How to Use Long Tail Keywords in Headlines

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According to Worldometers, every day we are inundated with more than 2 million blog posts and 200 billion emails. No matter what you are writing – blog posts, emails, online ads, or anything else – the headline is a crucial element. How do you get people to stop and read what you write when there’s so much competing content? If you get the headline right, you will probably be positioned at the top of the search results pages. A truly great headline might even prompt people to respond and share your article. Keyword-rich headlines will improve your website rankings and increase engagement with your audience. Your target audience is looking for blog posts that will solve their problems and address the keywords they typed into Google’s search box.

Follow this 3-Step Process for Using Long Tail Keywords in Your Headlines

First Step: Research and choose long-tail search terms.

Let’s stay with Google AdWords Keywords Planner for our example.

On the dashboard, type in your main keyword phrase (e.g., start small business) and click the “Get Ideas” button.

You can see the long-tail keywords that we’ll integrate into our blog post headlines:

starting a small business checklist
best small business to start
steps to starting a small business
help starting a small business

Second step: Model popular and viral headlines.

You can’t just pick long-tail key phrases. You also have to identify viral content specific to your industry, learn from it, and then improve upon it.

When you find headlines that have been shared thousands of times on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc., it means that you can get great results, too. All you have to do is study them and incorporate the underlying strategies into your own content.

How do you find these viral blog post headlines?

Visit BuzzSumo, input your main keyword (i.e., start small business), and click the “search” button.

The two viral headlines are:

5 Simple Ways to Start a Small Business ~ 102,658 Facebook shares
6 Things I Wish Somebody Had Told Me When I Started My Small Business

Third step: Create your headlines using the viral headlines as a model:

Original Headline: 5 Simple Ways to Start a Small Business

Keyword phrase to integrate: steps to starting a small business

Unique and keyword-rich blog post headline based on the model:

7 Steps to Starting a Small Business and Growing It
3 Simple Steps to Start a Small Business That You’ll Love

When I find a headline that makes me click, I’ll copy it, study it, and create a unique and better one.

Check For Vulnerabilities In Your Connected Devices

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Last week’s DDoS attack on Dyn shut down portions of the internet. A DDos attack is a distributed denial of service attack. Dyn is a major DNS provider. The attack was created by a botnet that took control of a bunch of different connected cameras that still had the default passwords in use. In order to understand how to protect yourself, you need to check for vulnerabilities in your connected devices. And to do that, you need to understand what a DDos attack is and what DNS is first.

What’s a DDoS attack?

At the most basic level a distributed denial of service attack works like this. An attacker sends an onslaught of packets – essentially just garbage data – to an intended recipient. In the case of the most recent attack, the recipient was Dyn’s DNS servers. The server is overwhelmed by the garbage packets, can’t handle any new incoming connections, and eventually slows down significantly or crashes entirely. What’s new about this particular attack is that it’s now possible for an attack by a group of hijacked insecure network devices. The group of hijacked insecure network devices become a DDoS army that can work together to bring down a website.

What’s DNS?

DNS stands for Domain Name Servers. These are the internet’s equivalent of a phone book. Domain Name Servers maintain a directory of domain names and translate them to IP addresses. Without DNS, we would have to remember the IP addresses for websites instead of their easy to remember names. Google’s IP address is 8.8.8.8 but most IP addresses are far harder to remember.

Why Should I Check For Vulnerabilities in Connected Devices?

Since last week’s DDoS attack was created by a botnet that took control of a bunch of different connected cameras with default passwords, it’s important to run a scan on your own network to make sure you don’t have any devices that are essentially open and accessible to an internet hijacking. To scan if you have such devices on your network, Bullguard Security created IoT Scanner. Go to the site, click the scan button, and IoT Scanner will look for open ports on your network.

If IoT Scanner comes back saying that your network can be breached, that means some device that’s connected to your Wi-Fi network has an open port that makes it accessible from the internet. This could be on purpose if you’re running a server or have some other device that you can access from outside your home network. If you’re not doing that and IoT Scanner says your network can be breached, then it’s a good idea to contact your IT professional and see which device has that open port.

Like most tools, take the results with a grain of salt and use this as a starting point to really secure your network.

Online Shopping? How To Get The Best Price

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Thanks to dynamic surge pricing, retailers have made online shopping more complicated for shoppers. It used to be easy – practically any online shopping purchase was less expensive than one made at a brick and mortar store. With dynamic pricing – businesses set prices based on market demand and user browsing – online shopping requires creative tactics. Follow the tactics below and I guarantee you’ll get the best prices for anything.

Abandon Your Cart

This is the online shopping way of playing hard to get, but sometimes it really pays off. If you’re not in a hurry to order something, leaving items in your cart may prompt retailers to email you a discount code after a couple of days. “Did you forget something?, their emails might say. “Here’s 25% off!” Just make sure you’re logged in while you’re shopping or else they won’t have an email address on file to send a code to.

Open A Chat Window

Take advantage of any ecommerce site that has chat support. Many of these chat tech support people have the ability to offer you discounts or offer you items that are in stock but not yet on the website. This works particularly well for big companies. I’ve used this online shopping strategy with success on the Dell Outlet site many times.

Use Wikibuy

Wikibuy is a web-brower extension. With Wikibuy, customers browse Amazon while the extension searches through hundreds of sellers for better prices and coupons.

Shop on Mondays

Optimal shopping times and days vary depending on what you’re buying. Prices change based on the day of the week or month, and different retailers operate on different markdown schedules. In general, however, you can score the best deals shopping online on Mondays, especially if you’re looking to buy consumer electronics.

Set Up Alerts

There are ways to alert yourself about price drops and also to predict when prices may drop in the future. CamelCamelCamel lets users monitor price fluctuations for any item on Amazon.

Go Under Cover

Believe it or not, but much of the pricing that you see on Amazon is based on your own browser and purchase history. If you go incognito and eliminate some of the information that retailers have on you, you might find that prices are lower. One easy way of doing this is to browser in a different browser from the browser you’ll use to make your final purchase.

Be A Brand Evangelist

If you show interest in a brand by signing up for email lists, you will often get exclusive offers and early sale access. You also get a lot more junk email so there’s a clear trade-off.

Is Your Website Mobile Friendly? Time May Be Running Out.

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Gary Illyes at Pubcon announced today that Google is switching to a mobile first index.  This means that Google will be indexing the mobile versions of pages and not the desktop as its primary index.

This is a huge change.  Google has always used the desktop version of a page for ranking, even when serving results to users on a mobile device.

The mobile first index is not live yet, but it will be soon. So what can you or your business do to be prepared?

For starters, you’ll need to make absolutely sure your website is mobile-friendly and responsive. Here are some tips to get you started, so your web site’s mobile experience is optimized and ready to go by the time the transition occurs.

  • Use Google’s mobile-friendly test, which was created to analyze websites and offer suggestions for mobile optimization. As part of this test, you can check your site’s page loading speed – which is absolutely critical in a mobile-first environment. While the mobile-friendly test gives users a ballpark idea of what to aim for, don’t simply rely on its results. Instead…
  • Review your site on your own smartphone, and a friend’s smartphone, and your neighbor’s smartphone… Your site could potentially display differently from device to device and browser to browser (e.g., Chrome vs. IE, vs. Safari vs. Firefox). Start making a checklist: How do your main pages appear? Is your company or organization’s contact information readily available with clickable calls-to-action? Your website should be responsive, with buttons that are easily pressed, menus that are easily accessible, and text that is legible without resorting to a pinch and zoom approach.
  • Start planning now for optimized content. Writing for mobile-first shouldn’t change your style, wholesale. Keep in mind, though, that when writing for a smaller screen, brevity is a virtue. Consider shorter headlines that trim the fat and focus on the core subject. Content headings, font size, and color may need to be toned down, somewhat. In terms of main content, getting to the point swiftly and succinctly will be essential, as it allows scanners to decide if they want to scroll any further. (Better yet, hook them and reel them in so they have no choice but to do so.)

From website updates to redesigns, taking a mobile-first approach is more important than it has ever been. If you haven’t yet taken the leap, now is the time to get started.
If your website does not initially ace Google’s mobile-friendly test, contact us today. We can help you identify what needs to be done so you can pass with flying colors.

SEO is not about ranking first

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SEO is no longer about getting your business name in the top search results. I know this will come across as a shock to many people outside of the SEO industry, but think about your user experience with Google. It’s interesting because our SEO expectations are out of alignment with reality. First of all the way we search now is very different from the way we searched a few years back.

We don’t just type tennis shoes into the search bar. Many of us ask a longer type of question. Some of us don’t even use a search engine or browser to ask the question. We use Siri or one of Siri’s sisters instead.

Let’s take a look at a few searches. I searched for tennis shoes and you’ll see that there are 18.3 million results. On the first page Google shows me a list of stores that sell tennis shoes and then a map with local places that sell tennis shoes.

 

Then I searched using a longer tail keyword “law firms in dc” and still find that many of DC’s top law firms are not on the first page of the search engine results.

 

So maybe you’re wondering if it’s even possible to rank on the first page of the Google search results? If you’re committed to finding the right long tail keywords, you can definitely rank on the first page of Google. To be completely transparent, you won’t rank for the term “IBM” or “Yahoo” anytime soon. Those are head terms, not long-tail keywords. They are also trademarked, talked about, and dominated by large and established businesses.

Check out this great Quick Sprout post that explains how to rank on a first page of search results for long tail keywords.

SEO – Optimizing On-Page Content and Generating Backlinks

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A well-optimized webpage can keep sending high quality traffic to your online presence years after it was first published. A web page that is search engine optimized is like a little worker bee. However this also means that your SEO work is never done. SEO should be an ongoing process. Web pages can always be better optimized and they should be refreshed to reflect changes in keyword strategy or to adapt to changes in Google’s SERP strategy – and Google is constantly changing SERP priorities.

Start With On-Page SEO

You have the most control over your on-page SEO. You can start by analyzing what you currently have going on. If it’s been a while since you took a look at your keyword list, time for a fresh look. Perhaps your constituents were previously most concerned with improving their professional certification and credentials. But now maybe they may have greater concerns about their options for climate change. One approach is to take a close look at what new issues people may be emailing you about. What are your people talking about on social media? Find out what new questions and concerns they have. Are they asking similar questions but in different ways.

Brainstorm a new list of keywords based on what you learn. Use the keyword list to refresh existing content and build a new topic list. Then start publishing content that reflects your potential constituents’ new priorities.

A second way to do some ground analysis is to grade your website’s current SEO status. HubSpot’s Website Grader will point out some quick wins and areas that need further development. If your pages load slowly, or your site isn’t optimized for mobile, the Grader will let you know. It will also provide some direct SEO tips where it thinks a page is falling short.

Google constantly changes its SEO algorithm and tag properties. Google recently pushed organic results further down the page by inserting a fourth paid ad spot. Google also expanded the character count for titles and meta descriptions. You may want to rework all (or just some) of your organization’s webpage titles and meta description tags to keep up with the changes.

Also review pages to ensure they’re optimized around one choice keyword, and that all your possible tags and headings are SEO-optimized. Do your blog posts tend to be long stretches of text? Write keyword optimized headers (and tag them appropriately — H1, H2, etc.) for a collection of your most relevant posts. Google reads images – do you have alt-text for all of your images? (BTW – did you know that alt-text for images is used by voice recognition systems for reading aloud your pages. As hands-free laws are becoming more strictly enforced, this tag will become important as people rely more on “Siri” and her counterparts to read your organization’s webpages to them while driving, etc.)

Off-Page Backlinks

Backlinks – links from an outside website to your website – validate your website’s authority and are critical for SEO. You can put social sharing icons on all your pages to help people link to your site, but if you want to take your backlink SEO strategy to the next level, you have to get proactive.

Try including some context-specific sharing Call To Action by your social icons. If you have a blog post reviewing popular professional resources that members of your trade organization might use, you can add copy at the end of the post that specifically encourages your colleagues to share this list with their colleagues. “Share this on Facebook:  Fellow CPAs – heads up! Get the new Guide to financial services standards [yourURL]. Will bring in new clients!”

You could also set up an influencer program. Influencers are people who regularly share content to people who fit your target market. You can start your search for influencers at home by looking at your constituents, board members, and corporate partners to find people with some social media traction.

Make sure you don’t overlook people who aren’t yet part of your organization’s family, such as bloggers who write about your industry and relevant online publications. Do some social media research to find bloggers and sites that are also using your keywords or talking about the same issues as your organization.

Reach out to them individually. See if they’ll write a post for you, or interview one of your association’s executives on a hot topic, or write a review on a piece of your organization’s content that would be of particular interest to them. Many online publications are starving for new content. They’re always on the lookout for posts or new content for their sites.

Are you getting into video yet? Video has begun as the next major shift in online consuming habits. Start your YouTube channel with whatever video content you already have: talks at events, constituent testimonials, education videos. Like a blog post, each video has its own set of SEO tags you can use so it gets found. Each video is also another source to link back to your website or blog. Videos are also highly shareable, which means other people will be generating back links for you as well.

Strive for SEO Success

The key is to never be content. With constantly changing constituents and Google’s equally constant adjustments to search results parameters, you can always find ways to build on your past SEO success.

SEO Tactics That Are No Longer Effective

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SEO is a constantly changing field. What worked on Friday might not even work on Monday! Here are a few SEO tactics that are no longer effective. If you’re considering hiring someone to optimize your website, these SEO tactics should be red flags.

1. Keywords before clicks
2. Heavy use of anchor text on internal links
3. Pages for every keyword variant
4. Directories, paid links, etc.
5. Multiple microsites, separate domains
6. Exact and partial keyword match domains

Keywords before clicks

This used to be called keyword stuffing. You would do your keyword research and then plaster keywords all over your page to get clicks for those keywords. The downside to this approach is that it rarely yielded any conversions because visitors left those web pages immediately upon arrival. Web pages stuffed with keywords are nonsensical gibberish. Don’t do this or risk being penalized by Google.

Heavy use of anchor text on internal links

This is another SEO tactic that risks a Google penalty. In this case, I would suggest that if the internal link is in the navigation, the footer, sidebar, or inside content, and if it’s relevant and well-written and flows well, has high usability, you are safe. However, if it’s sketchy in any way, avoid this SEO tactic at all costs.

Pages for every keyword variant

This is an SEO tactic that many people are still pursuing today but has been ineffective for a long time. The idea was basically that every variation of a keyword should have its own page. It makes far greater sense to focus your energy on creating great content and trying to use the keywords intelligently within the content, the headline, the title, or the meta description.

Directories and paid links

Every single one of these link building, link acquisition techniques that I’m about to mention has either been directly penalized by Google or penalized as part of an update, or we’ve seen sites get hit hard for doing it. This is dangerous stuff, and you want to stay away from all of these at this point.

Avoid all of the following:
• Link directories
• Paid link directories
• Article links
• Comment links
• Reciprocal link pages
• Fiverr or forum link buys
• Private link networks
• Article spinners
• Social link buys
• $99 SEO link packages

Multiple microsites, separate domains with the same audience or topic target

This used to be very common SEO. You would split up content into multiple microsites, often with separate domains like virginiamovingcompany.com and vamovingcompany.com and va-md-dcmovingcompany.com and use the same content for all three domains. The problem is that Google penalizes for duplicate content and linking between sites. Plus there’s a huge additional cost to maintaining and managing all these extra sites and domains.

Exact and partial keyword match domain names

Basically keyword match domains names look sketchy and spammy and usually are. You’ll still find tons of examples online – http://www.truckaccidentattorneysroundtable.com/, for example.
The types of domain names that don’t sound like real brands are actually going to draw clicks away from you and towards your competitors who sound more credible, more competent, and more branded. For that reason alone, you should avoid them.
But also these types of domains do much more poorly with link earning, with content marketing, with being able to have guest content accepted. People don’t trust it. The same is true for public relations and getting press mentions. The press doesn’t trust sites like these.

SEO Tactics That Are No Longer Effective

/in /by

SEO is a constantly changing field. What worked on Friday might not even work on Monday! Here are a few SEO tactics that are no longer effective. If you’re considering hiring someone to optimize your website, these SEO tactics should be red flags.

1. Keywords before clicks
2. Heavy use of anchor text on internal links
3. Pages for every keyword variant
4. Directories, paid links, etc.
5. Multiple microsites, separate domains
6. Exact and partial keyword match domains

Keywords before clicks

This used to be called keyword stuffing. You would do your keyword research and then plaster keywords all over your page to get clicks for those keywords. The downside to this approach is that it rarely yielded any conversions because visitors left those web pages immediately upon arrival. Web pages stuffed with keywords are nonsensical gibberish. Don’t do this or risk being penalized by Google.

Heavy use of anchor text on internal links

This is another SEO tactic that risks a Google penalty. In this case, I would suggest that if the internal link is in the navigation, the footer, sidebar, or inside content, and if it’s relevant and well-written and flows well, has high usability, you are safe. However, if it’s sketchy in any way, avoid this SEO tactic at all costs.

Pages for every keyword variant

This is an SEO tactic that many people are still pursuing today but has been ineffective for a long time. The idea was basically that every variation of a keyword should have its own page. It makes far greater sense to focus your energy on creating great content and trying to use the keywords intelligently within the content, the headline, the title, or the meta description.

Directories and paid links

Every single one of these link building, link acquisition techniques that I’m about to mention has either been directly penalized by Google or penalized as part of an update, or we’ve seen sites get hit hard for doing it. This is dangerous stuff, and you want to stay away from all of these at this point.

Avoid all of the following:
• Link directories
• Paid link directories
• Article links
• Comment links
• Reciprocal link pages
• Fiverr or forum link buys
• Private link networks
• Article spinners
• Social link buys
• $99 SEO link packages

Multiple microsites, separate domains with the same audience or topic target

This used to be very common SEO. You would split up content into multiple microsites, often with separate domains like virginiamovingcompany.com and vamovingcompany.com and va-md-dcmovingcompany.com and use the same content for all three domains. The problem is that Google penalizes for duplicate content and linking between sites. Plus there’s a huge additional cost to maintaining and managing all these extra sites and domains.

Exact and partial keyword match domain names

Basically keyword match domains names look sketchy and spammy and usually are. You’ll still find tons of examples online – http://www.truckaccidentattorneysroundtable.com/, for example.
The types of domain names that don’t sound like real brands are actually going to draw clicks away from you and towards your competitors who sound more credible, more competent, and more branded. For that reason alone, you should avoid them.
But also these types of domains do much more poorly with link earning, with content marketing, with being able to have guest content accepted. People don’t trust it. The same is true for public relations and getting press mentions. The press doesn’t trust sites like these.

SEO is Not About Ranking First

/in /by

SEO is no longer about getting your business name in the top search results. I know this will come across as a shock to many people outside of the SEO industry, but think about your user experience with Google. It’s interesting because our SEO expectations are out of alignment with reality. First of all the way we search now is very different from the way we searched a few years back.

We don’t just type tennis shoes into the search bar. Many of us ask a longer type of question. Some of us don’t even use a search engine or browser to ask the question. We use Siri or one of Siri’s sisters instead.

Let’s take a look at a few searches. I searched for tennis shoes and you’ll see that there are 18.3 million results. On the first page Google shows me a list of stores that sell tennis shoes and then a map with local places that sell tennis shoes.

tennis-shoes-google-search

Then I searched using a longer tail keyword “law firms in dc” and still find that many of DC’s top law firms are not on the first page of the search engine results.

best-law-firms-google-search

So maybe you’re wondering if it’s even possible to rank on the first page of the Google search results? If you’re committed to finding the right long tail keywords, you can definitely rank on the first page of Google. To be completely transparent, you won’t rank for the term “IBM” or “Yahoo” anytime soon. Those are head terms, not long-tail keywords. They are also trademarked, talked about, and dominated by large and established businesses.

Check out this great Quick Sprout post that explains how to rank on a first page of search results for long tail keywords.

Nonprofit SEO – Optimizing On-Page Content and Generating Backlinks

/in /by

A well-optimized webpage can keep sending high quality traffic to your nonprofit’s online presence years after it was first published. A web page that is search engine optimized is like a little worker bee. However this also means that your SEO work is never done. SEO should be an ongoing process. Web pages can always be better optimized and they should be refreshed to reflect changes in keyword strategy or to adapt to changes in Google’s SERP strategy – and Google is constantly changing SERP priorities.

Start With On-Page SEO

You have the most control over your on-page SEO. You can start by analyzing what you currently have going on. If it’s been a while since you took a look at your keyword list, time for a fresh look. Perhaps your constituents were previously most concerned with improving their professional certification and credentials. But now maybe they may have greater concerns about their options for climate change. One approach is to take a close look at what new issues people may be emailing you about. What are your people talking about on social media? Find out what new questions and concerns they have. Are they asking similar questions but in different ways.

Brainstorm a new list of keywords based on what you learn. Use the keyword list to refresh existing content and build a new topic list. Then start publishing content that reflects your potential constituents’ new priorities.

A second way to do some ground analysis is to grade your website’s current SEO status. HubSpot’s Website Grader will point out some quick wins and areas that need further development. If your pages load slowly, or your site isn’t optimized for mobile, the Grader will let you know. It will also provide some direct SEO tips where it thinks a page is falling short.

Google constantly changes its SEO algorithm and tag properties. Google recently pushed organic results further down the page by inserting a fourth paid ad spot. Google also expanded the character count for titles and meta descriptions. You may want to rework all (or just some) of your organization’s webpage titles and meta description tags to keep up with the changes.

Also review pages to ensure they’re optimized around one choice keyword, and that all your possible tags and headings are SEO-optimized. Do your blog posts tend to be long stretches of text? Write keyword optimized headers (and tag them appropriately — H1, H2, etc.) for a collection of your most relevant posts. Google reads images – do you have alt-text for all of your images? (BTW – did you know that alt-text for images is used by voice recognition systems for reading aloud your pages. As hands-free laws are becoming more strictly enforced, this tag will become important as people rely more on “Siri” and her counterparts to read your organization’s webpages to them while driving, etc.)

Off-Page Backlinks

Backlinks – links from an outside website to your website – validate your website’s authority and are critical for SEO. You can put social sharing icons on all your pages to help people link to your site, but if you want to take your backlink SEO strategy to the next level, you have to get proactive.

Try including some context-specific sharing Call To Action by your social icons. If you have a blog post reviewing popular professional resources that members of your trade organization might use, you can add copy at the end of the post that specifically encourages your colleagues to share this list with their colleagues. “Share this on Facebook:  Fellow CPAs – heads up! Get the new Guide to financial services standards [yourURL]. Will bring in new clients!”

You could also set up an influencer program. Influencers are people who regularly share content to people who fit your target market. You can start your search for influencers at home by looking at your constituents, board members, and corporate partners to find people with some social media traction.

Make sure you don’t overlook people who aren’t yet part of your organization’s family, such as bloggers who write about your industry and relevant online publications. Do some social media research to find bloggers and sites that are also using your keywords or talking about the same issues as your organization.

Reach out to them individually. See if they’ll write a post for you, or interview one of your association’s executives on a hot topic, or write a review on a piece of your organization’s content that would be of particular interest to them. Many online publications are starving for new content. They’re always on the lookout for posts or new content for their sites.

Are you getting into video yet? Video has begun as the next major shift in online consuming habits. Start your YouTube channel with whatever video content you already have: talks at events, constituent testimonials, education videos. Like a blog post, each video has its own set of SEO tags you can use so it gets found. Each video is also another source to link back to your website or blog. Videos are also highly shareable, which means other people will be generating back links for you as well.

Strive for SEO Success

The key is to never be content. With constantly changing constituents and Google’s equally constant adjustments to search results parameters, you can always find ways to build on your past SEO success.