Online Search & Social Media Blitz

Just recently hired as an SEO & Internet Marketing Consultant by Kids Crooked House, I was told that they had worked with a group involved with a TV show and their products would soon show at some point on TV. Ok, I said, and gave them some thoughts on what might occur when this happens as I had worked with another group who was mentioned on Martha Stewart and Oprah last year. No big deal!

We thought we had it all planned out. I thought I had it all planned out! We fixed up and edited some items on the website for pages, keywords, calls-to-action and shopping issues. The IT team set the website up across 10 servers. Added one last post to the blog and let everyone know that no new updates or changes would be allowed during this time – hey, it was only going to be one day and a quick showing – or, so we thought – we didn’t think about the repeat showings occurring right now! I discussed reputation management when the first sign of references were made public online and we decided to make sure we would have someone monitoring blogs, news, Twitter and Facebook. But, then it hit… 6pm PST, 9pm EST Monday night, it’s the first show and the site crashes!

I jump on Twitter – letting Facebook take those updates as well, and start doing something I’ve only ever had to teach clients to do – never actually “doing it” myself. Yikes, here I am suddenly the only online access and voice for this company. No more teaching or suggestions now, doing it was the action to take!

I am normally just fine being a 3rd party - suggesting to clients to do certain things, correcting their mistakes and giving them advice on how to do work better with their online endeavors – and rarely having to get my own hands dirty! This was new to me, having to represent a company and making sure any and all positive or negative issues were carefully and diplomatically dealt with. We also were under strict non-disclosure and the owners hadn’t told me if I could even use the TV show’s name (I think I can now, it was Jon & Kate Plus 8 – but, shhh just in case). There were so many things that I just didn’t know about properly, so, had to wing-it in some cases (shhh to that one too). Their phones began ringing off the hook and there was no way for me to get in touch to find out what I needed.

Oh boy! And wow! Social media can be quite the sneak attack!

I have a spreadsheet a mile long of websites and blogs referencing us and commenting on us. I have TwitterBeeps and Bit.ly helping me along with Google Trends, Alerts and Analytics. I am in fear of leaving my computer in case something comes up or is said that I miss. We were at the top of Yahoo searches and Google trends today [turns out for Monday and Tuesday both]. I noticed others trying to jump on our keyword bandwagon so jumped on a few extra updates & fixes to the site. Thank goodness for dual screens – now I want triple screens! [Can you do that?]

The design and IT team at Dirigo Design & Development [awesome] team worked endlessly last night to bring the site back up – which they did so that we could all finally find a bed somewhere and sleep for a bit. I haven’t dared try to call the sales team to see what actually happened on their end. I did, however, get an nice call from Glen, the owner, whose phone was blitzed too during this time to say that he is just barely back to breathing, and… to tell me that Thursday we are possibly going to be shown on another TV channel. Oh boy – here we go again! I think after this, I will change my title from Internet Marketing Analyst to Social Media Expert! Maybe I’ll ask for a raise too! :)

SEO behind the Blog … or is the Blog behind SEO?

As an Internet Marketing Specialist, some of the things I work with are blogs and blog posts. I get clients to start blogs, suggest topics for blogs and work with the bloggers and/or writers. I am by no means a writer, I love my life as a techy geek, but I have [cough, cough] been known to write for blogs too – but, you won’t find me because I use an alias! I don’t want to take on that responsibility!!

For the most part, bloggers are writers and not normally (emphasis on “normally”) technically inclined. They are not always aware of how search and the search engines work, they just know that it does work. I am technical – a geek…whatever! I know a lot about what makes the search engines tick. I work in the online space every day and for a variety of clients and help with their websites for better rankings, better traffic, and better sales. That gives me an edge when working with content writers, bloggers and other marketing staff.

So, you ask, if you are a technical person and you can actually write, do you write for the blog or do you write for SEO? Is SEO behind the blog or is the blog behind SEO?

Good question, I say! And, the answer is yes to both and yes to all of it. The best content, for a blog or anything else, is content that says something interesting, is easily understood, makes sense, is creative, uses its words well and brings value to the website.

With all my years in internet marketing, the best information for online use is initially written with a topic in mind. That topic generally comes from keyword research done with SEO in mind. Keyword research you say? Yes, I say! Because if no one is asking for the information then how will they know to go looking for it! And, I say, keyword research is done in many ways, not just with the use of a keyword research tool like Google adwords keyword tool or others, things like news, other blogs, or online trends can play a huge part in picking a topic to write about.

The next best step is to have a creative and talented writer available to do what they do best, and that is write, write about the chosen topic, and… to write what comes naturally for them. About the only thing that should be discussed with the writer at this point is any voice, tone or business requirement that might be necessary to know about along with that main topic.

If the writer understands the strengths of a good internet marketer then they will gladly turn over their work for review and editing by them. This is the time when the SEO elements can be put into place, knowing that there is a science behind the semantics - and that’s not just good English and grammar!


Content Keywords:
SEO items for a blog include things like the use of more than one keyword or keyword phrase if it is appropriate. The keywords used should reflect on the actual topic. Keyword density and distribution can play a part here too. Proportionately, the main keyword phrase should occur more than any other word or word phrase in the post. But, the use of all keywords used should flow nicely and be distributed in the post so they make sense.

Linking:
Linking should be looked at in a strategic fashion for SEO and with good anchor text for those links in place. A good SEO will know how and when to include a link in a blog post and when to have internal and/or external links and how the words used to anchor those links should be incorporated. It really is not just about having a link because you think it might be useful or resourceful. Links, internal and external along with the anchor text used can say a lot to the search engine spiders about what is important for the post and the pages the links reference. Certainly, if a link helps the reader, by all means give it to them. But, don’t be surprised if the SEO changes when and where you decide to put that link.

Meta Data
It is at this point that Meta Data for the blog post should also be created by the SEO. It should work hand in hand with the blog header and its content. If for some reason your blog doesn’t give you control over your meta data try to find a way so that you can have that. Meta Data, especially the Title and Meta Description can be another effective and useful part of a blog post if strategically written.

URL – Permalink - Slug
The URL, permalink or slug that some blogs call a page name is an important part of your blog too. Incorporating SEO knowledge in the URL can be very useful in all kinds of ways for your post and for others who might reference it. Some basic standards for a good URL is to have a keyword or keyword-phrase in the name and to keep it as short as possible. No need for dashes between words unless the words can’t be parsed properly or can be parsed incorrectly. My favorite example is this word “mens-exchange”. Take out the dash and put the words together and read it again! Yup…nope, not necessarily what you might want.

Now, it is ready to go live! Wahoo! But, one more thing you might want to make sure about and that is to add it to your XML sitemap file. This makes it easier to alert the spiders to the new post for possibly quicker indexing.

Ok, so if you didn’t quite get it, the best blog has both writers (or bloggers) and SEOs in place, with SEO coming before, during and after to make it the best, most effective blog post your site can have! Don’t forget that you are writing for your readers but if the readers can’t find you then you need the search engines to help! So, let’s get the team together and start writing!

5 NO’s of SEO

The worst part of my job as an Internet Marketing and SEO Consultant is that I am always having to tell my clients “no”. It always feels like I am the one delivering nothing but bad news. I am the one who finds all the problems with your online activity, whether internal or external to the site and its pages, server problems, content issues, social media guffaws, link building craziness, etc, etc. The good news, however, is that I get to help you fix all those problems, issues, guffaws and craziness! Then everyone is happy!

Anyway, here are a few of the “NOs” of SEO that I dealt with this last week with clients:

No! When it was suggested that it was a good idea to add a blog to your site, it did NOT mean that you could copy content from another site!

A blog is most useful if it set up to enhance the current information of your website. It needs to be unique and well written in the same vain that a static website page would be BUT it has the advantage of a more personal touch, time sensitive info can go here too, and/or things that might change later. Blog comes for the words “web log” and is a log of things going on presently. If the information is valid forever, then you might consider a static webpage to add to the site overall. Go back to your old blogs and see if they are still valid and move them to a static page too if you’d like – but be careful how you make the move and consider a 301 redirect if the information goes to a new page.

No! When it was suggested to set up a Twitter account for your business, it did NOT mean say whatever you want, personal, political, or opinionated.

For business, a Twitter account is best for notification and newly updated information about the business. Alerts to sales, specials or new blog post and pages can be done here. This is also a great area for customer control. People can get to you easily in Twitter. You can correct any misconceptions, problems or issues here. You can strike up conversations with like minded or complimentary businesses here too. Don’t forget to “listen” here to see what others are doing and saying. You can learn a lot from other Twitter voices! There are lots of things to do on Twitter without getting personal, political, or opinionated.

No! When it was suggested to set up a custom 404 error page, it did not mean that it should render as a server response of a 200 code.

There are several types of situations that can cause you (and your site) grief if not set up correctly – we could write pages on ways to set this up incorrectly. The main thing is to make sure that if you do generate a pretty custom page to use when a page-not-found occurs is to have these two things working:

1) Make sure a server response error of a 404 is generated to the spiders if they find a bad link and...

2) As an extra safety precaution, add a Meta Robots tag to the custom error page:
meta name="robots" content="noindex"

No! When it was suggested that it was a good idea to have a separate area for test pages to be viewed online, it did not mean that these pages should be shared with the search engine spiders and made index-able too.

If you set up a test area, whether using a sub-domain or separate test directory area of the site or even a totally separated URL, using an IP address or domain name then you really must disallow these areas to be indexed by the spiders until they are ready to go truly live. Having test pages accessible can cause you and your site grief here too depending on the reasons for testing pages – so be careful and protect your self until all is ready.

There are a couple of ways to keep entire websites and individual pages from being crawled and placed in the search engine indexes:

1) At the top level of your website, you can, and should, have a robots.txt file. This is a Disallow file where you can easily disallow every page of a site from being indexed or individual directories and pages. You can get specifics on how to set up a robots.txt file and how to use it at this site: www.robotstxt.org

Note: This file allows for other functionality too – again, maybe another post!

2) At the individual page level, you can add the following Meta Tag in the head area of your pages:
meta name="robots" content="noindex"

Note: This tag also has additional functionality, email me for more info if you need it.

No! When it was suggested that an online Press Release might be a good idea, it did not mean it was a good idea to have links in the press release linking to other websites.

Having a good reason to write a Press Release is great and once released that news and information is out there and can spread like wildfire. These releases are posted using online PR sites, such as www.prweb.com, www.prnewswire.com – this list goes on. But the main take away is that the content is not yours. It is not on your site. It is given to the PR sites to distribute freely. Since it is online, you want it written so that you, your website, is the main draw. You want to budget for the extra expense it can cost to add a link to your PR information and you want that link to be to your site! If it is really important to send the readers to another site for whatever reason, then do your best to have your web page linked to first in the article and then theirs in the next! Do yourself (and your site) that favor!

Also, good anchor text for the links/links can be invaluable here too – oops, another topic for another time – sorry! Enough for today! Gotta go tell some more clients “no”!!

Update To Twitter Abbreviations – What Does _ Stand for in Twitter

Lots of people and businesses are using or incorporating the use of Twitter as part of their online routine. Many of you ask "what does this stand for on Twitter", well, here are a few of the commonly asked for Twitter abbreviations and uses that you all have asked about:

RT – ReTweet

One uses this generally to suggest that another username tweeted the comment and you are re-tweeting for your followers to see too.

You can RT your own stuff too. Example:
RT @lydiafabry Twitter Abreviations Update: http://www.searchvisiblewebsites.com/blog/seoblog.html

An RT suggests that there was already a Tweet about this helpful web page. If the URL you point to is too long for the 140 spaces then there are tools to create shortened URLs, like Bit.ly (http://bit.ly/ ) and others.

OH = OverHeard

One uses this to suggest that they are not responsible for a certain comment they are putting on Twitter but that they simply overheard it from someone else. Generally it is overheard from physically hearing it not seeing it posted somewhere.

DM = Direct Message

The format is to use the letters DM then a space then the username instead of the @username to send a message that only the recipient can see. Example:
DM lydiafabry Don’t tell anyone I sent this!

And no one but I will see your message if you tweet that to me! You can also publically ask people to DM you with information that should stay private and not viewable by others.


Expressions used on Twitter and other “short” social media type areas:

LOL = Laugh Out Loud

LMAO = Laugh My Ass Off

OMG = Oh My God
OMFG = Oh My F%^&ing God

BTW = By The Way

Twitter, Verb or Noun, how is the language spoken?

It is official now, Twitter founders Biz Stone and Evan Williams publicly cleared up the proper way to speak Twitter. They tell us that Twitter is the noun and Tweet is the verb, so…

You can tweet on Twitter but you cannot, or should not, be twittering a tweet!

Need more Twitter tips, see Twitter Helpful Quick Tips from Search Visible Websites.