Got SEO questions?

[gracesfall]

View the following the question in any way you wish, but only after considering the reasoning that follows:

Why do you believe a SEO consultant has any value ? Reasoning: the ones that depend on SEO are actually crap that no one cares about, or the ones that are trying to over promote their product. There are flaws in this reasoning, I'm aware of that, but I'm interested in getting some honest answer there.

I think you underestimate who incorporates SEO into their overall marketing program. Even well known brands utilize organic SEO - not necessarily to *build* market placement, but to *maintain* it. Should a business rely *solely* on organic SEO? Not at all. But still has real and measurable value. In my current job, which started out just being SEO but is quickly growing to encompass content writing, web development, etc..., I was brought on board because the company was hemorrhaging money through PPC. Organic SEO had been ignored altogether. The company depends on getting phone calls so they can fill beds in their facility. In the few weeks that I've been working for them, overall call volume has nearly doubled and call volume resulting specifically from organic SEO has just over tripled. Those are REAL and measurable results - not just being able to say "Oooh loook! You rank #1 for this keyword or that keyword". Rankings are important and are easily quantifiable goals, but if the keywords you're showing up for aren't generating leads, visitors, purchases, etc... then it's wasted effort.

It is possible (and preferred, as far as I am concerned) to implement strong SEO without seeming spammy or over-hyped. Any SEO consultant worth his (or her) salt knows that organic SEO alone won't cut it, either. It's a combination of organic SEO, social media, viral marketing, and yes, PPC.

Saying an SEO consultant has no value is like saying ad agencies have no value or marketing agencies have no value. It's simply not true.

- Cynthia

[theecoinomist]

IamRichard is right about Google+ being powerful, but it isn't powerful because it is a Google property. It's powerful
because it is social media.

1. How is your stance on Google Authorship? Is it a 'must-have' if one were to create and grow a blog into something big one day?

2. How do you keyword research as of now? As one who recently got back into online marketing and SEO after a year, the google change on their keyword research really changed it for me.

[gracesfall]

IamRichard is right about Google+ being powerful, but it isn't powerful because it is a Google property. It's powerful
because it is social media.

1. How is your stance on Google Authorship? Is it a 'must-have' if one were to create and grow a blog into something big one day?

2. How do you keyword research as of now? As one who recently got back into online marketing and SEO after a year, the google change on their keyword research really changed it for me.

To answer your questions:

1. I think Google Authorship is a great thing, and definitely something you should do on a blog site. There was a study done recently that showed that click thru rates on rich text listings (including Google Authorship) went up by something like 150%. So GA isn't something to sneeze at.

2. For keyword research I still primarily use the keyword tool over at Google Adwords. It gives me a good general overview of how often keywords are searched for, how competitive those keywords are, etc...  The keyword analysis tool over @ Moz.com is cool too because I can check Bing and Yahoo as well. But Moz isn't a freebie, while the Adwords tool is.

[mrhelpful]

Heres something to test you on, esp the whole SEO hype.

Does it matter how many backlinks I have?
How do you create a backlink?
How do I get ranking for a specified keyword?
Does keyword order variation matter?

[gracesfall]

Heres something to test you on, esp the whole SEO hype.

Does it matter how many backlinks I have?
How do you create a backlink?
How do I get ranking for a specified keyword?
Does keyword order variation matter?

Here goes:

a. Generally speaking, the more backlinks you have, the better BUT not all backlinks are created equal. You don't want a bunch of bullshit gibberish backlinks like you see people doing with blog links. You also don't want backlinks from sites that are totally unrelated to your site. Who you are associated with counts. A drug rehab center, for instance, would not want to cultivate backlinks from sites about cooking. Also, the type of backlink matters. People hype on dofollow links but the fact is that if all (or the large majority) of your backlinks are dofollow, Google is going to question that. A *natural* link profile should be a mix of nofollow and dofollow backlinks.

b. How do you create a backlink? A backlink is any external link back to your website. Directory links, contextual links, etc.. all count as backlinks. Even links in forum posts and blog comments count, to a much lesser degree.

c. This can't be answered in brief, so here are *some* items: The content needs to be relevant to the keyword, the site needs a strong backlink profile that incorporates anchor text that includes the desired keywords, the site also needs a strong internal link structure as well, linking relevant text to other pages that are relevant to the keywords. Title tags and meta descriptions need to include the keywords, which is not to say they should be stuffed. The keyword meta tag is all but obsolete, so I don't bother with it. It doesn't help and it bloats the code. Speaking of code, a website's code needs to be streamlined, with as little bloat code as possible. Social media can also provide a big boost to SEO efforts.

d. Yes keyword order variation matters. I've had clients in the past who ranked okay for one variant (e.g. 'health insurance sc') but whose rankings sucked for 'sc health insurance'. If you optimize for one specific variant, you will almost always rank better for that specific variant than for alternatives.

How'd I do?

- Cynthia

[gracesfall]

Oh come on...that's hardly fair. You ask me questions to 'test' me and then don't even stick around to let me know whether I've passed your test or not? That's hardly sporting

[moderate]

Oh come on...that's hardly fair. You ask me questions to 'test' me and then don't even stick around to let me know whether I've passed your test or not? That's hardly sporting

I'm around but seeking a good SEO consultant so I give the best replies


EDIT: bitcoin BTC litecoin LTC SEO search engine optimization bubble 500 USD 1000 link link link

[gracesfall]

Oh come on...that's hardly fair. You ask me questions to 'test' me and then don't even stick around to let me know whether I've passed your test or not? That's hardly sporting

I'm around but seeking a good SEO consultant so I give the best replies

There you are Glad to see you. I'm already working full time as an SEO consultant. I'm just trying to make a few extra bits and bobs on the side by answering questions, giving advice if asked, etc...

Also, why the keyword stuffing in your reply? At least they weren't anchor text...

[b!z]

Gracesfall is definitely an expert at SEO

I asked him her some questions through PM and I got some great answers. Thanks!

[gracesfall]

Gracesfall is definitely an expert at SEO

I asked him some questions through PM and I got some great answers. Thanks!

Thanks Biz - I appreciate the shout-out! Feel free to PM me anytime if you have questions.

BTW, it's her, not him

[b!z]

Fixed that

[IamRichard]

Some good stuff here!

OP hits most things on the dot, but gaping holes in others

I am sure a question a bunch of people are wondering is, what is YOUR SEO technique?

aka, how would you rank a brand new site for a medium competition keyword?

[gracesfall]

Some good stuff here!

OP hits most things on the dot, but gaping holes in others

I am sure a question a bunch of people are wondering is, what is YOUR SEO technique?

aka, how would you rank a brand new site for a medium competition keyword?

Richard,

My purpose in posting was to answer specific questions about specific sites. Not to lay out my whole methodology. I'm sure that as an SEO consultant yourself, you can respect that.

I am curious to know in which areas you feel I have left gaping holes

I've answered every 'test' that was put in front of me in this thread - including yours. If people aren't convinced that I know what I'm talking about, they don't have to ask questions. I'm not looking to get new clients from this. I already have a full time SEO job. I'm just looking to help out and maybe earn a little extra on the side.

Cheers,

- Cynthia

[IamRichard]

Well I can ask you one for discussion sake.

If I 301 a PR 2, DA 30, PA 35 that has been dropped 3 times in the travel niche to a domain that is in the gambling niche (for discussion sake)

Would I see any results? If so, roughly how much?

Lastly, if I blast the 301 with links, would I get the domain subjected to manual penalty or would the manual penalty be carried over to the domain it is 301'ing to?

For reference, check out seofirms.tv and let me know what you see

[gracesfall]

Well I can ask you one for discussion sake.

If I 301 a PR 2, DA 30, PA 35 that has been dropped 3 times in the travel niche to a domain that is in the gambling niche (for discussion sake)

Would I see any results? If so, roughly how much?

Lastly, if I blast the 301 with links, would I get the domain subjected to manual penalty or would the manual penalty be carried over to the domain it is 301'ing to?

For reference, check out seofirms.tv and let me know what you see

Well, first off, why would you 301 a travel niche domain to a gambling niche domain? That makes no sense and smacks of spammy bait-and-switch.

Second, if the original domain has dropped (I assume you mean dropped in rankings and not dropped from the index altogether) 3 times already, redirecting it to another domain isn't going to help the new domain much, if at all.

As for blasting the 301 with links, it's interesting that some SEO folks say yes while others say no. From what I've seen in my own experience, manual penalties are generally NOT passed through 301 redirects. Think about it from a logical perspective. If penalty WERE passed through a redirect, then a company could set up a domain name, bloat it with spammy SEO tactics, blast it with a metric assload of gibberish backlinks, and once it got penalized, redirect it to their competitor, thus hurting the competitor's ranking and knocking them out of the top SERPs.

[gracesfall]

Good morning I've still got some extra time on my hands if anyone has SEO questions. Feel free to post here, PM me, or e-mail me off-board (EIP).

[b!z]

What exactly does a SEO consultant do, other than optimizing a client's website structure and titles?

[gracesfall]

What exactly does a SEO consultant do, other than optimizing a client's website structure and titles?

It depends on what the client wants and is prepared to pay the consultant for. At it's most thorough, SEO can involve: optimizing existing content, URL structure, titles, metas, internal link structure, and content organization to actually re-coding how a layout is coded to make it more search engine friendly. It can also include PPC, social media, content writing, backlinks acquisition, and more.