SEO

Tweets, Links and Organic Search Rankings, Oh My!

QUESTION: What’s more effective for organic search rankings — traditional inbound links or social media links?

ANSWER: No one knows for sure but Google.

Okay, it was a trick question. But SEOmoz is running an experiment to see how tweets effect search rankings and they need your help.

Here is how SEOmoz has set up the experiment.

“In order to test these two ranking factors (traditional links and social media citations), we are going to need to promote two nearly identical pages using one promotion method for one and the other promotional method for the other while targeting the same keyword phrase. We can then see which page performs better in both the short term (my guess is the the tweet driven page) and the long term (my guess is the link driven page).

These two test pages will need to be targeting the same keyword phrase and on the same domain. I could do this on my own domain but doing so would be disingenuous (Hey everyone, send links and tweets my way! It is for an “experiment” ;-p You wouldn’t be fooled for a second and my apartment would get TPed… again)

Instead, the two test pages will be on a local charity’s website and target the phrase “Hunger in Sierra Leone”. The local charity, SeeYourImpact, is a registered 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that sends 100% of donations to the charity of a donation makers choice. The non-profit then photographs the results and sends the photo and a story of how the donation made an impact on an actual person to the donation maker so they can ‘see the impact’ (thus the name) of their donation. There is absolutely no financial affiliation with SEOmoz and SeeYourImpact although we do do consulting for them on a pro bono basis. In short, we think they are doing a great service but no money is being exchanged between the two organizations.”

Where you come in.

Below are two link options. The first is text with a link for Twitter. The second is code for a traditional link for your website. Pick one or both, but any links that you provide will help in this experiment.

Tweet this:

Help end hunger in Sierra Leone and meet the life you change http://bit.ly/hpsMJq

Follow the Yellow Brick Road.

I’ll post SEOmoz’s results here or you can follow the SEOblog to see results as they come in.

Google’s Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide will get your SEO cooking

Search engine optimization is a lot like the culinary profession. There are experts in the field, with a growing reputation and a following for their art. There are five-star SEO’s, one-star SEO’s, and everything in between.

Just as famous chefs create spectacular meals, unmatched by the average cook, SEO’s work their magic on websites, rocketing pages to the top of search results.

The fact that you haven’t been a sous-chef in Paris doesn’t stop you from cooking a nice meal. Likewise, you shouldn’t be intimidated to tackle search engine optimization. Aspiring chefs like you turn to cookbooks for recipes, advice, and tips. Luckily, SEO has its very own “Joy of Cooking.” It’s Google’s Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide. A very concise, non-technical manual that walks you through 13 things you can do to optimize your web pages, including best practices for each:

Create unique, accurate page titles
Make use of the “description” meta tag
Improve the structure of your URLs
Make your site easier to navigate
Offer quality content and services
Write better anchor text
Use heading tags appropriately
Optimize your use of images
Make effective use of robots.txt
Be aware of rel=”nofollow” for links
Promote your website in the right ways
Make use of free webmaster tools
Take advantage of web analytics services

The full Guide is available here on Google’s website. Download it, read it, and get cooking with these SEO techniques on your own web pages. You won’t be an instant search engine optimization expert, but you will enjoy the results.

Bon SEO!

Scribe puts an SEO expert in your WordPress site

When it comes to optimizing web content for search engines, there’s a lot to know, a lot to remember, and it’s always changing it seems. Wouldn’t it be great to have an SEO expert review your web content and tell you what keywords it is optimized for? And how to improve the search engine optimization of that copy? And then tell you if the improvements you made actually did improve the content’s SEO?

The folks at Scribe have built a tool that does all this and more — and put it right inside your WordPress admin site. But don’t worry if you don’t use WordPress, because in March they are launching a web-based version that is not tied to a specific platform.

There’s already been plenty written about Scribe. So I’m not going to repeat it here. But if you could use some expert SEO help with your web content, check out “Introducing Scribe: SEO Copywriting Made Simple” by Brian Clark (one of Scribe’s creators) for a great overview. And be sure to read “My Scribe SEO review” by Johnny B. Truant, who included a comprehensive video demonstration of Scribe in action. Finally, visit the Scribe website to seal the deal. Speaking of deals, there is a special introductory price that is available until Friday, February 25 at 6:00 p.m. Central Time. So better hurry and get Scribing right now!

Disclaimer: I am not an affiliate of Scribe, so my links are free. But I have worked the past couple of years with Scribe’s development team. So I’m a little biased. But I also know firsthand the power of the technology. UPDATE: Okay, so Scribe launched its affiliate program and I signed up. The Scribe links are now an affiliate link.