Smart Ways To Combine Content Marketing With SEO

Smart Ways To Combine Content Marketing With SEO

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How To Optimize Your PPC Campaigns

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19-Point SEO Checklist for Launching a New Website

1. Content length on key pages

Your landing pages should, ideally, have at least 250 words, perhaps more. Take alook at the ranking competition for your the terms you're targeting with your key landing pages; a lot of times you can get an idea of the type of content Google prefers by looking at what's already ranking.

2. Meta titles

Meta titles are one of the most important on-page elements for SEO. Aside from the search engines paying close attention to these, the meta title is also what will show up in the search results, so make sure it's descriptive and encourages clicks.

3. Meta descriptions

These are often overlooked but they shouldn't be. Meta descriptions will often show up as the snippet of text beneath the meta title in the search results. They should be well-written with user intent in mind and designed to both describe what the user will find on the page and also encourage them to click.

4. Meta keywords

They're useless, get rid of them.

5. Use of heading tags (h1, h2, h3, etc)

Aside from being used by search engines to assist in understanding the structure and meaning of a page, heading tags make content more readable, which means people will stay on the page longer and be less likely to bounce.

6. URL parameters

You don't want your site to rely on query strings to display content. Rewrite those URLs using htaccess on Linux or the URL rewriter in IIS.

7. Descriptive, keyword-rich URLs

For a page selling concert dog collars, try something like http://domain.com/dogs/collars/ instead of a structure that isn't as descriptive.

8. Duplicate content

Do you have the same content showing up on more than one unique URL of your site? This is a problem commonly introduced by content management systems and you usually have to pay really close attention to catch it. Google Webmaster toolsand  can help make this a little less painful.

Other things to watch out for:

·         Does the content show up on different subdomains? (www vs non-www or others)

·         Has the content been scraped or copied to/from another website entirely?

9. Robots.txt blocking

Double check robots.txt to ensure important sections of the site are not inadvertently being blocked from search bots.

10. Disable JavaScript and check the site

Is important navigation or website content missing with JavaScript disabled?

11. 4xx and 5xx errors

Scan the site for page errors. It's common on a new site launch to introduce broken links or other issues that could lead to 5xx errors.

12. 301 redirect old pages

If you do nothing else on this list, do this. If your URL structure changes, even a little bit, it's very important that you redirect those old pages to corresponding URLs on the new site. This can be a really long and tedious process on larger sites or, with the help of some careful planning and htaccess, it can be relatively simple.

13. Website speed

Site speed is now being used as a ranking factor and it will only become more important in the future. Check the page speed section in Google analytics as well asWebPageTest.org to see how your site performs. Consider page speed optimization if things are running slow.

14. XML Sitemap

While it shouldn't be used to compensate for poor site architecture, an XML sitemap can help ensure the search engines are aware of all the content on your site.

15. Canonical tags properly implemented

For many sites it's difficult, impossible, or simply undesirable to eliminate all duplicate URLs. Canonical tags tell the search engines which URL is the "primary" version.

16. Internal links

Are you linking to other pages on your site within the site content where it makes sense? Not only will this help distribute link equity, it will provide a more friendly user experience. While you're at it, make sure your internal links' anchor text is well-optimized – just don't go overboard.

17. Check that good pages return 200 response code

We've seen it before where a misconfiguration results in every page on the site returning a 404 (not found) response code. This is definitely not something you want.

18. On-site Local SEO

Do you have separate pages for each of your locations? Is contact information shown on each page using Schema.org markup? Is content targeted toward your local area?

19. Orphaned link check

Pull all your backlinks, grab the target URL, and then crawl the list to ensure they are all return either 200 or 301 response codes. This will help ensure you didn't forget to redirect any old URLs.

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How can I test and check my web page for errors?

 There are dozens of services available that are capable of checking your website for errors and finding ways of improving your web page. Below is a listing of some of our favorite free online services.

General website and HTML checks
CSS checking
Speed tests
Accessibility
Mobile-readiness
Analyze website
Checking a blog
Testing a sites usability

General website and HTML checks

• Silktide Nibbler - Fantastic free online service that gives you a good complete overview of your website with an overall score.
• Woorank - Another fantastic free online tool that gives you a quick and easy to read overview of problems you may have on your site.
• W3C markup validation - The source to go to check HTML, XHTML or other markup language you use on your web page for errors.
• Google Webmaster Tools - A must for any Webmaster. With this free service you can identify any page or links with errors, scan for malware, find pages with short or missing titles, find duplicate meta tags, and much more.
• HTML Tidy - Simple and easy to use online tool that allows you to identify any HTML errors you may have on your page.
• Feng-GUI - Great service that allows you to upload a picture of your home page or other pages and generate a heat map of where the visitor's eyes are most likely to go first.

CSS checking

• W3C CSS validation service - Fantastic service that displays any issues errors or compliance warnings you have with any CSS code.
• CSS Compressor - Although not a service to validate for errors this is a great tool to use after your CSS code has been verified. Using this tool you can shrink your CSS file to help the overall load time of every page that links to the .CSS file and decrease the overall amount of bandwidth you use.

Speed test

• WebPagetest - Our favorite tool for testing a web pages load time.
• GTmetrix - Another fantastic tool for speed testing a web page as well as getting the optimized versions of images, pages, and scripts.
• Pingdom Tools - Fantastic service that gives you a good and easy to read overview of how long it takes for something to load on your web page. Keep in mind most website visitors only spend a few seconds on each page they visit.
• WebSiteOptimization - Another great service to find how much time it takes to load your web page and what you can do to help decrease the overall time it takes to load it.
• Web Page Content Compression Verification - Great tool to test an individual page or element on the page (such as a .CSS or .JS file) to see if it's being compressed before being sent using gzip.
• Global load time performance test - Test your webpage load times around the world.
• HTTP archive - Great service that provides the complete history of the speed of a website that can go back several months.
• Load Impact - A great online test for verifying your website will perform well under high traffic volumes.
• WhichLoadsFaster - If you're updating or revising a website a great page this is a great place to quickly test and compare the load times between two different pages.

Accessibility

• Browsershots - Excellent online tool to test how accessible your web page is in all of the Internet browsers.
• Colorblind filter - Fantastic page to see how your page would look to someone who has colorblindness. This is an easy way to make sure that someone with colorblindness whose visiting your site is not going to miss something because your color scheme is bad.
• HERA - Great page to verify if everyone regardless of any disability can view your page they may have.
• html2txt - A great method of converting your HTML page into a text document. This is helpful because many accessibility tools for the blind will convert pages to text, using this tool you can get a good idea how someone who's blind may read your page.
• The Readability Test Tool - Quick and easy way to test the readability of your website and get a better idea about how many people would understand your content.
• IE NetRender - Great online service that allows you to see how your page is displayed in different versions of Microsoft Internet Explorer. This is really helpful if you need to test your web page in an older browser such as IE6, which had a lot of compatibility and other issues with CSS.

Mobile-readiness

• mobiReady - By far the best site and service for checking how compatible your website or blog is when being viewed on a mobile device. This service not only gives you detailed information on why your website may or may not work but also gives live demos on how the page will load on different mobile devices.

Analyze website

• Google Analytics - Fantastic free service offered by Google that gives you full details of the visitors visiting your website, what browsers they're using, where they're leaving, what they searched for, and much more. After making sure your website has no errors having this services is always a good idea to help identify any other problems the above services may have not identified.

Checking a Blog

If your page is a blog consider running it through Is My Blog Working? to check to see if the blog is working and get other technical details about it. This can give you additional details about your page as well as anything you may want to change or add to the page.

Testing a sites usability

Having friends, family, and co-workers viewing your website is a great way to make sure your website not only works but works on different computers. Other services like the UsabilityHub Fivesecondtest is also another great free way of testing the overall appeal of your site.

Additional information

• Online services that rate and grade your website.
• Hundreds of other free tips in promoting your web page and blog.
• See the CSS, HTML, W3C definition for further information and related links.

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How to Get a Free Business Listing in Google Local

Edited by Wb4dwd, Maluniu, Hockeyhamster, Teresa and 13 others

Google is the most popular search engine in the world. They are interested in being the most useful and informative one as well. It is simple to provide Google with accurate information regarding your business. This information will be provided to people looking for what you have to offer. Free. You can also offer coupons, directions, post your hours, list your telephone number and more.

1. On the left side of the screen, select "Put your business on Google Maps". Google Maps and Google Local are like two sides of the same coin. One address where you are, the other what you do.
2. 

   
   
   Select "Add A New Listing".
3. 

   4
   Complete the sign-up form with information about your business.
   • You can include up to 5 different categories to list your business
   • You may list your hours if you wish.
   • It is good to tell people what forms of payment you accept.
   • Be sure to tell people what's really special about your business.
   • You can even include a link to a video about your business if you have one.
   • After completing the sign-up page, you can offer coupons and more info about your business.
4. 

   5
   When you are finished, Google will ask to verify your listing. You can choose between having them call the telephone number listed in the ad or sending a postcard. The telephone method is much faster, and your ads will appear almost instantly if you verify using this method. 

Source : http://www.wikihow.com/Get-a-Free-Business-Listing-in-Google-Local

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Matt Cutts on How Google Handles 404 & 410 Status Codes

•SEO Evolution: Sell, Discover, Deliver & Report on Highly Converting Keywords by Krista LaRiviere, gShift

If you're into super technical details regarding Google's Web crawling and how they interact with different status codes, you'll probably be interested in the new webmaster help video regarding the differences between how Google handles 404 and 410 status codes. While technically they both mean "page not found," Matt Cutts talks about the nuances of each and how Googlebot treats each slightly differently.

For those who aren't too technically savvy, Cutts first explains what the difference is between a 404 and a 410, because most webmasters are far more familiar with the 404 status code.

"So 404 vs. 410 refers to an HTTP status code, so whenever the browser or Googlebot asks for page, the Web server sends back a status code – 200 might mean everything went totally fine, 404 means page not found, 410 typically means gone, as in the page is not found and we do not expect it to come back," Cutts said. "So 410 has a little more of connotation that the page is permanently gone."

That said, does Googlebot interact any differently when they encounter a 410?

"The short answer is that we do sometimes treat for 404s and 410s a little bit differently, but for the most part you shouldn't worry about it," Cutts said. "If a page is gone and you think it's temporary, go ahead and use a 404. If the page is gone and you know no other page that should substitute for it, you don't have anywhere else that you should point to, and you know that that page is going to be gone never come back, then go ahead and serve a 410."

On the positive side, Googlebot does have some redundancies built in, for when a webmaster or IT department makes a mistake in how they status codes.

"It turns out webmasters shoot themselves in the foot pretty often – pages go missing, people misconfigure sites, sites go down, people block Googlebot by accident, people block regular users by accident – so if you look at the entire Web, the crawl team has to design to be robust against that," Cutts said. "So with 404s, along with I think 401s and maybe 403s, if we see a page and we get a 404, we are gonna protect that page for 24 hours in the crawling system, so we sort of wait and we say maybe that was a transient 404, maybe it really wasn't intended to be a page not found."

"If we see a 410, then the site crawling system says, OK we assume the webmasters knows what they're doing because they went off the beaten path to deliberately say this page is gone," he said. "So they immediately convert that 410 to an error, rather than protecting it for 24 hours.

So when you do serve a 410 status code on a page that really isn't gone permanently, you haven't killed that page off permanently. Googlebot will return the check and see if the page needs to be returned to the index.

"Now don't take this too much the wrong way, we'll still go back and recheck and make sure are those pages really gone, or maybe the pages have come back alive again," Cutts said. "And I wouldn't rely on the assumption that that behavior will always be exactly the same.

"In general, sometimes webmasters get a little too caught up in the tiny little details and so if the page is gone, it's fine to serve a 404, if you know it's gone for real it's fine to serve a 410," he said. "But we'll design our crawling system to try and be robust so that if your site goes down, or if you get hacked, or whatever that we try to make sure that we can still find the good content whenever it's available."

So this is one of those things where it's a tiny little detail that webmasters probably shouldn't be overly concerned about. They are treated nearly identically, but if in doubt, the more common 404 route is probably the best way to go.

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Source:- http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2340728/Matt-Cutts-on-How-Google-Handles-404-410-Status-Codes

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