Hidden Opportunity

But wait!  There is a hidden factor that can affect your marketing results, separate from reach, readership and subscriber rates.  This press piece you’re seeking has another benefit: search engine marketing.  If the publication has a site where the article would be posted, and if the article will have a link back to your own website, there is indeed an opportunity here.

Because there is a relationship between PR and SEO, it’s important to take a moment to check something: the “domain authority� of the publication’s website.  You can look it up on www.OpenSiteExplorer.com.  It’s a number from 1 to 100, a measure of how popular the site is among other sites.  If many sites are linking to the publication’s website, the number will be high (in the 50-70 range). If those linking sites themselves have many incoming links, it may be very high (in the 80s or 90s).

Why Is This Important?

The most important factor in how high your ninja website ranks is the number and quality of inbound links.  Each of those links is an indication to Google that you’re an important site.  A high number of high quality links equals higher rank.  Domain authority is a measure of the quality and value of a site and thus the value of an inbound link.  There are many other factors, but just knowing this is enough to help you better promote those ninja supplies.

Of course, not all publications will give you a link.  And even if they do, not all links are created equal.  The ideal placement for the story you’re pitching is on a site that will link back to you, especially if that site has a high domain authority.  If they do, there is a huge search engine benefit to you.

A Few More Tricks

Links are great, but the best links are those that have your target keyphrase in the text of the link.  For example, if you’re trying to rank high for the phrase “ninja supplies�, the ideal links to your site include the words “ninja supplies� within the link text.

Typically, when a news media site creates a link, they simply use the business name as the link text.  This is why business names that include the target keyphrase, such as “Bob’s Ninja Supplies�, have an SEO advantage over businesses that have names without a popular search term in the name, such as “Dojo Depot.�  When the business name and domain name include a nice keyphrase, building valuable links is a lot easier.  Good news for Bob the ninja.

Also, it’s always good if the link to you is on a site that is relevant to the site you’re promoting.  In other words, a link to your site from Ninjitsu Daily is better than a link from Golf Digest.  Google pays attention to this.

Bottom Line

Some PR professionals don’t know it yet, but they have a secret opportunity to help clients with link building and search engine rankings. They can sneak in and get links that a typical search optimizer can only dream of.  It’s another weapon in their marketing arsenal.  By networking with the media, working the phones and pitching high-quality content, their actions can lead to a link on a major media website.

Use those stealth research skills to discover which possible news outlets, media sites and blogs might be good places to get an article (and a link) placed.  Of course, getting press is always a good thing, with or without links.  But think of it this way: Ink is good, ink plus a link is better!

We know that restaurant websites can be accessible, user-friendly, and beautiful given the right functionality and design. When Straits Restaurant Group, a collection of trendy dining establishments with locations along the West Coast and Southern U.S., came to us in need of new website, we gladly jumped aboard to make it happen.

Here are the goals we set for this exciting project:

Goal 1: Design a site that people will want to use

Goal 2: Showcase Ambiance + Passion without compromise to user experience

Goal 3: Build an effective mobile site

Goal 4: Manage all sites, desktop and mobile through one CMS

See the entire case study here

Gamification is the use of game mechanics in non-game settings in order to encourage specific desired behaviors. By taking advantage of our psychological predisposition to playing games, gamification encourages people to perform tasks that they might ordinarily consider boring.

Watch the Scoreboard

If you start tracking how you’re doing, you’ll start doing better. And since it’s the web, everything is trackable.  There are scoreboards everywhere—some of them even have pretty charts. Pretty charts are powerful motivators.

Here are some example scoreboards and tips on how to use them to drive behavior and results…

Note: These are separate from all the measurements in Google Analytics. This isn’t about traffic. This is about tracking activity that drives traffic.

Social Media

This channel was born to gamify.  Twitter has been game-like from the beginning, with followers as the main score, as in “Wilmer Valderrama has 136,479 followers!� Foursquare, with its hundreds of badges to win, is basically a game. Foursquare isn’t “used,� it’s “played.�

• Twitter Followers – TwitterCounter.com
  Follower growth is fun to track.  Twitter Counter is free. Sprout Social has super compelling charts.
• Facebook Likes – Facebook Insights
  Lovely charts, easy to read.  The green (up) and red (down) arrows are good motivators.
• Klout Score – Klout.com
  This is a general score of social media influence. Great badges (250+ unique Retweets!) and nice charts. This one is almost too compelling. Beware obsession.

Ready to play? Tweet, post, have conversations, follow, retweet, comment, like, share, connect.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

This game has the ultimate scoreboard: rankings.  But measurement of SEO activity lacks the simple tools with pretty charts. Important, but harder to “play.� Requires skill and determination.  For ages 12 and older.

• Inbound Links – Open Site Explorer
  Go for volume.  Get lots of links from as many sites as possible, as long as they’re somewhat relevant to you.
• Domain Authority – Open Site Explorer
  Now go for quality.  Try to get inbound links from other sites with high domain authority.  Promote your site with popular and important sites. Consider PR.
• Google PageRank – Quirk SearchStatus
  Monitor Google’s 1 – 10 scale of authority with this browser plug-in.  But don’t expect it to change too often.  6 or 7 is the practical limit for many sites.

Ready to play? Write, submit, research, submit, update, submit.

Email Marketing

Adding subscribers gives a great feeling of progress, and watching the stats come in after clicking send is compulsive. …refresh! …refresh!  But be careful: this is a game with penalties. Getting a spam report is like a yellow flag on the field. It stings.

• Subscribers – Your database or CRM
  Use a database that lets you easily opt-in subscribers. This is an important score but hard to watch. There isn’t a chart that shows it as it grows.
• Open Rate – Your email provider or ESP
  Most email providers have nice charts that help you measure responses.  This one is affected by the timing of your email, your subject lines and the quality of your list.
• Click Through Rate – Your email provider or ESP
  This is a more important score, since it’s actual traffic. Focus on providing as much value as possible.  Build up your credibility.  Stay on a consistent schedule.

Ready to play? Invite, write, post, send, measure, repeat.

But, Seriously…

Yes, games are fun, but the real measure is leads and sales. These are the “goals� setup in Google Analytics. These are the real results.

So start watching the scoreboards, if you think of it as a game and start playing, you might be able to trick yourself into getting busy. Pick a few metrics and check them daily. Make it fun and tap into that part of your brain that just loves to play.

Obsess as if it was fantasy football, a stock portfolio, or your daughter’s 4-years-and-under soccer team. You might suddenly become a dedicated web marketer and get those real results.

You can’t win if you don’t play!

Bonus Round

There are loads of other ways to check your scores.  Here are a few:

• Hubspot Website Grader
• Alexa Traffic Rank
• YouTube Views
• Reviews – number of stars on Yelp, Google, etc.
• Comments on blog posts
• Follower-to-Following Ratio

Got your own favorite score card we didn’t mention here?  Tell us about it below!

Gamification is the use of game mechanics in non-game settings in order to encourage specific desired behaviors. By taking advantage of our psychological predisposition to playing games, gamification encourages people to perform tasks that they might ordinarily consider boring.

Watch the Scoreboard

If you start tracking how you’re doing, you’ll start doing better. And since it’s the web, everything is trackable.  There are scoreboards everywhere—some of them even have pretty charts. Pretty charts are powerful motivators.

Here are some example scoreboards and tips on how to use them to drive behavior and results…

Note: These are separate from all the measurements in Google Analytics. This isn’t about traffic. This is about tracking activity that drives traffic.

Social Media

This channel was born to gamify.  Twitter has been game-like from the beginning, with followers as the main score, as in “Wilmer Valderrama has 136,479 followers!� Foursquare, with its hundreds of badges to win, is basically a game. Foursquare isn’t “used,� it’s “played.�

• Twitter Followers – TwitterCounter.com
  Follower growth is fun to track.  Twitter Counter is free. Sprout Social has super compelling charts.
• Facebook Likes – Facebook Insights
  Lovely charts, easy to read.  The green (up) and red (down) arrows are good motivators.
• Klout Score – Klout.com
  This is a general score of social media influence. Great badges (250+ unique Retweets!) and nice charts. This one is almost too compelling. Beware obsession.

Ready to play? Tweet, post, have conversations, follow, retweet, comment, like, share, connect.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

This game has the ultimate scoreboard: rankings.  But measurement of SEO activity lacks the simple tools with pretty charts. Important, but harder to “play.� Requires skill and determination.  For ages 12 and older.

• Inbound Links – Open Site Explorer
  Go for volume.  Get lots of links from as many sites as possible, as long as they’re somewhat relevant to you.
• Domain Authority – Open Site Explorer
  Now go for quality.  Try to get inbound links from other sites with high domain authority.  Promote your site with popular and important sites. Consider PR.
• Google PageRank – Quirk SearchStatus
  Monitor Google’s 1 – 10 scale of authority with this browser plug-in.  But don’t expect it to change too often.  6 or 7 is the practical limit for many sites.

Ready to play? Write, submit, research, submit, update, submit.

Email Marketing

Adding subscribers gives a great feeling of progress, and watching the stats come in after clicking send is compulsive. …refresh! …refresh!  But be careful: this is a game with penalties. Getting a spam report is like a yellow flag on the field. It stings.

• Subscribers – Your database or CRM
  Use a database that lets you easily opt-in subscribers. This is an important score but hard to watch. There isn’t a chart that shows it as it grows.
• Open Rate – Your email provider or ESP
  Most email providers have nice charts that help you measure responses.  This one is affected by the timing of your email, your subject lines and the quality of your list.
• Click Through Rate – Your email provider or ESP
  This is a more important score, since it’s actual traffic. Focus on providing as much value as possible.  Build up your credibility.  Stay on a consistent schedule.

Ready to play? Invite, write, post, send, measure, repeat.

But, Seriously…

Yes, games are fun, but the real measure is leads and sales. These are the “goals� setup in Google Analytics. These are the real results.

So start watching the scoreboards, if you think of it as a game and start playing, you might be able to trick yourself into getting busy. Pick a few metrics and check them daily. Make it fun and tap into that part of your brain that just loves to play.

Obsess as if it was fantasy football, a stock portfolio, or your daughter’s 4-years-and-under soccer team. You might suddenly become a dedicated web marketer and get those real results.

You can’t win if you don’t play!

Bonus Round

There are loads of other ways to check your scores.  Here are a few:

• Hubspot Website Grader
• Alexa Traffic Rank
• YouTube Views
• Reviews – number of stars on Yelp, Google, etc.
• Comments on blog posts
• Follower-to-Following Ratio

Got your own favorite score card we didn’t mention here?  Tell us about it below!

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View Floor Plan  |  Learn More |  Learn More ]]> http://www.gobugz.com/43/feed/ 0 http://www.gobugz.com/wordpress-search-engine-optimization-tips-making-wordpress-search-engine-friendly/ http://www.gobugz.com/wordpress-search-engine-optimization-tips-making-wordpress-search-engine-friendly/#comments Tue, 28 Jun 2011 01:41:14 +0000 admin http://www.gobugz.com/?p=41 WordPress by nature is very SEO friendly however there are still tweaks you can make to better optimize it for search engines. In this post will go more in-depth to look at the best tips for optimizing wordpress for search engines. Below are several of advanced tweaks and WordPress plugins that you can install to help with URL structuring, search engine crawling, handling duplicate content, optimizing title and meta tags, images and internal linking.

Website Permalink Structure

In WordPress:  Settings >> Permalinks

WordPress allows you to structure your post urls in a number of ways

The default url structure in WordPress looks like this (www.UrDomain.com/?p=123). As you can clearly see this is not optimal as your not gaining the benefit of keywords in the url which allow search engines to easily index your site.

WordPress also allows you the option to set the urls by year/month/date, for example (www.UrDomain.com/2010/02/07/sample-post/). This method of ordering adds a unique post name to your post url, however if your blogs are four directories deep a potential crawling issue may arise.

The most effective method for optimizing your url structure is to use the custom permalinks. To enable Choose “Custom Structure” and enter “/%postname%/ “. This custom structure displays your post url based on its title and it will look like (www.UrDomain.com/post-name/).  This defines your post title directly at root level and allows search engines like Google to use keywords based on your post title to index your site.

Establishing non-www to www RedirectIn Wp: Settings >> CommonWithin newer variations of WordPress this is extremely easy to perform. Simply change the Weblog Tackle (url) to (http://www.UrDomain.com).

WordPress will automatically improve your htaccess document to reroute the non-www edition to the www version. If you possess an old edition associated with WordPress you will have to copy and insert the signal supplied in to your own htaccess document. However I’d update to the latest version of WordPress prior to We manually add it.

Search engines like google treat the www as well as non-www version of a page as two various pages. Search motors view this particular as hundreds or even thousands of duplicate pages. Google rates pages with copied content less than those with original webpages. By repairing this mistake your reducing the issue associated with replicate content. Optimize Post TitlesIn Wp: Settings >> All-in-one Search engine optimization Load up

By default Wp produces titles on pages like “Blog Title >> Blog Archive >> Publish Name”. This really is ok, but not optimum. Search motors will location more significance on the key phrases at the start from the name tag therefore we will wish to alter the actual labels so the post name is at the beginning of the actual publish and not the finish.To do this, make sure you install All-in-one Search engine optimization Load up. This plugin will automatically set up your name and meta description tags the right way. Your titles on pages will seem like “Post NameBlog Title“.

You will have the possibility to bypass a particular publish name inside the publish if you’d like. Make sure a person produce a unique description after you have created your posting. All in a single SEO Load up won’t produce meta descriptions, then when developing a post there’s a section with regard to including unique titles as well as explanations.Prevent Particular Document Sites within Bots.txt

There are specific sites that you ought to block through search engines like google. Check the Robots.txt manual We authored which will show you exactly that sites you need to prevent.This will help along with controlling which content material you would like search engines in order to spider and not spider. There are lots of sites as well as files which are unneeded for that crawlers to index. This will help the spiders discover the content material you would like spidered faster.

Set up Search engine optimization Plugins

All-in-one SEO Load upThis particular SEO plugin is probably the best and many robust plugin with regard to perfecting your blog with regard to search engines. This wordpress plugin may instantly optimize your blog class as well as post url framework, car produce name labels, prevent replicate content issue through limiting search engines like google from being able to access webpages which have replicate content on them, as well as canonical tag plug-in.Google XML Sitemap Electrical generator

This particular wordpress plugin may automatically generate a XML sitemap of the wordpress weblog that’s prepared with regard to Google, Yahoo, Msn, and Ask. Your sitemap is going to be sent to all of the search engines like google every time the wordpress plugin renews your own XML sitemap. Having this particular plugin, helps to ensure that the search engines are aware of all your articles and will help with the entire crawling of your blog.Google AnalyticatorThis wordpress plugin will add your own Search engines Analytics monitoring script to every page in your weblog. There are also other options as well as features that give you much more accurate tracking.

• Disable Administrative Tracking

• Enable Event Tracking

•Track Outgoing Hyperlink Clicks

• Track Downloads (PDF, CSV, Doctor)

• Google Adsense Plug-in

• Ability to Modify Tracking Piece of software

SEO Smart LinksInside linking will help using the overall crawling of the web site, together with maintaining visitors engaged inside your content material. You may also influence your content by utilizing keyword-rich anchor text and connecting with other content material in your blog. This wordpress plugin will that. It will take keyword as well as key phrases within your post and comments as well as link them to related articles on your website. This can significantly cut down on needing to manually search for relevant posts in your site that you could link to inside a post.SEO Pleasant Images

SEO Friendly Images may instantly optimize all your pictures with the addition of alt as well as title attributes. If you don’t have a good alt or even title feature for your pictures, it’ll include choice for you.W3 Complete Storage cacheFill period has become an important factor searching engine algorithms. Not to say a page that lots fast makes a visitor much happier and it is prone to stay on your website lengthier. W3 Complete Storage cache can help accelerate the web page load times by caching webpages, getting rid of whitened room as well as comments, and compressing cascading stylesheet and js files. Here are a few explanations why this particular plugin features it’s a minimum of the 10 x increase in site overall performance.

• Enable Web page Caching

• Enable Minify

• Enable Data source CachingMore Search engine optimization Quick Strategies for Wp

• Allow commenting for person produced comment and higher engagement

• Use great categorization for usability

• Add persuasive images and pictures inside your articles

• Ask questions at the end of the posts to encourage comments

• Syndicate your content to your Twitter and Facebook profiles

• Social save your best contentShare your own tips and tricks around by way of comments section.