One area that search engines have made a number of significant advancements in recent years is in how they evaluate content on a website. So what does a perfectly optimised page look like in 2012? Let’s look at 10 elements.

1. Title tags are still important, but it’s not a good idea to over-optimise them. 

2. Descriptions still don’t appear to add much ranking value, but can help encourage clicks. 

3. Header tags still need to be relevant. 

4. URL still ideally mentions the keywords. 

5. Content is now about semantically relevant supporting keywords, not multiple mentions of the keywords. The example chosen is a recipe, because in order to make béarnaise sauce there are specific ingredients that are 100 percent relevant to the eventual outcome. One way of checking what keywords Google might consider as relevant is to do a ‘~keyword’ (or tilde) search. Other ways, let’s be honest, involve nothing more than common sense and knowing your subject. 

6. Video and other ‘rich’ content can be useful on a page to increase engagement levels, reduce bounce rates and also to appear alongside results as illustrated.

7. Internal links need to follow the “reasonable surfer” patent. It makes sense in the “perfectly optimised page” example above to link to peppercorn sauce as an alternative to béarnaise. 

8. Facebook/Twitter/other login comments are a way of sharing the content on other platforms. The direct SEO benefit may be debatable, but it never hurts to get your content in front of a large amount of people. With Google Search Plus Your World, it could be that adding a Google+ login is more important than anything else.

9. User reviews add regular content to the page, which can also be coded to include microformatting instructions and add extra elements to your listings in search engine result pages (SERPs).

10. Newsfeeds only share content that already exists elsewhere, but they contribute to an overall impression of the page changing on a regular basis.

It’s worth noting that the “perfectly optimised page” above won’t be perfect for all verticals, or for all brands – not everyone has the ability to add customer reviews to their product pages (e.g., insurance comparison sites).

Although there’s no one-size-fits-all solution, hopefully the above list will give you some guidance on how to perfect your on-page SEO.

@garethowen1

I am not usually one for a conspiracy theory, unless it’s contained within a decent yarn like the Da Vinci code… but over the last year in particular, I am becoming increasingly convinced that Google wants rid of natural search results – to the point where I would really like them to make a statement of some kind and put people out of their misery.

Google will always base any statements around the phrase ‘user intent’ or ‘user experience’ and on the face of it, most of the things I am about to list could easily be batted away by Google’s ever-inventive PR wing using one of the two phrases above. However, user intent aside, Google has consistently taken steps to devalue the natural search results that it carries and the question remains – is Google’s master plan to abolish the natural algorithm… which is what made it so popular in the first place?

There are a number of specific developments in particular that point to this. And in true conspiracy theorist style, I will list them in bold. I might also throw in some exclamation marks too.

The removal of the referrer string for people logged in to their gmail account: although notionally only 10% of search traffic will be affected by this, we all know the value of robust data and 10% ‘unknown’ is not robust. Natural search tracking tools will be inaccurate all of the time, and reporting ROI will not be accurate either! And this is before Google’s wonderful social media offering takes off, increasing the % of people logged in whilst doing a search…

All studies carried out into the click through rates for natural search show that it has fallen significantly – some suggest that the rate of decline has even increased in the last six months! Certainly, the heady days of 70-80% of traffic going to natural search results is over. Many seem to suggest that 50% is the very best we can expect, especially for searches with commercial intent or searches where the cost per click for PPC ads is highest… Some (Google) will argue that this is due to improved, targeted PPC creative and a superior understanding of user intent by PPC practitioners, but in truth, it could also be something to do with the fact that with Google Instant products/local business results/PPC site links etc. most natural search results are now way below the fold.

How much is it worth to Google to increase traffic for commercial searches? Let’s just look at [car insurance] as an example of one keyword, admittedly a highly competitive one, but still just one keyword. If only 30% of the 500,000 or so people that search on Google each month for car insurance used to go through a paid search ad and Google were paid on average £2.50 for each of those 150,000 visitors, then they would have made £375,000 from that keyword. If 50% of searchers now go through a paid ad, that number has gone up to £750,000! If you replicate that across all of Google’s search, it’s clear that they have a large lever to pull to ensure they hit their quarterly forecasts to keep the markets happy, and there is still another 50% of room for maneuver!

The thing is, despite of all of the teeth-gnashing and wailing (that I’m helping to contribute to, admittedly), Google can do exactly what it likes. It’s their search engine and it’s the biggest one out there. All I would like to know is whether or not they will move to an entirely paid model? To people in the search industry this might be a big problem, an admission that they can’t actually create an algorithm clever enough to determine user intent and therefore, are willing to let big companies pay their way to the top of all listings, but at the moment all the evidence suggests that is exactly what they are going to do. They’re just not going to tell anyone about it until after they’ve strangled off all natural search results and the final internal study confirms that people no longer click on natural search results any more. It’s all about user intent, after all.

Hussein Ebied, SEO Manager, Steak

Web analytics can be a bastion of data, the answers to every digital marketer’s little (and big) problems. But to others, it’s data overload: TMI from the tech geek world; more info than some site owners know what to do with. How can you find the needle in the haystack, that juicy nugget to set your data free?

Meet Hussein Ebied – one of Steak’s venerable SEO managers with five analytics-crushing years of digital marketing experience. Hussein joins us from Steak’s sunny New York offices to explain analytics options, best practices, and how to use your analytics tool to  not just run web reporting, but develop eye-popping analysis and insights

Before we delve into strategy, let’s review basics.

Google Analytics is a free tool offered by Google that reports key statistics about visitors to a website, used primarily by marketers. One study notes that Google Analytics is used by 81.6% of all the websites, whose use of traffic analysis tools is known. This sample is 52.4% of all websites. (See market share of all analytics tools.) GA can track visitors from search engines, display advertising, pay-per-click networks, e-mail marketing and side materials such as links within PDFs.

The difference between Google Analytics (GA) and other analytics tools lies in cost, usability and expanded features. There are many free and paid analytics tools that allow you to track site traffic, keyword success and KPIs. Tracking these results allow you to shift your campaigns according to detailed metrics.

Other paid analytics tools have similar or more robust features, discussed below.  But tracking your website and keyword rankings does not tell a marketer about missed opportunities. We’ll discuss how to create web reports that provide analysis your clients will love.

What are the advantages of using Google Analytics (GA)?

Hussein Ebied: Google Analytics’ strengths are clearly its usability, accuracy, zero-cost and advanced features. Companies without a large budget for analytics, or advertisers who are new to the digital ad space would like GA for its quick elevation of key metrics and easy integration into any website.

GA also has a lot of features that come automated right out of the box, such as segmentation of paid and organic traffic and even tracking, which you might have to manually configure on other analytics tools.

What are the advantages to using paid analytics tools?

HE: Paid tools like Webtrends and Omniture’s Adobe SiteCatalyst could provide an advertiser with greater insights and segmentation features.  Until recently, multi-channel conversion tracking was not available on GA (currently in beta) but other paid tools have been doing it. Paid tools have a more robust integration with social media channels. Some tools have exclusive partnerships with large social properties that allow them to pull in unique data sets. Some paid tools are starting to combine analytics and campaign management under one platform.

What are the drawbacks of paid tools?

HE: Some analytics tools can come at a hefty price (in the thousands), which vary by packages and levels of customer service. If a web team does not budget for a higher level of service and does not know the tool, they could be in for a surprise. For example, Omniture, which powers Adobe SiteCatalyst, offers different types of platforms and service levels.  Implementation is also an issue.  While these tools are very powerful, it takes a serious commitment and resource level to ensure they are implemented correctly.  You’re definitely going to have to earn that increased level of insight.

What are the drawbacks of Google Analytics?

HE: Perhaps accuracy, but with any type of analytics solution your numbers will never match reality, even when compared to the accuracy of paid products. Also, you’re giving the people that create the keyword pricing direct insight into what those keywords are worth to you.  While Google has clearly stated that they don’t share data between AdWords and GA, it’s something to be aware of when making a decision on providers.

A Google Analytics Dashboard

What do marketing managers typically report with analytics?

HE: At the most basic level, marketers typically report KPIs (key performance indicators). Obvious KPIs like site visits and click-through-rates are compared on a month-over-month or year-over-year basis. Some agencies use this data to create custom reports showing easy-to-read metrics.  These reports, though, may not provide actionable learnings or recommendations.

Typical reporting also includes user actions or conversions. It’s important to not only look at the number of conversions, but also your conversion rate, which is the number of conversions over the number of visits to your site.

OK, we got the basics out of the way.  Let’s let’s get into the Steak, err, the meaty stuff.

So what’s the difference between web analysis and web reporting?

HE: The difference is that web reporting alone can be death-by-data – pages of info with no clear conclusions – while web analytics provides insight, actions and impact on the company.  (For more, read what the godfather of search and analytics, Avinash Kaushik, outlines in his colorful blog on real web analysis.)

Say you launched an SEO campaign for your website that sells the best, albeit most expensive, winter coats in the world.  When measuring on a year-over-year basis to account for seasonality, you might notice the following winter that your website saw an increase in traffic, but a dip in year-over-year sales. What went wrong? Now analysis becomes vital to the survival of your online business. A comprehensive web analysis should uncover several possible causes for this dip in traffic.

Step 1: Market Analysis

Your web analysis should question whether the previous winter was a special time for your business.  Was it the first time your coats entered the market? New product launches are susceptible to media buzz and word-of-mouth advertising. Monitoring your brand online is a great way to account for these trends.  Also, consider whether competitors’ discounts or economic factors have led customers to choose a more affordable product.

Step 2: Site Usability

If your traffic numbers are up year-over-year but your conversions (sales) and conversion rate went down, the problem could be usability and the conversion path users must follow on your website. Web analysis should help you pinpoint the sections of your site that experience the greatest bounce rate. Remedying design flaws on your website could increase the likelihood users will convert upon visiting.

Step 3: Search Trends / User Behavior

What if traffic did not increase, but your conversion rate improved year-over-year? A seasoned analyst might look at the actual keywords that drove traffic to your site but generated a lesser volume of traffic than the previous year. Using search engine tools, you may find there has been a general decline in search volume for those terms.

People may be less interested in searching for coats overall online.  Users may still be purchasing coats online, but rather than conducting generic, brand-neutral searches for “coats” on search engines, a great percentage of them now prefer to visit niche department stores or shopping aggregator sites, such as Amazon, that sell all types of brands including yours.

Web reporting - not analysis - despite the pretty colors.

How do some marketers provide reporting vs. analysis?

HE: Many agencies and in-house marketers overlook the importance of marrying the data in analysis to specific learnings and action items that could impact the overall goals of the business. A major part of any successful online marketing campaign is to ensure that your objectives are in line with the client’s business goals.

Some marketers don’t highlight causality.  Normal analytics tools don’t always reflect offline factors, environmental issues or shifts in consumer demand.  These tools can do the heavy lifting, but the operator must deliver the insights.

What factors should good web analysis include?

HE: You can’t just show that traffic has gone up or down. You have to uncover factors of why this increase or decrease occurred. If you examine offline factors, the possibilities are endless: facility changes, PR/ad campaigns, walk-ins, phone campaigns, public sentiment, etc.

Let’s say that one of your KPIs is conversion rate.  If the CR (conversion rate) has gone down, what are some of the related factors you should look at? Have impressions increased?  Has click through rates decreased?  What about the external factors?  Was there a price change on your site or on a competitor’s?  Did you get a mention in the press?

With online factors, however, you need to check what keywords drove traffic: Have they been changing over time? Are there major changes to the site? What changes have competitors implemented that could affect your company’s visibility?

Tailor KPIs to your clients

On what level, or for whom, should you write reports?

HE: A web analysis should address the needs and concerns of all stakeholders across different departments, levels and understandings.  Reports should be tailored across different levels of management: Your contact may be concerned with traffic and conversions, while top management is concerned with revenue. It’s impossible to create a report for everyone, but pay attention to who your stakeholders are and who your audience is.

Also, make sure you speak in a language everyone understands. The hotel industry, for example, may track REVPAR (reservation per available room) while the retail industry may want to see same store sale volumes.

What should marketers avoid?

HE: They should be careful about data overflow, because the amount of information they can pull from analytics could yield endless spreadsheets of data.  But great metrics are useless if not analyzed.  You also want to start with an open mind.  Many analysts want to prove a hypothesis that they already have.  Instead, I urge people to look at the data and let it guide your thinking.  Otherwise you’re just creating a self-fulfilling prophecy.

What reporting do marketers often mistake for analysis?

HE: Rather than have a report full of graphs and numbers representing your conversions over time, you should supplement the report with a brief description of what the graphs means, how it affects the business, or how you can further improve your KPIs.

Web Analysis Fundamentals Diagram by analytics guru Avinash Kaushik

What else should web analysis explain?

HE: Find reasons behind your metrics; connect the dots.  Marketers know how to present numbers, but not all marketers provide analysis.  Your analytics will tell you traffic has increased by 30 percent. What it won’t tell you is what online/offline factors contributed to this increase. These answers are always in the data; it’s just knowing where to look.

In summary, what key points should marketers use to ensure better analysis and less data-drenched reporting?

1. Determine the best analytics tools for your needs and resources.
2. Make sure your marketing objectives are in line with the client’s business goals.
3. Uncover factors that lead to increases and decreases in your performance metrics.
4. Tailor your reports across different levels of management.
5. Ensure that analysis includes insights, actions and impact on the company.

So, another day, another Google announcement that shakes the foundations of social and search strategies. Or does it? Here are our initial – and I stress initial – thoughts on Google +1. Right now we’re focusing on the search side of this as that’s the initial thrust of Google’s announcement, and where most consumers will encounter this functionality first.

What is Google+1?

Simply put, it’s Google’s equivalent of the Facebook “like” button – a way of saying “I like this” or “I recommend this”. Of course, Google aren’t using the word “like” anywhere in their PR.

Consumers can click it in both paid and natural search results – for the former, advertisers have to add it as an option. It’s very important to note that consumers need to be signed in to a Google account (AdWords, Analytics, Gmail etc) to see the button and click it. We have to wonder how many consumers are aware they have a Google Account as a result of using one of Google’s products – it’s not something Google have historically promoted.

If you are wondering about your own Google Account at this point, see this page and login to see which products Google associates with your login – and edit your Google Profile. Yes, you have a Google Profile too. Which brings to me to where Google+1 “likes” appear.

Your Google Profile

If you have a Google Account, you have a Google profile. It might not be public, you might never have filled it in, but you do. You can check yours here https://profiles.google.com/

When a consumer clicks the +1 button, this recommendation is shown in their public Google profile. As shown by Mashable’s example :

Will this Impact Search Results?

Yes. Google have stated this will affect SEO/natural search rankings. So, if your brand gets lots of +1 clicks, it could boost your position in results as Google views your site as “recommended” and therefore of interest to it’s consumers. No guarantees, as ever with Google.

Of course, there will be companies who try to “game this”. We already seen a brand encourage retweets as part of a competition, for example, on Twitter. Brands and their agencies will need to decide what they can do to encourage these clicks without crossing the line – and of course, Google will continue to develop their algorithm to counter such efforts; no doubt a sudden flurry of +1 clicks will be seen as of less value that a continual steam of them that suggest genuine “recommendations”.

This also means every time you click the +1 button you are effectively working for Google, helping them improve their results.

Paid Search and +1

PPC advertisers can opt to include the button on their ads. UPDATE: Google tell us will be enabled for all PPC adverts if the searcher is logged in. Then, when logged in consumers can click it and their friends (as determined via Google’s Profile system) will see they did so, as show in these two images from Google, where “Brian Walker” clicked to recommend an ad.

Will this Change PPC Quality Score and Rankings?

No. Google have clearly stated that unlike natural search, this won’t be used at the present time to determine rankings etc. No surprise – there’s an even clearer financial gain to gaming this if it did impact QS and therefore CPCs.

UPDATE: Whilst it might not affect Quality Score, it could increase CTRs and therefore have a beneficial advantage in PPC.

Beyond Search

Like Facebook’s “Like” button, Google will offer a version of this for brands to put on their websites – so start putting real estate on your site aside now.

This is when the +1 button will really take off – consumers may not be logged in, ignore it or not know what it is in search results. Engagement rates on features like “block site” and earlier feedback mechanism in search haven’t been high. On the websites of brands they like, however, they are much more likely to click the +1 button.

Big Brands Gain the Most?

One of our initial reactions to this here is that big brands will gain the most. They have the brand awareness, brand search volumes and onsite traffic levels to attract the most clicks via SERPs and more significantly via their websites when they’ve integrated the button – just like with Facebook’s button.

We’ll blog more and speak to our clients direct as we assess this more, but for now, here’s the initial action points we recommend:

1.     Educate your colleagues – they’ll start seeing the button on English language searches soon (send them this blog’s URL!)

2.     Warn your developers you’ll need some screen space in the future – unfortunately, date TBC from Google on the onsite button at the time of writing

3.     Discuss this for PPC with your agency – will your brand be recommended? Will this improve your CTRs – or a competitors to your disadvantage? Will Google’s Profile network actually connects your consumers and their friends? The penetration of Google in the UK at 90%, for example, won’t translate to that sort of penetration into consumer’s friend network via Google Profiles (did you know you could have one until today?) You can opt out – see the end of this post.

4.     Discuss your SEO and Social integration strategy with Steak. This is something we’ve been doing with clients for some time – in fact, we first engaged in the Yahoo Answers for brands awareness and SEO reasons for a client back in 2008. We’ve written about SEO and Social regularly on Search Engine Watch too.

5.     Open a Google Profile, and try this out for yourself – that’s the best way to understand it further.

Conclusion

This will be big – because it’s from Google. The real growth in +1 clicks will be once it’s onsite and not just in SERPs; but for search it is now part of strategies going forward.

In social, this could be the way Google finally manages to attract consumers to it’s social platform – whatever that will look like beyond a Google Profile – but it’s early days. It’s not a Facebook or Twitter killer, that is for sure; if anything, Google will try to be the place your profiles merge and connect across social networks and their product network.

The question is: do you actually want to connect those worlds? We’ll leave that hanging in the air for now…

We’ll post more search and social thoughts as our analysis of this develops.

Sources:

Google’s +1 Announcement
Mashable’s original post

UPDATE: We’ve just had an email from Google UK – sign-up to find out when the onsite button is available here.

UPDATE 2: It’s not opt in for PPC; it’ll be turned on as standard (above edited accordingly). AdWords customers can request an opt out here.

Depending on who you speak to, search engine optimization (SEO) is either largely influenced or not at all influenced by social media. I’m sure everyone has their own opinions, case studies, and sites that show greater or lesser correlations between their social media engagement levels and their natural search results.

If you were to carry out an investigation into whether social media was a big influencing factor, which metrics would you want to monitor in order to base your insights on more empirical data?

I’ve put together a list of 13 ranking factors below. Feel free to use these and any others you can get your grubby SEO mitts on!

1. Number of Followers (Twitter)

You’ll need your own corporate Twitter feed, which brings its own problems around brand protection and also the potential for dealing with customer service enquiries, but the more followers you have, the more authoritative your Twitter persona and the more value will be associated with your URL (assuming you have remembered to link to it).

2. Quality of Followers (Twitter)

The best followers are the ones with their own communities of followers. The more high value people who follow you, and retweet your stuff, the better.

3. Relevance of Followers (Twitter)

It’s one thing getting followed and retweeted by Stephen Fry with over a million followers, but it’s also important to get the same response from accounts that are more specific to your industry. Someone with “fashion” in their description who retweets your “20 percent off the new spring collection” offer is equally valuable.

4. Number of Retweets (Twitter)

Most likely as a ratio of tweets to retweets — the more your content is reproduced by others the more authoritative it is. Obviously the more followers you have, the more likely you are to be retweeted. However, it isn’t just about retweeting other people’s content or dishing out promotions. It’s about engaging in conversation with people in the industry.

5. Number of Fans (Facebook)

You’ll need to create your own corporate profile on Facebook, which brings the same potential banana skins as a corporate Twitter feed, only multiplied numerous times due to the sheer level of engagement of people on Facebook. However, if you decide to engage with customers and potential customers on Facebook, the total number of likes your page receives will add value to your URL.

6. Number of Comments (Facebook)

A large number of likes, but little engagement, is a sure sign of someone gaming the system. People will tend to like you if you talk to them. Successful Facebook pages include a lot of content written by other people.

7. Number of Views (YouTube)

An obvious one, but any content you upload to YouTube should link to your site in the description, and the more times it is viewed, the more value will be attributed to your video.

8. User Comments (YouTube)

YouTube is also about engaging with other YouTubers and commenting on popular videos. The more you comment, the more link juice is passed back to your profile.

9. References From Independent Profiles (YouTube)

Using YouTube can bring in some really good authority if done brilliantly — if your link from your video passes some value, imagine how much more value would be passed if you could get other people to parody your work and include links to you from their profiles. The prime example remains the Cadbury’s Gorilla, but there are lots of interesting mini-campaigns trying to leverage the above.

10. Title of Video (YouTube)

Any references to your target keywords in the title of the video will help ensure that any authority passed will be relevant to a specific theme. Keywords should also be in the tags and or transcript where possible.

11. Percent of Likes vs. Dislikes (YouTube)

Easy one. The more liked your content is, the more authoritative it is.

12. Positive vs. Negative Brand Mentions (All Social Media)

Use a tool like Radian6, or a free tool, and ensure that you have significantly more positive brand mentions than negative. It won’t be 100 percent accurate as these things don’t pick up on sarcasm. But Google has already made investment in this area in 2011, so it’s well worth monitoring.

13. Number of Social Mentions (All Potential Media)

Total visibility across all social media shows that your content is important to all people and not just a result of a large special offer for Facebook/Twitter users. HowSociable is a simple way of giving yourself a rating here.

Alex Cohen yesterday wrote about how paid results are increasingly getting clicks at the expense of organic results in “PPC vs. SEO: Paid Search as Your Organic Competitor.”

Today, we’ll look at some of the changes in how we attribute value in SEO, and how we’re increasingly turning to tactics that were previously considered to be the realm of paid search professionals in order to meet client expectations.

Three trends have led this charge:

1.A clear and continuing drop in the value of major generic keywords in natural search (historic data, Google products, use of search).
2.Renewed interest in exactly how the “halo” effect of optimization works and how ROI can be attributed.
3.Speed of results from good optimization.
Drop in Generic Keywords in Natural Search

This has been driven partly by people and partly by the search engines. Check Google Trends for any number of “high volume” generic keywords (car insurance, televisions, loans, dishwashers, handbags, etc.) and you’ll see a consistent trend over the last five years.

While I wouldn’t necessarily put 100 percent faith in the figures, they would reflect a degree of reality from what I see in client campaigns.

Look at searches for [televisions]:

Aside from drop in volumes, the space attributed to natural search results has been quite drastically cut in a number of areas.

Paid search results consistently give three listings at the top of the page now, with sitelinks and product feed results too. They can even push natural search listings below the fold on some screens.

To further complicate matters, there are now many more “products” (e.g., local business results, shopping feed listings) to compete against. In a world where rankings used to really matter, position three is no longer position three.

Renewed Focus on ‘Halo’ Search Traffic

Anyone who has ever optimized their own website will tell you that building links for a certain keyword (e.g., “hamster cage”) will improve your ranking. But these links, as well as URL and branded links, will also improve the overall authority of your site after you get your first number one ranking, making it easier for your site to rank more easily for other keywords.

Attributing this value, however, is actually quite hard unless you’re starting from scratch.

The upshot has been that keyword ranking reports are getting bigger and bigger in order to more clearly show traffic increases as direct results of specific keyword ranking improvements. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, as long as other metrics like the total number of keywords driving traffic are also considered.

This is in turn moving us toward reports that include so much keyword data that merging PPC and SEO reports at keyword level could become much easier.

It has also meant that the keywords being targeted for SEO are bigger in number. Consider making bigger lists of categorized keywords for SEO a part of your strategy.

SEO Techniques Work Much Quicker Than Ever Before

This can be attributed to a number of factors and developments. But the sheer speed of indexing from Google in particular has undoubtedly been a factor.

On the plus side: small keywords can be targeted more easily, as the results of your activities are that much quicker and more transparent than ever before.

All in all, the keyword research and granular focus of PPC is becoming ever more a part of SEO — and this is no bad thing!

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/13/business/13search.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1&ref=penneyjccompany

The main bit of news in the story is that a company can get great natural search rankings by getting links from what would be considered by most SEOs to be pretty low-quality link partners, and that now they have been caught out, JC Penney are 1. Claiming to have known nothing about those links being built by an outside contractor, and 2. removing those links as Google has given them a penalty.

In response to point 1, many digital marketing departments are now asking whether or not they could be in a similar position. From Steak’s point of view, none of our clients have link profiles like the one in the story in the NYT, and many of our clients can log into our link building reporting software at any time to see the links we have identified, made contact with and added so they can audit the quality themselves. Those that aren’t set up on this reporting tool can request link building reports separately should they wish.

Ultimately, this is good news for the SEO industry, it should increase Google’s focus on rewarding relevant links above volume of links, and ensure that agencies which focus on best practice will outperform those which like to try and find ways to beat the system. It is also a tiny little win for agencies like Steak who are prepared to be completely transparent in their approach to SEO.

Two subjects have been prominent in search engine optimization (SEO) over the last month or so: the quality of sites appearing in Google’s results, and the impact of social media links on ranking.

We noticed a couple of fairly major changes on Sunday in rankings for a couple of verticals where the volume of contextual links and number of linking domains were favored.

This is different than the trend we saw in November/December when on-site content, social media visibility, and especially link profile diversity were favored.

Although this is a heavily generalized summary of what we saw, it strongly indicates that while social media links have been increasingly making their presence felt in the SERPs, the engines (in particular Google) may be responding to an increase in “manipulative social activity.”

Perhaps Google has changed how it treats these links since the announcement that social media activity is indeed a ranking factor, (although it’s still unclear how big a portion of the algorithm they occupy).

While a lot of testing and theorizing is occurring in the SEO community regarding the what, why, and how of social media as a ranking factor, there are certain fundamentals of using social media as part of your campaign that aren’t likely to change — some simple dos and don’ts.

There are many factors to take into account when looking at individual social sites; the points below are meant to act as a general guide.

Do:

• Forge real social relationships in your verticals. Having a large number of followers/friends is nice, but it’s the people you have a one-to-one connection with who are more likely retweet, share, and Like your content.
• Pay attention to the numbers you can’t see. With social media it’s easy to get caught up with simple metrics like number of tweets, followers, and friends when assessing the value of an individual’s social profile. You’d be better served examining the entire “profile web” associated with that person. Are their followers also authoritative (who follows the followers)? Are they semantically relevant? How widely are their contributions shared (and by who)?

Don’t:

• Expect a ranking spike every time. But monitor the different conditions under which they occur and note correlations.
• Rely on the big numbers. Again, certain metrics and be misleading. You wouldn’t just look at visible PageRank when prospecting for links.
• Spam! This should go without saying, but doing things like firing out post after post of nothing but promotional material, paying bots for retweets, etc., won’t do much other than alienate both users and search engines alike.

As with regular backlinks, it’s quality and not necessarily quantity that will win the day with social SEO.

It’s also important to note that the more traditional, contextual, anchor text focused link is by no means dead and buried. The mantra for the “future proof” natural search campaign should remain: “create valuable content, share appropriately, and target a wide range of channels.”

It’s that time of year again. SEO bloggers are either looking back at their predictions for 2010 and seeing how right (or wrong) they were, or making entirely new predictions for 2011 — possibly because they were so wrong last year that it wasn’t worth looking back?

I want to focus on just one prediction for 2011 and then go ahead and try to make it happen on behalf of my clients. This seems like a more simple task than coming up with five or 10 predictions, knowing that some of them were made up simply so that I could fill a blog post.

The big news in SEO recently was the revelation that social media signals affect natural search rankings, from interviews with people at both Google and Bing — although no indication was given to how much they affect rankings.

To be fair, if you were a search engine and wanted to know what brands, websites, and general content people wanted to interact with online, where would you go first? It has an added benefit for those who think that the SERPs are a bit spammy (I’m not one of them, for the record).

One way of reducing the number of arguably lower quality websites would be to look at who the popular brands are in the social media space and try to reward them with more authority.

How can SEOs take advantage of what seems to be a clear shift toward sentiment as an extra factor in achieving better rankings?

A growing number of SEO techniques can be undertaken with SEO, and specifically link building, in mind — from PR and advertorials to advertising on relevant industry websites.

In 2011, I expect this to become more closely tied with clients’ overall marketing campaigns. The best way to explain this is with an example:

Client A is a retailer, looking to boost sales of a specific range of camping equipment products. Special offers, promotions, and TV advertising is all planned and will revolve around a creative execution involving a character who will appear in their ads.

The opportunities for SEO here are endless, and need to be part of the initial planning, not an afterthought. For example:

•TV ads to be backed up with a strong PR campaign, aimed at increasing the number of brand and URL links to the client’s site.
•The specialist nature of the goods is such that a blogger outreach campaign can be undertaken, looking for product reviews, advertising opportunities, contextual links, or at least deep links from these relevant sites.
•The ad campaign’s character will have a Facebook and Twitter presence. If it is an engaging campaign, they will get a lot of followers and their profile will have strong social signals, which can then add value when linking back to the site.
•Key influencers for this market on Twitter and Facebook can be contacted and encouraged to review products, follow the main character and will retweet, “Like,” and re-post special offers or product insights.
•A campaign to win a free camping stove can be run as an “online game” (like the “throw the penguin” game, for example) and embedded on blogger sites to increase usage. It can also contain backlinks.
This gives us a “natural” balance between followed and no-followed links, contextual versus brand and URL links, from a variety of highly relevant sources, and also leverages the social media “buzz” metrics as further opportunities.

The point is that SEO, rather than being purely an ongoing process of optimization, will be more influential as part of a campaign-led marketing strategy. In 2011, we’ll need to work with our clients to ensure this happens.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

As it is much easier for people to tweet the link than add it to a website, Steak are lending a hand in the form of this short blog post, with the required link as follows:

Help end Hunger in Sierra Leone and meet the life you change.

Obviously this is the website of a very worthy cause on top of everything else and we await the results of the test with baited breath!