Areas of Knowledge for SEO - #SEOpodcast 264

Hi, and welcome to the SEO Podcast, Unknown Secrets of Internet Marketing. My name is Chris Burris, owner of eWebStyle. I am Charles Lewis, your internet marketing specialist. Welcome back to another fun-filled edition of our show. As always, this is, by the way, podcast number 264. You are listening to the most popular internet marketing podcast on iTunes. Yep. And as always, there is a tip from our previous podcast, and that tip is, consider the type of content you find valuable and would link to before posting your own content. Definitely. It isn't how many people don't follow those steps. They begin posting this thin content or this content that has no value or has really no substance, and then they wonder why people don't link to it, because it has no value and no substance. Think about the content too. Because you wouldn't link to it. Exactly. What kind of content do you link to? Content that has value, that has substance, that has images, that has video, that's relevant. It's content you want to create, and so that way people will link to it. Absolutely. We are broadcasting live from Houston, Texas, and we are your friendly local neighborhood Top Position Snatchers. Top Position Snatchers. Where our mantra is. Don't be a deuce. All right, so what do we got in store today? Oh man, punch in the face to Neil Patel man, guys over at Search Engine Journal. So they put out an article called The 18 Things. We'll probably only cover half of those maybe. Right. That every SCO should possess. So it's really kind of a test to us, because we do SCO. Do we have it? Yeah. So hopefully we'll be like, check, yeah. Check, yeah. Exactly. So stay tuned for that, and for our God Who Left a Review, we will include some actionable items for you this time. Yeah, we'll get to that review here in just a second. If you are in a position to have an electronic device, which you probably do, could you please tweet now. Chuck,

what should they tweet? Tweet us. Make sure you use the hashtag that you see right behind us if you're watching, hashtag SCO podcast. This is number 264. Be sure to tag us in it, at eWebStyle, at best SCO podcast. That way we can follow you back and do all of our social stuff. Yep. If this is the first podcast of ours that you've listened to, welcome. Welcome. Appreciate you. Have a good time. Yeah, enjoy it. We'll get some content here soon. If you've listened to this podcast before, we ask that you do a couple of things for us. I already know. We're looking for reviews. So, if you could, go to our G Plus page. Yep. We made it really easy. All you need to do is go to e-webstyle.com slash G Plus. Or slash. G Plus. Or slash. Google Plus. Or slash. Google Plus. Or slash. Google Plus. All of those will take you to our G Plus local page where we ask you to do three things. Yep. Really quick, really quick. Leave us a review. That's most important. After you do that, give us a plus one. We really appreciate it. And then put us in a circle. That way you can share some stuff and then we can come to us. And when we share some stuff, you can get it. You didn't mention it. On that page, when you write a review, please make it. Five stars. All right. The next thing you can do for us has three steps. Go onto iTunes. Create an account. Write a review. If you write a review, please make it. Five stars. Five stars. And you can, if you choose to send us an email, podcast at e-wefstyle.com. And we'll read that live on air. The next, you could actually write us a Stitcher review. All you need to do to get to our Stitcher page. I haven't checked it. I don't know if it's updated. So, Stitcher's down and David Hunter told me about another one. The one he uses. It's down

too. The feed is broken. That sucks. Yeah. So, it may be a problematic issue. Yeah. And I did send a note to them. So, we'll have to chase after that. So, just skip Stitcher. Go to our Facebook page. Facebook.com slash e-wefstyle. And there's a couple places to write a review. I got one of our Facebook reviews here. And we've got another review from iTunes. If you want to haunt us, stalk us, harass us, just kind of get along with us. You can do all of that with Facebook.com slash e-wefstyle. YouTube.com slash e-wefstyle. Twitter.com slash e-wefstyle. Instagram.com slash e-wefstyle. And if you're a PHP expert, a WordPress extraordinaire guru, then we're probably looking for you. Call us and leave an audio resume. 713-510-7846. I'm going to learn some sign language. So, next time we do that, I'm going to go . I just want to look like I'm set tripping. If you want a free website analysis, go to our web page. On any page, you will find our free website. We FebSite analysis. You can do that. Just go to e-wefstyle.com. Hold on, hold on, hold on. I'm not going to let you just glaze past what you said. That was fast, man. We FebSite. We FebSite analysis. No, We FebStyle. We FebSite. I mean, yeah, it should be We FebSite. Let's just switch the two matters here. I'm having fun with it. All right. So, now for our favorite segment of the, I was going to say the day. It really is of the podcast. We don't know. We don't. I'm going to say, hold on, what are you doing? We don't handle it. Oh, that's so disappointing. I'm going to make a build up and like, Google has turned off. Yeah. All right. Well, let's get into a little bit of news. I just got two pieces of news. I thought, there it is. Google pulls the plug on Glass. Google Glass. I see my blank stare. So, apparently, it was a beta. Well, let's save the details for the end. It's been

handed over to somebody, so it still has a potential ability. There's an app that I just thought was super cool called Be My Eyes for sight impaired people and people want to help them. What am I looking at? Right? Right? So, I'm sight impaired or blind entirely and I need to know if I should drink this. Is it bleach or is it beer? Oh, man. Well, I hope the people who get to make those decisions are honest. Are honest. Yeah. They don't. They don't. And, finally, Marriott has announced that they are not going to block Wi-Fi in their hotels. Yeah, because of this. Well, so, I decided, I was like, you know, this is a decision that was made and the, you know, when you're a really small company, you're a one or two man company, you look at companies that have mission statements, you're like, I don't have time for a frickin' mission statement and how is that going to guide my business? Mm-hmm. Well, when you're a bigger company, it actually guides your business. It's like, okay, if I don't know to make a decision yes or no on this, let's look at the mission statement. Look at the mission and figure out. And see if it conforms with a mission statement. One of their line items on the mission statement is, we act with integrity. Yeah. So, that means blocking other people's Wi-Fi for making them force them to use yours is not. I don't call that integrity. So, somebody was unaware of the mission statement when they make that decision and then the accountants got a hold of it and it was so profitable that they couldn't pull it, I guess. I don't know. We've got two reviews. No tear tattoos. That's awesome. This first one is from Fresh SEO Company and this was found in the reviews app on our Facebook page. Okay. It says, we here at Fresh SEO Company are loyal listeners to the podcast. Punching the face? Loyal? What does loyal mean? Are you caught up loyal?

Yeah. Are you really caught up? You watching live now? Hit us up if you're watching live. That's really loyal. I know. We just called them out. They're going to be live like every time now. It says, Chris and Chuck are entertaining and silly without being annoying. We crack up watching their podcast and learn a lot too. They provide quality news and updates about the industry as well as sharing other people's content and advice about the industry. We also are big fans of their sound effects. Sorry to that guy on G Plus who isn't. Thank you. Thank you. That makes us get through all the tattoos. Exactly. Let's see. SEO and marketing can be a dry subject. Yes. And a podcast that makes them fun to learn about gets five stars in our Facebook. That's cool. That's a simple punch in the face to you dude. Appreciate that. Fresh SEO company. Thank you. And then next, we've got this one. This is from iTunes. This one was... Five stars. Well done. Funny and worthwhile your time. The guy's from Germany. So certainly, yeah. I'm glad I don't have to write anything in German. When interested, and this is from Berlin Sebastian is his handle. From Germany, obviously. It says, when interested in improving your traffic from organic search, this is a great podcast for you. Great. Great. They give you a good overview, excuse me, overview over what is up in search engine land. I still try to understand what a penguin update is, what Google does with it, and what it means for my site. And then, give a great review of some great article with good advice. So, not 100% beginner friendly. Not all information is actionable, but quite a lot is. Worth your time. Certainly not boring. And a great tool to stay on top of your SEO game punch in the face. What do we have in parentheses right there? He says, I still try to understand what a penguin update is. That was a Google algorithm update targeting spammy links and

bad link profiles. And then, what Google does with it. They evaluate your site based on that algorithm update to see what type of links are coming to your site and what type of links you're sending away from your site. And what it means for my site. Well, if those links are crappy, bad, or spammy, then it means your site will go down in rank. If those links are good and positive and relevant, then you will likely increase in rank. So, remember, counter to how Marriott made the decision to block everybody's Wi-Fi, stick with this principle. If you're giving a good experience to the Google user, Google would like you. So, pull back and say, is this a good experience? Does it have outbound links? Is it the end of the internet? Does it good solid content? Is it something that I would link to referencing our tip from today? Exactly. Those are things that are going to do well in Google. And that is the potatoes of our podcast. I got a little bit of potatoes, a little bit of potatoes. A little more potatoes. Small news, small news. So, Instagram. The Russets. Break out the Russets. Instagram went over 300 million active users. Wow. Yeah. They sent past Twitter. Wow. 300 million active users. The interesting thing about that stat, and this is for all my people who do marketing, digital marketing, out of those 300 million active users, over 60% of them fallen between the ages of 18 to 30. Wow. They're coming in 18 to 30. So, if that's your target market, you should be on Instagram. Yeah. And so, if that's your target market, and you're not on Instagram, psh, psh, psh. I'm sorry. Kick in the shin. All that. All right. So, dig this. We talk about responsive design a lot, right? Right. So, a lot of big networks haven't went to it yet, because when you think about a huge site like that, just to... I don't even want to think about it. Yeah. So, MTV did it. Okay.

They went ahead and changed up everything. For Responsive Design, dig these stats. After they launched, 92% increase in mobile visits. Wow. 11% drop in exits. 246% increase in social referrals. 55% increase in mobile page views. Wow. Like, so, Responsive Design, that shows you how many people were trying to access their content. And were frustrated. And were having a crappy experience. And bad to never go back again. Yeah. A crappy experience on a mobile device. Wow. And my last bit of news is domain registrations are finally available with Google all the way through. Oh, wow. Okay. You just register them right there with Google. Register them through Google. Seems like they could have done that years ago. All right. That is the potatoes and the russet potatoes of our podcast. It is time to get into the meat. Yeah. So, like we stated earlier, man, I wanted to give a punch in the face to Neil Patel. This article came from Search Engine Journal. 18 areas of knowledge every SEO must possess. And so, 18 is quite a lot. We don't want to keep you guys here for an hour. So, we'll probably get through half of this. But 18 areas every SEO should possess. So, let's see how many of these we possess. Okay. So, I got my check pin ready. We're going to be saying, yes, we do that. All right. So, number one, on-page SEO. Check. Check. Right? And so, when you talk on-page SEO, I mean, we could really do a whole podcast on on-page SEO. We could do a whole series of podcasts on on-page SEO. But for the sake of time, and the clarity of the text, as my pastor would say, we'll just talk about a few things. Neil bought up page content, title tags, URL structuring, and H1s. Those are really kind of the four core deals with on-page SEO. I would add alt tags, pretty important. Meta description, equally important. Great content and optimized content. All of that's on-page stuff. Different media. Yeah. Different types of media,

rich media like images of video or infographics or, you know, downloadable files like PDFs and eBooks and things like that. All of that is considered your on-page content and how you mark it up with the right keywords and the right functionality is how the SEO works with that. So, SEO, on-page SEO is definitely one of those things. Number two, link profiles. Check. Check. Link profile, which we were just talking about earlier when he asked about a penguin update. The link profile is how your site, the links around your site, how they're structured, right? How many incoming links you have? How many outbound links do you have? How many of these links are 301 or 302, which we'll talk about in a minute? How many of these links come from the same site? Are they paid links? Are they, you know, have you been swapping links? Are they natural links? What is the anchor text on most of your links? All of that criteria makes up your link profile. He went on to say, after on-page factor, a site's link profile has the most impact on how the site is returning the search results. I don't know about the most impact, but I do know that your on-page SEO and your link profile are two of the most important things along with probably usability. Yeah, absolutely. Number three, keyword research. Check. Check. Something we do all the time. I think the proper response is a lot of. A lot of. Exactly. He goes on to say, even though semantic search and search intent is supplanting the traditional functionality of keywords, they're still important. And he's absolutely right. But semantic search is the key here. So while when optimizing the site as an SEO, you want to find your keywords because at the end of the day, it's still keyword driven. Right. But semantic search, meaning conversational search, you may hear referred to as times, is necessary. So when writing your content, don't worry about density anymore. Right. Right. You know, we used to 500 words, four

years in each paragraph, 4% density, and you're good to go. Now you really want to write in a conversational style that users can engage with it, that they can understand it, that it doesn't appear optimized. And then just make sure you have your keyword in there, you know, at least in your title. And maybe in the H1 or two, and you should be sufficient with that. You know, what's interesting about that is semantic search, what is the process that Google goes through? So if the process is take this semantic search, how do I find the best restaurant or where is the best restaurant? And if it says, and it breaks that down to the keywords, best restaurant, location, location, Houston. Yeah. Right. And then provides those results, then guess what you still need to be optimizing for? Your keywords. Yeah, maybe. Best restaurant, Houston. And you probably won't, let's give you a real example. Maybe it's Italian restaurant. Oh yeah. Right. You know, I wouldn't optimize for best. Right. But I would optimize for Italian restaurant. And so if I'm driving in a semantic search about conversation, start thinking about, you know, Google Talk or Siri. Right. Even in all these other voice services. When you ask a question, they're just doing a Google search for what you asked. Sometimes. Some type of Google search for what you asked. And so you still need to incorporate those keywords. Yep. Definitely. Number four, linking best practices. Check. Check. And so the key, similar to link profiles, just understand the best practice in regards to linking. Don't swap links. It's not a good look. That's kind of douchey. Don't buy links. That's extremely douchey. Instead, create relevant content that generates natural links that people want to share. And when you do that, then you end up with all of these links to the same page and all of those links have different anchor text. Right. Somebody may link to it as great article. Somebody may link to us as great podcast. Or they may link to us

as- Great SEO article. Exactly. You get these different things because people felt their own kind of way about the article. Versus using some kind of shady link building practices and now you have 100 links that all came in two days and they all had the same anchor text. That's like a penguin target. Don't do that. Yeah. Narrowing in. Yeah, exactly. Oh, let's go to that guy who just built a thousand links this week. And they all have, you know, an Italian restaurant as the anchor text. Survey says. Yeah. Don't do that. Number five. Local SEO. Check. Check. Check. Check. He went on to say nap. Every business has a nap. That's your name, address, and phone number. In addition, the business must have profiles on the web. Profiles like Yelp, Foursquare, G Plus. And I agree. And I'll give you a pro tip here. Not only should you have Yelp, Angie's List, Foursquare, and G Plus. TripAdvisor. If you're a restaurant, a hotel, or some sort of establishment like that, man, that is a great place to get a link in that directory because people search for it. They pass great link juice and it's relevant. As well as Merchant Circle and City Search. There you go. That one's free. And I will say add this to your site. Support your NAP with local website content. So, for example, if you, maybe you provide service in different areas. Right. Then, if possible, create pages on your site that reference those areas. Yeah. With the services that you provide in those areas. That'll complement your NAP. And that way, you know, you can actually have these directories that reference information and you have supporting content on your site. It helps. Number six. PPC. PPC. Check. Check. So, wait, wait. So, this is good, right? So, the title of the article is 18 areas of knowledge every SEO must possess. And one of the items is PPC. Yeah. He goes on to say, it is possible to be an SEO and never have to bid on a

keyword. Many SEOs, however, carry the load of both organic search optimization and paid search. Aye. Yeah. And so, I spend a lot of time in analytics and AdWords and Bing Ad Center and everywhere in Facebook ads doing PPC. And so, it helps. What does it help with? I'm glad you asked. It helps with keyword research. If you're trying to figure out what terms, if you want to optimize for best restaurant or Italian restaurant, why don't you run a paid campaign first? See which one converts more. See which one gets the most clicks. See which one has the most search volume. And then, the ones that generate the most revenue for you, go back and optimize for those. And so, that's one of the ways PPC can help you as an SEO. It also increases your organic click-through rate. Yeah. And I know they're not affiliated, but from a user perspective- Credibility, yeah. Credibility perspective, that's the word. Yeah. When people search and they see you with a paid listing and then they search down and see your organic listing there as well, that organic listing gets higher clicks. Yep. It's happened over and over again. It just does. Number seven, mobile SEO. Check. Check. He says, mobile SEO is an entirely new iteration to the SEO universe. Yes, it's important to know about. The digital world is hurling towards a mobile future from werewolves and handhelds. And he's absolutely right. I think the key here in regards to mobile, the werewolves and all of that, I think that's a little, that's not right now. It's still growing. It's still growing. You know, Google Glass just came off the market we're talking about. Yeah. And so, like, it's still being- It's not looking good. It's still being adjusted. The watches, I don't see people searching on their watches. Maybe some Siri on my watch, maybe. Yeah. But, you know, I don't know. But, in regards to your mobile SEO, I think the key is making sure your site is mobile-friendly. Right. So, if you want to,

by default, you should at the very least be using a responsive design. I mean, look at the results that MTV had. MTV had. Yeah. Like, that's a no-brainer. Make sure you're having a responsive design. So, that way, all of your content is there and it's accessible from a mobile device. And, frankly, remember with the algorithm cat, we covered, I think it was three podcasts ago. Now, in Google search results, if you're searching on a mobile device, right next to the listing, it says this site is mobile-friendly. Yeah. And so, all responsive sites automatically get that. Yeah. And so, make sure that your site is mobile-friendly because it actually influences my click. Yeah. I was looking, I was like, okay, so I got five results and three of them are mobile-friendly, the other two not. I'm not clicking on those two, even if they're more relevant. Because I just know I'm going to have a bad experience on my phone. All right. All right. You're an SEO or? So, be honest, you went back and clicked them just to see how bad they were? No, I didn't click them at all. Because I'm also time-conscious. That's bad when an SEO guy is like, I'm not even going to check that out at all. I don't even want to know how bad it is. Yeah. Because it's not mobile-friendly. Number eight, conversion optimization. Check. This is check, check, check, check. Because we kind of recoined it as CVO. It stands for Search Engine Visitor Optimization. And conversion optimization or conversion rate optimization, same thing. And it's really the whole concept of how you convert visitors once they get to your site. Yeah. Right? So, no matter where they came from, whether it was Google, Bing, Yahoo, Facebook, Twitter, wherever, once they got to your site, did they go through your process and call to action, or fill out a form, or whatever it was, and actually convert. And so, that's a process. And it takes some understanding. He says conversion optimization or conversion rate optimization is helping

users convert on your web page. And that's why, you know, we talk about having your marketing company be the same company as your design company. Yeah. And that's why. That's why. Because we can see how much traffic you're getting and why they're not converting, or what pages they're dropping off on, or what page they got stuck on, or whatever it is. And as the marketing company and the web development company, we can make those adjustments and make those changes. And so, your SEVO, your conversion rate goes up. Number nine, marketing. Marketing. Duh. Check. He says, marketing is defined as the action or business of promoting and selling products or services. You want me to tell you what I wrote here? In regards to marketing, and we're talking SEO. Right. Right. I think it's key for that SEO person to understand your business process. Yep. So, that's why when we get new clients, we have like this, you know, hour call where we go through all your creatives and everything else. And the reason for that is because we need to understand your sales process. How long it takes to close a deal? What process do you want people to go through? Maybe you're selling products. What products do other people purchase along with this one? You know, maybe you offer a service. What other upsells or additions to the service can you add? It's necessary for your SEO company to know that. So, that way, when we're building this site and we're optimizing the site and we're working on your SEVO, we can make sure that people go down the right path. For example, maybe you have a six-week sales process because you have a really high product and it just takes a long time to close the deal. Well, having some real short form is not going to work because that's not your process. Instead, you need to guide people down the path, get them in your sales funnel so they can go through your process. And your SEO person and your web development

person need to be aware of that. You need to understand that. You know, when I saw marketing, I also thought of just traditional marketing. Yeah. Because as an SEO, you know, you're focused on spending the marketing dollars that you're getting on online stuff. Don't forget the value of the positive impact that offline marketing has on your online. And I was explaining this to actually a Comcast lady. She sells Comcast commercials the other day. One of the things that she should be, I don't think she got it, but one of the things that she should be pitching is, hey, not only does marketing with Comcast have the benefit of the marketing and the direct response that you can get and sending people to your website. They may not call you directly from the ad and say, I saw you on TV. Yeah, but they may see the ad and go to your site and then, yeah. The best thing from an SEO's perspective that a user could do having seen a commercial is to go and Google your name, right? Because now Google sees that in that surrounding area. Everybody who saw the ad and decided to go Google the name while this particular name, XYZ Business, has a lot of credibility because they're getting people searching directly for them. And so that's what I thought of when I read in that article marketing, when I saw the headline, traditional marketing. Or not just that. Think about how they should be in sync. So if your SEO is in tune and you guys are communicating, then before you put out that Comcast ad or whatever TV ad, your SEO may supply you with the right hashtag, with the right text, with the right whatever messaging that you need that's consistent with what's on the web. Yeah. Because like Chris just said, most people will see a commercial and then go search. Matter of fact, I read a stat a few weeks ago, 40% of branded mobile searches happen in a residence. Yeah. And they check that

by using home IP addresses. Yep, you know. That's people sitting on the couch on their phone and on their tablet searching for it. Watching a commercial. And searching for it. And so your SEO needs to be in tune with all of that. You want to keep going? No, I think that's good. So that was nine. We're halfway. We'll finish up the rest of this next week. Excellent. This was 18 areas of knowledge every SEO must possess. Great article, Neil. So far, we're on board. Yeah. So I think we're pretty good. You got a little what? I got a what? I got a punch in the face. I'm going to give a punch in the face real quick to Brian Childers. He hit us up. He says, at E-WebStyle, thanks for the advice on forums and reviews. We incorporated most of our client sites. Right. And they saw an increase in form submissions. And he actually called me. So what he did was- Wow, that was cool. Yeah, he called. Remember, we gave a tip about shrinking the size of your form. Like, instead of making the spaces too long, shorting the spaces. Having a label outside of the text box. Yeah, put the label inside the actual field itself. Yep. And that makes the forms appear shorter, even though it's the same amount of fields, and you see an increase in conversions. And it worked for him. So punch in the face to you for trying it and then reporting back on how it worked. Thanks for calling. That's awesome. Yeah. I got a word of the week. All right. Word of the week this week is phablet. P-H-A-B-L-E-T. Phablet. What do you think of phablet? Yeah, it's like a phone tablet thing. Yeah, it's like a really big ass phone. Yeah. Or a really small tablet. Right. A phablet. Yeah. Dig that. So, hey, let me tell you what I don't like about phablets. Right. Phablets require you to have a wearable. They don't require you, but you need a Bluetooth for something because-

It requires you to make a decision of being a dork. You don't want to, you know. Right. The iPhone and the whole iPad up to your ear. Yeah. Or having a Bluetooth device. Exactly. That's true. And back to the blanks there, we were talking removing Google Glass. They spent a lot of money on it, a lot of promo. And I believe they were just testing it. Yeah. You know, they got a lot of feed. That's why everybody couldn't get one. Right. Right. And so they got a lot of feedback and they realized, okay, this is probably not as useful as we thought it was going to be in this fashion. And Google's great. They'll likely come back, regroup. I think they did hand it off to somebody to kind of- Yeah. The guy who did the next thermostat thing? Mm-hmm. Oh, the Nest deal. That's right. Nest. Nest. Nest. Nest. Nest. Nest. Nest. So, blanks there, Google. It'll come back. We'll see it again. Yeah. I'm looking forward to it. And that's all I got. Cool. All right. Let's see. What else do we have? A couple little announcements that I wasn't prepared for. Still not prepared for. I'm now prepared for. All right. So, if you're looking to grow your business with the largest- Marketing tool on the planet. The internet. Also known as the internet. Like my notes here just died. Call eWebStyle for increased revenue in your business. By the way, if you were wondering, you now know I am actually reading it. Yeah. Our phone number is 713-592-6724. If you have an SEO client and you'd like to pass them to us, they start doing SEO, pay their bills. We will pay you. We are filmed live here at 5999 West 34th Street Suite 106 in Houston, Texas. We are the most popular internet marketing podcast because of you. Thank you very much. Until the next podcast, my name is Chris Morris. Charles Luth. Bye-bye for now. Bye-bye for now. Bye-bye for now.