This ultimately gives me an idea of a competitor’s link building strategies, what’s successful, and how I can exploit it for my own benefit. More often than not, this will also help synthesize content strategies (to complement link building efforts) and is a great precursor to identifying the keywords we will use alongside search operators (like intitle:, inurl:, allinanchor, etc.).

Queue the almighty spreadsheet! Yes – an Achilles heel to creativity but a marketer’s best friend to data analysis. First –export a competitor’s backlink data using a “Pro” account from Open Site Explorer (there is a free trial available). Another free “link exporter” can be found at LinkDiagnosis.com (install the Firefox extension for more robust reporting). Tip: be sure to export links from all pages on the root domain as this will give us backlink data for internal pages as well as the homepage.

Format the data to a table. This will make it easier to sort the data and apply formulas en masse.

 Sort by Anchor Text.  This is a great way to quickly identify where link building efforts around target keywords are taking place.  Make note of the groups of anchor text that are keyword focused.  In other words, look for groups of anchor text that exclude the company name.

Sort by Landing Page URL.  I usually find this to be the most efficient way for spotting trends.  After all, it is a dead giveaway on which internal pages are getting links.  An important level of distinction however, lies in whether those links are a result of great content or through general outreach.  The former will better tip you on a link building strategy and the underlying content that is link-worthy.

Sort by .EDU / .Gov / .Org.  This can be done by selecting the entire column of backlinks and then utilizing the “Conditional Formatting” feature in Excel.  Create a new formatting rule for each domain extension.  For example, format the cells that contain specific text containing “.edu.”

Then format the text to a specific color and sort the column by the desired color.  This will give you an idea of any .edu link citations and patterns that coincide.

 Sort by File Path (Text-To-Columns).  In order to sort by file path, we’ll need to convert all the backlinks to columns within Excel.  For this I recommend copying the backlinks into a separate column and removing all instances of “http://www.” and “http://”. The “Text to Columns” feature can be found under the ‘Data’ tab.  Use the backslash (“/”) as a delimiter.

Segmenting and then sorting the file paths will give us a bird’s eye view of any link patterns. Using this method, I’m often able to quickly spot and organize links from blogs, articles, forums, feeds, link pages, magazines, news sources, etc.

Overall, these four approaches will help uncork dozens of link building strategies in a short amount of time. For instance, in recent months I was able to quickly spot some of the following strategies:

• EDU links obtained through donating to and/or sponsoring university clubs or their peripheral sport teams (i.e. fraternities, chess club, ski teams).
• Allowing bloggers and other relevant publishers to utilize your unique images in return for a link.
• Participating in discussion forums hosted by universities.
• Making it easier for EDU’s to associate with your website by offering an educational grant or college scholarship.
• Creating useful online tools that are free to use (ie. calculators, drop boxes, image editors).

Most of these strategies are widely known but taking this macro approach to analyzing backlink profiles is a great way to ensure your own long-term strategy isn’t lacking. It is also important to note that you can (and should) take this approach beyond direct competitors. Some of the strongest strategies may live in spaces outside your specific niche – so analyzing a non-competitor in a highly competitive industry (like travel or finance) is a great way to gain an edge on additional link building strategies.

Trends in Web design have a tendency to come and go. Responsive Web design, however, is looking more and more like one of those trends that will one day become an industry standard.

Responsive design is the concept of developing a website design in a way that helps the layout to change according to the user’s computer screen resolution. It affects layout (including menus), image/video size, and now even the amount of text you can view on a page as the browser size is reduced. The result are sites that aim to keep the most important elements on screen and prioritized, no matter the browser size and orientation. It’s three most essential elements are:

• Fluid Layouts
• Flexible Images
• Media Queries

With many different approaches, methods and variables at varying levels of adoption and use, it is easy to become confused about the purpose and benefit of responsive design. As Web specialists, we need to understand its value from a design, development and marketing point of view and how using it can create value for clients. Before employing or adopting a responsive design there are several key components that need to be understood:

• Design Process
• Development Considerations
• SEO Impact

 Design Process

Designing a website is a complicated process. Adding a responsive element makes that an even more complicated process –  a desktop site is now the same site that will be viewed also on tablets and mobile devices, except it will look much different. This means that when a site is designed to be responsive, it requires two additional designs: one for tablet size resolution (smaller than 980px wide) and another for mobile devices. Below is a look at The Boston Globe’s use of responsive design below, which is an incredibly text heavy site.

Conversely, a website designed for the Clean Air Challenge has a drastically different look, as the site has different goals and is much more image driven.

Each of these layouts requires a re-prioritization of the content that is displayed on the screen based on the sites established goals as the browser size changes. An ecommerce site with a large complicated navigation menu that is essential for user experience will need to be reconsidered for mobile display.

The fact that your design will be scaled down into a mobile version must always be kept in mind as you are working; including the impact this size change will have on fonts, calls to action, menus, navigation, forms, and other essential site elements.

Development Considerations

As shown above, there are a variety of ways Responsive Design can be applied to a websites layout. This means there are also a variety of development methods to be used. Each application of responsive requires different development processes and approaches. You must also keep in mind that code used is going to be altering the layout of one site to fit the dimensions of three different devices (desktop, tablet, and mobile). Developers need to move away from pixel specific dimensions in layout and adopt and embrace using percentage values in front end CSS files. Absolute values and fixed positions need to be abandoned in favor or flexible layouts, and images need to implemented in ways where the file sizes are kept to a minimum to assist in mobile site load times not being adversely affected. Developers must also consider how external files such as CSS and JavaScript are being accessed so as to not get in the way of site load times. For example, a mobile site has little use for the CSS that controls a Desktop version, but a Desktop version could be re-sized on a monitor to reflect the mobile design. Each project will have its own development hurdles that need to be clearly defined at the outset.

 SEO Impact

Search Engine Optimization is a huge part of what makes for a successful website. It is not worth building a website that cannot be found through an Internet search. This means that SEO objectives must be kept in line with design and development of Responsive sites. Luckily Responsive design lends itself to good SEO, if done correctly. Having all browsers access one site in different layouts instead of three different sites, is better from an SEO perspective. Developing multiple sites can dilute SEO performance because the three of them compete against each other for traffic. So, why not send all users on any device to the same site? This removes the need for re-directs, allows mobile site users to share links that rank easily via social media outlets, and prevents mobile sites from stealing search equity from Desktop versions.

Responsive Design creates more engaging user experiences, benefits SEO, and eliminates the need for multiple site versions for each platform or device. But it is still a new practice, and its adoption needs to clearly understood and assessed on a case by case basis. The process of design, development, and optimization will be affected in many ways, depending on the scale and complexity of your web design project. You may even find that your content does not lend itself to Responsive Design and that using it as a method would not benefit your sites goals. Any of the items discussed in this article could be easily extrapolated further, and there are myriad factors to keep in mind before moving ahead with a Responsive Design. For more information on development methods, general best practices, and live examples check out the following articles on responsive design.

Check out these additional resources:

General Best Practices and Examples
Responsive Design Process
Development Methods and Tutorials
SEO Considerations

So in that spirit we’ve put together a list of the 50 “Best Of” lists covering the online marketing space. Note: Rankings are divided by categories and numbers are only used to prove that we got to 50.

Online Marketing

1. The marketing nerds over at, well at Marketing Nerds, rank the 50 Best Mobile Marketing Blogs You Aren’t Reading Yet. My personal favorite: Flash Widgets blog. Nice stuff geeks!

2. I’ve got 99 problems but finding a blog ain’t one. At least not when I’m viewing Wikio’s list of the 99 Top Online Marketing Blogs. Sorry Jay-Z.

3. Gyutae Park’s Winning the Web website uses Alexa, PageRank, Technorati and Feedburner among other metrics to measure its Internet Marketing Top Blogs. Total number: 370.

4 . The ad industry’s publication of record, AdvertisingAge, has compiled its Power 150 - a daily ranking of the Web’s top marketing blogs.

5. Kaiser The Sage’s (AKA marketing consultant Jason Acidre) has produced his  Top 90 Online Marketing Blogs. He’s obviously been busy.

6. Nicholas Einstein has put together a genius (I know, lame) guide to practical online marketing blogs. It is called Top 10 Practical Online Marketing Blogs.

7. Yvette Pistorio, senior supervisor of Media Research and Beth Blanchard, supervisor of Media Research at Cision teamed to unleash a list of the Top 100 Social Media and Internet Marketing Blogs.

8. The little guys need some love too. That’s why DIYSEO has given us the Best SMB Marketing Blogs: The Definitive List of Small Business Marketing Blogs. Check it out.

9. The team at Blogstorm say a good deal of  blog ranking tables created recently use the hugely inaccurate and outdated Google PageRank as a method of measuring success. Their solution? A table that uses Alexa Rank and Technorati Rank to calculate the popularity of each site. The result is Top 100 SEO & Internet Marketing Blogs.

10. HubSpot created the Hot 100 Marketing Blogs list in order to make it easy for people to discover these top Internet marketing blogs. “We’re continually collecting 3rd party data for several thousand blogs that cover Internet marketing topics.”

11. The Top 20 Digital Marketing Blogs from Sparxoo. The first five below:

• Seth Godin - Of course we had to add one of the most famous marketing gurus of all time.
• Hard Knox Life – Dave Knox brings fresh perspective to digital marketing trends and overall marketing strategy.
• Guy Kawasaki – Guy Kawasaki shares his incredible insights from years of experience at Apple and other leading companies.
• Chris Brogan – Chris Brogan, a social marketing guru, posts the latest insights for marketers.
• AdRants - Steve Hall takes no prisoners in his reviews of the latest ad campaigns.
• Ads of the World – Want inspiration? Check out creative minds from around the world.

12. The 100 Best Marketing Blogs from Cool Marketing Stuff. Direct and to the point, the list from Cool Marketing Stuff is as comprehensive as it is complete.

13. The Big List of Search Engine Marketing & Optimization Blog from Top Rank has it all from blogs that cover SEO and PPC to blog marketing, marketing with social media, content marketing and online public relations. The collection of over 400 SEO and Online Marketing related blogs is assembled by the staff at TopRank Online Marketing.

Search Engine Optimization

14. Daily Blog Tips The Top 25 SEO Blogs list ranks the blogs according to their Google PageRank, Alexi rank, number of Bloglines subscribers and Technorati authority. Somewhere the team at Blogstorm (#9) are shaking their heads.

15. Usually “can’t misses” are reserved for baseball prospects and political candidates, but when 43blogtips put together 18 SEO Posts That You Must Read they obviously had done some serious scouting. Informative and  entertaining these articles are among the best on the Web. Nice job guys.

16. This SEO Linking Building Guide to the best SEO linking building articles (wait, didn’t i just say that?) has it all. Case studies, organic link building tips directly from Google and a great piece by Search Engine Watch about backward link building. My favorite: The 30-minute-a-day link Building Plan from iMedia Connection. Now if only someone could come up with the 29-minute-a-day link Building Plan.

17. It wouldn’t be a 50 Best of List without a Top 10 offering. So here goes: The team at top-10lists.com has offered their opinions on the 10 Best Learning SEO Learning Websites. I think they got it right.

18. Mashable. I’ve heard of these guys. Mollie Vandor just this month weighed in with her excellent 20+ Essential Resources for Improving Your SEO Skills. From beginner (SEO for Dummies) to advance placement degree (Matt Cutts) she’s got it all covered and that’s why Mollie finds herself among the Best of the Best.

Social Media

19. Even a newbie marketer can appreciate a good social media campaign. Nearly everyone has seen one and many of us have been party to one whether we realized it or not. Forbes.com pulls together a great pictorial of the Best-Ever! Social Media Campaigns. Spoiler alert: The Blair Witch Project comes in at #1. Pretty impressive considering it was among the first social media efforts way back in the day (1999).

20. Not to be outdone, social marketing and media blog The Wall decided to go the distance with 40 more and release the Top 50 Social Media Campaigns. Oddly enough, The Blair Witch Project doesn’t even crack the top 50. Guess these lists are a bit subjective. Plus, with these guys being British and all they may have missed that buzz way back when. Still enjoyed their list.

21. Of course, you can’t even say social media these days without wondering what Marc Zuckerburg is doing for lunch. Social Media Examiner apparently also has the Zuck-bug and decided to create a 10 Top Facebook Pages post. Number 1? Red Bull. Apparently they are in tune with their audience.

22. In the case of Smart Blog, the best means the worst: as in Jesse Stanchack of SmartBlog on Social Media put together the best Worst of list this year about The Suxorz Picks the Worst Social Media Moves. Among the gems: Dell’s “Dr. Ashley” campaign, Volkswagen’s “Sluggy Patterson” character, Cisco’s “Ted from Accounting” videos and Smirnoff Ice’s handling of the “Bros Icing Bros” phenomenon.

23. Stephanie Klein of Blogs.com offered up the Top 10 Undervalued Social Media Marketing Blogs while providing several links to each blog’s recent articles. Nice work, Stephanie.

24. Using eCairn Conversation(tm), software technology company eCairn generated the Top 150 Blog Posts. The top five?  Chris Brogan, Jeremiah Owyang, Brian Solis, Seth’s Blog and Social Media Explorer.  There must be something to the eCairn Conversation chart. I think these guys are on to something.

25. Alright, so maybe Social Media Explorer’s 19 Best Social Media Practices is a little outside our purview, but I liked it so its here.

26. And a bonus from those same guys at unlucky number 13. The Top 10 Social Media Blogs of 2011 (and it’s not even over yet!).

Going Viral

27. According to the crew at ProspectMX,  a  viral campaign is a marketing blitz that essentially creates a pitch which is cool and interesting enough that consumers will spread it on its own. Well said. And with that in mind their 15 Best Viral Marketing Campaigns put together an interesting list mixing the old (there’s that Blair Witch again) and new (Old Spice guy).

28. Fall is officially here and the team at Social Times decided to celebrate fall’s arrival with 30 of The Best Viral Videos of Summer 2011. All 30 on this list have resulted in over 1 million views and have resulted in tons of conversions, accoridng to Social Times. Check them out.

Email Marketing

30. And Tamara Gielen at Blogs.com was nice enough to drop her Top 10 Email Marketing Blogs post on us earlier this year. Living is learning.

Pay-Per-Click Blogs

31. Pay-per-click success takes a good deal of focus. Tom Demers at BoostCTR keeps his eye on the ball with his list: The Best PPC Blog – The Definitive List of Pay-Per Click Blogs. Among my favorites: The Certified Knowledge Blog (Formerly bgTheory), Bryan Eisenberg and PPC Blog & PPC Training Community.

32. Want to succeed in a big way? Of course you do and Kronik Media was kind enough to provide a list of Top 15 Blogs You Should Follow to Succeed on The Internet. Read it here and succeed there (wherever there may be for you).

Conversions

33. It’s all about the conversions these days and Kristi Hines at Kikolani put together the most comprehensive 50+ Awesome Posts on Conversions for Unboucne. According to Kristi, there’s something for everyone, from blogging to social media, landing pages to squeeze pages, increasing conversions vs. conversion killers, design, and more!

Web Design

34. The team at InstantShift believes one of the best ways to survey the evolution of Web design over a number of years is to compare different versions of websites. So they decided on taking a look at 15+ Inspirational Examples of Website Redesign.  The results: an interesting comparison of redesigned websites to their earlier incarnations.

35. 9 Best Modern Web Design Tutorials and Articles from Skyje.com identifies the distinctive features that make a modern Web design interesting, appealing and easy to use.

36. Once again Daily Blog Tips served up a top 25 list based based on the analysis on Google’s Pagerank, Alexa rank, Bloglines subscribers and Technorati authority. This time its Top 25 Web Design Blogs.

37. What’s better than a Top 25 Web Design Blogs? How about a Top 30 Web Design Blogs? Well the creative online journal for design Web enthusiasts, Web Design Dev, has given us just that. And the extra five go a long way.

38. 50 Best Web Design Blogs You Aren’t Reading Yet from WWWdesigns Blog. What are you waiting for?

39. We’ve covered the Best, the Top and even the Worst and now we a finally have a Must: 29 Web Design Blogs You Must Follow from [Re]Encoded. Here is a list of the 29 best Web design blogs to subscribe to. “The web design industry is always changing, so as a web designer, it is important to always be ahead of the curve.” Totally.

40. WordPress is a great CMS and the guys at Web Design Fan have provided us with the 20 Best WordPress Tutorial Blogs. Enjoy!

Guerrilla Marketing

41. A firm with the name Creative Guerilla Marketing should know a thing or two about Guerilla Marketing. And they do. Check out The 15 Best Guerrilla Marketing Campaign Example Videos.

42. Ryan Lum, founder and editor of Creative Guerrilla Marketing, delivers again with 10 of the Best Guerrilla Marketing Blogs the Web has to offer.

43. Designer Daily’s 20 Creative Guerrilla Marketing Campaigns proves that it is still possible for creative agencies to make ads that stand out. These 20 certainly do.

Content Marketing blogs

44. The Junta42 Top 42 Content Marketing Blogs list highlights the best bloggers on the Web discussing content marketing. Each blog on the list has been rated by the  staff in terms of content strength, depth, regularity and, to a very small extent, popularity.

Affiliate marketing

45. Hey Geno Prussakov: Nice work.  Want to know something about affiliate marketing? Check out Geno’s Afilliate Marketing Blog’s Top 25 Affiliate Marketing Blog Posts.

46. From Affiliate Top 50: The Top 50 Affiliate Marketing And Make Money Online Blogs In The World. More money, more money,  more money.

The Best Songs

47. One of my personal favorites 7 Awesome SEO and Social Media Songs. Sorry, had to do it.

48. Hey, these guys had a song on my Top SEO song list. Now they’ve landed on my Best of the Best list. This British SEO throws down  with its TOP 5 SEO songs. And unlike me, they don’t put themselves on their own list.

Landing pages

49. Marketers are becoming more and more interested in measuring the ROI of social media.  According to eMarketer, four out of five US businesses with at least 100 employees will be using social media for their marketing efforts this year.  This makes measuring the effects of these marketing efforts even more important. That is why HubSpot Blogs created 20 Examples of Great Facebook Fan Pages.

50. If beauty is truely in the eye of the beholder this list is arbitrary. But we are talking design here people and KISSmetrics’ 5 Beautiful Landing Pages That Prove Great Design Still Sells demonstrates that beauty can indeed be judged.

Siri, which can do everything from taking dictation for text messages to writing emails and scheduling meetings, has left digital marketers wondering how it will change online search behavior and what, if any, effect it will have on traditional SEO techniques.

The issue will only be compounded further in the coming years as mobile searches are expected to increase from nine percent to 20 percent of total queries by 2012, according to recent report from researchers at RBC Capital Markets. As mobile searches and voice recognition technologies gain popularity, the following marketing strategies can help companies increase the likelihood of ranking at the top of mobile search results:

Optimize social profiles

In some instances, Siri’s search results have nothing to do with a company’s current organic and pay-per-click rankings. For example, when searching for a venue, Siri’s search results are based upon a searcher’s physical location and data from Yelp. Because of this Siri won’t be sending customers your way even if your business ranks number one for “best local food.”

Advice: To better your chances of becoming one of Siri’s suggested answers focus efforts on strengthening content on geographically-based applications such as Foursquare, Facebook Places, Google Reviews and Yelp.  As Yelp recommendations are embedded within Siri’s current software, it’s recommended that companies optimize these profiles in order to target to mobile searchers.

Interact with customers

Simply setting up a profile on Twitter, Facebook and other social networks isn’t enough to spark communication in today’s digital age. Rather, businesses need to provide open communication with customers to establish an online presence.  Apple is reportedly working on Siri’s application programming interface, which will ultimately be the  protocol through which Siri would interact with other services (ie. Facebook, Twitter, etc.) and apps. Be ready!

Advice: Research the applications your competitors use to interact with their audience and ensure you have a strong representation on these because soon Siri will be operating just about everywhere. Following this, be sure to monitor the activity your social networks receive and respond to customer feedback – both positive and negative.

Earn customer reviews

Companies looking to rank high on mobile search results should focus on acquiring genuine reviews by building an online fan base. Offer customers reasons to use your services through special discounts, incentives and most importantly, high-quality customer service.

Advice: Encourage customers to review your services online. While this is the most time consuming marketing tactic, it is also the most influential to Siri SEO. Review-based websites such as Yelp and Urban Spoon have installed monitoring systems to block businesses from posting spam or stuffing inauthentic reviews on profile pages.

Create a mobile site

 This isn’t newsworthy advice, yet many companies have withheld developing a mobile version of their website for one odd reason or another. But as mobile searches are expected to grow exponentially in the upcoming years, the clock is ticking. Thankfully, creating a mobile site is quick and easy with publishing platforms such as WordPress and Drupal.

Advice: When designing the site, clearly feature your business’s contact information and operating hours directly from the homepage. This will improve Siri’s chances of locating the pertinent information to deliver to its searchers, and in turn help deliver customers to your doorstep.

Claim your business listing

The quickest and simplest way to enhance your rankings in mobile search (and online) is to list your business through the main search engines: Google, Yahoo and Bing.

Advice: Registering is free and some allow companies to add photos and videos to help personalize their advertisements.

However, often these holes are self-induced and likely the result of either lazy thinking or worse, indifferent efforts  -  is it possible you’re just  going through motions? The good news:  fixes are available if you are willing to objectively evaluate your own efforts. The bad news: you’re going to need to take a genuine interest in this stuff if you plan on being successful. Your clients deserve as much.

The following five areas are often rocky outposts where many run aground with their  SEO plan, but they are correctable, and addressing even just a few of these issues is a fast way to get back on course and improve search engine rankings.

1. To Stay on top, have a value prop

Working on SEO before deciding what value your website brings to searchers is like throwing darts in the dark. Starting with a value proposition will simplify SEO efforts.

Too often, in the rush to increase page rankings, SEO’s  chart a course without considering why users should choose their search results. It is difficult to achieve high SERP rankings without offering visitors something of value.

Consider what differentiates your business from competitors.  What separates you from the suckers: lower prices, free shipping, awesome customer service? It’s your hard-earned advantage, now get out there and use it!

2. The planning process- segmented approach

Maile Ohye, Developer Programs Tech Lead at Google, warns on her corporate blog of the dangers  of setting SEO-related goals without making sure they’re aligned with a company’s overall objectives and the goals of other departments.

Consider SEO an entire user experience from marketing campaign to conversion. When SEO strategies are segmented – one strategy independent from another that doesn’t compensate for the other strategies –  a company’s goals are often tossed off course.

This means that SEO must not be separate from Web development and  marketing strategies, and should be readily present in the marketing campaign planning up to the actual time of  implementation

For example, when optimizing product pages for the full user experience once users come to your site, also contribute these same expertise to a marketing team’s upcoming campaign. If marketing is launching new videos or a more interactive website, be sure that searchers will be able to find their content.

3. Getting the workaround

Drop the workarounds. It’s chewing up your team’s bandwidth and yielding rather bland results. Instead,  research new features and focus on best practices designed to simplify tasks.

For example, webmasters of yore  loved to employ the workaround rel=”canonical” for each component page in a series  to their page 1. DON’T! This can cause  a loss of content on Google’s index and result in a colossal waste of time.

Google now supports new best practices. Instead use new rel= “next” and rel=”prev” markup for paginated content. This way  paginated articles or product categories are treated as a single series rather than have PageRank diluted into various components.

In 2011, Google expanded webmaster tools such as Googlebot so that per week you can submit up to 500 new or updated URLs you’d like to be crawled, or up to 10 that you’d like crawled along with their link pages.

This obviously eliminates the tiresome need of webmasters updating sitemaps with new URLs and then uploading new sitemap files and submitting to Google.

When submitting the URL through Fetch as Googlebot most URLs are crawled within 24 hours. An easy way to stay in touch with new features is to subscribe to Google’s webmasters blog.

4. Stop chasing the user- you’re caught in SEO trends!

In the early days of SEO both webmasters and search engines were so busy chasing  users that actual search progress was likely stunted as a result. Both were basically running same race – get more users to visit and then convert.

As the market matured it was as if the race split into two simultaneous races, said Ohye,  and rather than chasing users, some websites started chasing algorithms.

Not good.

At this point, somewhere in 2005, SEO’s lost focus and began editing keywords for optimization. This chasing of the user started a long trend of trying to game the system. In actuality, it is always better to make Web content readable, compelling and informative.

Avoid these trends and prioritize tasks that bring lasting value. Consider spending less time obsessing about the latest “trick” to boost your rankings and instead focus on the fundamental tasks that will bring lasting visitors.

5. Slow iteration

The main constant in SEO is that it is continually evolving. So the faster a team iterates the better.

• Define metrics for success.
• Implement improvements.
• Measure impact.
• Create new improvements.
• Prioritize improvements based on market and personnel.

Rinse, repeat.

A great 20th Century philosophy and writer once said:  Sometimes the questions are complicated and the answers are simple (bonus points if you leave a comment below identifying this genuis). Same holds true for SEO. Don’t bog yourself down in the minutia of difficult questions but rather focus on these simple solutions. It’s far better (and easier) to be  agile than to promote an environment where the infrastructure and/or processes make improving your site, or even testing possible improvements difficult.

6 bonus SEO tips

1. Do something interesting that makes your site stands out from the competition.

2. Keep it relevant. It helps to know your customers. Make sure you’re including words in your copy including what query searchers needed to find you online.

4. There is no longer a need to think about density. Just make it relevant.

3. Create unique title tags and meta description while  including Rich Snippets markup from schema.org where appropriate. It’s also a good idea to provide intuitive navigation and good internal links.

5. Attract buzz through social media.

6.  Keep content up-to-date and interesting.

You don’t always have that kind of time. In fact, often you’ll be pulled into a client meeting at the last minute with barely any analytic information at hand.

I found my process for handling these types of situations to be very useful in quickly identifying marketing opportunities.  Essentially, I look for low hanging fruit. This  “quick audit” process can vary for each website as well as for each marketing channel. However, there are some some core methods to use for quickly identifying opportunities to improve SEO.

The trick is to know what to look for and what tools, other than analytics, are at your disposal.

1. Know the Site
What to look for: Traffic and Demographics
Free Tool:  AdPlanner

Learn a little about the website and how it is performing.  Doubleclick’s Ad Planner is great for this and all you need to access it is a free account with Google.  For sites that are established, it can generate a quick overview on traffic, demographics and user interest.  All great fodder that will help you speak intelligently about a website.

2. On-Site SEO
What to look for: Optimized Tagging and Page Speed
Free Tools: Mozbar and Google Page Speed

Take a few minutes to browse the site in Chrome or Firefox using SEOmoz’s Toolbar, named Mozbar.  Get a quick ‘Page Analysis’ for the homepage, category and/or product pages that seem important to the success of the website.

Ammo: Look to see if page titles, descriptions, and headers are optimized for search engines.  Simply click the Mozbar and make note of those that can be better optimized.

3. For Page Speed,  try Google’s chrome extension while browsing the site but Google also has an online version that works just the same.

Ammo: Drop in the URL of a landing page and look for a rating below 70.  The page speed tool will generate a prioritized list of technical suggestions for improving page speed.  You may discover some crucial flaws in the page that is ultimately hindering the pages ability to rank in search engines.

4.  Brief Keyword Analysis
What to look for: Keyword rankings and traffic from Search Engines
Free Tool: SEMRush

Just plug in a domain into SEMRush and get a free (but limited) view on all sorts of useful data.  I particularly like to reference the approximate number of keywords (this number shows keywords ranked in the top 20 of Google search results), the approximate amount of monthly visitors from Google, and competitors in organic search.

The competitor research can be especially useful for gauging a site’s performance in search.  I usually make a note of how many keywords competitors have in Google’s top 20 and show the comparison in a chart.  SEMRush can chart this for you with their ‘Competition Graph.’

Ammo:  Toggle the drop down menu and click on any of the data points to highlight areas you wish to call attention to (I mostly use ‘Num of Keywords’ and ‘SE Traffic’).  Take some quick screenshots or make a few notes and move on.

5. ProTip – literally – you have to subscribe to SEMRush’s pro plan ($69.95/mo) in order to unlock the data necessary for this process.  With this access, I like to export ‘Organic Keywords’ to a spreadsheet (the Pro subscription limits reports to 10,000 results).

Open the sheet and format the data in a table. Sort the position by smallest to largest. Scroll down and look for when the keywords start ranking at 11. This indicates keywords that rank on page two of Google search results. Make note of the row number (5,237) and compare this number to the total number of keywords in Google’s top 20 (158,406).

Ammo: With this data we can say that approximately 3 percent of MacWorld’s top 20 keywords are ranking on page one.  Furthermore, we can assume that by improving SEO efforts, we can increase the percentage of page one keywords and significantly increase the amount of targeted traffic to the Macworld domain.  To support this claim, I usually cite a variety of third-party case studies that show the difference in traffic between page 2 and page 1 search results.

6. Link Data
What to look for: Link Diversity
Free Tool(s): Open Site Explorer

When gathering link data for a website, there are a number of metrics one can use to evaluate the quality of a link building campaign.  Try focusing on link diversity.  It more accurately reflects a website’s link building efforts than sheer link volume.  It also helps to pit those metrics against industry competitors.  SEOmoz’s Open Site Explorer can provide some good data and compelling visual aids to support your findings for this process.  This tool is free but limited to the number of reports generated.

Sticking with the Macworld versus MacRumors comparison, here’s how I would quickly gauge link diversity using Open Site Explorer. Compare Link Metrics by entering the two domains.  Scroll down to Root Domain Metrics.  Make a note of the Total Linking Root Domains and Linking C Blocks.

Ammo: The site with the higher number of Linking Root Domains generally has higher trust and ranking potential.  The site with the higher number of Linking C Blocks generally has greater link diversity – which means links are coming from many related site groups.

If you have any questions, please send me an email at jared@bluefountainmedia.com or leave a comment in the space provided below.

The world’s most visited homepage is also most likely one of the simplest. And it’s no coincidence that the guys responsible for revolutionizing the search engine also understand the importance of a sleek , clutter-free design.

In fact, in June, Google once again redesigned its homepage, simplifying an already minimalist Web page, and adding a sleek black bar across the top that brought social networking into the mix with the launch of Google+.

There are four implicit things Google (and the following four companies) understand about homepage design that everyone should take to heart. A great homepage has a clear call to action, concise messaging, an element of stickiness and integrated social media.

Clear calls to action

According to a report from research firm Econsultancy, companies whose conversion rates have improved over the past year are using on average 26 percent more methods to improve conversion and 50 percent more ways to segment their visitors and customers than those companies whose conversion rates have not improved.

In other words, as the world of digital becomes more competitive, and marketers get better at conversion rate optimization, it is becoming harder to improve on these conversion rates.

So it’s even more surprising that a consistent mistake of businesses online is not providing visitors clear calls to action in order to take the next step in the conversion process. Our designers obviously got the message. there are several obvious steps that can be taken including: request a quote, view our work and a phone number.

Improving Your Message

It seems our fractured, hyperactive attention spans demand more from less these days and clear and simple messaging is a great way to deliver on both ends. According to several studies, the average attention span for a visitor online is about 8 to 10 seconds. So it is important to deliver  your central message on the homepage quickly and then create paths to the internal landing pages that best serve the needs and interest of the visitors.

If you’re expecting to turn these visitors into customers you MUST deliver your central messages clearly, quickly and convincingly. (See above)

How to be like Zappos.

• Keep your message simple.
• Keep paragraphs short on a homepage.
• Use sparse copy and large fonts.

One key point that Zappos clearly understands is the use of large fonts and sparse copy with clear paths to the appropriate internal pages (“Huge selection”, “Gloves”, “Jackets and Coats”)

Integrate social media into content

Nearly two-thirds (65 percent) of adult Internet users in the United States now use a social networking sites like, Facebook, LinkedIn or Foursquare, according to the The Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project.

So why would anyone neglect integrating social media into their homepage? Surprisingly many businesses don’t to use social media effectively on a company website.

Zipcar understands all these lessons and integrates their social media button right in the middle of the pathway leading to an internal landing page.

Stickiness

According to the International Telecommunications Union, 79 percent of Americans, or 243 million, surf the Internet. That’s a whole lot of attention you’re fighting for and its going to take hard work and a certain level of creativity to get them to visit just once. So after you’ve put in all that hard work to get them there Once you must provide good reasons for  them to come back because studies show  visitors  rarely convert the first time.

Have a visit to barHappy’s website any time and you’ll find a ton of great content including practical articles providing information of real use to your visitors such as where to find the best 70′s music or the most extensive Belgium beer menu.

Other keys to barHappy’s stickiness:

• Regularly updated content.
• Incorporating videos.
• Leverage user-generated content.
• Provides sign up to newsletter and RSS feeds.

Like most search engine optimizers, you probably get tired of the link building grind: spending hour upon hour researching bloggers, emailing and tweeting at those bloggers, spending even more time slaving over your blog posts only to be told it’s “not the right fit for us.”  It can be painful to build links.

Fortunately for us, however, there’s a way to break free of this grind: it’s called broken link building.

What is Broken Link Building?

Broken link building is the process of finding your competitors broken pages (aka 404 pages), discovering which sites are pointing to these pages, and then getting the webmasters of the “pointing sites” to link to a relevant page on your site instead of the competitor’s broken page.  Simple, right?

Here’s a step-by-step guide to responsible link building.

Step 1: Run the following search queries on Google:

Go to Google and run the following search queries:

• “keyword” site:.edu -inurl:pdf -inurl:ppt -inurl:doc
• “keyword” site:.org -inurl:pdf -inurl:ppt -inurl:doc
• “keyword” site:.com -inurl:pdf -inurl:ppt -inurl:doc

By running these search queries, you should pull up any Web page that has to do with your “keyword” that isn’t a pdf, PowerPoint or Google Document. This is fairly important as its hard to extract links from these types of files.

When you run this search, make sure to open up the advanced search options under the search bar and check “100 results per page”. It’s important for the next step.

Sometimes I add in the command “intitle:” along with the keywords “lists” or “resources” for extra oomph, as most of the broken links tend to be on pages with titles that read “Resources Page” or “Industry Links”. But I only do this when I’m looking for broken links with the Check My Links plugin for Google Chrome. I’ll cover this method of broken link building in a post later this month.

Step 2: Download the Google-Results-Bookmarklet.

Did you know that there’s a tool that can export all of your Google SERP’s results? It’s called the Google-Results-Bookmarklet, and it’s a must have for link builders.  To add this tool, just drag the green box below the video into your tool bar area on your browser (I recommend using Chrome’s browser for this tool).  Then, all you have to do is click the “Simple Google Results” button on the page that you’ve run your search query on. Now, all 100 of your SERP results—anchor text included—are transformed into a simple to export list of links.

Liam, thank you so much for creating this tool.  It’s amazing.

Step 3: Download Xenu Link Sleuth.

Copy the SERPS list that the Google-Results-Booklet spits out for you, and then paste it to a .txt file editor, such as notepad.  Save this file in the .txt editor and then reopen what you saved through Xenu’s Link Sleuth tool.

What happens next is amazing.

Xenu spits out a list of all the links which link to each SERP result.  It captures a brilliant amount of page level data including the page’s title, how many clicks this page is away from the home page, how many inbound links the page has, and, of course, whether or not this page is broken (aka 404 pages). It’s a miracle.

Before opening the notepad list of SERPS in Xenu, click on Options >Preferences in the Xenu menu bar.  Then set maximum page depth to 10. The default is 999, and using this may cause some pages to block your access (for fear you’re a spammer).

In this same “Preferences” window, check the box “Treat redirections as errors”.  After doing so, you’ll be able to sort out 301′s and 302′s.

Step 4: Export to excel… and sort.

Next, export the list by going to File Export to Tab Separate File in Xenu. This saves your list (totaling 9,000 links in this test) to a .txt file, which then can be copied and pasted into excel.

This is where you can get excited.

Once you paste into excel, simply format the entire data field as a table. Note, after pasting the data into excel, the entire field should be selected, and all you have to do is click the “Format as a Table” button in the Home tab’s menu bar. Then, you sort the data by status-code, and you’ll find a big, fat chunk of 404 pages.

Step 5: Hand pick through the list…place good ones in Open Site Explorer.

It’s not over yet.  The previous work only revealed which pages rank for your keyword as well as which of those ranking pages are 404s.  Now, you’ve got to find out who’s linking to these pages.

Go through your list of 404 links by hand, making sure that there are no mistakes: make sure each link has something to do with your keyword and that the list includes only 404 pages.  Then, sort the list by domain (often times, one domain will have a number of 404 pages).  And once you’ve sorted by domain, take the best looking pages of each domain, and place them into Open Site Explorer (or a back link analysis tool of your choosing).  Now you’ve got all the sites linking to this particular 404 page.

Boom!

Some of these broken pages will have no links pointing to them.   Discard these ones.

Step 6: Use the Google Way back machine to find old content.

Now that you’ve picked out a few 404 pages that have a number of inbound links, it’s time to recreate the content that the page once held.  I use the Google WayBack Machine for this. With this tool, you can find the last instance of the page in question.

Sometimes the Google WayBack Machine will have no cache of the page that you check or say that “this page is blocked by a Robot.txt file.” Either way, discard these links.

Step 7: Copy the content and then email the webmasters!

Now comes the easy part: COPY the CONTENT!  Check to make sure this content isn’t anywhere else on the Web, of course, but don’t worry too much about a duplicate content filter. More than likely this content was deleted when the page went down.

Once you’ve recreated the page on your own site contact each webmaster to let them know what you’ve found. Web masters will be happy that you’ve spotted an error and offered a solution and you’ll be happy because you’ve got a lot of links.

Sound like a plan?

Emailing webmasters about a broken link does take a certain finesse. Keep your message light and informal, and always act as if you’re just a regular visitor and not as if you’re an SEO.  I’ll write about this art form in more detail in my next post.

Hope this helps with your link building efforts.  See any any tools or steps that I missed? Send me an email at Cleosie@bluefountainmedia.com or leave a comment below.

According to Google, this latest tweak marks a significant improvement to the company’s ranking algorithm and now impacts approximately 35 percent of searches to better determine when to give users more up-to-date relevant results.

“Given the incredibly fast pace at which information moves in today’s world, the most recent information can be from the last week, day or even minute, and depending on the search terms, the algorithm needs to be able to figure out if a result from a week ago about a TV show is recent, or if a result from a week ago about breaking news is too old,” Amit Singhal, a Google fellow who works on search, wrote in a blog post.

In effect, says Singhal, this algorithmic improvement is designed to better understand how to differentiate between these kinds of searches and the level of freshness users are demanding.

After completing their Caffeine Web indexing system last year, Google engineers were able to dig deeper into results by crawling and indexing the Web for fresh content quickly on an enormous scale. This allowed the company to push forward with providing near real-time results.

“Different searches have different freshness needs. This algorithmic improvement is designed to better understand how to differentiate between these kinds of searches,” said Singhal.

If you’re searching recent events or hot topics that might be trending on the Web you’ll want the most recent information that may be only minutes old. For example, if  you want to know about  job growth in the U.S. the algorithm will now serve a combination of most recent  information first followed by more historical data underneath.

Fresh results and historical data.

 Other noted  improvements

• Regularly recurring events. Some events take place on a regularly recurring basis, such as presidential elections. Without specifying with your keywords, it’s implied that you expect to see the most recent event, and not one from 50 years ago. There are also things that recur more frequently, so now when you’re searching for the latest  NFL scores  or IBM earnings, you’ll recieve the latest information.
• Frequent updates. Now consider searches for information that changes often, but isn’t considered a hot topic or a recurring event.  For example, writes Singhal,  if you’re in the market for a new car and want you probably want the most up to date information.

This isn’t Google’s first foray into real-time search. In 2009 they launched a service  that incorporated Twitter posts that Google paid Twitter to use. The company allowed that contract to expire this past June.

Watch my presentation on How to Spot Opportunities Using Analytics above.

Your Google Analytics is a treasure trove of opportunities. It’s where I go every time I am looking to increase traffic. Below are some  metrics that I look at to spot SEO opportunities.

1. Keywords ranked on pages 2 & 3

This is by far my favorite report. You probably already have a list of keywords that you are tracking for SEO purposes and that you know are almost on page 1. That’s great, but what about all the keywords that you don’t even know about? There are keywords that are ranking on pages 2, 3, 4, and 5 that are not sending you any traffic… yet.

To get this report, go to the “Search Engine Optimization” tab. If you’ve hooked up your Google Webmaster Tools with your Google Analytics, then you should be able to see a list of keywords that you get impressions for on Google. Alternatively, you can log in to GWT to see the list.

Filter this list by specifying a minimum number of impressions (to get rid of random personalized search impressions) and average page rankings of greater than 10 and less than 41.

From this list you will surely find keywords that are worth ranking for. Add them to your on-going target list of keywords for SEO and see what kind of changes you need to make to get your pages ranking. Sometimes, all it takes is adding a couple of words here and there to get on to page 1. Sometimes there’s a lot more work involved. But at least now you know about the keywords and can keep them on your radar while you go forth with your content creation plan. Keep in mind that these keywords will not show up in your keyword traffic reports due to their lack of traffic.

2. SERP CTR (search engine results page click-through rate)

Say you’ve got a bunch of keywords on page 1 of Google. Great! The question is how do you milk those rankings for all they’re worth? By increasing your click-through rate from search engine results pages! Every paid search marketer spends hundreds of hours looking at CTR and figuring out how to improve it. Why shouldn’t SEOs do the same? Too many times, SEOs focus on position as the only way to increase traffic.

Considering the direction Google is going with Panda, CTR on SERPs is even more important. It’s not only about getting more traffic, you rely on your CTR to simply stay on page 1! If your competitors start paying attention, you’re likely to be left behind.

To track and start improving your SERP CTR, visit the Search Engine Optimization report and look at high impression, low-click-through rate keywords.

Identify keywords that have abnormally low CTRs… in our case it looks like the keyword “website design” has a really low CTR. With 40,000 impressions and only 900 clicks, that’s an area of opportunity!

Then take a look at those SERPs, in person. That means looking at your SERPs the way that your visitors see them. In our case, I found that Blue Fountain Media was ranking #1 at the moment for “website design”. You’d think that with a ranking like that, our CTR would be far higher (at least 10-15%).

Don’t jump to conclusions too fast. Look at precisely the SERPs that your potential customers are looking at. In the above example, we are ranking #1 in New York. If you search for the same keywords in another region, our ranking is different.

Our ranking in Miami, Florida:

Our ranking in Los Angeles, California:

The issue here appears to be that a) we don’t rank as well in other regions and b) our title tag is focused on New York. The lower ranking inevitably causes a lower CTR, but perhaps I could work on our title tag to make it less New York-centric. It comes down to a cost-benefit analysis. Will we lose clicks or conversions due to a less geo-specific title tag? Will we lose rankings for New York-related keywords, which tend to be our highest converting keywords? I’ll find out soon enough!

If you liked this post, check out recent posts about my work on the Blue Fountain Media website:

• How an Owl Increased Our Retargeting CTRs by 430%
• Web Form A/B Testing: How I Increased Form Fills by 37%.

Please provide any feedback below in the comments section!