WASHINGTON, DC – SEO buzz seems to indicate that Google’s May Day algorithm change has negatively affected many websites that were gaming the system.

Well, if you were to poll about 100 search engine optimization (SEO) professionals at their next convention, most of them would have said (or continue to say) that inbound links, or backlinks, are the number one most important thing to getting found on Google.  Moreover, those inbound links determine a site’s PageRank, or Google PR, which is an indicator of how relevant or significant a website is across the universe.

In my recent blog post on SEO Quotient, I presented some data that might indicate that just because you have a high SEO analysis score, which includes a strong PageRank and significant inbound links, that doesn’t mean you are going to rank well on Google – at least for now.

Case in point: WebsiteGrader vs. SEOmoz.

WebsiteGrader is a PR6 site with 704 inbound links (backlinks) according to Google and 34,921 inlinks according to Yahoo. 

SEOmoz, on the other hand, is a PR8 site with 1,710 inbound links according to Google and a whopping 207,596 inlinks according to Yahoo.

But, if you look at Alexa, both sites are about neck and neck with Websitegrader (2,049) only slightly trailing SEOmoz (1,703).  According to Compete, Websitegrader (PR6) smashes SEOmoz (PR8) with an estimated visitor count of 494,00 monthly visits to SEOmoz estimated 173,000 monthly visits.

But the real evidence is in the actual search results.  Both websites, Websitegrader.com and SEOmoz.org represent “SEO analysis tools” that provide “free SEO reports” and “website analysis“.  So, when you Google these search terms, you’ll see:

Websitegrader (PR6) ranks first page for:

• SEO analysis tool
• Website analysis tool
• Website SEO tool
• Free SEO report

SEOmoz (PR8) only ranks first page for:

• SEO tools

So, how can a website in the same industry, optimized for the same keyword phrases, with a PR8, 1,710 inbound links according to Google and 207,596 inbound links according to Yahoo underperform a site with a fraction of the credibility?

Obviously, there are other factors at play.

One interesting note is that Websitegrader has 38,696 Twitter followers to SEOmoz 15,542.  Moreover, Websitegrader has 15,542 Facebook fans (likes) compared to SEOmoz 3,023.  Perhaps Google is paying more attention to social media than previous indicators like inbound links.

Food for thought.

Washington, DC – If you’ve ever watched my video, “If you want to get found on Google,” then you will know that a good SEO strategy always starts with discovering your keywords using that language of your targeted audience.

I work with a lot of doctors and dentists, for example, and they tend to use these highly clinical medical terms.  When they blog and write web content, it is always too high-level.  The words that they often use does not match with the search terms that their targeted audience would most likely use in a Google search to find a new doctor or dentist in their area.

I have discovered that Craigslist is a brilliant method and tool for keyword discovery.  It doesn’t work for all professions or services categories, but it certainly works for web design and SEO.

This is how you do it…

Step 1 : Go to Craigslist and click on a densely populated city like NYC.

Step 2: Enter a high level, broad term that describes your profession

Step 3: Select the pull-down that relates best to you

Step 4: Click seach and study the results

I did this recently for the following search criteria: Los Angeles Craigslist > WordPress > All Gigs.  I discovered the language that people are using to find companies like mine:

• WordPress knowledge
• Graphic designer
• WordPress tutor
• Web Designer
• Web Developer for WordPress
• WordPress Site
• WordPress – Portfolio
• Code Geek
• WordPress Designer
• WordPress Guru
• WordPress assistant
• WordPress, CSS, PHP Expert
• WordPress & Javascript Developer
• Experienced WordPress plugin PHP developer
• WordPress experts
• WordPress Genius

The list goes on and on.  See if you can find creative ways to listen to your targeted audience and discover the keywords that they use to describe you, your company and your services.

WASHINGTON DC, Social Media Marketing Consultant

One of the most important reasons to use social media marketing for business is to pull visitors into your website from where they hang out online. Twitter is a great example. Some people are addicted to Twitter. They actually hang out on Twitter and use Twitter more than they use Google or Facebook. In fact, if you are looking for real-time results, what people are actually talking about and buzzing about right now in a live environment, Twitter is probably the number one place to be.

But, the problem is that it takes time and we are all short of that. So, a very time-efficient way of reaching out or performing social outreach on sites like Twitter is to push your news, blog and web content out to Twitter and hope that people find your Tweets and then click back to your website, thereby drawing more people in.

One of the best tools out there for feeding your Twitter profile is TwitterFeed.  It’s quick, easy and relatively secure. 

NOTE: Sometimes, when you use third party sites to feed your twitter, it gets hacked or hijacked by spammers.  So, if you start noticing a lot of your own Tweets that you don’t recognize or that you are following a bunch of new people that you don’t recognize, it is a good sign that your Twitter feed has been hacked.  You will want to change your password and find another vehicle for feeding your Twitter.

Step 1: Create your account on TwitterFeed

Step 2: Define your feeds

1. Create the feed
2. Assign a name so you know the source of the information
3. Specify the RSS.  With WordPress, it is simply your domain.com/feed/
4. Test the feed to make sure it is working



5. Authenticate your Twitter account

Step 3: Monitor the results

WASHINGTON DC, WordPress and SEO expert tips and advice. 

Have you ever studied a Google results page?  Typically, there is a list of 10 links and the structure of the results page is something like a series of these listings: 

The question are: 

1. How is the text in the link derived?
2. How do you control that information?
3. How is the snippet information derived?
4. How is that controlled or specified?
5. Does the link text or title tag affect your search performance?
6. Does the snippet or meta description tag help you get found on Google?

Answers: 

1. The text link is derived from your Title tag, which lives in the head section of your source code. 
2. If you are using WordPress, which I highly recommend, that information is controlled by the Subject line.  When you are in your WordPress admin dashboard and you create a new post, there is a subject line, “Enter title here”. This is where you enter the title tag information.

   

3. The snipped information is derived dynamically by Google.  If you have not set or specified the meta content=”description” tag, then Google will simply grab whatever information it can find – usually the first 150 characters of text in the content page. 
4. This information can be controlled within WordPress.  If you are using the All-in-one-SEO plugin on WordPress, then you can specify this content=”description” tag and control the Google search results snippet.

   

5. The Title tag is probably the single most important piece of information on your web page that helps you get found on Google according to your most important keyword search terms.  So, if you know the search terms that your targeted website audience will use to look for a website like yours, then this information needs to be in the subject line or title of your blog post.  You have about 70 characters to work with, so be concise with your headings. 
6. The description tag does not necessarily help you get found on Google.  However, it does affect your conversion or click-through rate.  The information in the description tag (or the snippet information on the Google results page) will often influence whether or not a Google visitor clicks on your link or some other link.  So, while this snippet doesn’t help you get found, it does help convert Google visitors to visitors on your website.

So, I took my virgin voyage of article writing on Biznik and was thrilled to find my article featured on the home page with favorable comments and a nifty rating.  What a great way to establish yourself in your field and establish your brand.