Welcome to the Q&A Forum

I would be inclined to agree with the gentleman who have answered above me. I do not know what Google will do for sure as I believe almost no one including even some that work at Google do. However I would imagine Google would be more apt to tackle the people who are manipulating their ranking on Google by use of keyword stuffing, link farms and on and on. The fact that someone can be penalized for having a website that is to highly optimized I find disturbing however I really doubt and hope it is only the people that have practiced Google has told us our black/grey hat tactics. I consider myself a ethical business man like the gentleman above me said I would never practice any of the black/grey hat techniques to improve my own or my clients ranking it just doesn't make sense to do that. I would imagine if they were to delist everyone that has done something to make sure there on page seo is optimized they would devalue some of their results that everyday people count on Google. To put it plainly if they did that Google would hurt themselves because it ordinary people not get what they are looking for when they search Google. I hope this is of some help.

Good morning,

I think you're off to a great start. One thing I would touch on considering your essentially talking about bounce rates and analytics reports are all the other companies out there aside from Google that do analytics for instance I use HubSpot, Adobe's Omniture Sitecatalyst, core metrics, kiss metrics, Web Trends & Reinvigorate by Web Trends https://www.reinvigorate.net/  the reason for so many is a lot of the businesses I'm involved with have different needs. For instance if one has a Web server in place already it might be much less money for them to use web trends in-house version than to pay for a software as a service version. Then again I use kiss metrics and Reinvigorate because one is only $20 a month to others for only $10 a month program that will give me heat maps and create reports is worth its weight in $10 bills.. I believe Adobe has the crown currently and is the King if you want to get technical however core metrics is honestly in my opinion just as good better for some things. What I would do is make your report on why some people choose to not use Google analytics. I know it sounds crazy however I personally would rather not use Google as opposed to use some of the services I have listed as it's just a little less information Google has of mine not to mention I truly enjoy using HubSpots all-in-one system you can't beat it if you're using a content management system and making many pages and want your prospects along with fairly comprehensive analytics built-in. I hope I was of help to you I would also add the good parts about Google and Yahoo ( have never used Yahoo analytics however I know they are free) things like certain video programs for CDNs use in the Google analytics ID along with outstanding programs such as SEOmoz with their campaign tools. I hope this is giving you some ideas of what to write about I look forward to reading it.

Sincerely,

Thomas Zickell

QuiZick Internet Marketing

Hi William,

I am very happy I was able to be of help. Did I answer your question completely?

If not please let me know and I will do my best to help you. If I did if you be kind enough to rate the answer I would be very much appreciative.

Sincerely,

Thomas

Hi William,

In this case I believe unfortunately SEOmoz does not allow for this. However you are both pro-users and if possible I would request the ability for you to allow your friend to login to your account. Please understand I am not saying do this without asking. Please e-mail your question to www.seomoz.org/q/how-to-get-contact-information and I do not want to scare you however the rules are that you and only you can login to your account. So you know SEOmoz does monitor these things and obviously you don't want to jeopardize your account. So maybe a app that would allow you to share the screen like Adobe connect here is a URL for a free 30 day trial of Adobe connect that would allow you to share your screen with him. I believe this is all right https://www.adobe.com/cfusion/adobeconnect/index.cfm?event=trial

I hope I was of some help. I believe the people at SEOmoz our reasonable and if you asked them would be able to give you the best way without jeopardizing your account.

Sincerely,

Thomas

Hi Marissa,

if you go to this page it has an easy-to-follow intro then at the bottom you can choose from on page Seo or off page you get results like this.

Off-Page SEO Factors

The full potential of SEO is realized only when all apects of SEO are performed. Both On-Page SEO and Off-Page SEO are critical to effectively produce search engine results. Off-Page SEO is defined by optimizing items external to your site. Some of which you can control, other aspects that you cannot. Off-page factors help raise visibility and provide valuable assistance to the on-page SEO tactics and techniques. Off-Page SEO strategies include:

• Site Links
• Social Media Marketing
• Social Media Bookmarking
• Article Marketing
• Blogging
• Press Releases
• RSS Feeds Syndication
• Video Marketing
• Directory Listing
• Domain Age History

http://www.go2itgroup.com/search-engine-marketing/index.htm#.T42ebuhYtcQ

I hope your boss can follow this and there's on page of page and much more but only 6 total

all the best,

Thomas

Hi Marisa,

I think I have found what might work. Start on page 8 for the slider or use this PDF page 6

http://www.hubspot.com/Portals/53/docs/how-to-get-found-by-google-with-hubspot-software.pdf

http://www.slideshare.net/HubSpot/how-to-get-found-on-google-using-the-hubspot-software

Here is the main page with a very long video however if he has more questions it could be useful

http://www.hubspot.com/how-to-get-found-on-google-using-hubspot-archive

Sincerely,

Thomas

I think HubSpot greater is a fantastic tool I should tell you they've changed it to http://marketing.grader.com that URL is up above as well. I hope the video is of help

Hi Marisa,

I was just going through YouTube and thinking that to explain to a person who is no knowledge of how a search engine works maybe a video?

I hope this is of help if not I would be happy to put together a list very easy to read with photos and everything.

Sincerely,

Thomas

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Hi Sorry to hear about Your boss here is something I am positive it will shed some light

I would use the links below obviously you know your boss better than I do so use what you feel is appropriate.

This is something that touches on a lot of things and is very easy to follow

http://www.hubspot.com/products/inbound-marketing/

In addition I would run your website to this for him http://marketing.grader.com/

here is SEOmoz search engine ranking factors

http://www.seomoz.org/article/search-ranking-factors

in addition I believe you can get a lot out of this

http://www.hubspot.com/customer-case-studies/

then when it says which idea would you like to learn more about show them what is listed.

http://learning.hubspot.com/

I hope I was of some help. If you need additional help for whatever reason or a professional to tell your boss you are doing the right thing (at no cost course) please feel free to contact me.

Sincerely,

Thomas Zickell

QuiZick Internet marketing

tzickell@quizick.com

Hi Sema,

I am glad I could answer your question. I wish you the best with your venture.

Sincerely,

Thomas Zickell

QuiZick Internet Marketing

Hi Sema,

I am happy to be of help. If you don't want to rely on a single tool like SEOmoz I understand I must say though I think SEOmoz is the best when it comes to this however this is my personal opinion. You may use incognito to check some things and it will work much better than if you were logged into Google or were not using incognito. However if I were to Google "pizza near me" whether or not I am using incognito I would get the closest pizza parlor to me. For instance I'm in Florida so I will obviously get different results in somebody in Chicago. Some of the tools you can use for your websites to get unbiased information are www.majesticseo.com http://www.surcentro.com http://www.semrush.com and check out the companies listed here http://www.semrush.com/partners.html

I hope this has answered your questions. If not please post again or let me know I would be happy to help you.

Sincerely,

Thomas Zickell

QuiZick Internet Marketing

Hi Sema,

The campaign based rank tracking tool is to give you an unbiased or on tainted (by your search preferences in Google that can change what you would see as opposed to what I might see if I looked up a keyword) understanding of your true rank in Google, Bing & Yahoo. For whatever website you put in your SEOmoz campaign.. All you need to use it is your SEOmoz Pro subscription then go into http://pro.seomoz.org/campaigns or campaigns you'll see the button is the 2nd to the right when you log into SEOmoz after that go to create campaign. You will be asked to enter your URL with a subdomain (when they say subdomain they mean www.) enter it along with I believe 5 of your competitors. It is important for them to have your Google Analytics ID if you do not have Google Analytics yet or you would like to find your ID go to https://www.google.com/analytics/web/ then either sign in or sign up. Once you have done all this give SEOmoz the time to crawl your site once that is done you will have access to an amazing amount of information. Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions.

I hope I was of help.

Sincerely,

Thomas Zickell

QuiZick Internet Marketing

tzickell@quizick.com

Hi Charles,

I believe it's 100% relevant to what the page is about. If for whatever reason obviously you don't believe an image would add to making the entire experience better than it may not matter however I know Google does take the way the page is constructed into account here's  some more info.

http://www.pandia.com/marketing101/4-tips.html

hope I was of help to you.

Sincerely,

Thomas

Rand,

I must say I am truly impressed. I was going to respond to this question as you were kind enough to respond to my inbound marketing question on twitter month ago I was impressed that you responded because it shows you still love the stuff you obviously don't need the money. As a Pro member I don't want to sound like I'm kissing  up too much but bravo man is always comforting to see someone who truly practices what they preach and preaches what they practice to their customers and fans.

All the best man keep up the good work,

Thomas Zickell

I think you should be less worried about competitors actually trying to sabotage you if that does happen and I’ m not saying I know your situation or pretend to it is a very serious matter. However unfortunately for all of us it is true Google is penalizing people for using anchor text that is the same as a keyword or keyword phrase. It frankly does not look natural and Google has a way of now discovering it here is a article that is brief but explains a lot http://www.search-placement.com/new-google-algorithm-update  I think I speak for most of us  when I say “hopefully just a phase and Google will grow out of it”

The way your site has been affected which I imagine is negatively by your post would be very hard for a competitor to do in less you allowed them to have your passwords things like that where they could really sabotage your work. I am not trying to scare you however if you do believe somebody is out to get you should maybe look into a password generator and make extremely hard passwords to break. That said I myself have competitors in many fields including this one but believe most people are good and will not do something as juvenile and illegal as try to hurt the competitors website frankly I would try to make mine better if I were in that position not waste my time hurting people. However look at your analytics I hope you have Google installed at least maybe you can catch a thief. I wish you all the best and I hope this it is not Google’s attempt to make us pay per a click. Just one thing you brought up white hat SEO’s say Google will penalize you for bad linking, buying social bookmarks and paying for links. All that is true they will penalize you for that if they know you are doing it you might want to look at the amount of links you are building make it look natural go for quality before quantity if you in the past have had links built by people who even did what was considered the best practice at the time put keywords in the anchor text you may be being punished by Google for that. The way who looks at this is any manipulation of their system is bad and a posh bowl offense and a possible offense. If Google had its way people would write their own content links would only appear naturally and no one would be able to optimize their off page SEO. I do not agree with googles ideas of what we should have to do but unfortunately they make the rules. check your website for links that look out of place. I wish you the best of luck and hope that you are not really dealing with somebody stupid enough to try and hurt your site as I imagine you use this for business and that would be a crime to harm your Business.

Sincerely,

Thomas

PS I want to go on record as agreeing with the other gentlemen that have answered your question.

I  am sorry if I was not right on target on that however take a look at these 2 links

http://www.linkstycoon.com/2012/01/referral-links-can-improve-traffic-to.html

http://www.linkboostup.com/Forum-Link-Building.html

Forum link building is a very decent way to obtain web traffic. Forum links are effective referral traffic sources that also improve web visibility on search engine. Forum participation is capable of bringing visitors searching for specific service or product related to your business. Forum provides one way, permanent back links to your website. Forums are updated constantly with new topics and are indexed frequently by search engines crawlers. Forum provides valuable links to boost your website’s search impression and more impressions improve click rate. If you are looking for forum link building to improve your website ranking, you can enjoy our forum link building service.

I hope this is more on target to what you're looking for if it is please let me know and I'll be happy  to put together more information for you.

Sincerely,

Thomas

I would strongly suggest either Google analytics which is 100% free or my preference is free for 30 days and I feel gives you a better overall view using kiss metrics or HubSpot if you can https://www.kissmetrics.com/  http://HubSpot.com Analytics is a must with out it you are literally out to sea without a compass. You want to maybe look into HubSpot's CMS they allow for A/B testing as well as you must have a group of people judge the overall navigation ease of use if I am the customer can I see what I want to buy? If I do see where want buy is it is easy as clicking "buy now" if using google captcha please understand how many people like myself get sick of it and say forget this. If you must use a captcha style system to prevent spam please use the addition like what is 5+7=12 that would most likely boost some sales however it seems like if you're getting the traffic it's either not traffic intended for your site. Which if you used analytics you would be able to tell us what the bounce rate is. if this is in word press you can use the HubSpot plug-in after signing up for a 30 day trial for free no credit card is required on night either kiss metrics or HubSpot here is a link allowing you to do free A/B testing with Google analytics http://support.google.com/websiteoptimizer/bin/topic.py?hl=en&topic=14316

this is a business insider article about what colors impactor website and how

http://articles.businessinsider.com/2011-07-15/strategy/30011343_1_color-impulse-appeal

I am most certain you have what it takes to do this however show to your friends don't be afraid to use your resources like you have now. Run it through things like the campaign in SEOmoz as well as http://marketing.grader.com/ marketing greater will show you the complete close loop funnel. If the project is too daunting and I'm not saying that it isn't all you may want to request outside help and have them work with you say you benefit from their knowledge and they get something in return as well.

I hope there was help you.

Sincerely,

Thomas

I wanted to throw out another idea as I am in chemical engineering and a niche business myself. Why don't you if you're not already a member of LinkedIn join LinkedIn start a group for auto insurance people need it all states but New Hampshire require it ( I learned this the hard way last week driving in FL) however you can make to the subject open to people like myself who wanted to spend less on auto insurance I bought from a company and I would have loved more information. When you post excellent content to your LinkedIn group and then have your group point to your blog it is a real win-win. I know Facebook is less likely to be gaga over insurance however Twitter and LinkedIn my opinion are the place to talk insurance and people will care.

Hope that was a help as well please remember to in your include profile a link to your blog as well as inside your group that you plan to create.

Sincerely,

Thomas

I agree with everything that Matt has said especially stayed away from paid links as their truly a last resort.  I want to elaborate slightly more and let you know. You must diversify your anchor text anchor text is the URL you want to use let us say you are trying to sell toy cars and your web site has a page that is http://www.example.com/toy-cars/ an excellent way to build a link would be from a high page rank site or blog with a do follow relevant to your toy car website you would do best by placing the keyword toy cars inside the content of the website as well then making a link exactly like this

[Toy Cars/a>](http://www example.com/)

[note I can put whatever I want after the .com/"> whatever I want/">](http://www example.com/)

[here's an example like to still use this link to make sure my anchor text is perfect. What I'm getting at is always have your website anchor text say the same thing have it differ for whatever topic you are trying to rank for this makes for a links powerful combination you can practice using](http://www example.com/) http://www.w3schools.com/html/html_links.asp

Visit W3Schools

now please remember when linking it really only matters if the page you're linking from is ranked at least page rank 1 and most importantly has relevance to your website to illustrate my point you in more is a you tube video I have had great success showing people as I believe the man Andrew Masanto knows his stuff.

SEO Lecture - Harvard Business School - Andrew Masanto

http://youtu.be/Y0Id0HiAGD0

I hope I was of some help.

Sincerely,

Thomas Zickell

I am honestly surprised that anyone would say that about SEOmoz 1st off SEO is marketing "a technique used to acquire more customers" 2nd you had 30 days to try it for free I honestly hope you don't feel duped over paying nothing. However it sounds like things just didn't go your way and I feel for you happens to all of us however please don't take it out on a company that has actually benefited my life quite a bit. I think SEOmoz is a family like environment and if you were expecting something else you get all the 30 days you ever need to say it's not for me. However people saying SEO is dead what do you hope to replace this with? Another word for SEO Roger has been pro-and marketing his entire career (he told me on twitter so I know) inbound marketing is SEO Internet marketing is SEO and SEOmoz + HubSpot are to companies I think of as much more than faceless corporations their helpful and will do their best to help you succeed. I agree with the gentleman below it is a shame the Yankees did not call however when you quit during tryouts you have a chance.

All the best of luck,

Thomas

video-hubspot-and-inbound-marketing