In-Depth Articles: The Newest Google Real Estate

This past Tuesday Google announced that it will be adding a new "In-Depth articles" section to its search results page. These articles will appear inside a block in the middle of Google's results page, and will include longer form in-depth articles from high-quality sources. Google discovered that about ten percent of its users search on Google as a way to attain more meaningful skills and knowledge, and they need deeper, more sophisticated articles to accomplish this. This allows online businesses and SEO specialists to attain even more Google real estate than ever before, but this new section of Google results is not terribly simple to break into. There are many steps to follow, and businesses should contact their SEO specialists to make sure they are up to date with this new development. Here are some quick tips that Google laid out in its press release that will help companies take advantage of this new resource.

First, for articles to be considered, authors must utilize the Google+ Authorship markup. Authors must have a multi-layered Google+ account, a simple head shot, a byline containing their name on each page of their content, and an E-mail address on the same domain as their content. Once these steps are completed, Specialists must also utilize Schema.org "Article" markup in their content coding to ensure that Google spiders can quickly analyze and rank their text. Schema.org "Article" markup is a somewhat confusing field, so businesses would be wise to find a specialist that has experience in this style of coding. Also in the coding field, specialists must utilize rel=next and rel=prev tags for multi-page articles to help Google to view the content as a sequential passage. And finally, companies should use a proper schema.org organization markup to connect their site to with an iconic logo. This will help the company's logo to show up higher in Google rankings to ensure a stronger brand for their content.

All of these steps, on top of the creation of stellar content, must be utilized if online businesses wish to be a part of this new section of Google. By doing this, companies will have more avenues for SEO growth to add into their content marketing campaigns. In-depth articles can already be seen for searches of broad topics like music, movies, art, and history; however, Google has made it clear that this section will not be included on every single SERP (search engine results page) out there. It is clear though that this new section will allow companies to identify and engage potential customers who are willing to spend time reading and researching their field, rather than just the every day one-click passers bye.

The Relevance of Link Building 2013

 Link building is a term that has gotten a bad reputation in the SEO world recently with Google's latest algorithm changes and updates. It is a term that takes many to a vision of spam, pop-ups, and all things harmful and annoying in the online world.

 But what exactly is the role of link building in modern SEO? Eric Enge of Stone Temple Consulting recently sat down for an interview with Matt Cutts, the head engineer, creator, and gatekeeper for Google's latest anti-webspam SEO campaign, in which, Cutts had this to say about the topic:

"not all link building is bad. The philosophy that we’ve always had is if you make something that’s compelling then it would be much easier to get people to write about it and to link to it. And so a lot of people approach it from a direction that’s backwards. They try to get the links first and then they want to be grandfathered in or think they will be a successful website as a result.

Their goal should really be to make a fantastic website that people love and tell their friends about and link to and want to experience. As a result, your website starts to become stronger and stronger in the rankings."

Not a bad sentiment, but it is a far cry for the automated ease of link farming and banner havoc that many old-school SEO specialists grew up utilizing. So, link building is still a very viable aspect of modern SEO and content marketing, but specialists need to make sure that they are achieving high-quality, reputable links. 

Online businesses must keep their campaigns focused, intriguing, and easy to discuss. It is only through this that businesses will achieve the results that Cutts alludes to. Many companies are now experimenting with video and photo/infographic based marketing schemes with much success.

 It is certainly a visual, short-attention span world out there, and marketers are starting to see that short compelling bursts of information can be far more effective than long drawn-out articles. It is all about capturing interest and generating momentum, and quality over quantity has certainly become the name of the game in this realm.

Signs of a Great Keyword

Signs of a Great Keyword

One of the most important aspects of SEO is keywords. Keywords is the soul of SEO because it is what you want to be found for. So it’s obvious that if you have bad keywords, you will have bad SEO. Therefore, how do you choose the best keyword for your website? What you should be looking for is the Commercabiliy of the keyword. Commercabiliy probably isn’t a word you are familiar with, but it will soon become a word used to describe the best choice of a keyword in the SEO world.

The Commercabiliy of a keyword focuses on two main factors when doing a keyword research: Searches per Month, and CPC.

First let’s look at searches per month. When doing keyword research you will come across two different types of searches per month, local and global. Local just means in the United States. So if your business strictly works in the US you would look at the local monthly searches. Then there is the global monthly searches, which you would look at if your business services the entire world.

The second is the CPC, which is another extremely important part of Commercabiliy. CPC is an acronym for Cost Per Click, which is a dollar value that is put to a keyword.  The Return on Investment is what gives the keyword its value, be it large or small. Companies associated with that keyword bid on how much they think it’s worth and that’s what determines the CPC for a keyword. The larger the CPC for the keyword, the better the ROI of it will be, making it an important keyword to be optimized for.

So, why do you need to look at both of these factors when deciding what keyword will be the best for you? Let us say that you have a keyword that has 10,000 searches per month with a CPC of $2. Well, the search volume is great, but the value of the keyword is only $2, which means that the companies associated with the keyword do not see the value of it and therefore the ROI on the keyword will be very small. That keyword does not show good Commericability and will not be a good keyword to be optimized for because it will not have much or any ROI.

Now you look at a keyword that has about 5,000 searches per month, but it has a $20 CPC. This is a great example of a keyword with good commericiability. This means that the keyword is valued very high and is one that businesses want to be optimized for and it is important to have for your business. The searches per month might not be as high as the last example, but the ROI will in turn be higher. A keyword with these stats will be a good keyword to start your SEO for, because it has great Commericability.

In conclusion, Commericability is very important to your SEO needs, you will want to look at these factors along with others when choosing a keyword to be optimized for. If you want to know more information on Commericability go here. 

Using Social Media to get your Marketing Message Out There

The average modern consumer is bombarded every day with marketing and advertising campaigns that try to catch their attention.  Yet, as we have all experience, all of these advances have inclined consumers to simply block out the noise.  The traditional ways to communicate your message such as TV, Radio, and Direct Mail have become less and less effective at catching the attention of your potential customers.  You may ask yourself, is there any other way?  The answer is working Social Media into your strategy.  Not just starting and ending with your Facebook, or Twitter, or your blog, but bring Social Media as a whole to you strategy.  The idea is not to use these platforms as ads, which would defeat the purpose, but to use them to offer relevant content to your friends and contacts which will entice them to land on the home page of your tailored website.  This one-two punch approach aims to drive visitors to your website which is your sales tool that will tell a customer in one glance whether you are a company they would like to do business with.

Read more: http://fringewebpro.com/2013/using-web-and-media-to-communicate-your-marketing-message/