Study Sites to Improve Your SEO Skills
06/29/10 23:34
Tweet
A great way to improve your SEO Skills is to look at the best of the best. Looking at sites that do SEO well (or sites that do it poorly) can teach you a lot SEO and really improve your skills as a SEO professional. In SEO, there are many different types of sites. There are news sites like the Nytimes.com, review sites like Yelp.com, classified sites like Craigslist.com, content sites like Wikipedia.com, retail sites like Zappos.com, services sites like Carat.com, etc., etc. Each of these sites require different strategies for SEO. The structure for these sites and the keyword optimization become critical.
Structure of the Site
Especially considering Googles latest algorithm developments, how you structure your site has become even more important. Pick a couple of sites that you notice showing up in the search results and study how they are linking into the deep pages of their site. Often times the deep pages on the site are the pages that make them money (especially on retail sites). Understanding site structure is critical in developing your SEO.
The way Hotels.com links to its deep pages will certainly be different than how Amazon.com links to their deep pages. Some sites will use content to link deeply while other sites will use different methods. Looking at the flow of the site can be a major help in understanding SEO site structure.
Link Building
There are plenty of free SEO resources that give you some information about linking. Rather than always looking at what your competitors are doing, it can be helpful to see what other industries are doing. You can learn a lot, and it could help you build a business case for upper management for developing product launch strategies, content stategies, and/or contests that will help to generate interest and thus, links.
Keyword Strategies
While you won’t be able to figure out which keywords to target by looking at the best SEO sites out of your industry, you might be able to understand their strategy. You will be able to see whether they are targeting high traffic terms or long tail terms. You will also be able to see whether they are doing keyword research for each page or if they have created a formula. Look to see how they treat their main landing pages as opposed deeper pages. As odd as it may sound this will help you to decide which keywords to target on your own site.
Conclusion
Whether the company you work for is big or small, whether SEO is your main job or a side job, looking at what the best SEO sites does will be beneficial to you. Having your own personal site (s) is very important for learning, but it is not everything. I highly recommend pulling together a list of 5-8 sites that have great SEO, and studying what each of them do extremely well.
A great way to improve your SEO Skills is to look at the best of the best. Looking at sites that do SEO well (or sites that do it poorly) can teach you a lot SEO and really improve your skills as a SEO professional. In SEO, there are many different types of sites. There are news sites like the Nytimes.com, review sites like Yelp.com, classified sites like Craigslist.com, content sites like Wikipedia.com, retail sites like Zappos.com, services sites like Carat.com, etc., etc. Each of these sites require different strategies for SEO. The structure for these sites and the keyword optimization become critical.
Structure of the Site
Especially considering Googles latest algorithm developments, how you structure your site has become even more important. Pick a couple of sites that you notice showing up in the search results and study how they are linking into the deep pages of their site. Often times the deep pages on the site are the pages that make them money (especially on retail sites). Understanding site structure is critical in developing your SEO.
The way Hotels.com links to its deep pages will certainly be different than how Amazon.com links to their deep pages. Some sites will use content to link deeply while other sites will use different methods. Looking at the flow of the site can be a major help in understanding SEO site structure.
Link Building
There are plenty of free SEO resources that give you some information about linking. Rather than always looking at what your competitors are doing, it can be helpful to see what other industries are doing. You can learn a lot, and it could help you build a business case for upper management for developing product launch strategies, content stategies, and/or contests that will help to generate interest and thus, links.
Keyword Strategies
While you won’t be able to figure out which keywords to target by looking at the best SEO sites out of your industry, you might be able to understand their strategy. You will be able to see whether they are targeting high traffic terms or long tail terms. You will also be able to see whether they are doing keyword research for each page or if they have created a formula. Look to see how they treat their main landing pages as opposed deeper pages. As odd as it may sound this will help you to decide which keywords to target on your own site.
Conclusion
Whether the company you work for is big or small, whether SEO is your main job or a side job, looking at what the best SEO sites does will be beneficial to you. Having your own personal site (s) is very important for learning, but it is not everything. I highly recommend pulling together a list of 5-8 sites that have great SEO, and studying what each of them do extremely well.
Comments
Effective Link Building Strategies for Start-Ups and SMB
04/12/10 23:30
Tweet
Dear Start-ups and Small Businesses trying to build links, an effective way to build links for SEO is to get out and participate in the community. As a startup trying to build traffic at a low cost, one of the most important and difficult things to do when you launch your site (and maintain it) is to build links from external sites pointing to your site. It is a critical element for SEO, and SEO is one of the best ways to drive targeted traffic to your site.
Going to events, meeting people and demoing your product can be a very effective link building strategy. There are two reasons for this 1) free links from the events site, 2) exposure to potential users, bloggers and alpha users. People love to blog about the events that they attended. If you have a quality product and you are showing it to the right audience you will likely get someone you met or demoed for to write/blog about you. The bigger the event, the more people who will write about it and write follow up blog posts with summaries of what went on. Any link you can get to point to your site in the early stages is great. These write-ups will also create buzz around your company.
The other plus is the coverage you will get from the organization that is hosting the event. They are often authoritative sites that produce quality links.
Dear Start-ups and Small Businesses trying to build links, an effective way to build links for SEO is to get out and participate in the community. As a startup trying to build traffic at a low cost, one of the most important and difficult things to do when you launch your site (and maintain it) is to build links from external sites pointing to your site. It is a critical element for SEO, and SEO is one of the best ways to drive targeted traffic to your site.
Going to events, meeting people and demoing your product can be a very effective link building strategy. There are two reasons for this 1) free links from the events site, 2) exposure to potential users, bloggers and alpha users. People love to blog about the events that they attended. If you have a quality product and you are showing it to the right audience you will likely get someone you met or demoed for to write/blog about you. The bigger the event, the more people who will write about it and write follow up blog posts with summaries of what went on. Any link you can get to point to your site in the early stages is great. These write-ups will also create buzz around your company.
The other plus is the coverage you will get from the organization that is hosting the event. They are often authoritative sites that produce quality links.
(Although not highlighted, these are links pointing to the companies who demoed and presented at Webinno 25)
Building links for a start up can sometimes be difficult as you try to prove value and gain traction. Not everyone is able to get the TechCrunch’s and VentureBeat’s of the world to write about them from the start. Even those that can, still need every link that they can get. Going out and meeting people kills two birds with one stone; you are able to teach new people about your product and it often leads to more links to your site.
As a small business or start up, you should always be on the lookout for ways to build links to your site. They drive traffic and will help improve your SEO traffic. So get out into the community, meet with people and show people your product. People love to get excited about new companies. It can help you in more ways than you think.
