Quick Fast SEO Competitive Analysis

How to Analyze Your SEO Competitors

This is part two of a series on fast SEO competitive analysis. In part one we focused on keyword research, using the competitive landscape as a foundation for strategy, understanding, and finally using search volume estimates to get clients excited about the opportunity in search. In part one the groundwork was laid for identifying areas of high opportunity, and part two we will look at:

1. Understanding search behavior and choosing target keyword categories.
2. Competing content comparison

Tools used:

• Google Sheets (Excel works)
• Advanced Web Ranking

1. Understanding Search Behavior and Choosing Target Keyword Categories

Continuing the example used in part one of Google Sites, which describes itself as a "...free and easy way to create and share webpages," it makes sense to filter out highly competitive keyword categories like business, design, and blogging. Removing these, branded terms, and unrelated terms (quick manual scan) from the pivot table from part one leaves us with an ideal list of targeted keywords, all of which Google Sites should easily be coming up in search for.

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While the filtering process can definitely get tedious, it is used as a benchmark to track ongoing progress. Time well spent if it’s going to help showcase SEO efforts over time. Boiling down the relevant keywords people are using in search and having the mindset that these are the avenues in which customers will eventually find your client’s content is also rewarding!

For Google Sites, relevant keywords people are using to find content they should be coming up for in search, is as simple as customers wanting to build/create/make/start page(s)/site(s)/website(s)/webpage(s), and they want it to befree/easy/online.

Using the filtered Pivot Table (copying and pasting into a new tab) as a template, we can begin pulling other relevant metrics and creating a dashboard, to help understand the competitive landscape of these search trends and ultimately form some solid SEO strategy.

2. Competing Content Comparison

Now that we know exactly what keywords Google Sites should be coming up for in search results, we need to understand the extent to which existing content reflects how people are searching.

To do this we can look at the top ranking search result on Google.com for our target keyword. Then limit the search to a specific domain in Google and compare.

Looking at the term how to build a web page , the top ranking result ishttp://www.thesitewizard.com/gettingstarted/startwebsite.shtml in Google search results.

Limiting the same search to the google.com domain using site:google.com how to build a web page ,https://support.google.com/sites/answer/153197?hl=en is seen as the most relevant in the eyes of Google’s algorithms.

As seen above, sites.google.com doesn’t come up in search for this example of a relevant keyword, even when the results are limited to the google.com own domain. We can use this as a starting point to understand where our content needs to be to achieve our goal of eventually coming up for this search.

Automating Competing Content Comparison

Let’s apply the concept explained above to all of our target keywords. Using Advanced Web Ranking, we can pull the top 10 search results for all of our keywords, then pull that data into our dashboard using VLOOKUP.

Conclusion

Comparing the content Google sees as most important on your site vs. the Web can help you understand where your site is lacking. For example in the image above, Google Sites is seen as the most relevant page when people are looking to build a website, but not so much when they are search how to build a web page. Subtle nuances make can make a big difference, and perhaps adding a little verbiage to the target page would be enough to begin coming up in search for a whole new category of keywords.

Making sure the page you want to come up in search is seen as the most relevant when the search is limited to your own domain should be seen as step one. The goal here is to meet and beat your competition from a content perspective for all relevant keywords. In part three we’ll be taking a look at this in more detail by slicing and dicing the ranking data, in an attempt to understand exactly which competitor pages, per category/search trend, Google likes the best and why.

Source - http://searchenginewatch.com/sew/how-to/2378742/fast-seo-competitive-analysis-part-2-competing-content-comparison

Writing SEO Friendly Content for Search and Social Results

Search and Social Media Writing

We’ve come a long way in the past 10 years. Hiring nameless, faceless, anonymous writers from underground sources at $25 a pop is so yesterday. Poof! No more. Garbage in, garbage out. Today’s smart brands are putting their money where the return on investment (ROI) is, investing in the growth and development of real authors. 2015 brings a new set of standards, the art of producing real, genuine, authentic, and high-quality content coming from an accredited and trusted real person with a notable byline.

Fast and furious content days are over. Search and social experimental writing is history. It’s the dawn of authenticity where bots, fakes, and frauds can’t survive. We’ve entered the era of intelligent content that is laced with smart optimization and is penned by qualified writers who have a name, rank, and serial number of credentials and influence.

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Follow Google’s Right Way to Write

Where do brands begin with gaining quality content? Start by hiring writers with a reputation backed by:

• Expertise
• Authority
• Trust

Brands and marketers can gain inspiration from the E-A-T (expertise, authority, and trust) concept outlined in Google’s Search Quality Guidelines when creating quality content guidelines for Web pages, social media posts, press releases, or educational guides.

After all, don’t we want to influence the quantity and quality of traffic to a website or blog from search and social? If we look at just Google search traffic, organic results dominate, receiving about 80-82 percent of its search traffic, while ads receive a mere 18 to 20 percent of search traffic. In today’s race for attracting quality eyeballs, the most influential factor can be in the writing quality of a brand’s content, down to every last title tag, meta description, and tweet.

"High-quality writing conveys expertise and trust signals," said Virginia Nussey, content and media manager at Bruce Clay, Inc. "The better the writer, that is a trust signal of their understanding of the topic."

SEO and Writing - It’s So Meta

Optimization and writing go together like peanut butter and jelly. If you think about it, it should be easier to teach experienced writers how to optimize than to teach technical SEO programmers how to write. Make it a best practice to invest in educating writers, content creators, and even your public relations team with basic SEO training. This can turn your quality content into search- and social-friendly content that can be better found in search, whether that searcher is performing a Google search or a Twitter search.

Provide writers with data such as targeted keyword phrases and trending hashtags that can help them help you optimize better. Invest in your writers with training and resources so they can deliver. Utilize reliable SEO resources that offer free guides, content, and tutorials on writing for SEO; these organizations make a living offering free SEO educational materials and tutorials:

• Hubspot
• Moz
• Bruce Clay, Inc.
• Digital Relevance

Tip: Free can cost you if the information is outdated! Be sure to offer your writers resources that are provide current and up-to-date information that follow, for example, Google’s and Facebook’s ever-changing algorithms.

The Long and Short of Content

Let’s face it - as brands and marketers we are writing all forms of content ranging from 100-character tweets to 600-2,000+-word blog or news articles. We are writing for the attention deficit mobile user and the desktop power researcher. The one thing in common is that the content, regardless of size, must be well-written and optimized to maximize the search results and social sharing opportunities.

Going for the Hail Mary of long-form content such as a case study, guide or in-depth analysis? Make sure to:

• Use bullets
• Tell stories
• Use call out quotes of some of the main points
• Keep it visual with charts, graphs, or infographics
• Think about the mobile use and have a visual slideshow version

As brands morph into news publishing-like models, it’s important to take note of what types of content work best on news sites.Experts say to avoid 500-800 word counts because it’s not long enough to have substance and too long for the average reader’s attention span. But quality content of 400 words is about what today’s social and mobile readers really have time to read. Hmmm…makes sense now that newswire services such as PRNewswire recommended word count is around 400 words.

"I recommend blog posts be at least 1,000 words in length and offer up the most detailed content," said expert blogger Ian Clary of Razor Social. "But that does not mean a 400 well-written post can’t be successful."

Pinpointing the Persona

Regardless of size, the target audience is what is important to a brand’s writer. Who are we writing for and targeting? The more specific information we know about our buyer personas, the easier it is for the writer to create content and for the marketer to properly target - ultimately impacting the brand’s results. Creating persona profiles that will illustrate who the content is intended for can create a magnetic win-win by reaching the right audience with the right message. Take Starbucks as an example - you might be writing for Sally Sales Executive who is a frequent coffee customer looking for reliable Wi-Fi and a temporary desk with a latte on the side. Or you could be writing for Stay-at-Home Dad David who has five minutes to get his java fix refill before the after school carpool. Both are possible personas for Starbucks, but both require two different types of writing style of content.

Share Words of Social Influence

If you have research and data that will help a writer include words that work best for social networks or tips in email writing, do share it with them! QuickSprout produced an infographic to help writers understand what words work best in different social media networks:

• To gain more retweets on Twitter use the words "Free," "Retweet," or "New Blog Post"
• Facebook users respond best to words such as "Inspires," "Discounts," and "Submit"
• Looking to land a deal on LinkedIn? The best words to include are "On Time," "Accomplished," "Created," and "Researched," but skip the overused words such as "Creative," "Responsible," and "Strategic."
• Google+ users take action on words such as "Share," "Promote," and "Increase."

User-Generated Content

When going for the trust factor, your brand is actually not your best and most reliable source of content for your customers. It’s the reviews that matter most to today’s social-savvy consumer. So although you want to invest in the most qualified writers, your best writers don’t actually have to be hired guns; they can be your biggest brand advocates who are ready and willing to write reviews for your products and services.

Less Is More

Filling space with junk content results in junk audience or no audience. It’s most important for businesses to spend more time writing less content that's better content. So that means reduce the editorial calendar work and publish less with an eye on a more focused execution.

When Facebook finally admitted that organic reach was down for many businesses, they explained why by pointing out that Facebook is dedicated to show only the highest-quality content and reducing the amount of spam-like content in the newsfeed.

"Organic content still has value on Facebook, and Pages that publish great content — content that teaches people something, entertains them, makes them think, or in some other way adds value to their lives — can still reach people in News Feed," noted Facebook’s Brian Boland in Facebook’s Product News.

Bottom Line: The search engines and social networks are drawing a line in the sand and calling for quality content. This means it’s up to brands and marketers to invest not just in hiring quality writers, but also training and educating writers in SEO best practices, content styles, and trends as well as being included in the brand’s research process and findings such as buyer personas profiles.

Source - http://searchenginewatch.com/sew/how-to/2378743/writing-your-way-to-the-top-of-search-and-social-results

Google Banned Guest Blogging for SEO

SEO Guest Blogging

Okay, I’m calling it: if you’re using guest blogging as a way to gain links in 2014, you should probably stop. Why? Because over time it’s become a more and more spammy practice, and if you’re doing a lot of guest blogging then you’re hanging out with really bad company.  Ultimately, this is why we can’t have nice things in the SEO space: a trend starts out as authentic. Then more and more people pile on until only the barest trace of legitimate behavior remains. We’ve reached the point in the downward spiral where people are hawking “guest post outsourcing” and writing articles about “how to automate guest blogging.”

So stick a fork in it: guest blogging is done; it’s just gotten too spammy. In general I wouldn’t recommend accepting a guest blog post unless you are willing to vouch for someone personally or know them well. Likewise, I wouldn’t recommend relying on guest posting, guest blogging sites, or guest blogging SEO as a linkbuilding strategy.

For historical reference, I’ll list a few videos and links to trace the decline of guest articles. Even back in 2012, I tried to draw a distinction between high-quality guest posts vs. spammier guest blogs:

Know more At - https://www.mattcutts.com/blog/guest-blogging/

How Social Media Improves Your Search Ranking

Why Social Media SEO?

It’s not enough to have a popular website with good content anymore. If you want better search engine results for your business, it’s time to look at how social media influences those results. It used to be that SEO revolved around two things: using the right keywords, and the number of authoritative sites that linked back to your content via inbound links.

Then social media came along and changed everything.

Search engines have begun to incorporate social signals (Facebook likes, retweets, +1s and so on) to inform their search results. The following articles dig a little deeper and explain what you need to do to make sure you succeed at social media and SEO.

6 Reasons Social Media Is Critical to Your SEO: If you need more clarity on how SEO and social work together, Stephanie Frasco explains on Social Media Today that the old days of website marketing are over and Google has found a newer, smarter way to measure the popularity of your website—social media.

How to Succeed at SEO With Social Media Marketing: On ExactTarget Amanda Nelson likens SEO and social media to peanut butter and jelly, the idea being that the two need each other to succeed. Dig in and enjoy the nuggets of wisdom and some best practices shared in a conversation between Amanda and her guest, Ray Grieselhuber.

Know More - How to Succeed at SEO With Social Media Marketing

Major Reasons Why Your Content Marketing Fails

Content Marketing

Content Maketing fails because we really don't have a clue what it means. Imagine the word combination we all recognize and understand: 'consumer marketing'. In that light, what does 'content marketing' mean???? Does it mean that we use content to built a customer/consumer preference?? What's new about that? Isn't that what we have been doing in marketing for more that a decade? Does is mean that we aim to develop lasting customer/client relationships? Isn't that what we have been doing in sals for more than a century? 

Does it mean that we have all become very confused by the (interaction) opportunities Internet is offering us and we would like to bundle this with the confusing term 'content marketing'? But what more is is than everything we have always done before in sales and marketing? Should we than expect more from it like instant sales after a product article has surfaced on the net? Guess not.

Why Content Marketing Fails from Rand Fishkin

Social Media Cheat Sheet Codes Inforgraphics

Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, Snapchat – Social Media Cheat Sheet [INFOGRAPHIC]

So you want to get started on social media.

Smart move. But which social network is right for you?

Facebook, for example, has more than one billion users, and it’s likely most of your friends already use it. Does that make it the best platform for you? Maybe, but if you’re interested in news Twitter might be a better choice. Equally, LinkedIn is the professional’s network (and great for jobseekers), while Instagram and Pinterest are an excellent choice for photo/visual fans.

Snapchat? Well, your mom isn’t going to be on there, and that might count for something.

Check the visual below for an easy-to-read social media cheat sheet, including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, Google+, LinkedIn and Snapchat, which comes courtesy of Likeable.

(Source: Likeable.)

Source - http://www.mediabistro.com/alltwitter/social-media-user-cheat-sheet_b60143