Even for an experienced WordPress web designer, developer and digital marketer like myself, sorting through an enormous amount of info and determining what is relevant is very time consuming. Internet technology has become highly specialized and constantly changing due to advances in technology, security, latest fads, and heavy influences of major players like Google, Facebook, Linkedin and WordPress.
It’s time for a house cleaning. Out with the old and in with the new. Time to check our digital marketing business path, compare it with the best info available today, and make corrections where necessary. Time is money, and because digital marketing can be a time burner, let’s make our efforts count!
Once again I’m undertaking this necessary soul searching process , re-considering my goals, aspirations, unique abilities, and how I can be most useful to clients and society as a whole. I’m sifting through the wreckage of SEO past, analyzing and comparing against successful digital marketing procedures now and trending onward.
‘KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid) Less is More – Mona Lisa Web Design’
Time is king, and resources are limited, therefore I’m focusing only on key points, which can easily be researched and detailed later if necessary. Well then, let’s get started.
1. Organic is king!
I rarely click into a google pay-per-click ad. Why? It could introduce me to any scam business with $20 to spend on that day. I love to click on the organic ads because these businesses had to earn their search engine placement based on good ‘ole’ ethical business practices, useful services and many satisfied customers over a long period of time.
If you are like me, and want your business to display on page one of google without paying exorbitant fees for ads (possibly resulting in a mistrusted domain) then read on.
2. Create a helpful, unique, information-rich site
‘Create a helpful, unique, information rich site, writing pages that clearly and accurately describe your topic. Think about the words users would type to find your pages and include those words on your site’, says Google. Give it your own unique stamp. For example, in my case, as an artist, coder and digital marketer, a Mona Lisa meets Digital Marketing theme, as illustrated in the featured image above may add interest and would certainly be unique. If I had more time, I’m sure I could make some interesting comparisons and references between my my Mona Lisa oil painting commission and leading edge digital technology marketing. Yin and the Yang, comes to mind.
If we successfully create a helpful, unique, information rich site, it becomes easy to build domain and page authority, and to build natural links from reputable sites.
3. Build Natural links to your site
‘Build Natural links to your site from other reputable sites as part of the dynamic nature of the web, so other sites find your content valuable and think it would be helpful for their visitors’ says google. Easier said then done, but this is what we are working toward.
4. Test your site
Test your site to make sure spiders can easily web crawl it and every page is reachable from at least one static text link. Using the meta noindex tag on pages with little or no content — pages that make a site a potential Panda algorithm candidate or pages that do not perform as expected — is a seasoned technique to help direct major search engine bots to crawl pages that matter (and crawl them more frequently).
5. Don’t stuff your pages with keywords
Don’t stuff your pages with keywords or create many unnecessary outbound links. It used to work well, but not anymore. It will hurt your site ranking.
6. Don’t purchase SEO services from scam SEO companies
Don’t purchase SEO services from ‘Scam SEO Companies’ who may guarantee to put your site on the first page of google or who:
- own shadow domains
- put links to their other clients on doorway pages
- offer to sell keywords in the address bar
- don’t distinguish between actual search results and ads that appear on search results pages
- guarantee ranking, but only on obscure, long keyword phrases you would get anyway
- operate with multiple aliases or falsified WHOIS info
- get traffic from “fake” search engines, spyware, or scumware
- has had domains removed from Google’s index or is not itself listed in Google
7. Do purchase SEO services from reputable consultants
Purchase SEO services from reputable consultants offering the following services:
- Review your site content or structure, test your site ‘spider crawl’
- Review website development, hosting, redirects, error pages
- Use of JavaScript
- Assist with content development
- Online business development campaigns management
- Keyword research
- SEO training
- Specific market and geographic expertise
- Create a google account, claim your business on google places
- Create a google+ page
- Setup site on google analytics and webmaster tools
- Create an xml sitemap
- Run w3 validator. Find your web-pages Google has cached: site:your-url.com, and run list of cached URL’s through the w3 validator fixing errors, especially missing titles and alt attributes.
8. On Page SEO
- Place a Keyword at the start of the title tag, in meta description tag and in a unique H1 tag on a page, the meta tag section is obsolete and major search engines have been ignoring them for years.
- Include keyword in URL slug (that’s the bit that appears after the “.com/“part of the URL) is helpful to Google
Using keywords in the pages copy was good to stuff, but not anymore. - Content Length. Write long but highly useful copy then.
- Duplicate content. Avoid duplicating content and write original copy for each page.
- Canonical tag. If have two URLs with similar content use a canonical tag which tells Google that in spite of two pages having the same content, they are in fact one.
- Image Optimization. Reduce image size as much as possible, and write alt text, caption, and descriptions.
- Content Updates. Add new content as often as possible and update certain types of content once every 12 months or so.
- Outbound links. Link to authoritative pages but in moderation.
- Internal links. Link between pages on your site to add strength.
9. On Site SEO
- Sitemap. Every site must have an xml sitemap.
- Domain trust. Building trust is good, but how do we do it? #1 Only link to reputable sites.
- Server location. Some SEO’s believe that a server’s location helps to boost rankings for that particular country or region. Using a well known server like Bluehost might out perform your basement server.
- Mobile optimized site. Having a mobile optimized site helps rankings substantially and very important because a huge percentage of folks access sites from their smartphones and tablets.
- Google Search Console integration. Verify site at Google Webmasters Tools to gain access to valuable site data needed to optimize your site.
10. Links
- Linking domains and domain pages to your site is an important ranking factor.
- Domain Authority of linking page. Build links from high domain authority websites.
- Link relevancy. Links from pages related to your pages topic carry more relevancy.
- Authority of linking domain. A link from low authority page on a high authority site will be worth more that from a lower domain authority one.
- Homepage Links. Similarly, some SEOs believe that links from a home page of a linking domain carry more strength than those on one of its pages.
- Do follow and No follow links. Google doesn’t count nofollow links (link with rel=nofollow attribute attached). Only do follow links affect rankings. Unless there are user-generated outgoing links pointing to unverified sites, there is no reason to apply the rel=”nofollow” attribute on a website’s internal links or on links pointing to associated social media channels such as Facebook, Twitter or Google+ anymore.
- Link Diversity. Too many links of one type may be a spam indicator and impact your rankings negatively.
- Contextual links. Links within the content of the page are worth more than links in a sidebar for instance.
- Link anchor. Anchor text of a link used to be a strong ranking factor, but not anymore.
11. Domains
- Domain registration length. Old domains are good. Google considers domains registered for longer than a year as more trustworthy.
- Domain history. If a domain has been penalized in the past, its history will affect its current rankings.
- Country TLD extension. If you target a particular local market, having a domain with a country specific TLD (.pl, .co.uk or .ie) will achieve better rankings.
12. Build Relationships with Industry Experts.
Industry Experts are the folks who have large audiences and everyone you’re trying to reach is listening to them. Developing relationships with these influencers is a great way to build an audience, which can be done through Comment Marketing and Guest Posting. Twitter can be used effectively to identify these influencers in your industry, who are easily distinguished by a huge number of followers but they follow much less.
13. Comment Marketing
Take the time to write useful comments on blogs with high domain authority, engaging in conversation in a meaningful way. Build relationships with influencers instead of looking for customers. Later, when you’ve built some credibility with those sites, you can leave some links to content (not just yours) that furthers the conversation. comment on posts by influencers rather than potential customers. Google blog reader is good.
14. Guest Posting
Guest posting is a powerful tactic to build your authority and expand your audience. Find credible sites with good Page Authority and Domain Authority related to your industry and create unique content for another site with a related audience but a bigger reach. Pitch the editors of those sites with exciting blog post ideas that are tailored to their sites. Avoid looking for the backlink. Build authority, not links. Promote anything you get published.
15. PR
PR outreach to media and bloggers and pitch them to write about you. Cater your pitch to journalists based on their interests and ask them for feedback on your work, and use their input to improve it. Make sure your info can help them with their audience.
Be personable and passionate. Journalists want to publish new and exciting stories, not re-post a random press release. Put some thought into your outreach.
16. Social Media
- Choose the right channel. Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn
- Post at the right times when your audience is most active
- Use hashtags prudently
- Use social media management tools like Sprout Social, Hootsuite, or Buffer to have access about when your audience is most active.
- Use same avatar everywhere with real pic of your friendly face
- Use ‘BuzzSumo’ to analyze which social media tool performs best for your topic, subject and niche.
- Facebook – right now Headlines are extremely important
- Use great images with posts
17. Email Marketing
Offer your new audience members a way to subscribe to your content via email which you send out in a monthly newsletter or if you regularly produce content with the same basic format an RSS feed allows subscribers to receive content automatically. Can customize an email template that fits your brand. Make sure emails are not spammy.
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Google Plus Reviews
“Mark Lovett is wonderful to work with! I am a graphic designer with limited web experience, so when I needed a website for my own firm, I turned to Mark for help. He enthusiastically agreed to work with me—he did all the setup and technical work, but at the same time, we sat together and he taught me how to get in the back end and do some things myself. He was patient and had a great sense of humor as I tried to grasp this foreign language!
I would highly recommend Mark for organizations who need him to handle EVERY aspect of their website, as well as for others, like me, who need help, but also want to be able to change things themselves. Thanks to Mark, I now have a website I am extremely proud of. In addition, he made it happen quickly, which to me was imperative. Bravo Mark and many thanks!”
Lena Markley
Dovetail Design Studio
