[Build Great Backlinks] TITLE

Build Great Backlinks has posted a new item, 'Be the Result that Google Wants to
Rank'

Posted by Kristina Kledzik
As SEOs, we're the only type of online marketers who pay little to no
attention to the people who actually visit our websites. PPC'ers watch visitors'
responses to ads via click through rates, social media managers converse with
users directly, writers write for readers, and designers design for visitors.
But SEOs give advice based on Google.


Google, like the rest of online marketers, is primarily concerned with the
opinions of visitors to Google.com. Its goals is to deliver the most satisfying
webpages as results to searchers (and possibly charge for those results through
ever-more-subtle paid ads). Thus, we SEOs eventually have our effect on actual
visitors, as our techniques to attract search engines allow our sites to rank
well and get visits from actual humans.


Why don't we just make changes for visitors so that Google will want to rank
us well?

In the dawn of SEO, Google was stupid

When Google was first created, it couldn't see nearly as much as it can now,
and focusing on user experience alone could leave your site virtually unreadable
to Google. I only started in this industry in 2010, and even then, SEOs had to
focus on specific keyword usage, tagging, link building, and anchor
textâall things that are virtually meaningless to visitors. But over the
past few years, Google's near-daily algorithm updates have made its crawler
interpret webpages more and more like a human would.


Still, we continue to panic about every change Google makes. What are their
next steps? Are they going to do something that will crush your site?


Here's a hint: If we're optimizing our sites for visitors, there's little to
no chance that a Google algorithm update will penalize us. That means that we're
on Google's side: We're trying to make our site better for visitors, which makes
Google look good when visitors click through to our sites. Help them help us.




The good news is, if you're a white hat SEO who keeps up on search engine
trends, Google has probably led you into doing some good online marketing
without even realizing it. To explain this a little more clearly, here's a
comparison of some of the top white-hat SEO strategies from 2010, when I
started, and how you should handle them in 2013:

On-page keyword usage â content strategy

2010: The best way to rank #1 for a keyword was to use it in the
<title>, the <h1>, maybe an <h2>, and a few times in the text
(but no keyword stuffing! Google had figured that out, at least.)


2013: Google understands synonyms now, so you can use a keyword once and show
that it's highly relevant with other similar terms. Experts recommend using
keyword groups (an idea that I had been hinting at for ages but didn't think of
concretely until I read Cyrus's awesome post): Use a number of keywords that all
mean approximately the same thing, so you can be relevant for all of them.

How to be even better with content strategy

Don't focus so much on keywords with the most local searches a month, on
average (Google Keyword Planner is so vague). Instead, use phrases that your
current and potential customers use.


There are hundreds of easy, reliable, cheap online survey tools, so take your
pick. Reach out to your email list and ask them to complete a survey that asks:

How they describe your products/services
What emotions they attribute to your products/services
Why they want/need your products/services
The ideal brand personality that would sell your products/services

Allow survey takers to write in the responses free-form, so they won't be
restricted to the words you think they'll use.


Once you have the right keywords, work them into the copy in a way that speaks
to them. This will take a great content strategy, something that I can't
describe to you briefly here. But these blog posts will get you on the right
path:


How to Build a Content Marketing Strategy


Kill it in Content Creation by Knowing Your Customer Conversion Funnel


Avoiding Disaster: How to Prevent the 3 Most Common Content Marketing #Fails

On-page structure/tagging â design

2010: You had to mark up the important parts of a webpage with HTML tags:
<h#>, <strong>, and <em>.


2013: Google can see where text will show up on a page, and how prominent it
will be to visitors. You can't just tag text to make it relevant to search
engines, it has to be integrated into the design.


Design isn't just a "nice to have." It's a necessary part of the online
marketing world now, and it absolutely pays off. If you didn't come to MozCon
2012, Jenny Lam's presentation discusses how people are much more likely to
trust attractive things. Google knows that design builds trust: Remember how
Panda slapped websites covered in ads? As Google begins to understand how people
interpret design better and better, having a good design will become a necessary
part of both online marketing and SEO.

How to be even better with good design

PAY FOR GOOD DESIGN.


Many of you reading this blog are technical, possibly able to build a very
solid HTML website. That does not make you a good web designer.


Go out there and find a good web designer. Your input will be to remind the
designer you hired that good web design does include a lot of text, both for
search engines and for visitors.


Resources:


9 Principles for Great Branding by Design


Designing for SEO

Link building â online public relations

2010: Google was already getting pretty good at devaluing links from crappy
sites, but a good link network could still work, and it certainly hadn't started
penalizing you yet!


2013: Many sites have gone down because of Penguin alone, and others are still
reeling from it. We can't buy links anymore, yet almost all bloggers understand
the value of a link and want to be paid for it.


At Distilled, we now do what we like to call "online PR," where we focus on
building relationships with bloggers and sites. The important thing is to focus
on building a partnership where they rely on us as much as we rely on them. With
a one-sided relationship, site owners are bound to take your link down or forget
about you eventually, but when they look to you as a source of knowledge, and
valuable to their readers, they'll keep reaching out to you.


And that's very much likeâgaspâreal PR!

How to get better with online PR

Don't look for a link with DA [blank]. Look for a site that is genuinely a
good match for what you or your client has to offer. Pitch the link or mention
to the other site the way you would explain it if you weren't you and just
thought it was a good match. Be flexible, so you can build a long-term
relationship and keep sharing things through that channel in the future.


Here are a few great resources to point you in the right direction for great
outreach:


The Blogger Outreach Equation


8 Tips for Blogger Outreach


Why Link Building Strategies Fail

Anchor text manipulation â branding

2010: The strongest way to rank for a keyword was to get a link with that
keyword in the anchor text. Ecommerce sites across the nation paid for links
with their target keyword in it and slipped those links in unrelated articles.


2013: It occurred to Google that if you have a million links to your site for
"slinkies" but no links to your site about your brand name, no one knew who you
were. There's just too much information out there, and too many scams. People
feel more comfortable with brands, and are more likely to click on links to
recognizable brands.


At the same time, Google realized that link profiles full of unbranded links
were probably paid for, and that contributed to penalties.


Now, it's better to focus on brand awareness than the specific anchor text to
your page. The more people are talking about your brand, the more likely they'll
be to search for you specifically, and then you won't even have to worry about
competing for #1 position in SERPs, you'll just be there!

How to get better with more brand awareness and loyalty

I think we've always known the value of branding. After all, why do so many
Americans pay $2.50 for $0.05 worth of water, carbonation, sugar, and a bit of
caffeine?


It's just been easier to match your content with search terms than to get
people to actually search for you. Building brand awareness and loyalty involves
building relationships with people you don't know yet, which is absolutely
terrifying. It means you can try your hardest but fail, and have no idea why.


But, let's look at this a different way. Competing in the world of online
marketing without a brand means that you're relying 100% on Google to continue
to send you visitors. This is a very one-sided relationship. If Google changes
things, or if your competitors get slightly better and edge you out of the first
page of results, your business will collapse completely, and Google won't even
notice. No company should rely so heavily on another, especially not one that
barely knows you exist. Building a brand is planning for the future, and
protecting you against the whims of Google.


Instead, make your company into something you're excited about, so it can
excite your customers too. Put as much money into building your brand as you do
other online marketing activities; it'll pay off. Joanna Lord gave one of the
best "how to" speeches on building brand loyalty at SearchLove this year:
slideshare or video.

So, all this means SEO is dead, right?

NO.


For one thing, as smart as Google will get, it will always have its quirks, so
technical SEO is here to stay.


For another, a big part of SEO is identifying and understanding your
competitors for certain search terms, since that can be very different from your
competitors in real life.


But, SEO alone can't make your business. Even if, for some reason, it does
right now, it won't in the future. SEO is one aspect of good online marketing,
but you have to be a great marketer overall to make it in the long run.
Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten
hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think
of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but
want to read!



You may view the latest post at
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/seomoz/~3/Vqt60RE1Omk/be-the-result-that-google-wants-to-rank

You received this e-mail because you asked to be notified when new updates are
posted.
Best regards,
Build Great Backlinks
peter.clarke@designed-for-success.com