SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION: Ranking Your Content With In-Depth Articles

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Welcome to your issue of the SEO Advantage newsletter. You'll find access to our articles covering the latest industry news as well as tips and knowledge you can put to use right away. As usual, we'd love to hear your thoughts. Just click through to comment, hit reply to email us, or call 1-800-366-1639 to speak to one of our online marketing specialists directly. And have a great month!

Ranking Your Content With In-Depth Articles

2013-09-10 11:22:38-04

This month Google announced the addition In-depth articles to the first page of some search results, which reduces the number of “regular” organic results on the first page to nine and adds two more search results, for a total of three “In-depth articles” links. The aim of in-depth articles links is to provide a deeper look into broad topics that have mass appeal. As an example we conducted a broad search for “Syria” and at the bottom were greeted with these new links.

How to get your article listed in Google’s In-depth articles search results

Fortunately Google has offered some advice for website owners and operators who want to have their content included in the In-depth articles section:

Use schema.org markup for your content
Include Google Authorship markup in your content
Use rel=”next” and rel=”previous” for paginated articles.

SEO Roundup: September 11, 2013

2013-09-11 14:19:42-04

This week Yahoo! launched it’s new logo, and the internet collectively shrugged its shoulders. Among other things, the new design has been compared both to a logo for a cosmetics company, and to something far more appropriate for the graphic sensibilities of the 1990′s.

Elsewhere this week we’ve found plenty of links to new SEO and online marketing articles and resources that – unlike the new Yahoo! logo – are timely and interesting. Check out what’s worth reading on the web right now . . .

Content Marketing and Copywriting:

Feel like climbing on your soapbox for a good blog rant?

2013-09-13 10:41:28-04

Last year, we spent a little time discussing the emerging Google social media channel. Like any new social media channel, it didn't catch on with everybody. But over the last year or so, we've seen things develop dramatically with this exciting social media outlet, especially in its relationship with search rankings.

There's no doubt that social signals have taken on increasing significance over the last few years…but how significant has been the subject of much debate.

Recent chatter and research on the topic has confirmed to us that social signals, especially Google+, are becoming a fairly significant source of higher search rankings.

SEO Roundup: September 18, 2013

2013-09-18 17:13:55-04

If you’ve been following the back and forth between marketers and Google’s Matt Cutts regarding Google+ and the effect it may or may not have on search rankings, then grab some coffee and get ready to sit a spell, because it’s time to look at some numbers.

On the heels of our own recent discussion, a study was presented at SMX Advanced, and an author of the study has summarized the results. Essentially, the research found that while Google+ definitely drives link discovery and may drive indexing, it has no direct affect on search rankings. We’ll keep watching this very hot topic.

2013-09-20 15:10:40-04

Yesterday afternoon Eric Enge of Stone Temple Consulting hosted an online discussion with several SEO panelists including Dr. Pete Meyers of Moz, Mark Traphagen of Virante, Marcus Tober of Searchmetrics, and Joshua Berg of REALSMO.

The initial focus of the discussion was a study performed by Eric Enge to measure the impact of Google+ on SEO. A summary of the study can be found on Eric’s blog. Nearly all the panelists agreed that there were fundamental flaws in the methodology of the experiment, yet the debate it sparked provided several insights into how you can view the role of the Google+ platform in relation to your other SEO efforts.

2013-09-24 08:57:17-04

In August we told you about a Guardian article that pointed to a surge in the number of “click farms” and the resulting consequences for companies like Hasbro who pay these companies for Facebook “Likes” and Twitter “Followers”. In the previous post we warned that paying for people to “Like” your product could be compared to buying fake reviews, which is illegal under U.S. Law.

Today Reuters reports on 19 companies that were caught buying fake reviews on Yelp, Google Local and CitySearch during a yearl-long sting set up by the New York Attorney General, which will result in $350,000 worth of penalties.

SEO Roundup: September 25, 2013

2013-09-25 13:31:39-04

Well, that was great while it lasted, but it appears the days of easy access to keyword data from Google have come to an end. The reaction from the online marketing world has covered the range of human emotions, from intense anger and suspicion to acceptance.

There’s really no reason to panic, though. The need to constantly adapt to the changing world of SEO is what attracted many of us to online marketing to begin with. This is just another new puzzle to solve. Our industry will adjust to this change the same way we’ve adjusted to Panda, Penguin and everything else that’s come our way.

2013-09-27 10:00:09-04

Although most small businesses are now investing more in web marketing over traditional avenues like the YellowPages, most are still missing a critical component on their websites – the call-to-action.

What can be included in a call to action?

A call-to-action can include:

Specials
E-mail newsletter signups
How-to guides downloads
Demos
Interactive tools
Contact information

To be clear, the CTA doesn't always need to immediately convert a visitor into a customer. If your offer is rather complex and expensive for example, you don't exactly want to jump right out and say "BUY NOW."

One way to think about it is meeting a girl in a bar – you're not going to walk up to her and immediately say "let's go back to my place shall we".

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About SEO Advantage
SEO Advantage, Inc. is an online marketing /search engine optimization firm that helps businesses turn their web presence into a powerful revenue generation medium. Our clients enjoy dominance on Google, Yahoo and Bing through a suite of unique pay-for-performance search engine optimization and online marketing services implemented by a multidisciplinary team of SEO engineers, copywriters, and web designers. You'll find us referenced in books such as Writing Web-Based Advertising Copy to Get the Sale and the BusinessWeek bestseller The New Rules of Marketing & PR, as well as the popular ebook The Small Business Blogging Blueprint. Find out more today. Visit www.seo-advantage.com, call 1-800-366-1639 or email us here.