New Awesome Ways to Search within Current Site (Using Google)

Syndicated From: Search Engine Journal http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/SearchEngineJournal/~3/88lLKJlmfyI/

I am sure you are familiar with (and using regularly) Google’s most useful search operator SITE: – that restricts search results to the domain you specify. I for one have covered multiple tips on:

• How to diagnose your site using Google’s operators (SITE: being the main one);
• How to tell a penalty from non-penalty (also using SITE: operator);
• etc

Obviously, the SITE: operator also turns really useful if you want to quickly find anything within the current domain (but you don’t want to figure how to find the site’s built-in search option). Google’s SITE: search operator makes you smarter, more productive and better equipped for search.

I have listed 3 tools that make Google’s SITE: operator easier to access including: Advanced Dork (not available in FireFox 3.6.8), Search Site (still valid and can be used) and Google site search (runs on Greasemonkey).

Today’s post shares 2 new tools that allow to search within the current domain with one click of a mouse:

1. CyberSearch: Search From URL / Address bar

CyberSearch is a multi-option search addon for FireFox that among other features allows to search within current site.

To do that just type:

>your search term

Right in the address (location) bar. It first suggests you the results from the current domain on the fly (which make it possible to search without SERPs).

After you click {Enter} – it takes you to Google’s search results restricted to the current domain and with >your search term as the search query.

For example, if you want to search for [firefox addons] when browsing SEJ, just type >firefox addon and you are done:

(1)

(2)

2. Milly’s Bookmarklet: Search for the Highlighted Term

The page as a variety of search bookmarklets taking advantage of Google’s search services and operators – one of them is based on SITE: search:

Google Site Search (just drag this link into your browser’s bookmark toolbar)

Compatible with: FireFox (latest version), Netscape, Internet Explorer (4 and above) and Opera

To use it, just highlight any term on a page and click the bookmarklet – you will be instantly taken to Google’s search restricted to the current domain with the term you highlighted:

Check out the SEO Tools guide at Search Engine Journal.

New Awesome Ways to Search within Current Site (Using Google)

Read other posts by this Author: Ann Smarty

What’s New With AdWords?

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Google’s been busy with AdWords this summer, launching a number of new features. Here’s a wrap-up of six of those features as well as Google’s new advertising news website.

• AdWords Campaign Experiments (ACE)

This tool, which is currently in beta, lets you test and measure changes to your keywords, your AdWords bidding, ad groups and placements. Basically you run your existing campaign alongside an experimental campaign.

You choose what percentage of auctions you’d like each campaign to participate in, and then watch what happens. If your experimental campaign is significantly more successful than your original campaign, you can decide to apply the changes to all of your auctions.

• Analyze Competition Feature

Google has added a new tool to the AdWords Opportunities tab that allows you to see how your campaign performance compares to the average performance of other advertisers. Google measures such indicators as click-through rate, average position, and impressions.

It shows these metrics for each of the different categories that represent your offerings. It can help you identify which aspects of your campaign are inferior to your competition, and then prompt you to improve those aspects accordingly.

• Ad Sitelinks

Ad Sitelinks let you add additional links to pages within your site in your ads, provided your ads appear at the top of search results. The idea is that more people will click through to your site if you offer them more options. The feature was introduced in November, though this summer Google add a couple of new characteristics.

One new characteristic is that additional links can be condensed into one line of text (previously the only option was two lines). The other change is that advertisers no longer need Google’s approval to set up Ad Sitelinks for their campaigns. You can set up Ad Sitelinks in the Campaign Settings tab.

• Keyword Diagnosis Tool

This new tool lets you see which of your pay-per-click keywords are currently prompting your ads to show, and why the other keywords aren’t spurring ads. You can access it from the More Actions drop-down menu within the Keyword tab.

If you want you can limit your diagnosis to a particular country and/or language. If you are seeing that certain keywords are not resulting in ads because of Quality Score issues, you might decide to resolve those issues. Or you might choose to increase your bids to get your ads shown.

• Broad Match Modifier

This new AdWords management feature lets you create keywords that are more targeted than broad match and have a greater reach than phrase or exact match. To implement this feature, you put a plus sign (+) in front of one or more words in a broad match keyword. Each word following a (+) sign must appear in the user’s query exactly or as a close variation.

The words that are not preceded by a (+) sign will prompt ads on more significant query variations. This feature will likely drive more traffic for those switching from broad match, and attract more qualified traffic for those switching from phrase or exact match.

• Reports Moving to Campaigns Tab

The AdWords Report Center is slowly being phased out as performance reports are moved onto the Campaigns tab. According to Google, it’s best to put performance information on the same page where you manage your campaign.

Reports include campaign reports, ad group reports, and account-level reports. They will specifically be stored in a new part of the Campaigns tab called the Control panel and library.

• Google Ad News

In June Google unveiled Google Ad News, a website that aggregates advertising news, including news related to AdWords. The site is organized into advertising categories, including search advertising; mobile advertising; and TV, radio and print.

For advertisers and advertising professionals with little time to sift through the categories, a top advertising news category provides Google’s most valued advertising-related articles. Articles come from such publications as The Detroit News, Business Week, and The Guardian.

Check out the SEO Tools guide at Search Engine Journal.

What’s New With AdWords?

Read other posts by this Author: Larry Kim

Great Ways to Enhance FireFox’s “Find” Feature

Syndicated From: Search Engine Journal http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/SearchEngineJournal/~3/GRKi7sZDYSM/

CTRL+F (which triggers built-in on-page search) is one of my most frequently used keyboard shortcuts whenever I browse. It is wicked I miss it so much when I am reading a “paper book” and need to find anything on a page.

I use the feature regularly to:

• Quickly find the place on a web page I need (for example when landing on page from search results);
• To visualize the on-page keyword usage (including derivations, compound words, etc);
• To find the needed place in the HTML code of the page – the feature lets you search the source code as well which makes it easy to quickly jump to h1 code, any word or link.

Today’s collection of tools allows to make the default “Find” feature even more awesome:

1. More Awesome Shortcuts

These are not plenty but the two mentioned below are just pure GOLD (and known by just few people – so we are lucky today!);

‘ (apostrophe) => Quick link search (find links as you type)

When on any web page, click ‘ and start typing, the browser will instantly take you the top link matching your search criteria (click Enter and you will be taken to the link in a second!):

CTRL+G => Switch between highlighted terms

(mouseless “Next” button – “Find next occurrence on the page):

Speeds up your scrolling immensely. Just use CTRL+G shortcut and jump to the next result matching your search criteria:

2. Find All Occurrences on a Page (Enhanced)

Find All is a FireFox addon that adds a find bar button which :

• Allows you to search for a word or phrase on a web page and displays the results in an easy to view list (removing all the formatting).
• Displays the total number of results found.
• Works in the browser’s View Source window.

In a word, the addon will look particularly handy for keyword research and on-page SEO analytics:

3. Jump to the Center of the Window

By default, when you search for a term on a page and jump to it using “Find” feature, it scrolls the window so that you could see the term at the very bottom of the screen:

If you find this behavior weird and not really usable, try this FireFox addon which forces the browser to display the found term in the center of the screen (surrounded by the context):

4. Find In Tabs

(Currently not available in the latest FireFox version but they tend to fix the compatibility pretty fast)

Find In Tab is another cool FireFox addon that adds a tiny option to CTRL+F command to search through all open tabs:

• Clicking the “Find in Tabs” button on the find bar will search for text in all open tabs, and show a list of search results.
• Clicking any of the results will jump to the tab on which it was found, and scroll directly to the highlighted text.

Happy finding!

Check out the SEO Tools guide at Search Engine Journal.

Great Ways to Enhance FireFox’s “Find” Feature

Read other posts by this Author: Ann Smarty

It’s Alive…ALIVE! How To Create Electrifying SEO Content

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Those of us that undertake the daily task of writing for our blog, articles for our clients or newsworthy press releases can sometimes lose the will to live when ideas are sparse. Words are fused together within a weave of conjunctions and contractions that make up an ugly, SEO monster that would terrify even the most experienced reader.

Fortunately, there are ways to become a modern day Frankenstein and create content to make it every bit electrifying as your last creation.

The brains of any content; The Title

As important as a head on shoulders, the title is the brains, the intelligence and determines the success of any SEO content. An attractive title leads the rest of the content and generates exposure online amongst all the other articles, press releases and blog posts out there.

As well as grabbing a reader’s attention, a title spearheads the ideas that will create a piece of writing that will not only establish you as a writer but create exposure and authority for your business. Many writers devise the title last and just write to spill out ideas. Of course, even if it’s a concept, there is still the initial idea that is devised from using six or seven words.

Whether you are passionate about what you’re writing or understand little about a subject, an intriguing and interesting title can give you that burning desire to research and discover more about what you’re expressing to readers, rather than work your fingers to the bone for nothing in return.

Of course, in terms of SEO, the title holds many keys to success. With a clever, key word rich title, the appearance of said text will therefore appear within a search, exposing your business for all it’s worth.

So when creating your content remember, brains over brawn. A snappy, short, intriguing title will turn your writing into something to be admired, not avoided.

Add meat to the bones; the main body

Regardless of how you devise content, writing all starts with a skeleton (idea) that needs padding out with fleshy sentences and muscular description. When it comes to creating the bulk of your article it is better to break down into bite-size chunks rather than sieve through dense ideas.

Neck and torso;

Similar to the head (title), the neck and torso (introduction) hold all of the other ideas together. Whatever is written after this will be a reflection of what was initiated at this stage. How you develop these ideas is up to you, but remember; A limp frame will not be able to support anything that is added on to it causing it to crumble under the weight of under developed ideas. A strong, sturdy start will make for a strong and sturdy article.

SEO is all about gaining exposure making you the best at what you do. Without proving this in everything you do, not only will people not take you seriously, but the search engines aren’t likely to either.

Limbs;

Developing your ideas from what you have set out to discuss in your introduction will make your content far easier to write. If you don’t know where you’re going with your ideas, neither will your readers; resulting in people fleeing in horror.

Keep to the point that you set out to make within the title and introduction. Everything attached to your initial idea should follow through and not leave readers disappointed.

Organs:

Your heart should be in what you are writing. People can tell the difference between content that has been written out of choice and a piece that has been forced. Make all your work, work for you and you will reap the rewards in views, comments and tweets.

Your lungs should breathe fresh air into a topic not create a stale atmosphere with rewritten text. Make sure if content has already being covered that your make it your own and take on an angle that makes you piece stand out against other works.

Skin:

Wrap up your monstrous ideas within your conclusion, making it complete and ready to be sprung into life. The conclusion of any writing project should a pull everything together, completing the final piece and showing it in all its glory. All the bits and pieces used to create something new and interesting should all be finalised, anything left hanging around will not only frustrate your readers, but cause the whole piece to fall apart and seem disjointed.

Bringing Your Article To Life: Switch on the power.

Writing an article that is SEO friendly is all well and good, but sitting on your desktop will do nothing for your listings. It’s time to plug in and switch on and get that creation out there moving across the web. Submitting it to industry specific blogs, categories and exposing it on all forms of social media will make all the work worthwhile.

Don’t forget to link back to your website or blog and let readers know the inventor. If you’ve produced exciting and intriguing content, it will only spur you to keep creating and bringing words on a page to life.

Check out the SEO Tools guide at Search Engine Journal.

It’s Alive…ALIVE! How To Create Electrifying SEO Content

Read other posts by this Author: Jenny Pilley

3 Less Known but Effective Ways to Share Your Facebook Page

Syndicated From: Search Engine Journal http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/SearchEngineJournal/~3/70x-ZC4bxjU/

The first and most obvious way to promote your Facebook page has long been using “Suggest to Friends” feature. While it may be really effective, you can use it once (maybe once per 6 months – but no more) because more frequent bulk sharing may annoy your friends: they must be getting dozens of page suggestions daily:

This post shares three more effective ways to promote your Facebook page from within Facebook:

1. Use the “Share” Button

There’s that little hard-to-notice button at the bottom of your page sidebar. When you use it, it creates a new update in your feed for your fans to see it.

Try to create a compelling message to go with the update:

2. Tag Your Fan Page in Your Updates

Did you know you can tag the pages you like (the process and the result look much like tagging personal profiles)? The @ tag creates a link to your fan page in your feed (which again promotes your fan page to your followers).

This means you can tag your page in your personal feed as well as tag it when posting on other page walls (in both cases, don’t overdo: tag your page only when it is really relevant).

Just start typing @ sign and the first letters of your page name – and you will be able to choose your page to tag:

This creates the following update in your stream (or other page wall) – note that “Daily SEO Tip” links to your fan page:

3. Add Your Page to Other Page Favorites

If you administer other pages (or have friends who administer Facebook pages), you can add (or ask your friends to add) your page to that other page “Favorites”.

Note that you can only add to pages you administer, NOT the pages you created. So if you want to use the page you created, ask one of your page administrators to do that (weird, I know. I hope this is a bug and will be fixed soon):

This adds your page to the other page “Favorites” box:

How do you promote your Facebook Fan page (other than suggesting it to friends and using Facebook widgets)?

Check out the SEO Tools guide at Search Engine Journal.

3 Less Known but Effective Ways to Share Your Facebook Page

Read other posts by this Author: Ann Smarty

Using Excel for SEO – the Grand Collection of Tips

Syndicated From: Search Engine Journal http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/SearchEngineJournal/~3/uRgIv7pPkZg/

You probably know that I am a big Excel fanatic (though not an expert). To me, Excel has always been the ultimate SEO and productivity tool.

I’ve been collecting Excel tutorials for years and this post lists the most useful (yet, the least geeky) of them: no matter which SEO task you have come across, chances are you’ll find one of the following tutorials handy:

1. Export Any Data to Excel

Any well-known keyword research or traffic analytics tool has the “Export-to-CSV” feature and a CSV file is easy to open in Excel – so converting your data into Excel shouldn’t be a problem.

If you still you need some examples, I did a post quite some time ago listing many ways to export your backlink data to Excel; for instance:

• With Yahoo! SiteExplorer you can export results to TSV file and open it as Excel;
• With Google Analytics you can save the report of referring domains (enhanced with plenty of browsing data per each linking domain: bounce rate, time spent on site; pages per visit, etc).
• You can export any search results that provide RSS feed to Google Spreadsheets using =ImportFeed(“feed URL”) formula and then save as Excel:

2. Excel for Keyword Research: a Pivot Table and a (Conditional) Formatting

1. Create a Pivot Table to easily Re-Arrange the Keywords

This post by Richard Baxter on creating a pivot table and a beautiful chart using Excel offers a step-by-step tutorial on how to re-organize your data to run various types of analysis. In short, the steps are as follows:

• Collect your data and create a Master table (more often than not, so to create your master table, you just need to export the required range of data from the tool you are using and open the file using Excel).
  • If you are using several tools, you may want to combine the data in one table – this post on using VLOOKUP query will save your life!
• Create a Pivot Table on a new sheet: “Insert > PivotTable > PivotChart“ and choose your table to serve the basis of the Pivot table;
• Add axis fields, values, column labels and filters: The PivotTable Field List uses drag and drop functionality to enable you to populate those little white squares with values. As you add values, the table on the left begins to form.

A pivot table feature allows for plenty of data manipulation options that consequently offers a wide range of research types. Here’s another post giving a detailed tutorial on creating a pivot table and using it for keyword research – so if you still have any questions, refer to it to make things even clearer.

2. Use “Find and Replace” Feature to Visualize the Keyword Patterns

While a pivot table lets you re-arrange the data and create cool charts, conditional formatting allows you to visualize the data sets using different colors. I did a post once on finding your most frequent modifiers using Excel, and here are the steps:

• Use CTRL+F (“Find and Replace” feature);
• Click “Find and Replace” tab;
• Type the word you think may be frequently used with your core term,
• Click “Options” button;
• Choose to “replace with” format;
• Click “Patterns” tab;
• Choose the color you want to highlight the cell containing the word:
• Click OK and then “Replace All”;
• You should then see how many times the word was used, plus the cells containing it will be highlighted.

Conditional formatting works the similar way but it can be used to highlight the cells while you are creating the spreadsheet. For example, if you are using Excel to create and track your meta tags, conditional formatting can visualize meta tag character count. Simply use Red/Yellow/Green for good length and warning zones. This keeps you in a quick reference just out of the peripheral.

3. Use =VLOOKUP to compare and combine data exported from different sources:

This post on comparing Google Webmaster Tools Data with Google Analytics Data provides a detailed tutorial on how you can merge any type of statistics data: Keyword Rankings and Keyword Volume, Google Rankings data and Traffic data, Backlinks and Traffic Sources, etc:

3. Excel for Link Building: URL Manipulations

I use Excel for link building process tracking as well as for reporting. The basic “sorting” Excel feature (known by everyone, I guess) makes it much easier to re-arrange the data to find links on the same topic, with the same Google PR, etc.

This section looks at a bit more complex hacks: Excel formulas and tutorials for the URL manipulation.

1. Extract All URLs from the List of Linked Words

It happens very often that you have a list of linked words in Excel and you need to see the full address of each link. Extracting each address one by one is tedious. To automate the task, you will need to create a quick macro – don’t worry, here’s an instruction allowing even a very basic newbie to create one:

1. Open Visual Basic Editor (use ALT + F11 shortcut);
2. Navigate Insert -> Module to adds a module
3. Paste the code below
4. Close the Visual Basic Editor (use ALT + Q)

Sub ExtractHL()
Dim HL As Hyperlink
For Each HL In ActiveSheet.Hyperlinks
HL.Range.Offset(0, 1).Value = HL.Address
Next
End Sub

Now use the macro:

• Navigate Tools -> Macro -> Macros (or use ALT + F8 shortcut);
• Make sure “Extract HL” is chosen and click Run
• You are done! The macro will find each hyperlink in a worksheet, extract each one’s URL, and stick that URL in the cell directly to the right of the hyperlink.

2. Make the List of URLs Active

Another common case is: you export tons of data and end up with hundreds of unlinked URLs. You could go double-clicking on each to activate one by one but this will take too much time. Here’s a quick tutorial on how you can do that:

Repeat steps 1 to 4 from the above tip but use this code:

Sub MakeHyperlinks()
Dim cl As Range
For Each cl In Selection
cl.Hyperlinks.Add Anchor:=cl, Address:=cl.Text
Next cl
End Sub

Select the cells you want to turn into clickable links and Run the “MakeHyperlinks” macro (use the further tutorial from the above part).

Or just use this handy tool by SEOAtomatic: Activate Excel Links

Before:

After:

Any other Excel hacks you are using for SEO? Please share tem in the comments!

Check out the SEO Tools guide at Search Engine Journal.

Using Excel for SEO – the Grand Collection of Tips

Read other posts by this Author: Ann Smarty

Don’t Put the Cart Before the SEO Horse

Syndicated From: Search Engine Journal http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/SearchEngineJournal/~3/epe8HUE1GWA/

A lot of people like to dive into things without having a plan and strategy in place. SEO and Internet Marketing is no different. There are certain aspects of your web strategy that need to happen first before you can move forward with the other aspects. Depending on what it is, it can make or break your SEO and overall marketing efforts.

Start Spending Money/Resources on SEO Before Identifying Your Goals

Probably the most important and fundamental flaw you can have is to start optimizing your site without identifying your overall site/blog goals. You should be able to answer these questions before spending money and resources on your SEO strategy.

• Who are your primary readers/visitors?
• Where does your target audience live?
• What are your primary keywords?
• Who are the primary competitors?
• How will you delegate roles and responsibilities?
• How will you track your SEO efforts?

Focus on Content Creation Before Your Site is Indexable

Before you start spending lots of your time and resources creating awesome content, you need to make sure that content is properly getting indexed by the search engines. Regardless of how good your content is, if the search engines are not indexing it, you are significantly reducing the changes of your content being found.

• Use a search friendly navigation
• Inter-link your posts
• Submit a XML sitemap regularly
• Deep link your content

Building Links Before Creating Good Content

The foundation to building quality links is and always will be creating awesome content that people would want to link to. If you are trying to gain links to a site and the only thing people can find is “Buy Now”, why would someone link to you. Or if you are trying to build links by submitting to thousands of directories and dropping comments in forums, you are just build spammy and low-value links.

Advertisements Before Traffic

Without having traffic, there is no point in cluttering up your blog with lots of banners and advertisements that will just devalue your blog and its content. When your blog is first starting out, you should be focusing on doing everything you can to build credibility and authority. There is lots of debate about when is the appropriate time is to start adding advertisements to your site. Personally I think there will come a time during the life of your blog/site where people are reaching out to you for advice, asking about advertising opportunities, requesting that you guest blog on their site. Once those things start happening, you will have built the initial credibility with your audience and you can start bringing on advertisers.

Tell Success Stories Without Actually Doing Them First

Especially for SEO companies, if you are making up fake success stories and case studies to win business, your clients will quickly see the true colors of your company and fire you! If your product is suppose to fix a problem someone has, you will have nothing but a lot of angry people, if you don’t know for sure that it does what you say it does.

Newsletter Sign-Up Before Creating Free Content

Of course you can also add a newsletter sign-up to your site, however why should someone sign-up? If you create a free piece of content like a Whitepaper or downloadable Webinar that you can offer in exchange for a newsletter sign-up, you will be able to build a list much faster.

Quit Your Day Job Before Your Blog is Making Money

Before you quit your day job to pursue your true passions, make sure you are making a steady income. You should have established some steady income from multiple revenue streams. The reason why I say multiple revenue streams is because what if you are gaining all of your sales from one organic phrase in Google? Then Google decides to pull the rug out from under you and you are nowhere to be found. There goes your main source of income! If you have various ways of making money from your blog, you won’t have to depend on just one revenue stream.

Check out the SEO Tools guide at Search Engine Journal.

Don’t Put the Cart Before the SEO Horse

Read other posts by this Author: Mark Thompson

Facebook Questions: How to Benefit as a Company

Syndicated From: Search Engine Journal http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/SearchEngineJournal/~3/GLSkkd060M4/

In a land of a million ‘likes’ how many marketers are paying attention to the new Facebook Questions tool and how it can be an integral part of your Facebook marketing efforts?  Similar to a start up in Indianapolis (Form Spring) ‘Ask Question’ can a provide a way for businesses to engage with their fans on an intellectual level. Facebook addicts are waiting for someone to start a conversation, just ask them. What’s for lunch today? or How’s the weather? I’m sure they will have some sort of response for you front of mind when the time is right.

The Setup

There are currently 500 million active users on Facebook, with approximately half of them logging on to check their Facebook profiles multiple times on a daily basis. Imagine if you could reach out to all of them at one time.  I’m not endorsing tampering nor spamming Facebook, but a simple request to Blackhatworld.com can get you a script to ask multiple people the same question at once. This eliminates the time it takes to target each specific page and to gain an overall level of customer engagement.  Not only are the numbers strong, but the level of trust within circles of friends and acquaintances on Facebook is stronger than anywhere else on the Internet. Don’t act like you’re not clicking on the link to the new YouTube video your friend just posted.

The Format

The simplicity of the Questions format makes it very easy to navigate and you don’t get lost amongst hundreds of immediate responses that are usually far from relevant.

The questions you ask will be shown to people who have expressed interest in the particular topics you tag as well as to your friends and friends of friends. Ask relevant, trending topic questions, and be sure to always use applicable # tags. Users are able to hop between different questions within a topic and follow ones so that they receive a notification when there are any updates.

What Can You Do With This?

Because of the time it takes to develop a relationship with your Facebook fans, it’s important to keep them interested once you’re connected. I have noticed several businesses, large businesses in particular, who are scared in the beginning of their social media efforts, worried that only Facebook socialites succeed in this space. In my observations and experiences with the Question tool I have found that larger companies have been able to successfully engage with their customers without having that intruding, large corporation feel.  Beneath are tips to start engaging your fans today.

1. Ask a question!  A suggestion would be: “I’m looking for some help with [insert your product or service], has anyone heard any good information about [insert your company]?”  Or you could go with: “What suggestions do you have for [insert your company] to do for a company outing in [insert your city]?”  This is a means to get your name out there, get visits to your page and in the end get followers who are potential customers.
2. Answer a question!  Since the asker and Questions can tag the queries under related topics, you can monitor questions being asked about subjects related to your business.  Answer those questions while dropping your company name so searchers can link to your fan page and check out all the other ways you can help them succeed.  Being known as a company that wants to help consumers make better choices goes a long way, particularly on Facebook where reputations are everything.
3. DON’T mislead or bombard your fans. Nothing is worse than clicking on a link that redirects you to some lead generation mini site. It is important not to invade your fans privacy and SPAM them with your 25% off sale. Don’t forget your one click of the ‘hide’ button from being irrelevant.

Check out the SEO Tools guide at Search Engine Journal.

Facebook Questions: How to Benefit as a Company

Read other posts by this Author: Zach Marburger

What Makes a Good SEO Proposal?

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I work as an in-house SEO for a company that has a good-sized website, just over 150,000 pages and growing. I’m one of few people in the company whose job it is to daily review our web stats, and suggest changes we need to implement. But with a site this big, it’s pretty daunting. After swallowing some pride, I was pleased to hear we had a company to consult with on larger projects so I could stay focused on other tasks.

Everything has been going okay so far, but I was curious as to how this particular company was selected. Luckily, in the process of moving offices, my boss stopped by my desk and dropped off a huge folder of files. As any employee would, I look up at him stunned and before I could say anything he said, “These are all the other consulting companies we considered previously. Take a a look at them and tell me what you think.” Eager to finally get a chance to look at how these were prepared, I agreed. After a few hours of sifting through thirty or so SEO Proposals (SEOPs) I was greatly surprised both in a good and bad way at the same time.

The format of the SEOPs was really similar to the request for proposals (RFPs) I would prepare for grants (I worked for a non-profit for a few years to help raise funds). The structure of your typical grant RFP followed the format below:

• Introduction
  • Who are you and what’s your mission statement/purpose?
    • Brief company background info start-up to present.
  • Why are you submitting this RFP?
• The Body
  • What is your plan?
  • How will you implement this?
  • Who is involved?
  • How will it be measured/evaluated?
• Recommendations
  • Any client testimonials?
  • Case studies?
  • Supporting documents?
    • Research papers, etc.
• The Finances
  • What does the budget look like?
  • What costs are involved?
  • Are there any unforeseen items that may affect these numbers?

There maybe a few sections here and there that differ and the order may vary, but surprisingly the two are similar. When I noticed this, I went back through a few of them again and started to separate the good proposals from the not-so-good ones. Here is what I found that tells a good SEOP from a bad one:

The Introduction

The Bad:

These SEOPs started off with explaining what SEO is and how it is useful to websites, which is fine if you’re talking to someone who has never heard of SEO. When it comes to sending a proposal to a company that has reached out to you about using your SEO services, they are already aware of what it is and its usefulness. There is no need to explain what it is to them.

The Good:

These SEOPs explained who the company is, stated their mission and explained their philosophy in regards to SEO. They did not explain SEO, they expressed their own opinions as to how it should be used and implemented. The philosophy of a company is huge to me. If I’m looking to hire a company to help me, our ideals on SEO should be similar. I’m not saying we will agree all the time, but knowing where a company stands on this is a big selling point. Sure, a company could lie just to get the client, but just like when a non-profit lies and the grant is taken away, consulting firms can be fired.

The Body

The Bad:

This is the trickiest part of the proposal for consulting firms. They’ve, hopefully, looked over the site and have some ideas on what to implement but they don’t want to give any “free advice” anyway. This is completely understandable. However, these proposals essentially transcribed a phone conversation. There needs to be some risk with this section. Not to say in detail what to do, but to say here is how your website is currently behaving. These sections were pretty vague, safe and lacked effort. Again I understand why not much detail is given, but if no risk is taken how will the potential client know you’re serious?

As a side note, I do think it is okay to reference articles that explain how certain processes work, i.e. domain changes. But when you do this I’d make sure you aren’t referencing an employee of your competition whose biography and place of employment is included in the article. Essentially you’ve just given a recommendation to a competitor.

The Good:

These companies. took. risk. They actually ran a few keyword ranking reports for terms we wanted to rank for, were ranking for and ones we needed to rank for that hadn’t been discussed. This showed a lot of work on their part and it also showed they were behaving in the manner that we were going to hire them anyway. I also got a sense of their work ethic from these good examples. Going above and beyond when no definitive contract had been signed conveyed they were serious about getting our business. Is it possible to get a client without taking this type of ”risk”? It absolutely is, but without risk the rewards are minimal at best.

Recommendations

The Bad:

If your only quotes from clients say, “They provided great service”, I’d either go look for more quotes or question how great your service really is. This is probably my own preference, but a quote like that is similar to that of a blog comment that says, “Great Post”. A statement like that doesn’t really make me want to call the company back and say “You’re hired!”. On top of that, the “case studies” are really nothing more than a one page document that states, “We did keyword research for client XYZ, analyzed their website and now their traffic has increased.”. Neither of these were really persuading me to want to hire or continue communication with this company.

The Good:

What I really liked wasn’t the fact that real names and companies were used (though that did help), but that the quotes were descriptive and you could tell thought had been put into it. These were quotes that  were memorable and did not blend in with the rest. The case studies provided by these companies explained the condition of the site before hand and provided detail on how they went about analyzing the site. Lastly, rather than comment on the increased amount of traffic, a mention on the increase in conversions/sales was used.

Financials

The Bad:

The only way this section was messed up was when the companies gave no actual dollar amount and were very vague as to what the client would be paying for. Now, I’m not saying your prices should be listed like a menu from Burger King, but you should be able to let people know what they are getting for a rough estimate. If there are any extra services you provide that weren’t discussed list them here as well so everyone is aware. Nothing can taint the relationship like an unknown cost appearing out of nowhere.

The Good:

This section was kept simple and explained what the client was getting and what else was available for an estimated cost.

Overall

The Bad:

These SEOPs seemed pretty cut and paste. I’d imagine if you compared two proposals for different clients in different industries, they would read the same. So my question is, if no two websites are marketed the same why would the proposals be the same? During the initial call there should have been enough time to identify what the client’s concerns were and how they would be addressed.

The Good:

Unique, original and memorable are three words I’d use to describe these proposals. If these were cut and paste, then I was fooled, though I doubt it. To me it was pretty clear these companies took time to listen to the potential clients and tailored the SEOP to fit them. The impressive part was the company’s who not only listed the customer’s wants, but the ones that listed (in a polite manner) what the customer needs were.

There wasn’t a single company that hit every single area perfectly. What I believe it comes down to is the client. It’s about optimizing the SEOP to fit their needs and to persuade them to become a client. Think of it the same way your company optimizes websites. It isn’t about you, it’s about attracting them and getting the conversion.

I’d love to hear some thoughts on this from companies that send out SEOPs and those who have gotten them. What areas are more important to you and which are of least importance? Thanks for reading.

Check out the SEO Tools guide at Search Engine Journal.

What Makes a Good SEO Proposal?

Read other posts by this Author: Joshua Titsworth

My6Sense: The Virtual Assistant

Syndicated From: Search Engine Journal http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/SearchEngineJournal/~3/yWd5a85lVAQ/

Imagine a robot intuitively knowing what you need, or having a tool that suggests options you might be interested in. Pretty sci-fi, right? Well, not really. My6Sense is a predictive application that has brought the future to today.

With the overwhelming volume of information streaming from sources such as Twitter, Facebook, and RSS feeds directly to your iPhone and iPad, it’s impossible to keep up with it all. And, sorting through it to find relevant and the most updated content for your needs is like ‘finding a needle in a haystack.’ It’s enough to make the most energetic and savvy SEO professional feel like he’s trying to empty the ocean with a teaspoon.

Now, thanks to My6Sense, you have your own personal virtual assistant.

In an article by Steve Mollman, for CNN (edition.cnn.com):

“It [My6Sense] uses algorithms to learn about you from the way you behave as you go through your streams. It observes, for instance, which links you click, how long you look at something, and whether you share the content with others. There are thousands of such variables it pays attention to. Along the way, it gets to know you.”

Roi Carthy, in an article on TechCrunch.com explains My6Sense:

“The company has been building out what it calls ‘digital intuition,’ a content ranking technology that to date has been applied to RSS feeds to separate the signal from the noise [. . .] The real beauty is that it requires zero intervention other than using the app itself.”

As a user of My6Sense on my iPad and iPhone, I can attest to its abilities. Within a couple of days of using it, it is able to hone in on your online preferences and needs.

The Basics of My6Sense:

1. It allows you to easily subscribe to any blog. Just enter the web address and it finds the RSS feed – this in itself is a time-saving capability. And, it accepts dozens of feeds easily.

2. It has pre-selected options for sources such as the NY Times, iPhone blogs, Twitter, Facebook, and a host of others.

3. It’s a great tool for keeping up with your particular industry’s information, along with specific information you may need for SEO strategies. Along wit this, it will help with your personal interests and hobbies.

The Predictive Features of My6Sense:

1. It learns your online preferences within a couple of days, and begins to filter your streams and find ones of interest (recently added feature).

2. The more you use it, the more it learns—it actually seems to get smarter. What this means for the user is that after a very short time, the app will automatically make suggestions; it will predict what information you would find interesting.

It automatically added a post to the top of my feed from a Google blog. When I clicked on it, a message on top stated I might be interested in adding this blog to my stream.

3. It is versatile; as your usage changes, it quickly adapts.

4. It also offers content that you may miss due to misleading titles. If it picks up something within the content of a post or article that is pertinent to your needs, it will bring it to your attention.

What’s to Come?

Predictive technology is an exciting and innovative tool. Surely its capabilities will be broadened and applied to business marketing tactics to help find potential customers—every time someone does a search, most often it is with the intent to buy. But for the present, My6Sense is a much needed personal virtual assistant that may not be perfect, but is a wonder at helping to sort through the barrage of information available online.

Check out the SEO Tools guide at Search Engine Journal.

My6Sense: The Virtual Assistant

Read other posts by this Author: Jacob Maslow