Twitter is arguably the most popular and powerful social media platform of the day. Promoting your product or service on Twitter is essential in 2014, particularly if your target demographic is the 30-and-under group. Consumers expect to see relevant businesses successfully utilizing the platform to promote their brands.

Twitter now offers advertisers several options for promoting their brands on the platform. Promoted tweets, trends and accounts offer advertisers a wide range of opportunities for raising the profile of their products and services on the Twitter platform.

Promoted trends and tweets can display in the timelines of users who are targeted using several methods. Ads may be targeted to users who search for a specific term or hashtag. Ads can also be targeted to users based on cookie data stored in their browsers. For example, if a Twitter user visited a particular brand site that saved cookies in his browser, advertising software can be configured to respond to the user’s past visit to the brand’s site with a targeted tweet for the brand on Twitter.

Promoted Tweets

The most basic form of paid advertising on Twitter is the Promoted Tweet. A promoted tweet is targeted to one or more audiences, and the post is highlighted in users’ timelines. Promoted tweets can appear in users’ timelines as the result of searching for a particular hashtag or search term, or the ads can appear in timelines of users identified as being a member of a targeted demographic. Users do not need to follow the brand account to receive paid tweets in their timelines.

Cost-Per-Engagement

Twitter utilizes a cost-per-engagement price structure to charge for promoted tweets. Advertisers are only charged when users interact with the post. In other words, the advertiser only pays for the ad if users click on the post, reply to, favorite or retweet the post.

User Privacy

Promoted tweets appear at the top of users’ timelines when the page refreshes to accommodate new tweets. The “Dismiss” icon appears next to a promoted tweet so that users have the option to delete the tweets from view. Users can also completely disable promoted tweets by deactivating the option in their Twitter settings. Additionally, the Twitter platform supports the Do Not Track (DNT) feature, so users who have configured their browsers for DNT will not see tweets based on their saved cookie data.

Promoted Trends

Promoted trends are sponsored hashtagged topics that advertisers can purchase to expand their reach on the platform. Promoted trends display at the top of users’ Trends list on their timeline pages. The word “Promoted” displays next to the tagged term. When the user clicks on the hyperlinked term, a search results page with tweets tagged with the promoted tag opens. The user can then save the search by clicking the “Save” option in the upper right corner of the search results page.

Analytics

Twitter provides a unique dashboard for each promotion type. The dashboard provides the business user with analytic tools and performance indicators with which you can assess the performance of your campaigns.

Efficacy Comparison

Analysts report that tweets and trends targeted based on searches are more effective than tweets that display in users’ timelines. This assertion stands to reason because users who are actively searching for a certain topic will be more likely to respond to an ad promoting a brand relative to the topic they are researching. Note that targeted tweets based on searches receive considerably less exposure than those blasted to timelines of the target audience.

Promoted Accounts

Marketers can also advertise with promoted Twitter accounts. Promoted accounts are devoted entirely to a brand, and can be timeline-based or configured to respond to user searches, as well. Additionally, promoted accounts display in users’ “People to Follow” lists. The main goal for many with promoted accounts is to build a follower base for the brand’s Twitter account. Research shows that users who follow brand accounts are much more likely to engage with the brand, both on the platform and in terms of product purchases. One study found that Twitter users who follow a brand are 72 percent more likely to purchase the brand, and 85 percent of users feel more connected with the brand when they follow the business on Twitter.

Followers

When advertisers promote a brand account on Twitter, the goal of most is to attract followers. Followers are important to a brand’s Twitter account for a few reasons. First of all, accounts with a large number of followers get noticed on the platform. Studies find that 73 percent of users who follow a brand account do so to obtain timely updates about the product or service. Sixty-one percent follow a brand in order to provide feedback and share ideas with the company.

Beyond Followers

Promoted accounts get noticed even by those who do not follow the brand. Thirty-four percent of users in one study interacted with a small to medium sized business based on seeing the business’ Twitter handle in an ad. Moreover, 32 percent indicated that they would be more likely to use the business or purchase the product as the result of seeing a paid tweet.

Reaching a Target Audience

Twitter now supports advertisers’ CRM contact lists for creating targeted audiences on the platform. Businesses working with Twitter ad partners can cross-reference email addresses from CRM systems with addresses associated with Twitter handles. Promoted tweets can then be created to display only to these high potential leads.

CRM

If your CRM system collects Twitter handles or IDs from leads and customers, advertisers can utilize publicly available information, such as users’ profiles, followers list and public timelines to create a targeted audience list.

Twitter Ad Partners

Twitter works with several companies to provide integrated ad services to businesses of any size. As of early 2014, Twitter’s ad partners include:

• – Adara
• – AdRoll
• – BlueKai
• – Chango
• – DataXu
• – Dstillery
• – Lotame
• – Quantcast
• – ValueClick
• – [x+1]

Getting Started

Twitter provides an online tool to help advertisers get started promoting their brands on the platform. Just open the Twitter Business Start Advertising page in a browser and answer a few questions. Create a business account, or add advertising functionality to your existing account, if prompted. Provide payment information. You must have a payment source on file in order to create your first campaign. Identify where your business is located, and then select a general monthly budget for your digital advertising campaigns.

Take advantage of Twitter creative partners and advertising consultants if you need assistance identifying your target audience and creating a campaign that will generate a significant ROI. You also have the option of exploring the well-documented processes for advertising on the platform, then moving at your own pace to create and conduct your campaigns. Remember that, with Promoted Tweets, your account is only charged when users interact with your ad. Explore the possibilities and get your brand known on this year’s hottest, most influential social media platform.

Google Adwords is a popular online advertising platform that places various ads on Google’s search engine as users search for specific keywords. The advertisements appear at either the top, bottom, or side of search results after the user makes a specific query. Several factors determine the placement of the ad. The relevance of the keywords and the amount paid per click are both determining factors in the rankings of paid keywords. Google is the world’s premier search engine with millions of users per day. Because of this, Google Adwords is the company’s primary source of income. In 2012, Google’s total advertising revenue totaled 42.5 billion dollars.

Google offers three payment platforms for potential advertisers: cost-per-click (CPC), site-targeted advertising, and cost-per-mille (CPM). Cost-per-click is the most commonly used platform, as Google only charges the advertiser between a few cents and a few dollars for each individual click the advertisement receives. The cost-per-mille platform charges advertiser for every thousand impressions the ad makes. The site-targeted advertising platform places targeted images, banners, and media ads on specific sites. Ranging from local, national, to international distribution, Google Adwords is unanimously the most popular search engine advertising campaign on the Internet.

SEO, as you well know, is the systematic process of increasing visibility and traffic of a certain website using organic or natural methods, which makes the primary goal of search engine optimization is to increase the page rank of a certain website. SEO techniques vary depending on the website and the search engine being optimized for. Each search engine uses a different algorithm for ranking, so it is important to do proper research before altering the content of your website for SEO purposes. Search engine optimization involves the alteration of content and HTML code to increase relevance for specific keywords. Additionally, increasing the total number of backlinks and inbound links is another popular search engine optimization technique.

That being said, web analysts often speculate on the effectiveness of search engine optimization vs paid advertising generated by Google Adwords. Purists are firm in believing that the two techniques are completely independent and do not compliment each other. However, a small minority believes that including a Google Adwords campaign increases organic traffic generated by search queries. Truthfully, the organic traffic of a particular web page is completely separate from the traffic generated from Google Adwords.

There is a reason Google is the most popular search engine in the world.

If Google awarded more organic traffic and increased page rank for paying customers, competitors like Yahoo, Bing, and Ask.com will gain considerable market share. Google does a good job at maintaining the integrity of its results by separating paid traffic from organic traffic. The executives at Google realize that seasoned users of search engines differentiate between paid advertising and organic search results. In fact, they often recognize the fact that the paid advertisements are not usually relevant to the keyword they are searching for because the advertiser paid a significant amount of money for the ad placement.

Why Adwords has no effect on organic traffic

A study conducted by Search Engine Journal proves that Google does not award organic traffic to paying customers. Using an app called Google Webmaster Tools, a comprehensive report was generated for pre-selected websites to prove where the majority of their traffic originated. The report concluded that websites with no Adwords campaigns generated traffic from organic clicks, or the total number of click-throughs on a website for a particular query. Organic traffic was also measured by organic click per query, which measured the total number of clicks divided by the total number of website appearances in search engine results pages. The report compared websites with Adwords campaigns to websites without paid advertising and concluded that an Adwords campaign has no effect on organic search results.

SEO vs AdWords

Website owners realize that visibility from search engines account for a significant amount of traffic. Web developers are often conflicted when devoted limited resources to either search engine optimization or paid traffic via Google Adwords. Effective SEO usually involves the use of a marketing firm. However, enlisting the help of a marketing firm is very expensive and not always 100% effective at increasing traffic.

For example, a reputable marketing firm may demand up to $2,000 per month for search engine optimization. By forgoing external marketing firms, web developers spend a significant amount of time on search engine optimization. While generating traffic is a priority, the time used for optimizing keywords and adding backlinks can be used on creating more relevant content and marketing on social media networks. The alternative to SEO is paying Google for traffic. The cost of Google Adwords varies on the specific keyword being paid for. Popular keywords will obviously cost a lot more than niche or longtail keywords. Before focusing on one specific traffic-generating technique, one must consider the products being sold at the particular website being promoted.

High-end products and services with significant markup such as jewelry, legal and financial services, cars, and home renovation may benefit from search engine optimization. Because the return on investment for expensive services and products are so high, minute increases in traffic due to search engine optimization is well worth the effort. For example, if a financial firm gets one click-through generated by SEO and charges $900 for their services, the company will still generate respectable revenue. The same cannot be said for low-end products like clothing and silverware. The volume of traffic needed to see the same return on investment is much greater and the time invested in search engine optimization may be considered wasteful. SEO techniques take a significant amount of time before the user sees an increase in traffic. In fact, many organic traffic campaigns take up to six months to see positive results.

An Adwords campaign takes a lot less time to see a return on investment. Increases in traffic can be seen in 24 hours. In addition to this, some keywords only cost a few cents per click, making it a financially viable option for small business owners. Optimally, both SEO and Google Adwords should be used simultaneously to generate results. While search engine optimization takes time to increase traffic, web developers can see an immediate return on their investment via Google Adwords. By the time the SEO campaign sees a return on investment, Google Adwords would have already increased visibility. The two techniques will eventually compliment each other and the web developer should see an exponential increase in website traffic.

Use WebMaster Tools for Traffic Analysis

Google offers a free program called Google Webmaster Tools to analyze the effectiveness of your website’s advertising campaign. Google Webmaster Tools allows users to see how much traffic is generated from each keyword. Using this tool, web developers can tweak their advertising campaign and stop spending money on keywords that don’t generate traffic. Conversely, undiscovered keywords can be optimized or paid for in order to increase traffic. The program is completely free to use and is a necessity for an effective website advertising campaign.

In conclusion, years of evidence and web page analysis have proven that a Google Adwords campaign has no effect on organic traffic. Google rightfully chooses to maintain the integrity of its search algorithm by not rewarding paying customers with higher page ranks. Because of this, paid advertising is completely separate and denoted by a yellow highlight banner. Small businesses benefit from the affordability of Google Adwords as opposed to hiring an external SEO marketing firm. Additionally, users will see faster results via Google Adwords as SEO takes time to materialize results. If your budget permits, it is recommended to use both of these traffic-generating techniques. While, Google Adwords benefits in the short term, the strength of effective search engine optimization cannot be underestimated. Websites ranked on the first page of Google obtain the status solely through SEO and often maintains the position on the first page for years. Because of this, SEO should not be ignored. The most profitable websites use both techniques: Adwords for short-term traffic and SEO for long term visibility.

Over time, Google has released hundreds of changes to its search engine. It doesn’t take a genius to see what has been happening to keyword data. Unfortunately, Google wasn’t very vocal about the changes that were being made to keyword data.

Webmasters first noticed the change quite some time ago. Upon reviewing their website analytics, webmasters started to see keyword data encrypted, which means they weren’t able to see what keywords organic visitors were using to find their website.

When Google first started encrypting search activity, not all keyword data was encrypted. However, it didn’t take long before Google decided to make the switch to fully encrypted search activity.

Why Google Encrypted Search Activity

There is a lot of speculation regarding why Google really made this change. However, Google says the reason why it started encrypting search activity is because it wants to protect the privacy of its users. To this day, many SEOs wonder if what Google said is true, and they wonder if the search giant actually has ulterior motives.

The problem started in 2011. During this year, Google rolled out what is called secure search. Basically, secure search made it so that keyword data is encrypted, and while logged in, Google users are unable to pass keyword data to website analytics tools.

It started with SEOs noticing that many of the keywords in their analytics reports were not provided. The secure search that Google implemented strips all of the keyword data out of the information that is absorbed by analytic software.

It’s important to understand that this is only a problem for organic search traffic. Google still provides the keyword data for paid search traffic, which makes it much easier for SEOs to track.

In the beginning, Google said that the percentage of stripped keyword data would only be a tiny percentage of a website’s total search traffic. However, over time, the percentage of stripped keyword data grew steadily.

Not too long after the release of secure search, many webmasters were seeing over half of their keyword being stripped from their website analytics reports. Later, webmasters were seeing over 80 percent of their keyword data being encrypted.

The Reality

Currently, almost all organic search traffic is encrypted, so webmasters and search marketers only have access to a sample of the keywords that searchers are using to find their website. Unfortunately, the amount of keyword data that is provided for organic search traffic is nearly gone.

With the way secure search is progressing, it won’t be long until 100 percent of all organic search traffic is encrypted, which means webmasters won’t be able to see any of the keywords that searchers are using to find their websites.

The Problem

Secure search creates a huge problem for SEOs. The main role of a search marketer is to optimize web pages for desirable keywords, but if SEOs have no way of measuring the effectiveness of their optimization, then it’s almost impossible to measure and plan campaigns.

The Reasoning behind the Madness

Many SEOs will argue that there are several reasons why secure search is a bad idea, and there is no doubt that it has caused some massive headaches for search marketers. However, there is something that has many SEOs completely stumped.

Search marketers don’t understand why Google has chosen to only affect keyword referral data for organic search. For many marketers, it almost seems unfair that AdWords customers still have complete access to all of the keyword data.

A lot of professional SEOs believe that the real reason why Google has made this move is because they want to force people to increase their AdWords spend, which would give them access to keyword data, but Google still insists that the move to secure switch was made to protect user privacy.

Many people from Google have said that they believe SSL is very important. In fact, they think SSL protection is so important that they’ve already started encrypting search data for users who aren’t logged in.

They’re rolling out SSL protection across as many regions as possible. People from Google continually say that the switch to secure search has nothing to do with increasing the use of AdWords campaigns, but they don’t have too many SEOs who believe them.

What to Do Next

As mentioned earlier, Google is now blocking the majority of keyword data for organic search visitors, so many search marketers have no idea what to do about the problem.

At the end of the day, it doesn’t really matter why Google is stripping this data. There are several ways for SEOs to get around this issue. The reality of the situation is that there is no full workaround for the problem, but there are ways to lessen the damage.

The impact of this data stripping is forcing SEOs to find other sources of data. Without these alternative data sources, search marketers will find it difficult to optimize their campaigns.

The Interesting Solutions

What many search marketers will find interesting is that most of the alternative data sources actually come from other Google products. This fact is enough to make many SEOs even more suspicious of Google’s motives. The first tool that SEOs can use is Google webmaster tools.

One of the reports provided by this tool displays 2,000 different keywords that have brought organic search visitors to a website. However, the report only shows the top 2,000 queries. Although the report also shows the number of clicks delivered by these queries, the numbers are only approximations.

The numbers of clicks that are displayed in the report do not represent an accurate number of organic search visitors. The second tool that SEOs can use is Google AdWords organic and paid report. Ironically, this is another Google product. Inside of the AdWords interface, there is a tab called dimensions.

Fortunately, this report can be used to view organic and paid keyword data, which can be viewed next to each other. All of the organic keyword data that is shown in the dimensions tab is extracted from webmaster tools.

Does It Really Help?

Sadly, many problems arise when comparing keyword data from different sources. SEOs end up being forced to use data from three different tools, and as one can imagine, this presents several issues.

Many search marketers have performed studies on the data from these different tools, and unfortunately, these studies reveal that the combined data from these tools is quite inconsistent. In some cases, the numbers looked completely random.

All SEOs want to make data-driven decisions because that is what optimization is all about. However, if the data sources that SEOs have access to are regularly reporting inconsistent data, then it’s nearly impossible to make decisions that are strictly data driven.

Some SEOs might feel comfortable with the data acquired from these various tools while others will continue to avoid using any of it. Regardless of what data sources are used as workarounds, this issue of stripped keyword data is a large one, and even today, thousands of SEOs are still angry with Google’s move to secure search.

Social media and search engine optimization services are rapidly changing the way that people use the Internet. Therefore, for it should come as no surprise to find out that there are conferences around the country that are dedicated to presenting the latest and greatest into these industries. Average people and businesses both can head to these conferences to find out what is new in social media, how to maximize SEO, meet likeminded people and much more. Here is a look at a list of social media and SEO conference for 2014.

SXSW Interactive

South by Southwest, better known as SXSW, is one of the more popular options to attend. 2014 will mark the 21st annual gathering for the SXSW festival and it seems to get more impressive each year. SXSW takes a look at older technologies like Facebook and Twitter, but it’s also a great place for new tech companies to mingle with others to try and get there name out there. SXSW is more than just your typical conference, as it offers guest speakers, comedy routines, music and so much more. SXSW runs from March 7th to March 11th in 2014.

Social Fresh

Twice in 2014, Social Fresh will bring together innovative leaders in the social media industry. But while some conferences are about the glitz and glam of packing a ton of stuff into the show, Social Fresh attempts to slow things down with presentations from just a single person at a time. This allows for much more detailed presentations that also makes it easier for the audience to get involved. Social Fresh East is in the spring of 2014 and Social Fresh West will be in the fall.

MozCon

Originally MozCon started as a SEO conference that has recently converted to focus on social media and other types of digital marketing as well. In 2014, MozCon will take place from July 14-16 in Seattle, Washington. During these three days, you can expect to get a better view into how social media and SEO intertwines with mobile platforms and customer optimization. MozCon is more geared towards being a fun and wild event, rather than your typical sit and listen to presentations scene.

Inbound

In 2013, the Inbound conference had speakers like Ariana Huffington and Seth Godin. Those high-profile names made it one of the more successful conferences of the year and it’s hoping to hit 2014 with a line-up that will be more impressive. This year, the event will take place in Boston, Massachusetts from September 15th to the 18th.

Demand Success

Vocus is a company that provides cloud-marketing software for its customers. And in June of each year, they offer Demand Success as their conference to help social media, SEO and digital marketing companies to come together. While at Demand Success, attendees can meet with other likeminded individuals and learn how to build their brand. In 2014, the lineup for Demand Success includes Judy Smith, Avinash Kaushik, Adrian Greier and many more. The event is held in Washington, D.C. from June 5th to the 6th.

Content Marketing World

Considering that the content is what brings your audience in, it’s no surprise that Content Marketing World is one of the top SEO conferences of the year. While attending, guests can find out more about how to market their company to its customers, including what to look for in potential clients and the best way to attract them. Content Marketing World also offers presentations that are specific to industries, which can be helpful for attendees to get a better idea what might work specifically better for them.

SearchLove

It’s all about action at the SearchLove Conference in California. This conference looks to help attendees learn to better funnel customers into their site, while helping them construct better search methods through SEO results. The conference offers a variety of lessons, most of which are applicable from everyone from the SEO beginner to the more advanced. You may walk into SearchLove as a novice, but you’ll certainly come out ready to take your company to the next level, and next page, of customer interaction

Conversion Conference

What good is showing up in search engines if your customers aren’t converting? Well with Conversion Conference, attendees will find out exactly just how to maximize their efforts while attempting to get conversions from customers. The bottom line is that Conversion Conference does more than just present ways of how to show up higher in search engines. Instead, you can learn how to maximize numbers and help grow your business in a multitude of different ways. What’s even better about Conversion Conference is that there are multiple conferences held throughout the US and Europe.

SMX

One of the best conferences for advanced SEO techniques, SMX skips the basics and jumps right into the hardcore information available in the industry. Throughout the entire multi-day conference, the schedule moves quickly and attendees are invited to maximize as much as they can possible learn during the event. Luckily, they also won’t be forced to sit through boring sessions of what exactly SEO is. Instead, you’ll get hardcore answers from the leading innovators in the industry, which will help you maximize your SEO results once you get back home to your business.

BlogHer

Primarily aimed at women, BlogHer is a conference for female entrepreneurs and Internet experts to come together. BlogHer is not only a conference, but also a website dedicated to helping women find their niche online and market it to their customers. Therefore, the conference will have plenty of information that comes from the techniques that their site uses, which allows them to stay atop search engines and increase in popularity. Furthermore, the conference also offers customized keynote speakers in areas like food, fitness and much more. No matter what your site is about, if you want to learn from other women and be surrounded by equally motivated females, BlogHer is the place to be.

PubCon

Last, but certainly not least, PubCon offers great options for marketing professionals and social media enthusiasts. The event usually has as many as 200 speakers during the four-day conference, making it a place where you can find everything for newbies, intermediates and experts. This event happens later in the year, which means you can hit up a few other conferences on this list and then round out your techniques by heading to Vegas for PubCon. Don’t miss out on PubCon for one of the most diverse conferences for social media and SEO services.

There is no denying the importance and impact that social media and SEO has on the Internet. But no matter how much you think you already know, there is always more to learn and involve yourself with. And with the conferences on this list, you can meet other likeminded people, spruce up on your skills and learn about some of the latest and greatest technology coming to the net. Don’t miss out, especially if you are looking to maximize your efforts by marketing your company online.

Ah, link building. It’s the quintessential trademark of SEO, especially recently, and while links are still important, how you obtain them has changed quite dramatically in the last year. Before, it was perfectly acceptable to create inbound links by including them as “authoritative sources” in guest blog posts, on other sites, or as part of blog comments. Now, however, natural and organic link earning is the name of the game.

So where does link earning turn into a link scheme? The line between the two is very fine, but staying on the right side of that line is crucial to your online reputation and success as a website and business owner. Below is a description and examples of link earning and link schemes, as well as best practices to help avoid falling on the wrong side of the line.

An Inbound Marketing Primer

First, you should be clear on the importance of inbound links, what inbound marketing is and does, and why you should care. Inbound links are links to pages on your site that are located in areas of the web that are not on your website. So, for instance, if someone blogs about the insurance industry and thinks your website article about protecting your home from a fire was outstanding, they’ll include a link to your article when they write about home insurance. This is an example of an inbound link and acts as inbound marketing for your website. In other words, you don’t have to do any active marketing to get the traffic, it simply flows into your site from other areas of the web.

These high quality links that you’ve earned by offering high value content on your website are exactly what you want. The links are included on sites by the site owner, not by you, and link back to your site or an article/page on your site as being an authoritative source. When people follow that link, you get traffic, and if you offer something they need or want, you’ll likely get business, as well.

Inbound marketing is extremely important to your business, but earning links is the key. Now that you know what link earning is, what inbound marketing is, and why it’s important, you should learn about the difference between link earning and link schemes and how to stay on the right side of that fine line.

Link Earning

Earning links is like earning money – if you do a good job and you provide something of value, you’ll earn links by default. The best ways to improve your chances of earning inbound links from others are below.

• • Provide informative content.
• • Offer content that is helpful and assists your readers in solving a problem.
• • Include content on your site that is written authoritatively and confidently.
• • Link to authoritative sources in your content to validate that what you are saying is true.
• • Do not write “sales pitch” content; content marketing and link earning is about establishing authority and providing information, not hard selling.

You should add content to your site that is geared towards what you sell, but not written like a sales presentation. If you own a law firm, for instance, you could write an article about what to do in a certain legal situation. Obviously you and those at your firm can help with that, but the content is not directly geared towards selling.

How does this type of content help you earn links? Because just like you should add authoritative links to your web copy and content, other people need to do the same thing. If your site is well written, has high quality content, and provides valuable information, others will find it and link to it as they create their content. This is the natural, organic method of earning inbound links to your website. It’s content marketing and link earning combined into one simple admonition: create and publish the best quality content you can – and lots of it.

Link Schemes

The evil twin of link earning is link scheming. Link schemes are essentially a less than honest way of trying to increase the number of inbound links that exist for your site. If link earning is the farmer who plants a seed, waters it, cultivates it, and grows a harvest, then link scheming is taking already grown plants, putting them in the ground on a field, and saying you grew them. Both people have plants, but only one of them truly earned the harvest.

Essentially, link schemes are “marketing” plans that include adding links to a home page or other on-site page in as many places on the web as possible. If you’ve ever gone to a blog to see a few honest comments, and then one strange comment with a link in it, the comment with a link in it was likely part of a link scheme.

Link schemes appear in many different places and link scheming is done in many ways, but below are the most common link scheming tactics you’re likely to see.

• • Adding links to a blog comment without contributing anything to the conversation.
• • Guest posting on other blogs and including links to your own site as an authoritative link.
• • Posting on YouTube videos, Facebook posts, etc. and linking to your site when it has nothing to do with the subject matter at hand.

If you have a link to your website in your signature and you are honestly contributing to a conversation on a blog that you’ve been a part of for awhile and have a genuine interest in, that’s completely different and is not link scheming. But many people will go from blog to blog posting a link to their site when they have no prior history with the blog or its community, the post adds nothing of value to the conversation, and they have no interest in the subject matter other than to obtain links for their site.

As with any unethical or less than honest practice, many people still get away with these forms of link “building”. But the search engine algorithms are a lot smarter than they once were, they know to look for these schemes, and they’re getting quite proficient at finding them. Case in point: be cautious, and earn your links naturally.

How to Avoid Link Scheming

Many people worry that they will inadvertently contribute to a link scheme without meaning to. However, “accidentally” link scheming is quite difficult to do. Most people know when they go and post a random link to their site on a YouTube video (particularly if it has nothing to do with the video) what they’re doing and why they’re doing it. But if you’re truly concerned, here are some best practices to follow.

• • Don’t include a link to your site in a blog (or other) comment if it doesn’t have to do with the subject matter.
• • Including a link to your site in your signature is fine, but only use that signature in online communities with which you are already affiliated and have a relationship.
• • Unless it’s requested, don’t link to your site on other people’s social media pages.
• • Do link to other areas of your site within articles and posts you create; this is called interlinking and is very helpful to SEO.
• • Focus on improving the content of your site instead of promoting your site elsewhere by linking to it.

Following these best practices can help ensure you earn your links, engage in high quality on-site SEO, and grow your business organically.

The most exciting part about creating a new website with WordPress is how quickly and easily you can deploy it. You can then tinker with every little setting, add in new plugins to extend your WordPress installation and customize your code until your website reaches perfection.

On your way to making that perfect website, it’s important to keep in mind that you will need to customize certain things like your titles, meta descriptions and links while enabling things like sitemaps for search engine spiders to use.

Below is a comprehensive list of must-have SEO and SEO-related plugins for your brand new WordPress site.

Bear in mind that not all of these plugins have to be installed together as some bring the same or similar features that other plugins allow. Some plugins may be better for you to install due to the technical skill required or the degree of optimization that you can perform. This means that you should thoroughly review the plugins and their features individually before installing them.

1. WordPress SEO by Yoast

This WordPress plugin has been around for years and it has attained the status of being one of the most highly rated plugins available for WordPress. It brings the basic features that allow you to optimize meta keywords and descriptions on each page or post while bringing some more advanced features that make creating a high quality website easier.

For example, WordPress SEO by Yoast comes with a feature that allows you to provide a “Focus Keyword” that you can optimize your post or page for as you create it. If your focus keyword is lacking in density, this plugin will suggest a few ways you can include it in your content to make it more agreeable with search engines. This makes it a must-have for your WordPress site if you plan to blog or to fill it with hundreds or thousands of articles.

WordPress SEO by Yoast provides XML sitemaps, RSS feed optimization, social sharing integration and the standard SEO features like tweaking the meta content of your pages.

2. All-in-One SEO Pack

While debatably not as feature-rich as WordPress SEO by Yoast, the All-in-One SEO Pack plugin makes it easy for novice webmaster and website owners who want to perform quick SEO on their website to deploy a brand new WordPress site.

The basic set of features that other SEO plugins for WordPress provide are available with the All-in-One SEO Pack. You can change individual page titles, meta keywords and descriptions.

The unique features that All-in-One SEO Pack provides includes the ability to fine-tune navigational links, utilize advanced canonical URLs and generate meta tags automatically based off of your content. All-in-One SEO Pack is also one of the few plugins that supports the features needed for WordPress e-commerce websites.

3. SEOPressor 5

SEOPressor 5 provides you with real-time recommendations that refresh as you write content in the WordPress administration section of your website. It analyzes keywords in places besides your content’s main body, which means that your title and header tags are included in its evaluation of your keyword usage.

The interesting part about this plugin is that it seems to rate keywords in a way similar to how Google and other major search engines value them. This allows you to stop focusing on just one exact phrase or long-tail keyword while trying to aim for other keywords that are related due to latent semantic indexing and other newly added features to search engines.

In addition to this, SEOPressor comes with a handy feature that will automatically stylize and decorate keywords while adding alt text to images.

4. SEO Ultimate

SEO Ultimate provides all the standard features that other SEO plugins provide, but it also gives you a few handy features that you won’t find in any other SEO plugins.

The most important feature that it provides is referred to as “Deeplink Juggernaut”, which is just a fancy way of saying that it can automatically create a deep interlinked scheme for your website by searching for keywords in your post and then automatically linking them. You can use this to link your posts and pages while creating your content with the autocomplete link tool provided, or you can scan your post after you’ve completed them to create links.

The best part about the Deeplink Juggernaut feature of SEO Ultimate is that it allows you to avoid most over optimization penalties by giving you the ability to control how many times a page is linked across your entire website in content or just how many times it’s linked on just one page.

The other key feature that SEO Ultimate provides is Open Graph integration, which allows you to maximize your content’s documentation and compatibility across other networks like Facebook.

5. Google XML Sitemaps

While most SEO plugins include the creation of XML sitemaps as a standard feature, not all of them do. Sometimes, you may just want to ensure that your sitemaps will be as compatible as possible with search engine spiders.

To achieve this, you can use the Google XML Sitemaps plugin. It will create a sitemap that can be easily interpreted by search engines, which in turn ensures that every piece of your content is crawled and indexed. This is especially useful for brand new WordPress sites, as search engines tend to miss content even when it’s linked directly from the main page simply because your website is new.

The other plus that this plugin brings is that it will automatically notify search engines when you create new content. This will help foster more visits by search engine robots, which in turn means that your content can begin ranking faster.

6. W3 Total Cache

The speed at which your website loads is one factor that search engines like Google use to determine how useful your website is to visitors. It’s also one of the most influential factors on statistics that can negatively affect your website, such as the bounce rate of your visitors.

W3 Total Cache works by taking everything that would normally be left up to a potentially lengthy database query and then caching it as a plain HTML page that can then be served up almost immediately. This is a great plugin for websites that are likely to receive a lot of traffic in the future or for websites hosted on shared hosting plans that can potentially be affected negatively by other customers with unoptimized sites.

7. Contextual Related Posts

With the recent Google Panda and Penguin updates, interlinking content that is closely related has become more important than ever before. Although there are a few plugins that can link related posts, they don’t do so with the same depth that the Contextual Related Posts plugin does.

It comes in two flavors: you can have posts linked automatically right after you install the plugin or you can create custom templates for a manual placement. It supports WordPress thumbnails and allows you to define which of your posts should be excluded from displaying related posts.

8. 404 Redirection

As you rearrange the pages on your website and tweak the URLs, you’re almost guaranteed to have links that will ultimately provide 404 errors. Instead of letting these pages become completely removed from Google’s listings, you can use 404 Redirection to turn 404 errors into 301 redirects to your home page.

This will allow you to pass any link authority that your old links had to your website’s homepage.

In the past, people would try everything they could to land on the first pages of Google. While many techniques used to work, some are not effective and may end up hurting the site owner. At the very least, when trying old and useless methods, a site owner will waste his or her time and resources. For this reason, you should know that article directories are basically useless. Here are eight reasons why this is the case and what happened to cause this.

Low quality

First and foremost, most article directory sites do not offer a lot of high quality articles. No, instead, these web ties provide a place for people to spam their information and articles full of links and overused keywords. While Google liked this in the past, the search engine giant has caught on and now punishes people who use article directories. Think about it, when you land on a directory site, you will see dozens of categories and thousands of uninteresting and spun articles that nobody reads. For this reason, most search engines devalue that content and do not take this into account when coming up with organic search rankings.

Too easy to manipulate

Since most article directories do not require a person to offer much, they are not too valuable to anyone. In reality, when going to an article site, all you need to do is upload your content. Other times, some will charge a small fee. Either way, since this is an easy method for people to manipulate the search rankings, Google has mostly realized that the articles are unoriginal and will not value them highly. However, if you go to a high PR website, you can upload articles and still get something out of the experience. Of course, this will largely depend on your quality of writing.

Content quality

Now, more than ever, people think they can write and put it all over the Internet. It seems almost everyone has a blog where they spew their opinions and talk about their interests. In reality, to most people, this is not interesting. Furthermore, since most people are not good writers, this causes problems when trying to take advantage of article directories. To understand this, you only need to head to an article directory site. Then, if you read two or three pieces, you will understand most people do not know how to create something that people enjoy. In some cases, the piece was actually written by a machine. Either way, when understanding that the content is of low quality, you should have no trouble understanding why article sites are a waste of time.

Too many links

Now, when making an article, some writers will do it wisely and put in one or two high quality links to relevant sources. On the other hand, many use article directory sites as a way to list multiple links in their story. While it is okay to offer one or two links, the writer should keep it simple and avoid sounding unprofessional by offering a dozen or more links. Since Google will not take kindly to this, you must understand how to provide the right amount of links to your website. When you do this, you can write an article that both your readers and the search engines will love.

Hundreds of sites

At first, there were not a lot of article directory sites on the Internet. Now, with the explosion of information and the need to land on the first page of Google, many sites sprang up. While this was god for some people, it has had a detrimental effect on the quality of these websites. Think about it, there are now thousands of websites where you can upload your article. This is not good as so many of these places are just a thinly veiled attempt at cheating the system. Of course, if you choose a good site to upload your articles to, you have a good chance to get something out of the experience as some sites still offer value.

Other metrics are now more important: Now, when looking at SEO, you will notice that people always change their minds about what works. There is a reason for this as Google will make updates where they devalue some things and add value to others. For this reason, if you are relying on article content marketing to get to the top, you are in for a rude awakening. Now, you must have a flawless site with plenty of useful content. Not only that, you should have relatively few links. Of course, when getting links, you should only concentrate on high quality as this is what matters. Finally, with social media sites like Facebook and Twitter, you can gain in the rankings and see your site do well. For this reason, article directories are largely ignored by people who want to rise to the top. Simply put, there are other more effective ways to gain in the organic search rankings.

Everyone trying

In all truth, you should try to stay head of the SEO game. This is harder than most people realize. However, if two years ago you started concentrating on quality content and great links, you would sit on the first page of Google for many search terms. Sadly, most follow the overall trends and they end up on the back pages of Google. For this reason, it is obvious that article directories are largely inefficient since most people use them in their day-to-day SEO strategies. Instead, by concentrating on quality and value, a site owner can rise in the ranks without having to resort to ineffective methods that are largely harmful.

Filled up

Think about it, most possibilities have already been discovered. Meaning, when writing an article, it is nearly impossible to write it from an original standpoint. For this reason, you will not get much out of article marketing unless you are an incredible writer who speaks about subjects people want to understand. You must understand that most sites are full of the same articles and ideas. Nothing is going to change, and you are not likely to go above and beyond the other writers. Not only that, when looking at older articles, you will have an uphill battle as they enjoy plenty of SEO link juice since they have been around so much longer. Simply put, the battle has been waged, and unless you can knock off the person on top, you should largely ignore article directories.

When looking to SEO, you must understand what works and what fails to get results. Sadly, some people are stuck in the past and think about what used to work. This is a serious error in judgment as many of the old methods are simply a waste of time. Sadly, many perpetuate this myth and wonder why their site was hit by the latest update. Rather than fix the underlying issue and find out what no longer works, many opt for the same approach and hope things improve. This is foolish, and if you want to regain your rankings, you must understand that things like article directories are largely irrelevant. Instead, you should look to the future.

It should be obvious that link building has its place. However, the SEO landscape is constantly evolving, but over the years, quality content has remained a constant.

A lot of webmasters are making the mistake of focusing solely on link building, and in many situations, this decision has produced catastrophic consequences. There is a long list of reasons why you should be focusing most of your time on creating quality content.

Insulation from the Algorithms

To combat the never-ending army of web spam, search engines have been forced to release several different algorithms. Since Google controls the largest market share, it has been the search engine that has released all of the different algorithm updates.

Many of these updates were specifically created to target websites that manipulate search engine rankings. There is a laundry list of practices that these algorithms target, but as of late, the major target for Google is link building.

Penguin is an algorithm that was created to target aggressive link building, and it caused a monumental shift in the way webmasters build links. It would be silly to think that Google is going to stop with the Penguin algorithm. In fact, it’s very likely that Google will continue to create and roll out new algorithms, which are aimed at combating link building.

Anyone who understands SEO knows that it’s nearly impossible to gain 100 percent protection from existing and future algorithm updates, but by focusing on content more than link building, webmasters will gain a layer of insulation against future updates. Over the long-term, placing more emphasis on content than link building is the better option.

Results from Content Are Measurable

It’s extremely difficult to directly measure the value of a link. However, it’s fairly easy to measure the value of a piece of content. Even if a certain links boosts traffic and keyword rankings, it’s still very hard to measure the value of that link.

The problem is that measuring the value of a link requires the consideration of several different factors. On the flipside, it’s easy to see how many links a particular piece of content has garnered. It’s also easy to see how many referrals and social shares generated by a piece of content.

The number of organic search visitors that a piece of content has attracted is also measurable. With the right software, it’s even possible to see exactly how much revenue a piece of content has generated. If a webmaster wants to see how much money an article made them, they won’t have much trouble getting this information.

Content Is Cheaper Than Link Building

It’s much cheaper to hire someone to produce content than it is to hire someone to build links. It can cost a lot of money to find good link builders, and this money can generate more revenue when spent on content.

Although it’s not too hard to find a decent SEO company, it’s especially hard to find quality link builders. There are endless places to find high-quality copywriters, and these individuals will provide their services for an affordable price. At the end of the day, it’s almost always cheaper to buy content than links.

It’s Completely Natural

One of the reasons why you should be focusing more on content than link building is because it’s natural. It’s true that building links is mandatory. However, focusing primarily on content is much more natural. The major search engines tell webmasters that they shouldn’t be building links.

What many webmasters don’t understand is that creating content and building links don’t have to be separated. Quality content is capable of garnering natural links. Although it might not work very well in some industries, it can pay off handsomely in many industries.

Content can generate social shares and links, but it needs to be good. Not every piece of content that you write is going to be good. In fact, there is a good chance that a lot of it might suck.

However, if you focus more time on building content, then you give yourself a better chance to create content that will go viral and generate plenty of links.

The Scalability

An excellent reason to focus on content more than link building is because it’s scalable. An enormous amount of resources is required to build a large team of SEOs.

When building such a team, there are several ways to fail. It doesn’t matter if you’re writing your own content or hiring a team of content writers; content is much easier to scale than link building.

If you’re building a team, it’s much easier to find copywriters than link builders, and if you need to replace someone, copywriters are easily replaced while link builders are much harder to replace. Even if you’re a one-man show, content is easier to scale than link building.

It’s Enjoyable

Link building can be a very tedious process. It requires great attention to detail, and at the end of the day, it’s really not very fun. When you focus more on content, you can actually have fun.

Sifting through endless rows of data in an excel sheet is not something you might consider fun. Producing quality content can be a lot more fun, and it can be even more rewarding to connect to people and share the content that you’ve produced.

Why Content Is So Important

It’s not hard to find someone on the Internet talking about quality content. However, despite how often this phrase is brought up, many webmasters choose to ignore it. People have actually heard the phrase so many times that they’re starting to block it out when they hear it.

To get the most out of SEO, producing content is crucial. Even if you go out and build enough links, you still need quality content. Many people say content is king, and although it can get irritating, it’s completely true.

Even if Google dominates search, there is something that all search engines have in common; they want to supply their users with quality content. After all, people use search engines because they crave content. If you’re focusing all of your time on building links, then you’re not really helping the search engines.

Ultimately, the people who use search engines demand quality content, and if you give them this content, the search engines are doing everything they can to reward you. It’s true that building links is important. Every website needs a handful of quality backlinks to gain traction, but after you’ve got some traction, focusing on content can be far more lucrative than focusing most of your time on link building.

It doesn’t matter if you’re a one-man army or an agency. The positive effects of quality content can be measured, and while it’s certainly possible to put a value on a link, significantly more effort is required to put a value on a link. At the end of the day, everyone is looking for a ROI.

There is no doubt that link building produces a measurable ROI, but by putting a greater emphasis on your content, you can almost always achieve a much higher ROI. Both webmasters and business owners can benefit greatly by choosing to allocate most of their available resources to content production and not link building.

SEO is full of different responsibilities and things you need to consider—analytics, content, social media, design—so it can be tough to know where to start. You might have your website up and running with a little bit of content, but actually optimizing that site will take a collaborative effort between all the departments in your company. Everyone needs to be on the same page, and that all starts with prioritizing your tasks correctly.

A List to Help You Prioritize SEO Tasks

Taking a look at all of the different things you need to do in SEO is a great way to help make sure you’re on the quickest path to success. I recommend putting your different tasks into groups based on priority so you’re not wasting any time having to go back and re-do things.
Below are a few different categories you might want to consider:

First on the SEO Priority List

• • Check your indexing.

If your website isn’t being indexed by Google, you’re not showing up on the SERPs. This means that when people search for something related to your company, they have absolutely no way of finding your website. Oftentimes a noindex is just a small button you need to press or code you need to change, so it’s easy to miss.

Resource: You can visit this article learn more about changing your index status.

• • Get rid of duplicate content.

If you have a lot of duplicate content on your site you are going to get penalized, which means your company will drop in rankings on a SERP (sometimes eliminated altogether). You need to either delete these pages completely or go through and put fresh content on them in order to remain in good standings with Google.

• • Install social sharing buttons.

I always make this a priority because it’s easy to do and it’s an easy way to start building visibility for your company. Social sharing is important, so the faster you can give your visitors access to sharing your content, the better.

• • Check your navigation and design.

Before you can really begin optimizing your site, you have to have a site that works. Navigation is something that is important to Google when it comes to rankings, so make sure you don’t have too many deep pages (4 clicks to get somewhere from the homepage) and your site isn’t too confusing.

Second on the SEO Priority List

• • Mobile compatibility.

Once you have your desktop website all set to go, it’s time to move on to mobile. Even if you haven’t fully optimized your desktop site yet, I still recommend starting to think about mobile so that you have something out there. Have a responsive web design and make sure that pages can load quickly for a phone.

Resource: You can learn more about mobile optimization in this Forbes article.

• • Local search.

Again, once your website is all setup and ready to go, it’s important to get involved in local search. You need to claim your business (it may already be created even if you didn’t do it) or create a new business listing on sites like Google+ Local, Yahoo Local, and Bing Places so that you will show up for those searching locally.

Resource: Visit this article if you need help getting started with local search.

• • Get started with keyword research and content.

It’s important to do some keyword research to get an idea of what your audience is searching for and where your competition lies. Once you have an idea about terms you may want to rank for, you should get started writing content. Find good writers and put out fresh content a few times per week to get into a good rhythm.

Resource: The Google Keyword Planner is the best and most popular for keyword research.

Third on the SEO Priority List

• • Being building links.

Once your website is set and ready to go, it’s time to start building links and promoting your website by working with other authoritative sources. There are many black hat tactics out there so you have to be careful, but in general earning links for your website just takes some good quality work. Consider guest blogging for quality sites in your niche and playing around with social media contests to start creating buzz about your company.

• • Use relevant title tags.

Your page title is going to be how Google and the search engine bots learn what your page is about and then categorize it accordingly. After you’ve done your keyword research, go back and check to make sure that the content on your site has relevant title tags, or title tags that match up with your keywords/goals.

Last Priority

• • Experiment with some SEO tools.

SEO tools are an absolutely necessity for many small businesses, but I still think they can be put last on your list of things to do. You shouldn’t get fancy with SEO tools under you know you have a solid website and have a good rhythm going regarding content and link building. Once you do, tools can be very helpful (especially with analytics and data).

Resource: Check out this article for some of the best SEO tools out there.

Of course, there are quite a few more SEO tasks that you’ll need to deal with as your company continues to grow, but above are some of the biggest and most important. Let us know how you prioritize your SEO efforts or if we’ve missed anything important in the comments below.