So, with the introduction of the new site hopefully coming some time soon, we wanted to share a cool infographic we had a really nice graphic designer put together for us. It is a visual aid to help people see one of the continued analogies that we use to help clients understand how things work and fit together as relates to website search visibility and home building. What do you think? We like it!!

Website Search Visibility as relates to Home Building

If there’s one site destined to become the social media darling of 2012, it’s Pinterest, the hot startup that lets users create collections of images pulled (or in this case, “pinned”) from around the Web. According to a new report from Hitwise, Pinterest had 11 million unique visits to its site the week of Dec. 17, 2011 – roughly 40 times the number it received just six months earlier.

How it works is very simple: Pinterest is a “virtual social pinboard” that allows millions of users to “pin” images off the web into different, organized boards that can be easily shared. As they browse boards and images they like, users can re-pin images onto their own boards, causing a viral effect for millions of images. Popular topics for user pinboards include favorites foods and recipes, fashion & clothing, amazing online imagery, DIY projects and crafts. As traffic spikes, we are starting to see more diversity in the types of boards as well as more businesses and marketers using pinboards. Our CEO has used hers to share both personal and professional pinboards:

• Infographics and visuals helpful to Internet Marketing & SEO:

http://pinterest.com/lydiafabry/internet-marketing-seo/

• And, her fencing craziness:

http://pinterest.com/lydiafabry/fencing/

Pinterest has not yet disclosed its user numbers, but a Shareoholic study found that Pinterest now drives more traffic to websites than Google+, YouTube and LinkedIn combined. In January 2012, Pinterest accounted for 3.6% of referral traffic, with Twitter barely ahead with 3.61%. To underscore the site’s massive growth in popularity, in July 2011, Pinterest accounted for only 0.17% of referral traffic.

Does all this sound…pinteresting? We think it does. And to help you start pinning for your clients or for your own brand-building efforts, we’ve come up with four ways to optimize Pinterest content:

1. Stick with Your Keyword Strategy: Google is currently indexing Pinterest accounts and individual boards. When creating your profile, use your brand name (much like Facebook pages) and be specific about who you are in your bio. Stay away from vague titles of pinboards — we see a lot called “favorite places and spaces” or “favorite books”. Instead, be more specific and give boards names like “Recommended Books on SEO” or “Home Office Organization” – or like ours: “Internet Marketing & SEO”

2. Grow Your Boards for Backlink – Building Opportunities: An important SEO aspect of Pinterest is the ability to build a number of links from a growing social network with excellent domain authority back to your own site. Get your boards noticed — and see your pins get repinned — by providing excellent Pinterest content (which translates to visually appealing!) and engage in the Pinterest community. As with other networks, spammy content and lack of conversation will get you nowhere.

3. Add “Pin It” to Site Pages: Embedding a “Pin It” button on your website lets visitors pin your content to one of their Boards. Add a “Follow me on Pinterest” badge to connect visitors with your collection of Pinboards.

4. Pay Attention to Site Visuals: Unless your site pages contain appealing pictures or interesting infographics, the likelihood that someone will pin it becomes low, despite the fact that your text content may be excellent. Could your site’s images use a little sprucing up? Use Pinterest as a tool to show you what kinds of pictures and infographics have mass appeal.

And one bonus tip: Pinning an item pulls the URL so interested users on Pinterest can click through to the original site. Double-check URLs after pinning to make sure users are being taken to the correct page.

Have you started pinning yet? Tell us what you think!

Misc. Statistical Data Sources & References:

Hitwise Article: Pinteresting Trend in Social Media: http://weblogs.hitwise.com/heather-dougherty/2011/12/pinteresting_trend_in_social_m.html

Shareaholic Article: Pinterest Drives More Referral Traffic Than Google Plus, YouTube, and LinkedIn Combined: http://blog.shareaholic.com/2012/01/pinterest-referral-traffic/

Anyway, this client had a difficult/interesting time finding a true professional SEO locally to bring in so decided to ask those already within the company. A really nice gal, working in their PPC department, stepped forward. I thought, ok, she will know what keywords are, and should be comfortable with the website pages and information available along with the general internal affairs within the business for getting things done (or not) – a good start. After all, I started in SEO and was able to take on PPC using my knowledge base, problem solving abilities, research skills, competitive analysis and more to see how it was done and successfully doing it myself.

So, when I got the email today from this new gal asking me, “If you wouldn’t mind sending along your ‘SEO steps’ so to speak,” I didn’t know whether to laugh, cry, be insulted or relieved! Then, I didn’t know how to answer her. I don’t want to hurt our ties together and I don’t want them to think I’m not willing to help. I love to share information. I am best when I am teaching. Over the years, I have sent them tons of instructions, helpful guides, presentations and documents of all sorts, including supplying them with page edits, video optimization, press release info, social media help, link building, and more.  What I don’t think she realizes is that she is asking me for what would be like a Calculus book full of information, rules, examples, exercises, and theory – not quick steps that can be documented in an email. I do keep threatening myself to write an IM/SEO book. I did start writing a helpful Calculus book after I graduated with my Math degree and saw so many students struggling with a topic that didn’t have to be so badly represented as it was in the current books, but, life took hold and I never finished that one. Maybe, there’s still hope for one on Internet Marketing and SEO!

I still don’t know what to say in an email back to her, so, maybe I’ll just send her a link to this blog post [wink]!

But, if you really want my “steps to SEO”, try these:

1. Get a degree in Math or Computer Science.
2. Have great analytical, problem solving and logic abilities.
3. Learn to build websites.
4. Get a job at a top SEO firm (thanks Bruce!).
5. Work for years with different clients and websites.
6. Be willing to earn a tiny intern’s salary while you learn.
7. Quit your job (not saying why, but it was an interesting story – sorry, Bruce!).
8. Start your own company because you love what you do and know what to do.
9. Continue growth, development and research into Internet Marketing overall – not just SEO.
10. All during the while create your own helpful documents and process by which you’ll eventually write a book!
11. Send those people who asked you for the “steps” to SEO a link to your Amazon book-for-sale page!

The very first thing one should always consider, no matter the tips listed below, is how will you best be able to communicate a page’s URL name to anyone, anywhere, any time. Maybe you’ll need to reference it online in your website (no “maybe” here, you should always do this), maybe you’ll want to reference it in Twitter or Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, maybe you’ll need to show it in type or maybe you’ll need to spell it out for someone. No matter the situation, the best thing is to try to cover all the possibilities so you’ll get the best “bang for your buck”. So, with that here are some tips and best practice considerations for choosing your URL:

• Set Standards for URLs – Make sure everyone in an organization sets the URL standards from the start. It’ll make it all a lot easier to manage pages as the site grows or changes and/or new employees play a part.

• Use Static URL Page Names – Using static, non-dynamically generated, page names is great for everyone – and can help keep URLs nice, clean and focused. Static URLs allows for more flexibility in creating a good name with keywords that clearly identify the page that it names. It makes it easier for the search engines to interpret, rather than the “?” and “=” and “&” scattered in a dynamically generated URL name. It also makes it easier to communicate, is less easily forgotten and/or mis-typed and reads better in the SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages). Go static!

• Use Lower-Case Letters for Page Names – Using lower-case letters in a page URL name leaves less to be questioned or communicated.  The top-level domain name doesn’t matter for upper or lower-case letters, but pages within a domain with different lettering cases can cause duplication of URLs in the search engine indexes.

• Keep URL Names Short & Concise – If you can, and it makes sense, use keywords in a URL to support and explain the page information that will follow (hopefully, your domain name might have a keyword/s already – but that’s another blog post topic on choosing your domain name). But, also try to keep it short and concise. This will allow more success in varied forms of communicating the page name to others (including in your website) when the full URL might need to be referenced.

• Parse URL Names with a Dash/Hyphen - If necessary, and there can be a few reasons why, then use a dash (or hyphen) to separate words in a URL name. Underscores are ok, but dashes are better and easier to communicate and see. Hyperlinks can be seen in web pages as underlined, so an underscore may not be as easily seen. Also, it is more common to verbally communicate the word “dash” verses “underscore”. Using a space between words translates into a special set of coding characters of “%20″. Most don’t understand what this is and it wastes space (3 characters) in a URL. As for deciding when to use a break (suggested dash) first consider trying to keep the URL short (as mentioned above), then look at the words together and see if they read “funny”. Our favorite example is in the words “mens” and “exchange” when they are put together: “mensexchange”. It doesn’t read quite the same way, huh?! Play word games with your URL. When you write it out, see what words can be pulled out as the letters are strung together. Another reason to consider having a dash between words is if you might have a base topic with specific, clarification pages to describe that topic. Think of the future of the site and the pages within the site. You might want to separate topics into Directories (another blog post!) or have the page name with a dash for ease in seeing that multiple pages that are being used for a base topic.

Bottom line for creating good URL names: think ease in reading, writing, saying and interpreting.

ps: Don’t forget a few other items to consider if you are Renaming Existing URLs  – a different blog post, but this one’s been written!

pps: This blog post doesn’t go into details about how blogging tools (like Word Press, Blogger or others) might work differently for URL writing considerations. You should look at Permalink formatting to get the most out of creating a static URL for your blog posts too.

A little team work can go a long way to success!

The inter-connecting of multiple departments with SEO/IM will allow for the creation of a more effective and productive organization. Here are our examples why:

SEO/IM and PPC – Working Together

1. Shared reporting
Tracking and data results shared by paid and natural search can show the relationship between the two, potentially showing the complete journey of the user.

2. PPC ad copy
Successful ad copy in paid search can be transferred immediately to site optimization for organic rankings.

3. Landing page strategy
Combining PPC landing pages used for conversion purposes and SEO landing pages used for rankings will allow for the best possible all around landing page – one that ranks highly and converts.

4. Time and management efficiency
Combined efforts saves a lot of time and money in communication, project management, results reporting, account management and more.

5. Risk management
If a site or page drops down in the organic search results then PPC can immediately fill the gap until the SEO is adjusted to suit.

6. Traffic forecasting
PPC can be used as a reliable forecaster to a particular keywords organic search optimization results.

7. Performance sharing
Results of organic and paid campaigns contain lessons for both.

8. Conversion testing
A/B landing page variations can be built using PPC techniques. This allows a preview to organic conversions.

SEO/IM and Blog Writers & Social Media – Working Together

1. Link Building
Using appropriate anchor text and words for and around a referenced page allows for stronger link quality and better keyword focus for rankings.

2. Page and keyword optimization
Links belong to individual pages, not to sites, therefore attention to the actual referenced page with the topic will give stronger results. The topic suggested on an external page can also suggest additional keywords for internal optimization.

3. Traffic conversions
SEO combined with Blog or Social Media focus can promote and push conversions more quickly. It can also hit additional areas from which traffic appears.

4. Reputation management
SEO combined with Blog or Social Media focus can help maintain a positive online presence and be better prepared for any adverse reputation issues.

SEO/IM and IT/Development Team – Working Together

1. Website updates
With combined efforts of IT and SEO, many re-workings or re-editing of website pages will be less necessary thus saving time and effort for technical staff.

2. Technical issues
A good SEO analyst should have combined knowledge including programming coding and design. Coding and design reviews allow IT to better format and code website pages the first time around.

SEO/IM and Content Team – Working Together

1. Writing skills
Combining strength and knowledge of Content team writing skills along with SEO’s understanding of keywords in general along with the distribution of these words, their activities and rankings allows for optimal website pages.

2. Writing tactics
SEO can provide valuable knowledge to writing tactics that will best enhance the rankings of web pages with statistics from competitive issues that should combine to give content writers the ability to create information that is optimal towards the user experience while maintaining their expert knowledge of a field or topic.

3. Topic ideas
SEO, PPC and Content team research and review for topic ideas will not only enhance the user experience suggesting popular and higher demanded topics but also give room to further optimization efforts for both SEO and PPC – allowing for further conversion possibilities.

SEO/IM, Marketing & Public Relations Team – Working Together

1. Product/Service Priorities
SEO research knowledge can help see current, future and even past items that can be brought to marketing for review and priority for releases of products or services for online and offline considerations.

2. Advertising, Copy, Call-to-Action Items
With research of online competitors and understanding of Analytics, SEO can help with creative elements that work for advertising, ad copy and call-to-action items for better click-thru rates applicable to both organic conversions and PPC conversions.

3. Customer Service
SEO can help prepare or alert Customer Service areas with changes and up-and-coming issues on the site to be ready to service the customer.

4. Branding & PR
SEO search and tracking information can be used to alert Marketing & PR to any online branding concerns and/or public relations issues that appear online. Catching them sooner than later allows for a much better organizational management process in these areas.

SEO/IM – By Itself

1. Keyword Management
Continued review and analysis of current keywords with possible new ones is on-going and a part of everything that occurs in consultations for the above mentioned inner-workings. It occurs in page edits, interlinking, link building, along with internal and external areas we play a part in.

2. Rankings
Rankings are reviewed with each new edit, update or new bit of information affecting the website. Thousands of keywords are reviewed and analyzed for rankings to determine the best area to maintain and build rankings – for traffic.

3. Research
Search and the Internet in general is ever changing. Staying up-to-date on these changes is a prime part of my job and analysis for suggesting changes or updates for the website.

4. Risk Management
The SEO/IM Consultant is your insurance policy on the business. The more support you have, the more solid and stable your search rankings & online traffic will be. Leveraging SEO expertise can help build a stronger foundation and manage risk.

Risk Management is occurring all the time. It is probably the most undervalued aspect of what we do! It is in large part due to the fact that managing risk doesn’t show itself until it wasn’t managed properly, then it appears and it’s already too late.

A main goal as the Chief Analyst and SEO Professional for Search Visible, Inc. isn’t just to help rank the site but to keep it ranked and positively presented online as the structure of the web changes whether from Google changes or other competitive Search landscape changes.

To All My Clients and Project Friends,

Thank you! You have made my job most enjoyable over the years. And still today, with your loyalty and trust in me, I have been able to completely overlook my own website for optimization efforts, along with anything related to keeping it up-to-date!!

I notice that many others in the industry of Internet Marketing and SEO have great sites, they out-rank me with lots of content, blog posts and more! But, I am happy to say that it is because you all allow me the opportunity to do what is possible and good for Search on your websites. I get to focus on your keywords, your content, your blog posts, your social accounts and more. You all trust me with my suggestions, even if there are times when you think I am coming up with random ideas and items! You have all seen that I never, ever will give you information that hasn’t been tried, tested and true. You have all seen the results in sales because you also allow me to discuss general marketing items, not just those related to purely SEO, such as calls-to-action items, where items are placed on the site pages, how pages are read, why people stay or leave, external searched items, social media accounts, and much, much more. You have let me play with all of these items (and more) for you:

On-site Items:

Directory Structure – Design to URLs (page names)

Content of the Pages – On-page Text (where, when & how much)

Meta Data (Title, Meta Description, Meta Keywords, Meta Robots, Canonical)

Interlinking Considerations

Breadcrumbs

Calls-to-Action

Colors and Sizes of Items on a Page

SiteMaps

Tracking, Analytics and other Tools

Coding Considerations – page load time, spider readability, etc.

Robots.txt

Pay-Per-Click Reviews

Keywords

Ad Groups

Ads

Landing Pages

External & Some Additional Internal Items:

Link Building – Link Magnets to Blog Comments, etc, etc

Blog Posts

User Generated Code (UGC)

Dated Materials & Realtime elements including on and off-page items

Press Releases

Shopping Databases

Video Efforts & Optimization (YouTube & on-site elements)

Social Media Accounts Including Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn…

Local Business Listings

You, my dear clients, have given me an awesome job to do and for keeping me busy all these years. I look forward to the years to come. You all are the ones that have allowed me to be optimal as an Internet Marketer! Thanks for giving me your websites. Thanks for trusting me with your businesses. Thanks for taking my time and paying me for it too. Thanks for making my job such fun!! – Lydia

To let you in on a little more of that background… about 3 years ago I was working with Network Solutions specifically on the topic of SEO. I knew they were beginning these nice, quick seminars on SEO so I went “undercover” then too. But, Harry, who was the presenter at the time found out I would be there and got a little nervous at first. I promised that I would not say a word, that I would only take notes to give him later and, if he actually called on me for an answer or suggestion, only then would I say anything during that presentation. It all worked great and I was impressed at the way he presented information and really helped those business owners whose experience on the topic of SEO was new. Yes, I passed on my notes and information to him after the class.

Anyway, 3 years later, Randy was our presenter. I could tell they’ve reworked a lot from those years past. I could feel Randy’s excitement and knowledge of his topic. His goal was to get as much information to this quite large group (I believe we had almost 90 people that morning for this 1/2 day session – wow!) but was limited by time. He did a good job at focusing on as much information as he could fit in without sales-pitch attempts. I am all about getting the information to the online business owners. The more they know the smarter they will be at being able to do good things online and with the right people.

Even if it seems weird that Network Solutions offers competitive services to what we do at Search Visible, Inc, I don’t consider it that way. There is so much business out there and so many websites that need help that there is plenty to go around. We need more “good” SEM and SEO providers. My goal in life/business is to help the consumer, these business owners, understand our industry. The more they understand the better we all can weed out the bad guys in our industry, the ones who make promises or rip-off the client and bring concern to the world of SEO and SEM. The educated consumer can make all our lives better and make their own businesses better no matter if they hire an internal online marketing professional, SEO person, or go with a third party consultant type of firm – like Search Visible and Network Solutions.

Anyway, in a nut shell… I wanted to give a shout-out to Network Solutions for continuing with these great, not expensive ($139 – 1/2 price for additional guest) overview seminars on SEM and SEO. You can get more info about their seminars and webinars here: http://marketing.networksolutions.com/seminars/
Any business, small or large wanting to be exposed to the importance behind these online marketing strategies should check them out. I approve! Go Randy!!

Search Visible, Inc. wishes all of our clients, friends and family around the world a safe and prosperous New Year in 2010.

Some fun websites to help you ring in the New Year:

YouTube’s highlight videos for year 2009:
YouTube New Years Channel

UStream.TV suggests the following:
Times Square, New York, US
Funchal Harbor, Island of Madeira, Portugal
Junkanoo Festival, Nassau, Bahamas

The BBC News gives us video highlights for:
New Year’s Celebrations

The New York Times suggests some Good-Luck recipes:
Cooking Up Luck for the New Year

If you can see the sky tonight from where you are, know that there is/will be a Blue Moon tonight to help us see clearly into 2010!

The first to ring in the 2010 New Year were those in Auckland, New Zealand:
Fireworks from Auckland’s Sky Tower

Set your clocks for a New Year’s Eve to remember – we hope to see you all soon!

• Setup on on-site blog. If you have one already then make sure it is effectively being used to support internal website pages.

• Use real-time channels for branding, website updates & keyword support. At least understand how real-time information is being used in Search.

• Some of the better real-time areas to participate in are: Facebook, Twitter, online Press Releases, Blogs and other dated online forms of information.

• Pay attention to local options, internal and external to your website, especially if you can and should be found locally.

• Consider a mobile website: sites sized to show on phone browsers.

• Don’t neglect your on-site SEO. Best Practices for Search Engine Optimization are still important and the continuing basis for the major search engines.

- Jun 28, 2005
Search Gets Personal
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2005/06/search-gets-personal.html

- Feb 02, 2007
Personally Speaking
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2007/02/personally-speaking.html

- Sep 24, 2007
Search Privacy and Personalized Search
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2007/09/search-privacy-and-personalized-search.html

- Dec 04, 2009
Personalized Search for Everyone
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/12/personalized-search-for-everyone.html

Danny Sullivan’s insights to the Google Personalization directives:

- Jun 28, 2005
Google Relaunches Personal search – This Time, It Really Is Personal
http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/050628-073541

- Feb 2, 2007
Google Ramps Up Personalized Search
http://searchengineland.com/google-ramps-up-personalized-search-10430

- Apr 19, 2007
Google Search History Expands, Becomes Web History
http://searchengineland.com/google-search-history-expands-becomes-web-history-11016

- Jul 30, 2008
Google Now Notifies of “Search Customization” & Gives Searchers Control
http://searchengineland.com/google-now-notifies-of-search-customization-gives-searchers-control-14485

- Nov 5, 2009
Google Dashboard Offers New Privacy Controls
http://searchengineland.com/google-dashboard-offers-new-privacy-controls-29223

- Dec 4, 2009
Google Now Personalizes Everyone’s Search Results
http://searchengineland.com/google-now-personalizes-everyones-search-results-31195

If you didn’t have time to read all of the above, the Google Personalization feature is mainly controlled by the installation and use of various Google products. The main ones that are in control are the following:

Web History – www.google.com/history
Google Toolbar – toolbar.google.com

And, if you are freaked out or just don’t like these features, Google has provided tools to disable and/or turn off personalization:
http://www.google.com/support/accounts/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=54048

Note: There are many more articles on the topic from where these came from. We picked these as they give a nice overview on the topic. Hope it all helps explain!