With High Quality Content Comes SEO Success

content is key for seo successTime and time again, I hear clients and prospects say, “I need more SEO content.” Heck, maybe you’ve heard an SEO say it.

The truth: It’s not “SEO content” a brand or website needs.

So, what do we need?

Rich, informative, compelling high quality content brings users to a website and keeps users responding. It also provides the search engines with value when that content is SEO-friendly. Rather than needing SEO content, we really need quality content that engages users but we cannot forget about what the search engines want, how the engines view content, and the techniques plus finesse required to optimize content.

The Factors for SEO Success

How Quality Content Can Make an SEO Difference

Look at the New York Times. The publication, known as one of the best newspapers in the world, once turned down the opportunity to buy Google for $1 million because it didn’t consider the internet a part of its business. In 2005, the paper acknowledged the importance of the web, hired a team of SEO experts, trained editorial staff and marketing teams in SEO and started to optimize its entire website for better search engine performance.

Since the inception of the SEO program, the NYT’s referral traffic from the search engines has grown 300%. The site has experienced an average of 60% traffic growth per year and a significant increase in user engagement and time spent on the site.

Want some of that? Keep reading for some how-to tips. [Read more...]

Case Study: Success With Pushed SEO Practices

I discovered a very interesting thread on Webmaster World from an experienced SEO Professional who decided who to pin two websites, competing in the same industry, with each other.

The first site was pushed using old school SEO practices, including paid and reciprocal links, content development, doorway pages, etc.

The second site was build in a more ‘organic way’ focussing on unique content, with no paid links or doorway pages, but with a blog, videos, blogs, RSS feeds and Twitter integration.

Guess which one is earning money and getting quality Google traffic? You got it, the “SEO’ed Site.”   [Read more...]

Where The Most SEO Experts Are

A quick follow-up to to my note about the increasing demand for search engine optimization specialists:

Tim Dineen, Online Marketing Manager at job search engine Indeed, found out that California is the no. 1 state for SEO jobs. Meaning: On the US west coast, you’ll find the highest density of job offers for Search Marketing professionals. His findings are based on an analysis of the @SEOjobs Twitter account (great idea, by the way!), which is populated via a feed from Indeed.

Here is his map:

Where the SEO jobs are - Tim Dineen

Onward Search did a similar analysis, which was based on the SEMPO member roster – and came to the same conclusion.

I was curious to find out about the “demand” for SEO and did a quick (non scientific) research with Google’s great tool “Insights for Search”. As the chart shows, the search volume for the query “SEO” in California has been far above the national average in the last 90 days.

Google Insights for Search - Web Search Volume: United States vs. California (United States) - for seo, Last 90 days

Conclusions: 1. There a lots of choices for California based businesses that are interested in hiring an SEO Consultant or SEO agency. 2. The competition among SEO professionals in this state will continue to increase. Hopefully, this will also lead to a more mature industry with higher education and ethics standards.

P.S. If you’re interested in becoming an SEO professional or are just curious to learn more about this industry, check out the following links:
- SEOmoz: How To Get An SEO Job?
- SEO Journal: 10 Tips To Making It In The SEO Community
- Onward Search: Where In The World Is SEO Talent?
- Reality SEO: SEO Salaries, Jobs And In-House Surve
- SEMPO: In-House Search Marketing Pays Well, But Not Dot Com Hype Levels

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8 Great Online Tests To Challenge Your SEO Knowledge

I think most people in the industry agree that search engine optimization is both art and science. Although the SEO professionals have to adapt their techniques constantly due to the algorithm updates and changes of the big search engines, the many of the ‘core wisdoms’ in SEO remained the same over the last couple of years.

If your work in the SEO industry or are an SEO client, a webmaster or just web geek who is interested to learn how much he knows about Search Engine Optimization, check out my 8 favorite website to test your SEO knowledge:

SEOmoz Expert Quiz

 
SEOmox Expert Quiz

SEOmoz Expert Quiz is the best online destination for testing your knowledge in search engine optimization, in my opinion. It includes 75 questions with a wide range of topics. You be awarded with a badge at the end. Depending on your final score, you’ll be an “SEO Novice” or “SEO Master”. Highly recommended.

SEO Test by SEMPO

SEMPO Institute SEO Test

The SEMPO SEO test is a good online quiz with some tricky questions. Although I expected that the official organization of Search Marketing professionals in the United States would have offered a more sophisticated test with a wider range of topics, it still give you a good idea where you stand with your SEO knowledge – especially, if you consider to enroll in one of the SEO or SEM online courses offered by the SEMPO institute. This online test has room for improvement with its 20 questions, but is still worth checking out.

Knowledge Tests By SEOconsultants.com

Knowledge SEO Consultants

The Knowledge Tests by SEOconsultants offer 5 sets of questions for five different knowledge domains: “General”, “Google Guidelines”, HTTP Status Code”, “Internet History” and “Search Engine Trivia”. A good mix or simple and challenging questions. Answers come with useful explanations.

SEO & SEM Quiz by Vertical Leap

SEO and SEM Quiz.jpg

The SEO & SEM Quiz by the UK base search marketing company Vertical Leap is short and sweet – and requires some good insider knowledge about the search marketing industry. The 25 questions include some fun stuff, like “‘MSN Dude’ is a member of which forum?”. You’ll receive your score at the end, but unfortunately no explanation which the right answers are.

SEO Quiz by About.com

8 Great Online Tests To Challenge Your SEO Knowledge

The SEO Quiz by About.com is a great online test which is embedded in the ‘web search’ section of About.com. Every question comes with a link list of topic related resources and related articles. This is a phantasitc quiz to test and expand your knowledge at the same time.

SEO Quiz by Webconfs.com

SEO Quiz

Webconfs.com, infamous portal for SEO tools and webmaster utilities, offers a good SEO Quiz with 10 questions. Despite its very generic design, the search engine optimization test includes some tricky questions and well-written, comprehensible explanations for the answers.

SEO Cartoon Quiz

SEO Cartoon Quiz

The SEO Cartoon Quiz by Tel Aviv based internet marketing company AIMS is probably the most entertaining SEO test you’ll find on the world wide web. In the 15 ‘questions’, you have to guess what the cartoons represent. You don’t really test your own SEO knowledge – but it’s a lot of fun!

Needless to say that you need to take this tests with a grain of salt. Due to the fact-pace nature of the industry, SEO knowledge remains something fluid.

Did you find additional SEO online tests I should add to this list? Let me know!

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Good SEO advice

Duane Forrester, who runs the in-house SEO program for the MSN properties in Canada, the US and The Americas gave some great SEO advice in a post on Search Engine Land:

  • Rankings are NOT metrics
  • SEO should be baked in, not spread on top
  • SEO is a game of inches, not miles—there’s no ONE thing that will make you a hero
  • Usability trumps SEO—the user’s experience should always be the # 1 focus