5 SEO Tools You Might Not Have… Yet

When it comes to lists of SEO tools, you typically see the same names bounced back and forth. Today, I’d like to share some tools I use on a regular basis that you may not have in your toolkit just yet. The best part – they’re all perfect for SEO’s and businesses with smaller budgets.

iSpionage

You can’t begin any search marketing campaign without a list of great keywords to target.iSpionage is known for their PPC research tools, but they also have powerful keyword research features as well. When you enter a keyword into their search, you will first see the top 10 PPC competitors along with a graph showing the advertising trend for the keyword.

After a block of related keywords is one of my favorite parts: a glimpse of the top-performing, longest-running ads in Google related to your keyword.

What’s nice about this is you can see how other websites are using the keyword. When you click on the Ads tab, you can review even more ad copy and landing page combinations sorted conveniently by the number of days seen. It can be a great way to spark some ideas on content and calls to action.

Last but not least, you can see the top SEO competitors in Google based on organic search traffic. Some results will list the number of backlinks, pages, and total number of keywords each competitor has in the search index. This can help you gauge what it will take to beat them for a desired keyword phrase.

Other handy features offered to paid members are the Keyword Monitor Dashboard and Competitor Alert. With the Keyword Monitor, you can keep track of your current rankings for the keywords you are tracking. It also includes a historical analysis so you can see the progress of your search marketing campaign.

With the Competitor Alert, you can enter your top competitor’s domains and be notified when they add new ad copy, PPC keywords, and SEO keywords. This way, you don’t have to keep checking up on your competitors to find out if they are targeting something new.

cognitiveSEO

Once you have your targeted keyword phrases organized, your next job will be researching the backlinks of your competitors. cognitiveSEO offers a visual approach to learning about your competitor’s backlink profile that includes charts for deep link ratios, dofollow to nofollow, website types, website categories, link trustworthiness, and much more.

You can also use the new Visual Link Explorer tool to see the link profile as a whole and drill down into the specifics.

You can also drill down into the traditional list of backlinks to filter out results.

cognitiveSEO also offers additional features to help you with your link building campaign including a link management tool that you can use to upload backlinks you have acquired / requested to monitor their status as well as a rank tracking tool to make sure your SEO efforts are yielding results. There is even a handy to do list feature to help you manage tasks assigned to various members of your team.

Broken Link Finder

The broken link building strategy is a great one to employ for link building, but it can be time consuming. Fortunately, there is a faster way to do it. The Broken Link Finder tool allows paid members to search for a keyword or keyword phrase and get potential broken link opportunities.

You can then export the backlinks for these broken links into a CSV to start contacting webmasters in hopes that your helpful tip about a broken link will result in your link getting placed on their page. You can use your membership credits to reserve a particular search result so that no one else can discover it again or use them to find similar broken link opportunities.

Whitespark

If you are working with a local website, then Whitespark is a must have resource. This citation finder will go out and find local search opportunities based on your website’s keywords and location.

You will get to see the domain, direct submit link, type of website, Majestic SEO AC Rank, Domain Authority, and date discovered. The results are based off of backlinks / citations that other local competitors have gained. It’s a great way to get new link building opportunities for local and non-local websites alike.

Link Detox

Unfortunately, if your website has acquired any form of bad links in the past, it is susceptible to a link penalty from Google. If you think your website has been hit with a Google penalty based on you links, then the Link Detox report from Link Research Tools is a must have. You simply enter your domain or upload your links from Google Webmaster Tools. It will then mark your links as healthy, suspicious, and toxic. This will give you a better idea of which links to remove first.

When you export your report, you will see details about why a link was marked as suspicious or toxic. Along with the reasoning, you’ll see the URL linking to your website, what page it’s linking to, anchor text, dofollow / nofollow, and other metrics.

Best of all, you don’t have to have a recurring membership plan with LRT to get access to this tool. You can sign up for a Daypass at $39 for 72 hours access and 3 Link Detox reports (plus access to some of their other tools). Just be sure to export your reports before your daypass expires.

These are some of the tools I use for keyword research, competitor research, local search, and link building. What are your favorite lesser-known tools for SEO?

Source: -.search engine journal.com

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Google: 5 common mistakes with rel=canonical

Including a rel=canonical link in your webpage is a strong hint to search engines your preferred version to index among duplicate pages on the web. It’s supported by several search engines, including Yahoo!, Bing, and Google. The rel=canonical link consolidates indexing properties from the duplicates, like their inbound links, as well as specifies which URL you’d like displayed in search results. However, rel=canonical can be a bit tricky because it’s not very obvious when there’s a misconfiguration.

While the webmaster sees the “red velvet” page on the left in their browser, search engines notice on the webmaster’s unintended “blue velvet” rel=canonical on the right.

We recommend the following best practices for using rel=canonical:

• A large portion of the duplicate page’s content should be present on the canonical version.

One test is to imagine you don’t understand the language of the content—if you placed the duplicate side-by-side with the canonical, does a very large percentage of the words of the duplicate page appear on the canonical page? If you need to speak the language to understand that the pages are similar; for example, if they’re only topically similar but not extremely close in exact words, the canonical designation might be disregarded by search engines.

• Double-check that your rel=canonical target exists (it’s not an error or “soft 404”)
• Verify the rel=canonical target doesn’t contain a noindex robots meta tag
• Make sure you’d prefer the rel=canonical URL to be displayed in search results (rather than the duplicate URL)
• Include the rel=canonical link in either the <head> of the page or the HTTP header
• Specify no more than one rel=canonical for a page. When more than one is specified, all rel=canonicals will be ignored.

Mistake 1: rel=canonical to the first page of a paginated series 

Imagine that you have an article that spans several pages:

• example.com/article?story=cupcake-news&page=1
• example.com/article?story=cupcake-news&page=2
• and so on

Specifying a rel=canonical from page 2 (or any later page) to page 1 is not correct use of rel=canonical, as these are not duplicate pages. Using rel=canonical in this instance would result in the content on pages 2 and beyond not being indexed at all. 

Good content (e.g., “cookies are superior nutrition” and “to vegetables”) is lost when specifying rel=canonical from component pages to the first page of a series.

In cases of paginated content, we recommend either a rel=canonical from component pages to a single-page version of the article, or to use rel=”prev” and rel=”next” pagination markup.

rel=canonical from component pages to the view-all page

If rel=canonical to a view-all page isn’t designated, paginated content can use rel=”prev” and rel=”next” markup.

Mistake 2: Absolute URLs mistakenly written as relative URLs 

The <link> tag, like many HTML tags, accepts both relative and absolute URLs. Relative URLs include a path “relative” to the current page. For example, “images/cupcake.png” means “from the current directory go to the “images” subdirectory, then to cupcake.png.” Absolute URLs specify the full path—including the scheme like http://.

Specifying <link rel=canonical href=“example.com/cupcake.html” /> (a relative URL since there’s no “http://”) implies that the desired canonical URL is http://example.com/example.com/cupcake.html even though that is almost certainly not what was intended. In these cases, our algorithms may ignore the specified rel=canonical. Ultimately this means that whatever you had hoped to accomplish with this rel=canonical will not come to fruition. 

Mistake 3: Unintended or multiple declarations of rel=canonical 

Occasionally, we see rel=canonical designations that we believe are unintentional. In very rare circumstances we see simple typos, but more commonly a busy webmaster copies a page template without thinking to change the target of the rel=canonical. Now the site owner’s pages specify a rel=canonical to the template author’s site. 

If you use a template, check that you didn’t also copy the rel=canonical specification.

Another issue is when pages include multiple rel=canonical links to different URLs. This happens frequently in conjunction with SEO plugins that often insert a default rel=canonical link, possibly unbeknownst to the webmaster who installed the plugin. In cases of multiple declarations of rel=canonical, Google will likely ignore all the rel=canonical hints. Any benefit that a legitimate rel=canonical might have offered will be lost. 

In both these types of cases, double-checking the page’s source code will help correct the issue. Be sure to check the entire <head> section as the rel=canonical links may be spread apart. 

Check the behavior of plugins by looking at the page’s source code.

Mistake 4: Category or landing page specifies rel=canonical to a featured article

Let’s say you run a site about desserts. Your dessert site has useful category pages like “pastry” and “gelato.” Each day the category pages feature a unique article. For instance, your pastry landing page might feature “red velvet cupcakes.” Because the “pastry” category page has nearly all the same content as the “red velvet cupcake” page, you add a rel=canonical from the category page to the featured individual article. 

If we were to accept this rel=canonical, then your pastry category page would not appear in search results. That’s because the rel=canonical signals that you would prefer search engines display the canonical URL in place of the duplicate. However, if you want users to be able to find both the category page and featured article, it’s best to only have a self-referential rel=canonical on the category page, or none at all. 

Remember that the canonical designation also implies the preferred display URL. Avoid adding a rel=canonical from a category or landing page to a featured article.

Mistake 5: rel=canonical in the <body> 

The rel=canonical link tag should only appear in the <head> of an HTML document. Additionally, to avoid HTML parsing issues, it’s good to include the rel=canonical as early as possible in the <head>. When we encounter a rel=canonical designation in the <body>, it’s disregarded. 

This is an easy mistake to correct. Simply double-check that your rel=canonical links are always in the <head> of your page, and as early as possible if you can.

rel=canonical designations in the <head> are processed, not the <body>.

Conclusion 

To create valuable rel=canonical designations:

• Verify that most of the main text content of a duplicate page also appears in the canonical page.
• Check that rel=canonical is only specified once (if at all) and in the <head> of the page.
• Check that rel=canonical points to an existent URL with good content (i.e., not a 404, or worse, a soft 404).
• Avoid specifying rel=canonical from landing or category pages to featured articles as that will make the featured article the preferred URL in search results.

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10 Things SEOs & SMBs Should Know About New Google Places Dashboard

Recently, Google announced some significant changes to their Google Places dashboard. The wires have been humming ever since, and the reaction has ranged from fall-off-seat excitement to ‘humph, is that it!?’

Whatever the opinion, the truth is that these changes signify a big development in the way Google handles ‘Local.’ Google has been talking up the importance of local for an age, and the increased real estate given to local results in SERPs backs this up. They have also updated and iterated their local product almost more than their main search product in the last 12 months.

But, despite this rhetoric and commitment, Google has given scant attention to how SMBs use and manage their data within maps/Google+ Local.

Tuesday’s announcement changes this. The new ‘Places for Business’ dashboard is all about making life easier and clearer for SMBs to manage their data and promotion within Google’s local products (Maps/Mobile/+Local), and they have really put some thought into solving the backend issues and providing a helpful, consolidated interface.

Hang on… before I go too far with the praise, let me make one thing very clear. This update is also designed to make it easy for SMBs to purchase Adwords Express. Google has struggled to monetize ‘Local,’ and this update puts AdWords Express front and center on the dashboard in the hope that SMBs will start to spend more with them. ‘Google the Benevolent?’ (Yeah, right…)

Listed below are ten things SEOs and SMBs should know about the new dashboard.

1.  Phased Rollout – Many Changes Still To Come

This update has addressed a number of issues which have confused and frustrated SEOs and SMBs for years; but it has not improved all issues and niggles. This is very much a v1.0 for the new dashboard, and there are many more improvements to come over the coming months.

2.  Only Available To New Profiles Or Newly Verified Profiles

The new dashboard is only available for new listings (newly created or newly verified) and not for existing, verified listings. As soon as a listing is verified, they will get access to the new dashboard. However, those of us with existing verified listings will have to wait until the rollout reaches us.

Also, the dashboard is only currently available in the US. Once rollout is complete in the US, then it will jump across to other territories. There’s no clear timeline on this; so, it’s a case of carry on doing what you’re doing and wait till Christmas arrives!

3.  Easier, Faster, Clearer Update Route For Google+ Local Page

This change is a huge improvement – and a big thumbs-up to Google for sorting this out!

The current/old dashboard had a slow and tenuous link to the Google+ Local page with changes made in the old dashboard taking a long time to show up on the visible Google+ listing.

The new dashboard feeds data directly into Google’s updated ‘knowledge graph’ data structure. This enhanced structure makes management of data within Google better, and Google puts more trust in this data.

The upshot for SMBs is that any changes made via the dashboard have greater trust and should go live on their Google+ Local page faster – within 48 hours, according to various sources.

4.  Verification Process Still The Same

Thumbs down on this one, I’m afraid!

The verification process for listings is still the same. Businesses still need to get a PIN via mail, SMS or phone call and enter this into their listings so they can take control of their listing.

But, there is a clearer process for disputed listings. If you want to take control of a listing which is currently claimed into a different Google account. there is a clear, stepped appeal process. Listings can no longer be claimed into multiple accounts, which will greatly reduce confusion over listing ownership and administration.

It also appears (fingers firmly crossed) as if this process is going to be overseen by a dedicated customer support team, which would be a hugely welcome change.

Sources - searchengineland

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Study Finds Google’s Penguin Update Getting Stricter Over Time

A study by Portent, an Internet marketing company, shows that Google’s tolerance of spammy links to trigger a Penguin algorithm ranking drop has declined by 30% since the Penguin algorithm launched.

The study shows that of the 500,000 links found, Google has been steadily reducing its tolerance for webspam. Now, Google is likely to penalize sites with as little as 50 percent suspicious links in their link profiles, whereas 80 percent was required when Penguin first launched.

Portent analyzed about 10,000 links pointing at each of the top 50 sites on the 2012 Inc. 5000 list. They then captured the SEOMOZ and Majestic SEO data for each incoming link. They designed a crawler to score the link as spam based on the page the link is linking to being related to the page the link is coming from. They did this and collected data on more than 250,000 links pointing at penalized sites, and 250,000 links pointing at non-penalized sites.

Here are the results over time:

Source: - Search Engine Land

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Phone Numbers No Longer Allowed in Google AdWords Ad Text

If you want to include a phone number in your AdWords ad, you'll need to use the call extensions feature. Starting in April, Google will begin disapproving any ads that include telephone numbers in the ad text, according to a recent policy update.

The official word from Google:

In the next few weeks, we will no longer allow phone numbers to be used in the ad text of new ads. Advertisers who would still like to promote phone numbers in their AdWords advertising can use the call extensions feature. We're posting this alert now to provide adequate lead time to make ad changes.

In April 2013, we will begin to disapprove ads that were using phone numbers in their ad text before the March 2013 policy change.

While an ad like this is currently showing, once April rolls around that ad will no longer be allowed in AdWords: Sources: - Search Engine Watch

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Google: Sorry We Accidentally Penalized Your Site

Yesterday, Digg was completely delisted from Google's search index. Some thought it was an issue with their robots.txt file, some thought it was a Google bug and some had no idea what to think.

What was it? Google accidentally penalized the whole site. Yes, it was an accident.

Matt Cutts, Google's head of search spam, said on Hacker News, "we were tackling a spammer and inadvertently took action on the root page of digg.com."

Google released an official statement as well:

"We're sorry about the inconvenience this morning to people trying to search for Digg. In the process of removing a spammy submitted link on Digg.com, we inadvertently applied the webspam action to the whole site. We're correcting this, and the fix should be deployed shortly."

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Google Panda: 5 Tips You Should Know

Google Panda is a change to Google's search results ranking algorithm that was first released in February 2011. The change aimed to lower the rank of "low-quality sites" or "thin sites", and return higher-quality sites near the top of the search results. CNET reported a surge in the rankings of news websites and social networking sites, and a drop in rankings for sites containing large amounts of advertising. This change reportedly affected the rankings of almost 12 percent of all search results. Soon after the Panda rollout, many websites, including Google's webmaster forum, became filled with complaints of scrapers/copyright infringers getting better rankings than sites with original content. At one point, Google publicly asked for data points to help detect scrapers better. Google's Panda has received several updates since the original rollout in February 2011, and the effect went global in April 2011. To help affected publishers, Google published an advisory on its blog, thus giving some direction for self-evaluation of a website's quality. Google has provided a list of 23 bullet points on its blog answering the question of "What counts as a high-quality site?" that is supposed to help webmasters "step into Google's mindset". Read more....(wikepedia) 

It’s here. It’s inevitable. It’s called Google Panda, the latest Google’s search algorithm which aims to promote the high quality content site by dooming the rank of low quality content sites. Since its release and updates, many sites have been shown to be terribly affected by the algorithm, but the worst rumor here is, they can do almost nothing to recover the ranking and traffic.

(Image Source: famousbloggers.net)

Although the web haven’t sought out an absolute remedy to the Panda’s update, we all know that Panda is pretty much a content quality filter. We also know a proverb saying, “Prevention is better than cure”, so in this post we are going to provide 5 essential tips to help you to prevent the judgment by Google Panda. Full detail at the jump!

1. Separate Out Low Quality Content

The first and foremost thing you can probably do is to separate out all auto-generated content. Block the indexing and crawling of all low quality content to prevent it from lowering the ranking of your entire site. Low value content can cause the algorithm to slap down your entire site even if a great deal of your content is unique and valuable.

(Image Source: Fotolia)

To know whether your site content is low quality or not, here are some helpful questions asked by Google Webmaster Central Blog to aid you in determining the low quality content:

• Does the site have duplicate, overlapping, or redundant articles on the same or similar topics with slightly different keyword variations?
• Is the content mass-produced by or outsourced to a large number of creators, or spread across a large network of sites, so that individual pages or sites don’t get as much attention or care?
• Are the articles short, unsubstantial, or otherwise lacking in helpful specifics?
• Are the pages produced with great care and attention to detail vs. less attention to detail?
• Does this article have spelling, stylistic, or factual errors?

Interestingly, identical low quality content is particularly endemic across e-commerce websites. For example, why should a pair of audio cables be described differently in each website and in each page on your website? Theoretically to meet the "unique" content guideline every product should be given an unique description and listing to avoid being marked as “low-quality” content by Panda.

2. Focus On Unique Content

As we know the Panda update is aimed to bring the judgment to the content farm and those sites which steal and duplicate, that means in order to prevent Panda from blacklisting you, you have to stop stealing other’s articles, and really focus on creating unique content.

(Image Source: Fotolia)

Try to look at your place in your industry and say to yourself:

• “What is the topic that my readers will be interested about?”
• “What do I offer to my readers that are unique? What about my content is just here and nowhere else?”

Don’t copy or retype out the article from other site, but craft your article out with your own topic and opinion. Details? Check out our post on how to run blogs that inspire.
That sounds pretty much like old school SEO practice, you might ask? The answer is yes, but now it’s the most important SEO practice!

3. Concentrate on Clout & Authority

In Richard Baxter’s article entitled High Quality Web Sites – The New Google Ranking Factor, elements like trust and authority matter in the new Panda update. It may extend to your links, your tweets and your resources related with the site.

(Image Source: SmartBloggerz)

According to the writer, trust could be measured by the links awarded to the article, and the more authoritative the link, the more trustworthy the article. If significant volumes of links aren’t enough just yet, possibly a shorter term solution could be to analyze the social buzz associated with the article, such as Twitter and Facebook.
We often talk about the links, but the site content itself is the critical factor which will attract the authoritative links and judged by Google Panda in the term of authority. On this part, Google Webmaster Central Blog has listed out some questions for you as a guideline to produce what they thought is the “authoritative content”:

• Would you trust the information presented in this article?
• Is this article written by expert/enthusiast who knows the topic well, or is it more shallow in nature?
• Is the site a recognized authority on its topic?
• Would you recognize this site as an authoritative source when mentioned by name?
• Is this the sort of page you’d want to bookmark, share with a friend, or recommend?

So you know, these questions aren’t hard to answer, but challenging when it comes to implementation. Build your content with these questions in mind, and your site will be too good for both Google Panda and your fellow readers.

4. Keep Advertising Ratio Healthy

Sure we all like to be paid for ads, but apply ads with attitude. 3 sponsors at $10K are better than 20 ads at $500. Keeping your ads down to a healthy ratio is not only good with Panda but it also improves your reader’s user experience.

(Image Source: Fotolia)

So you know, ads is totally okay, but no advertisement scheme that will kill your reader’s user experience really fast, in term of visual experience and page loading speed. Healthy advertising ratio is even the reason that your readers will love and recommend your site than those sites with nastily cluttered ads, and by doing so will indirectly raise the trustworthiness and authority of your site.

5. Recognize & Track Panda Updates

Sites hit by Panda will show massive changes especially the page views. When using Google Analytics you will see an epic fall in traffic, that’s the possible sign of Panda. Limiting the search parameters in Google Analytics to the United States market will show the clear result of Panda attack. If you’re unfortunately the victim of the Panda, you can:

1. Implement the changes suggested above.
2. Ask Google to restore your rankings.

Don’t expect immediate improvement because Panda only updates periodically. If you still haven’t reached a Zen-like state of acceptance go and check out Barry Schwartz’s list and Panda archives at Seoroundtable.com or Mark Nunney’s Google Panda Survival Guide, or ultimately the Guidance of Building High Quality Sites by Google Webmaster Central Blog
And always remember that, all of these Panda updates are to remind you that, don’t be evil.

Source: hongkiat.com

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