Google has recently updated its newest algorithm. This has left many SEO companies and online marketers scrambling to determine how to best comply with Google Penguin requirements. However, attempting to pin down specifics about a Penguin update and craft content to fit might be missing the bigger point of effective search engine optimization: it’s about proper on-site SEO practices along with content.

So what are some of the steps that you can take to assure that your on-site SEO meets the best practices for Google?

Check for malware: You don’t engage in black-hat SEO, but if you have malware or someone running a rogue site through your site, the damage could be just as severe for your SEO reputation with Google.

Write short titles and description: Don’t have them go on too long or repeat information. Keep them short and don’t over-optimize tags.

Check your anchor text: Much like with title tags and descriptions, you want to avoid overusing your keywords or optimizing them too often.

Axe spammy user content: Comments on blogs posts are a good thing for organic search engine optimization; however, Google is now punishing sites that allow spam postings on sections of their site such as blog comment sections.

Increase page speed: A fast-loading site makes Google work faster; therefore, page speed optimization makes Google happy and it appears to improve a website’s SEO.

Cut useless optimization: Don’t bother over-optimization sections like headers and footers with the hope that “more is merrier.” It won’t help your ranking and in fact will likely lead to penalties.

Review your links: Penguin 2.0 has reduced the threshold of what they consider too many “spammy” inbound links on a site from 80 percent to 50 percent.

Check internal cross links: It’s easy to have links on one of your sites go to another site you own or partner with; check your links so you don’t get punished by Google.

Be smart with your alt image attributes: Put more of your content marketing services into alt image attributes than you are now: Google can give it as much weight as actual text.

Don’t overload ads: Having too many ads on your site – especially high – is frowned on by Google.

Add 301 redirects: Links that lead to dead ends tell Google that your site is not properly maintained.

Review crawl rates: Make sure that Google spiders are able to follow your site correctly.

President Obama has declared June 16-22 as “Small Business Week” in America. It’s a way to recognize the small businesses that drive the American economy. This isn’t the first Small Business Week – it goes back to 1963 – but this one is particularly important because of the impact the recent economic downturn has had on small businesses. In the current economy, small businesses need to use every tool necessary to stay ahead of larger competitors.

If you are a small business owner, one of the ways you can do this is to leverage the Internet. Small business Internet marketing can help your small business reach customers throughout the world. However, if you are in a competitive market, you’ll need help to make sure that people can find your website. eVisible specializes in helping small businesses gain visibility online by using a variety of proven of tactics including:

SEO: Getting your website to rank highly for specific keywords is about more than just luck. You need to research which keywords will be the most effective to target and have a dedicated game plan for how to increase your page rankings. By doing search engine optimization correctly, your site can rank higher than larger competitors and get more clicks from curious customers.

Social Media: Establishing a strong social media presence is a highly effective online marketing tool for small businesses. By leveraging outlets such as Facebook and Twitter, you can make a personal connection with potential customers that makes you stand out from larger competitors. A strong social media campaign lets happy customers spread the word about your company to their friends, one of the most powerful forms of marketing.

Directory Submissions: Local directory submissions help to ensure that potential customers have all the information they need to choose your business for their needs. Customers want to know as much as they can about any small business, including positive reviews, pictures and contact information.

eVisible wants to help take your small business to the next level. Find out more about our small business services <https://www.evisible.co/small-business-solutions/> and contact us today for a free consultation.

When it comes to content creation, finding the right balance of information and effective marketing of your business is difficult. One of the driving factors of your content is to get customers, but the best way to do this is to present them with intriguing and useful content that will help them in their business lives. eVisible has years of experience with content marketing services and we’ve learned some of the most common mistakes that businesses make when they create their own content.

Here’s what to avoid when it comes to your own SEO copywriting or any content written by an outside agency:

Unreadable content: When it comes to online content, writing that is crisp, focused and to the point always has the best chance of catching — and holding — the reader’s attention. You want to avoid run-on sentences or using “purple prose.” One way to avoid this is by using the Content Readability score provider offered by eVisible. It will give you an idea of how easily the average reader can process your content.

Diminishing returns: Many content creation campaigns start out with a bang, as companies are brimming with information they want to share with their customers. But in many cases, the quality of the writing quickly declines as the well of immediate story ideas runs dry. Combat this by thinking of questions your customers might be asking, reviewing your competition for story ideas and adding a personal touch to your writing.

Not involving the customers: The best corporate blogs and other online marketing campaigns feel like a conversation between a company and its customers. You can encourage your customers to get active and involved to keep it from feeling like you are simply spitting marketing copy at them. Have them submit pictures of them with your product at famous tourist attractions or unusual sites. Invite customers to write guest posts explaining new or interesting ways they’ve used your product or service. Make sure you make it clear to customers that you own the content they submit to you in order to avoid any legal headaches down the road.

Starting an SEO campaign from scratch can seem like a daunting task. This is especially true in the “new world” of search engine rankings. Algorithm changes such as Google’s Panda and Penguin have changed many of the basic SEO fundamentals. It’s no longer acceptable to create as much content as possible – no matter the quality – or use manipulative links to get clicks. Search engines such as Google are looking for high-quality content and links that get people to stay on a site – and that’s only part of the equation.

If you are launching your SEO campaign, the best bet is to work with professional search engine marketing specialist such as eVisible that can craft an effective campaign and implement the tactics. However, there are many steps that you can take yourself to get your SEO campaign off the ground. Here are five steps that any small business internet marketing professional can do to get immediate SEO traction:

Start a Pay Per Click campaign. While you will want to do keyword research to give you guidance on which keywords to target, you can also do your own testing on a small scale. By investing in small test runs of ads using different keywords, you can see which ones generate clicks and which ones generate more sales – which is always the most important thing.

Build links. You can do this by researching the web pages which have links that are ranking near the top of Internet searches for your targeted keyword. By creating and using a simple email template, you can easily and quickly reach out to hundreds of website owners and start building high-quality links.

Create a Facebook fan page. Facebook fan pages are about more than just increasing your social media presence. They are also an effective tool for SEO purposes in their own right. After all, many Facebook fan pages will come up within the first page of Google and other search engine results.

Get active on Twitter. Just like a Facebook fan page, official Twitter accounts also can rank very highly on Internet searches. And like with Facebook, it’s important to make your Twitter profile as active, complete and dynamic as possible to send the right social signals.

Write great content. If you are an expert in your industry, you can use this knowledge to boost your SEO by writing powerful content. Think about how you can address problems your customers might have and how you can write to grab their attention.

It wasn’t that long ago that quantity was the king when it came to creative content writing. The general feeling was that search engines only tracked the sheer volume of SEO-driven content that a site was producing – regardless of the quality of the writing. This led to an explosion of online content, much of which was lacking in quality or in informative substance.

Eventually, this became a kind of online scourge, as web searchers would frequently have to fight through page after page of “spam” content in order to find useful links. Users were upset, and eventually Internet search engines listened. Updates to search engine algorithms such as Google Panda were implemented specifically to place an emphasis on the quality of the writing. Specifically, content marketing services and individual companies were forced to consider if their content would be considered both useful and relevant to someone searching online.

In today’s search engine world, content can mean a lot more than just words. Infographics, FAQ sections, videos and social media content are all important parts that can add up to powerful SEO content. It’s important to analyze what your competitors are doing to determine the gaps in your content strategy. Here are three steps that you can take during this process:

• Visit a site such as SEMrush (https://www.semrush.com) to determine useful information about the URLs of your competition. Focus on individual rankings for major search terms rather than overall search traffic or sheer volume of ranking keywords. Take a look at the URLs beyond the homepage to see which ones rank highly and what type of content they have.
• Next, go to OpenSiteExplorer (https://www.opensiteexplorer.org) to see the top destination links for your competitors’ high ranking URLs. Find out which supporting content pages are getting a high amount of links back to them.  These pages typically have content that resonates with users and they want to share with others.
• Finally, visit MutualMind (https://www.mutualmind.com) to assess the social landscape. You can use this site to determine which social media sites are the best fit for the type of content that your competitors – and you – are likely to produce. You are looking for content that other people will want to share and become evangelists for.

SEO practices can go a long way in impacting your Search Engine Results Placement (SERP). Producing the right content and using best SEO practices such as authorship, site links and social signals can improve the SERP display of a website page on a search engine query. But this is only part of the battle. In order to profit from a high SERP, you need to be able to get people to click through to your link. With higher SERP conversion, your high-ranking link is as worthless as one that is at the bottom of the search engine rankings.

SERP conversion is often an overlooked element of search engine optimization. However, it should be an important part of any SEO conversion strategy. Organic clickthough strategies are proven to lead to an increase in highly targeted and motivated visitors to your site who are ready to make purchasing decisions. Ultimately, that’s the goal of any online marketing campaign – get qualified leads ready to buy to your site.

Over the years, we’ve developed many different strategies to improve organic clickthrough rates. The right strategy for you will depend on your unique position, but these five strategies have been proven to work over time:

Rich snippets such as ratings, number of total reviews, price range and contact information can go a long way in getting people to click on a link. This is even more powerful when combined with strong calls to action to “see pictures” or “read unbiased reviews.”

Building a brand through offline tactics can help your SEO strategy. Google rewards links associated with known brands. Running contests and offsite promotions are some of the ways that you can create positive association with customers and get them interested in clicking on your link.

Harness multimedia by going beyond text. Create videos and use attention-grabbing images. Make sure to caption and tag them for full optimization.

Optimize your site by reviewing your internal linking strategy and site structure. Research how customers are viewing your site so you can create breadcrumbs in your search results.

Take ownership of your content by attaching your company’s name – or your name – to the great content you are creating. It establishes credibility with searchers and helps with your Google ranking.

One of the most overlooked elements of any search marketing campaign is identifying the correct audience. Most people understand this when it comes to doing basic demographic research and targeting a campaign to hit customers’ particular interests. But many people don’t realize that this also extends to online advertising services and search engines. In fact, which search engine you are advertising on can significantly impact how you want to market and which customers you have the potential to reach.

It’s natural for companies to focus on Google as their search engine of choice when they want to drive higher ROI. After all, Google has the lion’s share of the Internet search market. According to recent comScore data, Google sites make up around two-thirds of the total market share in the Internet search world. Certainly, any online marketing campaign should include Google as one of the key points of focus.

But doing research beyond the market share numbers shows that it’s also important to focus on Google’s competitors such as Bing and Yahoo. One reason for this is because of exclusivity. Some people make the assumption that web searchers will go back and forth between one search engine and another to get the best results. The truth is that most web users find one search engine and stick with it. For example, 73 percent of people who perform searchers in the travel category of the Yahoo Bing network use that network exclusively. This means that the only way to reach these 12 million searchers in the United States is through Google and Bing ads.

In addition, considering other search engines allows you to tap into the potential buying power of web searchers. In December 2012, comScore published the Audience Buying Power Index, which went into detail about the potential buying power of consumers using different search engines. The results were surprising:

• Searchers on the Yahoo Bing network spent eight percent more than Google searchers on average
• The 47 million unique searchers who exclusively use Bing and Yahoo! in the US spend an average of 30 percent more than the exclusive Google searcher.

As you can see, there are definite reasons to consider advertising on the Yahoo Bing network ahead of Google. You’ll need to do the research to determine which combination works for you, and you’ll need to consider your target audience when doing this research.

Since it’s true that there is a lot of mediocre content available online, it should be easy for your content to stand apart. eVisible’s team has years of experience at SEO content writing and knows how to create compelling content that generates clicks and shares. While we could write a book on what to do when writing content, here are 10 basic things everyone should know about writing great online content.

1. Stay focused on your keywords. Instead of trying to wedge your keywords into the topic you are writing, use the keywords as a guide for the topics you cover in your blogs and articles. One of the secrets to SEO copywriting is seamlessly integrating keywords into copy so the reader doesn’t notice that they exist.

2. Headlines matter. The headline to this post might have been very direct, but it grabbed your attention. Make sure you are being honest with your headline but also make sure it is attention-grabbing. Make a direct appeal to your readers about why they should click on the story.

3. Graphics are important. Using strong images that are relevant to your topics can enhance the power of your article. Infographics that use colorful and bold charts to explain your points are particularly effective ways to use images in your blog posts and articles.

4. Site speed matters. If your site is slow to load, readers will give up and move on before they read your brilliant blog post. Make sure your site is designed to load fast and is free of technical SEO problems.

5. Think about linking. Link relevance is critical to the SEO impact of your blog post. Make sure your posts are being linked by credible sites within your industry. Linking to outside sources also enhances the credibility of your post.

6. Track your performance. If you aren’t tracking page clicks, referrals and other factors, how will you know if your blog post was a success? Understanding why a post was successful lets you duplicate this success with future SEO copywriting.

7. Tight content is good content. Flowery prose is for poems, not website content writing. Cut the fat from your writing and trim out the unnecessary words. Focus on direct writing that speaks directly to the audience.

8. Consider layout. If your content is presented in a sloppy manner, no one will want to read it. Avoid eyesore blog layouts that have flashy fonts, bright colors and lots of clutter.

9. Long-form content is great. Many people think that SEO content writing is all about short snippets. You want these to quickly grab readers’ attention. But long-form content increases the time spent on your site and makes people come back for more.

10. Don’t be afraid to hire experienced writers. You are probably an expert at many aspects of business, but website content writing might not be one. Don’t be afraid to turn to professionals like eVisible. It’s our job to translate your interesting story ideas into attention-grabbing content.