Central Perk

marți, 21 octombrie 2014

More than Keywords: 7 Concepts of Advanced On-Page SEO

Posted: 20 Oct 2014 05:00 PM PDT

"What is this page about?"

As marketers, helping search engines answer that basic question is one of our most important tasks. Search engines can't read pages like humans can, so we incorporate structure and clues as to what our content means. This helps provide the relevance element of search engine optimization that matches queries to useful results.

Understanding the techniques used to capture this meaning helps to provide better signals as to what our content relates to, and ultimately helps it to rank higher in search results. This post explores a series of on-page techniques that not only build upon one another, but can be combined in sophisticated ways.

While Google doesn't reveal the exact details of its algorithm, over the years we've collected evidence from interviews, research papers, US patent filings and observations from hundreds of search marketers to be able to explore these processes. Special thanks to Bill Slawski, whose posts on SEO By the Sea led to much of the research for this work.

As you read, keep in mind these are only some of the ways in which Google could determine on-page relevancy, and they aren't absolute law! Experimenting on your own is always the best policy.

We'll start with the simple, and move to the more advanced.

1. Keyword Usage

In the beginning, there were keywords. All over the page.

The concept was this: If your page focused on a certain topic, search engines would discover keywords in important areas. These locations included the title tag, headlines, alt attributes of images, and throughout in the text. SEOs helped their pages rank by placing keywords in these areas.

Even today, we start with keywords, and it remains the most basic form of on-page optimization.

Most on-page SEO tools still rely on keyword placement to grade pages, and while it remains a good place to start, research shows its influence has fallen.

While it's important to ensure your page at a bare minimum contains the keywords you want to rank for, it is unlikely that keyword placement by itself will have much of an influence on your page's ranking potential.

2. TF-IDF

It's not keyword density, it's term frequency–inverse document frequency (TF-IDF).

Google researchers recently described TF-IDF as "long used to index web pages" and variations of TF-IDF appear as a component in several well-known Google patents.

TF-IDF doesn't measure how often a keyword appears, but offers a measurement of importance by comparing how often a keyword appears compared to expectations gathered from a larger set of documents.

If we compare the phrases "basket" to "basketball player" in Google's Ngram viewer, we see that "basketball player" is a more rare, while "basket" is more common. Based on this frequency, we might conclude that "basketball player" is significant on a page that contains that term, while the threshold for "basket" remains much higher.

For SEO purposes, when we measure TF-IDF's correlation with higher rankings, it performs only moderately better than individual keyword usage. In other words, generating a high TF-IDF score by itself generally isn't enough to expect much of an SEO boost. Instead, we should think of TF-IDF as an important component of other more advanced on-page concepts.

3. Synonyms and Close Variants

With over 6 billion searches per day, Google has a wealth of information to determine what searchers actually mean when typing queries into a search box. Google's own research shows that synonyms actually play a role in up to 70% of searches.

To solve this problem, search engines possess vast corpuses of synonyms and close variants for billions of phrases, which allows them to match content to queries even when searchers use different words than your text. An example is the query dog pics, which can mean the same thing as:

• Dog Photos • Pictures of Dogs • Dog Pictures • Canine Photos • Dog Photographs

On the other hand, the query Dog Motion Picture means something else entirely, and it's important for search engines to know the difference.

From an SEO point of view, this means creating content using natural language and variations, instead of employing the same strict keywords over and over again.

Using variations of your main topics can also add deeper semantic meaning and help solve the problem of disambiguation, when the same keyword phrase can refer to more than one concept. Plant and factory together might refer to a manufacturing plant, whereas plant and shrub refer to vegetation.

Today, Google's Hummingbird algorithm also uses co-occurrence to identify synonyms for query replacement.

Under Hummingbird, co-occurrence is used to identify words that may be synonyms of each other in certain contexts while following certain rules according to which, the selection of a certain page in response to a query where such a substitution has taken place has a heightened probability.

Bill Slawski - SEO by the Sea

4. Page Segmentation

Where you place your words on a page is often as important as the words themselves.

Each web page is made up of different parts—headers, footers, sidebars, and more. Search engines have long worked to determine the most important part of a given page. Both Microsoft and Google hold several patents suggesting content in the more relevant sections of HTML carry more weight.

Content located in the main body text likely holds more importance than text placed in sidebars or alternative positions. Repeating text placed in boilerplate locations, or chrome, runs the risk of being discounted even more.

Page segmentation becomes significantly more important as we move toward mobile devices, which often hide portions of the page. Search engines want to serve users the portion of your pages that are visible and important, so text in these areas deserves the most focus.

To take it a step further, HTML5 offers addition semantic elements such as <article>, <aside>, and <nav>, which can clearly define sections of your webpage.

5. Semantic Distance and Term Relationships

When talking about on-page optimization, semantic distance refers to the relationships between different words and phrases in the text. This differs from the physical distance between phrases, and focuses on how terms connect within sentences, paragraphs, and other HTML elements.

How do search engines know that "Labrador" relates to "dog breeds" when the two phrases aren't in the same sentence?

Search engines solve this problem by measuring the distance between different words and phrases within different HTML elements. The closer the concepts are semantically, the closer the concepts may be related. Phrases located in the same paragraph are closer semantically than phrases separated by several blocks of text.

Additionally, HTML elements may shorten the semantic distance between concepts, pulling them closer together. For example, list items can be considered equally distant to one another, and "the title of a document may be considered to be close to every other term in document".

Now is a good time to mention Schema.org. Schema markup provides a way to semantically structure portions of your text in a manner that explicitly define relationship between terms.

The great advantage schema offers is that it leaves no guesswork for the search engines. Relationships are clearly defined. The challenge is it requires webmasters to employ special markup. So far, studies show low adoption. The rest of the concepts listed here can work on any page containing text.

6. Co-occurrence and Phrase-Based Indexing

Up to this point, we've discussed individual keywords and relationships between them. Search engines also employ methods of indexing pages based on complete phrases, and also ranking pages on the relevance of those pages.

We know this process as phrase-based indexing.

What's most interesting about this process is not how Google determines the important phrases for a webpage, but how Google can use these phrases to rank a webpage based on how relevant they are.

Using the concept of co-occurrence, search engines know that certain phrases tend to predict other phrases. If your main topic targets "John Oliver," this phrase often co-occurs with other phrases like "late night comedian," "Daily Show," and "HBO." A page that contains these related terms is more likely to be about "John Oliver" than a page that doesn't contain related terms.

Add to this incoming links from pages with related, co-occurring phrases and you've given your page powerful contextual signals.

7. Entity Salience

Looking to the future, search engines are exploring ways of using relationships between entities, not just keywords, to determine topical relevance.

One technique, published as a Google research paper, describes assigning relevance through entity salience.

Entity salience goes beyond traditional keyword techniques, like TF-IDF, for finding relevant terms in a document by leveraging known relationships between entities. An entity is anything in the document that is distinct and well defined.

The stronger an entity's relationship to other entities on the page, the more significant that entity becomes.

In the diagram above, an article contains the topics Iron Man, Tony Stark, Pepper Potts and Science Fiction. The phrase "Marvel Comics" has a strong entity relationship to all these terms. Even it only appears once, it's likely significant in the document.

On the other hand, even though the phrase "Cinerama" appears multiple times (because the film showed there), this phrase has weaker entity relationships, and likely isn't as significant.

Practical tips for better on-page optimization

As we transition from keyword placement to more advanced practices of topic targeting, it's actually easy to incorporate these concepts into our content. While most of us don't have the means available to calculate semantic relationships and entity occurrences, there are a number of simple steps we can take when crafting optimized content:

Keyword research forms your base. Even though individual keywords themselves are no longer enough to form the foundation of your content, everything begins with good keyword research. You want to know what terms you are targeting, the relative competition around those keywords, and the popularity of those terms. Ultimately, your goal is to connect your content with the very keywords people type and speak into the search box.
Research around topics and themes. Resist researching single keywords, and instead move towards exploring your keyword themes. Examine the secondary keywords related to each keyword. When people talk about your topic, what words do they use to describe it? What are the properties of your subject? Use these supporting keyword phrases as cast members to build content around your central theme.
When crafting your content, answer as many questions as you can. Good content answers questions, and semantically relevant content reflects this. A top ranking for any search query means the search engine believes your content answers the question best. As you structure your content around topics and themes, make sure you deserve the top ranking by answering the questions and offering a user experience better than the competition.
Use natural language and variations. During your keyword research process, it's helpful to identify other common ways searchers refer to your topic, and include these in your content when appropriate. Semantic keyword research is often invaluable to this process.
Place your important content in the most important sections. Avoid footers and sidebars for important content. Don't try to fool search engines with fancy CSS or JavaScript tricks. Your most important content should go in the places where it is most visible and accessible to readers.
Structure your content appropriately. Headers, paragraphs, lists, and tables all provide structure to content so that search engines understand your topic targeting. A clear webpage contains structure similar to a good university paper. Employ proper introductions, conclusions, topics organized into paragraphs, spelling and grammar, and cite your sources properly.

At the end of the day, we don't need a super computer to make our content better, or easier to understand. If we write like humans for humans, our content goes a long way in becoming optimized for search engines. What are your best tips for on-page SEO and topic targeting?

Special thanks to Dawn Shepard, who provided the images for this post.

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Seth's Blog : Biggest vs. best

Biggest vs. best

There's not much overlap.

Regardless of how you measure 'best' (elegance, deluxeness, impact, profitability, ROI, meaningfulness, memorability), it's almost never present in the thing that is the most popular.

The best restaurant, Seinfeld episode, political candidate, brand of beer, ski slope, NASDAQ stock, you name it. Compare them to the most popular.

Big is a choice. So is best.

• Email to a friend •

luni, 20 octombrie 2014

Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis

M&A Deals Fail At Highest Rate Since 2008

Posted: 20 Oct 2014 02:23 PM PDT

In yet another potential market topping sign, M&A Deals Fail At Highest Rate Since 2008

The value of deals that fail to complete has reached its highest level since 2008, in the latest sign that the best year for mergers and acquisitions since the financial crisis will also feature a number of high-profile failures.

Three large deals collapsed last week, adding to the list of wrecked deals and coinciding with a sharp jump in equity market volatility that sapped confidence in stocks and put a chill on the market for initial public offerings.

The biggest blow to dealmaking prospects came as US pharmaceutical group AbbVie unexpectedly dropped its support for a $55bn takeover of UK rival Shire. The sudden U-turn has undermined the prevailing belief among bankers that a US Treasury crackdown on deals that allow US companies to lower their tax obligations by moving abroad would have little impact.

So-called tax inversions have featured prominently in this year's resurgent M&A market accounting for at least a dozen deals. But the chances of Pfizer, the US pharma company, reviving its $120bn pursuit of the UK's AstraZeneca have been greatly diminished as a result of AbbVie's decision, several people close to the situation recently told the Financial Times, casting doubt on the year's biggest withdrawn deal returning.

A total of $573bn worth of deals have been withdrawn, setting this year up to surpass the $640bn in deals that went uncompleted in 2008, according to Dealogic.

Bruce Embley, partner at Freshfields, said: "It's slightly unusual to have an M&A cliff coming without also seeing an adverse impact on equity capital markets. So I wonder if we look back on this moment as an anomaly or whether it is the start of something more volatile."

Deals Withdrawn or Doubtful

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

Eurozone Rotting to the Core; Four Possibilities; Beyond the Math

Posted: 20 Oct 2014 11:26 AM PDT

On October 6, I noted German Factory Orders Slump 5.7%, Most Since January 2009.

The previous month was up 4.9%, so I averaged the two months noting "The average result is a decline of 0.4% per month, for the last two months. That process also means four consecutive months of decline."

German numbers were particularly volatile allegedly due to timing of school holidays, but there is no way to smooth out four consecutive months of decline as anything other than overall weakness.

Germany Slashes Forecasts

On October 14, and as expected in this corner, Germany Slashes its Economic Forecasts.

In stark contrast with the rosy forecasts made just six months ago of 1.8 per cent growth this year and 2 per cent in 2015, the government forecasts gross domestic product to expand 1.2 per cent in 2014 and 1.3 per cent next year.

The data follows last week's release of dire German factory figures, which stoked fears among top financial officials gathered in Washington for the International Monetary Fund's annual meeting that economic weaknesses at the heart of the eurozone could undermine the global recovery.

In spite of the growing pessimism, however, Berlin still expects Germany to avoid a recession, defined as two successive quarters of contraction. After a 0.2 per cent decline in the three months to June, Berlin forecasts some growth in the third quarter, contrary to the forecasts made by some bank economists.

German Manufacturers Cut Jobs

A recession in Germany is a given, but when? Its export model has held up better than I expected given a clear slowdown in the global economy.

Today, we have another sign a German recession will come sooner rather than later: German Companies Tread Unfamiliar Territory with Job Cuts.

When the flow of containers began to slow at the docks in Duisburg a few months ago, workers at the world's largest inland port got an early indication that Germany's export machine had begun to falter.

Container volume at Duisburg, which sits at the confluence of the Rhine and Ruhr rivers, is still expected to grow strongly this year. But the outlook for the docks – as with the rest of German business – is suddenly looking less certain.

German exports tumbled 5.8 per cent in August compared with July – the biggest drop since the peak of the global financial crisis in January 2009. The economy now risks slipping into recession in the third quarter, and the government has already lowered its growth forecasts for 2014 and 2015.

Indeed, with Chinese demand slowing, Russian orders slumping and the eurozone still in the doldrums, some companies have been left with a surfeit of production capacity and workers.

In the meantime, German companies are tightening their belts. Siemens, the engineering conglomerate, is poised to cut jobs at its German energy division due to a slump in European demand for its large gas turbines. The company would not confirm a German radio report that 1,200 jobs are at risk, out of a total of 118,000 in Germany.

Volkswagen, Europe's biggest carmaker by sales, announced a €5bn annual cost-savings drive in July which may include a reduction in the use of temporary staff, its chief executive Martin Winterkorn, has said.

Rainer Hundsdörfer, chief executive of EBM Papst, a family-owned manufacturer of industrial fans, said it was "important not to be too pessimistic" because he believed Germany was experiencing a temporary lull and not "on the cusp of another crisis".

Over-Reliance On Exports

Wolfgang Münchau writes Germany's Weak Point is Reliance on Exports.

One of the biggest misconceptions about the eurozone has been a belief in the innate strength of Germany – the idea that competitiveness reforms have transformed a laggard into a leader. This is nonsense. The German model relies on the presence of an unsustainable investment boom in other parts of the world. That boom is now over in China, in most of the emerging markets, in Russia certainly. What we saw last week is what happens once the world returns to economic balance: Germany reverts to lower economic growth.

Previously, the main characteristic of the eurozone had been strong growth in the core that partially offset contraction in the periphery. Now both the core and the periphery are weak. And policy is not responding sufficiently. Add the two together and it is not hard to conclude that secular stagnation is not so much a danger as the most probable scenario.

Beyond the Math

I agree with Münchau on stagnation (actually, I think recession is a given and another eurozone crisis will follow). However, and is typically the case, I strongly disagree with Münchau regarding what to do about it.

It's a mathematical certainty that every country cannot have a trade surplus. Yet every country want's to export its way out of the mess. Germany in particular wants every country to be more like Germany.

It's mathematically impossible for other countries in the eurozone to become more like Germany unless Germany becomes less like Germany.

Math Not the Problem

It's safe to assume Münchau would agree on trade surplus math. But math isn't the problem.

France is an economic basket case because of inane socialistic policies, work rules, farm rules, and business restrictions in general. Italy is in a similar situation, but with an even more tangled government bureaucracy coupled with a monstrous debt-to-GDP ratio.

Both France and Italy want more exemptions from budget rules and more time to meet deficit targets. But more government spending can hardly be the answer. Government spending already accounts for about 57% of French GDP. France is in desperate need of less, not more government spending.

Reform alone is insufficient. The euro is fundamentally and fatally flawed.

Four Eurozone Possibilities

Somewhere along the line, Greece, Italy, or France, is going to have enough of recession and stagnation and leave the euro in a disorderly eurozone breakup.
Germany and the Northern European states need to bail out the rest of Europe.
Germany can leave the eurozone in an orderly eurozone breakup.
Decades of stagnation if the nannycrats succeed in keeping the eurozone intact.

Option two sounds nice but is fatally flawed. Germany would never agree to bailouts of that nature, and constitutionally couldn't if it wanted to. Besides, Italy and France are too big. Regardless of how unpalatable, there are no other options.

Widening Budget Rules Won't Help

Germany won't agree to modifying budget deficit rules, and even if it did, what good would it do?

The problem with Europe is not budget rules or too little government spending. Rather, the problem is too much government and inane work rules on top of a structurally flawed euro.

Structural problems led to massive trade distortions and other imbalances within the eurozone, compounding the already serious productivity issues.

The eurozone experiment failed. The best option now is an orderly breakup. I believe Münchau knows that, but refuses to admit it publicly.

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

Damn Cool Pics

Incredible Makeup Makeovers
The Weirdest Foods From All Over The World [infographic]
Steampunk Girls That Will Make You Love Cosplay
This Is Why You Hate Going To The Gym
This $95 Million Dollar Manhattan Apartment Is Fit For A King

Incredible Makeup Makeovers

Posted: 20 Oct 2014 05:23 PM PDT

After seeing these people without makeup, it's hard to believe they're the same person once that put it on.

The Weirdest Foods From All Over The World [infographic]

Posted: 20 Oct 2014 01:13 PM PDT

Moneysupermarket has published a well researched graphically visualised list of world weirdest foods from different countries. It is very interesting to know how peoples culture affects the kind of food they eat even some of this food on the list are already customary to their cultural presentation and mostly seen on local festivals.

From the century egg eaten as a dessert in East Asia to the Curried Caterpillars eaten in Africa, an stunning delicacies you'll be brave to dare try a taste chunck of it. So when you get to travel in those places be cautious or try to ask first before you order your menus.

Click on Image to Enlarge.

Steampunk Girls That Will Make You Love Cosplay

Posted: 20 Oct 2014 12:33 PM PDT

This Is Why You Hate Going To The Gym

Posted: 20 Oct 2014 11:11 AM PDT

Everyone needs to exercise but going to the gym isn't always fun. Let's face it, going to the gym can suck sometimes and these are the reasons why.