Creating Links for SEO

Links are what? You should know this - the streets of the Internet. They help people and search engines get from one place to another. If you’ve learned anything from SEO link building strategies, you know that links make up a crucial part of SEO and search marketing. Heck, they even have a little to do with social media marketing. Often times, people miss the value of having links that go out to the other pages on your website. All of your pages should be part of the navigation structure, and it’s a good idea to have links in the content of your pages, too.

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Search Marketing Make Ye "Arrr!"

Search engines gather and organize tons of information on the Internet. Their goal is to make this information accessible to users all over the world. But how? Users can go to Google’s homepage or other Google properties and simply enter a search query (terms related to the product or service they’d like to find) into the search field, and click “Google search.” Google then goes through its index of 42 billion web pages (this number changes daily) and returns a variety of search results that are most relevant to the user. The web pages in their index are spread throughout other Google products like images and news.

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Intervention on the Traditional Marketer

Greg is in a doctor’s office and he can see newspapers, magazines, and catalogs scattered throughout the waiting room. Before pulling out his phone, he decides to give the latest edition of the St. Louis Post Dispatch (sorry, link not provided because I’m referring to the physical version) a try because he sees a compelling cover story. Ah, the full article is on page A4. Here’s what happens as he flips to page A4, in order: he doesn’t engage with any of the 6 print ads he sees, he gets to the article, he reads the title, and he pulls out his phone.

Let’s break down this situation and think about it from the perspective of a small business owner:

Greg is in a doctor’s office and he can see newspapers, magazines, and catalogs scattered throughout the waiting room.

Greg is in an environment where he has 2 options: read a print publication or pull out his cell phone. I really hope you’re doing some digital advertising because I don’t think the newspapers, magazines, or catalogs are going to get Greg’s attention. Plus, the return on investment of digital advertising is much much higher than running ads in yellow pages and the other mediums mentioned above.

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Online Example of Remarketing

Meta Descriptions and Relevance in SEO

You might be shocked, but not everything a SEO consultant practices will relate entirely to search engines. The importance of meta tags have a lot more to do with the end user rather than the search engines themselves.  Meta descriptions are one great example of why small business owners and SEO’s must continually think about the user when doing SEO. Think of a meta description as a free advertising method that is compelling to a potential customer. 

Search engines typically use meta descriptions as “snippets” on a results page, but they aren’t always obligated to do so. There are many reasons why Google might not use a defined meta description on the results page:

1. The webpage does not have a defined meta description. This is an easy fix for Google. They will most likely search your webpage’s content for text that relates to the search query.

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4 Reasons Why You Should Care About SEO.

I’m sure many of you, whether you’re a financial advisor or practicing lawyer, are asked by potential clients why they should care about your service. To you, it’s a no-brainer, but to them, it’s an extremely valid question. When potential clients ask me why they should care about SEO, I immediately ask them whether or not they are an e-commerce brand. Most small business owners don’t have e-commerce platforms and instead use their websites as an extension of their marketing efforts. Most of my energy is spent asking potential clients how their customers find out about them online.

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Response: 5 Link Building Tactics That No Longer Work

As discussed in Link Building Basics for SEO, links to your site are votes for your site. Without them, you will not achieve higher rankings in search results. I like to say that links are the streets of the Internet; they help people get from one place to another. Smart SEO’s know that out of the bazillion (yes, I said it) link building tactics out there, only a few actually work. Google is reconfiguring their algorithms everyday to better define how they value certain links that point to your site. Lucky for you, Kaila Strong’s recent article on SocialMediaToday.com identified 5 link building tactics that aren’t worth your time. We thought we would recap her article and add some editorial content to the discussion.

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