Quality Link Building

                                        Quality link building tips

It's not just about search engines. Embrace traditional marketing, outreach, partnerships, social, guest blogging, inspired mentions, and good old-fashioned relationships.

Apart from SEO is dead (again) chat, the next most popular SEO discussions is always on what SEO should actually be called. "Inbound marketing", "IMS", "Search Science," I've probably heard them all, but few terms capture the essence of what SEO should be doing.

With that in mind, I took it on myself to relabel SEO as "SearchEverywhere Optimization" because as SEO folks we are hoping to affect the visibility of our clients sites in many venues on the web, which then creates better visibility in the search results, and more search clicks organically.

With the Search Everywhere mantra, SEO practitioners can finally expand beyond just traditional SEO responsibilities and dabble or partner with PR, social, partnerships, sponsorships and other traditional offline opportunities that get people talking online about brands and their expertise. This includes great events like SES Conference, working with nonprofits and in-store promotions, all of which can fuel the content machine and distribute content and create connections organically: aDigital Footprint.

The goal of a Search Everywhere strategy isn't to replace traditional marketing agencies, however. It's about SEO professionals working with them to ensure that every marketing initiative considers the opportunity of creating share-worthy content that can be placed and amplified online via outreach, social and/or PR channels.

The Digital Footprint you create isn't just for inbound marketing though. Google, as a massive "connections engine," uses connected entities to assess the trust and authority of sites, companies, individuals, and brands (which really encapsulates all three), leading to the earning of greater topic visibility (i.e., relevant rankings/traffic).

NOTE: It's not just about links, it's about citations, connections, mentions and associations. Who you're 'seen' with online matters!

4. Design for Multiple Screens

Create a user-friendly site design that works well and fast across all devices – especially mobile and tablet.

With so much focus on usability, the demise of the desktop browser dominance, and the prevalence of mobile devices, Google's made it very clear that no mobile experience, no love from Google!

What's often forgotten in the race to comply with a scary (for some) Google mandate, is that Google isn't saying every site should be using the same technology, solutions or share the same usability elements. Google understands that some sites need to have a mobile version (this is a site that has it's own URL structure - normally hosted on an m. sub-domain or within a mobile sub-directory or a main site) and some need a responsive website design (RWD) that adapts to the device used to access it.

NOTE: Responsive design isn't a brand new idea, but having (almost) ubiquitous browser support is!

There are various resources that provide the hows and how tos, (even Google gives some good details) but the process must begin with a site review on different devices to see if:

• Different screen sizes present obvious and usable interfaces
• Mobile or tablet users see views customized to their devices
• Interface changes based on platform or device are logical and maintain *some* consistency across platforms
• From an SEO standpoint, best practices are followed so that Google / Bing recognized the difference between device specific sites (if different sites exist) and this mitigates potential duplicate content issues

The Search Agency (full disclosure that I work there!) recently published a Responsive Web Design whitepaper that goes in depth into the pros and cons of the technical aspect of RWD.

5. Conduct Keyword Query Research

Research keyword queries leveraging social, web stats, paid media and industry research to help understand user goals, purchasing cycles, and needs.

As noted in the keyword research article above, traditional keyword research needs to evolved to focus more on the Consumer Decision Journey and less on search volume.

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