Excerpts from my latest article at Practical eCommerce: “SEO: Avoid Link Building Shortcuts.”
There are no safe link building shortcuts. Instead I want to warn marketers about deceptive search marketers and the dangers of using “easy” link building tactics. In the latest instance, the search engine optimization community is abuzz with news that Home Depot’s SEO team has attempted to increase its link portfolio by potentially shady means. Last year, J.C. Penney and even Google’s own Chrome browser marketing site were reportedly penalized by Google Search for violating linking guidelines.
The temptation to manipulate rankings by acquiring links through unethical means is easy to understand: Links are the lifeblood of the Internet and a major factor in every major search engine’s ranking algorithms. In theory, more links means better rankings. In reality, the engines compile data across hundreds of factors algorithmically to determine rankings, and links are just one part. We’ll look at some link building tactics as examples of what not to do.
Read the article in full at “SEO: Avoid Link Building Shortcuts.” »
Tags: link building
Excerpts from my latest article at Practical eCommerce: “SEO: Build Relationships, Not Links.”
Once upon a time when the Internet was new, interesting and relevant websites were difficult to find. Link building was easy in those days. It was often just a matter of letting webmasters know that your site existed and they could link to it. Things have changed in the last couple of decades.
Webmasters today are jaded. They’re bombarded with requests for links, offers to receive hundreds of links for one low price, and comment spam, among other things. Approaching a blogger or site owner today out of the blue with a request for a link is akin to this guy walking up to you on the street and asking for $50. Chances are you’ll run away faster than he can flash his 100 watt smile.
In this new social era of Internet marketing, to get a link you’ll need to build a relationship. Relationship building as part of search engine optimization is a difficult concept for ecommerce sites to understand. Imagine bragging your weekly status report about a Facebook thread that included three back-and-forth replies from a relevant and influential blogger. Ten years ago your boss probably would have told you to go do some real work. If your primary goal is building links, building that relationship on is “real work,” and that Facebook thread is relationship gold.
Read the article in full at Practical eCommerce »
Tags: link building, promotion
More on one of my favorite topics: duplicate content. Finding it, finding its source, fixing it — it’s like a big geeky puzzle.
Excerpts from my latest article at Resource Interactive’s weThink blog: “Duplicate Content: Destroy or Differentiate.”
Duplicate content is an often misunderstood part of search engine optimization. Most digital marketers know it’s bad, but why? Duplicate content (two or more pages with different URLs that display the same content) makes it harder for a site to rank and drive traffic and conversions.
If 20 URLs each display the same page of content for red shoes, then all the links pointing to that page across a site are split across 20 different URLs. The page would have much more ranking power if all those links were pointing to a single URL. And that’s just internal links; consider the impact of splitting more valuable links from other sites across multiple URLs for the same page. Then add on the Facebook Likes, tweets, +1s, blog links and other actions that signal popularity to search engines, all split across 20 different URLs for that single page of content. In addition, duplicate content burns crawl equity, slowing a search engine’s progress as it crawls through a site to discover fresh new content.
But sometimes, content only looks like it’s duplicate. This is a common issue with ecommerce platforms that offer filtering options for better usability. The filters tend to create new slices of category content that look the same to search engines as the original default category page. For example, a category page of red shoes might have a filter for shoe style that includes tennis shoes, slip-on shoes, flats, high heels, etc. These are valuable pages to shoppers and searchers alike. But search engines can only determine the differences between each of the filters if the page sends differentiating signals in its title tag, headings and other textual content on the page.
Read more to find out how to tell if content is duplicate of merely needs differentiating: “Duplicate Content: Destroy or Differentiate.”
Read the article in full at Resource Interactive’s weThink blog »
Tags: duplicate content, keyword theme
Today the interwebs are abuzz with the news that Facebook is buying Instagram for $1 billion in pre-IPO shares.
Bing must be delirious with joy. They have an exclusive relationship with Facebook to include data in Bing search results. Hello personalized search data boost!
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Two photo sharing giants coming together, this is huge. Obviously FB is more than photos, but easy photo sharing has been important to their success. Now adding the size of the Instagram network and the appeal of their filters (which I still don’t get, personally) to the massive FB social overlord is just huge.
I’d love to know how many non-FB Instagram users Facebook is acquiring. I’ve got to think there’s a lot of overlap, but out will be interesting to learn more.
Tags: bing
Easter is perhaps not the most piratical holiday, but with the help of a Sharpie we made do. Cheers, everyone, and happy Easter to ye all. Now get back to work, you lot!
Tags: fun
