Sean - Local SEO Services | Social Media Consulting

The World Above the Fold: How it all affects SEO

June 13, 2013 by Sean

Remember that Google update where they said they would give a little de-ranking on sites that have ads above the fold? Well, this is not about that. It’s about what you SHOULD do above the fold to make your rankings go up. Is it part of content marketing? Heck yeah. Here’s how it all affects SEO. This entry is part of our Breaking Down Content Marketing Series What is Above the Fold? Above the fold is anything that a user sees once they land in the webpage. These are the images,texts, forms, etc – everything that their eyes can immediately take hold of – without scrolling down. Obviously, there are different folds for different laptop or desktop screens. You don’t have to worry about that. In general what you need to think about is, what are things you want people to immediately see once they land on your page? Why is Above the Fold Important? If it’s not already too obvious, let me enlighten you. Above the fold is uniquely important because it is a new visitor’s first impression of your site and it is a returning visitor’s refresh of familiarity with your site. Why do you think advertising companies toil day and night to launch a single piece of creative billboard for a new product line? First impressions baby. It matters. What does it have to do with Content Marketing? After you’ve drawn your visitors in with your title (Check out our post on that), put your best ‘interesting points’ above the fold. This means the: Article Title First paragraph Upper portion of your sidebar/s Since we are a strong advocate of practicing what we preach, let’s take our own blog as an example: Titles are Important Some people even claim to spend more time thinking about what title they should publish their article with than writing the article itself. I’m not telling you to do the same, but hey, I want you to know that titles hold a LOT of weight. They are the windows of your article. The red carpet leading to it. (Also: Read our entry on Keyword Placement .) Without a title that snatches on your reader’s interest, you’ve got nothing. First Paragraph After a well-performing title, the next thing your readers are going to obviously read is your first paragraph. Capitalize on exactly what your readers will want to know in your article – and then pepper it with your writing voice . No one wants to be mislead by a great title and a sucky first paragraph. Upper Sidebar/s No matter how much or how little thought you put on your sidebar it is there – above the fold and right beside your content. You need to make really good use of it. Your sidebar has the power to retain users in your website, make them part of your community, turn them into a lead, or drive them away. I put a lot of time thinking about the things that I should put on SEO Hacker’s sidebars. Everything that I put there that are above the fold are either meant to make our readers part of our social network community, increase our branding in them, connect us in Google+ or help them learn SEO in our SEO School . In any case, all of these actions are beneficial both for our readers in the wealth of information they receive, and for us as a company. How does All this Relate to SEO? Simple – first impressions, remember? When a user is turned off by how your above the fold looks like, the chances of that user staying in your website to check out more information is greatly decreased – you can be sure that they will not stay any longer than 10 seconds. Is that bad? Heck yeah. When a user clicks-through to your webpage from the search engine results page (SERP), the search engine starts counting. 1… 2… 3… 4… That, my friend, is the number of how well your page performs in front of a real user. If there are 1,000 visitors who click-through to your page and stay there for less than 10 seconds, the search engines will see that and say “Perhaps this page isn’t really that interesting or relevant. Let’s put it a little lower.” ( More on Dwell Time Metrics here ) There goes your great SEO. Above the fold content is a great way to impress your audience – get them saying “ Ooohh ” and “ Aaahh ” above the fold, and you’ve got more dwell time right there and then. What goes Up must Come Down This doesn’t mean that the things below the fold are less important. Below the fold, that’s where you put the meat of the content. (Be sure to check out our next entry: “How to Cook your Content Right” for this) When your readers are sold on your title, sold on your first paragraph, sold on your above the fold impression, they are sure to be sold on the meat of your content. You don’t have to prod them any further. As long as your content is cooked right, you’ve got them chewing on your stuff. Tips for Keeps: Be sure to think through on the stuff you place above the fold. These pack a powerful punch as a first impression on your audience.

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The World Above the Fold: How it all affects SEO

Filed Under: Advertising, blogging, facebook, Google, Google: Analytics, How To, internet marketing, Interviews, keywords, Link Building, linkedin, Marketing, phil internet marketing and social media and seo, research, sea, seo, social media, Top News, twitter, Uncategorized Tagged With: above the fold, article, first paragraph, internet, sean si, seo, seo hacker

SEO Company Philippines

June 6, 2013 by Sean

It’s not a secret that there are now a good number of SEO companies in the Philippines. SEO Hacker is one of them. We are now officially going 2 years and have grown to a team of 17 strong. Just for giving you some news on us (which I haven’t done for a long while) here’s what’s been happening to SEO Hacker as an SEO Company here in the Philippines. Social Media It’s not much but SEO Hacker has slowly but surely grown its social circle. Our latest stats are: SEO Hacker Facebook Page: 18,499 – People who click on our Like button get to have our page feeds every time we post a new update in the SEO Hacker blog. SEO Hacker Facebook Group: 2,376 – A community for up-coming SEO specialists. Spam and self-promotion is highly moderated and discouraged. Google+ Page: 3,322 (with 3,768 +1′s) – Great people who have us in their circles are highly appreciated. Hope you guys appreciate the stuff we share! More than 1,800 people subscribed to our Email List – all of whom we’ve kept confidential. They are happily receiving our latest entries every time we post a new one. SEO School has over 2,000 members! We try to keep things simple and concise with all our lessons. The school has gone a design revamp and a huge development in system – click here to check it out ! Direct We get around 3,000 direct traffic to our blog entries each month. In the three plus years that I’m blogging, I consider myself blessed to have that number recognize our branding. I think that branding has a lot to do with SEO today (Check out our post on that one) The point is, it’s not an overnight thing to build a community and brand. It takes hard work, consistency, creativity and commitment. These are just numbers. The underlying value of our company isn’t really in how big our community is but how well we serve them and how well we take care of our brand. SEO Services If you didn’t know, SEO Hacker provides SEO services (duh!) around the world. We have catered to international and Philippine brands in our 2 official years in the SEO industry. We do more than just SEO, we care about your brand. You can check out our SEO and Internet Marketing Packages here . We have recently revamped our SEO Services website – check it out and tell us how you like it! The State of SEO Companies in the Philippines I know that this will probably not put me in the Mr. Congeniality spot but in my honest opinion, most SEO companies here in the Philippines are doing it wrong. I see websites, I see them rank for certain keywords and I think to myself: “is this really how it should be?” There are those who sell with good sales copies in their website but when you check out their rankings, they are not performing at all (it’s obvious which keywords an SEO Company website is ranking for just by looking at their homepage Title Tags and their ‘SEO Services’ pages). Two words: Not Impressed. I want to challenge these companies to a higher standard. Practice what you preach. The first and best selling point of providing SEO services to a client is that your website itself is ranking well for your target keywords! I can’t express how many SEO companies I’ve seen over the web that are not ranking for their own target keywords and yet they are selling their stuff to other companies. It’s just like a farmer without chickens selling eggs – they are obviously not your eggs. You’re either a reseller or you really don’t have eggs to sell. Recent Penguin Update On the other hand, I’ve seen a lot of SEO companies in the Philippines that are ranking on the first page for keywords that I’m competing with – drop. The latest update on Google Penguin has come out. It’s meant to make search results more relevant – hence, less spammy. Any methods that are considered unethical, spammy or invaluable by Google in any way, will not go unnoticed. There are still lots of SEO companies in the Philippines that practice raw, invaluable linking. There are also those who practice thin content, spun articles, cloaking – I’ve seen my share of these. If you’re testing it out on your own test websites, that’s fine but don’t do it on your clients! Future of SEO Companies in the Philippines It’s sad to say that right now, even with the rise of new SEO companies here in our country, there are still lots of bad eggs. I would love to see things change and take a different route. SEO in the Philippines doesn’t have to be this way – it doesn’t have to be spammy and unethical. As such, I’m sure there are SEO companies out there that are doing it right. We have our examples of great SEO companies abroad. Companies like SEOmoz, Distilled, SearchEngineLand, etc. And if you haven’t noticed, I’m simply patterning my content marketing and SEO strategy to them – because I think they are doing it right. Making the Client King SEO Hacker is focused in making our client as the leaders in the search engine results page. We want to put them up. We want to help them generate revenue. This is our goal. We believe this can be achieved with the best long-term strategies there is: Branding, content marketing, and white-hat SEO. I know that it’s really tough to educate and sell white-hat SEO to prospective clients. Especially to prospective clients who are thrifty and critical. But hey, SEO is an investment. Internet usage in the Philippines is on the rise and it will only keep on increasing. It’s not a matter of ‘IF’ but a matter of ‘WHEN’. Those companies who are willing to invest in great SEO that provides value and that will last are our perfect idea for a client. It’s true that these types of clients are rare and scarce – but there lies the adventure, doesn’t it? The Experiment Now, don’t get me wrong. This post has existed for quite some time in my mind. If you try to Google ‘SEO Company Philippines’ in Google.com it will show up a set of results. I’ve not tried to compete with that exact keyword – until now. I want to see how Google’s freshness algorithm, social signals, some of our internal linkjuice, and some of our SEO best practices will work in the latest Penguin update. This post is an excellent experiment to test that out due to the high competition of the keyword ‘SEO Company Philippines’ – so since this is laid bare for you to follow anyway, why don’t you check it out for yourself how far this post could rank? Selling it Cheap I recently ran into a client who signed a contract with me. To my surprise, their website was in the sandbox – just when the latest Google penguin rolled out. I checked out the reasons behind it and found out some pretty interesting stuff. You see, there was this SEO company that they hired that did their SEO for a cheap price. Sometimes companies don’t bother to wonder why the price is low when the SEO company promises quite a number of things. You see, I have a simple perspective for business: “If it’s too good to be true, it’s too good to be true.” To make the long story short, this cheap SEO company cloaked some stuff in my client’s website for the SEO company’s own benefit. There were hidden links and some pretty nasty keywords that were left hidden from users but blatantly bare for search engines to crawl. It was an… Experience for me. I had to dig deep and get my hands dirty studying black hat SEO just to try and find out how to reverse this and get my client out of Google Sandbox. Sad to say, this is a fresh thing and I’m still in the process of trying to figure out how I can remove these damaging, cloaked stuff in my client’s website. I have a number of solutions up my sleeve though. In all, running an SEO company here in the Philippines, I would say that I had it good. God has blessed me with great clients, a great team and an impossible company history . I wish that the SEO industry here in the Philippines would improve. We need to perform and live by a higher standard. I don’t want the term ‘SEO’ to have a bad ring here someday.

Assembling Booby-Trap Content for your Audience

May 30, 2013 by Sean

Let’s face it, your content will not always attract leads. Meaning it’s just that – content. It does not have any other purpose than to just educate people. You don’t want that. You want content that lures people in, snaps and traps their attention, transform them into leads – then finally get them to convert as a customer. This entry is part of our Breaking Down Content Marketing Series Sometimes Content is just Content When you don’t purpose your content to do anything else than just to be read by your visitors, that’s what it’s going to be. Content Marketing starts with great content but does not end there. Great Content Marketing gets to hit the company’s goals – leads, sales, branding, etc through content. It’s not ‘just content’ . How do you do this? Start with going through the first three of our Content Marketing Series: How to Write Powerful Outlines and Why you should give a Fluff How to Integrate Low-Hanging Keywords from the Global Market Writing for a World of 36-hours-a-day readers Then go through our Content Strategy Series: Why is Content Strategy Important? Establishing your Content Identity Developing a User Centric Content Strategy Training your Content to Look for Users Using “Yes” Content for Effective Emotional Content Strategy and SEO Action-Focused Always keep in mind that every content should have a goal – something useful to you and to your readers. Usually this comes in the form of email subscription where both parties benefit. Your readers get more stuff from you and you get to increase your email list. It’s a win-win that is sure to work. Here’s a great example of action-focused content from Copyblogger (from their Email Marketing ebook page ): Email Marketing strikes many as old-fashioned. More fashionable venues like social media and mobile marketing get all the attention, and some people will even try to tell you that email marketing is dead. Unfortunately, reality doesn’t agree. In fact, with a strong content marketing approach, email is more powerful than ever thanks to social media. Why? Because it moves the conversation about your business to a more personal environment — the in-box. Email provides you the most direct line of communication for conversion to sales … which is why the most savvy online marketers have no intention of giving it up any time soon. It’s also amazingly cost-effective. With an ROI of around 4,300% (according to the Direct Marketing Association), email practically pays for itself … and saves a tree or two. It’s what you use when you want to move from “conversation to commerce.” What makes email content work? All of us are far too familiar with email newsletters that waste our time, pitches that annoy us, and downright spam. Those don’t work. What works is a value exchange — your valuable information for your prospect’s valued time. Your subscribers need to know they can trust you … that you’re not a soulless self-promoting spam-bot. Good email content deepens your relationship with your audience through effective subject line writing (getting your messages opened), your distinctive voice (getting those messages read), and delivering quality, niche specific content your prospect needs and shares with others (inspiring referrals and word-of-mouth). Story (and) Context A Booby-Trap Content does not work without a great Story and Context behind it. Brian Clark, the owner and founder of Copyblogger writes this copy on email marketing and furnishes it with data, commonality and authority to make way for the crown. Data – Writing a context without data is like sun without heat. It’s like clouds without rain. It’s like tornado without…. You get the point. Data makes your context powerful. It makes it more believable. It makes it concrete. Commonality – You are not writing for yourself. You’re writing for your readers. As such, you need to touch base with them. To tell them that “we both know” or in this case, Brian uses the phrase “All of us are too familiar…” Authority – Let them in a little on what they’re going to get when they perform the action you want them to take. Show them a little of what you know. Brian gives you a hint of his authority when he writes: “…effective subject line writing (getting your messages opened), your distinctive voice (getting those messages read), and delivering quality…” Then they crown that copy of content with this: Let’s break it down, shall we? Headline I just can’t stress the importance of headlines enough. Take a look at how Copyblogger uses the headline: Very simple, short and concise on what the ebook does for you. It is a one-liner on the benefit that you’ll get when you download their ebook. It’s an attention-grabber that takes you no more than 2 seconds to read. Benefits You may not realize it on first glance but the 8 chapters of the ebook that is outlined here is meant to increase its value and justify your opt-in to their email list as you download this free ebook. It’s not directly telling you “DOWNLOAD ME” , rather it’s telling you, “Don’t you want this? And this? And this?” and you nod your head and look for the button that will lead you to the candy. Call to Action This is where you clinch the deal. A little push and all the context and story of your booby-trap content will have worked wonders. Scroll down a little and you’ll see how Brian Clark inches you on to click on the exact button he wants you to click: See that “Register Today!” Button over there? It stands out, it’s loud and it’s very, very enticing. Go ahead and click on it why don’t you? People Power Another Example of an action-driven page is our very own 8 Actionable On Site Optimization Techniques ebook page . It has a limited copy but it deals with one more principle: Testimonies – Believe it or not, testimonies on action-driven pages are powerful. They are ‘the crowd’ and they speak for you. If you can get happy readers to give you a testimonial or two, it creates a world of difference for people to take your action. Content Marketing for SEO Purposes Creating great content for SEO is well and good and it’s where the SEO should be founded on. However, why stop there when you can purpose it to do much more? Copyblogger has a massive email list because of the way they convert their readers to leads. From those leads, they have met a good level of success in converting those leads to customers. Booby-Trap content is all about copywriting. There is an art and science beneath copywriting. Triggering the right emotions using the right words . Building up action through story and context. It’s a whole new different world. Action Words However cliche it may seem, action words are still a powerful way in driving your readers to doing what you want them to do. Here’s a list of action words that are meant to help you out in your Booby-Trap Content from Authoritydomains : Free Cut Quick New Ultimate Easy Sale Best Buy Buy Genuine Final Powerful Buy-today Last Don’t Save Vital Lowest Download Free Trial Last Chance Most Sale Ends Tomorrow Money Off Now is Your Chance Buy Today and Save __% Marked Down You Should Offer Ends Soon Price Cut Discover Your Potential Hurry Complimentary Make Money Now Reduce Potent Faster Discover Cut Make __ Per Week Retire Show Wider Variety Improve Change Discount Boost Great Most Comprehensive Enhance Decrease Lowest Price Increase Best Free Sample Avoid The Best __Made me __ Uncover Buy and Get Buy Now Eliminate _% Off Beat Prevent Care Get Cheap Learn Certified Sale Lower Prices Smash Limited Time Prime Tell Say Raw Try Gain Seize Want Provide Refinance Develop Leverage Donate Create Extend Cash Score Achieve Guarantee Find Accelerate Take Advantage Drive Build Generate Join Obtain Profit Critical Note: Action words’ effectivity is minimized if you don’t build it up through the story and context. Booby-Trap Content is an awesome way to draw in leads. SEO is just collateral damage. Start setting up your booby-trap content NOW! Can’t get enough of our Content Marketing Series? Subscribe to us now! Over 1,700 Smart People Access the latest SEO news, tips and tricks straight in their email inbox. Now it’s YOUR TURN! Subscribe for Free! Name: Email: PS: We will never give your email address away

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Assembling Booby-Trap Content for your Audience

Filed Under: blogging, conversion, Direct Marketing, email marketing, facebook, Google, Google: Analytics, How To, internet marketing, Interviews, keywords, Link Building, linkedin, Marketing, Money, phil internet marketing and social media and seo, research, Sales, sea, seo, social media, success, Top News, twitter, Uncategorized Tagged With: advice, black hat seo, generating leads, internet marketing, marketing, network, seo copywriting, social media