Central Perk

luni, 8 iulie 2013

SEO Ranking Factor #1 is Satisfaction

Posted: 07 Jul 2013 07:24 PM PDT

You know the numbers â€" Google uses over 200 ranking signals, updates its algorithm over 500 times a year, and employs thousands of engineers. We often get so caught up in the minutiae of the algorithm that we forget all this effort serves a single purpose:

Satisfy the user.

This isn't a touchy-feely post that says "Make great content and visitors will come" or "Delight your customers and magic will happen."

It's not magic. Satisfaction is an actual ranking factor.

Unlike other ranking factors, this one is hard to measure because it's based almost entirely on search engines' own internal data â€" something they don't share. We do know search engines both measure and reward satisfaction in very significant ways. In fact, I highly suspect satisfaction is one of Google's most important metrics used to judge the performance of its own search results.

It's easy to tweak a keyword. It's much harder to stop visitors from clicking the back button on your website when they don't find what they were looking for. Satisfaction is very difficult to game; perhaps that's why search engines place so much emphasis on it.

How Google measures and predicts satisfaction

User behavior in search results

Stephen Levyâ€™s excellent book In the Plex describes how Google engineers figured out how to improve search results by mining their user behavior data (bold added):

"â€¦ Google could see how satisfied users were. â€¦ The best sign of their happiness was the "long click" â€" this occurred when someone went to a search result, ideally the top one, and did not return. That meant Google has successfully fulfilled the query. But unhappy users were unhappy in their own ways, most telling were the â€œshort clicksâ€ where a user followed a link and immediately returned to try again. "If people type something and then go and change their query, you could tell they arenâ€™t happy," says Patel. "If they go to the next page of results, itâ€™s a sign theyâ€™re not happy."

Often called pogosticking, this refers to the behavior of users that click on a result, then "pogostick" back and forth between the search results and different websites, searching for satisfaction.

Search quality raters

In 2012, Google released an abbreviated copy of its Search Quality Rating Guidelines to the public. A version of this document is used by Google's small army of Search Quality Raters to evaluate search results.

One of the highest scores a quality rater can assign to a page is "useful" (bold added):

â€œUseful pages should be high quality and a good â€œfitâ€ for the query. In addition, they often have some or all of the following characteristics: highly satisfying, authoritative, entertaining, and/or recent (such as breaking news on a topic). Useful pages are usually well organized and pages you trust. They are from information sources that seem reliable. Useful information pages are not "spammy."

The problem with quality raters is they can only look at a few thousand websites at any given time. There are millions of sites on the web, so Google invented a new system:

Panda

Instead of evaluating results after the fact, Panda gives Google the ability to predict user satisfaction â€" modeled on actual human surveys â€" and apply it to every site in its index.

Less satisfying pages are ranked lower in search results, and every few weeks the index is updated with new data.

The chart below shows Panda hitting a site again and again.

Site visits with Panda updates via Panguin Tool and Google Algorithm Change History

What can we do?

If search engines measure user satisfaction and employ it as a ranking factor, our goals as search marketers are to:

Create highly satisfying experiences so that users donâ€™t return to search results to pick another URL.
Build sites that meet Pandaâ€™s expectation of high quality.
Surprise and delight our visitors so that they seek us out again and again.

5 Tips to improve visitor satisfaction:

1. Google's free website satisfaction surveys

As if to put an exclamation point on the whole satisfaction experience, Google recently released free, embeddable customer satisfaction surveys for website owners.

After installing a line of JavaScript on your site, your visitors are presented with the following questions:

Overall, how satisfied are you with this website?
What, if anything, do you find frustrating or unappealing about this website?
What is your main reason for visiting this website today?
Did you successfully complete your main reason for visiting this website today?

If you'd like to customize the questions, Google allows you to do this for $0.01 per response.

It feels like Google wants to give site owners the same type of feedback Google acquires directly from behavior data. Using these forms won't tell you exactly what to do, but any webmaster using them is sure to get a ton of valuable feedback about visitor satisfaction.

2. Removing barriers

Weâ€™ve talked for years about making your site more accessible for both search robots and humans, but we rarely discuss how those usability factors affect rankings.

Imagine if you will, a site that requires registration to view any content, which is otherwise accessible to search engines. We're seeing these more and more all over the web.

What if Moz required registration?

The idea is simple: folks click on a search result, see the form and return to the search results to try another URL. After a few hundred times (or less), search engines start to figure out this result doesnâ€™t satisfy users.

At Moz, weâ€™ve seen sites use similar tactics only to watch their bounce rate skyrocket, and their rankings drop. In fact, thereâ€™s anecdotal evidence of sites being hit by Panda after introducing similar barriers.

3. Speed it up

We know that faster websites are good, but page speed has two mechanisms by which to influence rankings:

Directly: Google reps have stated that page speed has a direct impact on rankings for a certain percentage of queries (only 1% in 2010).
Secondary: As page speed affects usage, it can have a secondary effect on user satisfaction. A frustrated user waiting too long for a page to load can often return to search results.

Google obsesses over speed, and scientists at Microsoft have shown that users will visit a site less often if it's only 250 milliseconds slower than the competition.

Source: NYTimes

If you ever need to convince your client or boss to improve page speed, try the comparison tool at Webpagetest.com which allows you to export a slow motion video.

4. Empathy

Empathy as a ranking factor? "Cyrus," I can hear you saying, "youâ€™ve been hanging out with Rand too much!"

Consider this comment on a recent Whiteboard Friday. I've edited the comment below to highlight the important parts:

When you practice empathy, you put yourself in the shoes of your visitor to try to build a satisfying experience. You accomplish this by

Answering their questions
Employing intuitive layouts
Giving them relevant links and resources to click
Surprising them with extras

While it's difficult to prove a relationship between improved user experiences and rankings (because we can't measure user behavior like Google can) there's strong anecdotal evidence that search engines aggregate these factors into their algorithms.

5. Linking out

One of the best SEO articles Iâ€™ve read all year is AJ Kohn's Time to Long Click, a great article you shouldn't miss. AJ explains how linking out (and also creating content hubs) can be used to increase user satisfaction (bold added):

What Iâ€™m recommending is that you link to other valuable sources of information when appropriate so that you fully satisfy that userâ€™s query. In doing so youâ€™ll generate more long clicks and earn more links over time, both of which can have profound and positive impact on your rankings.

Stop thinking about optimizing your page and think about optimizing the search experience instead.

-AJ Kohn

Think of it this way: It's far better for users to click away to another URL from your site than for those same users to return to Google to try again. In the first instance, you are the authority hub, in the latter, Google is the authority.

Be the authority.

How do YOU improve satisfaction?

There are two types of SEOs: those that try to satisfy robots, and those that satisfy users.

The robot-focused SEOs build pages with just the right keywords and title tags, hoping to attract the bots on relevancy. I say "try" to satisfy robots, because search engines are actually watching the users. If the users aren't happy, neither are the bots.

The user-focused SEOs works with the same keywords and title tag, but then they go one step further and ask their users to try the site. After that, they do whatever it takes to make their users happy.

Have you seen improvement in rankings after improving user satisfaction? Share your story with us in the comments below.

Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read!

Shouldn't Government Be Easy to Use?

Featured

Shouldn't Government Be Easy to Use?

President Obama is devoted to making government smarter -- improving disaster response, reducing waste, and opening up government data. We've made some big progress, but there's more to do to make government user-friendly for Americans.

That's why, today, President Obama is highlighting a new management agenda -- directing his cabinet to continue to bring this government into the 21st century, and make it easier than ever for Americans to get the services they need from government.

Watch live at 11:50 AM ET to find out how a new management agenda is improving government.

Seth's Blog : Canaries and coal mines

Canaries and coal mines

Years ago, I went on a grueling trip, four cities in four days doing speaking gigs. That meant I was in a lot of airports. At every airport bookstore, there wasn't a single copy of any of my books, including one that had recently came out.

I whined to the team at my book publisher. What sort of distribution was this?

Someone wrote back, "Seth, if you tell us which airports you'll be visiting, our salesforce says they will do their best to have your book in a place you can see it."

My own little Potemkin Village. I'm afraid he didn't really get the point I was after.

Don't save the canary. Fix the coal mine.

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duminică, 7 iulie 2013

Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis

Hypocrites and Bullies Speak on "The Importance of Trust"; Bullies, Bribes, and Foreign Aid

Posted: 07 Jul 2013 01:41 PM PDT

The bullies and hypocrites took to the air waves today regarding the "Importance of Trust".

For example, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff complained today Snowden's disclosures have undermined 'importance of trust' with other countries.

The Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman says NSA leaker Edward Snowden's disclosures about U.S. surveillance programs have undermined U.S. relationships with other countries and affected what he calls "the importance of trust."

Gen. Martin Dempsey told CNN's "State of the Union" in an interview broadcast Sunday that the U.S. will "work our way back. But it has set us back temporarily."

The head of the House Intelligence Committee, Rep. Mike Rogers, told he "absolutely" thinks that one of the countries will give Snowden travel documents.

Rogers, R-Mich., said the U.S. should look at trade agreements with the nations that are offering asylum "to send a very clear message that we won't put up with this kind of behavior."

Sen. Robert Menendez, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said he wasn't surprised that those nations were offering asylum. "They like sticking it to the United States," Mendendez, D-N.J., told NBC's "Meet the Press."

He also mentioned re-examining U.S. trade policies and foreign aid to any country that might take in Snowden.

"Clearly such acceptance of Snowden to any country ... is going to put them directly against the United States, and they need to know that," he said.

Hypocrites and Bullies

Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff
Rep. Mike Rogers, Head of the House Intelligence Committee,
Sen. Robert Menendez, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee

I would like to point out to all three gentlemen one important fact: Edward Snowden did not undermine trust.

There was no trust to undermine. All Snowden did was prove the obvious.

If there was any trust the US would not have been bugging the offices of the EU and Germany. If there was any trust, France would not be spying on us.

Bullies, Bribes, and Foreign Aid

Please note the bullying by US imperialists. Rep. Mike Rogers (R) proposes "to send a very clear message that we won't put up with this kind of behavior."

Excuse Me! What about unconscionable spying by the US on its alleged allies?

Countries should send a very clear message to the US that they will not put up with our severely misguided imperialism. And they probably would except they fear the US might cut off aid.

If you are looking for a reason very few countries have offered Snowden asylum (see Venezuela, Nicaragua offer asylum to Snowden; Double Standards and Hypocrite Allies), you now have an answer.

Thus, we can all thank Rogers for explaining that US foreign aid is really nothing but bribery so the imperialists, war-mongers, and hypocrites can continue their ways with impunity, totally clueless they are the ones directly responsible for the undermined trust.

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com

Bundesbank Chief States the Obvious "ECB Cannot Solve Euro Zone Crisis"; Unstated Message "No One Else Can Either"

Posted: 07 Jul 2013 11:39 AM PDT

The markets gave a high-five to an ECB statement last week by Mario Draghi "The Governing Council expects the key ECB interest rates to remain at present or lower levels for an extended period of time."

I fail to see why this was news even though the ECB has never issued such a pledge before. Did anyone really think the ECB was going to hike rates soon?

For further discussion, please see Communication Only "Tool" Left

A more realistic message came from German Central Bank president Jens Weidmann who stated the "ECB Cannot Solve Euro Zone Crisis"

AIX-EN-PROVENCE, France (Reuters) - The European Central Bank cannot solve the euro zone crisis, Bundesbank chief Jens Weidmann told economists on Sunday, pressing the bloc's governments to get their economies in shape and tighten their fiscal rules.

Weidmann addressed an economists' conference in Aix-en-Provence, southern France, only three days after the ECB broke with precedent by declaring that it intended to keep interest rates at record lows for an extended period and may yet cut further.

"Monetary policy has already done a lot to absorb the economic consequences of the crisis, but it cannot solve the crisis," Weidmann said in his speech.

"This is the consensus of the Governing Council. The crisis has laid bare structural shortcomings. As such, they require structural solutions."

FISCAL RULES

While he does not see sufficient support in the euro zone for governments to give up sovereignty on fiscal matters to forge a fiscal union to prevent such crises in the future, Weidmann pressed them to stiffen Europe's fiscal rules.

"To fully unleash the common currency's potential, efforts are needed on two fronts: structural reforms as well as the abolition of implicit guarantees for banks and sovereigns (government bonds)," Weidmann said.

"In addition to stronger rules, we need to make sure that in a system of national control and national responsibility, sovereign default is possible without bringing down the financial system. Only then will we really do away with the implicit guarantee for sovereigns."

The Bundesbank chief also called for euro zone governments to sever what he describes as the "excessively close links" between banks and sovereign governments, saying that European banks hold too many of their own governments' bonds.

"This is because banks do not have to hold any capital against their government debt, as the risk-weight assigned to sovereign bonds is zero.

Six Key Points

The ECB cannot solve the crisis
The problems are structural
There is little support for governments to give up sovereignty on fiscal matters to forge a fiscal union
There should be no guarantee on banks and sovereign bonds
European banks hold too many sovereign bonds
Sovereign bonds should not have a risk-weight of zero

Unstated Message "No One Else Can Either"

The above six points are obvious. But what Weidmann did not say (but should have) is the euro itself is a big structural problem.

And please note point number three. Weidmann was not just speaking for Germany. Rather he was speaking of the divide between Northern Europe and Southern Europe.

Yet another divide exists between France and Germany regarding productivity issues, labor reforms, taxes, government spending, and the role of the ECB.

And just imagine the impact if all of a sudden banks had to assign a reasonable risk-weight on sovereign bonds. Banks holding them would suddenly (and correctly) be viewed as capital impaired. The obvious implication is banks are capital impaired right now, but impairment is hidden via of absurd zero-risk weightings on bonds.

So don't expect anything to come of points 4-6. And don't expect countries to give up sovereignty. And don't expect France to do anything about work rule reform, its pension problems, its massive 56% of GDP public sector, or its horrendous agricultural subsidies (imposed on the rest of the EU as well).

In short, the problem remains unsolvable until the first country has enough common sense to say "to hell with the euro".

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com

Seth's Blog : Polishing junk

Polishing junk

The first rule of social media is that it powers the spread of remarkable ideas.

The second rule is that all the social media in the world can't make a lousy project work in the long run.

The time you're spending polishing might be better spent building.

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sâmbătă, 6 iulie 2013

Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis

Hypocrites, Obama, and the "Will of the People"

Posted: 06 Jul 2013 01:17 PM PDT

Obama wants the government in Egypt to honor the will of the Egyptian people.

But what about the will of the people in the United States who clearly did not want Obamacare (and still don't like it)? What about the will of the people who want our troops home from Afghanistan?

While pondering such obvious hypocrisy, note that the State Department is working overtime regarding America's Mess in Egypt.

Mr. Obama is bound by his own words, international law and the expectations of allies, such as Great Britain, not to acknowledge or support coups that overthrow duly-elected governments. For the president, it is an inconvenient truth that Morsi, a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, accomplished his office through the ballot box and was as constitutionally legitimate as Obama, but for one small fact. Morsi pushed through constitutional changes that are rather favorable to the fundamentalist thinking of the Brotherhood.

Like most Americans, I have no truck with the ideas of the Brotherhood, but the mob in the streets objecting to Morsi chose methods other than ballots to remove him. Sadly for him, the Egyptian military is neither under civilian control nor primarily financed by the Egyptian government. It gets its manna from the Obama Administration via more than $1 billion annually in U.S. foreign aid.

The State Department is now indicating [the coup] may not be a coup, because the generals have not imposed a military leader. That question has the legal minds at the State Department working overtime.

The upshot, in Egypt Obama's principal representative, Ambassador Anne Paterson, is vilified by all sides, and the Muslim Brotherhood is likely permanently disabused of the notion that participating in democratic processes can lead to its views taking hold anywhere from Syria to Yemen.

This is a mighty grand mess that will result in untold bloodshed and further reinforce anti-American views across the Middle East.

Those remarkable accomplishments notwithstanding, Americans are entitled to know: What is the U.S. policy toward overthrowing democratically elected governments? Is it unacceptable except when it gives rise to fundamentalist social and religious views the prelates within the American academy and mainstream media don't like?

Who says America doesn't have an insular aristocracy and Ayatollahs of its own.

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com

Venezuela, Nicaragua offer asylum to Snowden; Double Standards and Hypocrite Allies

Posted: 06 Jul 2013 10:52 AM PDT

MarketWatch reports Venezuela, Nicaragua offer asylum to Snowden

The governments of Venezuela and Nicaragua have stepped forward to offer asylum to National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden, who is currently holed up at a Moscow airport seeking a country to provide him sanctuary, according to media reports Saturday.

Venezuela's president, Nicolás Maduro, said Friday that he will "protect this young man from the persecution unleashed by the world's most powerful empire," according to the New York Times.

The offers from Venezuela and Nicaragua are, in part, motivated by anger over the treatment of Bolivian President Evo Morales, whose plane last week was denied permission to fly over several European countries because of suspicions that Snowden was aboard, the newspaper said

'Imperial Skyjacking'

In case you missed the 'Imperial Skyjacking', note that Latin America was upset last week when Bolivian president Evo Morales' plane diverted to Vienna amid suspicions NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden is on board.

Bolivia said President Evo Morales' plane was diverted on a flight from Russia and forced to land in Austria over suspicions that Edward Snowden might be on board, as countries across the globe rejected the American whistleblower's asylum applications.

France and Portugal abruptly cancelled air permits for Morales' plane, forcing the unscheduled stopover in Vienna.

Kidnapped by Imperialism

RT also commented on the 'Imperial Skyjacking' in Bolivian presidential plane grounded in Austria over Snowden stowaway suspicions.

Morales' jet was forced into landing in Vienna on Wednesday after several EU countries barred the plane from entering their airspace over suspicions that whistleblower Edward Snowden had stowed away aboard.

David Choquehuanca, the Bolivian Foreign Minister, refuted the idea Snowden was on the plane, saying "we don't know who invented this lie, but we want to denounce to the international community this injustice with the plane of President Evo Morales."

"I am not going to allow them to search my plane. I am not a thief," tweeted Argentine President Cristina Kirchner, citing the Bolivian President Morales, who she spoke with by telephone.

"This is a lie, a falsehood. It was generated by the US government," Bolivian Defense Minister Ruben Saavedra told CNN. "It is an outrage. It is an abuse. It is a violation of the conventions and agreements of international air transportation."

Double Standards and Hypocrite Allies

Did not Germany, France, and the EU in general benefit from the revelations by Edward Snowden that the NSA was spying on Germany and the EU?

Was Germany grateful or would Germany have simply preferred to let the US go on bugging their offices? What about France?

Logic dictates that it is beneficial to learn your alleged friends are spying on you. However, logic is useless.

Note the double standard of this mess. Imagine the outrage if president Obama's plane was forced to land in another country.

The Snowden affair is an absolute disgrace all around: By the US for its actions, then by Spain, by Portugal, by France and by any country that would not grant air clearance to Bolivia President Evo Morales based on totally unfounded and piss poor US intelligence reporting that suggested Snowden was on Morales' plane.

Even if countries were 100% certain Snowden was on the plane, they should not have honored the request by the US to ground the plane or deny air space flyover.

I am disappointed that neither New Zealand nor Australia would offer asylum.

Is there any dignity left in this world?

I guess not, given the world bows down to the almighty US even when we spit in the face of our key allies by bugging their offices.

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com

5 Tips For New SEOs

5 Tips For New SEOs

Posted: 05 Jul 2013 06:01 AM PDT

Over the past year I have been involved in the interviewing and hiring of a number of experienced SEOs and newcomers to the SEO industry. One of the key things that I ask in those interviews is: how do you keep up to date with the industry, and what are the techniques required to succeed? As you would expect, you get a lot of stock answers from those with experience, but those who are new to the industry don’t really have an understanding of what they need to be doing to succeed.

To help those who are new to SEO, I wanted to provide five tips that I would have loved to have been told when I was starting out.

1. Read, Read, Read and Read!

We work in an industry that is thriving in content, and as a noob to the industry that’s great. Start to read the basics rather than jumping straight in with the advanced. You need to have a good grounding.

Start with:

Google Website Optimisation Guide
Moz Learn SEO
Beginner's Guide to SEO
The Beginner's Guide for Learning SEO
The Web Developer's SEO Cheat Sheet
Perfecting Keyword Targeting & On-page Optimisation
The Beginner's Checklist for Small Business SEO
Search Engine Ranking Factors
DistilledU – Modular learning programme

Once you have gone through these initial guides, don’t stop reading. The industry moves so fast that you should be reading daily. To make this easier for you, I would seriously recommend using a good RSS program that syncs with all your devices. I am currently using Feedly, which I think is great and works for me. I also use Pocket, an online bookmarking tool. If I am in a rush or too busy, then I can add a post to Pocket and read it at a later date. That way I tend to miss very little from a content point of view.

Below are just a few of the blogs I check on a daily basis. I have also created an ultimate list of resources over at OxonDigital.

Moz.com
Seer Interactive
eConsultancy
Search Engine Land
Search Engine Round Table
Search Engine Watch

2. Get involved in Social Media & Meet-ups

We are lucky as an industry that people are very open and happy to share what they do, and will help where possible. However, if you don’t know them or haven’t engaged with them in the past, they are unlikely to help.

The first step is to start following the right people on Twitter. I tend to use Twitter for more business-related stuff, and keep my Facebook account completely separate. The majority of my tweets are therefore work-related, and those whom I have followed or who follow me talk about similar stuff. Below are a few of the people I follow.

People to Follow:

Matt Cutts – @mattcutts
Rand Fishkin @randfish
Danny Sullivan @dannysullivan
Wil Reynolds @wilreynolds
Richard Baxter @richardbaxter
Will Critchlow @willcritchlow
Lee Odden – @leeodden
Pierre Far – @pierrefar
Garrett French – @GarrettFrench
Dan Barker – @danbarker

These are just a few of those whom I actually follow, but I do follow a number of lists.

Twitter Lists to get you started:

Rishi Lakhani – UK_SEOs
SEOgadget – TheSEOList
Danny Sullivan – searchmarketing

Once you have started to follow people within the industry, the next step is to get involved in conversations. This could be by asking specific people questions or getting involved in conversations you feel you can add to. If you are asking questions, make sure that the person you are asking is the right person, don’t just ask the question for the sake of speaking to them.

The next step is getting yourself along to meet-ups and conferences. If you are unable to get a ticket, try and get to the drinks afterwards. Speaking to people face-to-face and buying someone a drink is a sure way of sparking a conversation. Use Twitter to see who is going to the event before you get there, and arrange to meet them. If you get no responses, don’t be afraid to go to the event anyway, and just start a conversation with the attendees; networking is a huge factor in our industry. Make as many contacts as you can, as it will help in the long run.

If you made it to the event, and managed to make some conversations, then don’t end it there. On your way home, make sure that you thank them on Twitter, and stay in touch over the coming days. This industry is great for networking, and if you make the right contacts, they could open lots of different doors in the future, including job offers, guest blogging opportunities and software demos.

3. Test everything!

This is huge! There is a lot of good stuff written and lots of theory provided, especially at conferences, for you to take on board and possibly implement.

The problem is it is mainly just that: theory. When I joined SEOptimise, I remember telling a colleague that I would test everything that I learnt even if it came from senior members of the team. Not because I didn’t trust them – I did – just that I wanted to see the impact of what would happen, how to implement said technique, and how to monitor results.

Before you implement anything that you have heard or read, you need to test them. To test these techniques, you need to have a website to test things on. I have a couple and also do some testing on my personal website, but your company may have some URLs that they are happy for you to burn. If not, then buy a couple of domains (they are cheap) and hosting, and put WordPress websites on them. The design of these websites doesn't need to be amazing, as the main purpose is to test.

Now that you have your test websites, you can start your test. I’d recommend doing one test at a time per website, and you should always document what you have done. If the test doesn’t work, then you can analyse what you did and identify whether you could have done something different. If it works, then you can write a post about your test and share it with the world.

I think this is one of my biggest takeaways when learning SEO all those years ago.

4. Make life easier

SEO can be a difficult in its current form, so creating tools to make things easier, bookmarking tools, resources or finding bookmarklets to help is a great way to get ahead.

There are many tools available to help us gather data, but you will always want to cut that data up further. This is where those Excel skills are needed, and the Distilled guide is great for getting to a certain level. Moving on from there is all about experience, playing around with the data and finding solutions for what you want to achieve.

Make sure you set aside some time to mess around with data. We have time set aside each week to allow us to develop personally but also to develop our internal tools to make our lives a bit easier. What do you do to help yourself?

5. Don’t be afraid to ask

I think our industry is unique in that everyone is happy to help. I could have blinkers on here, but I just don’t see the same camaraderie in other industries as we have – though I could be wrong!

This is where those contacts come in handy. With a relationship you can start to share information, but also ask for help. You’re not going to know everything. Why struggle? Just ask somebody. Other people will either have a fix or can point you in the right direction. Although we may be competing in the same niches, the main competition is still the search engine.

Just because you ask questions, doesn’t mean you are incompetent; you are not going to know everything. Make good contacts and don’t be afraid to share or ask for help.

So there you have it: five tips for SEO newcomers. Is there anything else you would recommend? Any resources that you think I should add? I look forward to hearing from you in the comments below, or as always on Twitter @danielbianchini.

Flickr Image courtesy of Danish S

luni, 8 iulie 2013

SEO Ranking Factor #1 is Satisfaction

SEO Ranking Factor #1 is Satisfaction