And while getting other, external sites to link back to your content is not always certain, and doing so abusively can get you banned from Google’s index, there is one important SEO technique you can use that’s completely within your control – it’s linking, internally, within your own site’s relevant posts, pages, and content.

There are three important reasons to do this:

• Usability - Linking relevant content internally allows people to get more information, particularly to linked words and concepts that are better explained at greater length on other pages
• Passing Page “Authority“ – Google sees pages that are older, more established, and more linked to as having more equity, and therefore, as worthy of ranking higher for certain keywords. You can pass that “authority” from one page in your site to another by linking to it
• Anchor Linking Keywords for Equity - In Google’s eyes, the specific keywords that are linked, and the page they link to, will also play a large role in how well those pages rank for those keyword phrases

For these reasons and more, internal (also known as “deep”) site linking is a key fundamental tool that any site owner/manager should spend time on a regular basis doing.

Internal Site Linking Strategy

As noted above, when linking internally within your site, your goal will be to link specific keywords to relevant content. This will reinforce those pages as having value and authority for the keywords represented.

Anchor Link Text is Crucial

In our experience with working with clients, we’ve found the most linked-to words throughout the Web are “click here.” Beginners and most corporate people typically relegate the link text itself to a generic “click here,” unaware of the critical importance of the linked “anchor” words.

For example, clients often come to us with page links that look like this:

To read a complete breakdown of content marketing ideas sure to bring large amounts of traffic and recognition, click here.

While Google can read and index your text, the only link authority and clear ranking signal that’s being passed from the current page to the linked page is the text labeled “click here.”

The difference in the value of this anchor link text should be immediately apparent:

Click here to read a complete breakdown of content marketing ideas sure to bring large amounts of traffic and recognition.

The search engines now have a chance to understand that the keywords “breakdown, content marketing, ideas, traffic, recognition” are associated with the linked page.

As with most tools and techniques, it requires balance- you don’t want to link every word. We’ve come up with a rough estimate of around one link per 100 words, or five per 500 words, will improve both your users’ experience, and your search engine optimization. And don’t “spam” by repeatedly linking the same word to the same location many times. Once is enough.

Key takeaway: Internal site linking is one of the main on-site techniques to build internal SEO value. Whenever linking, put some thought into what a user might want more information about, and then crafting a relevant phrase to link from.

Do you regularly go back and link your new pages and posts back to relevant older material? Have you done this, and had success? Let me know in the comments below…

Image: Oslo, Norway subway map via Flickr at http://www.flickr.com/photos/magnetbox/4575030/

Is your PPC campaign making or costing you money?

First marketing issue is your PPC bounce rate. We like to work in the below 20% bounce rate range. Higher rates indicate that the destination page does not connect with what enticed them to click in the first place. If the arrival page does not quickly connect with the just seen and clicked on text ad, the prospect will quickly click away from your site (i.e., “bounce”). The most common error we see with our clients’ unoptimized PPC campaigns is that they direct all clicks back to their site’s homepage. Few homepages connect the arrival page with the clicked-on keyword message. You will need to set up conversion tracking to monitor keyword clicks to the site. If the bounce rates are too high, it means that you’re not connecting the dots for your readers, and your marketing expenses and opportunity are lost.

Solving the problem can be as easy as either linking the PPC ad to more relevant pages within the site’s existing structure, or specifically creating landing pages that more closely connect to your keyword ad messages in your visitor’s minds. Really great landing pages can convert business by themselves. They deliver the clear “call to action” about your product or service and build excitement, provide more information, outline benefits or features and close the sale. Optimizing these landing pages can generate organic search traffic, increase quality score, and drive more ROI to search marketing.

Marketers who have failed or have limited PPC results should re-examine their programs and go beyond keyword selection to address the entire PPC conversion cycle and all its marketing points. Understanding the entire PPC process can take a paid keyword program from an expense to a ROI superstar.

Google Analytics - One great tool for better SEO

The best place to start a search engine optimization program begins with a comprehensive review of your website analytics. For Strategic Domain, knowing the search terms that delivered visitors to your site and what information they were looking for are the hidden jewels for SEO among all the data points.

Reviewing information from services like Google Analytics can provide SEO insights about what keywords and which search engines bring visitors to your website.  It helps you understand the value of each keyword by how productive they are in generating traffic, achieving goals or generating acquisitions. You can use these words as the basis for development of related keyword phrases for content development, search engine optimization and paid keyword campaigns.

As part of your analysis, you need to determine what happened once these keywords have been used to reach your website. The largest driver of visits could also produce the highest bounce rates. The analytics should be reviewed for time on site, content that was viewed, and related pages or links that were accessed. These keywords can also help determine the need to have long tail keywords in your search engine optimization and marketing mix.

Just as important to search engine optimization is your internal site search. This provides clues to what people are searching for on your Web site. By reviewing these terms you can determine what keyword phrases to target and generate additional site visits. Equally important is learning if your visitors are finding the information they seek or is that content missing from your website.

This is a first step for SEO that is filled with valuable knowledge about your website and how it is interacting with search engine visitors. Strategic Domain’s search engine optimization blog will provide more in future posts about how website analytics are your best friend in helping to plan and understand search engine marketing.

This fact is surfacing on the Web as technology now enables everyone, and I do mean everyone, to add videos to their Web site — professional and personal sites. The recent comScore online video data reflects this ubiquity. Here are just a few of the key points reported for the month of Dec. ‘09:

• Very high penetration –
  • 86% of the total U.S. online population viewed video content
• Individual usage grew significantly –
  • 95% increase in number of videos by the average viewer (95.7 vs. 186.9 videos per person)

This data is encouraging as it says that Web visitors have made online videos a part of the norm. This also suggests that marketers can and should capitalize on this new way to communicate on their Web sites and online in general.

In addition to improved messaging, on-site videos can help improve your search engine rankings, particularly if you initially install them on YouTube.

A number of our clients share our vision for using videos on their Web sites to more effectively tell their story. One of our clients recently purchased 3 inexpensive video cams and sent them to groups within his organization to start capturing content that can be used on their Web site.

Here are a couple of things to keep in mind when building your video strategy:

• Use and script videos to reinforce your site’s core messages.
• Insert a video player (YouTube or other) on your home page and link it to a lower level page that has relevant content.
• Keep videos short. (comScore reports the average length increasing to about 4 minutes. We strive for even shorter lengths – Google typically uses 1-2 minute videos for their own products and services – Less is more!)

And remember, adding video to your Web site can become a very valuable part of your search engine optimization (SEO) effort. By adding tags to the video, search engines (and Google for sure if you use their YouTube) will enhance your chances of high rank.

To solve this problem, we brought the groups together on a monthly basis. Using our keyword research and mapping techniques, we were able to demonstrate the need for integration. As a result, recent content changes are delivering more traffic than before and top rankings are growing. The bottom line is that high value keyword phrases generate more traffic.

One of our healthcare clients decided to redesign their Web site. Their advertising agency wanted to reposition the product claim and eliminate the top traffic-driving keyword phrase for a disease category.  The advertising agency wanted a “consumer-friendly” term to be used.  Our keyword research indicated that the Web site would lose tens of thousand visitors per month by eliminating this keyword phrase plus lose top positions on search engine rankings. We put a full court press on the senior manager to review our findings and we stopped this change.

When facing the challenge of bringing separate client teams together for SEO, we demonstrate the power of using keyword research to create keyword-enriched copy that increase search engine rankings.  By creating a shared vision for the role of search engine optimization, SEO can be easily integrated into all online marketing strategies.

Google has built a $23 Billion dollar business by understanding what their users want or will want in the near future – think about the YouTube acquisition!

Google has built an important user franchise for their Google Maps, the ultimate “local search engine offering”. Every day, this terrific tool helps millions of searchers find local locations of restaurants, doctors, paint stores, building contractors and drug stores in their neighborhood. Google has the database that tells them a whole lot about what people want to find locally online.

Not surprising, there is data to support this fast-growing activity in Local Search. Nielsen (2009) reported that 72% of consumers are using search engines more often to find a local business or service. Compared to other options, only 16% said they were using Yellow Pages more. This speaks volumes about what is happening to the traditional Yellow Pages franchise.

Google and search engines in general are quickly becoming the default method that people use to search for local information and with a map to boot.

When you add in the increasing wave of mobile device usage, the trend becomes even clearer.

Marketers need to recognize this seismic shift, particularly if they market through a network of locations like stores and offices. Determining how to create Local Search programs, both in search engine optimization (SEO) or paid keyword programs (PPC), is now a critically important marketing tool and medium. Not acting on this shift, is a very big missed business opportunity. And, it may be an opportunity that competition is pursuing.

Having said that, one has to also pause and wonder whether Google is threatened by this move. I don’t think so.

The key to Google’s whopping 65% market share (and 70% by some estimates) is not the offering of free news. That’s a nice added benefit but not a driving force.

The driving force is Google’s extraordinary commitment to, and delivery of, a high quality user experience. They have spent years honing their speed and accuracy in delivering answers to a search engine user’s queries. At the moment, there is no one better doing this and that is why they hold their dominant share in spite of competitor innovation.

We still continue to place most of our client budgets on Google, but we also see roles for Bing and Yahoo in those buys. This could change in the future, but that decision will be primarily driven by further innovation of the search engine user experience.

One last note. There are some who speculate that Murdoch’s discussions with MS’ Bing are really a negotiating ploy to create fear in Google’s corporate suite, and thereby, move them to pay News Corp. a fee for their news feeds. Given Google’s devotion to the user experience as the ultimate driver of their business, I doubt the recent events will make them nervous.

Given this is a core competency for Strategic Domain, we were able to help the PR firm drive our shared client’s content to appear on the first pages of the leading search engines. Our approach to SEO collaboration ensured a very productive joint effort with the PR firm to deliver the desired results for our client.

From this experience, we became curious about whether PR agencies were employing SEO protocols effectively. One of our search analysts reviewed 25 PR agency Web sites to see whether they had optimized their own corporate Web site to rank well on search engines. Our analyst canvassed a range of firms, small, medium and large.

To our surprise, none of the 25 PR agencies had effectively optimized their own Web site — even though they claimed to provide digital services and more specifically with some, SEO capabilities. In all fairness, some of these sites had a few SEO protocols in their code. But frankly, not enough to do the job. PR is a very competitive industry and being able to deliver search engine rankings could be critical to keeping or gaining new clients.

As I’ve suggested in earlier posts, talented Web designers and programmers may have some knowledge in this area, but SEO is not their core competency. These firms lack the staffs that live and breathe SEO everyday with many clients. And, they don’t have a tightly disciplined analytics program in place to measure success and failure on a regular basis.

Our experience is that to be successful in SEO, you have to be committed to integrating SEO into the fabric of the company and embrace all of the current protocols. This means maintaining a high level of vigilance with the continual stream of algorithm changes that flow from Google and the other leading search engines. Alternatively, finding a partner who has a solid SEO practice can be a quick and efficient way to solve this problem when PR firms are charged with building Web sites for their clients.

The biggest impact will not come from MSN’s Bing™ and Yahoo!® signing a deal, if approved by federal regulators that will allow them to share Bing’s new search engine capabilities. At issue is the reality that the search results seen on Bing will be the same results shown when searching on Yahoo!. Web sites that have not optimized for Bing will be at a disadvantage.

Keep in mind that Yahoo! is much more than a search engine with tons of content and online services. Although Bing’s name is being leveraged across other Microsoft content sites (farecast.com has become Bing.com/travel,) Bing is a search engine similar to Google®. Importantly, the algorithms and thinking that we previously used for Yahoo! search will no longer apply. The specific needs of Bing’s algorithm will be controlling your site’s search ranking on Yahoo!.

Google, not to be outdone has raised the bar by streamlining the search process to offer quicker and more relevant search results. We are seeing search results returned in half the time on the beta model of Google Caffeine. Our research is revealing that the new Google will focus on keywords as a more important part of its new algorithm (and we don’t mean the keywords contained in Meta data.)

These new search engine algorithms require more than just entering Meta data and page titles. Marketers must now be able to combine page formatting and page content to support high value keyword phrases. As a result, there will be more reliance on semantic organization and keyword-richness of the content. It also means that videos and Flash will need to be supported by alternate content that integrates the same type of organization and keyword-embedded content.

In looking ahead, Web sites that are not professionally optimized for search engines will suffer in rankings. Marketers can no longer rely on design-driven Web sites to deliver the ROI expected. With the increasing importance of Web marketing, companies must not risk their search engine optimization (SEO) to poorly trained or misguided designers and inexperienced agencies. If agencies don’t specialize in search engine optimization and provide the proof that they deliver results to many clients or have command of the latest standards, then marketers owe it to themselves to seek professional help (this last phrase is intended to have the double meaning you think it does.)

You can prevent your Web site becoming a casualty of the search engine wars. Start by choosing the right SEO partner that understands the changes in search engine algorithms and it will help you succeed as the major search engines battle it out.

From experience, I know that companies occasionally consider this as a viable option. After all, they think that they’ll save money and better manage the SEO effort.

I’ve learned that this is rarely the reality. IT staffers are usually working the with tight time allocations. As a result, SEO becomes a “part-time” commitment.

SEO is no longer a short-term activity managed by occasional IT support. To the contrary, successful SEO campaigns are carefully and continually managed over many months and ideally, the course of the year.

Deciding whether to execute an SEO program in-house or alternatively, with an agency that has proven ability to execute SEO should be considered very carefully.

Here are three points I shared with the prospective client:

1. Agencies build up a very valuable knowledge base by serving many clients. This includes knowledge about search engine algorithms and protocols. There are few industries or practice specialties that are subject to the on-going and frequent change like search engines. A stream of new adjustments to their algorithms is common place. What worked six months ago, may not work today.
2. Top tier SEO agencies have developed a range of tools that provide valuable diagnostic information to determine if a site is search engine friendly, content opportunities as well as tracking rankings and competitors. These tools are regularly tested with a wide range of agency clients.
3. SEO agencies provide the rigor of systematic analytical reports. This establishes a way for clients to regularly keep an eye on what they are getting for their investment with the agency. In-house reporting tends to be pushed to the bottom of the client projects lists.

No doubt, some client companies do have success managing this function in- house. In fact, Marketing Sherpa’s survey several years ago indicated that on average, in-house practitioners achieved a 38% increase in traffic to their Web site. Not bad. But, the survey went on the report those companies that used an agency achieved a 110% increase with their efforts.

If SEO is important to a company and their Web site is viewed as a contributor to its business success, then clients must carefully consider the trade offs of going in-house.