What's your best hidden SEO secret?
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Hmm, secrets? First, I do seo writing so I tend to look at things from that angle but have gotten into more seo itself as I work with more businesses and web designers. I agree that working and then taking a break is a great idea because sometimes the research can blind you. LOL
But I think making sure you get the best info from the client or on the project prior to starting is essential and can help cut down the time spent in further research or is critical in targeting terms within a highly competitive category.
I also use research tools to help condense the process while I ponder competition and their optimization prior to starting.
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Thank's for the reply
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My best tip: get to know the sales team. I think a lot of SEOs fail to look up from their screens and recognise they are working for a real business - and that it's the sales team that have first-hand, all-day access to your paying customers.
I've just started working for a small travel business with a sales team of three who answer phones all day from clients. I spent a session with them, explained briefly what I'm doing and asked them a slew of questions such as:
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How do people describe the products? How do they categorise types of product. This feeds directly into KW research.
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What do people ask for that isn't on the site? Great for content development ideas / usability.
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What questions do people ask about the company? For instance, if lots of people seem unsure about whether this is a real company or just a website, create a prominent "about us" section.
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At which points in the booking funnel do customers call to say they are stuck ? This is a great way of identifying usability issues. Users don't call the UX guys, they call the sales team.
It's important to remember that sales people don't give a stuff about SEO, so your first task is to explain to them that your job is to send them more leads. At this point you'll see their indifference slowly turn to interest.
Give it a try, it's incredibly valuable. Perhaps a subject for a future YouMoz post?
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Great suggestions - thank's
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@Mark Hodson bought to mind something we do as a B2B service. We structured a questionaire that asks for industry terms and customer terms along with geotargeting information for local search. In many cases, the terms that the company or staff think are appropriate actually are very far from it. In addition certifications and awards often come in handy as well as professional memberships because they help us identify terms and other opportunities for SEO.
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Guest blogging. It's nothing new, it's nothing that requires a lot of talent, but my god! It does the trick for most clients I manage. Helps me acquires custom anchor text dofollow links from themed sites and the long term relationship with these blog owners are worth their "weight" in gold! You get a great link, you get some referral traffic, and you expand your network. Triple win!
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I have a whole list.
Patience and consistency. SEO is easy, but you have to constantly keep learning and trying new things. It often takes awhile to see results. Keep working and don't give up. As long as you create quality content and links that are relevant, eventually your hard work will pay off. Constantly learning is another key. Search engines change their algorithms over time, and your competitors are always changing, so you'll never be done. I like to set my homepage to an rss feed reader, where I've subscribed to about 10 blogs ranging from SEO to marketing to copywriting. That way new information is always the first thing I see, and I'm less likely to waste time on games or random browsing. Finally, having a network of people to help and encourage you can make the difference between giving up and sticking with it. You can learn from each other and provide sympathy and sometimes a little healthy competition. -
Paid tools... you really have to invest in order for you to conquer, I can share some but I personally think SEOmoz has all of them but you can still find good ones outside which SEOmoz also mentions hehehe
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SEO Metrics: Focus on juicy analytics instead of shallow ranking reports. And get your company (or your clients) to follow you down that path.
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Here's my secret:
Commit to the LORD whatever you do, and your plans will succeed.
~ Proverbs 16:3The rest, I'll never tell
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I agree... great answer and very helpful!
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My hidden secret is - a) build the website for the visitor b) be honest on your keyword choices c) follow the Google Webmaster Guidelines and Search comes your way.
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Almost identical to Francis, with a twist. I make almost all my revenue from AdSense (weird, I know). It took me a while to learn to do things in keyword research- 1) focus on high revenue per 1000 visitors stats for sellecting priority keywords by linking AdSense and Googgle Analytics, and 2) looking for the highest CPC keywords in the GoogleExternal Keyword Tool and then sorting on difficulty- oddly, in my space, a few lower-competition terms have extremely high CPC,making them prime targets for new pages onmy site andSEO efforts behind them.
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My best experience to track the competitors, review their strategy and then choose best point from each of competitors and make a strong strategy for project. I use to analysis strategy on weekly basis. Also used some tools for competitor tracking.
Your competitor give you a lot of new ideas........
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This is a great question! My best hidden SEO secret is developing relationships with resources of particular specialties so you can get specific help in the area you are focusing on. Similiary how a Dr. will refer you to a specialist, in SEO, there are plenty of general SEO's out there, but there are a few stand outs in particular specialties.
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Gotta love this!!! Most of my days are alot of information gathering then that one day of execution!! very grattifying!
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This is another great one. I've built plenty of professional relationships with previous clients (we refer business back and forth), as well as with a few graphic designers who work mostly in the SEM side of things (banner creation, tracking, tweaking to increase conversions).
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A marker board schedule.
I am not allowed to do anything (self imposed) that is not on my marker board for a specific time period. That makes me focus and get done what I need done.
Personal Facebook time takes a backburner when I need to do SEO.
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One of the best SEO secrets I've learned (which took a while) is how to implement what works best and leave the rest alone. Trying to read and stay abreast of everything regarding SEO is a futile venture--it's as much art as it is science, and few 'secrets' exist.
There are large components of SEO that are open to grand interpretation and it's often hard to separate good information from mis-information from out-dated information from just plain flase information. (If you ever get the opportunity to attend PubCon or an SES conference and listen to the bevy of conversation and opinion happening all about you, the quickl realization is that there are few fast and hard rules.)
There are several camps that will advise you a bit differently in all aspects of SEO: some will claim that their methods are proven, others will be more humble and offer a "best-practices" approach sans the 'guarantee'. I often believe I'm only as good at SEO as the success I had yesterday.
Try to find what works for you inside your vertical and then cherry-pick tips from the rest of the SEO community as you see fit. Translation: there is no magic bullet!
Here's to future success!
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In order:
Secret #1 - Work + Time = Awesome SEO
Secret #2 - Core Group of SEOs to work and share with.
Secret #3 - Keeping secrets secret. ... Sorry had to add that one.
Actually I should probably add that I don't believe there are many true secrets to SEO. Time and work will get you the best long term results.
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