Rich Snippets and Schema.org – SEO in the Semantic Web 3.0

Each December, when the year comes to a close, it’s custom to look to the new year and things the future will bring. While there is a great host of things we can look for in the world of SEO, one of the most interesting studies is the topic of rich snippets, Schema.org and the role of the semantic Web – or Web 3.0.

What are Rich Snippets?

Snippets are additional bits of information from your website that Google, Yahoo! and Bing will display alongside your link in a search engine results page. This could be any number of attributes, from the average price of an entree at a popular restaurant to a product’s price and inventory status:

In May of 2009, Google announced on it’s blog the introduction of rich snippets. The technical explanation is that Google would now be looking for structured data using resource definition framework (RDF) – an XML-based standard – when crawling sites. In other words, webmasters would now be able to influence WHAT aspects of their site content can be displayed as a snippet in a search engine results page by adding XML based tags to their webpages.

A Brief Detour into the Semantic Web

Structured data and RDF are parts of the semantic web (or Web 3.0). A basic understanding of these principles and philosophies will make it much easier to understand how rich snippets are tagged and how they can help your search rankings, and also improve your click-through rates.

Speaking strictly in terms of websites, the semantic web is the c0llective “web” of data that exists and can be directly or indirectly processed, ranked, sorted and evaluated by machines. That’s right, we’re talking strictly about how your content behaves with search engines - not users.

The semantic web has 3 main concepts:

1. Focusing on data itself instead of how it’s presented

What does that mean? Well, say you have the following content on your website:

2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened
3/4 cup granulated sugar
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 large eggs
2 cups (12-oz. pkg.) NESTLÉ® TOLL HOUSE® Semi-Sweet Chocolate Morsels
1 cup chopped nuts

To a human, it’s obvious that this is the world famous recipe for NESTLÉ® TOLL HOUSE® Chocolate Chip Cookies. However, to a machine this is a just 10 lines of random content. The presentation is what makes it apparent to a human that this is a recipe: the indented, line-item form and listed measurements. But this does not help a machine understand.

2. Usage and Dependance on Structured Data

The second concept of the Semantic Web aims to explain to a machine that a list of items and their measurements such as above isn’t random at all; it’s a recipe, similar to millions of others on the Web. Structured data – primarily resource definition framework (RDF) – is a way for machines to understand abstract concepts such as this.

Think of RDF like this. In the same way you would use <H1> to let a search engine know that your content is the header of your webpage, you would use a particular RDF code to let a search engine know that your ballpoint pen costs $5, is a Bic, and is currently in stock.

There are 3 main types of RDF “code”: RDFa, Microformats, and Microdata. We will focus on Microdata, because this is what is used by Schema.org!

3. Reliance on Linked Data

The third concept is really just the final product of #1 and #2. Now that we are expressing data in a way that allows machines to understand abstract ideas and nuances, the machines can better rank and sort large quantities of data (websites). This will ultimately create a better search experience.

Remember “Watson” from Jeopardy? IMB’s artificial intelligence computer is a great example of how machines interact with the semantic web. Machines are able to make complicated connections from a large series of data. But if the machines can’t understand the data in the same way that a human can, it’s potential usefulness is limited. However, once we define data in a way that is accessible to machines (search engines), they will be able to find and provide very particular information that will be helpful to the user making a search query.

Rich Snippets, Your Website, and Schema.org

OK, so the ideas behind the Semantic Web and rich snippets have been around for a while – why aren’t more people using them? Well, until recently there was not a universally accepted format for adding structured data markup to your site. Google might be OK with one form, but then Bing or Yahoo! wouldn’t understand it.

This all changed earlier this year when Google, Yahoo! and Bing created Schema.org under a joint initiative.

Schema.org uses the microdata form of RDF and provides a single resource for webmasters to use when applying markup to their pages. The website has a very simple design and is actually quite easy to use.

It is broken down into categories of the different attributes or types you want to associate with your content, called schemas.

Each category provides convenient examples of how to add the schema code into your HTML:

The code is fairly straightforward and easy to implement for any web developer or webmaster. Webbed Marketing can also help implement the Microdata for you.

Sill have questions about how rich snippets work or why you should use them? Check out our FAQ and best practices below:

Schema.org and Rich Snippets: FAQ and Best Practices

Q. Why use rich snippets?

A. Because everybody’s doing it. Seriously! Big retail sites like eBay and Best Buy are using it. Restaurants and small businesses are using them. Want another reason? Because Google, Yahoo! and Bing all joined together to create a uniform way to add these to websites. They wouldn’t take the time to do this if they weren’t planning on using them to rank search results. We can’t guarantee that having rich snippets will increase your search rankings, but we can venture a pretty solid guess that it will (when used correctly).

Q. Are there other benefits to using them?

A. Actually, yes. Having rich snippets alongside your listing makes it stand out in the search engine results page. A user is much more likely to click-through to your page if your listing includes a glowing product review, or lists the compatible operating systems for your software.

Q. Who should use rich snippets?

A. Adding Microdata to all of your pages could be time consuming – how do you know if it will even be worth it? This is really a good question for this blog post. Schema.org is constantly evolving to include new industries and “things” that can be defined and associated. The best way to decide if you should be using them is to browse the categories (Schemas) and see what applies to your content.

Just last month, a post on Schema’s official blog announced support for job listings! You can tag attributes such as base salary, experience, location, etc.

Q. What do rich snippets look like?

A. Rich snippets appear along with the title tag and meta description for your website in a search engine results page. They can take a number of different forms, from user reviews to product price ranges.

Q. Will adding the code for rich snippets change the way my content looks?

A. No! Rich snippets only appear in the search engine results page. The microdata code used to add them is invisible to humans.

Q. Why don’t I see them in every search?

A. Sometimes Google (or Yahoo! or Bing) will choose not to display a rich snippet in the search result. This could be because the particular page does not have any Microdata in the HTML, or because they do not completely trust the source.

You will see rich snippets more often when narrowing your search type (try searching “Shopping” or “Recipes”)

Q. Are there disadvantages to using them?

A. You will never know exactly which rich snippets the search engine will choose to highlight if and when your page shows up in a results page. So if have 10 different product reviews on your page, and they are all tagged with rich snippets, the “bad” one could show up in a search result.

Q. Could rich snippets be used as web spam?

A. Yes they could. In fact, the #1 best practice for tagging rich snippets in your content is DO NOT GO OVERBOARD. Tagging several different attributes on a single webpage is webspam. Don’t think you’ll get caught? Think about this: Schema.org was developed by a partnership of Google, Yahoo! and Bing. If you don’t think they have contingencies in place for when people try to manipulate the system, you’ve got another thing coming. It is very possible that pages or even whole sites that overuse or misuse microdata could suffer penalties in the search engine rankings.

Additional questions? Please don’t hesitate to ask! Contact us today at 614-291-8456 or online.

Tags: google, search engine optimization, SEO

Small Business SEO

Affordable Small Business SEO Packages

As a small business owner, you are looking for every edge you can get, and using the endless possibility of the internet is one way to feed your pipeline with sales leads. And while most internet marketing agencies require a retainer to work with you, most small businesses don’t have the budget to pay for their services each month. Webbed Marketing, winner of a shelf full of small business awards, feels your pain.

We offer small business SEO packages with business owners like you in mind. The packages are project based and vary based on the level of involvement that you’d like after the research and analysis phase.

• Our Basic SEO Package offers the research and analysis of your site, along with some on-page recommendations for your site pages.
• The Advanced SEO Package provides the Basic components along with off-page work to promote your newly optimized pages.
• the Custom SEO Package is designed to implement all of the Basic and Advanced components as well as start a Local Search presence for your business. We’ll need CMS or FTP access to your site if you select the Custom package.

And all of our small business SEO packages include access to our Webbed Marketing University, SEO101 online course.  The material will take you through the basics of on-page optimization and show some of the technical aspects of SEO that can adversely affect your site.

To learn more, contact our team of SEO Experts to learn more about our affordable small business SEO packages.

Tags: search engine marketing, search engine optimization, SEO, small business seo, webbed marketing

Lessen the Impact of Google Search Privacy Changes on your Analytics

Last week, Google announced on its blog that it was making some changes that will affect the availability of search engine data. Google claims that these changes are being made in an effort to make search more secure.

What is Changing?

Essentially, users who are signed into a Google service on their browser will be redirected to the secure version of Google search (https://www.google.com). Searches made from this secure version of Google are encrypted, so the keyword terms that users type in their search are “protected” – sort of.*

How Do I Know If I’m Signed In?

If you see something like this in the upper right hand of your browser, you are currently signed in to a Google service and your searches will be encrypted.

How Often Do People Really Sign In Before Doing A Search?

At first thought, it might seem like the number of people who sign in to Google immediately after opening a browser to do a search is probably low. And it probably is. However, a lot of people will decide to make a search after visiting Gmail. Unless they manually log out of Gmail, they will still be logged in when they perform their search.

The same thing applies with any of Google’s other dozens of free services. And we hear they are quite popular. Although, it’s worth mentioning that Google estimates that only 10% of all searches will now be encrypted.

So What’s the Big Deal?

By encrypting these searches, website owners will lose valuable information about the people who visit their sites. Particularly, they will lose information about what search terms people used to find them on the web. Knowing these search terms is a critical part of organic search engine optimization; it helps website owners learn how to target the right audiences with their website content.

This data is also invaluable for paid search marketers and managers of PPC programs (such as Adwords) because it provides insight into how their campaigns are working.

Starting on 10/18/2011, website owners and internet marketers will see this for every encrypted search:

I wonder what the keywords were for those two visits…

Why Can’t We Get This Info From Somewhere Else?

You see, the only way that website owners and search engine marketers can have access to this information in the first place is because Google provides it: whether you are using Google Analytics, Omniture or another search engine metrics provider. If Google decides not to share data about the people using its search engine, there is nowhere else to get it (unless you commissioned a really large and expensive focus group).

OK, So What Can We Do About It?

Understanding what this means is the first step in understanding what you should do about it. And to do that you need to know exactly how many visits to your site this change is affecting (we will demonstrate with Google Analytics, but you can find similar solutions with Omniture or your preferred analytics packages).

1. Find the # of encrypted visits and divide by the total number of Google visits

Run these numbers from 10/18/2011 to 10/25/2011 (the first week this new change has been in effect). In that week www.webbedmarketing.com missed out on search term data from 2 out of 875 visitors. So less than 1% had encrypted search terms. We found similar results for most of our clients – a far cry from the 10% of visits that Google estimated.

But what if your site is missing out on a significantly higher percentage of search data? Or if the results climb as the update has been out longer and perhaps more people begin performing searches while logged in? With the way Google has been promoting some of its newer service, like Google +, it would not be a surprise to see the number of encrypted searches increase over time.

2. Set up and monitor an internal site search

Almost every website has some sort of internal search engine allowing visitors to try to find what they are looking for once they have arrived on the homepage. But what most people don’t know is that you can track the terms that visitors are searching for in Google Analytics. So if Google is going to hide some search data from you, why not expand your data source by including searches happening on your own site?

Instructions from Google how to set up and monitor a site search.

Unfortunately, this won’t help provide information on the missing data for monitoring paid search campaigns. Hopefully the relatively low percentage of affected data will keep this from being a real issue. But a site search will provide insight for organic SEO.

A good search engine marketer will tell you that an internal site search has always been a great place to mine data for organic SEO. For example, if you review the searches taking place on your website and find an unusually high number of visitors searching for a particular product or service – and you don’t currently offer it – maybe you should consider adding it (and building a keyword rich landing page to go with it, of course).

So there you have it – two simple steps and you’ll be likely never to notice the changes that everyone is making such a big fuss about!

*Wait, What Did You Mean Encrypted Search Terms Would Only Be “Sort Of” Protected?

Oh that…

Well, here’s the thing: Google claims that they are taking these steps in the earnest effort to protect the privacy of its users. But a lot of people just aren’t buying it.

You see, Google is encrypting the search term data from its logged in users. But they are not keeping it hidden from everyone. As a matter of fact, there is one online community who will still have access to this encrypted data: Google Adwords users.

That’s right, those who pay for Google’s Adwords package will NOT be shut out from the encrypted search data. Competing PPC ad platforms, however, will. So while everyone else is seeing (not provided), Google Adwords users will know that these visitors were actually searching for “jelly donuts” or whatever the case may be.

Tags: google, google analytics, ppc, search engine marketing, search engine optimization, sem, SEO

Meta Keywords for SEO

The meta data variables of a web page are arguably some of the most important pieces of your website. The meta data variables include the Page Title(<title>), Meta Description (<meta name=”description”…) and Meta Keywords (<meta name=”keywords”). For years, search insiders have been saying that the only two of these variables are still relevant – Page Title and Meta Description.

The Page Title (1) is a critical part of your page. It is the content that the crawlers read when they crawl your page and determine the theme of your content for that page. The Page Title is also your organic search Title that is displayed to users when they to a search query. The Meta Description (2) is the 150 character piece of content that describes your page content.  The meta description as it is defined will also be used for the organic search ad content as shown in section 2 below.

But what about the Meta Keywords section? Most site CMS’s still have a field that is used for keywords, so why keep the fields if the industry insiders are saying that it is not important any more?

The Meta Keywords field sits behind the browser and can be used to support the keyword themes found in the Page Title and Meta Description.  At Webbed Marketing, we advise our clients to use the field if possible, but to limit the number of keywords you use to 3-5 keywords.

This week, Search Engine Land published an article stating that Bing still evaluates the Meta Keywords field – to catch spammers! They look for pages that have an excessive number of keywords (keyword stuffing), featuring keywords that do not match the page content theme.  A comment from Bing insider, Duane Forrester stated:

“The main thing people need to keep in mind if they decide to use the tag is to follow the known best practices. Ultimately, it’s the overt keyword stuffing that gets noticed and makes us want to look a little closer. If you’re willing to stuff pointless keywords into the meta keywords tag, what else might you be inclined to do?”

Translation: Use the field, but limit the number of keywords and keep the keywords relevant to your page theme. If you are keyword stuffing your meta and content zone, the Meta Keywords field is a tipoff to BING to take a closer look at your page content as well.

If I were writing the Meta Variables for the page above, for the keyword ‘baseball card dealer”, here is what the three fields would look like:

<title>Baseball Card Dealer | Shop Sports Cards, Memorabilia, and More</title>
<meta name=”description” content=”Shop Dave & Adam’s Baseball Card World and find sports cards, memorabilia, and more from a reputable baseball card dealer. Free Shipping on $150+ orders.” />
<meta name=”description” content=”baseball card dealer, baseball cards, sports cards, baseball memorabilia” />

Tags: google, internet marketing, search engine optimization, SEO

Search Engine Optimization Metrics in Google Analytics – Useful?

Google Analytics is an invaluable tool for search engine optimization, in terms of measuring success and obtaining fast and reliable data. In fact, Google’s free website analytics offering should be an essential part of any website owner/operator’s toolkit.

Some more persistent Google Analytics users might have noticed a small change to the platform this week. Google has added a new set of metrics under the “Traffic Sources” section.

*NOTE: You must be using the new version of Google Analytics to access this new function. Check out a video on how to do so here: http://screencast.com/t/hm5ryBJC.

You will also need to connect your Google Webmaster Tools profile to your Analytics account. Here is additional info about Setting up Google Webmaster Tools for your Website.

Once you have connected your Webmaster Tools profile you can get started viewing some of the “search engine optimization” data that Google is now providing.

At first glance, the “Queries” report seems to provide much of the same information that was already available through Webmaster Tools, albeit in a slightly more professional looking display:

The “Landing Pages” report uses some of this same information obtained from Webmaster Tools and displays it pertaining to your top content pages:

Finally, the “Geographical Summary” report provides this same data spread across the different geographical regions where people are clicking on your website in search results:

Also, if you switch from “Country” to “Google Properties” you will get a rundown of how your site performs across Google’s universal search types, including image, video, and mobile (not sure why this is stuffed under “Geographical Summary,” but go figure):

So what is the overall value here? A couple of things stand out immediately, while a few other things are left to be desired. Let’s start with the good:

1. Streamlined Interface Saves Time

Even if the data provided here is no different than what’s already available in Webmaster Tools, it surely is at least more convenient having them both accessible in the same, streamlined interface. Going back and forth between Google Analytics and Webmaster Tools takes time – especially if you are using separate Google email addresses for each.

2. Enhanced Custom Reporting

One of the best features of the new version of Google Analytics is the “Advanced Segments,” which allows you to quickly generate very particular comparisons and data sets useful for making custom reports (for example, you can see all the keywords people are using to find your website organically that also have a conversion rate between X% and Y%).

The new “Search Engine Optimization” section of Google Analytics provides a few additional segments, based on the new data imported from Webmaster Tools:

This is a nice feature – however, it leads into some of the areas where this whole update feels a bit thrown together… (i.e. “The Bad”):

1. Not Fully Integrated with the Rest of Google Analytics:

These new advanced segments are great – but they only apply when using one of the three new reports – Queries, Landing Pages and Geographical Summary. So, essentially, we are only able to sort the data specific to webmaster tools instead of being able to incorporate it into the rest of the Google Analytics data.

This is a bit of a letdown, because it feels like we are really being limited in terms of how we can work with the data. For example, it would be nice to be able to track non-paid search traffic having more than X-number of goal completions that was driven by keywords with a CTR of less than Y.

Hopefully Google is planning to incorporate these new advanced segments into the rest of reports.

2. The “Average Position” metric is a little misleading

To most people, average position would indicate your website’s average rank on Google for a particular keyword. And if you only had 1 page on your website ranking for a certain keyword, this would be the case:

• If your Home page was the only page on your website ranking for the term “internet marketing” and that page was consistently ranking at position #3, then your average position would be correctly display in Google Analytics as 3.

However, if gets a little fuzzy when you have multiple pages ranking for the same keyword:

• If your Home page consistently ranks #1 for “internet marketing” but your Contact Us page consistently ranks #16, then your average position display in Google Analytics as 8. Not very helpful…

The Average Position metric becomes even less useful when you consider it in the “Landing Page” report. Since you are currently unable to click any of the landing pages listed and see which keyword phrases are driving traffic to each, it’s hard to determine exactly what Google is providing us an “average position” of.

Verdict:

Overall, this should be seen as a welcome addition to the new Google Analytics interface. With a few tweaks that are undoubtedly on the way, this will eventually help make G.A. even more valuable to Internet marketers and website owners. And one final note – if you haven’t already begun playing around with the new version of Google Analytics, you probably should. It wouldn’t be all that surprising if we woke up one morning to find the old version to literally be a thing of the past.

Tags: google, google analytics, search engine optimization, SEO, tommy redmond

Fathom Online Marketing Announces Acquisition of Webbed Marketing

Cleveland-based Fathom Online Marketing, one of the 25 largest search engine optimization and online marketing firms in the country, today announced the acquisition of Webbed Marketing.

Webbed Marketing, based in Columbus, Ohio, has experienced double-digit annual growth since its founding in 2006, and today serves more than 60 clients regionally, nationally and internationally.

“Webbed Marketing is a highly visible company in the online marketing space, and has done a great job earning a reputation as experts in search and social media,” Scot Lowry, CEO of Fathom Online Marketing said. He explained that the acquisition allows Fathom to expand its social media offerings and cited Webbed Marketing’s expertise in healthcare, government and information technology as key reasons for the acquisition.

“In addition, this acquisition allows us to offer online social media research, planning and analysis to large organizations through Webbed Marketing’s VisiOne service” Lowry said.

Lowry said that Webbed Marketing’s office will remain in Columbus. “The Columbus region has been very supportive of Webbed Marketing and our plans are to not only continue to operate the Columbus office, but to continue to grow the Columbus presence.”

“Today’s announcement comes as a result of all the support we’ve received from our employees, clients, partners, and the Columbus community during the last five years,” Bill Balderaz, Webbed Marketing’s founder, said.

“We’re grateful to everyone who has played a role in our success,” Amy Marshall, COO of Webbed Marketing, said. “This move allows us to serve all those around us even better than before.” Marshall, who leads the company’s VisiOne group, added that she is looking forward to introducing in-depth audience research through social media analysis to Fathom’s clients.

“This is another great success story for Central Ohio,” Tim Haynes, Vice President of Member Services and Marketing for TechColumbus said. “It reflects the growth and the strength of our region’s interactive marketing, web development and digital community.”

Susan Merryman, Vice President of Marketing and Communication for the Columbus Chamber of Commerce agreed, “We have a long standing relationship with Webbed Marketing and welcome Fathom to Columbus. This is another great indicator of the economic growth of Columbus.”

Lowry agreed, “This is a case where everyone truly wins. Fathom’s clients now have access to Webbed Marketing’s research, analysis, social media and healthcare experience. While Webbed Marketing’s clients have access to Fathom’s performance based email marketing services and additional SEO and online advertising resources. Employees of both firms have even broader career paths. And the economies of Columbus, Cleveland and all of Ohio benefit by having one of the powerhouses of online marketing based locally.”

About Fathom Online Marketing
Fathom Online Marketing is an online marketing firm located in Valley View, Ohio, specializing in organic search-engine optimization, opt-in email marketing, online public relations, Internet video products, and pay-per-click advertising. Fathom can be found on Twitter: @fathomseo.

About Webbed Marketing
Webbed Marketing’s goal is to help organizations grow by using the power of online marketing, advertising and public relations. The firm specializes in search engine optimization, pay-per-click advertising, social media, mobile marketing and research and planning. Visit http://www.webbedmarketing.com for more information.

Tags: business, internet marketing, marketing, SEO, social media, webbed marketing

Google Insights for Researching Local Search Keywords

OK, here is a classic math problem with a “local search” twist:

1. At 10:45 a.m., Jim gets on a computer in Norfolk, VA and searches for real estate license information.
2. Pam gets on a computer in Charlotte, NC one hour later and searches for real estate license information.
3. What does an Internet marketer need to do to target both of these audiences?

Answer? Local SEO campaigns (sorry, the “time” element of the equation was irrelevant).

There is little debating that local search is the future of search engine optimization – and, more generally, the future of Internet marketing. There are already a number of different tactics and techniques that are all part of a savvy marketer’s toolkit. These includes claiming and optimizing Google Places listings for all of your physical businesses.

But relying solely on Google Places, Yahoo! Local, Yelp, and other local listings will significantly limit your local search campaigns (especially if your business doesn’t have traditional brick-and-mortar locations).

A truly effective local search campaign requires a local content strategy. And by local content strategy, we mean:

• Identifying your target regions
• Performing local SEO keyword research for your top products/services in these regions
• Creating unique content tailored to the search demand of each region

What we DO NOT mean by local content strategy is creating 20 versions of the exact same page by simply substituting the names of different cities and states. This kind of local search strategy is scrutinized now more than ever by Google following the Panda update.

But white, black, green or blue hat tactics aside, the most important part of any local content strategy is keyword research.

The Google Adwords Keyword Tool is a good place to start, particularly when you want to find and compare search volume on keywords using a geographic modifier:

The keyword tool also attempts to estimate the amount of local search volume for your terms. However, this number is based on Google’s estimate of search traffic in your current location (so in our case, people in Columbus Ohio searching “real estate license nc”). This is not very helpful if you are not physically in the location of your research target.

In order to justify adding a region to a local SEO campaign (or maybe even to justify creating one in the first place), you are probably going to need more detailed information.

Enter Google Insights for Search.

This tool allows you to compare the search “interest” of various keywords over time in multiple geographic areas. You can also fine tune your comparison and filter by search type (web, image, news, or even product).

Once you enter your search term(s) and select the regions you want to compare, the tool first provides you with a graphical representation of the interest in your search term(s) over time in the selected regions:

Under this graph, you can view a more specific breakdown of each state selected. The interface provides you with a map of search “interest” broken down by the top metro areas in the state. The tool currently will include some metro areas from other states if they are geographically close (e.g. the map below includes the New York City and Washington metro areas).

Finally, the tool also provides a list of top search keywords for that state, related to your initial keyword term(s). It even goes so far as to provide insight to search terms that are rising rapidly in search volume.

Obviously, the tool provides ample possibilities for comparing as many different data sets as you can imagine – which, of course, is a true SEO keyword researcher’s dream.

Things really start to get interesting when you use Insights for Search and the Adwords Keyword Tool in tandem. Use the Keyword tool to find an initial set of data and then migrate that to Insights for Search for deeper analysis. Then, take the recommended keywords from Insights to explore more possibilities in the Keyword Tool. After a few rounds of back and forth you should be able to create and ultra targeted keyword list for each region in your local search campaign.

For example, you may find that the phrase “real estate license + the abbreviated form of each state” is a good keyword to use on all pages. But then you may find different variations are better in different areas. So you might determine that the best strategy is to target “real estate classes” in Pennsylvania, but then target “real estate license renewal” in North Carolina.

You can also check out Google Sets for even more local keyword research ideas.

Now that you have your dynamic list of regional keywords, you can begin creating your content strategy. Need help determining how to use these keywords in the creation of your content? Webbed Marketing can help.

Tags: google, keyword research, local search, local seo, search engine optimization, SEO, tommy redmond

We’re hiring an SEO Specialist

Search Engine Optimization Specialist Job Description

The SEO Specialist is responsible for the day-to-day SEO activities of Webbed Marketing clients.  The Specialist implements the various tactical items associated with an SEO program as set by the SEO strategist and account manager.  The SEO specialist will execute SEO tasks based on client strategy and in some cases implement SEO related changes on websites.  The following bullets describe some of the core activities that an SEO Specialist will perform:

• Perform baseline site audit for new sites
• Keyword Research
• Site setup activities: Google Analytics, XML sitemaps, Webmaster setup etc.
• Onpage activities: Optimization of meta content, content body, headers, images, etc.
• Offpage activities:  Link building, Local Search,
• Implementation of approved deliverables
• Support of SEO Strategy lead
• Technical review and troubleshooting
• Managing website updates
• Reviewing code for search engine friendliness
• Implementing redirects
• Support Account Managers with client calls as needed

Desired Experience and Skills:

1-3 years of web operations experience

Understanding of SEO principals and optimization variables

Basic Knowledge of: HTML, CSS, and other common web programming languages

CMS experience

Working knowledge of Google Analytics

Solid knowledge of keyword research tools and best practices

Able to solve complex web related site problems through various tools

Fast learner – self motivated and able to multi task on multiple projects simultaneously

Deadline driven

This position is located in Columbus, Ohio and requires minimal travel.  This role will report to the Director of Search and Advertising.

We are not your typical agency. Even though we are recognized as leaders in our field, we are an aggressive and fast-growing company where good ideas, hard work and job performance are more important than job titles and hierarchy. We have world class clients, excellent benefits, competitive salary and flexible work schedules. We boast 90% client retention.

Compensation based on experience and ability. Please send cover letter, resume, references and salary range to Bill Balderaz at bbalderaz@webbedmarketing.com. We will only consider Ohio-based applicants, or applicants willing to relocate to Ohio for this position.  All qualified candidates must pass a phone assessment gauging their technical and SEO skills to be considered for an in-person interview.

Tags: hiring, search engine optimization, SEO

Why SEO Matters for Writers and PR Pros

You might think search engine optimization (SEO) and public relations are entirely different avenues for online marketing. In fact, the world of SEO might be entirely foreign and uninteresting to you. My education in public relations and journalism never touched upon SEO. However, to be an effective writer and communicator today, it is essential to have a basic understanding of SEO and how it affects your writing.

As communications and public relations professionals, we are constantly writing – press releases, executive bios, newsletters, white papers, case studies, award submissions, social media updates, etc. All of your writing should be optimized for SEO purposes. Think about it – even if its original purpose is a hard copy, most of the content you write these days will end up online in some form.

Consider your goals for whatever content you are writing. It may be to increase awareness, create buzz around an event or topic, or inform your audience of news. These goals should coincide with another very important goal for your business: to be found online. When people are looking for information on a topic, event or company, they are likely browsing online (and chances are good it’s from their mobile device).

Therefore, in order to be found online, all the content you write should be optimized for SEO purposes. Make sure those keywords that people are searching to find your organization are in your headline. Use keywords throughout your social media updates. Beef up that first paragraph in your white paper with some keywords about your topic. In order for communicators and public relations professionals to have our work found and read online, we have to make it SEO-friendly.

If this is something you are struggling with, or you want to know more about SEO, you should check out our Webbed Marketing University series. The first session is an intro to SEO, and will highlight some of the basics to help you meet your business goals… even as a public relations or communications professional.

Web Conversions – New Google Analytics Tracking

Event Tracking as a Goal in the New Version of Google Analytics

Previously, there were three options for goals in Google Analytics: a pageview, the time a visitor spent on the site, and the number of pages a visitor viewed.  With the new version of Google Analytics, you can now track events as web conversions or “Goals”.  This opens up your goal tracking to many more possibilities.  Here are a few:

• Watch a video
• Listen to a recording
• Share content via social media
• Download a PDF
• Comment on a blog post
• Rate a product
• Track links to another website
• Fill out a form
• Interact with an application

What is the benefit of this?

For PPC campaigns in Adwords, these new event goals can be imported as conversions in AdWords.  Now you can see which campaigns and keywords are engaging your audience and refine it down to the ad group level for your search engine marketing campaigns.  Previously, to track a form submission as a goal, the form would need a unique “thank you” page. Now, we can track the click of the submit button as an event goal even if there is not a unique thank you page URL.

For search engine optimization clients, this goal tracking provides even more insight into how users are interacting with your site and increasing the view into engagement for the site variables (downloads, video views, etc). For example, you can track when a visitor views a video, and you can specify the amount of time that a person needs to watch the video in order for it to count as a goal completion.

On the social media side, you will be able to determine how users are interacting with your via social media networks. Learn how often they are sharing your content and which pages are most relevant to social media users.

Setting up the Goal

There are four event components that can be set up as a goal condition: a category, action, label, and value.  At least one of these components must be defined but you have the option of defining all four.  Think about all of the event goals you would like to set up before starting.  It’ll make it easier to organize your goals into categories, actions, and/or labels that make sense and are consistent across your site.  Then, choose a goal value, either the value you assigned to the event when you set it up or set a constant value.

Keep in mind that setting up events as goals requires you to add code to the website element you want to track.  So, either you or an IT person will need access to edit the website code in order to benefit from the new event goal tracking.



Tags: conversion tracking, google, google analytics, internet marketing, metrics, online marketing, ppc, search engine optimization, SEO, social media