Ask Your SEO Q's 2014
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- trooperbill0
@HAYZ1LLLA yes its still all about the links but ore about quality and relevance than volume of links now. we try and create links with high page authority on domains with high Domain Authority (both moz.com metrics)
- trooperbill0
@srhadden tats a big question as theres pretty much been a major change to Googles algorithm every month. The biggies were Penguin which killed your rankings if you had lots of low authority links, Hummingbird which affected your long tail and needs you to consider synonyms in your optimisation routine and finally the ever present Panda which is all about high quality content and how your keywords are spread across it.
- trooperbill0
@doesnotexist make a video of you doing something crazy with your shoebox and go viral lol. is it made from recycled materials? you could create some content around that. Does it hold anything interesting? why not start a competition where people win the box?
- trooperbill0
@stevejobs automated link building is out! its all manual now. Sure if you're happy risking it then give xrumer a go but i wouldnt advise it.
- hans_glib0
a noob question
does the number of links (internal and external) really reflect a page authority ranking? i was looking at mozrank on a clients site and the competitor site that outranks them has way more links. does this really make the difference?
- trooperbill0
@hans_clib the page authority of the links affects the page authority of your site so more high PA links, means your sites going to rank higher (if the sites have good Domain Authority to start with) PA is a byproduct of DA
more + better links = higher ranking
more + low quality links = demotion
think of some links now having a negative ranking ability. We typically target DA 50+ with good Alexa Rank and the ability to generate a high PA page within the site. To ensure your link gets a high PA make sure you have lots of internal links within the site pointing to your page and if possible some direct links from external sites.
- i_monk0
We all know SEO is snake oil, but what *kind* of snake oil?
- trooperbill0
@i_monk it WAS snake-oil (for some) now its more like PR (which may or may not be better)
- hans_glib0
how does one go about getting better links? isnt that just down to the quality of the site in the first place ? which makes it hard to coerce people to link to if they don't want to? so seo is down to quality of original material rather than anything i can do as designer?
- trooperbill0
@hans_glib as a designer you could release icon packs, UI kits, publish your works on css galleries, write tutorials, vlog, release wordpress themes, downloadable posters, fonts... seriously it should be easy for you as opposed to one of my clients who sells concrete lol my mate runs designshard.com and re-posts other peoples content to great effect!
- all very well but it's not for me - these guys sell tableware.hans_glib
- trooperbill0
@hans_glib OK... tableware. you could send sets out to bloggers for review, or invite them in to preview the 2014 range and blog/vlog about it, do a pr stunt like most plates smashed in a minute or something, make/supply limited edition items for events in 2014... the list goes on and on.
- hans_glib0
so it's all about stunts and pr rather than tech?
- trooperbill0
@hans_glib the link building is yes. You can still plod along building links the old way but it takes more effort and isnt anywhere near as affective. SEO is more like PR and Marketing now. Don't forget the technical SEO... grab a PC and download the free Microsoft SEO Toolkit and preflight check your site before its launched.
- canoe0
How about blog content distribution? Are there services? Our blog content only gets as far as social media.
- trooperbill0
@canoe id steer clear of any 'network' as google is proactively detecting and demoting all links from them. The ones that are left work now but are getting crushed month by month. The best content networks are things like slideshare and then again theres always guest posting but again google is making noise about clamping down on this too.
- Hombre_Lobo0
thanks a lot for this trooper! very kind of you to share your knowledge!
you still in leeds these days? hope you're good!
- Hombre_Lobo0
heres a question.
If i have a domain like banana.com, and then use it as a url shortner (im not sure of the exact term for this), so it will output short links like banana.com/a13pr . This link might link to anything like www.qbn.com or an image somewhere.Does the domain banana.com still registered as a hit / having activity and does it then help its SEO? hope that makes sense!
- trooperbill0
@Hombre_Lobo if your creating a bit.ly style site that redirects out to 3rd party websites then no your site wont get any benefit.
- trooperbill0
@canoe start with followerwonk.com and search for topics and locations that match your target audience, sort by influence and see if the results are journalists or bloggers and contact them pitching your piece (it helps if you spend some time building rapport first) or use yahoo, dmoz, technorati to find good sites and look for journalists etc that have written about something similar and ask for an editorial calendar