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In the World of SEO, Do Nice Guys Finish Last?
Do you remember the old Ken-L-Ration TV commercials? My dog’s better than your dog… my dog’s bigger than your dog… my dog’s smarter than your dog.
Ranking is an obsession in this world. Who’s first? Who’s tallest? Who has the most money? Who’s the prettiest? Who’s the fastest? Maybe Charlie Sheen was right about that winning thing.
But nowhere is ranking more important these days than in the world of Internet search. SEO firms have been getting rich for more than a decade now, creating fear in the hearts of organizations whose websites don’t appear on page 1 (preferably as the first entry). They have also been playing dirty, overly optimizing websites to the point of polluting the environment with SEO junk instead of meaningful content.
So, Google plans to penalize them in order to level the playing field for other websites who do not concentrate on such efforts. If this sounds like a move the government might make, that’s because it is. No doubt the SEO service providers who have created this mess need to be stopped – partly for ripping off clients and partly for clogging the main arteries of the information superhighway.
In a recent article in TekGoblin, Google Engineer Matt Cutts explained: “We are trying to make GoogleBot smarter, make our relevance better, and we are also looking for those who abuse it, like too many keywords on a page, or exchange way too many links or go well beyond what you normally expect.”
As a marketing professional and an Internet surfer, I really like that first part. But as a freedom-fighter, I don’t like that second part quite so much.
I mean really, who put Google in charge of deciding what’s right and wrong… what’s good and bad… what’s acceptable and what’s not? Oh, wait, I just remembered; in a world where rankings are everything, Google is the biggest and the richest kid on the block, so they get to make the rules.
I just hope we can all live with them.
Beware of SEO Hijacking
I received an email from a source I don’t know telling me a link was broken on my website and recommended we link to a new site. What is this all about?
We highly recommend you do your homework first and don’t automatically change the link to the site the email is recommending. This is a very clever SEO approach that is on the rise, according to SEO expert and co-founder of diabetesdaily.com David Edelman.
There are tools available on the web that SEO experts can use to find broken links, like a link checker or broken link tool. The SEO expert identifies a reputable website he or she wants linking to their site (or a client’s site), finds a broken link and recommends their site (or client’s website) to help increase their organic search engine rankings.
Edelman provided a good example to highlight how this approach is working. “A reputable site like Harvard changes its site structure and breaks some old incoming links. A clever SEO expert searches for all high-quality sites linking to that page and emails them: Hey, your page has a broken link. Here’s the updated URL. They provide a link to their client’s site (or their own), which is hardly as credible as Harvard. This is a great way to get links from reputable sites.”
This is just one clever approach SEO experts are using to increase website rankings. Simply being aware of these approaches will help ensure you don’t fall for the trap.
Publicity & Media Relations Support Organic SEO
Do publicity and media relations tactics like news releases and media coverage support organic search engine optimization?
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By Jennifer Manocchio
Publicity and media relations do support organic search engine optimization. In fact, it is very beneficial for the public relations team to be working hand-in-hand with the search engine optimization team. This will help ensure keywords are being used throughout press materials and media interviews, and the publicity and media relations tactics being implemented support organic SEO to the best of their ability.
Below are a few tips on how to ensure your publicity and media relations efforts also benefit organic SEO.
News Releases: The first priority of a news release is to get the media’s interest and result in a news story. Therefore, a news release should be written for the media first. However, once you write a news release and distribute it to the media, revise the release for redistribution on the web. Ask the SEO team for keywords and optimize the news release with 1-3 of those keywords. Post the web release on free and paid distribution sites and on your web site’s media room. This increases the likelihood your news release will return on search engine results for those particular keywords.
Media Coverage: Media coverage not only builds brand, but can also help support organic SEO. Often, media will include a link to your web site in a story. This creates links to your site that are seen as more credible by search engines.
Also, frequent use of your keywords used throughout the media story can help the story appear on search engine results for those particular keywords. For this reason, it is beneficial to train your spokesperson to use your identified keywords during interviews. which increases exposure of the story to the right audiences.
Media Rooms: Because content and, more specifically, new content is king when it comes to organic SEO, continuing to update your media room will help support SEO. It will also provide the media with more relevant content and fodder for news stories.
Want to know more about how publicity and media relations can build brands and support SEO? Need help establishing your media room? Contact me at jennifer at sweeneypr.com or 910-772-1688.
