The 2015 Guide To Marketing

Matthew Boley

A Great Straight To The Point SEO Guide In 2015

This guide isn’t going to be like a lot of other guides you read.  This guide is going to cut to the chase and acknowledge what is working, what’s not working, and what you should stay away from that may work for a short period of time.  I have ranked more terms than I can count or care to remember, I have ranked terms from CRM to your moms and pops terms that pertain to a local store down the street.  They are all ranked differently and none of them ranked overnight.

SEO

Google has always told us “Content Is King”.  Without great content all of your SEO efforts or marketing efforts for that matter will be a waste and only hurt you in the long run.  The objective of SEO now is to write something very engaging so others will share it naturally, want to read it which will create a great average time on your site, and make users come back to read more.   Regardless of what anyone tells you, this is the most important aspect to SEO period.  The days of purchasing XX amount of links and ranking up due to this are gone.  The days of posting to 100’s of social bookmarks sites are gone, or submitting to as many guest posting sites as you can that aren’t that relevant, or low quality sites are also gone.

So Whats Working For SEO?

I highly advise the following if you want to succeed in 2015.  If you want to rank terms up, gain direct traffic, and make profits instead of just posting endless articles to post them and having Google penalize you in a few months then listen carefully.

1. As we talked about above, make sure you have very high quality content.  You may be asking, what qualifies as high quality content, because you just don’t have time to write it and you need to hire someone else.  It’s difficult to find someone that is ready to take their time instead of just writing to get paid quickly.  When you find someone that is willing to slow down and write high quality content you are half way their.  Next you need to have them write about interesting topics that you would be interested in reading yourself.  Don’t just have them write about a keyword, the days of that working are over.  Make sure your not spamming keywords in your articles, or using a lot of keyword rich anchor texts in your articles.  Every once in a while it’s okay to use an exact match anchor text if it’s not spam though.   Use great judgement when using them or you will just hurt your website.  If your going to use exact match anchor texts I would use maybe 2 out of a 100 links to your site or posts you write.  This doesn’t include your own personal blog.

2. Optimize your site.  Make sure your site is optimized for SEO purposes.  Don’t over-optimize your site, but make sure it’s setup right.  I like to keep a very low density for my keywords on a specific page.  I myself like a 1.5% density of keywords on a page I am trying to rank up.  I like to use a title like the following Something Here | Something Here | Something Here, but make sure you stay under 60 characters so Google will analyze it properly.  Make sure all of the general is setup as well on your site, the speed of your page should be quick, you should fill in your alt tags properly, inner links should contain titles, etc.. I am not saying that this helps a lot, but it’s good practice to do all of this.  You never know when Google is going to change their algorithm and count a factor more than another.

3. Have an active blog. For obvious reasons, you want to make sure you keep up with your blog.  As we know, we can’t use exact match anchor texts much anymore, so it’s hard to tell Google what we want to rank for past optimizing our page for certain terms.  I personally like to use blogs for inner link building.  In the blog your can use an exact match anchor text and inner link it to a relevant page on your site which will tell Google that your page is about your specific term linking to your page.  Make sure you share your blog across your social accounts after you put hard work into posting it.

4. If you have a new product, or a new large client you work for, or something that is new make sure you write about it and post it in a press release.  Don’t use exact match anchor texts in press releases.  Make sure your using your brand name or a variation of your brand name when posting these.  I don’t advise posting on low-quality free sites, because of the low quality and terrible syndication to other low quality sites.  I personally like prweb, prnewswire, sbwire, and many others like this.

5. There is a very fine line on what is a ethical guest post and what isn’t.  I do advise that you write some guest posts, but I highly advise you to put these on very high quality sites.  If you’re analyzing a site with Moz’s OSE, I would put it on a site with a DA 50 plus that is very relevant to your article.  Sure there are sites that are reputable under a 50, but to be safe I would aim for 50 plus at all times to ensure longevity for your company. For more info on guest posts so you don’t get penalized, take a look at this post I wrote back in August. It is still mostly relevant today minus a few minor updates.

6. Are you looking for local business or national business?  If you are for example a plumber and looking for more traffic to your site, you would want to market locally in a specific radius.  The methods behind this are similar, however you are going to dive deep into citation building for a plumber.  Citation building is different for each type of business, so don’t think this is a one size fits all. A plumber will need different citations than a flower company.  A citation is basically site that allows you to post your business name, phone number, address, and anything else regarding your business.  Don’t just post to any citation site to get a link, this will not do you any good.  If you want to gain ethical links for your site, post them on other sites where you think others are looking for your business.  For example, Angieslist, Yelp, and many others like these are great citations for your business.   Don’t just stop here though, tell people about your new accounts, your new citations.  Share them on your social channels, in a press release, and anywhere else you would like.  By sharing your links, it will help you gain natural backlinks which will increase the authority of the citation, this will in return help you rank up easier in your local area.

7. Blogging and inner linking is a must these days.  How else will Google know what to rank you up for if you don’t tell them?  Your website is like a magazine, if you don’t tell people what’s on a page or inner pages of your magazine how will they know what it’s about?  When you write a blog on your site make sure you link it to another page within your site, if it’s relevant of course.  Don’t just place an inner link to place one, make sure you are using good judgement here.

8. Whats your social engagement like?  Are you staying socially active on sites like Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus, etc?  If not why aren’t you?  Not only could you get direct business from these, it helps send social signals to Google about your site, it helps to index new links, and you can obtain natural backlinks when others share your post.

9. Brand building. Most think that just because they have used their brand name in anchor text a few times that this is good enough.  If you want to build the brand name of your company, you are going to need to tell everyone about your brand everywhere you can think of (within reason). Don’t go overboard on this of course, don’t go posting your roofing company on a gardening site, as this won’t end well for you.  Make sure you are brand building on relevant quality sites.

There are many other tactics that work, and this is just a start.  If you are looking for a company to help you with these, I advise that you ask them to see rankings of a similar site that they ranked like yours.  Ask them to see their own rankings. Ask every question you can possibly think of before hiring anyone.  It’s getting harder and harder to fix issues that poor SEOs created for businesses.

Stay away from companies offering the following:

• EDU or .GOV links
  
• Blog Commenting
  
• Web 2.0 links
  
• Link Pyramid or Link Wheels
  
• Forum Links
  
• Social Bookmarking links
  
• Link Building packages
  
• A one size fits all package for companies

Guaranteed ranking – this generally leads to companies that will do anything to get money from you including using unethical tactics to rank your site.

Cheap companies – you get what you pay for in the marketing industry.  Do you really think you can pay $ 200 and build a large business off of this?  If it was this easy why hasn’t the other person down the street from you already done this?  SEO takes time, it’s complicated, and it can get expensive.

One time fees – SEO is something that is ongoing.  Make sure you know what you’re buying. Generally one-time fees are for some type of package, or just a part of the SEO that you need.  For example a lot of companies will perform on-page SEO first which is generally a one time fee.  This alone will not help your company rank above your competitors.   Don’t let them make you think that this is all you will ever need.  It’s a great start, but you need much more than this.

Overall, use your judgment, if something is cheap, fast, or easily obtainable, then the chances are you don’t want it.  Marketing isn’t meant to be easy; it’s hard for a reason, and it’s only going to get harder and more expensive as time goes on.  There are more and more companies on the internet daily working towards ranking up the company next to yours.

Educate yourself on the newest updates through Google webmasters on Youtube, MOZ, Opensiteexplorer, and any other sites that have a large community.  This can do nothing but help you.

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