Why You Should Consider Removing Dates On Your Blog

Posted date: 4:31 PM / comment : 0 Interesting, SEO

Why You Should Consider Removing Dates On Your Blog… It can seriously hurt your website

Can blog post dates really hurt your blog or website?

It all depends…for me the answer is yes and for some, the answer is no.

You should know this because it can be the key factor that either keeps people staying on your website or leaving it right away.

Find out from the following article, whether you should remove the dates from your blog or website.

So what does blog post dates have to do with anything?

Well, first, I understand that having dates on your blog posts let’s people know that your content is new and that you’re active on your blog.

However…

If you’re like me and you only put out a couple blog posts a month because you have a busy schedule and you focus on quality content over quantity…

…then you know having dates can be a bad thing.

Why can having dates be a bad thing?

Well, think of how you feel when you land on someone’s blog and you notice they haven’t updated their blog in weeks?

It can make you feel not motivated to go through their content and make you judge their website by their recent activity.

I know I feel like that sometimes.

Another reason why I don’t put dates on my blog is because the information I teach is timeless. This very blog post that you’re reading will still be valuable advice for years to come.

Think about how many times you judged an article’s worth by it’s date before reading it?

If the article is more than a year old, what are the chances of you reading it… even if it’s relevant and can still help you out.

Most likely, you will want newer information before even giving that article a chance.

It’s natural for us to assume that old equals outdated or bad.

That’s why I removed dates from my blog posts all together. I don’t want a visitor from Google, social media, etc to leave my website because of the date of the blog post.

Now this is something that I don’t recommend for all blogs. It all depends.

If you have a celebrity gossip magazine or a blog about technology… I think dates will help you out because people want the latest gossip or news on that particular topic.

If it’s anything with health, fitness, self development, cooking etc… dates won’t matter because teaching advice on how to get a 6 pack or recipes on how to cook a meal will be timeless information.

How else can removing blog post dates help you out?

Well, with me, personally, having no dates on my blog takes a lot of pressure off me in regards to having to constantly produce content.

No one can judge my websites activity because no one can see when I posted my last blog post.

When you’re all about putting out quality content it can be hard to produce it on a daily basis. It takes time to do the research, test the research and come up with the content… especially if you have a busy schedule.

By having no dates, I can take a week to produce a great article and spend the following 7-10 days syndicating the blog post all over the web to generate as much traffic as possible…

Because… let’s be real here. Producing blog post after blog doesn’t get you traffic.

It can help a little… but it’s also about doing the off site work, spending a week or so syndicating your website all over the web. And then from there, converting as many of those visitors into followers.

Now if you’re not updating your blog frequently… when will people know when to visit your website?

If you notice on my website, I have email opt-in’s where I tell the viewer,”If you enjoy this content, stay up to date with the latest content on my blog”.

This allows me to put out content whenever I want because I can shoot the follower an email to let them know I have new content.

I wrote a whole article on that right here.

Here’s an example of an email opt-in I have on my home page.

So, as you see, I use email opt-ins all over my website to convert viewers into followers. Then I send emails to my followers, letting them know when I have new content on my website.

You’re kinda getting behind the scenes of how I run my website.

By the way, if you like this article and want to follow my blog to receive valuable blogging lessons, make sure you follow my blog. Just put your email in below.

A recap of today’s lessons.

Why to remove dates from your blog:

People will not pre judge your website due to blog activity.
Timeless advice / information does not go out of date.
Takes less pressure by allowing you to produce quality content as well as do behind the scenes needed work.

Now I have 1 thing for you to do.

If you have a friend who is having difficulty putting out quality blogs on a daily basis… show them this blog post.

Do me and them a favor! 2 birds, 1 stone.

I also want to hear what you think? Will you implement this strategy to your blog?

Creating a SEO strategy (with Webmaster Tools!)

Posted date: 7:22 AM / comment : 0 SEO

Are you Wondering about, how to begin creating an organic search strategy for your company? Whats the most Suitable way to combine your company's different components such as website, blog, or youtube channel? Perhaps we can help you out, I outline a strategic approach to SEO for a mock company, where I pretend to be the SEO managing the Webmaster.

Creating a SEO strategy

You should know about:

Beginner SEOs or online strategists

Familiarity with Search and industry tools

Google Webmaster Tools
Web anaytics, like Google Analytics
Next Step Towards Building an SEO strategy is:

Using Readit.me as mock company
Building an SEO strategy

Understand searcher persona workflow (Search, Rank and display, page content, converting your audience and motivating them.)
2.   Determine company and website goals
·         what are the goals of your company
·         In what field can we beat the competitors that our products are liked by everyone in the field
·         What does success look like?
o    Increased webmaster community and higher participation in products/services.
·         What components are involved?
·         How does our website play a part in this success?
o    Provide webmasters the latest information and announcements
3.   Audit your site to best reach your audience
·         What groups are you targeting?
o    Where are they located?
o    What devices are they using?
4.   Execute and make improvements
Track every stage of the search-engine pipeline
1. Crawling
2. Indexing
3. Search result
- Overcoming obstacles
- Feel free to reference the slides as well.

3 Free SEO Tools for Identifying Target Keywords

Posted date: 11:40 AM / comment : 0 blog, Interesting, SEARCH ANALYTICS, SEO

3 Free SEO Tools for Identifying Target Keywords

Choosing the right target keywords builds the foundation for an entire SEO campaign. If the right keywords with the highest potential for return are not selected, the foundation of the campaign will be weak and, therefore, success is nearly impossible.

In order to select the right keywords, data must be collected and analyzed so projections on return can be made. Gathering the necessary data, however, can be expensive and many businesses will not invest in best-of-breed SEO tools.

For those with limited budgets and without access to paid SEO tools, impactful keyword data is not out of reach. There are plenty of data sources and tools that can be used for free or offer free versions. By leveraging several free tools, advertisers can generate enough information to make informed decisions on keyword targets and set themselves up for successful SEO campaigns.

Below are three such tools. In a subsequent post, I will examine the best free SEO tools for auditing and troubleshooting.

Google Adwords Keyword Tool

The first step in choosing the right keywords is to understand what keywords consumers are searching and the demand of each of those keywords. This data can be determined using the Google Adwords Keyword Tool. In order to gain full access to the data you need to sign up for an Adwords account. You do not need to set up any campaigns or spend any advertising money.

There are three main ways to find relevant keywords using this tool, including inputting the website or page that is to be optimized, the category of the products or services the website offers, or a seed list of keywords related to those products or services. Before researching the keywords, however, it is important to implement the correct settings. Since we are looking for specific keywords that the market is searching, we want to analyze at the demand of exact match keywords rather than variations. In order to see the demand (search volume) of the keywords, use the “Match Types” option in the right sidebar and select [Exact].

The first way to identify keywords is to input the domain or page you are trying to optimize. Google will crawl the website and return a list of suggestions based on the content. For example, if you are looking for keywords relevant to www.MediaWhiz.com, you would enter the domain into the Website field and click the Search button for a list of relevant keywords. Once results are returned, be sure to select the Keyword ideas tab as opposed to the Ad group ideas tab. This will provide a comprehensive list of keywords with associated search volume. This can also be done using the domains of direct competitors.

For keywords related to a specific page, simply input the URL of the page rather than the domain into the tool for a list of keywords specific to that page.

The second way to identify relevant keywords is by selecting the category. In this instance you would input the category of the products or services offered instead of a domain or URL. For example, if the service offered is “marketing,” you would select the “Advertising & Marketing” category in the Category field and click Search. This is not always the best use of this keyword tool, however, because the categories are often very general and some categories are not available.

The third and most common way to leverage the Google Adwords Keyword Tool is to input a list of seed keywords (typically the names of the products or services offered) into the Word or phrase field. This will return a list of popular searches related to those seed keywords.

Google Analytics

Another method of identifying potential keyword targets is to look at the phrases that are already generating organic traffic to a website. This gives insight into the possibility to increase that traffic via optimization. Using Google Analytics, advertisers can review the keywords that are driving traffic organically to a website. Of course, having a Web analytics platform in today’s digital marketing world is essential for many reasons and this is just one. There are many good analytics platforms, some of which have very high price tags. The standard version of Google Analytics is, in my opinion, just as useful as any other platform, with the only difference being it is free of cost.

The keywords driving organic traffic can be seen in Google Analytics using the Organic Search Traffic report. This can be found by navigating the following sequence within the right sidebar: Traffic Sources>Sources>Search>Organic.

In order to see the specific keywords generating traffic, ensure “Keyword” is selected as the Primary Dimension.

This report will pull up the keyword level organic traffic metrics for the time period specified. It’s recommended to look at a minimum of the last three months of data. If the business is seasonal, look at the time period reflective of high season.

Since this provides a list of keywords that are already sending traffic to the website, it is often the case that this traffic is generated because the keywords have some organic presence in one or more search engines. Optimizing against those keywords provides the opportunity to rank higher in the search engines in which the site is already ranking as well as infiltrating the organic results of additional search engines. Make a list of non-branded keywords from this report for further investigation. This may include inputting keywords into the Adwords Keyword Tool mentioned above to check the demand and into the Rank Checker tool mentioned below to see where the website is currently ranking.

There are some other important metrics to look at when determining target keywords for an SEO campaign. This analytics report also gives insight into engagement factors, such as bounce rate and average visit duration at the keyword level. By focusing on keywords with low bounce rates and a good amount of time spent on the site, the campaign will be focused not only on the keywords most likely to drive traffic, but also to drive visitors that are likely to perform an action on the site.

Rank Checker

Finally, when starting a new SEO campaign, especially with a small budget, it is helpful to identify and target the low-hanging fruit. A good strategy is to target keywords that a website already ranks for but are not yet in a position capable of garnering strong results. Oftentimes, a website will rank low on page 1 or on page 2 for a strategic keyword without any optimization effort. By implementing an optimization plan for those keywords, the website can often quickly move up the ranks into a position that will garner strong results.

There are many paid tools to track keyword rankings but there is an excellent free tool that allows users to check the rankings of up to 100 keywords on the fly. Rank Checker is a Firefox extension that can be downloaded after signing up for a free SEOBook account. Once downloaded, Rank Checker is available via an icon located at the bottom right of the Firefox browser.

The usefulness of Rank Checker for keyword targeting comes in conjunction with other tools for keyword discovery such as the Adwords Keyword Tool or Google Analytics. After using those tools to identify lists of potential keyword targets, it’s easy to find some low hanging fruit using Rank Checker.

The first step is to set the options by right clicking the Rank Checker icon at the bottom right of Firefox and selecting “Options”.

You can opt-in to check the rankings of your keywords in Yahoo and Bing as well as two different country-specific versions of Google simultaneously. The country-specific versions of Google and Yahoo can be selected using the drop-downs. Finally, in most cases you will want to check off the “Don’t use Google personalized search results if any” option to get an idea of where the site ranks in general, not using your browsing history.

Now you’re ready to run Rank Checker. Simply add your domain and keyword list (up to 100 keywords at a time) and usually within about a minute you will have the rankings. Look for high-value keywords that the site is already ranking low on page 1 or on page 2 or 3 to see what low-hanging fruit is available. The fact that the site is already ranking on one of the top pages shows there is already some authority for that keyword that can be built upon. These are typically quick-win keywords.

The above tools are my recommendations as three of the best free SEO keyword resources marketers can find. In my next column, I will analyze free SEO auditing and troubleshooting tools.

What are your favorite free SEO tools for identifying target keywords? Share your recommendations in the comments.

6 Free Google Docs Every SEO Needs To Have

Posted date: 11:30 AM / comment : 0 blog, google, Interesting, SEO, tools

6 Free Google Docs Every SEO Needs To Have

One of my favorite parts of being in the online marketing community is how people within the community are so generous in sharing tips, strategies, and tools to do your job better.

A common way that a lot of online marketers use to build helpful tools is Google Documents. Using Google Docs is ideal because it’s free, flexible, and easy to share with others. Hopefully with these documents you will help you to work more efficiently as they have for more life.

Hundreds Of Tools For Marketers

By Annie Cushing

(Link to document)

Document Summary: Do you wish that you could have an organized list of nearly every tool for keyword research, seo analysis, competitive analysis and many more sections. Annie has done the amazing task of creating this list that I go to first when I’m looking for a tool to tackle a new task or problem.

SEER Interactive SEO Toolbox

by Chris Le

( Link to document )

Document Summary: Now that you’ve seen how many tools and the amount of information that is available the problem isn’t obtaining the data. Instead the problem is finding a way to aggregate all of this information into one place and be to understand it. This is what makes Chris’s tool great because it allows you to pull data from SEOmoz, Google Analytics, Twitter, and more into one Google Document.

Ultimate Link Building Query Generator

by Stoked SEO

( Link to document )

Document Summary: For most SEO’s, link prospecting begins with a string of search operators that will hopefully retrieve you the best possible opportunities of sites to work with. What I like to do is test a few of these queries and if the initial results are good I will put them into the Link Prospector tool to effectively scale the prospecting.

Content Strategy Generator Tool

by SEO Gadget

( Link to document )

Document Summary: I often get stuck brainstorming content ideas when dealing with industries that I am not familiar with. With this document I can see what is popular and being talked about right now across several different types of sites, which often leads to inspiration of what I should do.

Managing Projects in Google Docs

By Alex Moss

( Link to document )

Document Summary: This post and document really expanded my mind on how much a Google Document could help in managing and running a clients projects. The tutorial over at SEOmoz is very well done.

Find Local Nearby Locations

By James Agate

( Link to document )

Document Summary: Here is a tool that is so simple but is really helpful when dealing with states or countries that I am not familiar with. James explained that when they target media outlets for the big cities that they were not as receptive as those from smaller surrounding cities.

For example reaching out to Phoenix media outlets could be a lot more difficult then connecting with outlets for other Arizona cities like Scottsdale, Glendale, Peoria, etc.

Did I miss any? What are your favorites?

This is a list of some of the Google Docs that I have found extremely useful, but I know there must be more. What docs have you created or used to help you do your job more efficiently.

Look forward to hearing your comments and feedback.

Structured Data for Dummies

Posted date: 7:18 PM / comment : 0 Interesting, Search Engines, SEO, WebMaster Resources

Search Engines, SEO, WebMaster Resources

Structured Data for Dummies

Most SEOs are not web developers; however, we do have to have some basic knowledge about this field for different onsite optimization aspects. There are some Html markup tags, such as Title tag or Meta description, which are so rooted in the work of SEO professionals that they’re actually referred to by some – SEO tags. Another type of markup data is the ‘Structured data’, and that last one is getting quite the hype recently.

What is structured data?

Structured data is a general name for all markups that abides by a predetermined set of rules. These rules include defining types of data and also the relationships between them. These can later be read by different programs like browsers and search bots. Structured data includes:

schema.org
Microformats
Microdata
RDFa

While Google supports all types of Structured data, they are mainly recommending using Microdata. In fact, they have been campaigning for increasing the use of these tags for over 3 years now. It started with the Rich snippets that supported different properties based on Microdata and RDFa markups. These were supposed to help search bots to better understand a website’s content and help it generate snippets that could be viewed in the search results and give users a better reading on their given search results.

For instance, for a review on an html page, to be presented as you can see in the screenshot below, you’d need to include the following Microdata and RDFa attributes:

Itemreviewed
Rating – e.g. 4.5
Reviewer
Dtreviewed – date of review
description – the body of the review
summary – a short summary of the review

Results to:

Since Google mainly focuses on Microdata, I’ll refer mainly to this type of structured data from here on.

The fall and rise of structured data

Microdata support different types of data from Products, Music and Events to Videos and Facebook shares. The problem was, not many web developers were making a full use of these tags. They weren’t necessary for a functional code and the SEO implications of it were not very spoken of back then. So Rich snippets and Microdata went out of the spotlight for a while, still lingering among professionals in this field who understood its importance even back then. However, since it’s obvious that having a better way to communicate with search bots and to get a better representation of your site in the search results can benefit all parties involved (web owners, search engines and search users), it was obvious we’ll hear about this again.

Structured data became a hot topic again right after the last Google updates. It became clear that content is king and as such, any help you can give it in order to make it more accessible to search bots, will be welcomed. Google started publishing posts about structured data again, reminding people in the industry how important it is. The highlight of it all was the Structured Data Markup Helper that was added to Google webmaster tools. This helper is an easy-to-use tool for adding Microdata markup to your HTML code. You can now test your structured data and even get a preview of how your page will look with such tags. The tool is not perfect and not all sites have a use of the tags Google supports at the moment, but it is definitely an indicator for Google’s aspiration that more and more web developers will start putting such tags in use.

Google’s 2013 summer of code event:

“We are heavily involved in standardizing RDFa, which is used by Google, Facebook, Yahoo, Microsoft, Yandex, and over 190,000 websites on the Internet. We are actively developing JSON-LD, which is one of the big up-and-coming Linked Data formats for the Web”.

How to use structured data?

As mentioned before, not all sites are able to use structured data, at least not in its highest potential. Google’s helper tool does a great job in helping people understand structured data and how to use it specifically on their site. Let’s go over how to use it:

Visit the tool’s main page and go over the types of supported formats of content you see there (article, events, local businesses etc.)
Choose a Url from your site, copy and paste it in the Url section

If your site is not live yet, you can also use an Html file.
Choose the data type that matches your checked page and click ‘Start Tagging’.
Now you get to where all the magic happens – the tagging page. You start by choosing areas on your page and then choosing their matching tag from the drop down menu:
Once you finish tagging all possible sections you’ll get the preview of the marked tags on the right side box:

If there are tags which you can’t manually mark on the page, there’s an option to add them using the ‘Add missing tags’ option.
Once you’ve marked all possible tags on the page, click on the ‘Create HTML’ button. In a matter of seconds you get a full html page with all the relevant data tags in it.
Once you’ve finished updating the tags in your page, you can test it using the Structured data testing tool. Like the helper tool, this is also available for use with both Url and html file.

As you can see, structured data is not as complicated as one might think it is at first glance. You now have different tools to help you understand it better and use it safely. If you accept the fact that content has become a significant part in SEO, you surly understand already the importance of structured data. Remember, structured data is not only for search bots. If done correctly it will be visible in the search results page, making your result much more attractive, hence increasing your CTR.

Contact Us

Technology

News World

Sport

Entertainment

Science and Nature

Slider

Science

SCITECH

AMAZING FACTS

NATURE SPACE

Psychology