If you could do only three things for SEO, what would they be? This is a question encountered by many smaller businesses, and even somewhat larger companies, either due to not having enough people (time) and/or dollars available to invest in a big way.
If this is a scenario you’re facing, what follows are three minimal SEO tasks you must do.
Step 1: Check Your Indexing Status
The first step is to make sure that your site is getting found! The best way to do this is to check your indexing status in Google Webmaster Tools and see how many of your pages are indexed by Google. Once you’re logged in, click on “Health” and then “Index status” in the menu on the left.
I like to go a little further and click the “Advanced” button as well, which brings me to a screen like this:
The first thing to look at is the number of indexed pages, in this case, 887. How many did you expect? Obviously, if you think you have 1,000+ pages that you want Google to index and Google shows 10 indexed pages, you have a problem. In the case of this particular site, the problem looks to be the opposite of that – 887 pages indexed and 5,751 “Not Selected”?
This could be an indication of a lot of pages that are duplicates, near duplicates, pages with the noindex tag on them, or URLs that Google found that redirect to another page. Here is what Google says about this status:
Not Selected: URLs from your site that redirect to other pages or URLs whose contents are substantially similar to other pages.
To keep this simple, the bottom line here is to get a quick indication whether you have a problem. Too few pages being indexed? You have a problem. Too many, or too many that are “Not Selected”, that could be a problem too.
If you find you have a problem, what is the next step?
Unfortunately, that isn’t an easy one to take on by yourself, due to your time constraints. That means the next step is to get some help and to get your indexing problem diagnosed and fixed.
(Footnote to this diagnosis step: Some blog software packages, such as WordPress, create lots of category type pages, and these could explain why you have a lot of pages that were Not Selected, but you still need to determine how you want to address that, and expert advice on that topic is still something you should get).
(Footnote 2: Definitely check the indexing status in Google Webmaster Tools instead of using the “site:” query operator in a Google search, because the Webmaster Tools number is the “real number” and what you get from a site:query is not.)
Step 2: Focus Site on Target Keywords
The next step is to figure out whether you are effectively competing for keywords that users might enter into a search engine, which would indicate that they are a prospect for you.
If one of the products you offer is left-handed golf clubs as a product, for example, is there a page on your site focused on left-handed golf clubs? If this is one of your products, at a minimum, you need a page dedicated to left-handed golf clubs where the search phrase “left handed golf clubs” is featured in the title of the web page (this is the title tag in the head section of your web page source code), and in the content on the page.
Implement such pages for each major product/service you offer. Pay a lot of attention to your title tags, and they can help you understand how to focus your pages. I have two golden rules for title tags.
The Defense Department has decided to make it impossible to reach 13 Web sites from its network, citing an overabundance of “recreational traffic.”
Guess which ones…
MySpace, YouTube, Metacafe, IFilm, StupidVideos, FileCabi, BlackPlanet, Hi5, Pandora, MTV, 1.fm, live365 and Photobucket
I can’t put my finger on it, but something is wrong here. Feel more like treating a symptom and not addressing the problem. While the issues are different, business faces the same challenge – and has blocked many of these as well.
I wonder what the younger workers and customers (and soldiers) think.
As I got ready to add a new post here after some delay. I realized it had been quite some time and I went through the painful process of recalling my id & password. This is a several step process:
- Think hard – try to remember
- Try some of the usual suspects
- Pray that my trusty Firefox browser has retained the information
- Search my home email for the magic email
- Search my work email
- Sob quietly
Needless to say, I finally made it in with few tears. Just glad I was not under these crazy password rules.
All this got me to thinking, protecting our information is critical in the information age – be it personal or business – and the dominant solution is just short of the same method used to secure speakeasys during prohibition.
Sure there are lots of emerging methods out there, but I have yet to see one take hold and at least have a chance of scaling broadly to the masses. Seems like this would be one of the key issues to address.
I have had a few opportunities to hear Fred Garcia of the Logos Institute discuss reputation management/crisis management issues. Fred does an excellent job in translating deep thinking into the bite-sized chunks I seem to need more and more to internalize heady concepts.
I was delighted to hear Logos entered the blogosphere awhile back. I was always of the opinion that, if they decided to do a blog, it would be a good one.
Social networking offers significant opportunities for organizations, but things can go awry if you don’t do you homework. Homework that requires multiple sources and points of view. The Logos blog might be a good one for you to include in this mix.
I love the street view feature on Google maps. Prior to a recent trip to San Diego, I used it to “walk around” the area near my hotel to see where I might want to grab dinner. I am profoundly directionally challenged, and street view has helped me get by in new locations.
Maps and street view also have created some unexpected issues. It you luck is wrong, timing might result is a nice photo of you walking by/past/in locations that may or may not be the ones you want the entire world to view. To address this, Google is now working to blur faces on their street view feature with Google Maps.
Makes sense, and they get to test their chops at face recognition software, but a somewhat surprising place for privacy issues to emerge.
There are a lot of funny situations (staged or not-staged) that hide in the mountains of info churned through in Maps. … from cars parked on the sides of buildings to a plastic bag used as the ultimate “face blur“
Kelly Thul, State Farm Insurance
I have toyed around with how to coordinate my posts here with posts to my personal blog. Subject matter is basically the same, but I was looking to avoid the appearances of shameless self promotion.
Thought I’d give a shot at a weekly recap with a dab of additional context, so.. in the past week or so…
- I was pointed to a great video that animates each major social networking tool and pits real life interaction against things virtual.
- Found YouTube’s creative interface to navigate across related videos.
- Learned more about the risks and downsides of keeping my data in the cloud.
- Shared, with the appropriate disclaimer, a pretty amazing video of the Colorado tornado.
Kelly Thul, State Farm Insurance
The Blog Council’s Disclosure Best Practices Toolkit is a draft series of checklists to help companies, their employees, and their agencies learn the appropriate and transparent ways to interact with blogs, bloggers, and the people who interact with them.
“We believe in the principles of transparency and openness, and this document is a way of making this real on the inside. Our goal is not to create or propose new industry standards or rules. These checklists are open source training tools designed to help educate the hundreds or thousands of employees in any large corporation the appropriate ways to interact with the social media community.”
Is your enterprise search implementation doomed to fail before it even gets off the ground?
Lynda Moulton, Gilbane’s Lead Analyst for Enterprise Search, recently spent countless hours researching the enterprise search market so you wouldn’t have to. Get an inside look at the industry and learn how to map your search strategy to the right vendor. Included in the report is “practical guidance about product evaluation, selection, implementation, deployment and maintenance.” http://www.isys-search.com/downloads/whitepapers/searchreport.html?source=kmnl08 |
Nathan Gilliatt (moderator of next week’s Executing Social Media Conference, Atlanta, October 15-16, has compiled an excellent list of free social media monitoring tools.
“If you’re a manager trying to make the case that your company should listen to social media, these free services from social media analysis vendors will help you justify the budget to keep going,” writes Gilliatt.
Check out the list.
“A PR Professional’s Guide to SEO” offers insight into ways PR professionals can successfully build their company’s reputation, create an online library of news and impact sales.
The free Vocus white paper covers:
• How media and consumers are looking for news and information about products and services
• Traditional press releases vs. Search Engine Optimized press releases
• How to write your press release to ensure visibility and profitability
• Benefits of integrating all of your PR and marketing messages with optimized content
Download the white paper at http://www.vocus.com/seoguidewp
For those of you who claim social media cannot help you due to the niche you are in, I highly doubt it. Here is a list of the top social media sites per their niche. Check them out and start using them to your benefit, these sites can generate a large amount of traffic when used properly. Don’t Forget To Bookmark!
Q&A with BL Ochman, President, whatsnextonline.com, Inc., and Christopher Barger, Director, Global Communications Technology, General Motors. They are panelists for the December 10, 2008 Communitelligence Webinar: GETTING REAL ABOUT SOCIAL MEDIA. You can purchase the replay here.
What do you see your biggest social media hurdle you face today, and why?
Christopher Barger: It’s a combination of three things. One, legal departments haven’t quite gotten their heads around instant — and “human” — interaction; well-intended but overbearing interference from legal could do anything from stifling potentially useful conversations to damaging an organization’s reputation online.
Two, there are still (inexplicably to me!) some holdouts within the communications profession who still really want to live in the world they know — print reporters and occasionally broadcast media — and who resent and resist the emergence and inclusion of social media in corporate communications programs. Yes, they’ll eventually either retire, be forced by reality to adjust their attitudes, or be left by the wayside of our profession, but their attitudes remain a current hurdle.
And three… just to be a little controversial here… there are a few bloggers who have begun to get a bit heady with their newfound importance, and have started getting a bit exploitative in their relationships with companies. A small but vocal group of bloggers is emerging who suddenly believe themselves entitled to treatment that traditional media doesn’t even get — and then will write negatively about you if you don’t coddle and cater to them. I believe that these few bad apples overplaying their hands could end up hurting everyone else… if industry is still looking for a reason to be dismissive of social media, they’re being handed one.
BL Ochman: Companies are overwhelmed by the changes brought about since everyone has the tools to make his/her voice heard and they don’t know how to respond. There is a lot of fear among CMOs and CEOs.
What advice do you have for those just launching social media efforts for their organizations?
Christopher Barger: First, develop a policy on social media engagement, and make sure to distribute and disperse that policy across your organization as you launch your program. Doing so protects your employees and your organization… you can’t ask people to engage without giving them parameters for doing so, and you can’t discipline anyone for writing or doing something you didn’t tell them not to do.
Second, recognize that you’re going to make some mistakes “out there” — and that’s okay. We’re all experimenting a little bit; not everything is going to take off or do as well as we all might hope when we dream it up. As long as you avoid the egregious mistakes that go against what social media is all about — transparency, openness, dialogue — your audience will forgive you a misstep or two. Don’t be afraid to try something new — nor to take lessons from a flop and see it as a positive.
Finally, understand that social media is not about the technologies of “Web 2.0.” In some respects, the medium (blogs, podcasts, vlogs, social networks, microblogging networks) is irrelevant — or at least is nowhere near as relevant as the audience dynamic behind these technologies’ emergence. Audiences expect organizations to be in two-way, dialogical conversations, and to eschew safe corporate-speak or spin for “real” talk. Grasping that expectation and executing it is far more important than the technology you’re using to do it. I sometimes see a tendency to become distracted by whatever the new “in” technology or medium is, and to lose focus on what drives the adoption of these technologies in the first place. Most of all, organizations must understand that social media channels are not just new collections of eyeballs, new channels on which to engage the tactics we’ve always used… these audiences don’t want to be messaged to.
BL Ochman: Everyone and her dog says they are a social media marketer. Look for ones who have a track record with real clients. Do not turn social media over to your ad agency under any circumstances.
Funny place to put this in a blog, but ran across an article called “Twitter, Flickr, Facebook Make Blogs Look So 2004” from Wired Magazine. Here is the article for you to check out.
What do you all think?
Paul Gillin wrote the book on influencers (The New Influencers). His new book,Secrets of Social Media Marketing continues the exploration of what’s different about the new world of social media. You can hear what this social media deep thinker is thinking about these days is during the upcoming webinar, HOW TO BECOME A THOUGHT LEADER FOR $0.
What do you think is the single most important concept most marketers miss when they start thinking about adding social media to their traditional marketing programs?
Gillin: Viewing it as just another channel. Social media requires an entirely different view of marketing, one that emphasizes give-and-take instead of messaging. If you see it as just another way to deliver a press release, you’re missing the whole point. This is about conversations, not messages.
Why is important to consider becoming a thought leader as a way of helping to market your brand?
Gillin: People buy brands that they trust, so what better way to establish trust than to position yourself as a visionary and a thought leader? Show prospects and customers that you have a vision for where a category is heading and that you can help them realize the optimum value from their investments. Advising them and helping them is a much more effective way to gain their trust than messaging them.
The Global Social Media Network has reconfigured Peter Kim’s list of what companies are doing with social media to make it useful if you want to look at examples based on category:
- applications
- social networks
- online video
- blogging
- podcasting
- widgets
- crowdsourcing
- bookmarking/tagging
- microblogging (i.e twitter)
- photosharing
- blogger/vlogger/general outreach
- wikis
- virtual worlds
- mashups
- word of mouth
- PR
- sponsorships
- ratings and reviews
- discussion boards / social polling; And
- brand monitoring
See the list here.
A very nice resource and one I will continue to follow. Lisa Baziel of Ignite Social Media took 26 companies that she liked from Peter Kim’s more extensive list of corporate examples of social media use to take a closer look at and review. Here is her starting list to look at:
- Animal Planet
- Best Western
- Clorox
- Del Monte
- ExxonMobil
- Fandango
- Graco
- HomeGoods
- Ikea
- Joffrey’s
- Kraft
- Library of Congress
- Miller Brewing Co
- National Geographic
- Open Table
- Patagonia
- Quicken
- Rubbermaid
- SELF Magazine
- Taco Bell
- United Kingdom Government
- Victoria’s Secret
- WhirlPool
- Xerox
- Yoplait
- Zappos
Here is her post on the project and where you can find some of her reviews.
With Twitter all over CNN, bubbling up in the news and welcoming an influx of new users and companies, it’s time to round up great beginner’s guides.
Read Laura (@Pitaschio) Fitton’s article, and attend her Communitelligence Webinar: Twitter For Business: ABCs of Microsharing, December 4, 2PM ET (or purchase the CD). |
Posted on Monday, Nov 03, 2008 – 05:51:00 PM CST by jgceo |
Post a Comment |
Comments |
RE: Getting Started on Twitter: Great Roundup of Great Beginner’s Guides |
Just discovered another good resource on Squidoo: 50 Ways to Use Twitter. Nice list of add-on tools like Tweet Scan for search and one I want to try: twitterfeed.com Here’s how to get your blog (or any other RSS or Atom feed) twittering. See at: http://www.squidoo.com/UseTwitter |
yson Foods is making a a real world impact through its social media participation.
Tyson offered to donate 100 pounds of food to a food bank in Austin, TX for every comment left on its Hunger Relief blog. They filled the truck in less than 6 hours and the post has more than 650 comments to date.
According to Ed Nicholson, Director of Community and Public Relations at Tyson Foods, Tyson measures its social media success “by the people with whom we’re building relationships and engaging in conversation. I personally believe social media attract a greater concentration of the people Seth Godin refers to as ‘sneezers,’ people who have the credibility, the networks and the capacity to spread stories far and wide. I want to see our company engaged with these people.”
Read the full article on Disruptology Blog.
A composite of posts to Twitter by Alicia Staley (@stales) and John Gerstner (jgerst) during Paul Gillin’s HOW TO BE AN INFLUENCER Communitelligence Webinar, now available on CD.
Here’s a glimpse of what Gillin covered:
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stales: @pgillin tap into ready made networks – do you really need to start your own social network? Take a look first #influencer
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stales: @pgillin Podcasting is evolving as a very effective b2b platform #influencer
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stales: @pgillin Listening to your webinar – awesome stuff! thank you! #influencer
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stales: Paul Gillin – start with an objective, not a tool. #influencer
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stales: Paul Gillin – dive into the conversations in order to provide value. #influencer
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stales: Paul Gillin – cheaper to keep information than throw it away… #influencer
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stales: Paul Gillin – niche market social networks: great opportunity here. #influencer
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stales: Paul Gillin – “Don’t boil the ocean.” re: social networks: yes, there’s a ton out there, but don’t need to be on every one #influencer
@pgilling Here’s the article, Are Blogs Passe, that I mentioned. It gets really good right at the end. Credit: Wired mag. http://is.gd/6wRi3:08 PM yesterday from web
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@MicheleMT no problem … and thanks. You can see other tweets of @pgillin webinar at #influencer 3:04 PM yesterday from web in reply to MicheleMT
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@stales sorry missed the #influencer tag up for @pgillin webinar (my bad). I’ll put both our tweets into a blog post on Comm-tell.com 3:01 PM yesterday from web in reply to stales
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We’ll be down to only about 5 national newspapers in 15 years due to economics. Paul Gillin Communitelligence webinar http://is.gd/5fUe2:05 PM yesterday from web
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People don’t want messages anymore. Paul Gillin Communitelligence webinar http://is.gd/5fUe2:01 PM yesterday from web
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Customers don’t expect to be treated badly anymore. Must map every interaction. Paul Gillin Communitelligence webinar http://is.gd/5fUe1:48 PM yesterday from web
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iRobot “productizing” the roomba by customer ideas, designs via contests, etc. Paul Gillin Communitelligence webinar http://is.gd/5fUe1:45 PM yesterday from web
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Bad reviews make your marketing more real. WOM: Woot. Artful Homes. Jockey. Paul Gillin Communitelligence webinar http://is.gd/5fUe1:43 PM yesterday from web
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Social networks are going Long Tail. Nikon on Flickr. 60,000 members. Paul Gillin Communitelligence webinar http://is.gd/5fUe1:40 PM yesterday from web
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Talking about Future Shop. Paul Gillin Communitelligence webinar http://is.gd/5fUe1:34 PM yesterday from web
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Talking about self-appointed celebrity, Reba Haas, Seattle real estate agent . Paul Gillin Communitelligence webinar http://is.gd/5fUe1:28 PM yesterday from web
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Everything is moving online. It’s cheaper to keep info than throw away. Paul Gillin Communitelligence webinar 1:24 PM yesterday from web
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Paul Gillin Communitelligence webinar: 2700 social networks, thousands springing up on niche topics, all looking for expert sources. 1:21 PM yesterday from web
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Paul Gillin Communitelligence webinar: Don’t spend time redesigning your homepage. Spend it on search engine optimization. 1:18 PM yesterday from web
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Paul Gillin Communitelligence webinar: Google is equalizing brand loyalty. People don’t search on NYTimes — that’s good for you. 1:17 PM yesterday from web
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Paul Gillin Communitelligence webinar: Mainstream media are turning to bloggers and social networks for experienced sources for stories. 1:15 PM yesterday from web
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Paul Gillin: craigslist.org is “singlehandedly dismantling the US newspaper industry.” 1:11 PM yesterday from web
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Paul Gillin’s How to be an influencer webinar http://is.gd/5fUe started. He’s talking about Fark, Mommycast & Craig Newmark
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Purchase webinar replay:
Kyle Lacy pointed us to the Wave.3 Presentation from Universal McCann which included the following facts relating to the power of social media.
1. 394 million people watch video clips online
2. 346 million reaqd blogs/weblogs
3. 321 million Read personal blogs/weblogs
4. 307 million visit a friends social network page
5. 303 million SHARE a video clip (viral marketing anyone?)
6. 272 million manage a profile on a social network
7. 248 million upload photos
8. 216 million Download a video podcast
9. 215 million download a podcast
10. 184 million started a blog or weblog
11. 183 million uploaded a video clip
12. 160 million subscribed to an RSS Feed
Read the other 8 reasons you shouldn’t ignore social media for business.