Archive for category Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
When to Use Nofollow Links and Other SEO Onpage Optimization Questions
Posted by Matt McWilliams in Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Web Design on July 23rd, 2010
Naturally, in my role as an affiliate manager, I get asked a lot about SEO (search engine optimization).
After months of answering many of the same questions repeatedly, I thought that some of them would make a good blog post.
Here are the list of the most commonly asked SEO questions from our affiliates:
Q1: When do I use nofollow links?
A: As little as possible. Preferably, never. Rule Number One is do NOT link to a page on YOUR site and use a nofollow. If you don’t want Google going there, don’t link to it.
Q2: Why is that? (in reference to Q1)
A: I don’t know. Google says not to. I listen to them. 
Q3: What are the most commonly missed SEO techniques by affiliates? (Note: no one has ever asked me this, but I see it missed all the time)
A: Proper image naming and tags. All images should follow this basic guideline:
- Proper image name. If you target keyword is “children playing guitar” then your image should be “children-playing-guitar.jpg.”
- Proper Alt Tag. Using the same target keyword, take a wild guess at the alt tag. You guessed it! “Children Playing Guitar.”
- Image Caption. If this is irrelevant or would not make sense in the given context, skip it. But if it works to the viewer, use a caption under the image and use the relevant keywords.
Read more about Google Images Search Optimization.
Q4: What is the H1 tag and what should it say?
A: Short Answer: REALLY important text. It’s the header tag. Use your keyword phrase, preferably exactly as you would want it searched. “Children Playing Guitar” is a good H1 tag.
Q5: What about the H2 and H3 tags? How do I use those and how often?
A: They are slightly less important text than the H1 tag. Think of subheaders. These should contain your keyword phrases as well, but with other relevant keywords as well. Examples: “Tips to Get Your Children Playing Guitar,” “Potential Problems with Children Playing Guitar,” and “Children Playing Guitar in Groups.”
A general rule of thumb is to use each tag the number of times based on the number in the tag (i.e. H1 once, H2 twice, H3 three times).
Q6: Should I bold my keyword phrase in the text?
A: Ever seen a site in which this was overdone? Me too. Those sites suck. Do it once when it makes sense. Then stop doing it.
Q7: What should be in my title tag?
A: Let’s start with what should NOT be in your title tag:
- Anything that is not related to your keywords. Company name, your name, etc. Stick to the keywords.
- The same keyword over and over again.
Make sure your #1 target keyphrase is the first thing. Make sure that it is readable to a human as well and compelling. What good is a #1 ranking if you never get clicked?
Read more about SEO Friendly Page Titles. How to screw up page titles.
Q8: What about the other meta tags (description and keywords)?
A: The description tag means almost nothing to the search engines. Some use it, Google doesn’t. However, it may be what shows up in the results in the longer description, so focus on making it compelling, using the keywords (because the keywords ARE compelling). I honestly have not seen a difference in keyword tags, but it takes 30 seconds to write them so I do. Not doing so scares me. I am ridden by Google fear.
Q9: Should I use external or internal CSS and Javascript?
A: A general rule of thumb is the less code on the page, the better. Keep it clean! So use external CSS and Javascript.
Q10: Where is the best place to link to my other pages or sites?
A: Within the paragraphs. Text links within the body of text rank much higher than footer links or even side navigation.
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Making the Most of Your YouTube Videos
Posted by Matt McWilliams in Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Video Marketing on July 19th, 2010
Are you doing much with YouTube?
Are you achieving the success you hoped for with your videos?
In case you did not know, YouTube is now the 2nd largest search engine, so using it effectively can be a goldmine…or at least a nice steady revenue stream.
What I am writing here is not new. In fact, it is straight from Google’s YouTube Partner Communications Hub. They have an optimization resource on “Discoverability“ that gives you all of the basics on optimizing your YouTube videos for more traffic and better conversions. There is little to nothing I can add, but here is a brief summary.
- Create a ton of content. “The more content, the more related video clicks, the bigger the reach.” That is straight from YouTube. If you have a video about playing “Time of Your Life” by Green Day, you will get some good traffic for that video and related searches (i.e. “time of your life by green day”). But if you have more videos, particularly more videos involving Green Day songs, you will rank higher for those videos as well as you will get tons of related traffic.
- Use annotations in the videos. With annotations, you can make notes and post links within the videos. Some practical ways to use this are linking to your subscription page, mentioning other videos, and explaining a complicated part of a lesson (for example). I like to use them to mention random fun things to keep people’s attention.
- Ask them to subscribe. As I mentioned in #2, use the annotation to ask them to subscribe. Also mention this in the description.
- Optimize your title. See all of the rules for SEO here
- Optimize your tags. Think of related topics, misspellings, and great keywords.
- Optimize your description. Again, keywords are…well, key. But make it readable to a human of course.
- Promote the heck out of them. Use all of your social media channels - Digg, Twitter, StumbleUpon, Facebook, you name it.
- Engage your viewers - Use the Social Bulletin. Use the new social bulletin feature in YouTube to post links and engage subscribers. When you post a new social bulletin, your subscribers will get a notice on their homepage in YouTube.
- Engage your viewers - Respond to comments and feedback. First of all, listen to their feedback. Secondly, engage them by letting them know you are real and will listen to what they say. Build a relationship.
- Create Playlists. Group your content by themes and take your viewers to the next video. If you have some content already, this is a great way to keep them on your channel longer since they will just be watching video after video of yours, rather going doing another search.
Canonicalization Higgledy-Piggledy
Posted by Matt McWilliams in Search Engine Optimization (SEO) on June 18th, 2010
I read a great article today 
by Ian Lurie at Search Engine Land about canonicalization.
Don’t know what canonicalization is? Then you need to know! It has nothing to do with Catholic sainthood and everything to do with search engine optimization.
Bad canonicalization = poorly optimized sites. Good canonicalization = well optimized sites. And well optimized sites = more money.
I like these math equations.
First, what is canonicalization? Lurie says it well simply: ““every resource on your web site has a single web address.” It’s basically avoiding duplicate content by having the same URL used over and over again in different ways.
So, myguitarsite.com and www.myguitarsite.com are the same site. You should never have links pointing to both, if you can avoid it. The same goes for www.myguitarsite.com/index.php. That, in a nutshell, is canonicalization.
The same goes for www.myguitarsite.com/lesson-reviews&referrer=google and www.myguitarsite.com/lesson-reviews and www.myguitarsite.com/lesson-reviews&ad=banner.
They are all the same thing.
By having all of these versions, you will lose SEO points.
I will leave it to Ian’s article about canonicalization best practices to explain it more, because he a) says it better than I can, b) had more time to write his post than I do this one, and c) he uses the phrase higgledy-piggledy, albeit a misspelling. How can you resist reading his article? Enjoy and learn…it’s a great read!
Five SEO Tips for Page Titles
Posted by Matt McWilliams in Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Web Design on June 2nd, 2010
Page titles are one of the single most important factors used by search engines when determining rankings and a clearly important factor in determining whether a searcher will click your link or not.
Here are some basic simple tips for writing page titles.
1. Make it short. Google only looks at the first 70 characters so make the first 70 count. This is important for both SEO and appearance to the searcher. Who wants a word cut off in the middle? NOTE: See below for an edit made based on a comment from Geno Prussakov.
2. Don’t keyword stuff and don’t repeat the same word over and over. Nothing says lame like “Learn Guitar with Guitar Lessons from Guitar Teachers.”
3. Use specific titles for each page. Simply put, don’t use the same title across your site. Make each title about the specific topic of the page. “Beginner Piano Lessons on DVD” is much better than “Piano Lesson Reviews” on each page.
4. Sell them on the click. Don’t forget the searcher. Sure you rank #5 but will they click your page? Make sure the title is attractive enough to a human as well.
5. Forget branding. Don’t put your site name or company name at the beginning. See rule #1 for one reason. You are wasting characters. Unless you have a viable brand name (and if you are reading this you probably don’t) leave it off. It’s wasted space.
EDIT: Regarding titles, it seems the more commonly accepted length is a maximum of 66 characters on Google, with an ideal length of 64 characters. Yahoo has a maximum of 120 characters, so it is possible to have a primary title of 66 characters followed by a secondary title (i.e. 66 character title :: secondary title).
Check out the documentation Geno sent me here.
Can More Twitter Followers Help Your Google Ranking?
Posted by Matt McWilliams in Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Viral Marketing/Social Media on May 18th, 2010
Can Twitter followers actually help your site rank better?
Well, the answer is “sort of.”
I was doing a Google search today and literally stumbled upon something I have never seen before, even though it has been around since October of last year.
I did a search for “blues guitar” and look what I found:
How is it that I never noticed that before? Long ago, I followed our LandMGuitar Twitter account…the one that hasn’t been posted to in ages. And now, it means our Blues Guitar Spotlight Series course shows up in its own special place. So does our Learn and Master Guitar course on a search for “learn guitar.”
It’s called Google Social Search and apparently I have been under a rock for the past seven months since it was announced on Google’s Blog back in October. So, you may already know about it.
It’s basically a way to personalize the results on a Google search. I will leave it to the following videos from Google to teach you more about it if you want to learn more.
Anyway, back to the original question: do more Twitter followers help your Google ranking? I think it’s possible in a way. The more followers you have, the more likely your site is to show up in the results in that section, so it can’t hurt.
But, keep in mind that it also applies to social media sites like FriendFeed, Google Buzz, connections from your GMail contacts and chat buddies, and sites that you subscribe to in Google Reader.
Here are those videos so you can learn more:
Long-Tail Keywords That Sell
Posted by Matt McWilliams in Affiliate Tips, Search Engine Optimization (SEO) on February 13th, 2010
Lynn Terry wrote an outstanding post recently that I want to share with you about using long-tail keywords that actually sell.
Really, this is one of the best posts in a long time on the subject of long-tail keywords because what I often read about is “how to rank high for long-tail keywords” but no one ever seems to discuss using the kind that make SALES, which is kind of the point after all.
As she points out, all long-tail keywords are not created equal.
So I strongly suggest checking out her full post here.
How to Avoid Duplicate Content Penalties from Google
Posted by Matt McWilliams in Affiliate Tips, Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Web Design on February 8th, 2010
Many of you are undoubtedly using Private Label Rights (PLR) articles or post news on your site that you get from other sources. These could be considered duplicate content by Google. Or perhaps you have printer-only versions of your pages that are duplicate content of your own site. Whatever the reason, duplicate content can land you in serious hot water with Google and lead to big penalties, including having your site banned entirely.
Here are some tips to avoid duplicate content penalties with Google. Many of them are straight from Google.
First, make sure to tell Google your preferred URL (canonicalization). This tells Google that if you have duplicate content within your site, to refer to the main URL and not penalize you (yes, this is a condensed and basic version of what it does on purpose).
Simply put this in the <head> tags:
<link rel="canonical" href="http://www.mysite.com">
If the content is a duplicate of your own pages (such as printer-friendly versions), you can tell Google not to index the duplicate pages. Simply include this is in your <head> tags on the duplicate page:
<META NAME="robots" CONTENT="noindex,nofollow">
If you are using Private Label Rights (PLR) material, then you will still have to put in a little effort in order to avoid duplicate content penalties. Change some of the words, especially the high-density keywords, so that:
“The easiest way to learn guitar…” becomes “The best way to study guitar…” or “The number one method for learning guitar…”
OR
“Guitar lessons are often expensive” becomes “Learning guitar can be costly” or “Guitar instruction is generally reserved for the wealthy”
Use a thesaurus and find synonyms for common words.
You can also reorder some of the sentences and paragraphs, or take out a few sentences that aren’t needed, as well as add your own content. Add a sentence of your own to each paragraph or two.
When you are done, be sure to use a copy checker like CopyScape or one of the free tools from Google and Yahoo to check it out.? I hope it helps!
Compelling Sales Copywriting Tips
Posted by Matt McWilliams in Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Web Design on February 4th, 2010
SEO ROI recently posted a great article on their blog authored by Christine O’Kelly entitled “Six Steps to More Engaging Copy That Sells,” that I definitely wanted to share with you.
O’Kelly points studies what three sites, InfusionSoft, Butterfly Marketing, and Traffic Geyser have done that can help you.
When I got to the six tips I was reminded of so many of the marketing lessons I have learned and have shared here as well.
Copy should be engaging. Copy should be passionate. Copy should be…well not copy. Copy is such a lame, impersonal word. “Sales letter” is too clinical and too…salesy.
I prefer using words like “story” or “narrative.” Your site should tell a story. It should be adventurous and exciting. It should move something inside of the person reading it. Ultimately the purpose is to get them to buy, but you have to forget about that for a while as you write your…ah I almost said the old word…story.
I am sticking to the original title of this post, but if I had it to do all over again, I would have called it Compelling Storytelling Tips.
Here are there six tips repackaged in my own words, but I still strongly suggest reading their post…just replace the words copy and sales letter with “story” or “narrative.”
- Identify and name your reader’s problem and solve it. They inevitably have a problem. They are searching for something, so know what it is and help them find it.
- If you use video for your story, choose your narrator carefully. Make sure that he or she conveys the right image your trying to put forth.
- Be friendly, exciting, motivating, and passionate about what you are writing or speaking.
- If you are trying to generate leads, rather than sales, leave the reader hanging. A good story that barely reaches the climax or falls just short, leaves them craving more. Everyone has to know the end. Leave the conclusion for once the lead is secured.
- Don’t tell them what you can do for them, let others do it for you. Gather up testimonials and success stories from customers. Let them tell their story. Everyone loves to talk about themselves and your customers are ten times better salespeople than you are.
- Forget what you are trying to sell. Educate them in a narrative that interrupts periodically with stories. Imagine you were telling the story in person. Certain parts would be louder. Certain parts would have your hands flailing everywhere. You might grab the other person by the shoulders. You might move closer to them. Your eyes light up and your pitch gets higher. You stand up straighter and you can hardly control your excitement. Imagine this as you write and use bolding, italics, different colors, etc. to break up the text.
Can Affiliates Compete with the Big Guys?
Posted by Matt McWilliams in Affiliate Encouragement, Affiliate Tips, Search Engine Optimization (SEO) on January 9th, 2010
The Affiliate Classroom Blog says “You Bet!”
They have a great 5-part series going entitled “Affiliate Marketers Can Compete with the Big Guys and WIN!” which has some great strategies for competing with the big guys.
Here are links to the three posts so far and their blog which will have all the posts. Great job Anik and team!
Strategy One - Know Your Potential Customers
Strategy Two? - Maximize the “O” in SEO
Strategy Three - Give Your Customers a Voice
Check out their blog for the full series
Google’s 200+ Search Algorithm Ranking Factors
Posted by Matt McWilliams in Search Engine Optimization (SEO) on December 8th, 2009
WebmasterWorld has a great thread going about the 200+ variables (yes 200+ according to Google’s Matt Cutts at PubCon) that Google uses in their search ranking algorithm.
Some of them are well known such as age of domain, keywords in the domain, URL path, keyword density, title tags, Meta description keywords, header tag keywords, freshness of content, alt tags, inbound link quantity and quality, anchor text, and many more items that have been around for years as a part of Google’s ranking algorithm.
But there are a ton more ranking factors that are much lesser known such as IP location, location of links, use of external CSS or JS, TLD of domain, etc. listed in this thread.
I strongly suggest reading the thread and perhaps listing your own factors.? Enjoy!
Let the Testing Begin!
Posted by Matt McWilliams in Affiliate Tips, Legacy News, Pay Per Click (PPC), Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Web Design on October 23rd, 2009
We are getting ready for The December push, are you?
As I posted here (Biggest Months for Learn and Master Courses) December is our biggest month, but unlike most retail companies, the excitement for us continues into January, February, March, and even April.? November is our 6th biggest month.
So this month and next, we will be doing a lot of testing and I wanted to both share the tests with you and encourage you to be testing significantly this month and next.
We will be testing pretty much everything, using A/B and multivariate testing.? Here some previews of the various things we will be testing in the next week or two, with more tests coming later.? Ultimately, our metric is revenue per visitor and every effort is focused on increasing that…and thus your commissions!
Our Calls to Action Order Buttons
This is small sampling of order buttons we are testing.
Video or No Video
How does the video on our product pages effect conversions?? We will find out.? Add it, subtract it, move it, smaller, larger…
Adding Other Courses to Each Product Page
Graphics in our side white space for each product will show images such as this.? We will be testing different versions of them.
More tests to come!
What are YOU testing this month and next?
Slapped by Google, Now what?
Posted by Matt McWilliams in Affiliate Tips, Pay Per Click (PPC), Search Engine Optimization (SEO) on October 21st, 2009
Earlier today I got an email about another Google Slap.? This was one of many emails or instant messages that I have received in the past month asking the same question…what do I do?
Most of the tips I have shared have been virtually the same, so I thought I would go ahead and share them with you here.? This is really not much of a list of recovering from or surviving a Google Slap, but more a list of best practices for your web site and SEO efforts and Pay-Per-Click campaigns.? If you have been slapped for poor quality sites, had your PPC campaigns shut down or SEO efforts derailed by being removed from the Google listings, these tips should help.
- Make sure your contact page has the necessary components: phone number, email address, physical address, etc. Read my article in Issue 7 of FeedFront for more.
- Reduce the number of outgoing links by about 1/3 or so.
- Add more internal links. If needed, create more internal content pages and link to them.? This reduces the percentage of outgoing links.
- Slowly get more links to your site. I realize this is easier said than done, but most importantly use different anchor texts than you have been using and vary them greatly.
- Submit your sitemap XML to Google Sitemaps.
- Update your site. Move content, change words, especially header text and bold text.
- Use nofollow for all affiliate links in your robots.txt file.
Don’t treat your site like an affiliate site.? Treat it like a help site and make sure that you would trust your own site to offer informative content and recommended products.
What are your favorite tips?
Google Images Search Results Optimization
Posted by Matt McWilliams in Affiliate Tips, Search Engine Optimization (SEO) on October 16th, 2009
Have you every thought about optimizing your images for Google Images?? I don’t necessarily think it would drive a ton of traffic to your site, but it certainly could drive enough to make following these simple tips from Scott at the Stepforth blog.? He offers 10 great, yet easy to follow tips that could help you optimize your images to appear high in Google Images search results.? Image if someone wants? a good image of a “guitar teacher” and your image comes up #1…that could very well lead to a handful of sales each year.
Here are the tips, along with a link to his full post.
- Name the image file well. Use dashes (-) and name it something like “guitar-teacher.jpg” as opposed to “image2.jpg.”
- Use Image Alt Text and use it well. Name it “Guitar Teacher Offering Instruction to Guitar Students”
- Use the Image Title Attribute . Same as #2, use it well.
- Have relevant surrounding text.
- Optimize your whole web site.
- Use a high image resolution. This seems to affect the rankings. Higher resolutions tend to gravitate towards the top.
- Use an image specific page. When linking to a higher resolution version, create its own optimized page.
- Use Image Link Anchor Text. “Large Guitar Teacher Offering Instruction to Guitar Students,” for example.
- Use the other alt tags, height and width.? Don’t forget these!
- It’s a fun one, so check out his full post here.
Great post Scott!
How to Screw Up Your Page Titles
Posted by Matt McWilliams in Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Web Design on October 2nd, 2009
Recently I was reading some articles about SEO and one of them made me really think about one thing in particular, how I name page titles.? I thought I was doing everything right, but I was reminded over and over again that I was ignoring some of the most obvious rules of title naming.
Titles are still important.? For one, Google and the other search engines still consider titles relevant to ranking pages and sites.? Secondly, a good title gets clicks.? A bad one does not.? So you want to toe the fine line between having an SEO friendly page title and making sure it looks natural and relevant to searchers.
Here are some of the mistakes I have made and what you can learn from them.
- Using the site name in the title tag. Unless you are branding something, it is probably unnecessary.? Sure, your site name may contain the exact keywords in the exact order that you want them displayed.? If so, then it is OK to use your site name.? If you are branding and want to include your site name, make sure to use it at the end such as: “Guitar Instructional Course Reviews | MyReviewSite.”
- Untitled Pages. Yeah, sometimes, I still forget to actually do something so simple as name the page! Just don’t do it
- Using ALL CAPS. Remember forum and email rules? Caps is screaming. Don’t scream at people who you want to click on your link. The search engines probably won’t find it too friendly either.
- Keyword stuffing. If it doesn’t read easily, it’s probably spam. Don’t try to artificially enhance your rankings by keyword stuffing your page title.? I really want some good keywords in the page title, but I have learned to remember that this page is not going rank high for more than a few keywords…so I work on another page and give it a good title!
- Using “a,” “the,” “of” and similar “stop words.” These are unnecessary words and referred to as “Stop words” that break up your title and take up valuable real estate. Real example from my past: “The Official Campaign Web Site of Congressman X” should have been “Congressman X Official Campaign Site.” Another example: “Tips for Teenagers Who Need Car Insurance,” which would have been better as “Teenager Car Insurance Tips.”
- Using the same title on all pages. It’s SO easy to do this, but it’s a really bad idea. Back when I designed sites and knew nothing about SEO, this was a common mistake that I made.? Oops!
I hope sharing these tips helps a little.? I am glad I finally learned…and continue to learn!
October ShareASale Promotions and Bonuses
Posted by Matt McWilliams in Legacy News, Search Engine Optimization (SEO) on October 1st, 2009
We have extended our Learn & Master Painting bonus campaign on ShareASale through the end of October!? Just one sale of our painting course earns you a 2% commission increase forever!? Our everyday bonuses are running as well, such as our $50.00 2nd sale bonus.? The first five affiliates who make 10 sales of our painting course will earn an extra $100 bonus.
All bonuses are cumulative.? You can literally earn $1475 in bonuses this month with only 200 sales, plus an extra 2% per sale.? You should sign-up today!
| When: | Always |
| What: | Second Sale |
| Amount: | $50.00 bonus |
| When: | Through October 31, 2009 |
| What: | First 5 affiliates to make 10 sales of L&M Painting |
| Amount: | $100.00 bonus |
| When: | Through |
| What: | One Sale of L&M Painting |
| Amount: | 2% Lifetime Commission Increase (all future sales) |
| When: | Always |
| What: | 50 sales in one month |
| Amount: | $200.00 bonus |
| When: | Always |
| What: | 100 sales in one month |
| Amount: | Additional $325.00 bonus |
| When: | Always |
| What: | Your 100th overall sale |
| Amount: | $200.00 bonus |
| When: | Always |
| What: | 200 sales in one month |
| Amount: | $500.00 bonus |
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