Reading a website can be cold and impersonal. Even with the most descriptive of text, it can be hard to convey emotion through words. Video allows you to speak your message on your site your way. It will be as if your clients already know you before they even officially become clients. While most people don’t like seeing themselves on video, no one knows your business like you do. Be your brand ambassador, don’t be afraid!

What if I Can’t Afford Video Production?

Videos don’t have to cost a lot of money to produce. Most computers today come with a built in camera and some sort of basic editing software. Or better yet, try and shoot your video in one take and no editing will be necessary. Smart phones and digital cameras also have the ability to shoot video, and small flip-cams are becoming more and more affordable.

Many lawyers have begun using videos on their website, since they are in a competitive industry. For example, when I searched for “south Florida personal injury attorney” I came across this video. It was done in one take, with very little post production.  I found his video which contained a link to his website.

Keep your video short, around 2 minutes or less. It is ok to reiterate information that is already found elsewhere on your site. The chances that every person who visits your site will read every page and watch your entire video is pretty slim. Don’t overestimate the attention span of the average internet surfer. Even if some of the information is repeated, then it just further engrains the message into the viewer’s head.

I Made My Video, Now What?

A lot of companies that specialize in SEO are already aware how to optimize videos. If you are using a web marketing company, they should be able to help you with embedding the video as well as optimizing your video. Most web companies have SEO experts and web design experts working side by side. A web designer will be able to advise on the best placement of the video, and adjusting the size of the video player if necessary. SEO experts will optimize the video’s title, description, tags, and permalink if applicable.

If you do not employ a web marketing company, search for YouTube videos in your industry. For example, if you are in shoe repair, type “shoe repair” into the search box. Several shoe repair companies have created videos. The Delmar Bootery in Albany, NY has this video on YouTube, which also appears in a Google search for “Albany shoe repair,”. When I visit their website, I see that they have the same video on their homepage.

More than Just YouTube

There are several websites available for hosting videos to embed on your website. Viddler, Vimeo, and Flickr are just a few sites that also provide video hosting. Facebook also hosts videos, and this could be used to drive traffic to your social media site. 

The Friday Traffic Report blog has compiled an impressive list of video hosting websites. Not only is this list exhaustive, it provides the page rank of each site. There are also additional links that can help you to further market your video, if you are so inclined.

With these tips, your website will be a more personal, multi-media experience for visitors. This will also increase your chances of showing up in search engine results. 

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LeslieDuncan

Leslie Duncan is Orlando SEO Content Developer

The post Does Your Website Have Video? If Not, You Could Be Missing Out appeared first on SEO Chat.

But will that be a factor when it comes to rankings? Will SEO have to adapt to be more ratings inclusive, a new addition after already changing to make way for both video and social results? Given the high priority given to review communities like Yelp and CitySearch when in results for both local and online businesses, and the way that Google is now encouraging G+ users to review local businesses by accessing search result data for suggestion customization, it has already begun.

What This Means For Ecommerce

Local businesses are well used to seeking out reviews from customers. Along with social media and online shopping carts, they are the only way to establish a viable web presence. It is the typical ecommerce business that has to really focus on this change and the way it is certain to adapt over time.

External reviews are important, and many small companies encourage their customers to hop onto sites like Yelp or ResellerRatings for their opinion on the service/product. This is a good idea for small businesses, as customers are more likely to comment when they have positive experiences, unlike many large corporations that find themselves with reviews only when the customer is unhappy.

Sites like Amazon also offer a great service for those who are selling a tangible product. It is a selling community, and reviewing for many people who buy there is second nature. Especially when they are happy with what they have bought. Google seems to also favor these pages, showing the star rating right there in the results.

The Risks of Fake Reviews

Some people reading this are already tempted to begin what many companies do, which is purchase fake reviews. This is a mistake, as Google is working overtime to quell this phenomenon, as are the third party sites reviews are hosted on.

If you are suspected of review spamming, all ratings can be wiped off of the account. Sometimes sites will even ban the company entirely, though most the time this is for multiple offenses after getting a warning. Plus, most customers are now web-savvy enough (and jaded enough) to recognize fake reviews, and to be leery of even positive ones if they don’t appear to be genuine. There are plenty of signs that they can follow to come to this conclusion, so don’t underestimate them.

For those who are struggling to get customer reviews, you can always meet in the middle. Offer someone a free sample of your product or service in exchange for an honest, well written review. Many bloggers will do this on their sites, which are great to link to, and social users who are following your page will jump on the opportunity if you offer it. As long as you are not soliciting positive reviews, or running it as a contest, this is not against any TOS.

Reviews Through Surveys

There are websites that are choosing to use third-party surveys in order to find out about customer experience. Which can help when trying to improve for better public reviews that will come up in a Google search. Usually, they are done using a service like TrustPilot or Foresee.

But these are controversial, and many small business owners in particular see them as a risk to their brand loyalty, not a help. Customers don’t usually like seeing these popups at the end of a purchase or while browsing a site. They are an eyesore, annoying and completely unsolicited. So the customer opinion of a site can go down drastically for nothing more than the survey request.

When looking at a large company, this doesn’t make much of a difference; they aren’t likely to stop using it or shopping there. However, smaller businesses have to work harder to prove themselves against the competition. At the very least, a more creative and less invasive way should be found to find out the information from a survey. Even a single email a few days later, while not ideal, is better than a popup.

Conclusion

Reviews are a big deal on Google now, and user experience data is crucial for the average ecommerce site. But there is a right way and a wrong way to use this tool, and you should take care that you don’t make a misstep. Luckily, the ranking benefits far outweigh the risks.

Image Credit: 1.

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Ann Smarty

Community Manager at Internet Marketing Ninjas

Ann Smarty is the pro blogger and guest blogger, social media enthusiast.

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The post Are Reviews Getting Even More Important? appeared first on SEO Chat.

Before I explain the right way to republish someone else’s work, let me give a tip of the hat to Mike Moran for explaining all the issues around it. I’m going to start with the biggest one: by law, you need to get permission from the copyright holder before you can republish something. That’s usually the author of the work. And yes, you need to get that permission even if you’re publishing it on the Internet – and even if you include the person’s name, copyright notice, and link back to them. I’m serious; contact them first and get that “yes.” If they say “no,” DON’T republish it. If they say “yes, but here are my conditions,” don’t republish without fulfilling those conditions.

If that sounds like a lot of effort, guess what? The copyright holder went through a lot of effort to create that article in the first place, and you’re going through a lot LESS effort to get it. You know you’re going through a lot less effort, because if you weren’t, you’d simply write something original yourself and put THAT up on your site, now wouldn’t you?

Besides, do you know what happens when you republish something? You’re competing in the search engines with the original item. Most web surfers find content online by searching for it. The search engines can tell the original from the republished item by checking a number of “hints;” judging by our SEO Chat forum comments over the years, they’re not perfect, but they’ve been getting better at it. Now these search engines assume that searchers want to see the original item, so they’ll rank that higher than republished items. So all that new traffic you may have been hoping to attract with an awesome piece of content you’re republishing? Yeah, that will end up at the site with the original item, not at yours with the republication.

So if you’re going to republish something, make sure it’ll be of benefit to your regular readers, who will certainly see it. This point brings up a side issue, though: your regular readers may be used to a certain “voice” from your blog. Part of the point of writing a blog in the first place is to establish not just your expertise, but yourself as a personality with which your audience wants to engage. It’s another form of branding, in a sense. And if you’re republishing someone else’s work, well, they don’t have your voice or your personality. So the content may be useful, but in at least in this one sense, republishing it is  counterproductive.

But let us assume at this point that you’re not completely dissuaded from capturing some of the advantages of republishing. You’re completely out of ideas (which need never happen with an editorial calendar, by the way); you asked the copyright holder for permission to republish and they laughed in your face (which is just as well, since their writing style clashes with yours); and you know your readers want more on this topic. So what can you do?

Fortunately, there’s another form of “republishing” that isn’t really republishing at all. It’s legal, you don’t need permission from the author of the original item, and nearly every blogger does it. I’m doing it right now, in fact. You take the original article and write a few paragraphs about it, building up your own opinion on the topic – adding your own spin in your own voice to the issue. Courtesy demands that you link to the original, and that you have something substantial today. Granted, in some sense it’s not totally original content, but at least you’re not starting the piece by staring at a blank page with an exhausted and equally blank brain.

Moran notes that if you only write two or three paragraphs from your own perspective on someone else’s original work, you provide fodder for the search engines while satisfying your regular readership. “And if you can write five or ten paragraphs with a well-thought-out opinion,” he continues, “agreeing or disagreeing with the original, or adding and expanding on points in the original, you have likely created a nice article both for your readers and for search engines, without the heavy lifting of having to think up an idea on your own.” On top of this, if the site containing the original content supports trackbacks, a link to your article will show up in its comment section. You could get traffic from the original item to yours, then – which you wouldn’t get if you simply republished the original item!

So, to recap: writing original content is hard work, but the benefits are worth it. If you’ve temporarily run out of ideas for writing something original, you can consider republishing someone else’s work, if you do it right – but there are disadvantages. The more original you can make your work – the more work, and the more of yourself, you put into it – the more benefits you’ll get. I’ll leave Moran with the last word here: “In blogging, there is no substitute for originality.”

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Terri

The post Republishing Content: The Right Way to Do it appeared first on SEO Chat.

This thought crossed my mind after reading Mike Fleming’s excellent post for Search Engine Guide on the various “professions” an inbound marketer must, er, employ. Like Fleming, I received a “liberal arts education,” but I majored in history. So when he talked about how he was recently “feeling a bit ‘stretched’ out of my comfort zone when I realized just how many hats inbound marketers are called to wear throughout the daily trappings of their careers,” I felt an immediate pang of familiarity.

Please understand that I don’t do inbound marketing myself, beyond reading and writing about it for about eight years now as a major part of my job. Still, when Fleming listed the “hats” of scientist, psychologist, investigator, consultant, accountant, researcher, writer, speaker, salesman, reporter, customer service representative and (stretching a point a little bit) doctor, I found myself nodding a bit, but waiting for the other shoe to drop. Where on this list is the humble historian?

Not everyone understands what historians do. We hunt for the data; we analyze it and look for trends; we form hypotheses and theories; we try to explain the causes of things at various levels. There’s a reason that history is said to be “the science of that which never happens twice.” In short, historians use many of the skills that Fleming lists – plus one very critical one that can be invaluable to any marketer working with a client.

To explain that skill, however, I need to back up to one of my college history courses. It was a historiography course, and only history majors took it. Historiography, loosely defined, is the history of history. In the case of my course, we examined the causes of the English Civil War – or more precisely, what historians said were the causes of the English Civil War at five different points in history, starting with immediately after the war itself and going through a diversity of eras (such as the Marxist interpretation and others).

I quickly learned that the cause of a situation may not be as simple as it first appears. I also learned that others looking at the same situation, and given the same apparent facts, can easily interpret it differently. But most importantly, I learned that the reason for these different interpretations has to do with the historian’s mental filter – that it’s almost impossible to remove yourself from your own time period and its influences, attitudes, or “prejudices,” if you will. This filter is enough to explain differences in interpretation without necessarily assuming the historian has a particular ax to grind (though that’s also possible, of course) or holds any particular malice toward anyone (though again, this is possible).

So how is this useful for SEOs to keep in mind? You come to your client, and approach his data, with a particular view based on what you know. Your client views his business in a particular way based on what he knows. Each of these are filters of a sort. If you want to get your message through to your client, you need to clear your own filter – as much as you can – and look at the data you have collected through HIS filter. If you want to convince him to try something, you need to convey it to him in a way that gets through his filter such that he’ll not only UNDERSTAND it, but AGREE with you about the right course of action.

It’s even more complicated than that, of course. There are other filters you need to keep in mind: the ones in front of the eyes of your client’s customers. And oh yes, there are Google’s filters as well. I could go on, but I’ve run out of space and time – rather embarrassing for a historian, I must admit. But perhaps you can see how this study of the past can help your clients prepare for a better future. Good luck!

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Terri

The post What an SEO Can Learn from History appeared first on SEO Chat.

The truth is that search engine algorithms have become so complex, accounting for so many different variables, that no one can keep track of them all. Stoney deGeyter discussed this in almost excruciating detail. So if you think you or your SEO can game the system, think again.

Let’s start with the fact that Google was already analyzing something like 200 different ranking signals back in 2009. That’s three or four years ago; today, they’re almost certainly analyzing more. And even if they aren’t, it’s a fair bet that they’re not analyzing the same 200 signals that they used then. Search engine developers at Google constantly look for ways they can make their algorithms work better. So while we can make a fair guess at some of the signals Google uses, nobody in the SEO community knows all of them.

Next, consider that not all of these signals carry the same weight. How important is it that your domain name features your target keyword? Your title tag? Anchor text? Only Google knows the answer, and they’re not talking. Worse, that answer keeps changing, because it’s only a matter of changing some code to change the importance the search engine grants to any particular signal.

Now you may have noticed my use of the term “algorithms,” plural, when talking about Google. That’s because the search giant doesn’t use a single algorithm. Do you suppose it uses the same algorithm for the medical industry that it uses for the construction industry? More than likely, it doesn’t. That’s because those 200-odd signals I mentioned earlier actually carry different weight and significance in different industries. How far does this granularity go? Well, deGeyter notes that Google might have anywhere between 50 to 200 different algorithms running at any one time. “These different algorithms might be in play for different industries, different types of searches or testing the effects of various algorithm changes before a full push,” he explained.

And it’s just gotten more complicated over time, as Google has added personalization, geo-location, and social signals as factors and filters involved in search. So any particular search can be affected by the searcher’s zip code,  search history, previously visited sites, and even the websites his or her friends on Google+ have visited and liked – oh, excuse me, +1ed.

Naturally, Panda and Penguin also make “gaming” Google’s algorithms more complicated. (You were wondering when I’d get to those, right?). These black-and-white critters are no ordinary updates; they’re filters through which the search giant runs its huge index from time to time. As deGeyter explains, “If your site got hit with these updates, fixing the problem that caused it won’t bring immediate results. You have to wait until the next time Google runs the filter.”

So what’s a site owner trying to get top rankings in Google supposed to do? Well, you may have to give up the idea of “top rankings” as such. If you look at your site in Google and you have the top ranking for your targeted keywords, turn off everything that tells Google who and where you are. If you’re still at the top, guess what? You may not be the top result for many other searchers, who have all of their customizations turned on. It’s a catch-22.

Fortunately, there is a way to resolve it. Keep an eye on algorithm changes, but don’t try to chase them. And remember what you’re really trying to do! I admit deGeyter says it better than I can: “It’s not about trying to get just the right amount of words on a page, your keywords in just the right spot or even about the perfect backlink graph. It’s about building a site that visitors love, focusing on the keywords they search and doing it better than your competitors.” Good luck!

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Terri

The post Don’t Try to Beat Search Algorithms appeared first on SEO Chat.

Chris Silver Smith covers this very well in a guest post for Search Engine Land. He makes the case that many local businesses aren’t blogging yet, which means that a well-written and well-maintained blog can take you over the top – even if you and your rivals have already done all the typical tasks involved in improving your local SEO.

How can you improve your local SEO efforts by blogging? Well, to start with, writing regular blog entries means you can jump right on any timely news items or events. Google’s spiders raise their antennas for any whiffs of fresh content, so you’ll attract their attention. You’ll also attract the attention of human visitors – and if they interact with you, you’ll set those Google antennas quivering even more. “User interaction signals can give your site a higher prominence score in Google local algorithms,” Smith notes.

Humans do more than interact on your site, though; they also tell their friends about you, linking back to your blog posts. These unsolicited links give your site a unique profile – the kind that can’t be bought, and that Google really appreciates.

With an active blog, you can interact with more than just the visitors to your website who choose to comment. You can also link to other bloggers and comment on their blogs. It’s a very popular way to continue the conversation. If you’re really good (or lucky), they may even visit and leave a comment, or link back to you.

Perhaps the biggest benefit to blogging for your local business website is that it provides you with a platform. You can use this platform as the “voice” of your company if it ever gets attacked online. You can jump into exciting news related to your industry from your blog. You can even link to blog posts from other social media sites to promote your business.

So how do you get started? Smith offers a number of simple recommendations. First, go ahead and use WordPress as your blog’s content management system. It’s already quite search engine friendly, and you can easily find add-ons to make it even more so. It’s a good idea to check with an SEO to help you decide which of these (if any) you should use, and to walk you through the basics.

You can usually choose from a variety of themes for your blog. Given the way Google has been treating links in the post-Penguin era, it makes sense to stay away from themes that don’t let you remove or nofollow links to the designer’s website.

Some site owners wonder if they should set up a separate website for their blog, and point it to their business website. Don’t do it! You want to attract links directly to your business website, not to some other website that then, in theory, boosts your business site. You can put your blog into a dedicated subdirectory or even a subdomain, but make it part of your business website.

Once you get your blog set up, post regularly. Not everyone can manage a post every day, and that’s okay. If you can only do a post once a week, that’s fine. But it’s important to be consistent; that trains Google and your human visitors to expect fresh content. Also, you don’t need to post a novel every time; to be honest, hardly anyone has that kind of attention span online. So if you can only manage three or four paragraphs, do that much – but make them count.

Finally, make your posts interesting and entertaining – and remember that this will probably mean taking your blinders off. Just because you’re an accounting professional, for example, doesn’t mean all of your blog posts need to cover close readings of the tax code, the 1040 and other forms, and various deductions. That’s enough to make ME yawn – and my dad was a CPA in both New York and Florida. You can write about interesting moments in tax history or weird tax facts, like why the folks in Massachusetts and Maine sometimes get an extra day to file their taxes. A little research can turn up some very cool stories. Tell them well and regularly, and you’ll attract all the traffic you can handle. Good luck!

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Terri

The post How Blogging Enhances Your Local SEO appeared first on SEO Chat.

I’ve covered the question of whether you should choose a plain or fancy website design recently. This issue, however, is a bit more subtle. A site can look horrible for a number of reasons that have nothing to do with whether it includes flashing features or a confusing layout. Maybe its dated design turns off visitors, or it looks too amateurish to be taken seriously as a professional website.

Which brings me to the first thing you should consider when designing your professional website: what does a professional website look like in your field? If you sell bait and tackle, for example, your website will not look the same as one that sells photography equipment; for good or ill, visitors will probably hold the latter site to a higher standard of appearance, simply because photography is an inherently visual field. You can also expect that the website for a company selling a service will look different from one selling a product.

“Why should I make my website look like all the other professional websites in my field? I want to stand out!” If that’s what you’re thinking, it’s a good sentiment, but it’s NOT an excuse for sloppy or unprofessional design. Visitors following links to your website carry certain expectations as to what a professional website looks like. They may not be able to articulate them, but when they see your site, they know right away if you meet their expectations, or look like an amateur or hobby site. If they see what they take to be a hobby site, they’re going to hit the bounce button so fast that your head will spin.

A bad site design that causes visitors to bounce creates issues in several ways. First, of course, a visitor that bounces won’t convert. Second, Google can tell when visitors click through to your website and then click back; if they do that a lot, the search engine will assume that you don’t provide a good answer to that particular query, and lower your site in the rankings. Third, if your website looks unprofessional, other webmasters will not want to link to you, because such a link will reflect badly on THEM with THEIR visitors. Since we know links still play a major role in Google’s ranking algorithm, your website’s design can lead to it not ranking as well as it truly deserves.

Now do you begin to see the more subtle SEO implications of your website’s design? As one of our SEO Chat forum members recently observed, “web design is SEO because it affects user behavior and Google can see it.” Sadly, this may mean that you need to rethink your entire layout and site design; it might not be a simple change or a minor fix like adjusting your font or the colors you use.

If you haven’t redesigned your website in a long time – and I’ve seen some sites that haven’t been redesigned since the 1990s! – you might want to look at your competitors’ websites, or sites in a field related to yours, for some ideas. Think about how these sites present their content, lay out their links, and offer visual appeal to their visitors. What does their design accomplish that yours does not? What would you like to achieve with your website’s design? “Conversions” may be the obvious answer, but think about what a visitor to your website needs to see to convert. That’s going to be different for every field.

You may find yourself tempted to copy your competitors. Don’t copy them exactly; you’re trying to achieve a certain look and feel that’s consistent with your field, not a slavish carbon copy. And you will want to show your visitors why they should shop with you and not your competitors – which means that you should put your value proposition front and center. Do you have more knowledge and experience than anyone else in the field? Show it by serving up original content, and linking to it all over your website. Do you offer a wider selection of goods than anyone else? Make those goods easy to find, in multiple ways. As long-time respected SEO Chat forum member EGOL pointed out, “You will not win by mimicking your competitors. You will win by doing something that is far superior.” 

If you’re an expert in your field, “doing something that is far superior” to what your competitors offer means creating original content. Those who sell many different kinds of items may publish original content on their websites at well – but it’s worth keeping in mind that not all original content is created quite the same. When you publish something online, you need to figure out how it’s going to reach its audience – and certain kinds of content find the right audience more easily than others. As EGOL pointed out, “If you are publishing product sales pages then you are the only one who will promote them. However, if you are putting up high interest content and have done a great job at it then it will promote itself.”

So I started with website design and ended up talking about content, links, and promotion. It’s hard to separate these out, because they are all related to and support each other. But perhaps now, if someone tells you that your website looks horrible and needs a redesign, you won’t automatically assume that this advice does not apply to your website’s SEO issues. Good luck!

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Terri

The post The Subtle SEO Aspects of Site Design appeared first on SEO Chat.

This subject came up recently on our SEO Chat forums when one of our members sought some help with building link bait for a client in a rather industrial line of work. The company in question offers wholesale goods in the electrical field. How, exactly, does one make home wiring interesting? What kind of electrifying material could this SEO use for link bait?

Answers from other members came lightning fast. Respected forum member Egol pointed out that his best resource was his own client. What are their customers’ most frequently asked questions? What are some of the funniest stories involving the use, misuse or failure of their products? What was the most unexpected use of their product? What are some of the most important safety tips when using the product? Any client “has a hundred stories to tell,” notes Egol. A good SEO learns how to draw them out of their clients and listens.

Another member turned to Yahoo Answers to find out what kinds of questions people asked that might be connected with the website’s topic. She noticed that someone asked if they could buy a single roll of electrical wire from a wholesaler. Thinking about that question, it occurred to her that “creating a calculator to help people determine how much electrical wire they would need for their job” might attract interest – and links. Taking it to another level, the calculator could include other supplies that one might need for such a job – and include links to other suppliers, if they’re connected with the SEO’s client. How hard would it be, then, to get these suppliers to include that calculator on their own websites – with a link back to the SEO’s client, of course?

Yet another of our forum members proved to be quite knowledgeable about this topic, and came up with a whole list of educational article topics. They included everything from how using inferior products can affect electrical connections to how to understand electrical panels. He did note that the company’s target market made a difference as to article topics: “These are more for the DIY than electrical contractors, and if the supplier is only after the contractors, [the article topics] may not be helpful.”

Yet another member came forward to suggest looking at the approach of another website in a somewhat related field. That particular site caters to woodworkers, and features lots of educational link bait, including videos as well as articles. The SEO’s client wouldn’t want to copy anything exactly, of course, but there’s nothing wrong with looking for inspiration. For example, an article on building a deck (woodworking) might inspire the SEO or his client to create a piece – or a whole miniature series — on safely wiring an outdoor deck for electricity.

Using humor creatively can lend a charge of interest to what might otherwise seem a boring topic. One of our members linked to a delightfully silly YouTube video that garnered more than a million views. The topic? Mattresses. In this case, it was an “attempt” at the world record for mattress dominoes.

Maybe you aren’t currently trying to do SEO for an electrical goods wholesaler. Perhaps the client that makes you pull your hair out sells pool supplies or concrete. If so, don’t panic; try instead to look at it as an opportunity to find a fascinating side to something that looks mundane on the surface. Ask your client some questions to help you get ideas; use Google; even nudge your friends for their thoughts. You never know what will light a spark. Good luck!

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Terri

The post Creating Link Bait: Do a Little Brainstorming appeared first on SEO Chat.

Stoney deGeyter explained in an article on Search Engine Journal that you really need five different pairs of eyes to look over any piece of content: the copywriter, the SEO, someone who can consider its visual eye appeal, someone who cares about usability, and a conversion specialist. Each of these individuals will bring their own perspective to the content, fixing problems and bringing out the best it can be.

Can one person look at a particular piece of content from five different perspectives? Perhaps, but I don’t recommend considering all of them at the same time! Let’s take them in order so that you’ll understand why I say that.

The copywriter makes sure that your content is well-written, not just a plethora of keywords thrown together to get rankings and lure visitors to your website. Yes, the keywords need to be there, but those visitors will want to read your content and learn something from it. The copywriter can tell you if your optimized web pages aren’t suffering from serious keyword stuffing, and fix it.

The SEO take a look at the content after the copywriter to ensure that it includes the proper balance of keywords. According to deGeyter, “he or she can review keyword usage, placement, iterations, and phrase variations.” The SEO will either work in corrections or send the content back to the copywriter with rewriting instructions. If the SEO sends it back, the copywriter can also check the content at this point for “keyword creep,” that oh-so-subtle danger of content that has been overly tweaked for rankings.

You’d think that would be all you need, but no. Have you ever clicked on a link and landed on a web page that just looked so visually repulsive you clicked away as fast as you could? The third pair of eyes looking at your content strives to prevent this from happening with your website. In fact, the idea is to produce the opposite effect: give your visitors a lovely page that they’d enjoy browsing for a while.

Remember, thanks to the search engines, a visitor can enter your website from ANY page, so they all need to look their best. “You can do a lot of things to improve the visual appeal of any page, such as adding images or using text headings, bullets, bolding, and emphasis,” deGeyter notes. “All of these can add a visual dynamic that makes drab text look much more appealing and far easier to read.”

Websites aren’t just for reading, though; users interact with them, even if it’s just to click to the next page or navigate to another part of your website. That’s why you need someone to look at your content while wearing a pair of usability glasses. “Usability looks at how the content is arranged, where the calls to action are placed and whether or not the wording is action oriented (as opposed to passive),” deGeyter explained. I’d add that usability eyes ought to look at the content and see if it “works” in getting its point across. Is the infographic you hoped to use clunky rather than smooth? Do you make it easy for your visitors to share interesting content? These and other questions fall under the heading of usability.

Finally, we’re up to the eyes of the conversion specialist. If you have a PPC/landing-page conversion specialist working with you, deGeyter recommends that they look at your content at this stage. How well will your content work as a landing page to convert your visitors? That’s the question this pair of eyes will keep first and foremost. “As before, calls to action are important here, but specific wording and placement of the calls to action can be a factor – as can font styling, image use, link text, and more,” deGeyter notes.

I hope by now you can see why I said one person shouldn’t look at the same piece of content while trying to keep all five perspectives in mind at the same time! I don’t know about you, but when I’m reading an article to make sure it’s well-written (the copywriter’s perspective), I’m not thinking about how the piece looks as a whole (visual appeal) or details such as font styling (conversion). Think of each review as the opportunity to polish yet another aspect of your content, so it looks like a gem with sparkling facets that will delight the eyes and minds of your visitors. Good luck!

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Terri

The post SEO Review: Get Multiple Perspectives on Content appeared first on SEO Chat.

That’s a question that came up recently on our SEO Chat forum; you can check out the thread yourself. It got a lot of our members talking. So what’s the consensus? As you’d expect, it’s complicated.

Many Squidoo links are nofollow. Because of this, they’re not going to pass link juice to your website, so they won’t help your ranking in Google. Now this doesn’t automatically mean your links in Squidoo will be nofollowed; the site seems to use some kind of algorithm to determine whether it will make your links nofollow or dofollow, and whether your lens will be “featured.”

Does this mean that Squidoo links aren’t valuable? Well, it depends. Remember that you’re trying to rank in Google to bring traffic to your website. If visitors to Squidoo find your lens and follow your link to your website, guess what? You’re getting traffic. The bigger question is whether the traffic you get from Squidoo is worth the effort you need to put into your lens to get it noticed.

Squidoo lenses may also have purposes beyond building traffic. They can add a little diversity to your link profile, and make it appear more natural to Google. Again, though, you need to consider whether it’s worth the work. Keep in mind, by the way, that even once your lens does get noticed, you’ll need to keep working on it here and there (and adding fresh content) to maintain your position. It might make a lot more sense to apply that effort to your own website.

One of our SEO Chat forum members opined that Squidoo lenses are “best used to help build an audience that would be willing to link to your main website. But this can be done with the same amount of effort by providing a guest blog to someone else’s website that has a large following already. And this type of link will have a lot of SEO value.”

Long-time SEO Chat forum member prasunsen summed up the issue nicely: “In practice most Squidoo lenses are nearly worthless because they have no authority. If by any chance your lens becomes popular and attracts links, then excellent. Most don’t. And if yours does, you are still working to build…authority for someone else’s domain (squidoo.com), not yours.”

What do you think? Have you built any Squidoo lenses? Did they perform as you hoped? Feel free to check out the thread and join the conversation!

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Terri

The post Squidoo Lenses: Worthwhile for SEO? appeared first on SEO Chat.