Popular Articles on Business 2 Community

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• 5 Painless Ways B2B Businesses Can Utilize Google+ For Improved SEO
• A Social Media Field Guide For Small Business Owners (Infographic)
• How to Get Published on Major Sites
• 5 Tips To Improve Content Marketing After Google’s Hummingbird
• Attorney General Lays Down the Law for Social Media
• Content Marketing Lessons from the New York Stock Exchange
• 7 Things You Didn’t Know You Could Do with Google Adwords
• 10 Free Website Analytics Tools – Honest Reviews & Analysis
• What Are Alternatives to Google’s Pagerank? [VIDEO]
• How to Gracefully Transition from Keywords to Topics

5 Painless Ways B2B Businesses Can Utilize Google+ For Improved SEO Posted: 23 Dec 2013 03:47 PM PST Lets face it. Unlike many predicted, Google+ hasn’t died off similar to Google’s past attempt of entering the social media space. In fact, Google+ has now secured a spot in the “big 3″ of the most-utilized social media platforms with a total of 540 million active users (300 million who actively view their activity stream). That’s 2nd to Facebook’s 1.19 billion active users but the rate at which Google+ is growing since it launched it 2011, and the most recent growth rate, is getting some real attention. So, what’s the source of this growth? It’s partially fueled by Google’s new account set-up where YouTube users are now forced to have a Google+ account in order to comment on videos. But another big source of Google+’s continued growth are more and more businesses are coming to the realization they need to drink the Google+ Kool Aid if they want to continue to maintain a healthy organic presence in Google search results. Before you start thinking to yourself, “but, my prospects aren’t on Google+” or “is this really worth my time?”, keep reading. I’m going to breakdown 5 painless ways your B2B business can start to utilize Google+ now to help fuel your business’ SEO in 2014. 1. Create an Optimized Business Page It’s possible your business already has a Google Places page, which shouldn’t be confused with a Google+ Business page. While both page types allow you to populate details about your business (hours, location, reviews, etc.) only Google+ Business pages allow you to connect with other pages and users by adding them to your circles. Google+ Business pages are also better equipped to share content and engage with other users’ content. If you’re looking to create your Business page, you can start the process by clicking here. For a nice rundown on how to merge your Places and Business page, read this helpful article from Search Engine Watch. As you create your page, be sure to optimize it by: Posting a high quality logo file as your main profile image Posting a representative image for your cover photo Writing a descriptive tagline and overview about your business, making sure to include relevant keywords Including links to your website and other social media profiles 2. Get Your Core Team Set-up With User Accounts It’s one thing to be posting new content from your Business page but when your core team is posting new content as well from their own account, you’ll start to really gain some SEO traction. Creating an account takes 2-3 minutes tops and should be optimized similarly to your business page. You can get started here. Each user should add your Business page to their circles (learn more about circles here), add each other to their circles, and then begin posting content. Hopefully your business has a blog that’s updated at least weekly to help fuel what you post. If not, I suggest you get on that! Read this post with tips on creating a blog. 3. Start Using Google Authorship When Posting Content If you’re a frequent user of Google search (aren’t we all?) you’ve probably noticed or clicked on certain search results where the author’s photo appeared by the search result. Wouldn’t you love to have your photo, or your team member’s photo, appear by the content they publish? Well, you can and it’s fairly easy to implement, and it’s proven to help you get more click-throughs to your website – even if you don’t hold the top three positions in the search page. This article will take you through the process step-by-step of setting up your Google Authorship tag: Steps to Implement Rel=Author to Personalize Your Content in Search 4. Frequently Post New Content With any business social media account, it’s easy to forget to keep it up to date or put it on the back burner as other things dominate your time. The same goes with Google+ if you go into it with the mindset that it’s not as important as your Facebook page for example. The truth is it’s very important and so is keeping it updated with fresh content. The more you post fresh content the more this content will get indexed by Google and then show up in search results. Even if you commit to posting something new 2-3 times per week this should only take you a minute or two each time. The key is to manually post the link to this content by copying and pasting it into the status update area of your page (versus using an outside tool such as Hootsuite), which will populate the image and “do follow” link for what you’re sharing (see example below). This is where you’ll get proper link credit which will directly improve your SEO. 5. Join Some Communities In Your Industry or Start Your Own! If you’re looking to put in a little extra effort with the potential of being seen as a true thought-leader in your industry, consider joining some industry-related communities on Google+ and start sharing your wonderful content. If no communities exist, start your own before one of your competitors beats you to it; because you know they will as more of them catch onto the idea. The other benefit is you’ll begin attracting more followers who want to add you to their own circles, which shows Google you’re a credible source of content. The more you’ve been “circled” the better chance you have of ranking in the search results. Conclusion: Social media is what you make of it. It can’t be forced and authenticity is the best. The same goes with Google+. It doesn’t have to be a part-time job though or a painful experience. Putting in a little effort every day or a couple times per week, using these tips, are sure to make an impact on helping your business get found in search and maintain a healthy SEO presence in 2014.

A Social Media Field Guide For Small Business Owners (Infographic) Posted: 23 Dec 2013 03:07 PM PST Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Youtube, Google+, LinkedIn – the social media cloud is diverse and continuously growing. With so many options for small businesses to be on, just how do you decide which social network is worth your time? The infographic by 9 Clouds illustrates the top social media platforms and how they differ by audience and market as well as breakdown the time commitment of each channel so businesses can budget their time adequately. If you're in charge or marketing a business online, it's essential that you get to know the tools your business is using. If your business is looking for "A Digital Yellow Pages" then try Google+. Maybe your business needs a virtual storefront to communicate with customers? That means you need to create a Facebook page. Since each network caters to a different niche, take some time to a look at the infographic to learn which social media mix is right for your business.

How to Get Published on Major Sites Posted: 23 Dec 2013 08:13 AM PST Writers for all of these sites can be connected with on Guest Crew Getting published on a major site is the largest challenge facing content marketers doing blog outreach. Not familiar with content marketing? It is the new “big” way for businesses to raise awareness for their products and services. What you need to know is in an interview I did for Search Engine Journal on Content Marketing Solutions and Best Practices. How to Find Writers on Major Sites The simple solution to getting featured on major sites is to have their regular writers publish about you. Don’t know any? There is a simple solution to that, too. Join Guest Crew and connect with them there. Writers for all of those top sites and more are using Guest Crew, providing you with one community to reach them all. Guest Crew is built on a forum, so it can be a little challenging to learn to navigate. It is worth it, though, because it is the only platform I’ve seen that can get your content onto major sites without you manually contacting multiple writers hoping to find one interested in assisting you. Most writers are not familiar with blog outreach and content marketing so they will not understand and are unlikely to answer. The writers on Guest Crew are waiting to hear from you which greatly decreases the time spent finding the right talent. Why Publish On These Sites? These major sites have very strong audiences. By having their writers cover your story you can reach a much larger audience than you can from your own blog or site. The key to successful content marketing – also known as inbound marketing because you want to use it to get readers “inbound” to your site – is focusing on getting only the highest quality content published where your target customers are already active and interested in what you have to offer. This screen capture made using Moz.com data shows the page authority and MozTrust these major sites have. The higher these numbers, the more people read each site. Listed are the stats for these 5 sites as just an example of the strong websites available only on Guest Crew: Examiner.com The Huffington Post ABC.com BlogHer Lifehack Get published on these top sites (Click image for larger version.) Moz.com stats Contacting existing writers solves another of the major challenges facing businesses interested in getting published on major sites: quality content.  Many sites simply will not publish average content and even if they will, you do not want to waste your opportunity to impress such a large audience. Every piece of content reflects on your brand so you do not want mediocre content when you could be exceptional instead! Hiring Top Writers On Guest Crew you actually provide the content, so unless you’re an exceptional writer you will want to hire top talent.  First you need to understand the difference between average content and what you really want to have produced.  There are agencies producing content that is well written and free of errors, but it doesn’t say anything original. The writers research what is already online and are basically manual spinners – rewording someone else’s content to repurpose it. This type of content is better than content written offshore that doesn’t even make sense, but it is not good enough to garner incoming links and encourage shares on social media. You may have heard people talk about “thought leaders”. They are the people who have vast experience in a particular field of knowledge who write about original ideas, predict where an industry is going, or offer actionable strategies worth implementing. These are the writers you need to hire.  Maybe you’re a thought leader in your own right, but not an accomplished writer. If you are, you can pay a writer to edit what you know, either rewriting your content, or writing from notes you create on the key points you want to make. You can also hire writers who are experts in both writing and your industry. Ideally, they will already have a strong following on multiple social networks so that they can not only write, but also promote what they write for you. You would typically want them to write as themselves to take advantage of their influence. But they do often also work as ghost writers for company owners and CEOs who publish what they write as their own. The best way to find top talent is by referral.  If you know a great writer in your field, contact them and inquire whether they do paid work. If they do, but you can’t afford them, ask them to recommend someone else more in line with your budget.  Top writers in some fields are already getting $500-$1200 per post or article and strong demand is pushing up prices. But it is still possible to hire many excellent subject matter experts for $100+ for just writing to $150+ for published posts. Writers tend to know other writers even in unrelated fields. We are always happy to provide recommendations and personal referrals. Our Blogger Mastermind collaboration has enormous resources for bloggers and dozens of Trello boards where we connect writers (and all other types of experts) with those who need them. If you are a writer who would like to be listed or someone who needs to find a writer, editor, proofreader, or any other type of specialist, just ask. I’m easy to find as my username is GrowMap everwhere including on Skype.

5 Tips To Improve Content Marketing After Google’s Hummingbird Posted: 23 Dec 2013 08:00 AM PST Content Marketing has become even more important with Google's Hummingbird update. For many years, search engines have ranked your web real estate by matching keywords or phrases typed in a search box to keywords that appeared on your blog or web page. Quite simply, search results were based on the user's perspective, but Google decided that words can have very different meanings. In late September, Google announced that it had once again revamped its search algorithm by releasing the Hummingbird. The purpose of this change is to more clearly understand how people think and to consider the various meanings of words or phrases use in the search. Here are 5 tips to improve content marketing after Google's Hummingbird: 1. Content Must Focus On Consumer Needs There is probably no better time to consider customer acquisition through a permission-based marketing strategy. Why? Because it is the consumer who is defining quality content and Google intends to satisfy the consumer. There is little to gain in designing a website or an email campaign to force your message upon people who haven't asked for it. When people use the search, they are looking for a direct answer to a question or useful information on which to base an important decision. For web content to be quality, it must satisfy those needs. 2. Carefully Consider the Language Used In Web Content Even though Hummingbird is geared to mobile and voice search, it will affect the majority of online searches. You need to understand why people are typing a specific word or phrase in the search box? Are there alternative words or synonyms that describe your products or services? In other words, let's say you have a real estate website – what does your site content say about first-time home buyers or problems that might be encountered in buying or selling a home? You must start thinking beyond an exact keyword and focus your content around those ideas. Your customer relationship management techniques must focus as much on the "why" of the search as they do on the "what". 3. Quality Content Needs To Be Shareable Millions of people are sharing ideas, opinions, and other valuable information in social networks everyday. Are you adequately tapping in to this potential social media gold mine? Your web page or blog should be designed to make it as easy as possible for people to share your content with their relatives, friends, and co-workers. 4. Web Content Must Be Interesting and Inviting Professional web content writing does not have to be dull. The Panda and Penguin updates punished websites that contained thin, stale, or irrelevant content, as well as, linking techniques of the same poor quality. People are scanners, not readers, and if they don't find something of interest in the first few seconds, they will be gone. If you feel that defining quality content is difficult, outsource it. 5. Web Content Must Clearly Define Your Brand Your blog and web content must be structured so your visitors can find a definite answer or clear information. They don't want to be directed somewhere else to solve their problem. Don't make people have to guess who you are or what you do. The best content will be totally honest and transparent. Google is making every effort to make search quality better and the Googlebot is now trying to understand the intent of the search. Our challenge is – How can be make a direct relation with our target audience? The key ingredient is relevance and we must learn to think beyond targeting just a few keywords. If you need help in your "connection building" techniques, contact us and we will help you make sure the right message reaches the right audience.

Attorney General Lays Down the Law for Social Media Posted: 22 Dec 2013 09:34 PM PST The pace of social media's explosion is too fast for the law to keep up with breaches of privacy, defamation or contempt of court. Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and other popular social sites are populated by masses who are either ignorant of real world laws or they have a wanton disregard for them. Some people who are informed have fallen foul of the law on social networks because of naivety – thinking that the same laws don't apply online. Several high profile cases in the past couple of years have increased debate about the need for jurisdictional controls on social networks. A lawless society, even on social media, is no good for anyone. Ryan Giggs was embroiled in a scandal in May 2011 when he was identified by more than 75,000 Twitter users as the footballer who had taken out an injunction to prevent revelations of him having an affair. Liberal Democrat MP John Hemming used Parliamentary privilege to break the injunction and announce his name in Parliament – this was to speak out in defence of the Twitter users. Peaches Geldof got herself in trouble for tweeting the identities of mothers convicted in the Ian Watkins paedophile case. She saw the identities online and assumed they were in the public domain when they should not have been. Sally Bercow, the wannabe-celebrity wife of MP John Bercow, ended up paying a reported £15,000 compensation to Lord McAlpine after she defamed him on Twitter. The famous, defamers, namers and shamers Famous people getting into trouble on Twitter is, perhaps, easy to deal with. The are easily identifiable, so when they do something wrong it is easy to take action against them. Ordinary people are a different matter. Many are anonymous, or they at least think they are. This assumed anonymity, coupled with some ignorance of the law and the false sense of security when posting to a computer, has meant a serious testing of the laws. Not forgetting, of course, that the UK's laws have a geographic limitation. Paul Chambers was convicted (overturned after three appeals) of breaching the Communications Act 2003 when he posted a joke tweet threatening to blow up John Lennon Airport. Several people were prosecuted after the 2011 London riots for using Facebook to incite rioting. In some cases, even where no trouble ensued. Attorney General tries to set boundaries The Attorney General, The Rt Hon Dominic Grieve QC MP, has announced that his office is going to publish guidelines for all users of social media. Announcing on Twitter and on the Gov.uk website, Mr Grieve said, "This is not about telling people what they can or cannot talk about on social media; quite the opposite in fact, it's designed to help facilitate commentary in a lawful way. "I hope that by making this information available to the public at large, we can help stop people from inadvertently breaking the law, and make sure that cases are tried on the evidence, not what people have found online." Guidance for companies and individuals on social media This is not legal advice, but here are some legal areas that all companies should be aware of. Employees who break laws on social media in the name of their employer could also lay the company open to legal problems. Defamation The UK defamation law is going through changes, but the notion of what is defamation will essentially be the same. If you defame someone (also called libel in writing, slander when it's spoken), you are disparaging their reputation or reducing their ability to earn money. Blake Lapthorn: Explaining defamation, libel and slander. Contempt of court Contempt of court is essentially where somebody is deemed to have interfered with the administration of justice. An example of this would be where the juror in a trial is tweeting about the trial while it is going on. Find Law: Contempt of court Copyright Copyright exists in any creative work, including writing, photos, drawings, paintings and even quotations. Copyright is automatic in the UK and it is designed to protect anything you create from being copied without your permission. Intellectual Property Office: Types of copyright Take George Clooney's advice? If you want to avoid all this, of course, you could take George Clooney's advice. He told Esquire Magazine that any celebrity posting on Twitter is a "moron".

Content Marketing Lessons from the New York Stock Exchange Posted: 22 Dec 2013 04:00 PM PST The Kapost 50 celebrates the top 50 content marketing brands and to honor these pioneers, we've been diving deeper into the tactics and strategies that landed each of these brands on the list. Today we're talking about the New York Stock Exchange, #6 on our top-50 list. So, why did NYSE make our top content marketers list? In 2013, NYSE jumped into content marketing in a big way with their Big Stage project. What is The Big Stage? It's a storytelling platform that showcases the achievements and stories of the global NYSE community. As Marisa Ricciardi, CMO of NYSE, says: "The Big Stage is a metaphor for the arena supported by the market quality and visibility platform that is distinctly unique to the NYSE. The companies within our global community continue to mark their achievements on our stage and this campaign is designed to explore the unique stories tied to these moments." Why are we so impressed by The Big Stage? Three words: Consistency. Storytelling. Connection. The platform is consistent in its voice, its mission, and the quality of its content. It's driven by storytelling—not sales pitches. And it's focused on connecting with its target audience. What's the strategy here? Of course, to get such a beautiful success on the books so quickly, NYSE must have one fantastic strategy behind it. And from what we've seen and read, that strategy hinges on the idea of connecting with customers instead of selling to them. As Ricciardi says in an interview with AdWeek: "[The Big Stage] helps us engage in conversations with our audience and not just market to them…I think marketing is best served when it doesn't feel like marketing." NYSE also does a few things that will sound familiar to anyone who has been following along with our top marketing brands of 2013 series. Because the brands that are rocking at content marketing? They have a lot in common. For example: They use social media to understand what speaks to people and to hone their strategy. They target their audience, stay on topic and focus on pleasing the right people (not everyone). They use video (in an interview this summer, Ricciardi told CMO.com that video was The Big Stage's most engaging content format). They measure what's successful and use it to inform their strategy. In her interview with CMO.com, Ricciardi also reveals that the site was built using responsive design, so that customers across a variety of technologies can access its content. This is increasingly important moving into 2014, as more users access content through mobile devices. NYSE also publishes a print magazine, still going strong even as they've gone digital.

7 Things You Didn’t Know You Could Do with Google Adwords Posted: 22 Dec 2013 12:00 PM PST Google Adwords is a very powerful tool packed with lots of features to help you get the most out of your search engine marketing efforts. Today we break down some lesser known but highly valuable Google Adwords features to help you maximize your campaign performance. 1) Adwords Bid Strategies Having trouble reaching or maintaining certain acquisition goals? If so, it might be time to check out Adwords Bid Strategies. Since reaching certain goals or maintaining conditions within your Google Adwords campaigns can require constant attention, utilizing bid strategies can help automate some of these tasks for you. As Google sums it up, "Flexible bid strategies automatically set bids to optimize for your performance goals across specific campaigns, ad groups, and keywords." You can manage bids with specific goals in mind: Enhanced CPC, Target Search Page Location, Target CPA, Maximize Clicks, and Target ROAS. For more details on each of the different bid strategies, you can get more info here. 2) Adwords Bid Rules Adwords Bid Rules are similar to bid strategies in some ways. They're both meant for automation of your account, but you set bid rules versus allowing Google to make changes for you based on your end goals. The bid rules option can be found under the bulk operations section underneath the Shared Library. Automated bid rules can be used for a variety of tasks but some of the more common uses include scheduling ads, raising/lowering keywords bids based on certain criteria, as well as getting alerts when specific conditions are met within your Adwords account. 3) Shared library The shared library is where you can find a repository of "lists" which can be shared across your account to modify specific attributes of a campaign. You can share a variety of list including: ads, audiences, bid strategies, budgets, negative keywords and placement exclusions. By simply creating these lists within the library, you can easily share it with other campaign and ad groups in the account. Instead of manually creating or uploading each list for each campaign, quickly share them across the campaigns you need with the Shared Library. 4) RLSA – Remarketing Lists for Search Ads We've mentioned RLSA before in a previous post but many people still aren't aware of this retargeting method. As our post mentioned, RLSA gives you the ability to retarget or "re-show" your search ad to someone who has been to your site before. You can adjust your bid, less or more for that particular user, depending on your paid search strategy. For example, if someone has already visited your site and is searching for your term, this would be a good time to bid less since odds are, they're going to click on your paid ad again regardless, so why not get them at a lower cost? If that user is searching for a product you and a competitor offer, it would be a good idea to bid more for that user because they're still in that discovery phase. To enable the RLSA option, simply go to a specific campaign where you'd like to utilize the feature, and click on the audience section. After you've done that, click on the green remarketing button and start adding audiences to the ad groups you'd like to target. 5) Auction Insights Report The Auctions Insights Report gives you helpful information when it comes to seeing how you stack up against your competitors in the marketplace. When drilling down to a specific keyword or set of keywords, click on the "details" button to bring up the auction insights menu. After selecting your keywords, you will be able to see things like Impression Share, Avg. Position, Position Above Rate, Overlap Rate, and Top of Page Rate. It's always a good idea to see how much overlap you have with your competitors. 6) Ad Extensions Ad Extensions, as also previously discussed, are a quick and easy way of offering more information to searchers. The more information you can offer them at one time is generally better since you're competing against at least six other text ads at a time. Offering them additional site information, contact info, reviews, and social popularity with sitelinks can make all the difference for a click. You can also utilize day parting, which allows you to show different, more relevant extensions at certain times of the day. To utilize ad extensions, simply click on the ad extensions tab within the campaign section of your account and start creating. 7) Dynamic Keyword Insertion Dynamic Keyword Insertion is another effective way to cut down on creating ad headlines, as well as give you the opportunity to more closely match a user's query. This creates more relevancy to the customer, increasing the likelihood that your ad will be clicked. Dynamic keyword insertion is fairly easy to use. Just type the necessary code and the keywords into the ad headline area and Google will automatically fill it with the user's query that matches your keyword like you see in Google's example below. Google Adwords has tons of features that can help move your search engine marketing efforts forward. Not all of these methods work for all businesses, but it's a good idea to check them out and find what works for your business. Got any Google Adwords features you love? Share in the comments.

10 Free Website Analytics Tools – Honest Reviews & Analysis Posted: 22 Dec 2013 11:00 AM PST You must know your competitors’ SEO strategy to improve your own! In 2013, 55% of marketers increased their digital marketing budget and nearly 50% of companies now have a content marketing strategy. What are your competitors doing? If you are planning a website redesign or want to increase page rank, you should be using website analytics tools to see where your website suffers, improve your on-page SEO and see how competitor website analytics stack up. The following tools will analyze: PageRank Website traffic Organic keywords Paid keywords Ads Backlinks Internal and external links XML sitemaps Domain and page authority Meta data and semantics tags Social media Website speed 301 & 302 redirects And more website analytics For Competitor Keywords Use these tools to see what keywords your competitors' are successfully using to drive traffic and develop your own keyword strategy. 1.      Spyfu SpyFu allows you to see the paid keywords and ads from Google Adwords and organic ranking of your competitor's domain. SpyFu Kombat- The free version of this feature allows you to compare two websites for organic and paid keywords. The overlap in the Venn diagram displays the number of keywords that are being used by both websites. Clicking on one of the circles produces a list of keywords to the right. The website history for paid keywords, organic keywords and ad budget are also compared at the bottom of the page.  SpyFu Classic – provides an extensive look into the domain's PPC campaigns, such as cost-per-click, ad position, keyword competition, paid vs. organic traffic, estimated value of organic traffic and other useful metrics. Keyword ad history- shows the frequency a keyword is used in a website's PPC campaign and copy history. Domain ad history- shows you which keywords have been most successful for your competitors. Keyword smart search- shows you related keywords to keywords entered and previous PPC campaigns. 2.      iSpionage iSpionage allows you to compare competitor website keyword data and optimize PPC campaigns.  You can discover competitor data by searching for keywords or domain names. Organic keywords can be sorted by search volume, cost-per-click and top search engine ranking. Paid keywords and ad data also offer a Keyword Effectiveness Index and Ad Effectiveness Index, which analyzes keyword and ad effectiveness based on the duration of use and if it is still being used by the domain. The features of this tool include: Organic keywords Paid keywords Top competitors for organic and paid keywords PPC budget history Suggested keywords Facebook and Twitter mentions Whois website information For Competitor Meta Data and Traffic 3.      PageRank Status This nifty, No. 1 SEO extension for Google Chrome brings dependable page rank, traffic, meta data and more to your screen without you having to leave the current page. It provides: Google PageRank, AlexaRank, Compete Rank and Quantcast Rank Alexa Traffic Rank Meta data (title, meta description, H1, H2, bolding, italics, image alt text, etc.) Number of backlinks Internal and external links (follow and nofollow) Pages indexed by major search engines Page speed Geo IP Location Information Whois Data Social Media stats Cache Stats Site building information And more   For Competitor Indexed Pages 4. The Screaming Frog The Screaming Frog is a downloadable tool that crawls websites for indexed pages, redirects, images, meta data and more. The software allows you to view up to 500 sites per website for free and export data into an Excel format. With this SEO tool, you can analyze acompetitor's keyword strategy in their meta data and internal linking data by downloading their XML sitemap. This tool includes: Page title and length Meta description and length Meta keywords H1 and H2 Inbound links Internal links External links (follow and nofollow) Anchor text Images and alt text URL issues and errors (404, etc.) 301 and 302 Redirects Duplicate pages Crawl as website as Googlebot, Bingbot, or Yahoo! Slurp Custom source code search that helps find content in source code XML sitemap generator And more For Competitor Link Data 5.      Moz – Open Site Explorer Moz's Open Site Explorer tool provides a limited number of daily free reports to guests and free accountholders. With this free website analytics tool, you can view top pages, anchor text linking to website, and compare domain authority, backlinks, and internal and external links of competitors. Free features within Open Site Explorer: Inbound Links – allows you to see where links pointing to your competitor's site are coming from. Top Pages – the top pages on the website sorted by page authority. Linking root domains, inbound links and social media metrics are also displayed. Linking Domains – a list and graph of the linking root domains to the website. Anchor Text – shows the anchor text being used to link to different pages on the website. Compare Link Metrics – compares up to five URLs for link metrics, page authority, sub-domain authority and domain authority. Just-Discovered links - indexes recent tweeted URLs and URLs linked from those tweeted pages. Community members receive 20 free results and guests receive five free results. For Comprehensive Competitor SEO Data 6. SEORCH SEORCH is a fast and free tool that crawls websites for SEO mistakes and suggests improvements. SEORCH focuses on the title tag, meta description, content, and internal and external links, but also covers off-page elements like backlinks and social media. This SEO tool performs a meta data checklist and evaluates if the website content has met or exceeded the optimal range. Keyword frequency, semantics analysis and technical analysis are also presented. Similar to The Screaming Frog, you can crawl up to 150 sites for free and receive a more detailed content and technical analysis. 7.      Web SEO Analytics Web SEO Analytics is the most well-rounded website analytics tool on this list. The drawback is that not all of the reports are free, and the reports that are free have limited information. This website includes an extensive directory that allows you to search websites by tags, find similar websites and view statistics.  Image courtesy of webseoanalytics.com The main features include: Backlink Analysis – reports internal and external links (follow and nofollow), backlinks and anchor text. Link Structure – allows you to optimize your internal links for spiders to better crawl your website and view broken links. Link Popularity – provides a full list of websites who are linking to the website. Keyword Battle – you can enter keywords and URLs and the tool will report the keyword rank for each website. Keyword Analyzer – analyzes your website keywords and identifies the most important. Keyword phrases are chosen by keyword density and frequency. Domain Info – provides domain-related information. Indexed Pages – crawls website to see which pages haven't been indexed by Google, Yahoo and Bing. Reputation Tracker - tracks social mentions and metrics. HTML Validation – checks the validity of URLs according to W3C standards and identifies bad markup language. Duplicate Content – evaluates the percentage of duplicate content on two websites. Site Submitter – submits websites to more than 30 search engines. PageRank Check – checks Google PageRank (PR). Multi DC PageRank – compares website PageRank against different Data Centers from Google. 8. Woorank Although you are only able to run one free website report per week, this tool offers a free trial of unlimited reports to those who sign up, and you can view all previous reports generated. Some of the features include: Overall website grade Top priorities for the website Visitor traffic and demographics Local directory information Social media popularity and metrics Mobile rendering of website and optimization evaluation On-page SEO analysis and checklist Website keywords and competitors Number of backlinks Usability and functionality of website Security and trust metrics Speed and tech information For competitor online marketing strategy 9. HubSpot Marketing Grader HubSpot's Marketing Grader analyzes the overall marketing grade of a website and outlines steps to improve online marketing effectiveness. Blogging- measured by frequency of publication, length of content, optimization of images, use of meta descriptions, number of social shares and likes, and links to landing pages and lead generation forms. Social Media - efficiency is measured by reach, frequency of new published content, follower engagement and social media sharing on website. SEO - website optimization is analyzed by the average number of indexed pages in search engines, MozRank, inbound links, social media activity and meta data. Lead Generation – measured by use of lead capture forms, promotion of offers, marketing automation and analytics tools. Mobile Marketing – mobile device optimization is measured by the website appearance on mobile and proper script. For Competitor Store Grade 10.  Ecommerce Grader Ecommerce Store Grader by Shopify grades website stores on SEO, store usability, content and social marketing, and technical. Although very basic, this tool helps shine light on errors and opportunities for improvement. Choose among these free website analytics tools to discover a depth of your competitors' website marketing and SEO strategy. If you stick to a few of these tools and stay consistent, you will be able to see how the improvements you make on your website compare to the competition over time. If you want to out rank your competitors by optimizing your website content with a blog, start with this free checklist of the Top 10 SEO Tips for Blogging.

What Are Alternatives to Google’s Pagerank? [VIDEO] Posted: 22 Dec 2013 06:30 AM PST It's been publicly said by Matt Cutts that Google is no longer interested in updating Pagerank. So how are SEOs and webmasters now supposed to evaluate a website's relevance and authority? In this video you will find some viable Pagerank alternatives that contain great data, and remind us that we shouldn't ever rely solely on one metric. Transcript Hi. My name is Brynna. And today, we're going to talk about some of the alternatives to PageRank. So Matt Cutts publicly said at Pubcon that they're not interested in updating PageRank because Google has other projects that they're working on. So that kind of leaves all the webmasters and SEO firms out of the loop when they're trying to evaluate websites to use for link building campaigns, research, or guest posting their own site even. How did they know how they stack up to their competitors? We're in a post-Panda and Penguin era. So we need to be conscious of looking at a site holistically, and we shouldn't be using just one metric to begin with. But since we are so used to using metrics, we need to look at a few of these things. We need to be looking at the trust of a site, the traffic, the social media presence, their backlinks. There are a thousand factors that we could be looking at. Luckily, some firms and useful Open Source projects have been created so that we know all of these things in one easy-to-use tool. So here are some of the metrics that you can use if you're struggling without PageRank. So one of the alternatives that we can use to PageRank is called MozRank. And it's actually been around for quite some time. It was invented by Moz, formally SEOmoz. And it runs on a scale of one to ten. So it's an easy conversion from PageRank. It also uses a very similar set of factors to what PageRank use to measure their own criteria. So it's a very easy conversion. The numbers are still very similar. And they make that publicly available. There are plenty of plug-ins, and there's an API you can even use. An alternative metric is called CEMPER Power. And it was developed by the people over at CEMPER Tools. CEMPER Power uses the backlinks pointing to a site to measure actually how powerful boost it has. And it can pass on to your site. If you're doing things like guest posting or link building services, this is a pretty powerful tool that you can use to guess how much you're going to get out of this link. They probably come out and said that it might not be the best metric, so they have tacked on their CEMPER Trust. So you have CEMPER Power and Trust, which actually looks into the trust of the website in addition to the backlinks. So you get a really full-fledged kind of view of the entire website including its backlinks, which a lot of tools leave out, unfortunately. The downside to CEMPER Power and Trust is that you do need to buy the plan in order to see individual sites more in depth. But they do provide some free tools that you can use, but they're not quite as good as others, potentially. And the final tool that I'm going to mention is called Citation Flow and Trust Flow developed by the people over at Majestic SEO. So Citation Flow, it also takes into account the backlinks because using it's using the citations. So if you're writing a paper or doing a guest post, normally, you link to authoritative sources, enhance your developing backlinks for those authoritative sources. So the Trust Flow is a little bit different. But the Citation Flow looks at just how many backlinks does a site have with a few other metrics and how often it's happening. Not just how many but how often because the more authoritative you are, the more often people are going to link to you. Whereas, the Trust Flow actually looks at how authoritative the sites that are linking to you. So it might only be a few PR9s linking to you. But that's still a pretty powerful metric. The important thing to know about these is that they are free. And you can use them in a free plug-in that is downloadable through Majestic SEO's site. So some important things to remember from this video is that you can't just use one metric. We never should have been relying on just one metric. There shouldn't come as too much of a surprise to you. But just in case you are, PageRank is no longer good as a metric. And we need to look at other things like social presence, actually looking at the website, making sure there's not too many ads on the website, making sure that there's engagement and following, manually checking perhaps some of the backlinks. But there are other metrics that make these a nice, tidy package that you can use. So check out Moz and CEMPER tools and Majestic SEO for just a few of my favorite tools that can kind of replace PageRank.

How to Gracefully Transition from Keywords to Topics Posted: 22 Dec 2013 06:00 AM PST Since Google recently switched all of its keywords to "not provided," many SEOs have been frantically searching for a new way to conduct keyword research. But is finding alternate ways to acquire keyword data really the best solution to this problem? Yes, you still need to find some creative ways to gather information on keywords, but perhaps this update actually signaled a widespread shift towards focusing on topics instead of keywords. From Keywords to Topics So what does it mean to base your SEO strategy on topics instead of keywords? By topics, I mean of course entire queries instead of just the one or two keywords that SEOs traditionally focus on in a query. Essentially, emphasizing topics allows you to use a more holistic approach to SEO. I know this is a radical change for SEOs who have relied on keyword data every single day for years on end, but we have to keep up with Google! Think about it this way – this is essentially what Google is trying to do with the Hummingbird update. Hummingbird allows Google to better process the deeper meaning behind any given query because it looks at the whole phrase and tries to understand any synonyms or double meanings that might be applicable. Don't get me wrong – keywords are still a valid part of your SEO strategy, but they simply don't have quite as much weight as they used to. It's time for SEOs to begin focusing on the big picture instead of getting bogged down by focusing on individual keywords. What Could Be More Important Than Keywords? To put it simply, user experience is far more important than keyword research, and in the end, an SEO strategy based on topics creates a far better user experience than those based on keywords. A great user experience is based on relevant, useful content that is present on a well-designed site. There are a variety of ways to conduct research based on topics instead of keywords. For instance, many SEOs are turning to Twitter's "trending topics" to get an idea of what topics and queries might be popular at the moment. Google Trends can also provide insight into topics that are currently generating interest. The End Result This change is actually great news for content providers. Writers are now freer to use natural language as they deal with fewer restrictions based on keyword requirements. Even better, content based on topics should now be based on how you would communicate in real life, which allows for even more freedom for content writers. For SEOs, this shift allows you to essentially create your own keywords based on the language that is most relevant to your business. Study the intent behind any queries that are related to your business and develop a keyword or topic strategy that targets the interests of those searchers. "Not provided" keywords give you license to unleash your creativity as you build a content strategy for 2014! How do you plan to cope with the shift to "not provided" keywords?

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