Is 2014 The End of Guest Blogging?
12SHARESFacebookTwitter Matt Cutts has come out with a post on his personal blog entitled “The decay and fall of guest blogging“. It’s quite interesting as it’s something that I wrote about around a week ago on Densely.org called “The Way We Guest Post – Content Marketing“. In it, I wrote: Google will try to become more aggressive as we become more aggressive at guest posting. My prediction for 2014 is that we’ll see algorithmic updates, similar to Penguin, which will dive straight into world of guest posting. – 11 January, 2014 It makes sense. If everyone starts doing something that is very popular then in the end it will become abused and overused. The strategy behind guest blogging from an SEO perspective has always been about gaining links that would help boost your rankings. It’s a tactic used by many SEO agencies and I’ll admit that I’ve done my fair share. But Google has not made it easy to rank in the search engine results page. For many start-up websites it is impossible to rank and compete, unless you engage in activities such as guest posting. I’ll agree with Matt on this though: Ultimately, this is why we can’t have nice things in the SEO space: a trend starts out as authentic. Then more and more people pile on until only the barest trace of legitimate behavior remains. – Matt Cutts He’s right. Guest posting has indeed been turned from being a legitimate practice, whereby you would be a guest author on big sites such as TechCrunch, WSJ, Mashable etc and you’d give your professional view on a subject of your expertise. This still happens, but this has been outweighed by the fact the majority of guest posts are now for those lovely dofollow anchor text links. So there you have it: the decay of a once-authentic way to reach people. Given how spammy it’s become, I’d expect Google’s webspam team to take a pretty dim view of guest blogging going forward. – Matt Cutts The last bit of Matt Cutt’s post is actually quite informational. Is he suggesting that there will be an algorithmic update of some sort that would dive into the world of guest blogging — like I had predicted just only a week ago? Maybe and very likely, yes. I also see Google devaluing guest posts and lowering their effectiveness when it comes to rankings. I doubt we’ll see Google penalising every website that has used guest posting as a method to increase rankings. In effect, the only websites that will be hurt from this are for sites that have gained the majority of their backlinks by...
Semantic Search for Song Related Queries
11SHARESFacebookTwitter I came across this while I was at work and I hadn’t seen this before, so I thought I’d create an article on this subject even though this feature has been around for a while. Music isn’t an industry that I can relate to and the clients at the agency that I work for do not have any music involvement, which means I don’t really have to lookout for search queries like this. On the 30 August 2013 Google released Hummingbird, a new algorithmic search enhancement that focused on user intent and providing more in depth search results than ever before. That said, Google have really pushed into what the user intent is for people who would be searching for artist’s songs and they’ve done so in a clever way by combining various sources to come up with search results that are not only helpful, but in depth using Google’s Knowledge Graph base. If we take a look at the music niche, there’s a very interesting way that Google has managed to collate data into this very useful search result. If you look at the top of the screenshot below you’ll find a music carousel, which lists all of Lily Allen’s songs. Not only that, but you’ll get a short biography of the artist – creating an environment where the searcher is more informed without having to do any additional actions. What does this mean for websites? Google faces a very big challenge with the way that search results can be manipulated, which is why they’ve invested heavily into semantic search. As you can see by the screenshot example above, there is no need to go to SongFacts.com. Google has essentially provided the person searching for Lily Allen songs a perfect resource without even having to look at or consider clicking on any search results. I can bet you that this has likely affected many of the websites that rank high for these newly crafted search results pages, and has resulted into a lower amount of click-throughs and thus traffic. Diving a little deeper If you click on any of the songs, you’ll be directed to a new page where an embed of the song on YouTube can be played. Note: You cannot actually play the video in the SERPs and the image below that looks like a video will simply direct you to the relevant song that you’ve searched for where you can then play the song. The Result Of This In effect semantic search for song related queries has resulted in 2 important things: Google is trying to increase their YouTube Share of Voice by directly plugging YouTube videos at...
6 SEO Trends for 2014 by Amy Harris
10SHARESFacebookTwitter 2013 saw Google busily updating their algorithms with the introduction of Panda, Penguin and Hummingbird, designed to target content, link and search quality – like voice search on mobile devices. At the end of 2013 Google took the step that SEO professionals hoped would never happen, but secretly knew was inevitable; they made all organic searches secure, meaning keyword data is now ‘not provided’. Without this data, site owners are no longer able to use their own web analytics software to segment users by keywords. These changes, combined with the exploding markets for smartphones and mobile devices, mean that the SEO landscape of 2014 has changed dramatically. Amy Harris, Community Manager for business website Expert Market offers six SEO trends for the coming year: 1. Exploring a ‘Not Provided’ World Google may be leading the way in hiding keyword referral data but they are by no means alone; IE10, Firefox and Mobile Safari have all followed suit. So in 2014 data will have to be viewed differently and new options will need to be explored. With the new advanced segment UI, questions will be answered but in a different way as it’s the user rather than the individual visit that’s measured. This change will be an important component in a new trend that will force SEO specialists to think differently about the data available. More emphasis will be placed on other sets of data like PPC impressions data, which could be the most accurate for identifying opportunities. 2. Content Marketing Grows Up In 2014 Google will be looking for far more mature and well-rounded content marketing than previously. Existing content being used strategically will have to be re-evaluated and radically altered to meet Google’s demand for regular, helpful and highly-targeted content. This will be engaging content, regularly updated and shared to prove that the site is alive and growing and has some authority. In short, the more effective your content is in addressing your audience’s most common problems, the more this will help your site ranking. 3. Social Signalling Will Increase In the last couple of years, content from networks like Pinterest and Instagram have been fast following in the footsteps of social giants Facebook and Twitter. As the interest in social media continues, appearing on just one or two social networks will not be sufficient in 2014. In fact, a study by the Content Marketing Institute reports that B2B small business marketers juggle an average of five networks at the same time. Again, it’s about knowing your audience and where they like to hang out beyond the obvious selections for your industry. Profiles will become more crafted as...
The Simplicity of Video SEO
9SHARESFacebookTwitter I’ve been toying around with ‘Video SEO’ from the start of December and I’ve been testing to see if I could get my pages to rank and come up the massive imagery that appears in the search results along with your listing. This is of course supposed to increase your click-through rates (CTR), but unfortunately for this test the keyword that I’m trying to rank for is full of YouTube video pages that also have the ‘video rich snippet’ next to their listings. Take a look: I’m not complaining. It would seem natural for YouTube to rank for these keywords anyway, and of course the page that I’ve created for this also has a YouTube video embedded on it. I’m still listed on the second page with the ‘video rich snippet’ that I’ve been babbling on about, and you can see this here: You can also see that it links to my Google+ account, as I also have authorship implemented on that page, which is pretty cool. But.. I tried testing this on my personal blog, with a different method or the more correct approach to video rich snippets (or so I thought). Methods On one of my websites I tested the video rich snippet feature without using the Schema.org markup. Instead I downloaded a WordPress video embed plugin (no Schema.org involved here) and simply attached an image to the page, so Google could put 2 + 2 together. That’s the website that I explained about above. And my personal blog which I tested the video rich snippet on using Schema.org markup still doesn’t appear to have any ‘video rich snippets’, nor is the god damn authorship picture showing up (that’s a different issue altogether). Here is how it looks in the SERP: There’s obviously something that I’m doing wrong here. I’ll be doing further tests to see whether or not I can get the video rich snippet alongside my listing for my personal blog. For now, I’m pretty happy that it’s worked on my military website. That’s just … awesome. Conclusion It seems that there is no sure way optimise a page with the ‘video rich snippets’, as I’ve come across others having the same results. It just seems to come to down to luck more than anything that you tick all of Google’s algorithmic factors. I could of course be entirely wrong, and perhaps my implementation on my personal blog was a bit too funky for Google. Further tests shall see if this indeed the case....
Google Search Update (January 11th) + Data
10SHARESFacebookTwitter I’ve seen many websites claiming that a Google search update occurred on the 8th or 9th of January, 2014. While I hadn’t seen any major changes on any of the websites that I own, I did see quite a few increases on one website that I own. Whether it is due to a Google search update or some other mitigating factor is anyone’s guess. However, the website that I’ll be showing the data about is a website that I haven’t actually haven’t touched in quite a while. Google US Google UK My website is now listed on the first page of that 1,320 search volume keyword, although it is still below the fold. I’m still quite happy with that result and may my website continue to move up. I’ve also seen a nice increase in organic traffic as a result. For now, that’s all. It’s a pretty nice way to start the...
Optimising Your 404 Page & Creating Opportunities
10SHARESFacebookTwitter “You can’t get there from here.” This line has been uttered many times by lost travellers with poor map-reading skills in an attempt to make up for their navigational shortcomings with humor. The truth is, when it comes to an actual physical location, you can always get there–somehow. Cyberspace is not quite so forgiving. Riddled with broken links and dead ends, there are many times when you really can’t “get there” at all. Your destination no longer exists. All that remains is a generic 404 page–an internet brick wall. Unfortunately, that’s bad news for the owner of the destination–the website with the broken link or page that no longer exists. When faced with a standard 404 page, the visitor will likely hit that “back” button and seek a new destination–perhaps, never returning to your site again. How can you prevent these brick walls from scaring away your internet traffic? Knock the wall down and put up a visitor information center in the form of a custom-designed 404 page, instead. Here’s how. 1. Set up a “Welcome Wagon” There is something unsettling about being lost. When faced with a big brick wall, the visitor is likely to also feel frustration–and an overwhelming urge to bang their heads against said wall, while cursing your site’s name again and again. Instead, greet your hapless wanderers with a friendly apology and an explanation. Saying that you are sorry for the broken link and offering some sort of reason for this minor “bump” in the road will ease your visitors’ frustrations and let them know that they have encountered a pleasant neighborhood in cyberspace–one that they will want to spend more time in. 2. Show them the brochure Who will care if the page they were looking for no longer exists! Your site is full of relevant information that promises to entertain and inform and meet all of their online needs. Here are a few things that your new and improved 404 page should include in order to “sell” your site. A “Search” Option. A great way to make your wayward visitor feel less helpless is to empower them with a search tool. This will not only make it easy for them to find exactly what they are looking for, but it will also enable you to find out what types of topics these visitors are interested in. Forget having to strain your brain for content ideas. These lost souls will provide you with oodles of options to choose from. A “Best of” Collection. Why not highlight your masterful writing skills by showcasing links to your most beloved material? Dazzling your visitors with your most...
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