Google Text Searching Techniques Easy to SEO

Google is more than a text based search engine and by devoting a little more time in framing the query, you can narrow down your search and access your desired information from the billion indexed pages from SERPs.

Google Text Searching Techniques tag

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Forum Posting is Still Effective

When i started my blogging career i spend a lot of time in forums, just to build a few links for my blogs. In forums i read different threads about forum posting, every one was saying that forum posting is not helpful for link building. I was still busy in building links through forum posting. Now i am happy that thanks god i did not stopped forum posting, because i got benefits.
I notice 3 three things in my blogs success just because of forum posting.

1. Traffic

As a blogger you will always need traffic for your blog. Traffic is blood for a blog and every webmaster works day and night just to drive traffic to there blogs and websites. The positive thing about forum posting is, that the more threads you post, the more comments you post, the more traffic you get from your contribution. That is what i did and got daily regular visitors from forums.

2. Click Through Rate

As every blogger want to earn money from there blogs using different Pay Per Click programs. One of the popular among all PPC programs is Google Adsense. Being a active member of some popular forums i notice increase in Click ThroughRate for my Adsense Ads.

3. Ranking

For one of my blog, for which i was trying to get high ranking on search engine. I achieved  my aim, by just posting valuable information in forums. Where i got links in signatures for my blog. So if some one is saying you that forum posting has no value, then he is 80% wrong.

Why 80%

Because if one is going to spam a blog, and just need backlinks from forums then forums are not going to help. The only way to get benefits from forums is to add quality in the existing discussions, Starting your own threads to share useful information and Respecting senior members of the forum.

Forum posting can help you in getting high rank position for average keywords. If you are a newbie then it is recommended that join popular forums and post valuable information along with links in signature. Dofollow Forums

For me forum posting is very effective, if you are thinking that forum posting is just a waste of time. Then share your thoughts here through comments, so that our readers can know that why forum posting is not effective.

3 Tips For Effective Forum Posting Are:

Forum Posting is a very useful technique to get free backlinks and relevant traffic. Especially if you are in affiliate business, then forum posting is very important for you. Every hit on your affiliate link has the chance to convert into sale. Forums has huge amount of visitors, thus if you will provide some quality then you will get a lot of free traffic to your blog or website.

1. Signature Links

Don’t put too much links in your signature, add only two links in order to get more hits on the links. Whether it is affiliate link or your blog link, allow your readers to easily chose and click on the links. If there will be more then 5 links in your signature, then there will be confusion for the visitor. So try to add only Two Links and Provide all the details about the link, so that visiter can easily understand the nature of the blog, affiliate or website link.

2. Informative Threads

The second tip to get hits on your blog or website link is to write a quality thread in your field. The more quality you provides the more hits you will get for links in your signature. No one will click on the link in your signature, if you just write a simple sentence, e.g Hello I want to know about off page optimization?

Instead of the above sentence if you will write “Off Page optimization is one of the most important factor in Search Engine Optimization. You must get links for your blog if you want to……..etc….”

Now more people will respect you and more people will click on the links in your signature. They will want to learn more knowledge from you, so provide unique and useful information in your threads.

3. Response to Threads

This is another useful technique to get hits on your signature links. For example if some one has wrote a thread about “Search Engine Optimization” and he missed some information, then its is chance for your to provide more detail information about SEO. In this way your comment will get more attention among the other response.

Follow these steps and start posting in forums for getting quality traffic and backlinks. Previously i wrote some useful posts about getting backlinks, don’t forget to reade these posts.

• 5 SEO Factors For Getting Quality Backlinks
• 5 Tips For Effective Guest Posting

There is no need to search on the web for the list of high page rank forums. I have collected 700 dofollow forums for you guys. Just create a free account in all these forums and start posting, but keep in mind the above 3 tips. In this way yourforum posting will be effective and will give you a lot of benefits.
Source: TechMaish.com

9 Social Media Hacks We Must Use Daily

Social media isn’t inexpensive, it’s just different expensive. To do it well requires a tremendous time commitment, and regardless of what your life and lifestyle entails, the time you spend on social comes with an opportunity cost price tag. Thus, one of the characteristics that sets adept practitioners of social media apart from less successful adherents is wise use of time.

Using your limited social media time wisely is all about going beyond the obvious activities. If you’re doing the exact same things everyone else is doing in social, I can guarantee you will not have an advantage. But, if you do some things differently, you may find activities where the reward is disproportionate to the effort. These nine efficiencies — hacks — are what you need to embrace right now.

1. Listen to Podcasts

Sure, they’ve been overcome by newer and sexier social flavors du jour but podcasts are still the best way to spend time when you’re not in front of a screen. Driving to work? Listen to Mitch Joel’s Six Pixels of Separation or MarketingProfs’ Marketing Smarts with Matthew Grant . Working out? Put on the earbuds and embrace John Jantsch’s Duct Tape Marketing , or Chris Penn’s Marketing Over Coffee . I’d love to have your ears on my weekly Social Pros Podcast, where we focus on real people doing real work in social media. (you can put your eyes on it too, because we run full text transcripts here).

2. Take and Curate Photographs

I’m not certain if a picture is worth a thousand words, but it’s definitely worth 140 characters. This is the year that photos challenge writing as the lingua franca of the social web: Instagram; Pinterest; Path; Google +  using large thumbnails in the news feed; face recognition technology. All trend lines point toward photography. If you’re not taking and posting pictures to dedicated photo networks and cross-posting (when appropriate) to Twitter and Facebook, you’re missing out on a huge opportunity to grow your network and see the world through the eyes (or cell phone cameras) of thousands of new friends.

3. Read LinkedIn Today

It’s pretty safe to say that most people keep their LinkedIn shrubbery more closely pruned than their Facebook or Twitter trees. Thus, when content is shared in LinkedIn, it often has a better chance to have been shared by people you trust, or at least people with a modicum of business sense. That’s why when I’m looking for a summarized source of what’s happening in the categories I care about, I turn to Linkedin Today.

4. Buffer Your Links

One of the most insidious time sucks in all of social media — especially for content curators — is the “Oh, I found something cool. I should share this on a social network or four!” keyboard fire that spontaneously erupts a few times a day. This kills your focus and productivity. The better approach is to set aside a chunk of time first thing each morning to find the handful of truly interesting content bon mots that are worthy, and use Buffer to automatically share them across your chosen social networks at pre-determined, optimized times. While you’re at it, add the Buffer button to your blog too. (disclosure: I’m an investor in Buffer)

5. Use “if this, then that” Recipes

If This, Then That (IFTTT) is the best social tool nobody ever mentions. It’s like a virtual assistant social media robot, where you can create an almost infinite array of conditionally-defined, time-saving tasks. Create an account and hook up all of your social profiles, blogs, cell phone numbers, etc. Then sift through the mountain of existing recipes to find processes that will save you effort.

For example, want your Twitter profile photo to change automatically when you update your Facebook profile photo? Done. Want to have your favorited tweets automatically emailed to you? Done.Want to automatically store your Instagram photos in a Dropbox account? Done.Want to automatically post to your Pinterest board any link you add to Facebook? Done.

The opportunities are nearly endless at IFTTT.com.

6. Create a Stalker List

Grab a piece of paper, or open a new document and write down a list of the 20 people you most want to interact with in social media — people you don’t know, but want to know. Then, create a list for these people on Twitter and Facebook, and a circle for them on Google +. Where applicable, visit their blogs and bookmark them. Also subscribe to their feeds (via email, not RSS because you’ll check your email every day, but not your RSS.) Find them on Instagram, Pinterest, and LInkedin and connect in those places, too.

Done? Starting tomorrow, spend 15 minutes total per day interacting with some of these 20 people. Not in a yucky way, and not in a pandering way. If you have something interesting and relevant to add via Twitter, blog comment, or elsewhere, do it. If you don’t, keep your hands to your sides. But pay attention to your list of 20, and find ways to interact with and help them. In short order, they will recognize you and you’ll have grown and leveled up your network of social contacts. Make a new list every three to six months.

7. Interact on Google +

Let me make this clear: If you’re reading this, you should be on Google +. Not for the SEO benefit — although that’s not insignificant. Not for the entertainment value — although the large number of videos and GIFs there can be a hoot. Do it for the opportunity to interact and engage with industry professionals in a comparatively quiet and efficient location. You want to get on Chris Brogan’sMari Smith’s? Or Brian Solis’s? Google + is the place to do it. It’s Twitter before Oprah; Quora for the masses; blog comments but easier to use. It may not last, but for now Google + is the place to interact with people that no longer answer every tweet.  radar? Or

8. Blend Personal and Professional

Quit worrying about showing your real self in social media. If your social media bios talk only about who you are at work, you’re leaving attention on the table. The reality is that unless you’re a sword swallower or an astronaut, your personal life is more interesting than your professional life. You’re a marketing director for a B2B software company? Yawn. You’re a marketing director for a B2B software company, and you happen to grow prize-winning roses? That, I’ll remember. What you love makes you memorable in ways that what you do cannot. There’s a reason most of my bios say I’m a tequila lover.

9. Quit Obsessing Over Case Studies

How much time do you spend reading case studies, trying to find evidence that social media will work for your company? Case studies should be used for ideation, not ratification. Beyond the fact that case studies are often strategically irrelevant because the company profiled is in a different industry, with different goals, competitors, and customer expectations (among other variances), perhaps the biggest problem with most social media success stories is that the measures of that success are largely without real merit.

Even in the best possible scenario, where the case study in question is extraordinarily applicable to your business goals, social media situation, KPIs, budget, timeline, customer personas, and more (which is a rare alignment indeed), you are placing significant influential value on one outcome. Worry less about what some other company is doing, and worry more about doing your own work.

Social media is too complicated for you to be wasting your time, spinning your wheels on activities and behaviors that won’t make much difference. I know these nine hacks will save you time and propel you forward, because I use them all consistently. But I’m sure I’ve missed many terrific ideas. What are you doing to save time and boost your social media efficiency.
Source: SocialMediaToday.com

AdSense For Domains is being Shut Down by Google

The Google direct AdSense For Domains program is being shut down by Google. The last day is April 18, 2012. This is not effecting the whole program, but specifically the "direct AdSense for Domains" program.

Google posted this news on this page and people have started to notice the news.

Here is the timeline:

• February 22: AdSense publishers can no longer start using the Hosted domains product.
• March 21: You will no longer be able to create new hosted domains.
• April 18: Hosted domains will become inactive and it will no longer be possible to earn from them.
• June 27: Hosted domains will no longer be available in AdSense accounts.

Google is also offering advice on how to migrate to another provider.

This is a smart move by Google since there have been numerous complaints on all sidesof the coin.

To be honest, I am a bit surprised they closed it down because they have fought off these complaints for years and years now. Now they decide to close it down? Google said:

After evaluating the benefits of our partner network, we’ve decided to retire the Hosted domains product within AdSense. Going forward, undeveloped domains will only be served through our existing AdSense for domains distribution network.

For more details on this change, see this page.
Source: SERoundTable.com

How to figure out the value of a back link?

Before you decide to get a link from a site, evaluate the value of the linking page and the linking site. I have found 10 factors which can help. If you know of any other factors, then please share it in the comment section below. Here are my 10 factors:

1. Page Rank of the potential linking page and the linking site.

   Although Page Rank is not the most important factor to consider, i started with PR because it tells a lot about a page. If PR is grayed, then may be the linking page is not in the Google Index, may be it has got some penalty, it may be a brand new page, may be it is not getting any link juice because of some crawling issues or it may be blocked from search engines via robots.txt or meta noindex tag. In either case, it make sense to digg out why the PR is grayed. If it is grayed because of any of the aforesaid -ve SEO issues, then the page is not worth targeting for a back link.

2. Cache Date of the potential linking page

   Through Cache date of the linking page you can find out, how frequently the linking page is crawled and indexed. If cache date is more than 3 months old, then the page is not worth targeting as bots may have stopped crawling the web page.

3. Index Status of the potential linking page

   Use site: command on Google to find out whether the page is in the Google Index or not. If site: command doesn’t return any results, then simply copy and paste the contents of the page in Google search bar. If the page doesn’t come up on SERP for its own contents then it is not in the Google Index and hence not worth targeting.

4. NoIndex, NoFollow Status

   Make sure that the liking page doesn’t contain nofollow and noindex meta robots tag. Also check the robots.txt for any possible blocking of the page from the search engines.

5. Outgoing Links

   Ideally the number of outgoing links (both internal and external) on a webpage should not be more than 30. More the number of outgoing links on a web page, lesser is the value of a link from that page. So if a potential linking page has more than 100 outgoing links, then it is not worth targeting.

6. Back link Analysis

   The links on the potential linking page should be direct and do-follow links. They should not be redirected, JavaScript, short url or no-follow links. Often link builders take only no-follow links into account. JavaScript, short URLs and redirected links are almost as bad as no-follow links in terms of passing link metrix. I used the word ‘almost’ because they do pass some link metrix. But how much they pass which can be considered optimum for improving rankings is still in question. Therefore for the best practice, stick to direct do-follow links.

7. Anchor Text

   Make sure that the anchor text of your back link contain your targeted keywords. Some webmasters won’t let you use your desired anchor text as it reduces the readability of their site and give a bad user experience. Like you submit an article on ‘selecting car insurance companies’ on the linking site and then sign it as ‘Car insurance India’ with a link back to your site. But ‘car insurance india doesn’t make any sense as a stand-alone text (even if you used it between text). So it makes sense to contribute something which can justify the use of your anchor text or use anchor text in an intelligent way like: ‘Zeyx Car Insurance Company of India’.

8. Topical Relevance

   The linking page and the linking site should be on the same/similar topic as the linked to page. If it is not, then the potential linking page won’t pass any topical relevance to your website. It means if your website is on ‘Dogs food’ and you get a link from a ‘cats food’ website, then that link won’t make your website any more relevant for the keyword ‘Dogs food’.

9. Geo-Relevance

   The linking page and the linking site should be relevant to the geo-location your site is targeting. If it is not, then the potential linking page won’t pass any geo-relevance to your website. It means, if your website is targeting ‘new york’ and you get a link from the site which is relevant for ‘los angeles’, then such link won’t make your site any more relevant for the ‘new york’ area.

10. Trust and Authority

    Last but not the least, you need to determine the trust and authority of the linking page and the linking site. You can use ‘open site explorer‘ for this. Through page authority and domain authority you can determine the ranking potential of the linking page and the linking site.
    Source: SEOTakeAways.com

Top 10 Secrets to Writing Popular Posts - Kevin Jorgensen

Do you wish you knew the secret to writing popular blog posts? You know, the posts that get over 200 comments, 20 backlinks, and hundreds of shares on social networking sites?

Use Simple Words

The first thing you’ll probably observe when you look at popular blog posts is they’re easy to understand. And that’s true regardless of the subject matter.
Why? The reason popular blog posts are easy to read is because the author choses to write with simple words.
I try to write my content using 8^th grade vocabulary (like Time magazine), rather than writing like a highly educated person. I’d rather you be able to read and understand quickly what I wrote, than use my writing to convince you I may know more than you do about a particular subject.
The interesting thing is you will still come across as an expert – perhaps even more so. Even better – readers are more likely to share content that they think other people will understand. Use simple words, not fancy ones.
In addition to simple language, there are some words that seem to attract attention better than others (source Hubspot). You might consider these words for your subheads (don’t over do it).

Use the Word “you”

Really great content sounds like it was written specifically for you. Do you know why? Often because the writer simply used the word “you” instead of “we” or “them.”
When I write in this manner, what I’m doing is trying give you the sense that it’s just you and me, as if we were sitting down at Starbucks for a cup of coffee.
A simple method to help you do this is to think of someone you know and write your blog posts as if you are writing just for them. Some writers will even keep a picture of a person on the side of their monitor to remind them that they are writing for just one person.

Write “how-to” Posts

People want useful information. You want to be popular. Write useful information and you’ll be popular.
The formula for writing a “how-to” post is simple. Sit down and write out all of the steps involved in doing something in particular. Map each step into a sub-head and then write in that ‘you’ style, using simple language, how to accomplish each step.
Let’s say you want to show your reader how to subscribe to your blog with an RSS reader. Your headings might be “Choose a Reader,” “Sign Up,” “Click on the RSS button,” and “Subscribe.” Under each heading you would give more information, explaining what to look for, the pros and cons, and pointing out issues that might be confusing.

Not Too Long But Not Too Short…Just Right

Goldilocks was on to something. She only wanted things that were just right to resolve her immediate problem. Taking her queue, your content should be just long enough to completely address the issue you’re writing about. Some content will be longer than others but in order to be popular, no content should be fluff and likewise, it shouldn’t read like War and Peace either.
People love details – as long as the details make a point. Fill your how-to content with statistic, facts and information a reader will want to reference. Charts and graphs are great and add to visual appeal as well as increase appeal. Those references often end up being inbound links back to your content.

Hook Your Readers

The first rule of hooking readers is to write a great headline. Great headlines have four qualities. They are:

• Unique: Unique headlines can only be used for your blog post, like this post I’m writing right now. It’s unique because there is only one Kevin Jorgensen!
• Useful: A headline is useful when it promises practical information. The reason “how-to” guides are popular is because they give answers to problems.
• Ultra-specific: Adding numbers or stats to a headline makes it ultra-specific.
• Urgent: The best way to create urgency is to put some kind of deadline into your headline. “6 Days until the Next Stock Market Boom” or “Your Last Chance to Get a Free Copy of My Book” are good examples.

The best headlines have three or four of these features in them. This formula is called the Four Us.
After the headline, you hook readers by writing a great first sentence. How do you do that? Asking questions works really well. So does making a crazy statement that simply can’t be true, but then you promise to show your readers that it is. The point is to write a first sentence that people can’t resist. Quotes also make good first sentences, as do statistics.
Next, your reader will probably skim your post, especially if it is long, looking at all of your sub-headlines. This is why your sub-headlines need to also hook the reader.
Readers should be able to scan your sub-headlines and get a summary of what the post is about. Try writing your sub-headlines like normal headlines, using the Four Us formula. That way, you read them and say, “I’ve got to read that!”

Create a Conversation

One of the most important parts of writing popular blog posts is writing conversationally.
Have you noticed all the questions in this article? How about the italicized phrases? There’s a reason for this style. People forget that blogging is social media, and being social means knowing how to carry on a good conversation.
If you were having this conversation in-person the way to make it a great conversation is to listen and ask the other person questions. It shows the other person that you care about what they are thinking, and that it’s not all about you—because it’s not.
The same is true for a blog. Monologs are boring.
Creating a conversation also means you exchange words with each other after the blog post is done, usually in the comments, though some people prefer to email privately.
If there isn’t a dialog then it’s a monolog, and that’s no fun. So at the end of your post, always ask people what they think and tell them to leave their thoughts in the comments.

Prove Your Points

It’s important in your post to prove any claims that you make. For example, in the section where I said that graphs and stats in a post get more backlinks, I actually linked to another blog post that backed up what I was saying.
If you don’t do this, you’re likely to lose credibility and people won’t believe what you say.
Another benefit to proving your points by linking to other posts is that you are sharing with your audience another good source of information. And the chances are, the appreciative author you link to will probably link back to your blog at some point.

Show You’re an Expert

Lots of bloggers can get uncomfortable with this one because they feel like they’re tooting their own horn. Actually tooting your own horn rarely works.
To show you’re an authority on a subject means you have to get other people or organizations to say that you are an authority. Then you simply point out what they said.
Following this approach, you’re not bragging, just pointing out what others claim. Of course, it matters how you say it, so be humble.
There are also some words that seem to generate more inbound links (the proxy for authority) according to Hubspot:
 
You’ll see blogs with “As Seen In” sections displaying the logos of important companies and media sources, like the New York Times, underneath. This is an endorsement—another way of showing you have authority.
Testimonials from readers and clients are also a form of authority. If you’re interested, here’s a post on how to effectively use testimonials that explains more on this topic.

Care About Your Readers

I’ve discovered that if you truly care about people—including your readers—you will naturally try to write a popular blog post, because you are always looking for ways to write better. In other words, you’ll constantly try to learn new ways to improve your posts so you help more people. And that’s the Golden Rule for success blog posts!

Pay Attention to Search Optimization

In your blog posts, focus on the keywords for which you want to be found. Use one keyword in a post and keep the frequency between 1 use in 50 to 1 in 100 words. Improve the context of your keywords for on-page search: page title is the most effective place for keywords, use keywords in headings and content, and use the blog post description to convince searchers to read your content. Another place that writers often overlook for keyword use is the alternative text for images.
Source: IMRCorp.com

What is SEO and how it can define or rank for 2012

What is SEO? The acronym stands for Search Engine Optimization. But the definition of SEO is a more difficult question.

It’s not what it once was, that’s for sure. The problem is, I see references to outdated definitions of SEO on a fairly regular basis.

If you have arrived here thinking SEO is a sham, snake oil and/or dead then a) you are grossly mistaken and b) let me disabuse you of that notion.

SEO Definition

Here’s my definition of SEO in 2012.

Search Engine Optimization is a multidisciplinary activity that seeks to generateproductive organic traffic from search engines via technically soundand connected sites by matching query intent with relevance and value.

It’s a bit of a mouthful, I know. I’ve emphasized the areas that I feel are particularly important and deserve a more in-depth explanation.

Productive Traffic

The goal of SEO is not to increase traffic willy-nilly. You increase traffic by 30% but it makes no difference to the bottom line. Who cares!

Productive can mean different things to different companies. Productive may mean leads or subscribers or revenue or page views. Whatever it is, it’s important to define and track productive traffic rather than simply focusing on increasing traffic overall.

I might be able to generate more traffic by adding ‘Nude’ and ‘Free’ as keyword modifiers but is that really going to bring productive traffic to a site?

This goes (way) beyond brand versus non-brand traffic, which I find to be the most rudimentary of divisions. This is having a fundamental understanding of the traffic that makes a difference to that business.

That may mean moving away from high volume terms and generating less traffic overall. Don’t get saucer eyes when it comes to keyword volume. It’s about the right keywords, not the biggest keywords. (That’s what she said!)

Yet, even if you’re driving the right traffic there are other factors that contribute to a productive visit. If the focus is leads, you might realize that the call-to-action is weak, doesn’t match the query intent or competes with other elements on the page. Perhaps the lead form itself isn’t very good either.

If the goal is page views, you may realize that the design is confusing, the text hard to read and the content without a structure that allows for easy navigation.

Because productive traffic is the goal an SEO needs to understand design, user experience, information architecture and conversion rate optimization. Otherwise it’s like a chef who creates a menu but then has no input on how the food is cooked, the quality of ingredients, decor of the establishment or the presentation of the meal.

It’s okay if you’re in the business of driving any old traffic at a website and then shrugging your shoulders when it doesn’t really do anything for the business. But that’s not SEO. You’re just a burger flipper at some fast food joint.

Technically Sound

As an SEO you need to have very strong technical skills. What does this really mean though? At a minimum, it means you need to know how the Internet works and how search engines crawl and index the web.

You should also be comfortable analyzing HTTP headers and know your status codes cold. Get good using Firebug or Chrome’s Developer Tools. Mine those weblogs, because there’s gold in them there data. (Sorry, I just watched True Grit.) Bonus points if you can code something up yourself to extract it.

Understanding how to diagnose and solve accessibility and crawl efficiency problems is critical.

SEO is about knowing enough about … everything. HTML, CSS, JQuery, AJAX, Flash, JavaScript, XML, JSON, RSS, PHP, SQL. Experiment with and understand these technologies.

But you’re not done yet because you still have to understand the technical side of specific search engine directives including (but certainly not limited to) noindex, nofollow, rel=canonical, rel=author, rel=publisher, rel=standout, hreflang and various competing schemas of microdata.

SEO is about knowing all of this to ensure technical issues aren’t obstacles and to create positive relationships with engineers. You must speak their language. You don’t have to understand everything and you should never bluff, but you damn well better be able to carry on a coherent conversation.

You should know the difference between a GET and a POST; between server side and client side scripts. An SEO should be able to convey when and why to use a cookieless domain. You shouldn’t get a deer-in-the-headlights look when engineers talk about CDNs or minifying code.

I haven’t even touched on diving into the details of information retrieval, natural language processing, machine learning and other methods that inform modern search engine algorithms.

The more technical you are the more effective you become. And there’s always something more to learn.

Connected

What do I mean by connected? Today it means links to and from other sites and connecting with and through others on social platforms. In plain language it’s about links and social.

I’m not a huge fan of link building and prefer a link gardening approach. Mind you, I understand the value of links but too often link building is done for the wrong reasons and weighted far to0 heavily in the scheme of things.

It works a fair amount of the time. I can’t deny that. But I’m never sure at what expense. Too often I see those companies on a treadmill of link building efforts. Frankly, you should reach a point where link building isn’t something you’re workingat.

Oddly, linking out is an overlooked and underrated tactic. Tadeusz Szewczyk was an early and strong proponent of this practice. Linking out is a form of built-in reciprocity. You wind up getting back links from those to whom you link out. It’s a way of connecting to and engaging with people in your niche.

That sounds a lot like social doesn’t it? Social takes on a number of dimensions. First is producing content that is worthy of sharing and then doing everything you can to make it portable. That includes an interaction design that promotes sharing andensuring that the shared content is optimized.

Of course there’s also really being social and getting out on these platforms and connecting with your users and customers. I don’t mean public, glorified customer service but actually socializing with some of your users and customers. This is both extremely tough to do at scale but also valuable for a variety of reasons.

Today it also means understanding how social is being integrated into search (it’s not the other way around) and learning Facebook SEO and Google+ SEO.

Intent

Now we finally get to the real heart of SEO and the initial reason I started this blog post. Query intent is perhaps the most critical part of SEO.

You should understand the syntax of your user and the motivations behind their search and queries. At the bare minimum you should understand differences between navigational, informational and transactional queries.

No, this is not about personas. All too often time and money are spent creating personas that create artificial divisions in the long-term, a type of stereotype that others glom onto to as a way to promote their own views. “Remember, that’s not what Sally Searcher is about.” (Ugh, kill me now.)

Instead this is about doing the hard work of understanding how and why people are searching for your content and products. It’s about syntax, psychology and consumer behavior among other things.

Intent is also informed by context. Geography, time of year and platform (i.e. – mobile) can all play an important part of understanding intent. It’s never something you can just copy and paste from one site to another.

For instance, here’s a real search that wound up coming to this blog.

how to change the blue link title of your website

I find these types of queries fascinating. It forces me to think different. SEO is about knowing how people are thinking and searching, not how that business thinks their users should be searching. SEO is an advocate for the user.

Relevance

Not too long ago SEO was about matching keywords with relevant content. This is why content farms became so popular and profitable. All you needed to do was take a long-tail keyword and match it with relevant content. It also meant you could shard a keyword concept into a large number of pages.

So you might find a different page for ‘how to squeeze orange juice’ and ‘how to squeeze fresh orange juice’.

Was the content relevant on these pages? For the most part, yes. But it was the content equivalent to empty calories.

That doesn’t mean that relevance isn’t important. Nothing could be farther from the truth. It’s still incredibly important. A fair amount of on-page SEO is about making relevance obvious. Because it doesn’t just need to be relevant, it has to be perceivedas relevant at a glance.

Relevance must be seen through the lens of intent instead of a simple keyword match. Relevance is the beginning, not the end of SEO.

Value

Relevance is always coupled with value. Is value subjective? Sure. But it gets easier when you trace it back to intent. Does that page truly satisfy the query intent? Notthat it’s relevant. Not that it matches the keyword. Did the page provide enoughvalue to satisfy intent.

You’ll notice that I’ve used satisfy twice and that’s not by accident. Search engines (and SEOs) are increasingly concerned with user satisfaction. An SEO might not talk about ‘delighting the user’ (eye roll) but we’re measuring satisfaction through both qualitative and quantitative measures.

Is it readable? Was the user experience positive? Were they able to find the information? Did it lead them to other related content? Was it easy for them to subscribe or buy? Were they able to print or share the page? How many pages did they view? Did they convert? What is the bounce rate?

We’re also there to call your baby ugly and identify gaps in a site’s content. That might mean the content produced isn’t valuable enough or that there is unsatisfied query intent (i.e – you don’t have the right content).

SEO is about producing positive and satisfying interactions that support the brand and flow into other marketing channels.

What About Rank?

You’ll note that I didn’t talk at all about rank. Rank can be important but only in the context of driving productive traffic. In many ways rank should take care of itself if you’re doing everything else right.

In addition, rank becomes less important when you’re working on large sites with more than, say, 100,000 pages. There are ways to measure rank in these situations but I don’t often find that of great value except in communicating with clients obsessed with rank.

Rank is also losing it’s fidelity with the continuing personalization of search results. If Search+ is here to stay then rank will become increasingly fractured.

SEO vs Inbound Marketing

There are many who probably look at my definition and explanation and believe it better matches ‘inbound marketing’. This new umbrella term created by Hubspot works for a lot of people. They find it easier to describe and convey to clients. It’s more palatable and allows them to distance themselves from the poor reputation SEO has acquired. I get it. But I don’t like it.

I’m an SEO and I’m proud of it.

I use SEO as a client filter. I can skip those who think it’s snake oil, find the ones who ‘get it’ and help educate those who might be on the fence. In many ways these are the clients who are most thoughtful and can contribute and collaborate on SEO efforts. Those are my kind of clients.

If I were trying to sell into the Fortune 100 or have thousands of clients under contract at a time I might decide inbound marketing was a better term. I wouldn’t have the time to explain and educate.

That’s not Blind Five Year Old. While the company is expanding, I still have the ability to create personal relationships with clients.

In the end, I’m not sure I want to work with a client who would accept my help under the guise of inbound marketing but not as an SEO. Perhaps that’s my own type of elitism.

SEO 2012 Example

So lets take my SEO definition and apply it to an example. Suppose you have the query ‘eureka lightforce 300 manual’. What do you suppose the intent is behind that query?

Are they really looking for that vacuum’s manual? Or are they instead having a problem with their vacuum? If you were able to look at query reformulations you’d see users cycle through modifiers like troubleshooting, repair, problems, information, solutions, manual and parts. In fact, you can use Google’s related queries to see how these are linked.

Two years ago you might have been able to get away with creating a page with a highly optimized Title, dynamic boilerplate text, a generic product description and a link to a PDF download of that manual. It would have been relevant but you wouldn’t have truly satisfied intent or delivered real value. More to the point, the value that you delivered was a commodity.

What would a SEO page for this term look like?

You’d still have a solid Title, product description (and specs), and a link to the manual. But you’d add a list of common problems with that vacuum along with potential solutions. These might include step-by-step DIY repair guides.

You’d provide links for replacement parts. You might dynamically serve them local vacuum repair shops. You may even have a section dedicated to buying a new vacuum. Maybe you even have a calculator that tells you whether it’s worth fixing the old vacuum or buying a new one. Heck you could even provide links to house cleaning services.

A well designed page with these elements would provide relevance and value, thereby satisfying query intent.

TL;DR

SEO is about generating productive organic search traffic by matching query intent with relevance and value. The implication of this definition is that SEO must draw upon an increasing number of disciplines including design, user experience, information architecture and conversation rate optimization.
Source : http://www.blindfiveyearold.com/what-is-seo