Internet Marketing Strategy 2.0

While SEO experts keep saying that "search engine optimization" is not dead, it's only changing, I am quite happy to see that more and more of the SEO techniques that have been promoted as the "smart" way to make anyone web site more visible, are finally crumbling down one by one.

In this excellent article, Neil Patel, identifies five of them, that carry more big risks than benefits for anyone web publisher still adopting them. These are:

1) Guest Blogging (spammy kind)

2) Incoming Links with Optimized Anchor Text

3) Low quality inbound links

4) Using lots of relevant keywords inside your content

5) Relying more on building inbound links than on creating high-value content

Excellent recommendations for anyone publishing online. It's time for those who have quality ideas and content to regain their due value and visibility, stolen for so long by those who, without either one, invested fanatically in content marketing and search engine optimizing without ever creating real value. 

Useful. Informative. 8/10

Full article: http://www.quicksprout.com/2014/03/28/5-seo-techniques-you-should-stop-using-immediately/

Excellent advice, in this short but content-rich interview published by Ebyline. In it, John F. Doherty, head of one of the top SEO companies in the US, shares ten key tips about marketing, SEO and where to start, that can be of good help to new online startups.

The advice and suggestions provided are simple, straightforward and easy to read, thanks also to the good formatting style of the article.

Some of the best tips shared, focus on:

- what's the first step to take to market one's own company online

- how to create a social media following when you have none

- how to compete with established companies in the SERPs

- how to avoid the top four reasons for which Google penalizes a site

among several other ones.



Useful. Rightful. Clear. 8/10

Full article: http://blog.ebyline.com/2013/08/interview-with-john-doherty-distilled-ny-director-seo-for-startups/

If you want to monitor new inbound links to your site, including their value, linking date, anchor text and more Majestic SEO has introduced recently a free-for-all service that any owner of a verified domain can use on his own site.

With SEOMajestic you can also see where there are new broken links on your site. At times these happen just because the page you are linking to on another site has reorganized and its page addresses have alla changed.

To access this free service you need to verify your own site either by including a text snippet in your home page meta tags or via Google Authentication.

The PRO version, simply extends the powerful capabilities offered by SEOMajestic to the service of analyzing the link profile of any web site. Not just yours.

More info: http://blog.majesticseo.com/development/site-explorer-goes-free/

Sign-up + try: https://www.majesticseo.com/account/register

Home: http://majesticseo.com/

My personal belief is this: in the near future, if you want to stand out in your niche, get a serious following of passionate fans and build a strong credibility for yourself, you will need to do something better than just writing blog posts (however good they may be).

"Recently Martin Laetsch, Act-On’s Director of Online Marketing, presented a webinar covering the 10 most important rules for successful search engine optimization.Not all of them are 100% new, but they’re all critical keys to success. ...You can catch up with the whole on-demand session here."

In this article the focus is specifically on rule n.1: Create content with your audience in mind.

Rekha Mohan writes: "The main point to all this is: create content people want to share. People like sharing interesting information; it builds credibility, creating the image that the sharer is in the know, and consistently sharing good information increases your audience.

Good information also helps visitors and increases your authority on a subject – use white papers, case studies, fun facts, educational material, research results, thought-provoking blog posts, how-to articles, top 10 lists, and more to share your information in innovative and easy-to-read ways."

Very good reminders for anyone having doubts about what's best to do in the near future, to gain extra visibility and reputation, on any content web site.

Rightful. 7/10

Full article: http://www.business2community.com/seo/the-10-new-rules-for-seo-0518641

If you keep investing time on optimizig your site for Google, or investing in link building efforts of all kinds I suggest you give a good read to this article.

Wriiten by Awini Anburajan on Buzzfeed: "Search traffic to publishers has taken a dive in the last eight months, with traffic from Google dropping more than 30% from August 2012 through March 2013...

...While Google makes up the bulk of search traffic to publishers, traffic from all search engines has dropped by 20% in the same period.

BuzzFeed tracked traffic referrals to over 200 publishers in the BuzzFeed Network, a group of sites that carry BuzzFeed's tracking code and include the Huffington Post, Daily Mail, NewsweekDailyBeast, Time, Sports Illustrated, Us Weekly, and Rolling Stone. Collectively the sites represent an audience of more than 300 million people globally.

Of the three major search engines — Google, Yahoo and Bing — only Yahoo saw growth in this period.

While Yahoo grew search traffic in this period, it sent 21M referrals to publishers in March, less than half of the 48M referrals sent by Google. Traffic from Bing dropped 12%."

And check this: "In March, Facebook sent 1.5x more traffic than Google, the greatest difference we've ever measured between the platforms. At the same time, we've watched traffic from other social platforms — Twitter and Pinterest -—continue to grow an audience and drive traffic traffic to publishers."

Are you ready for this?

Insightful. Informative. Must-read. 8/10

Full article: http://www.buzzfeed.com/aswini/where-did-all-the-search-traffic-go

Excellent article by Ammon Johns explaining clearly what the new Google algorithm Hummingbird does and how it really affects the world of search.

Contrary to what has been written by many, Hummingbird changes deeply how Google interprets search queries, especially, long, detailed ones, not the search results directly. This is also why no-one has really seen major changes to web site traffic after Google has introduced the new algo quietly in August.

In simple words, what Google Hummingbird does, in the words of Ammon Johns is: "...making the very concept of many long-tail searches go the same way as referral data.

Google is trying to get away from exact wording to understanding the concepts.

So no matter how verbose or roundabout your search for pizza restaurant in Denver may be, the search it runs is exactly the same as “Denver Pizza Restaurant”, “Pizza Restaurant Denver”, etc."

Read the full article and the examples provided and you will get a good gist of it.

Very interesting. Useful. 8/10

Read the full article here: http://www.isoosi.com/blog/hummingbird-the-opposite-of-long-tail-search.html 

Andrew Gouty analyzes the history of SEO, while highligthing how increasingly important it is to look less at "SEO tactics" and more at producing truly quality content.

The article cum infographic reviews the main five SEO eras, from the 1994-99 Meta era, and through the PageRank years (2000-2003), the Florida era (2004-2009), the Content Era (2010-12) and the Present Day.

A good, fact-supported overview of what really counts when it comes to content visibility on the web.

Useful. Data-rich. 8/10

Full article + infographic: http://www.raidious.com/content-marketing/the-history-of-seo-effectiveness/ 

The Keyword Suggestion Finder from SEOChat is an excellent keyword - keyphrase discovery tool that can delivery useful results in a matter of seconds.

What the tool does is to list for you related keywords and keyphrases, down to three levels of depth, for ny keyword "root" or keyphrase that you will provide.

Each level expands on the preceding one by offering more specific keyphrases related to the ones found at higher level.

Final data can be freely downloaded as an .xls file.

Excellent tool for anyone doing content marketing, SEO, Google AdWords campaigns. Fast, easy, effective.

Works only in English.

Free to use.

Try it out now: http://tools.seochat.com/tools/related-keywords-tool/

If you are looking for a way to become less dependent on SEO to keep your web site visibility on search engines, a new approach, promoting a radically different approach to conquer the search engine result pages, is emerging. 

It is being called New SEO.

From obsessive keyword analysis and inbound linking focus the new SEO approach focuses on higher quality content and greater attention to audience engagement and relationship building.

The accompanying infographic from Positionly eloquently illustrates the key differences between the traditional way of doing SEO and the new approach.

"The old way of thinking about SEO meant that analytical and mostly technical knowledge was given an edge.

New SEO should prize analytical and mostly marketing knowledge."

Rightful. Useful reminder. 7/10

Original article and infographic: http://socialbarrel.com/sustainable-and-algorithm-proof-new-seo-methods-for-2013/52145/

If you have long been wondering which are the most important factors that affect how your web site is ranked inside Google search results (SERPs), here is a very comprehensive infographic by Search Engine Journal which visually summarizes the top 200 variables that likely affect your Google ranking.

The factors are generally derived by referring to Google official guidelines and announcements and even more on pragmatical analysis, testing and voting by SEO experts, like in the case of SEOMoz famous "Ranking Factors" online resource.

In this case the author of the infographic (Brian Dean) unfortunately does not disclose how and from where he has pulled together the information he has so nicely curated into this infographic.

The over 200 factors presented are aptly grouped in ten areas:

1. Domain Factors
2. Page-Level Factors
3. Site-Level factors
4. Backlink Factors
5. User Interaction
6. Social Signals
7. Brand Signals
8. On-site Webspam factors
9. Off-pag Webspam factors
10. Special Algo Rules

These factors have been changing quite significantly over the last two years and they are continuously being improved and refined, with old ones being gradually de-emphasized, and new ones being added and increasing in importance.

Useful reference. 7/10

Full infographic: http://www.searchenginejournal.com/infographic-googles-200-ranking-factors/64316/

Simon Penson, founder of Zazzle Media, has a fascinating article on the future of SEO, that I have been wanting to highlight for some time. He argues and provides good supporting reference to the idea that Google is moving away from primarily leveraging links and anchor text to evaluate web site relevance to the use of semantic analysis of text co-occrunces to determine it.

He writes: "Imagine being able to outreach awesome content without having to look for links.

Simply make people aware of what you are doing and get them to talk about you.

It’s how it should be and it would have a profound effect on the type of content you might produce and brand-marketing activity you might pursue."

The article is rich in valuable references and tools for anyone interested in exploring this topic.

Game changing. Resourceful. 8/10

Full article: http://www.seomoz.org/blog/semantic-web-and-link-building-without-links-the-future-for-seo