How to Boost your SEO with Google Adwords

Many advertisers use Google AdWords as their major PPC network. However, in addition to using AdWords for getting paid traffic to your site, it can also be used for SEO. Here are some ideas how you can use AdWords for SEO.

1 For Keyword Research

The most valuable use of AdWords for SEO is to research keywords. Keywords are the basis of any SEO campaign and even if you are an expert in your niche, you should always research keywords simply because users frequently search for quite unexpected keywords and keyphrases you as an expert will never think of. Needless to say, what matters most for high rankings is which keywords your target audience is searching for, not which keywords you as an expert think are most popular in a particular niche.

In order to find what users are searching for, you need a keyword research tool. It is true that there are many special (free and paid) keyword research tools but Google AdWords Keyword Tool is light years ahead of them all.

It is simple to use AdWords to research keywords. You can either enter the URL of your site or put in some seed keywords, the tool will then automatically generate a whole bunch of suggested keywords. Look at the results and shortlist all the keywords that seem relevent and have a decent global search volume.

You may want to rank well for ALL the generated keywords, but its best to focus all your efforts on a selected few. The idea now is to find keywords that are relatively easy to optimize and yet have a decent search volume. These would be the keywords with the least compitetion in Google. Go to Google.com and enter each of your short listed keywords (one at a time). It is best if you search for the exact phrase, so surround your keyword with double quotes. Note how many web results there are for each of the phrases. Now that you have collected the 'Number of web results' for each keyword, calculate competition ratio by divding it's 'Global search volume' by the 'Number of web results'. The keywords with the higher ratios are the easier ones to optimize.

You can now start a SEO campaign for your keywords however you'll see next, it might be much wiser to start an AdWords campaign instead.

2 To Ensure that the Keywords You Have Picked Convert Well

After you have picked your keywords, you need to verify if these keywords really work for you – i.e. if they convert properly. No matter how precise you've been when picking your keywords, if you don't test them in practice, you can never know for sure if they work well or don't. You can pick lucrative keywords with high global search volume and low levels of competition and still end nowhere.

For instance, for this website - webconfs.com we could try optimizing for the keyword "Search Engine Optimization". It could take a year or so with a LOT of effort to reach the first page on Google for "Search Engine Optimization” and still one can never be sure this will happen.

However, let's pretend that this happens – We manage to top Google for "Search Engine Optimization” after a year of hard SEO work. To our greatest disappointment, even the first place for "Search Engine Optimization” on Google did'nt bring the expected results because the bounce rate for this particular keyword turned out to be very high. Since we do not provide SEO Services a lot of people reaching us via "Search Engine Optimization" may NOT be getting what they're looking for. Instead, lesser popular keywords, such as "SEO Tips” or "SEO Guide” might have lower bounce rates and may actually perform better than "Search Engine Optimization” did for us.

The result is not surprising but the price paid is. If we had launched an AdWords campaign, it would have saved a lot of trouble. We could have spent $20-50 on AdWords for "Search Engine Optimization” and it would have taken us a week or less to figure that the bounce rate for this keyword is very high and it makes no sense to do organic SEO for it. These $20-50 on AdWords would have spared a year of wasted SEO efforts.

3 For Getting a Better CTR with Your Existing Rankings

In addition to keyword research, AdWords is a valuable tool for getting a better CTR (Click Thru Rate) with your existing rankings. You might rank well for a given keyword, get a lot of traffic, and still be unable to monetize this traffic because your CTR is low. The reasons for this might be various but inadequate title and description could be a very possible reason.

AdWords can also help you get better CTR with your existing rankings. For instance, if you run ad AdWords campaign and you are satisfied with the conversion/performance, you might want to keep changing your ad title and description until you feel you have reached the maximum CTR for your keywords.

Sure, it might take you a couple of tries till you find the winning combination of a title and a description and you might even lower your CTR in the process but once you find this magical combination of a title and description, just copy them as the title and description for your page in order to maximize your organic search CTR as well.

4 For Geographic Targeting

One more good use of AdWords for SEO is geotargeting. If you bid on traffic from many geographic locations, you can use Google Analytics to compare how different locations convert. It is quite natural to have significant discrepancies in the conversions for the same keyword among the countries.

When you go to Google Analytics and see which countries are converting best, you can invest more effort in them. For instance, you can create local pages for these countries or target the geo-specific keywords with exceptionally good conversion rates.

AdWords is a really valuable tool not only for advertisers. It started as a tool for advertisers but its use is not restricted to them alone. For many publishers and SEO experts AdWords is the most valuable tool because even a moderate AdWords campaign can give you valuable insights and save you a lot of time and money to optimize for words, which don't work for you.

10 Key SEO Strategies Every Facebook Page Owner Should Know

Facebook Pages are increasingly becoming a “second home page” for businesses online. And while more and more Page owners are learning how to become expert Facebook marketers, Facebook has recently created many new opportunities for Pages to get more traffic through the tried and true methods of – you guessed it – search engine optimization (SEO).
While Facebook’s “viral channels” – the News Feed, invitations, and messages – play a central role in the spread of content through Facebook, employing important SEO tactics within your Facebook Page can help your Page reach more and more Facebook fans. While viral distribution can help you reach people your fans are directly connected to, search engine optimization exposes your Facebook Page to Facebook’s entire userbase. In fact, Facebook itself has taken major steps to improve its own SEO during recent weeks and months, creating opportunities for Page owners to benefit directly while creating value for Facebook at the same time.
So, without further ado, here are 10 SEO strategies and tactics every Facebook Page owner should know:
1. Choose the best name for your Facebook Page – and don’t change it

Choosing the right name for your Facebook Page is vital. Despite the temptation to stuff your Page title with high value generic keywords – like “Mike’s Travel Agency: Las Vegas, Hawaii, Cancun – Hotels, Flights, & More” – this approach will actually harm your Page’s viral growth rate inside Facebook more than it will help through better SEO. For example, if your page’s title appears too spammy, fans will be less likely to share it with their friends on their profile and more likely to hide your updates from their News Feed.
Second, don’t give into the temptation to choose a fully generic page name like “Travel” or “Hawaii.” Because Facebook’s intention for Pages is that they authentically represent businesses, brands, or celebrities, Facebook has recently been disabling updates for generically named Pages – effectively neutering their ability to reach their Facebook fans.
The bottom line: use your business’s real name as the name of your page. And once you pick your Page’s name, don’t change it. Facebook uses your Page name in the title of the Page, and since Google dings pages when their titles change, modifying your Facebook Page’s name will cost you SEO points.
2. Select the best URL (Facebook username) for your Facebook Page
Facebook recently launched the ability to choose a vanity URL (Facebook calls it a “username”) for your Facebook Page, one of the most important SEO opportunities on Facebook to date. When you choose a Facebook username for your Page, your Page’s URL becomes www.facebook.com/YourUsernameHere. Usernames can be selected at www.facebook.com/username.

Facebook usernames present a better opportunity for businesses to consider incorporating generic keywords for SEO purposes than the Page name itself. While Facebook has created a black list of generic usernames that Pages (and users) are prevented from registering, there are still opportunities for businesses to obtain relatively generic usernames, or usernames that combine their actual name with additional generic keywords.
However, we do offer a word of caution when incorporating generic keywords in your Facebook Page URL: Facebook intends for Pages to authentically represent the identities of businesses, and brands and has revoked privileges from Pages with generic titles in the past, so it’s not unfathomable that Facebook might somehow punish Pages with generic usernames by similarly revoking status publishing rights (or at least the username itself) at some point in the future.
The safest option – and wisest long term bet in our view – is to choose a username that authentically represents your business or brand. For example, we chose www.facebook.com/InsideFacebook. Once you pick a Facebook username/URL for your Page, it cannot be changed – ever. So pick a username you’re going to be comfortable with and confident in for the long term.
One important note: in order to mitigate Facebook username squatting, Facebook requires that your Page have at least 100 fans before it becomes eligible to select a username. If your Page has less than 100 fans, you’ll need to recruit more fans before being able to take advantage of this important SEO strategy.
3. Use the “About” text box to place keyword-dense prose near the top of your Page
One important SEO strategy that should be employed on your Facebook Page whenever feasible is placing keyword-dense prose as close to the top of the Page as possible. Because Facebook limits where Page owners can place large chunks of text on the default Wall tab of Facebook Pages, the “About” box actually represents the highest place in the CSS structure of the page to add custom text.
In order to add text to your Page’s “About” box, click the “Write something about [YourPage]” in the box underneath your Page’s profile picture. You’ll then be able to enter custom text in the input box – there is a 250 character limit, so choose your words wisely.
4. Use the “Info” tab to include more important keywords, text, and high priority links on your Page
Facebook creates an “Info” tab for every Facebook Page that has fields containing important descriptive metadata about the Page. It’s important to fill out these fields, because they provide the opportunity to include keywords, prose, and links that will increase the content score of your Facebook Page for many types of Google searches. For example:

• Address, City, State, and Zip code are important fields for local searches
• Company Overview, Mission, and Products are important fields for product searches
• Websites is a valuable opportunity to add direct links to your own websites or other relevant sites in your space

The specific fields present will vary according to the category you choose for your Page when you create it (business, brand, or public figure), so choose the category that best fits your needs.
5. Create “Static FBML” boxes and tabs to place lengthy content and more static links on your Page
While opportunities to place large blocks of static text on the default tab of your Facebook Page are quite limited (see the “About” box section above), Facebook allows Page owners to create additional boxes or tabs that can hold any kind of static content, including text, images, and links. Adding content boxes or tabs to your Page can be a great way to boost the content density score of your Page (note, however, that each tab lives at a separate URL in Google’s eyes).

In order to add a custom content box or tab to your Page, follow these steps:

1. Go to the “Static FBML” application on Facebook.
2. Click “Add to my Page” on the top left side, and choose the page you’d like to add a custom content box or tab to.
3. Once you’ve chosen one, close the dialog box, go to your Page, and click “Edit page” under your Page’s profile picture.
4. In the applications list on the resulting page, you should see an application called “FBML 1″. Click the pencil icon on the right, and choose “Edit.”
5. You’ll be taken to a page with 2 fields: “Box Title” and “FBML.” Enter the name you’d like to give the box or tab in the “Box Title” field. Enter the HTML you’d like to use in the “FBML” field (FBML stands for Facebook Markup Language, and is a subset of HTML.), and then click the Save Changes button.
6. Once changes are saved, click the “Edit” link at the top of your Page to return to your Page’s application settings page. Click the pencil icon next to the name of the FBML application you just created, and choose “Application Settings.”
7. If you want to add the FBML you just entered as a box, choose “Add” next to the Box option. The custom FBML box will by default appear on the Boxes tab, so if you want to move it to the left side of your Wall tab, you’ll need to then go to the Boxes tab, click the pencil icon on your FBML box, and choose “Move to Wall tab.”
8. Or, if you want to add the FBML you just entered as a tab, choose “Add” next to the Tab option. The custom content should then automatically appear on its own tab on your Page. Note, however, that Facebook truncates tab titles after 10 characters, so you’ll need to choose a short title.

And voila! After that somewhat arduous process, your custom content should appear. Be sure to write good copy :)
6. Post direct links to your website (or other relevant sites) in your Page’s stream
Status updates offer a powerful way to place direct links near the top of your Page’s CSS structure. Because Google boosts pages that link to relevant sites – and dings pages that link to unrelated sites or add too many links too suddenly – posting links in status updates can be a powerful and authentic way to boost your Facebook Page’s link score.
There are two ways to post links into your Page’s stream:

1. Including the raw URL in the text of the status update itself
2. Using the “attach link” feature in the Facebook publisher

Let’s take a look at the pros and cons of each approach from an SEO perspective:
1. Raw URL
When you include the raw URL in the text of the status update itself, Facebook auto-links the text directly to the URL. While you can’t control the anchor text of the link (it is always just the URL itself), the link does go directly to the destination page – and not through a Facebook.com URL that adds the Facebook menu bar at the top when you click through to the destination page.

2. Attach Link
When you use the “attach link” feature of the Facebook publisher, Facebook pulls in the title, body, and images from your Page, and suggests a thumbnail image and text snippet which it places adjacent to your Page’s link. The automatic inclusion of this text further boosts the keyword density of the CSS region near the link, and the thumbnail also links to the destination URL – both nice perks of using the “attach link” feature.

Power tip: You can also change the anchor text while clicking the page’s title before clicking “Share” in the Facebook publisher.
However, importantly, the link itself does not go directly to the destination URL – rather, it goes through a Facebook.com share URL that includes the destination URL as an iframe on the resulting page, with the Facebook menu bar at the top which includes commenting and sharing features. While there is still some debate in the SEO community as to the impact of the specific implementation details of such toolbars, the lack of a direct link when using Facebook’s “attach link” feature does partially mitigate the SEO benefits of posting links on Facebook Pages.

7. Add photos with captions, events with descriptions, and a discussion forum
It almost goes without saying, but it’s important to always be sharing interesting content on your Facebook Page, and always using all available descriptive fields on each type of content shared. When posting photos, use verbose and keyword-dense descriptions. When posting events, take the extra minute to include text and keywords in the event description field that you want to rank for. Add a discussion forum to your Page.
Facebook makes all of the content shared on Facebook Pages indexable by search engines, so use the tools Facebook provides to your full advantage.
8. Get more inbound links to your Facebook Page from the web by posting links to your Page on all your websites
Just as a variety of inbound links from authoritative websites help boost PageRank for traditional websites, getting more inbound links to your Facebook Page will boost its PageRank as well. You can do this with text links, but Facebook has also created a “Find Us On Facebook” badge which it encourages Page owners to use. The new Fan Box widget for Facebook Pages also includes links back to your Facebook Page.
Facebook has created promotional guidelines for promoting your Facebook Page that are worth a read. Basically, Facebook doesn’t want Page owners to claim you have officially partnered with Facebook by virtue of having a Facebook Page. However, Facebook does want as many links as possible pointing to Facebook.com :)
9. Get more intra-Facebook inbound links by getting more Facebook fans
Because Facebook places links to Facebook Pages on the default version of Facebook users’ profile pages which are visible to search engines, the more fans you get, the more links you’ll have to your Page within Facebook. For Pages with thousands (or even millions) of fans, the number of links can really add up.

10. Strengthen intra-Facebook reciprocal linking by getting fans to comment and like content in your stream

When fans comment or like content in your Facebook Page’s stream, Facebook links their name back to their Facebook profile page. As a result, when the profile stubs of those fans who have posted comments and likes on your Page are indexed, Google will see more reciprocal links between your Page and your Page’s fans (in a way that grows organically over time), which it will see as a stronger bond. This creates a virtuous cycle of improved link weight from the indexed profile page stubs to your Page, and vice versa.

Conclusion & Next Steps

While building and expanding your Facebook Page presence requires creative planning and consistent execution, SEO can play a vital role in boosting your Page’s growth rate. While viral distribution limits you to the people your fans are connected to, search engine optimization exposes your Facebook Page to Facebook’s entire userbase – and as we’ve discussed above, there’s a lot that Page owners can do to maximize their exposure through Google, Yahoo, MSN, Ask, and other popular search engines.

Free Download - In House SEO PDF

If you’re considering bringing Search Marketing In House then I recommend downloading this In House SEO PDF. Get expert advice from established SEO professionals at: NetConcepts, ResortQuest, Time Inc., Business.com and Classmates.com. Earlier this summer I asked some of the top SEO minds the same 2 questions, it was quite a popular series so I decided to turn it into a PDF.

• What is the biggest advantage for an organization to bring Search Marketing In-house?
• What is the biggest challenge in accomplishing a transformation to In-house SEO?

Download Now!
The PDF also includes a bonus section: Links to 10 great In house search marketing resources. Below is a snippet from the In House SEO PDF.

Free SEO Advice PDF

Below you will find a link to a FREE downloadable 122 page PDF with SEO advice & tips to make sure you get the position that you deserve in Google.
There is no charge for the PDF but if you like what you read then please credit me by giving me a link back to this page from your site. Many thanks!

DOWNLOAD:  SEO-Juice-advice-premium-edition

To download the PDF above, right click on it and choose SAVE TARGET AS (Internet Explorer) or SAVE LINK AS (Google Chrome).

Place the PDF in a folder that you want to keep forerver and sit back, relax, put the kettle on and expand your mind!
Adios!

What Is SEO - Clean IDEA

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is often considered the more technical part of Web marketing. This is true because SEO does help in the promotion of sites and at the same time it requires some technical knowledge – at least familiarity with basic HTML. SEO is sometimes also called SEO copyrighting because most of the techniques that are used to promote sites in search engines deal with text. Generally, SEO can be defined as the activity of optimizing Web pages or whole sites in order to make them more search engine-friendly, thus getting higher positions in search results.

One of the basic truths in SEO is that even if you do all the things that are necessary to do, this does not automatically guarantee you top ratings but if you neglect basic rules, this certainly will not go unnoticed. Also, if you set realistic goals – i.e to get into the top 30 results in Google for a particular keyword, rather than be the number one for 10 keywords in 5 search engines, you will feel happier and more satisfied with your results.

Although SEO helps to increase the traffic to one's site, SEO is not advertising. Of course, you can be included in paid search results for given keywords but basically the idea behind the SEO techniques is to get top placement because your site is relevant to a particular search term, not because you pay.

SEO can be a 30-minute job or a permanent activity. Sometimes it is enough to do some generic SEO in order to get high in search engines – for instance, if you are a leader for rare keywords, then you do not have a lot to do in order to get decent placement. But in most cases, if you really want to be at the top, you need to pay special attention to SEO and devote significant amounts of time and effort to it. Even if you plan to do some basic SEO, it is essential that you understand how search engines work and which items are most important in SEO.


1. How Search Engines Work

The first basic truth you need to learn about SEO is that search engines are not humans. While this might be obvious for everybody, the differences between how humans and search engines view web pages aren't. Unlike humans, search engines are text-driven. Although technology advances rapidly, search engines are far from intelligent creatures that can feel the beauty of a cool design or enjoy the sounds and movement in movies. Instead, search engines crawl the Web, looking at particular site items (mainly text) to get an idea what a site is about. This brief explanation is not the most precise because as we will see next, search engines perform several activities in order to deliver search results – crawling, indexing, processing,calculating relevancy, and retrieving.

First, search engines crawl the Web to see what is there. This task is performed by e piece of software, called a crawler or a spider (or Googlebot, as is the case with Google). Spiders follow links from one page to another and index everything they find on their way. Having in mind the number of pages on the Web (over 20 billion), it is impossible for a spider to visit a site daily just to see if a new page has appeared or if an existing page has been modified. Sometimes crawlers will not visit your site for a month or two, so during this time your SEO efforts will not be rewarded. But there is nothing you can do about it, so just keep quiet.

What you can do is to check what a crawler sees from your site. As already mentioned, crawlers are not humans and they do not see images, Flash movies, JavaScript, frames, password-protected pages and directories, so if you have tons of these on your site, you'd better run the Spider Simulator below to see if these goodies are viewable by the spider. If they are not viewable, they will not be spidered, not indexed, not processed, etc. - in a word they will be non-existent for search engines.

After a page is crawled, the next step is to index its content. The indexed page is stored in a giant database, from where it can later be retrieved. Essentially, the process of indexing is identifying the words and expressions that best describe the page and assigning the page to particular keywords. For a human it will not be possible to process such amounts of information but generally search engines deal just fine with this task. Sometimes they might not get the meaning of a page right but if you help them by optimizing it, it will be easier for them to classify your pages correctly and for you – to get higher rankings.

When a search request comes, the search engine processes it – i.e. it compares the search string in the search request with the indexed pages in the database. Since it is likely that more than one pages (practically it is millions of pages) contains the search string, the search engine starts calculating the relevancy of each of the pages in its index to the search string.

There are various algorithms to calculate relevancy. Each of these algorithms has different relative weights for common factors like keyword density, links, or metatags. That is why different search engines give different search results pages for the same search string. What is more, it is a known fact that all major search engines, like Yahoo!, Google, MSN, etc. periodically change their algorithms and if you want to keep at the top, you also need to adapt your pages to the latest changes. This is one reason (the other is your competitors) to devote permanent efforts to SEO, if you'd like to be at the top.

The last step in search engines' activity is retrieving the results. Basically, it is nothing more than simply displaying them in the browser – i.e. the endless pages of search results that are sorted from the most relevant to the least relevant sites.

2. Differences Between the Major Search Engines

Although the basic principle of operation of all search engines is the same, the minor differences between them lead to major changes in results relevancy. For different search engines different factors are important. There were times, when SEO experts joked that the algorithms of Yahoo! are intentionally made just the opposite of those of Google. While this might have a grain of truth, it is a matter a fact that the major search engines like different stuff and if you plan to conquer more than one of them, you need to optimize carefully.

There are many examples of the differences between search engines. For instance, for Yahoo! and MSN, on-page keyword factors are of primary importance, while for Google links are very, very important. Also, for Google sites are like wine – the older, the better, while Yahoo! generally has no expressed preference towards sites and domains with tradition (i.e. older ones). Thus you might need more time till your site gets mature to be admitted to the top in Google, than in Yahoo!.

Download Official Google SEO Starter Guide PDF

Now download SEO guide by Google. All webmasters want high search engine rankings to list their site on top of search engines search result pages. There are hundreds of sources providing information about search engine optimization to drive more site traffic. Google just made it simpler to master these SEO techniques.
Google webmaster tools has released an official Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide that covers many areas that webmasters might consider optimizing to get better Google ranking and indexing. Here is the index of contents that should interest you.

• Create unique and accurate page titles
• Make use of the description meta tag
• Improve the structure of your URLs
• Make your site easier to navigate
• Offer quality content and services
• Write better anchor texts
• Use heading tags appropriately
• Optimize your use of images
• Making effective use of Robots.txt
• Be aware of nofollow tags for links
• Promoting your website in the right ways
• Make use of free webmaster tools
• Take advantage of web analytics services

Download the Official Google SEO Started guide (.pdf) today and see what Google expects from your site structure and functionality.