SEO Tip #1: Increase Social Media Involvement

Social media has seen phenomenal growth over the last few years, and there is no reason to suspect that this growth will diminish in 2012.

Social media mentions are now a ranking algorithm factor for all major search engines. There are obvious mentions such as Twitter tweets/retweets and Facebook likes. The question arises: what social media sites do the engines look at for social media signals? While mentions that have a backlink will count towards your link profile, will these mentions be counted as a social media signal? Hopefully they will, but impossible to say for sure without a crystal ball. However, I foresee that the engines will be examining a wider and wider range of social media sites (especially with new sites being created all the time). As a result it is a good idea to get mentions from a wide range of social media, as well as sites that specialize in topics that are related to your business or company. (For example, Tipd is a social media site that concentrates on financial topics).

Another reason to hop on the social media bandwagon is people’s online search habits are changing, with an increasing number of people initiating a search using social media (as opposed to using an engine like Google). A great example is LinkedIn, whereby people search for jobs and companies look for employees to fill job positions.

SEO Tip #2: Plan for Personalized Search

For several years Google has personalized search results by taking into account sites that you have previously visited. Also, last week Google announced that search is going “social”, whereby your search results will be influenced by your “friends” activity on Google+ (see Miranda Miller’s Google Launches Search Plus Your World blog article for an in-depth explanation of this).

Google’s announcement has created uproar with search professionals. Regardless of this reaction, the fact remains that Google (and possibly the other major engines) will probably be placing an increasing amount of effort into personalizing your search results.

Here are some tips for handling personalized search:

• Create a Google+ account for your company, and have strong calls-to-action on your web site (as well as other marketing material such as newsletters, etc.) to get people to follow you.
• Create outstanding web content that users find valuable and get more people going to your web site, regardless of their intention to buy. If these people search for a product or service that you offer later on then your site will rank well. (Corporate blogs are very powerful!)
• In your major social media profiles (e.g. Facebook pages, etc.) consider prompting people to join your other social media networks.

SEO Tip #3: Optimize for Local Search

Google has been pushing local search for awhile now, and I have been seeing numerous recent changes to how Google displays local listings. I anticipate that Google (with other engines following suit) will continue to develop their local listings algorithm and technology.

Here are some ways to optimize for local search:

• Get and verify a Google Maps listing (basically synonymous with Google Places). It is easy to do, and makes sense for businesses that have a hyper local market.
• Global companies that have multiple regional offices should have web content that specifically discusses these locations. Have one web page per regional office, with each page optimized for that particular location.
• Global companies that have regional offices should consider creating social media profiles for each branch. For example, each branch can have its own Facebook profile, Twitter account, LinkedIn profile, etc. This will increase relevancy and authority for each region.

In conclusion, good luck to all in their 2012 search optimization ventures. I hope you find these SEO tips useful!

True, search engines do not place as much importance on the density of a search phrase as they used to. Gone are the days where a highly optimized web page can rank at the top of Yahoo within a few weeks of launch.

However, does this mean that running keyword density analysis on your most important web pages is no longer relevant? Absolutely not!

Running keyword density checks on targeted web pages can help ensure that a keyword or phrase is not being overused. A suggested keyword density is anywhere from 3%-6% (various SEO experts have their own opinions on optimal density). However, I have had keyword densities up to 8% and haven’t detected any sort of penalization. The key point here, though, is detecting whether you have used a keyword too often. If you have a keyword with a density of +10% then you are definitely playing with fire!

Another benefit is making sure that you haven’t forgotten to optimize a web page for a target key phrase. Every page in a web site should have a clearly defined purpose, as well as a set of target key phrases. By running a keyword density check on a given page you can see how often your target key phrases are used. Is there a phrase that was forgotten about? Is it possible to further optimize that page so that a target key phrase is used one more time?

Online Keyword Density Tools

There are lots of free, online keyword density tools out there. I often use the keyword density tool provided by SEO Book (a handy resource for SEO professionals).

When using this tool note that this tool lets you ignore small words with a given number of characters. There is also a default stop words list, where the density of stop words is not included in the report (knowing how often a common word like “the” is used in a web page isn’t important).

In summary, keyword density analysis still has a place in a professional SEO campaign. What has changed is the decreased impact that keyword densities have as a search engine ranking algorithm factor.

Google just launched their latest social media creation called Google+ “pages” a couple of days ago. Like Facebook pages, Google+ pages are designed specifically for companies.

Similar to Facebook pages, Google+ pages can be used to increase brand recognition, monitor customer sentiment and generate backlinks (the gasoline that powers the SEO engine).

Figure 1: Google+ Page Layout

The interfaces between the two are radically different, however. Google’s page interface is nice and simple compared to the Facebook page interface, which tends to be quite busy with numerous ads. There is lots of drag’n’drop functionality as well, useful when designing your page.

Creating your Google+ Page

To create a Google Plus page:

1. Go to Create a Google Plus Page.
2. Pick a category, whichever is most relevant to your business/company. Tip: notice that you can change the visibility from the default which is “Any Google+ user” (see figure below).
3. The next step is to enter your tag line, which typically describes your company. As an SEO guy I can’t help but suggest getting some key phrases in there!Figure 3: Tagline and Profile Photo
4. After this you should upload an image like your company logo. Tip: this is where I had difficulty. After some experimentation and headache I found that things went much better with square images (200px X 200px finally worked). I hope Google improves their online image resizing!
5. You can finish at this stage by clicking on the Finish button at the bottom. You can share your new page if you want, however, a final tip: view it yourself first just to make sure nothing needs to be tweaked, and then share it with your personal circles.
6. Once you’ve created your page go to your profile settings  (via the  image toolbar at the top), and edit your profile information in the About tab.

Accessing Your Google+ Page

To access your page go to the top-left of the browser window and hover over your Google profile name. You should see a listbox similar to the one below, click the down arrow and then choose your Google page.

Google Insights for Search is especially useful when:

• Performing keyword research at the beginning of an SEO (search engine optimization) campaign
• Determining if there are seasonal search fluctuations for a given search phrase
• Determining the popularity of a given search phrase over time (increasing, decreasing or steady)
• Identifying levels of regional interest for a given search phrase
• Analyzing your web analytics data (e.g. ranking reports and visitor action) during an SEO campaign*

Using Google Insights for Search

To get started go to Google Insights for Search.

Enter a key phrase that you want to research. For easy interpretation of results it is a good practice to limit the number of search terms to examine. Then select any filters you might want to use. If you are only interested in a particular region then change the “Worldwide” value to the country of interest (notice that you can also select sub-regions of a country).

Note that you should enclose a search phrase that has multiple words in quotations (e.g. “health insurance”).

Now click on the Search button. The results are categorized as “Interest over Time”, “Regional interest” and “Search terms”.

Interest Over Time

The interest over time is self-explanatory. The forecasted interest gives you an idea of the future trend in interest, and Google also inserts annotations into the graph that represent news items that may have had an affect on the search phrase popularity.

Also notice that you can embed the graph into a report by clicking on the “Embed this chart” link (requires the insertion of javascript).

Regional Interest

This graph indicates search popularity by region. You can drill-down into further sub-regions by either clicking on one of the country links or by clicking on the “Town/City/Suburb” link to the top-right.

Interest by region is especially important for any company or business that has a regional market. For example, let’s assume your target country is the United States. By drilling down into your data (click on the country, then click on a state, etc.) you can see what states and cities have the highest degree of interest in your search term, which can help you decide where to spend your advertising dollars!

Search Terms

This is a powerful feature, since it displays metrics on alternative popular searches (that are related to your entered search terms). Take the time to evaluate the alternate search terms, and consider whether they are applicable to your business or company. Clicking on an alternate search phrase will rerun the search for that alternate search phrase.

Conclusion

Google Insights for Search is a free, powerful tool that lets you quickly gauge interest in a given search term by time and region. It is especially useful when implemented in conjunction with the Google Keyword Tool!

* Sometimes ranking reports will indicate increases in rankings for key phrases, while web analytics data indicates no resulting increase in web site visitors. This situation can be the result of a decline in search popularity for the given key phrase or as a result of seasonal variations. There is a good article that discusses this at Search Engine Watch entitled 3 Ways to Invigorate Your Analytics, written by Sarah Carling.

Get started with your keyword research by writing out any and all possible target key phrases that apply to the web site. If you are working on behalf of a client (i.e. you do not own the web site in question) then have a conversation with a knowledgeable person affiliated with the web site and get some feedback regarding potential target keywords.

Using the Google Keyword Tool

Now that you have first draft of your target key phrases navigate to the Google Keyword Tool. Once there make sure you login to your Google Account. This allows for related key phrases to be returned by your search.

(Note : if you are not satisfied with your initial list you can use the “Website” option to see what keywords are popular at a competitor’s site.)

The next step is to enter all of your key phrases into the “Word or phrase” textbox. I recommend adding as many alternatives as you can think of such as: singular and plural versions of keywords; regional alternatives like “Canada” and “Canadian”, etc.

Make sure that you:

• Apply any Location, Language and Device targeting options that apply to your client or business via “Advanced Options and Filters”.
• Do not check the “Only show ideas closely related to my search terms” checkbox the first time around. This will allow for a wide range of alternative keyword ideas to be returned.
• Check the “Phrase” match type along the left-hand side. This will show phrase matches whereby the given phrase is part of a user’s search query (Google places a heavy emphasis on exact and partial phrase match when returning search results).

Then click on the “Search” button. Google will return metrics on your entered key phrases, and will also return information on suggested keywords that you did not specify.

The returned metrics are as follows (you can hide/show columns via the “Columns” button):

• Competition: an indication of how competitive a key phrases is.
• Global Monthly Searches: how many global searches are performed for the given key phrase.
• Local Monthly Searches: this value will be for a specific country if you selected a country as a targeting option. Note that if you target multiple countries or target “All Countries” then the global value will be returned for this column.

Points to Note

• Keep an eye on the level of competition. New web sites (or web sites that have poor rankings) will not get instant top rankings for competitive keyword phrases.
• Long-tail terms (3 or more words in the target key phrase) are not a bad thing; they are actually a great way to go after quick traffic, especially for new web sites or poorly ranking web sites with relatively few back links.

Download and Review

You can repeatedly run new searches, adding new key phrases as you go.

Once you are satisfied with the results you can download the target keyword list by clicking on the “Download” button. A common format is “CSV for Excel”.

If you are working on behalf of a client send this downloaded list to the client for review, and get their feedback.

Another great practice is to take the most important target keywords that you’ve identified and then check them using Google Insights for Search to see if there are seasonal trends, upward or downward trends with time, etc. There is follow-up SEO blog article about using Google Insights for Search coming shortly!

(As an aside please note that AdWords conversion tracking is different than Google Analytics goals. Google Analytics goals and Google AdWords conversions yield different metrics. For example, Analytics automatically calculates ROI, while AdWords conversions involve metrics such as Cost per Conversion (1-per-click and many-per-click). Ideally both methods should be employed in order to fully leverage relevant cost and return metrics).

Conversion tracking for eCommerce web sites is usually straightforward: a conversion is defined as an eCommerce sale. Conversion values can be obtained by examining the revenue generated from those sales and the amount of money spent on the AdWords campaign.

However, many web sites that are not eCommerce sites also have AdWords campaigns, and the question arises: how to define conversions?

Three main types of conversion tracking for non-eCommerce web sites come to mind:

1. Application submissions
2. Lead generation
3. Visitor engagement

AdWords Conversion Tracking and Application Submissions

Some web sites have some form of application submission, whereby a visitor fills out a web form and then applies for some product or services. For example, insurance web sites often have online applications whereby a visitor submits their personal information and applies for insurance coverage.

These applications are ideal for conversions. Conversion values can be obtained by determining the percentage of applications that turn into a sale, amount of money spent on the advertising campaign and net profit generated from a sale.

Implementing goal conversions for PDF application forms requires some ingenuity. Google Analytics goals can be inserted into the hyperlink that triggers the display of the PDF application using a custom trackPageView function call (done in the onClick event of the anchor tag using a virtual pageview). AdWords conversions, however, require insertion of static javascript tracking code. One work-around is to first send the user to a web page that contains the tracking code, and then redirect the user to the PDF application.

AdWords Conversion Tracking and Lead Generation

Many web sites are used as a lead generation tool. Visitors register via a web form in order to gain access to some sort of offering that they want (e.g. registration to access online demos, to have a company representative contact them regarding a product or service, etc.)

An obvious conversion would be successful submission of form data that results in the visitor’s personal information submitted to the company, which is then used by the sales department as a lead.

If the web page that contains the form posts to itself then a server-side variable can be used to insert the conversion tracking code (usually after error trapping has confirmed there were no problems with the submitted data). If the web page posts to a thank-you page then the tracking code should be present in the thank-you page.

AdWords Conversion Tracking and Visitor Engagement

Another way to gauge a “successful” visit is to see whether or not the visitor engaged with your web site. Examples of visitor engagement can be interacting with online demos and samples, going to a Contact page, submitting a request to have a company representative contact them, and so on and so forth.

Conclusion

Conversion tracking can be one or a combination of the methods described above. Ultimately it is up to the web site owner(s) to determine what visitor actions are most valuable to them.

The important thing is to implement conversion tracking. Having a visitor click on an advertisement is one thing: getting that visitor to convert is a whole different ball game! I guarantee you will be surprised by at least one key phrase that you are bidding on. Some keyword bids will generate lots of clicks but few conversions; conversely you will find keyword bids that generate few clicks yet have a high conversion rate.

• Search engine optimization (SEO)
• Internet marketing (in particular PPC such as Google AdWords)
• Web analytics (such as Google Analytics)
• Social media campaigns
• The search landscape

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