Yellow SEO - Search Engine Optimization Blog » SEO

Caution:Blog Scrapers

Amber — Fri, 08 May 2009 13:14:12 +0000

There has recently been a lot talk about the importance of blogging for SEO purposes. Many experts agree that a blog is a dynamic and interactive tool which allows you to effectively address vital issues and share relevant and useful information with readers both inside and outside the industry. But as blogging increases in popularity, more websites are facing the alarming problem of content theft.
My first encounter with this issue happened a while ego when I posted my first blog on Data Feed Optimization. In a matter of a hours the word-by-word copy appeared on multiple sites. A few days later the original blog was completely knocked out of search results. What happened to me is not uncommon. Scrapers also known as content scrapers or feed scrapers are computer programs that go out onto the web and copy the content from other sites with unique content.

They usually do it by adding your RSS to their site. Once they get a notification that you published something they automatically scrape the new post. They almost never link back leaving the poor low-ranked blog behind to suffer lower rankings.
Another side of content theft is blunt plagiarism which I personally consider to be even more appalling. I was recently browsing the web looking for good blogs on the latest SEO trends and came across a great article by Stephan Spencer. This article was duplicated at least 7 times on the same page for search results. Most bloggers from the first page did refer to the original author except for one. Some guy Chris Wood who claims to be a reputable online marketing consultant copied the entire blog word-after-word, pasted in into his own blog using site-specific design and formatting, and took the credit for it. Such practices occur every single day!
One would think Google and other search engines are smart enough to detect cases of content theft but unfortunately, they are not. If your blog is scraped almost simultaneously without a backlink, is next to impossible for Google to decided who has the original copy and who is a copycat. This is where your page rank may come into play. Sadly, if your blog thief has a much higher page rank you may the one labeled as a copy cat. Thus blog thieves get away with the theft and thrive while the original website maybe penalized. Is that fair? Definitely not.
Here is a few things you can do to detect plagiarism and protect your website from automatic scrapers who make up for the majority of content theft.

1. Submit your url to Copyscape to see who is stealing your website or blog content.

2. If content thieves don’t show up immediately in the search results, try to repeat your search a few times with omitted results.

3. Set up Google Alerts for key phrases related to your content.

4. Set the feeds to “summary” which will give the scrapers only an extract from the entire content as opposed to the entire post.

5. Add legal disclaimer in the header or the footer of the post.

6. Use tools such as Numly WordPress Plugin, RSS Footer, and TagRight to restrict the access to your content and establish your authorship.

7. Force blog scrapers to link back to your site by

a) including links which point to specific pages on your website in the blog copy

b) linking to your blog post from within the feed content.Read tips from Matt Cutt on how to do it.

c) using the free tool called Tynt Tracer (it inserts a short piece of code on your blog to prevent scraping without backlinks)

Now the bad news. There is little protection against the manual scraping. Combating this is a time consuming process which doesn’t always lead to the desirable outcome. If the entire text is copied without referencing to you, it is still legally enforceable under the copyright laws, however, if only parts of the content are stolen, your actions are very limited. The common suggestion is to put your craving for justice aside for a moment and assess the damage as to whether it is worth your time to go after the thieves. If the damage is tangible, you can

• send them an e-mail and request to take the content down
• flag them on the website
• modify RSS feed for the offenders or even block your IP address
• inform search engines through DCMA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) letters
• seek legal action ( in extreme cases)

Due to the efforts of our SEO team, the blog entry was back into the search results and the copycats were pushed far down. It was a good learning experience but it also made me think that blog scraping is a small drop in the ocean of plagiarism. Let’s face it. Individuals as well as companies bluntly rip off entire websites and business ideas every day. The least Google and other search engines can do is develop better ways of detecting and combating content theft.
P.S. If this blog gets scraped, wouldn’t that be awesomely ironic?

Home Page Optimization: How to get a customer in 7 seconds

Amber — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 16:31:39 +0000

There’s only one chance at making a good first impression. That’s why your home page is, by far, the most important page on your entire website. Optimizing your home page is not just about SEO, but it is also about optimizing your most critical landing pages for conversions.

Most people don’t realize that the ultimate common purpose of a website’s home page is to gain interest and establish credibility. It is NOT to try to sell everything under the sun on the first page they get to. It is NOT to present every single possible important fact across a lengthy home page.

If the first encounter with a website doesn’t have a clear message and create positive feelings of a match to what they are looking for, the visitor will be lost forever. Producing a favorable impression and evoking strong visitor trust within the first few seconds leads to more clickthroughs, which leads to more sales, which leads to better SEO ranking.

How do you measure how successful your home page is? Look at your conversion rate. If you are not tracking Goals in Analytics yet, that is the first step.

To determine the effectiveness of your home page take a few minutes and ask yourself the following two questions.

1. Is the purpose of your website reflected on the home page? It is time to step back and look at your website from the perspective of a first time user. Does your landing page clearly communicate what products and services you offer? It is a good idea to conduct a small marketing research and ask non-related people for their opinion on the purpose of the site. If their answers surprise you, it means you are doing something wrong. Start by setting clear goals and objectives and then transform them into an attractive selling message using the language appropriate for your target customer. Use reassurance logos, testimonials and privacy statements to build trust and confidence.

2. Is your home page consistent with the nature of your business and target customer? The copy and design of your home page should clearly communicate what your product is, reflect the image of your brand and your target customer. A website selling software to retail stores has to use a different approach from the one selling software to technical companies. Sounds like a given but you will be surprised how many websites totally ignore this aspect of design. Do competitive research and find out what your target customer is expecting to see.

3. How strong is your call-to-action? You may have a website far superior than your competitors but if you do not clearly indicate what action you want people to take, you just lost the most important battle. Having a powerful (not overpowering) call-to-action always results in better ranking and higher conversions. A great call-to-action is:
a. placed in the most visible part of the home page.
b. offers different options from mild to more aggressive(ex.: e-mail us, live chat, request a call back, call now, get a price quote etc)
c. tested regularly for maximum conversions

IMPORTANT: Always encourage visitors to leave contact information. Even if it doesn’t immediately result into sales, capturing customer information leaves a room for further interaction.

4. Are you tracking your goals and objectives? Implementing Google Analytics will help you to monitor the effectiveness of your webpage and allows you react promptly. Keep in mind that making drastic and sporadic changes over a short period of time can cause your ranking to bounce back. To achieve optimum results, changes have to be gradual and well thought out.

5. What is your competition doing? Learn at competitors’ expense! You don’t need to reinvent the wheel. See why your competition is successful and learn from it. It is always a smart move to research your competitors’ websites for ideas of what works and what doesn’t. Keep in mind that blunt plagiarism is a terrible idea for a lot of reasons. To outsmart your competition you need to take a creative idea and raise it to a new level by adapting it to the specific needs of your website.

6. Does your website work properly? Functionality is the key. There is nothing more repelling and damaging to your site reputation than broken pages. The website needs to be tested in different browsers on both big and small resolution screens.

7. How long does it take to load? There is no widely accepted benchmark for page loading. My rule of thumb is that you have 2 seconds for the page to load and 5 seconds to sell a prospect. Therefore to maximize sales you should give yourself maximum selling time.

8. Do you have enough copy on your homepage? Give search engines something to read. Many website try to hide the scarcity of written text behind the abundance of images and “cool” graphics which obviously doesn’t help the ranking. Search engine heavily rely on copy in determining the popularity and relevance of your site. To learn more about the role of copy for seo purposes, check out my upcoming blog “Content: the Key to Popularity and Relevance”

9. Is the use of multimedia components justified? Remember how you feel when you go to a website searching for a product and as a result are sentenced to watching minute-long intros and animations? Most web design firms try hard to outperform the competition by using elaborate layouts and special effects Here is the thing. Static sites with conventional layouts exist for a reason. Unless done skillfully and in moderation, the use of macromedia flash adds very little to the quality of the webpage and has a zero contribution to SEO. What it does, it significantly increases your initial costs and causes annoyance among visitors. The same rule applies to video and audio components.

These questions cover the basics of home page optimization. If you are not happy with your answers, it means your website needs some work. One of the first steps can be getting a home page analysis from a professional seo company. Most of the good ones, will offer this analysis as well as an action plan absolutely free. Shop around because working with knowledgeable people will enable you to find the solution that is right for you.

Remember the websites which look effortless are the ones that had a lot of effort put in. Good Luck!

Local Search Optimization, the new SEO for small businesses?

Amber — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 15:54:02 +0000

Earlier last week Google released a statement announcing that effective April, 6th local search results will be included by default on all queries. How does this change anything? Here is why we believe it will have a huge impact on the way many SEO companies build their strategies.
Let’s start with the benefits for the immediate consumer. Before this change occurred, users had to request local search results by typing their geographic location in the search box. With the new technology they won’t have to do it any more. Google will identify where users are by using their IP-address thus people can get to the most useful and relevant results a lot faster. This is also great news for mobile phone holders whose devices have a trackable GPS module. No more tedious I-phone typing in the cold! Mobile search is about to get a lot easier.

Now, what this means to small and medium local businesses is they will be able to compete more effectively on Google. Local search is growing very fast. Instead of going after a big highly-competitive nation-wide market, it allows to target a more specific audience for a fraction of a cost. Targeting translates into better conversions and increased ROI. Also keep in mind that local search results are ranked more prominently on mobile devices which contributes to the growing importance of mobile marketing.
With local search being mixed with general search results, SEO can get you to the first page in search results faster and cheaper. With so much valuable traffic coming in from Local search results, things are going to get a lot more competitive. Now, is the time to establish a strong foothold on your local online search presence. By being the first to take advantage of this, you’ll have the opportunity to secure your spot on the first page of Google for highly competitive keywords targeted to your geography.

8 Steps To Improve Your Adwords Quality Score

Amber — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 22:45:49 +0000

A high quality score in Adwords means you will be able to run your pay-per-click campaign cheaper and more effectively than your competitors.
Most people don’t know that Google Adwords will give preference to cheaper ads provided they demonstrate high relevance, excellent clickthrough rate and better overall performance.

8 steps in improving your Adwords Quality Score

1. Use Traffic Estimator for keyword analysis.Traffic Estimator is a great tool which helps to predict keyword performance in terms of CPC bid and positioning. It enables you to filter your initial choices and eliminate keywords which are either too expensive or don’t generate enough clicks. Make sure you are not logged into your Google account when using Traffic Estimator because it may skew the results.
2. Try Opportunities to Improve Option. Though generally skeptical of computer-generated tools offered by Adwords, I was pleasantly surprised with Opportunities to Improve button.It instantly increased the QS for some of the ads. Similar results are not guaranteed but since this tool is free, you have little to lose.

3. Eliminate generic keywords. The more targeted your keywords are, the greater your conversion rate is. Using broad categories for keywords may trigger a lot of clicks, but you have to ask yourself whether these are the clicks you need. For example: People, who type in “search engine optimization”, may be looking for definitions and encyclopedic information. Are they interested in using the actual services? Probably not. As a result, you spend more money for irrelevant clicks. With highly targeted keywords you don’t get as many clicks but you do get more value out of them.
4.Split keywords between ad groups.A commonly made mistake is to staff all relevant keywords into one ad. Instead, split keywords into smaller more targeted groups while maintaining the relevance of the keywords to the actual ad copy.
5. Separate “Good” Keywords from “Bad” Keywords. Keeping the keywords of different value mixed together can negatively impact the QS. After you run your campaign for a while, you will be able to evaluate the performance of each single keyword. Eventually, the keywords which don’t generate enough clicks can be deleted.
6. Experiment with Matching Options. If most of your keywords are broad match, try to add exact match and phrase match keywords to each ad group. Run the ad for a few days and then leave the option with better QS and lower minimum CPC. Although broad match is generally considered the most popular of the three, the exact match tends to be much cheaper.
7. Modify Meta Tags and Meta Descriptions. Adwords is a great test marketing tool. You can use keyword performance analysis to optimize your website. Ex.: Consider adding your best performing keywords to the meta tags or using the exact text from the best performing ad in the meta description.
8. Optimize your Landing Page. Landing Page Optimization is a topic in itself. Google analyzes landing page relevance to determine your site’s ranking in both organic and sponsored search results. In relation to Quality Score, you need to make sure that ads point to a landing page which is relevant to ad copy and the selected keywords. An effective landing page needs to have a compelling copy, good internal navigation and a powerful call to action. If your website doesn’t meet these 3 criteria, you should consider seeking professional search engine optimization help.

Without a creative well-thought out approach, Google Adwords can become a major expense in your advertising budget. Improving the Quality brings you one step closer to your ultimate goal – convert more clicks into sales while keeping your expenses low.

When is a good time to do SEO?

admin — Sat, 25 Oct 2008 17:28:14 +0000

For many website owners, there is a logical process which most companies follow.

1) Build a website
2) Do a pay per click campaign
3) If it goes well pay more into pay per click, experiment with SEO
4) If it doesn’t go well, stop investing in the website.

However, after a website is built, the FIRST step should be determining what your conversion rate is. That means setting up a Google analytics account, getting the goal conversions setup, and MEASURING results from traffic generated from a PPC campaign. What most companies don’t realize is that the number one factor which determines success in a campaign is whether or not the website has the ability to convert. Without that, the money spent on generating traffic is very often wasted. If your site can convert 3-5% of targeted traffic, then there is a good chance you’ll make money from an SEO or Pay per click campaign. If not, then it is wiser to invest the money into improving the fundamentals of the website so that visitors find what they are looking for.

A reputation management crisis

admin — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 03:50:15 +0000

Reputation management is not the most well-defined term in the industry. What exactly does it mean? How does one do reputation management? The fact is that a lot of SEO’s don’t even know what to do until an incident happens.

It’s not until you’re in a situation where someone is attacking your honor where you realize that Google has a lot of power over what others think of you and your company. Here is an example one company, absolutepoker.com which literally got devastated by other a few people who were very mad at them. They decided to advertise under their name to get top placement for their absolutepokercheats.com site and the following is what happened.

This was quickly becoming a public relations nightmare. So what can you do when something like this happens? Well, in the world of SEO, there are a few things you can do to mitigate the damage immediately. It comes down to pulling down the value of the page or bringing up the value of your pages so that the listing gets pushed off of the first page.

But this is only part of the solution. In an ideal situation, you will have proactively spent resources in making sure that anything listed under your name or company are high ranking pages that YOU control. That means that it becomes very difficult for someone to get themselves associated with your company that you don’t want, but more importantly, you can respond to threats to your reputation because you have a number of strategically placed pages where you can do damage control. Online reputation management is quickly becoming a new essential tool for public relations and media management.

Search Engine Optimization Myths

admin — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 15:40:27 +0000

One of the biggest problems with the SEO world is that anyone can claim to be an SEO expert. It’s very difficult for someone interested in SEO services to figure out who is really an expert at SEO and who is just good at selling. Very often, people choose SEO companies based on reputation, but many companies can develop a strong reputation and still be awful at SEO. Often, the older, larger companies simply rely on their online presence to get new customers, but are serviced by people who know very little about Search Engine Optimization.

The truth is that many online businesses can truly benefit from great SEO, but after being burned by cheaper vendors promising wild guarantees and overcharging with very little results, most people are reluctant to continue with SEO.

Our goal is to blow away misconceptions in the SEO industry, guide people to better ranking, and when you’re ready to take your online marketing to the next level give you the information you need so we can get you there.