recently relaunched website has been featured in Wikipedia as a ‘resource’ on a very relevant page. I have no idea who did this but I was obviously thrilled at first that somebody felt my website was relevant enough to appear there.

This seems to have caused no end of problems on Google, however. Because my website’s brand name is also a popular keyword in its niche (it is an EMD, but a short one) that is the keyword that this indivudual used on Wikipedia. My problem is that there are dozens if not hundreds of websites that scrape Wikipedia and now my keyword appears as anchor text on those websites.

It seems that Google has penalised me for this because from their point of view they see dozens of links with the same anchor text. Because my website is relatively young this makes up a large proportion of the link profile and I don’t think this looks natural.

I guess if the scraper remove the nofollow and if the site has very other links to it, outside of the scrapers, I guess it can hurt.

But this all seems a bit farfetched and I suspect there is some other issue.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

If you were to see a publication date on this post older than 90 days, would you still read it?  If you saw more than 2,500 words sprawled in front of you – would your eyes be enthralled or glazed?  And perhaps just as importantly, would you still consider this post useful if you had to dig deep through search and social results to find it?

All questions above, of course, can be taken as subjective – adding another wrinkle entirely to the subject of content marketing to other online marketers.  Speaking as an online marketer, what I look for in content may not match exactly what you are seeking in terms of length, format, tone or design.  That said, my experience working with numerous clients that are themselves, online marketers, within this space has led me to believe that there are at least five constants that should be adhered to in order to successfully attract and engage:

1. Be As Evergreen As Possible
Evergreen content marketing is a tall feat in an online marketing world seemingly defined by change – whether it be a new social measurement tool that you are asked to become intimately familiar with overnight – or another blasted Google Algorithm update impacting “less than 1% of searches.”

But the one constant that will stand up in the face of it all is compelling, engaging and original content.  Relevant content is the one thing that will never be punished – and the one thing that every online marketer will seek for insight on how they can do it better.

So while the latest “Penguin Survival” blog post will only be as current as Google’s whims, your posts sharing timeless tips for linkbuilidng or keyword usage will likely always have resonance.  This is provided, of course, that the tips are timeless. (If the crux of your blog post centers on the creation of  engaging, compelling and original content -  you’re probably doing OK.)

2. Be Concise
Why belabor this point?

3. Be Easily Digestible
Looking at Google Analytics for our blogs at TopRank and for the many marketing industry client blogs we’re involved with, there is a definite tendency among visitors to gravitate towards lists or infographics posts.  The similarity in both formats is that they don’t have to be read – only to be viewed – in order for them to be absorbed.  And at the end of the day, despite comments to the contrary, online marketers will actually read very little. (If you take issue with this statement, jump ahead to number 5.)

4. Be Found
There is a reason content marketing pieces sharing tips on proper keyword usage or inkbuilding will always have a certain timeless aspect.  From now until the end of marketing as we know it, a blog post intended to convey a particular message to a certain audience with intended outcomes in mind, must be discoverable in order to be successful.  And ensuring a post is found can mean everything from optimization for search with the proper keywords, outfitted with social sharing capabilities, and put in front of the right audience that will share it with their own networks.

5. Be Opinionated
Do online marketers really not read?  My blunt opinion on this matter is that it takes a lot.  With the amount of information we are expected to absorb within a short amount of time, and the amount of content marketing pieces out there that are truly not worth our time, we need to be very selective.  And this means searching, looking and skimming – but very rarely reading in-depth.

This is not meant to be taken as an elitist swipe – this is meant to be taken as opinion.  And it’s OK to share opinions in your blog posts.

For instance, is it your opinion that Google Panda and Penguin were deployed with far too little forethought and no clear understanding of their actual impact – and that this is probably why they need to refresh seemingly every other week?  Go ahead and say it – the worst that someone can do is disagree.  And these disagreements can become the comment threads that transform your content marketing piece that was published in August to a conversation that stretches for months – with each new piece offering a bit of new information that can help your post achieve rarified evergreen status.

It is my opinion that these five constants are the key to marketing with content to other online marketers. I’d be happy to see this list expanded upon – or disagreed with – in any ensuing comments or reactions below.

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A guest post by Amanda DiSilvestro.

SEO can sometimes get overwhelming. Requiring keyword research, backlinks, and images, SEO isn’t something that you can do in 10 minutes.

For that reason, more and more companies are beginning to hire an SEO team or to outsource their SEO efforts to a professional agency to make sure that SEO gets done right. After all, if you make a few slipups when optimizing your website—duplicate content, keyword stuffing, cloaking, etc.—you could find yourself with months of cleanup work. The catch to all of this SEO work: Many companies are only worrying about Google.

According to The New York Times, Google controls nearly 66 percent of all searches. That makes Google the most popular search engine around, so companies obviously want to optimize their web pages for this search engine. Unfortunately, Google has a different algorithm—or different way of ranking web pages—than Bing and Yahoo do. That means companies need to optimize their sites in different ways for each search engine. That puts more work on the SEO department and spreads their resources thin.

It is even worth it to optimize a website for Bing or Yahoo?

Why Bing Is Worth Your Time

Bing ranks second behind Google. (You can get the latest stats about rankings here.) Still, the usual concern for companies is that optimizing for Bing will take away time from optimizing for a Google SERP. The truth is that optimizing for Bing doesn’t have to be time-consuming.

Below are a few ways you can begin optimizing your website for Bing.

• Domain Age—Bing puts more emphasis on domain age than Google. If you have an older domain, you’re already on your way! That was easy, right?
• Titles—Bing puts more emphasis on title tags than Google, so make sure your title includes your keyword. Once again, a solution that takes no more than 30 seconds.
• Flash—Google has never liked Flash much, but Bing doesn’t mind. If your website has a lot of Flash, you will likely have much better luck with Bing.
• Links—Both Bing and Google put an emphasis on inbound links and backlinks, so getting the basics down is essential for both search engines.

The only thing that may take a little bit of time away from your Google efforts is keyword research. You can learn how to use the Bing keyword research tool here.

So, why it is worth it to optimize a website for Bing? It doesn’t take much extra effort. Ask your team to optimize for Google first and then go back and make slight changes to help out your Bing ranking position. In general, Bing is said to bring in more targeted traffic.

Why Optimizing for Yahoo Is Easy When It Comes Third

Yahoo has certainly had a tough year with a 2,000-person layoff and continual upper-management changes. Their latest product was a few mobile apps that more or less failed when released to the public, so it makes sense that companies would question to the importance of Yahoo as a search engine.

Just as with Bing, Yahoo asks for many similar optimization techniques to be used—no duplicate content, solid backlinks, etc.—to get ranked. Experts all agree that Yahoo is headed for a downward spiral. Spending time optimizing your pages for something unpredictable might not be worth it, even if the search engine does bring in some users.

So, what’s the kick? Yahoo results are powered by Bing. If you’re optimizing for Bing, you’re pretty much optimizing for Yahoo as well. In other words, if you’re optimizing for Google first and Bing second, your third-search engine is pretty darn simple.

The Bottom Line

Whether you want to optimize your site for these search engines should really depend upon your site and the success it has with the audience who uses Yahoo or Bing. Consider trying this for a few months and tracking your results. If you see that you are getting clicks and conversions, then your optimization was more than worth it. This may sound obvious, but it’s never a bad idea to give these search engines a try.

Do you spend time optimizing your site for Bing, Google, Yahoo, or all? What helped you make the decision to put time and effort into SEO for these search engines? Let us know in the comments!

Amanda DiSilvestro is a writer on topics ranging from social media to starting a small business. She writes for an online resource that gives advice on topics including marketing best practices to small businesses and entrepreneurs for the leading business search directory Business.com.

(Photo courtesy of Bigstock: Job Search—Woman)

Posted by mybinding1

Have you noticed that more and more video results are showing up in Google search results? Everywhere I turn, it seems that Google is providing me with options of videos to watch on the first page of their search results. As a user, I appreciate the video content and will often click on the video results. As a marketer, I am incredibly jealous of those placements and am constantly searching for ways to capture that traffic for my site. This post highlights the five most important factors I've found that play the largest role in when and where a thumbnail is awarded.

1. Index Status

This may seem like a no-brainer, but if your videos are not included in the video index, then you will not be eligible for the video thumbnail. That makes getting the video content on your site indexed your first priority.

If you want to check to see if your videos are included in the index, simply do a site search for your domain and click the Videos tab in Google. Below is an example of the list of videos included in the index for SEOmoz. As you know, the site feature of Google is not entirely reliable (not everything will show). However, it does give you an idea of the videos that Google includes in the index along with their thumbnails, titles, and descriptions, which can be incredibly helpful.

If you have a video sitemap submitted inside of your Google webmaster tools account, you will be able to see the number of videos that you submitted along with the number of videos that have been indexed. Again, I have found the numbers to be less than comprehensive, but it is another tool to use in checking whether your videos have been indexed.

Getting your videos indexed by the search engines doesn’t have to be difficult. There have been some awesome blog posts here on SEOmoz about that, including this one titled An SEO's Guide to Video Hosting and Embedding and this one called Video Sitemap Guide for Vimeo and YouTube. There are also some excellent resources directly from Google, such as this section of their Webmaster help on Video Best Practices. Here is a screenshot of that page from their site:

Check these resources out when you have time, they are definitely worth the read. If you are struggling with getting your videos indexed, you might want to consider using a hosting provider with built in SEO features such as Wistia (they will take care of most of the heavy lifting for you). In the meantime, here is a quick overview of what you need to do in order to get videos in the index.

1. Create and submit a video sitemap: Make sure that your sitemap includes a unique title, description, embed location, thumbnail, and content location for each video on your site. The keyword phrase and description should match with the content on the page where you have embedded your video.
2. Embed your videos using a simple SEO friendly embed code: The embed code that you use on your page needs to be SEO friendly. Google needs to be able to verify the information from your sitemap entries to ensure that the video is actually embedded on the page and that the information is accurate. Most SEO friendly embed codes will include all or most of the information from the sitemap. However, several hosting providers are also starting to integrate schema.org info into embeds to make information even more visible to the search engines.
3. Get your page found: Standard SEO principles also apply in video SEO. Googlebot needs to be able to find the page where you have embedded the video and in order to get that page to rank, you are going to need to make sure that it has pagerank passed to it through internal linking, external linking, or both.

If you are embedding your videos on pages that are already indexed or on a domain that is regularly crawled by googlebot, it shouldn’t take long for you to see new videos show up in the index (1-3 days for our site).

2. Competition

Once your videos are included in the index and eligible for video thumbnails, the next major factor to consider is competition. Winning the video thumbnail result is highly dependent on how competitive the search term is for which you are trying to rank. If you want to beat out the competition, here are a few things to consider:

Are you competing with your Video Hosting Provider for the thumbnail result? If you are embedding videos from YouTube, Vimeo, Metacafe, or other public video sharing sites onto your site, you are fighting an uphill battle to win the video thumbnail. Until about a year ago, it was difficult to get Google to index these videos on your site. Now they will index them (in the case of YouTube you don’t really even need to submit a video sitemap). However, given the choice between your site and YouTube, Google seems to choose YouTube 9 times out of 10. The same is true to a lesser degree from sites such as Vimeo or Metacafe. For this reason, you are really better off hosting your videos with a hosting solution such as Wistia, Vzaar, Brightcove, Limelight, or using a custom player such as JW Player. Phil Nottingham provided a great overview of the features of these different options in the blog post I linked to above. Here is a screenshot:

If you have your video hosting situation figured out, the next thing you need to figure out is what type of competition do you have on YouTube? Currently, the vast majority of video thumbnail results that are awarded seem to be given to YouTube videos. It probably has something to do with the fact that they are the largest repository of video content on the web. However, it doesn’t hurt that they are owned by Google. Topics that have large amounts of high quality video content on YouTube will be very difficult to crack using your own website. Keep this in mind when choosing key phrases and creating content.

Are you competing with yourself? If you create a lot of video, the temptation is very strong to distribute it everywhere (YouTube, Vimeo, Metacafe, etc.). This is a valid strategy for some companies. However, it is important to note that you will most likely be competing with your own content on these platforms for the video thumbnails. At MyBinding we have a huge YouTube channel, and we run into this problem all the time. Our YouTube videos outrank the videos on our own site. Ultimately you need to decide whether that is worthwhile for you or if you want to try and attempt to rank on different platforms for different keywords. This decision is going to be based on your business case and is going to vary from company to company.

Finally, remember that you are competing for a space on the first page of the Google search rankings. If the page where you embed your video doesn’t deserve to rank on the first page of Google for your chosen keyword, then winning the thumbnail will be difficult. That isn’t to say that video results don’t jump up the rankings occasionally. However, it is far easier to try and get a thumbnail added to an awesome page that is already ranking than it is to get a weaker page to skyrocket in the rankings.

3. Keyword Intent

It is difficult to define exactly which key phrases will qualify for video rich snippets in Google universal search results. It appears that virtually any key phrase could be awarded a video thumbnail. However, certain phrases are far more likely to have video results than others. The best way to think about this is to consider keyword intent. Search terms that include words such as demo, demonstration, review, tutorial, video, test, lesson, or how commonly return video search results. Google has determined that these words represent “intent” by the searcher that fits with video results. These type of search terms tend to be the easiest to dominate with video thumbnails.

Below is a search results page for the term “Wire Binding Machine Demo” (something from my industry and probably not exciting to most of you). However, you will notice that the first three results are all videos (one from Metacafe and two from YouTube). Of the other results on this page, four others are video related.

Recently, I have also noticed that more and more specific product names are also returning video results in universal search. I suspect that moving forward, Google will continue to expand the search results that receive weighting for video thumbnail results. That being said, it is always a good idea to stick with the terms that are more likely to produce video results.

4. Page Placement

According to Google’s best practices for video, they are looking for you to “Create a great user experience on your video pages.” Specifically, they state that they are looking for sites to create a standalone landing page for each video. With this in mind, the page where you embed your video should only have one video on it and that video should only be embedded on one page on your site (again don’t compete with yourself). The page should also include descriptive text, title, captions, and other information to help make your video stand out. Google can’t watch your video (yet), so they will often rank it based on the other information surrounding it on the page. Adding other media elements such as images along with text will not only provide a better user experience, but will also help you to rank your videos better.

Here is the exact wording from Google on this issue:

In addition to the content on the page along with your video, Google has also stated that they are looking for a “Prominently Placed” embedded video player on the page. As we know from the Page Layout algo update in January 2012, Google is able to understand the placement of various elements on the page and use that information as a ranking factor. If at all possible, look to place your videos towards the top of your blog posts or pages.

5. High Quality Relevant Thumbnails

The final element to consider when trying to win the video thumbnail in universal search is the thumbnail itself. You have the opportunity to define the thumbnail for your video in your video sitemap that you provide to Google. When it comes choosing a thumbnail, there are a few things to keep in mind:

1. It should be high quality. Google’s guidelines says at least 160×90 and up to 1920×1080. I suggest going with a 16:9 aspect ratio.
2. It should be representative of your content. Google is looking for thumbnails that reflect the content of your video. If your thumbnail is generic or unrelated to your video, it is possible that you may have problems keeping your videos in the index.
3. It should be unique. Using the exact same image for multiple thumbnails is similar to trying to include the same video twice in the same video sitemap and can cause indexing problems. Make each thumbnail unique and save yourself the hassle.
4. Choose your thumbnail with CTR in mind. This is your best chance to help yourself and get users to click on your content. Make sure that your thumbnail is awesome and that users will want to click on.

These are five of the most important factors that I have noticed in attempting to win the video thumbnail in Google. Have you seen others? Are you having success in these areas? Leave a comment and let's help each other get better in the area of video SEO.

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The Internet has changed over the last few years and in the new Panda and Penguin based search world and content is more important and more integral to gaining rankings in Google than ever before.

Why do I need content?

Content is what can make the different between rankings and no rankings and sales and no conversions on your site.

To rank in Google you need to have something on your website which tells them that your site is relevant to a topic. Without content which talks about “Blue Widgets” how do you expect Google to know you sell them?

Content helps you to engage with your visitors and build their trust in your services, increasing the likelihood that they will buy from you.

PPC wise content is important on your landing pages as it helps with conversions as mentioned above, but also helps with your quality score. A landing page with lots of relevant content on it will increase your PPC quality scores as your page will be seen as being more helpful to people clicking on your ads.  The higher the relevancy (or helpfulness) of this landing page compared to your keyword the higher your quality score.    PPC quality scores are important as they help to reduce the cost of your PPC.

Why have Panda and Penguin changed the need for content on my site?

Both Penguin and Panda are a series of regularly applied “overlays” to the Google algorithm which have changed the face of the Google search results.

Panda, is focused on “quality” based factors. The Panda updates focus on the depth of knowledge your website shows, so websites with duplicated or “thin” content don’t fare as well as websites with useful unique content.

Penguin is more about over optimisation so when writing content make sure you aren’t constantly linking from a keyword to one of your product pages or creating content with the same keyword repeated over and over again.  Content should be written for people and not to manipulate the rankings. Don’t “stuff” keywords in, if a keyword doesn’t fit into the flow of your content then don’t include it.  Read your content out loud if you think you might be using a keyword too much, if it feel like you keep saying the same word over and over again then chances are you’ve used it too much.

What content should I think about writing?

As Google is now more concerned with value of content  the types of things you need to write have changed and it’s not just a case of whacking up 300 words about each keyword you want to rank for.

You content needs to offer value to potential customers so when you consider content creation look at what you are trying to achieve.

Some content ideas

All content that you write should be written for your visitors, so before you start a blog, a new page or a white paper ask yourself what you visitors will get from it. Does it add something to your website? Can you write a nice 300+ word article about it? Is it relevant to what you do? Will your customers find it useful? If so then chances are it will add value to your site.

The types of pages which can really help visitors and your site include the below:

• How to Guides
• Glossaries
• White Papers

These kinds of content often become “evergreen” as well, meaning that people will come back and read them time and time again, even in years to come. The joy of this kind of content is that once you’ve written it’s there and it helps you generate more visitors

• Blogs – great for adding that personal touch to your website.
• News – ideal for making people see that you know your industry and are up to date

Blogs and news are great as Google likes websites which are updated regularly too.

Cut down on pages which are designed for rankings and potentially offer no value.

Why this is more than just Search related

It might help your rankings but this kind of content creation will help your customers too, both potential leads you get from Google and your existing customers will engage with your site, and are likely to return more than once to read the extra information you have provided them.

Honestly, a fairly slow week despite some significant SEO events. SEOmoz introduced MozCast, a weather report to track Google changes. There are some SEOs claiming Google pushed out a Penguin refresh but I think it is because SEOs are very eager for a new Penguin refresh. Google Webmaster Tools added a structured data dashboard and it is pretty cool. Matt Cutts of Google explained in more detail what those new link notifications are about – so you get it now? SEOmoz received one of those link notification after getting into a fight with negative SEOs. We get into the debate on exact match domains versus branded domain names. Bing now allows you to tag your Facebook friends in Bing. Majestic SEO launched a competitive keyword tool based on links. Google updated their toolbar PageRank values this week. Google loves their Olympics search results. I also published the monthly Google SEO webmaster report this morning. That was this week at the Search Engine Roundtable.

Make sure to subscribe to our video feed or subscribe directly on iTunes to be notified of these updates and download the video in the background. Here is the YouTube version of the feed:

For the original iTunes version, click here.

Search Topics of Discussion:

• SEOmoz Tries To Automate Google Update Notifications With MozCast
• UK SEOs Say Possible Google Penguin Refresh
• SEOs Eagerly Waiting A Penguin Refresh
• Structured Data Dashboard On Google Webmaster Tools
• Google’s Cutts Explains Untrusted Link Notifications
• Did Negative SEO Beat SEOmoz?
• Google SEO: Exact Match Domain Or Not?
• Annoy Your Friends On Facebook With Bing Facebook Tagging
• A Keyword Competitive Tool Based On Links & Anchors
• Google PageRank Update: August 2012
• Google Touts Their Olympics Results
• August 2012 Google Webmaster Report

Please do subscribe via iTunes or on your favorite RSS reader. Don’t forget to comment below with the right answer and good luck!

If your rankings haven’t recovered from Google Penguin yet, you’re looking for answers. By now, you’ve cleaned up onsite keyword spam, you’ve stopped participating in blog networks, and you’ve read a ton of articles about how to recover from Penguin, but nothing is working. The fortunate reality is that Penguin is simply an algorithm; a [...]

This guest post is by Mark Cenicola of BannerView.com.

Search engine optimization, in its most basic form, is simply a matter of combining relevant content on a web page with back links to that content. 

If you want to rank high for a particular keyword phrase, that phrase needs to be the focal point of a web page and credible websites (in the eyes of the search engines) need to link to that content.

Developing relevant content is usually the easiest and least time-consuming part of the equation. Good writers can bang out great content like nobody’s business and throw it up on a web page quickly for search engines to see.

The more difficult and time-consuming part is getting other people to link to that content, which is a requirement to make the SEO magic happen. When Google sees quality websites linking to your content for particular keyword phrases, you start moving up the ranks of the search results. The higher the quality of the links you have to your pages, the better you’ll do compared to competitors with similar content, who don’t have as much credibility in the eyes of the search engines.

Convincing others to link to you can take a variety of forms.  If your content is very compelling people will naturally want to link to it, but sometimes it takes a lot of writing to get the right formula for your content to be shared. What else can you do?

• You can do like I’m doing and try to convince quality publications to run your guest posts, but it takes time to build relationships, write quality content and get it published.
• You can list your website in directories and submit articles to article banks.  This takes research to find the best websites that rank well and aren’t looked at as spam by the search engines.
• You can engage in conversation on forums where you have the chance to talk about your business and actively link back to your website with the hope that not all of those forums have “no follow” rules.

If you’re like me and somewhat lazy (though I prefer to use the excuse that my time is valuable and that I’m extremely busy), you could hire someone to do SEO. However, that can get expensive, and requires time to move up through the ranks since someone has to do the work of convincing others to link to your content. Even still, there’s no guarantee of success—especially if you’re playing in a crowded field with many competitors vying for the same keywords.

It would seem that only patience, time, and money will get you to rank well. However, there is another option…

My shortcut to SEO success

Yes, there is actually a shortcut to ranking well for a particular set of keywords and isn’t just theoretical, nor does it require black-hat techniques, or bribing a Google employee.

First, I’ll give you a little background. I run a web development firm called BannerView.com, located in Las Vegas, NV. 

From the beginning, however, we never wanted to be seen as a Las Vegas based company, but a firm servicing clients nationally. Therefore, we didn’t overly promote that we were based in Las Vegas or make that fact prominent in our title tags, keyword phrases, domain name and other onsite content.  We thought that would be seen as a turnoff to clients outside of our locale.

That strategy worked well for us in picking up business outside of Las Vegas and since we had a local sales force, we didn’t see the need to target customers geographically.

However, this strategy didn’t work as well for generating leads from our website for those companies that did see it as an advantage to work with a local firm.  Of course, we still wanted to do well in our market, and the opportunity to work within our community has other benefits.

So we had a dilemma. How could we not sacrifice our brand’s integrity for SEO purposes, but still benefit from local search traffic? 

To complicate things further, the competition for top keyword phrases related to “Las Vegas Web Design” was fierce.  Hundreds of competitors were vying for these keywords and many have spent a lot of time positioning their websites to rank well for them.  They also had the advantage of using this keyphrase at the bottom of websites that they built for clients which linked back to their home pages.

We pretty much neglected our local market in terms of search engine rankings due to these challenges until we made the decision to go for it. Thankfully, we had some luck and good timing on our side. 

I decided that maybe we should just purchase a local competitor that already ranked well, and redirect their domain to a landing page off of the main BannerView.com website. This would allows us to immediately pick up a number of quality backlinks related to Las Vegas Web Design, without forcing us to change the focus of our national brand positioning.

A local competitor that owned a keyword rich domain, LasVegasWebDesign.com, as a matter of fact, had closed their operations. They were ranked high while in business, but one challenge was that they had already shuttered their website. Therefore, they no longer were ranked within the top ten results, as the site wasn’t in operation.

After doing some research, we saw that the domain still had a number of high quality backlinks that were relevant to the search terms we wanted to target. But we had to act fast—that domain could lose these valuable backlinks if the linking websites saw that the site’s owners weren’t in business anymore.

The main question was, how would the major search engines view this website after it was taken offline?  Did the domain still hold credibility, or was all lost due to the site being taken offline?

Fortunately, we were able to get in touch with the person who controlled the domain name and after negotiating an offer, we took the chance and made the purchase. 

Of course, going into the purchase, we had a plan to leverage its previous ranking and high-quality backlinks. We set up a landing page that was highly targeted toward our local geographic area. The messaging was specific to Las Vegas and the content made it obvious. This served two purposes:

1. to attract the search engines for related keywords
2. to serve as a lead generation tool for companies looking for a local service provider.

The results blew us away.  After acquiring the domain, setting up the landing page, and 301-redirecting the domain, it took less than two weeks to reach page one of Google, and we were actually the number one result on both Bing and Yahoo! for “Las Vegas Web Design.” 

We couldn’t have been happier and I’m sure we surprised a few of our competitors, because our page-one ranking didn’t even require that the listing be for our home page.

The blogger’s advantage

The strategy we used to jump the ranks for our local geographic search listings can be applied to any subject or geographic location. 

As a blogger, you probably have even greater opportunities, especially if you cover several topics (or even a single topic), since your focus is probably less geographically specific. Your advantage is the ability to purchase a wide range of different domains that may rank high for specific keywords related to your blogging niche.

Ranking high for even one keyword phrase can give your blog an immediate boost in traffic, increase your ad revenue, and give you exposure to a larger audience.

If you want to rank well for a particular keyword phrase or set of keywords, look to your competition.  Fortunately for you, not everyone is able to successfully monetize their website or blog, and that gives you the opportunity to purchase their domains and immediately get a SEO boost.

Just make sure to do your research (quality backlinks still matter) and have a plan in place prior to acquiring the domain to quickly leverage its positioning. For us, purchasing the domain, while not cheap, was worth the cost in both time and opportunity for the return on investment we gained.

Mark Cenicola is the president and CEO of BannerView.com, a full service website development company focusing on helping small to mid-size businesses better use the Internet as a portal for generating business. Mark is also the author of the book “The Banner Brand – Small Business Success Comes from a Banner Brand – Build it on a Budget.”

Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger

SEO in the Fast Lane: Your Legit Shortcut to Readers, Sales, and Search Rank

There is an interesting WebmasterWorld thread just kicking off on an old topic of should you go with an exact match domain or go with the branded domain?

It is not a new topic, it has been discussed for years. We’ve probably covered it here a few times before. But since SEO and Google’s algorithms change over the years, it is good to revisit the topic.

The question is, if you want to rank for [blue widgets] and you are starting a new site, should you go with a domain name that matches the keyword phrase, i.e. bluewidgets.com or should you go with a branded domain such as somerandomdomain.com?

Of course, it depends on your strategy.

Bill Hartzer commented in the thread said it depends on the length of the domain name you can find. He wrote:

If it is a three keyword phrase, them you are better off with a shorter domain. If it was one or two keywords then I would go for the exact match.

Ifwidgets.com is not much better, you might be better if you choose a short brand able word instead.

Netmeg said he’d always go with a branded domain approach:

I don’t think it’s going to have much bearing on the success of your site in Google. Go with branding, or whatever you think your users will remember.

I agree, it depends on your plans. Is it a short term plan? Is it a long term strategy? What domains are available? What can you work the brand around?

Of course, having a domain with the keywords in it is helpful. People link to you by your domain name. I.e. people link to my business saying RustyBrick because that is my company name and domain name. So it helps with anchor text to have a keyword rich, exact match domain. It does sometimes and often appear that Google likes to rank exact match domain names in the search results – but not always.

What do you think?

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Image credit to ShutterStock for puzzle pieces

Here is a recap of what happened in the search forums today, through the eyes of the Search Engine Roundtable and other search forums on the web.

Search Engine Roundtable Stories:

• Google’s Cutts Explains Untrusted Link Notifications
  On July 20th, Google sent out a batch of new link notifications that scared the webmaster community. Google then informed us we can relax about those notifications because they are ignored links that don’t specifically hurt your site.

  Still, there was a lot of confusion…

• Google Touts Their Olympics Results
  Google’s home page has a unique logo each day for a different Olympics pushing searchers to their Olympics results. Google’s head of search…
• SEOs Eagerly Waiting A Penguin Refresh
  It has now been over 9 weeks since we had a Penguin refresh and SEOs and webmasters are getting antsy.

  They want to know when the next Penguin refresh will be. Typically Google pushes out Panda and possible Penguin updates every 3-6 weeks but it has been over 9 weeks now…

• A Keyword Competitive Tool Based On Links & Anchors
  This morning Majestic SEO launched a new tool to measure the competitive nature of a keyword or keyword phrase.

  The tool looks at the number of sites using that anchor text across the web as well as the title of the pages…

• Google Maps Tries To Find Your Current Location
  Google added a new feature to detect your current location on your desktop computer.

  I tried it this morning and it was smart enough to tell me I am in the state of New York…

• iPhone Wallpaper For Google Panda Victims
  I was playing around with some wallpapers for my iPhone yesterday and I stumbled on a Panda theme that looks like an SEO designed it. There are a ton of angry Pandas in this theme ready to pounce on

Other Great Search Forum Threads:

• Google Failed To Delete UK’s Street View Personal Data, and Now ‘In Breach’ Of UK Data Privacy, WebmasterWorld
• Google+ With 110,7 Million Visitors Worldwide In June …, Morten Myrstad – Google+
• Cheer on your team by changing your profile picture to the flag of your choice, WebmasterWorld
• Google launches fiberoptic internet – 1 gigabit, DigitalPoint Forums
• Questions to Ask at Google-Fiber Announcement, Hacker News