With that said, there are some basic components of every SEO campaign (not to mention a really big checklist) that form the foundation of a successful campaign. Anyone who’s been around SEO for any length of time already knows these “basics,” but they bear repeating for anyone who is unfamiliar as to where to begin with their SEO effort:

SEO & Keyword Research

Every SEO campaign starts with keyword research. It’s critical to uncover and organize your core terms and extended phrases in order to create the optimization road map moving forward.

The SEO uses keyword information to create customized titles, descriptions and page heading recommendations, along with editing the content of your pages to make them more keyword friendly. The SEO can use your existing content and rewrite it specifically to integrate the keywords selected, as well as improve the sales conversion funnel. Text edits should includes internal linking to other important pages as well as adding strategic calls to action if necessary.

As keyword performance is measured, additional recommendations should be provided, tweaking the pages to improve rankings and conversions.

Information Architecture & Usability

SEOa should regularly be reviewing site analytics information in order to seek out and uncover site architectural issues that hinder your performance in the search engines. Using this information, they can provide specific recommendations and solutions that will build better site architecture, remove duplicate content, fix problematic HTML and a whole lot more.

The mission here is to make your site search and searcher friendly on all levels.

Content Review

A site-wide content review provides strategic recommendations designed to help you produce content that better relates to your audience, effectively uses frequently searched keywords and improves the overall sales message being delivered. The goal is to create engaging content that informs, educates and sells your products or services while also attracting visitors through the search engines.

Content development doesn’t assist SEO alone, but also improves your sales process and your link and social media efforts. Without great content, your site really doesn’t deserve great search engine placement.

Link Building

Your SEO should research your and your competitor’s link landscape and provide you with a variety of linking opportunities to pursue. These opportunities include lists of  sites, directories, blogs, and other strategic sites and the best approach for establishing a linking relationship that compliments your optimization efforts.

The SEO works to establish contact with these link opportunity sites and lays the groundwork for a (linking) relationship, submits linking requests and negotiates link placement, among other things.

Social Media

Developing an immediate and long-term social media strategy is critical to leveraging your blog, Twitter, Facebook and other social streams to your advantage. In conjunction with the SEO efforts and content strategy efforts, the social strategy pushes content in the most effective way, monitors reputation and boosts SEO performance through keyword and link targeting. Part of the social media strategy is to create a publishing calendar that can help you keep moving forward and not get caught in social stagnation.

Analytics & Conversion Optimization

SEOs need to regularly review your and your competitor’s Web data to understand search performance and user trends. With this information, they can provide additional insight and strategy recommendations that assist on-page optimization, link building, social media and content development.

Based on the analytic data and findings, the SEO can conduct a/b and multivariate testing designed to test various performance and conversion options. Selecting the best performing options provides the ammunition needed to continually improve your site conversion rates.

These are just the basic fundamentals of a solid web marketing campaign. Each area noted here can produce a plethora of actions, reactions and recommendations that are designed to continually propel you forward in the search results. This is by no means an exhaustive list of the tasks in each of these categories, but it can give you a good place to start.

Follow me+ at @StoneyD, and @PolePositionMkg.

Have Content Worthy Of Linking To

If you’ve been listening to or engaging in conversations regarding web marketing, you’ve probably heard this mentioned as often as the Pittsburgh Steelers have been to the Super Bowl: you’ve got to have great content to build links.

Having just one piece of content won’t be enough to sustain value over time. It’s vital to have a content strategy. By having a strategy, you’re able to build a following that generally consists of your target audience. If you create well-researched and well-written content around their needs, you’ll naturally build links and become a source of authority. Blogs can be a great platform for sharing content, but there are many other innovative content types.

Get Your Social Shares in Front of the Right Eyes

Again, this will take time, but find out who the influential voices are in your niche. Begin to interact with them on social networks like Twitter and LinkedIn to build a relationship with them. Read and add thoughtful feedback on their blog posts. Share their content on your social streams.

In creating those connections, it’s highly likely that they’ll begin to follow you. And, to make sure I beat the dead horse, I’ll remind you to have desirable content for them to link to.

If You Build the Relationship, They Will Retweet/Repeat

Social shares aren’t worth much if they aren’t distributed by those with clout (or is that spelled “klout”?). That’s why it’s necessary to build contacts who provide some swagger. In Todd Heim’s post, Social Media Link Building he writes, “Even if your content is appropriate and of acceptable quality, you still need to have some influence and a network of users for it to spread. Otherwise you’re wasting your time.”

Your ROI will be more significant if you spend your time building associations with prominent people. These free tools that can help you find people to follow:  Twitter Advanced Search, Followerwonk, Tweepz and Twellowhood just to name a few.

Look to see how many followers/friends/likes an account has, as well as the frequency and substance of their posts. These are helpful indicators to figure out how noteworthy a person is. Often, the more people following them and the fewer they follow, the more authoritative they are.

So What?

If you take these ideas and make them actionable in your social media link-building strategy, you’ll know the likes and tweets have value, not only because of what they contain, but also because of the network of people that will re-share them.

Feel free to disagree with me in the comment section, or let me know the ideas you have.

Today we published our latest inbound marketing e-book, the 2012 edition of Link Building Secrets Revealed. Available for download at no cost on the Pole Position Marketing website, the e-book is a compilation of helpful link-building tips from 10 of the industry’s leading link builders, including:

• Jim Boykin of Internet Marketing Ninjas
• Peter da Vanzo of GoFish Media Ltd.
• Michele Baldoni of MBWeb
• Peter van der Graaf of SearchSpecialist.nl
• Eric Ward of EricWard.com
• John Doherty of Distilled
• Jason Acidre of KaiserTheSage.com
• Garrett French of Citation Labs
• Melanie Nathan of CanadianSEO 
• Arnie Kuenn of Vertical Measures

The new link-building resource is one of several e-books offered by Pole Position Marketing, which include The Best Damn Web Marketing Checklist, Period!, Keyword Research and Selection and Destination Search Engine Marketing – all authored by our CEO Stoney deGeyter.

Link Building Secrets Revealed 2012 is available in Pole Position Marketing’s online learning library.

As link builders, we have to help them have a broader perspective. It’s about building their online presence within their industry and in doing so, the quality links will follow. Unfortunately, it doesn’t boil down to a numbers game. It just isn’t that simple. If it were, everyone would be a link builder. What does it take for our clients to be successful?

Three Key Ingredients In A Successful Link Campaign

Time: The best link campaign isn’t a formula (amount of time = X number of links). The kind of links you can guarantee aren’t links of high quality or long-term value. Building relationships is one of the best ways to get valuable links. Another method of getting valuable links is through creating relevant content for your audience. These tactics take time to establish and produce but provide more merit in the long run.

If your campaign is built around a formula, then you are setting the client up for failure as soon as the campaign is over and the links aren’t continuing to be built at that rate.

Resources: How does the client currently garner leads? What are they doing that’s working? This is the best place to start because you can work from their strengths.

To dig further, ask questions to help assess what their resources are. Do they have linkable assets? Is there someone within the organization that is willing to share their knowledge and present themselves as an industry thought leader? Do they have white papers or a blog where they share industry-relevant content? Are they willing/able to give products out for review or for bloggers to use for a giveaway?

Communication: By having a conversation with the client to set goals at the beginning of a campaign, you can avoid some of the misunderstanding that results from having different expectations.

I also recommend communicating with the client throughout the campaign to keep them up-to-date on your efforts. Perhaps the initial goals that were set are intangible and need adjusted. Maybe, if you are a supernatural wunderkind like myself, you reach your goals soon into the campaign and need to create new ones.

Communication also allows your client to know where you are at and what you’ve been working on. If they have questions or concerns, they can ask you right then and you can address it. Plus, it helps build trust and a long-term relationship with your client.

Establishing Expectations From The Beginning

The best way to avoid “red flags” is to catch the signals from the beginning. If you are able to establish your expectations together with the client, then perhaps you will be on the same page at the start. Then your continued communication will help you stay on the same page. As this SNL skit demonstrates, it is vitally important to catch the warning signs and address them, so that both parties aren’t thinking, “They’re !@%$#& crazy!”

If social media is the darling Cinderella of the current marketing world, then link building might be the u___ (unrecognized?) stepsister. When I describe link building and its important role in creating a company’s Web presence (see SEOmoz’s What is Link Building? for a definition/details), most people furrow their brows and say, “Sounds like you’re talking about social media.” (Cinderella gets all the glory!)

So, we’d like to end, once and for all, this unnecessary cause of forehead wrinkles by tackling the FAQ: What’s the difference between link building and social media?
 

Stoney (@StoneyD): Link building and social media have a lot in common and, in many cases, share similar goals. I would say that pure link building is a sub-set of SEO. The goal is to get keyword rich links on external sites pointing to your keyword-optimized pages. There are a lot of link-building methods, several of which cross over into social media: building relationships, creating great, linkable content and broadcasting it to bring eyes (and links) to that content.

Social media is an outlet for link building, but it also has its own goals, one of which can be getting valuable links. But social media has concerns far greater than just getting links, and any social strategy that doesn’t look beyond links is bound to fail.

You can have a link strategy that uses social media, as well as a social strategy that has a goal of links. But to maintain that narrow of a focus on either is ultimately not using each one to your greatest advantage.
 

Annalisa (@ahilliardm): Social media should be an important part of a business’s link-building strategy. It’s a way to engage an audience. In a sense, it’s relationship building. If you share information that is relevant and unique to your niche, you’ll be able to build relationships, and those relationships can lead to natural links.

Links are an outcome of a well-established social media presence. Here is an analogy to explain the difference between social media and link building. An athlete must train in order to compete. The goal of training is to be able to win the competition. Social media is the training and preparation. Link building is the reward or pay off. Now, don’t get me wrong, links are not the only purpose of social media. It’s important to create relationships in online marketing for many reasons. And, through those relationships, you can get links.
 

Jen (@martijen): Before I started with Pole Position Marketing, I had never even heard of link building. And, I suspect there are many in the marketing industry (particularly the “traditional” side) who are just as clueless as I was.

Thankfully, I’ve learned a few things about link building, including its primary Web marketing goal – to improve the rankings, visibility and credibility of your organization’s website. The more quality links to your Web content, the better your online presence looks to search engines, as well as readers. Think of them as love and hugs pointing in your direction.

But, it’s difficult to get that kind of attention without going where your potential “linkers” (and customers) are. Social media sites are vehicles for making connections and sending out your message. Think of them as online places where you give out love and hugs (with some specific goals in mind).

Social media can support your link-building strategy in two primary ways:

• Helping you identify and engage industry influencers who may want to collaborate with your business or promote it by publishing content or advertising. In either case, you have the opportunity to negotiate a link!
• Serving as a broadcast medium for your quality content that influencers may want to share and link to.

When you blend social media and link building together, they form the foundation for great online PR. Unlike the traditional discipline, online PR actually focuses on the public, not just a small group of media gatekeepers. Your news releases (with links) are for every online reader! For publicity, reputation management, coverage and more links, you can turn to not only social media, but also news outlets, bloggers, directories, partner websites, industry associations and even to yourself. (You, too, can become a publisher!)

So, while link building and social media have distinct functions and “directions,” they work better in tandem as a part of an overall online PR strategy.

Look for our Q&A posts about online marketing each month. Or, if you have a question you’d like to ask our team, just send it to ask@polepositionmarketing.com. We’ll be glad to answer via our blog.

Our team The Pit Crew has read some informative and helpful articles on Web marketing this week. Here are our picks.

Mike Fleming (@mflem25)

PPC Streamcap – Dealing With PPC Struggles
by Matthew Umbro

In the transcribed Streamcap from live chat, Matthew explores questions like, “What proactive measures do you take to ensure client satisfaction when results are less than satisfactory?” and “What has been your primary reason for losing PPC clients?” Lots of insight here!

Best Social Media Metrics: Conversation, Amplification, Applause, Economic Value
by Avinash Kaushik

I am going to break one of my unspoken cardinal rules: Only write about real problems and measurement that is actually possible in the real world. I am going to break the second part of the rule. I am going to define a way for you to think about measuring social media, and you can’t actually easily measure what I am going to recommend. So why break the rule?

How To Save Money On AdWords Placements With Google Analytics
by Brad Geddes

Google’s display network can bring you tremendous amounts of clicks and conversions if used correctly. If it is not used correctly, you can quickly spend mass amounts of money and have nothing to show for it.

Annalisa Hilliard (@ahilliardm)

The various forms of influencer currency
by Hugo Guzman

One of the hot new catch-phrases in social media marketing circles is the word “influencer“. In a nutshell, it’s a person or entity that can influence consumers, readers, etc. and marketers large and small are trying to figure out ways to identify these influencers and then get them to behave in a manner that benefits branding and marketing efforts.

Link Building for Bloggers
by James Harper

Whether you’re a pro or amateur blogger, everyone wants traffic to their sites. And building links to your website is a great way to do this. Not only can it improve the visibility of your website in the search engines, but also if you pick your sites wisely you can benefit from referral traffic.

4 Reasons Blog Comments Are Great for Link Building
by Nick Stamoulis

Blog commenting is one of the best components of a link building campaign for numerous reasons. Aside from the obvious value of the link, there is a lot of long term value associated with developing a strong blog commenting campaign that can impact the overall success of your SEO and website. Here are 4 reasons why you should amp up your blog commenting.

Jen Carroll (@martijen)

Jobs’ Apple Standard vs. Page’s Google Standard
by Scott Cleland

The worldwide outpouring of respect, admiration and eulogies for Steve Jobs, Apple’s legendary leader and creative genius, proves his standard and legacy of innovation is one to measure other aspiring tech industry leaders by. Given that Apple and Google are the #1 and #2 most valuable brands in the world and that Google has invaded all of Apple’s markets in the last few years as a new competitor, it is illuminating and instructive to compare and contrast the radically different visions, values, and standards, of Apple’s former leader Steve Jobs and Google’s current CEO Larry Page.

5 Page Quality Indicators That Can Outweigh PageRank
by Bradley Zarich

PageRank would be a great indicator of page quality and relevancy if there is no link selling or artificial link building involved. Lacking that, Google has to implement a quality scoring system independent of link popularity. Let’s explore how to gauge page quality in a more sophisticated way using these 5 metrics.

The Holy Grail of Globalizing Editorial Planning
by Pam Didner

Social networks and search engines have changed the behavior of Intel’s business marketing audience of IT managers who are constantly searching for information and evaluating new technologies even when they are not purchasing them. As marketers, we need to engage with them on topics they care about and that are relevant to Intel on a timely basis. This is where an editorial planning process comes into play.

What’s the best thing about online marketing that you read this week? Leave us your comments.

Yet, optimizing a site isn’t terribly difficult. Anybody can be taught the basics, which many already know and are implementing on their websites right now. But SEO is more than basic implementation of strategies you’ve read about online or on Twitter. SEO is much bigger the sum of its parts.

There are hundreds of “parts” that can play a role in an effective optimization campaign. Google looks at more than 200 “signals” alone, each with varying degrees of value and necessity. Most people who start out doing SEO soon realize there is a lot to keep up with, and it’s better passed on to more capable hands.

So, just who do these capable hands belong to? Well, that depends on who you talk to. Everybody believes there is a certain level of knowledge and know-how that pre-qualifies you as an SEO. Sometimes it’s fun to see what certain bottom line “requirements” are. In light of that, I put together this list of things you absolutely, certainly, necessarily or quite possibly need to know in order to qualify as an SEO.

You’re not an SEO unless…

…you know HTML code

HTML is pretty much as basic as basic SEO gets. But guess what, you really don’t need to know every bit of HTML to SEO a site. Does it help? Absolutely! You do need a considerable amount of HTML knowledge, but don’t let anyone tell you that if you can’t code an entire site by hand, you’re not an SEO.

…you monitor the search engine algorithms.

SEOs need to know what the search engines are doing, but how much “monitoring” is really required? Some SEOs have almost a religious dedication to documenting, analyzing and testing every detail of an algorithm and then doing it all again when Google makes a change. Others take a big picture approach, looking at long-term SEO strategies that are not affected by every algorithm whim. Just because you don’t monitor algorithms as much as someone else doesn’t mean you’re not an SEO.

…you read search engine patents.

I admire those who can read search engine patents and makes sense of them. These individuals have their pulse on what is possibly coming to a search engine near you. But, only possibly. Not all patents actually result in something being incorporated into the algorithm. They help you keep an eye on a possible future, but not necessarily the destined future. Just because you don’t read search engine patents doesn’t mean you’re not an SEO.

…you build links.

Every SEO should know how to build links, but some are far better at it than others. Link building is like sales. Some people just have the gift. Every SEO should understand both basic and advanced link-building concepts and their corresponding strategies, but just because you don’t do actual link building doesn’t mean you’re not an SEO.

…you know analytics.

Analytics is the best way to prove the value of your SEO efforts. But analytics itself isn’t SEO. It’s simply the reporting method. If you want to know how well your SEO is really doing, you need to learn analytics or, better yet, employ someone who can in order to analyze your website traffic data. But if you can’t, that doesn’t mean you’re not an SEO.

…you follow search engine guidelines.

The search engine guidelines are just that: guidelines. It’s smart to be sure your SEO strategies don’t violate any policies that might get your site dinged. On the other hand, some of the guidelines propagated by the search engines are entirely self-serving. Being good at SEO doesn’t even require that you know the guidelines, so not knowing them doesn’t mean you’re not an SEO.

…you can initiate “black hat” SEO strategies.

In some industries, it’s very difficult to get good results unless you invest in black hat SEO strategies. If you’re not in those industries, then you don’t need to worry about it. And not knowing how to implement these type of strategies certainly doesn’t mean you’re not an SEO.

…you’re a copywriter.

Copywriting skills are a must… for copywriters, not necessarily SEOs. While SEOs work with copy and should be able to craft a decent sentence and fiddle around with keyword additions into the text, the SEO can pass the job of actual copywriting to a copywriter. Not having the gift of copywriting doesn’t mean you’re not an SEO.

…you are a conversion optimizer.

Conversion optimization is good for SEO and necessary for a strong marketing campaign, but this isn’t, strictly speaking, SEO. I’d definitely want an SEO that understands usability and persuasion before letting them make changes to my site, but not understanding conversion optimization doesn’t mean you’re not an SEO.

You’re not an SEO unless you read this conclusion

All of the factors above help make SEO valuable. But not having any one or two of them doesn’t disqualify you from being an SEO any more than not knowing how to weld a pipe precludes you from being a plumber. Valuable, but not strictly necessary.

But make no mistake, these are important, and to the degree a person has knowledge, understanding and skills in these areas is a factor into how valuable they can be as an SEO. Any one of these, however, is not a defining factor. SEOs are often best judged on the results they get. If you don’t get results, then you’re not an SEO.

Follow me at @StoneyD, and @PolePositionMkg.

Question 6. Which provides the greatest benefit, on-page SEO or link building?

This is a tough question to answer because both can play a significant role in the success of a site trying to get to the top of the search results.

Here’s the basic rundown. A site that isn’t linked from any other site doesn’t stand a chance in the search results. It doesn’t matter how well-optimized it is, the links matter. At the same time, a site that is well-linked, but not optimized, CAN get good search engine rankings, but performance will always be sub-par.

Links are important to get on the map, but once there, the optimization plays a much more significant role in helping establishing good rankings. But, then there comes a point, again, where a site can only be so optimized, and the links are what is needed to tip the scales.

Got that? Links > SEO > Links!

7. How important is social media in relation to SEO?

Social media marketing is becoming increasingly important to the success of a website. Search engines are now considering many different social signals when determining relevance of a website, or even a particular web page.

The main issue isn’t whether or not to use social media, its how to leverage social media properly. Many businesses are using social media, trying to get that extra advantage. Unfortunately, they are not leveraging the social media channels in a way that maximizes their efforts into an effective marketing strategy.

When utilized properly, social media can be a strong link building strategy. A well-run social strategy can cover multiple aspects of the off-page link building efforts that search engines consider when determining the value of a website.

8. How does usability factor into SEO?

Search engines don’t have access to the usability data of every website. Though, as more people install Google Analytics or Adwords tracking code onto their websites, and surfers install the Google Toolbar into their browser, Google is able to get more and more of this information and can incorporate it into their ranking algorithms (though they claim they don’t and won’t.)

Short of using that data, search engines can see visitor bounce rates pretty well. Every visitor that clicks over to a site, then hits the browsers back button, sends a signal to the search engine that the visitor didn’t find what they were looking for.

Bounce rates can certainly be an important signal to the search engines. Making sure your visitors get the information they searched for, on the first, click is imperative.

Given access to enough data, I think the engines will look more closely at on-site usability issues. If few people make it to the conversion page, the engines may determine that your site isn’t a quality or trusted site, especially if it is compared to another site that does have better conversion rates.

9. My site is perfect and I don’t want to change anything? What can I do to get better rankings?

Well, in this case, the only thing you can do is to build links, employ social media, and build content. All of these are good strategies, but they also might not be enough. Sometimes you just have to come to the conclusion that your site isn’t as perfect as you want to believe it is.

If you want your site to be keyword optimized and have a significant chance of outpacing your competition in the search results, you have to be willing to make changes. I’m not talking about keyword stuffing or anything like that, but you do have to be willing to make tweaks and adjustments in order to ensure your content delivers for the searchers and provides enough signals to the engines for your targeted keywords.

10. I keep hearing about personalized results, local results, and blended results. How does this affect rankings?

In more ways than you probably realize. There is really no such thing as a #1 ranking anymore. Every search is essentially a unique search requiring a unique set of results. This means the search you perform on your computer will produce different results than the search your friend performs on their computer, even if they are in the same room as you.

Localization, personalization, and blended results have really changed the game. Not only do you have to optimize, but you have so many more options for getting your site in front of your search audience. If you’re a local company, then you’ll likely see traffic drop as your site no longer comes up in searches outside of your local area. But, you lose audience if you’re not coming up in their personalized results. This can be good if it weeds out those who are not part of your target audience, but can also help you if it puts you in front of a more targeted group.

Blended results give you more opportunities to get noticed. Video is the big “it” right now. If you create and optimize a video, it can get you additional exposure on the first page of search results. Same with optimized images, and even mentions, from those in your social circle.

Stay tuned for the last group of five answers…

This post started from talking about How NOT To Do An Interview: The Basics. What was originally going to be an intro paragraph turned into a full post. When this happens, I just do what I often do… take one idea and make multiple posts out of it. Love it!

What follows are 15 questions I felt were important for a business audience to know about SEO. And, now that I know what I meant when I wrote them (see introduction), I can provide the answers I intended. Here are questions 1-5:

1. What is the most important element of a successful SEO campaign?

There are a lot of factors that go into a successful SEO Campaign. There is content, keywords, titles, descriptions, usability, architecture, and link building. All of these play a significant role and cannot be ignored. But, to narrow this down into a single thing that is THE most important element to make a campaign successful is tough.

I think I’d have to go with website architecture. While this doesn’t contribute directly to the keyword optimization, it does give the search engines the best “sense” of a site. Without good architecture, your site can be keyword optimized to the hilt, but it won’t matter because the search engines are unable to read and decipher the content properly.

An unpublished book does no one any good. Getting your website content “published” into the search results is step one. Then you can worry about what kind of reach you can achieve.

2. What is the second?

The second, I would have to say is keyword research. This really goes hand-in-hand with the site architecture. You can build your site, but if it isn’t structured around the keywords that are important, you’ll either have a poorly targeted site or you’ll have to go back and re-focus your architecture accordingly.

There are a lot of layers to keyword research, but when putting together the site architecture, you only need to worry about the basics. The goal is to find the “core” keywords that people are looking for that will drive relevant traffic to your site. Map out those core terms to individual pages, and you’re well on your way to building a site that can develop a strong web presence targeting your core audience.

3. How do you determine which keywords should be optimized for which pages?

If you’ve built your site architecture right, then your keyword targeting for each page should already have been determined. In fact, your pages are built around the idea that you have keywords that people are looking for, so you’re building your site content and pages to provide the answers to the search query.

However, if your site is already built, and you’re not so inclined to go back and re-develop it with a keyword focused architecture, then you have to start at the other end and work backwards.

The best thing you can do here is to look at what your core keywords are and determine which keyword best integrates into what page. This is no small task and requires a lot of consideration.

Things to consider are: the current content of each page, ability to integrate a core term seamlessly, and to ensure that the page maintains it’s value for its original intent AND those coming in for the optimized term. If any of those aren’t 100%, then consider another term for the page.

4. What are the top three on-page factors that should be optimized?

The title tag is, as I have said many times before, one of the most important pieces of SEO real estate for a web page. If you get nothing else right, get the title right. That alone can work wonders on helping to get your pages to rank in the search results.

Next, is the content of the page itself. Your content must back up the title and has to maintain it’s keyword focus throughout. Look for opportunities to reinforce the page’s keyword topic (which should be the page topic). Don’t stuff keywords where they don’t work, but maintain a tight theme of content that provides answers for those searching for that topic.

The third most important element is internal linking. This is a factor partially covered with a solid site architecture, but also gets covered with content development. If you’re addressing a topic on one page that is covered more thoroughly on another, link the relevant, keyword rich content to the fully optimized page that addressed that topic.

Linking in this way not only reinforces the page topic for optimization purposes, but it also improves the usability aspects of your site, allowing visitors to move around based on topics for which they are needing more information.

5. You didn’t mention the Meta Description or Meta Keyword tag. Why not?

There’s a good reason for that. Neither of these play any kind of significant role in the optimization of a website. The Keyword Meta tag is 99.9% useless to all search engines. Might it be considered again one day? Perhaps. Likely? Perhaps not.

The Meta Description tag suffers a similar fate when it comes to search engine relevance, however it does play a very important role outside of optimization. Since the Meta Description tag is used in the search results, it has a unique role in helping visitors decide whether to click into your site or not.

Because of this, the Meta Description is actually pretty dang important. Not for SEO, but for click-thrus and bounce rates, both of which can effect the success of an SEO strategy.

If this post has captivated you from beginning to end, then stay tuned for the next set of five questions coming at you soon!

This series is pulled from a presentation given at SMX East. Part I of this series covered the problems duplicate content creates. Part II covered some of the causes of duplicate content. This post covers some of the solutions that will help you fix your duplicate content problems.

Quick Recap:
Part I: Duplicate Content Causes Problems. Duh!
Part II: There is No Single Cause of Duplicate Content. Don’t collect them all!

Great! Now let’s move on.

Only You Can Prevent Duplicate Content

Finally! Now we can address some of the solutions to the problems duplicate content creates.

Not all duplicate content issues are easily fixable, and some may be outside of your own control. But, those that are in your control do need to be addressed sooner rather than later. Or, you could just sit back and wait for Google to figure it all out. Don’t worry, it’s all good. Google’s got your back!

But, while you’re praying to Google for lavish blessings, I’ll be working with my clients to fix problems that are holding them back in the search results.

Search engine friendly links

In Part II, I showed you two types of links that were not very search engine friendly. The above image shows one that is. So, what’s the difference? This link doesn’t use any JavaScript and it has an “href” that points to the URL being linked to. This is mostly gibberish to those of you who don’t know HTML code, but it’s important for you to know this so you can tell your developers exactly what kind of links you need.

This is a basic HTML link. Nothing fancy. That’s not to say you can do fancy things with it, these can be embedded in CSS and some JavaScript can even be applied, but the crucial thing is that the link itself is very search engine friendly. If all your links are build like this, you will always know the search engines can spider it.

Link consistency

If you’re going to link to a page, be consistent about it. We covered how the same page can be linked in several different ways. You can implement redirects and canonical tags (which I’ll cover below), but regardless of the other solutions you put in place, be sure to be consistent in how you link to all pages in your site.

If you want to use the “www.”, then use it on every link. If you want to link to the default page without using the file name of any directory or sub-directory, then do that consistently as well. Half of the problem with duplicate content is pages being linked inconsistently throughout the site. Fix your link structure first, then work on the rest of the solutions.

Secure shopping path

In Part II, I talked about the problems that happen when visitors move into the secure area of your site. Often times these secure areas contain links back out, but maintain the secure “https” in the URL. This creates both a secure and non-secure version of the same page. A dupe. The solution here is two-fold.

First, don’t let the search engines enter into your shopping cart area. Secure or not, keep them out! There is nothing there for them to see. Second, once visitors are in the secure area, be sure that any links back out of the check out area go to the unsecure site, not secure URLs of the same pages. It’s OK for visitors to move in and out of the secure area, but what you don’t want is them (or the search engines) accessing secure pages that aren’t meant to be.

Hard code all of your links out of your secure area to be sure they are not using the secure “https” in the URL. Problem solved.

Canonical URLs

The canonical tag (or attribute. Whatever.) is the ultimate duplicate content band-aid solution for duplicate content. The search engines released this as a way to give them a “hint” about which page of all your duplicates is the one that is supposed to be the genuine URL.

This solution is only necessary if you can’t get your pages properly redirected, or duplicate URLs eliminated, via smart linking and content management implementation. It’s the ultimate “if I can’t do anything else” solution. And really, I wouldn’t worry about it unless you can’t implement any other type of fix.

The idea here is to put the tag in the head code of each duplicate page with the URL of the “proper” page. The search engines are supposed to treat it as if it is a redirect when assigning link and other values to the page.

Link to only to canonical page

If you can’t eliminate your duplicate pages and must use the canonical tag, I would also do my best to link only to the canonical version of each page. I wouldn’t rely on the search engines to transfer all your link values from the incorrect URL to the correct one. Maybe they will, maybe they won’t. But, if make sure your internal links point only to the canonical page, you’ve accounted for half the problem.

The other half will be external links, which redirects (see below) will handle. Linking to the canonical page ensures that all internal linking value will be passed to the proper page without relying on the search engines to get the “hint”. “Don’t make them [the search engines] think” is still the best play.

Redirect links

The absolute best solution to maintaining link value to the pages that are supposed to receive it is the use of the redirect. Whether you have deleted or moved old pages, or have duplicates with a single canonical page, using the 301 redirect (along with linking to the correct page) is the best solution available.

This doesn’t require any thinking on behalf of the search engine or the visitor, and you never have to worry about what URLs are being used in links to your site, because only the correct URL is being served. This is the Big Kahuna (along with linking to the correct page) of duplicate content and bad URL solutions.

If you don’t know how to implement redirects, talk to your developers. They should know the best solution for you, but be sure they implement a 301 redirect, and nothing less.

Duplicate content can be problematic, but implementing these solutions will do wonders to eliminating the problems and reducing the amount of online clutter your site may be producing. Once eliminated, your site should perform significantly better in the search engines, which is the goal we should all be shooting for.

They just don’t make music like this anymore, and it’s a shame. The sweet sound of rock’n'roll has never tasted better. All it takes is a reflective look at some of these song titles to realize that these guys knew their online marketing! (Though I’m sure they were all too wasted to even know it!)

SEO Requires Knowledge and Skill

I always seem to run into people who read a little about SEO and think It’s So Easy (Guns N Roses). Throw in a few meta tags and a title, and you’re all set, right? Actually, there’s more to it than that. What It Takes (Aerosmith) to perform SEO correctly is more than just a basic understanding of how search engines work. In fact, you have to be something of a Modern Day Cowboy (Tesla) if you want your pages to rank above the competition. A good SEO will Rock You Like A Hurricane (Scorpions), making sure you get the results you want.

Beware of Spammers Masquerading as SEOs

SEO has a pretty bad history with spammers. Heck, I think just about any SEO who has been in the business for more than a decade has spammed at least once! Back then we were Runnin’ With The Devil (Van Halen), but we really weren’t Foolin’ (Def Leppard) anybody but ourselves. When Google came on the scene, they gave us more than Looks That Kill (Motley Crue), they gave a hardcore Shout At The Devil (Motley Crue) and combated spam like nobody’s business.

Spammers today are a different beast than ten years ago. You could say back then it was just our Youth Gone Wild (Skid Row). Everything was new. Today, there isn’t so much ignorance going around. Every spammer is a Wanted Man (Ratt), not just to Google, but to all legit SEO’s out there.

Spammers: you’re not making the internet better. You’re cluttering it with your crap. People want to fall in love with websites, but You Give Love A Bad Name (Bon Jovi). And for that, well, you can just Burn In Hell (Twisted Sister).

But, the real problem with websites that use spam techniques is that, while they may rank well for a while, eventually they’ll go down in a Blaze of Glory (Jon Bon Jovi).

Your Audience Matters

In online marketing, there is such a thing as love at first site. Every first time visitor comes to you with the Eyes of a Stranger (Queensryche), and you have just fractions of a second to answer the question: Is This Love? (Whitesnake). If you give them love at first site, you’ve got a convert and a customer. If not, you lose.

For too long, the needs and wants of visitors have been ignored. Instead of falling in love with your site, they come thinking, “Please, Don’t Treat Me Bad!” (Firehouse). Your audience is more than just a traffic count or a conversion rate. They are your customers, your evangelists, your survival! You need to look at each and every customer in the eye and say “Oh, dear Sweet Child O’ Mine (Guns N Roses), there is No One Like You (Scorpions) in all the world.

You have to take the time to know who your audience is and what they need. Then build your SEO and marketing strategy around meeting those needs.

SEO Is More Than Rankings… Conversions Matter

If you think SEO is just about rankings, Welcome To The Jungle (Guns N’ Roses) of online marketing. While businesses may tell you they want rankings, in reality, it’s conversions that are Wanted Dead or Alive (Bon Jovi).

A lot of SEO’s Runaway (Bon Jovi) from talking about conversions. They just want to bring you traffic, traffic, and more traffic. But, what’s the point of traffic without sales? You want your visitors to think of your site as Home Sweet Home (Motley Crue) and to be Still Loving You (Scorpions) from the time they land on your site through the end of the purchase process.

Content Matters

If you already know the importance of having strong SEO and conversion friendly content on your website, then you’re definitely Nobody’s Fool (Cinderella). Unfortunately, too many website owners still don’t get it. If you want your visitors to come Back for More (Ratt) then you have to give your content a Reason To Live (Kiss).

Content provides the justification your visitors need to complete the purchase. If you could hear your visitors thoughts, they’d say “Tell Me! (White Lion), Why are your products better? How is your service is more thorough? Can you meet my needs? Why should I trust you over your competitors?” In short, they’ll say, “Talk Dirty To Me (Poison), and tell me why I need you!”

If you can’t do that with great content, you’ll have a site that’s just like any other. Nothing special.

We All Need a Little Link Love

If you have a great website but nobody is linking to it, you’re Alone Again (Dokken). You might as well tell all of your grand marketing plans to “Kiss Me Deadly” (Lita Ford), because a new site without links might as well not exist.

When your sales-less website is asking you to “Pour Some Sugar On Me” (Def Leppard)… you better take heed. Your website just needs some lovin’. Good link marketing plans are not easy, nor are they cheap, but they are essential for new websites to be successful.

There is No Such Thing as Overnight Success

New websites are Too Young to Fall In Love (Motley Crue) with Google, or for Google to fall in love with them. And, even existing websites won’t see success in the Still of the Night (Whitesnake).

Good SEO takes time. Not just the implementation of a solid SEO strategy, but for the engines to translate all that hard work into good rankings. Once you have optimized your pages, you’ve got to have Patience (Guns N’ Roses). But, don’t just sit back and Wait (White Lion) for the magic to happen. Be proactive and continue to look for opportunities to improve your site for search engines and visitors.

You Can’t Set It and Forget It

SEO and website marketing is an ongoing process. Sometimes you feel like you’re going Round and Round (Ratt), but there is really more to it than that. It’s about continuously finding new keywords to optimize and fixing ongoing site issues as they are discovered.

Don’t Stop Runnin’ (Y&T) to your analysis tools to assess the on-page optimization, architectural, and usability issues. You may think to yourself, “Here I Go Again” (Whitesnake), but revisiting your SEO regularly is an essential part of achieving and maintaining SEO dominance.

Test and Analyze

The great thing about SEO is that it doesn’t always have to be a Shot In The Dark (Ozzy Osbourne). Routinely looking through your analytics software to see if you’re visitors love you, hate you, or are In & Out of Love (Bon Jovi) with you is important. Sometimes you make a change to help improve search engine rankings, but it turns into Bad Medicine (Bon Jovi) for conversions. You don’t have to ask each visitor to “Tell Me What You Want” (Zebra), you can let your analytics do the talking.

You Can’t Always Be #1

In the world of SEO, Every Rose Has It’s Thorn (Poison). Sometimes there is a very delicate balance between top rankings and better conversions, or rankings for one keyword vs. another. You simply can’t expect to be #1 for every keyword, or that your #1 ranking will produce as many conversions as a better targeted #2 ranking!

Everyone wants to be on the first page. But, sometimes you have to accept being Seventeen (Winger) for one keyword if that helps you improve another keyword that drives more traffic or conversions. Some keywords are better as a Fallen Angel (Poison) if they don’t contribute to profits.

Good SEOs Thinks Outside the Box

Good SEOs will have a bit of a Wild Side (Motley Crue). They are always on the look out for The New Thing (Enuff Z’Nuff) that is going to help their clients gain profits. Notice that I didn’t say better rankings! That’s a part of it, but profits matter most. Anyone telling you otherwise is involved in some Monkey Business (Skid Row) and can go Jump (Van Halen) off a cliff. Outside the box SEO is usually results driven SEO!

There Are No Guarantees

If you’ve been around SEO long enough, you know that, ultimately, you’re just Livin’ On a Prayer (Bon Jovi) that Google doesn’t screw with their algorithm so much that you lose all your rankings. There is nothing worse than getting figuratively tossed aside like a Rag Doll (Aerosmith) while Google is Bringin’ On The Heartbreak (Def Leppard). It makes you want to Bang Your Head (Quiet Riot) against the wall while screaming out, “Somebody Save Me!”(Cinderella), as the Tears Are Falling (Kiss).

But, that’s the risk we all take. This is why having secondary online marketing strategies is essential!

Sweet, Sweet Success

Properly implemented SEO and additional online marketing strategies will, ultimately, bring the sweet flood of success as you see rankings, conversions, and sales pushing their way upward. When all your online marketing efforts are going well, you’ll think Heaven’s On Fire (Kiss) while you’re living in Paradise City (Guns N’ Roses)!

If you’re in the market for a (quality) SEO, you’re going to find providers that go well beyond services aimed at achieving top search engine rankings. In fact, if your SEO only knows how to throw keywords you want to rank for onto your site pages, I can tell you that you’re NOT getting your money’s worth (even if you are only paying a few hundred dollars a month).

SEO, in today’s world, is much more about online marketing than it is about manipulating a site to achieve top rankings for a few keywords. Here are some key components to a well-rounded optimization campaign:

Keyword Research

Keyword research is one of the most important elements of the optimization process. While it’s not as important as the site architecture, you need to perform some initial keyword research in order to build your site architecture properly.

Spend some time to research your core terms, and then figure out how they will apply to your site. Be sure to build your site with your main keywords in mind, creating sections and pages around user search patterns.

Later, you’ll do more research and organization in order to make sure each of your pages is targeting your search audience in the best way possible.

Website Architecture

A solid architecture is the foundation for all your online marketing efforts. If your site isn’t built in a search engine friendly way, then you’re going to have trouble optimizing the site for search engines to index your data properly. You’ll also run into trouble with visitor usability.

It’s a good idea to start with some basic keyword research and information architecture (the site flow chart, if you will) to figure out how your site navigation and pages will be structured. Build this around your keyword research, while also keeping your industry and visitor expectations in mind.

Usability & Testing

You can get more sales by bringing more people to your site, or by improving the conversion rate. Bringing more people in before improving your conversion rate is like trying to fill a bucket with holes in it. Sure, if you pour fast enough, you’ll eventually be able to fill the bucket. But, if you plug the holes, you’ll fill it much faster and with a lot less waste.

In this case, instead of wasting water, you’ll be wasting money. Most companies fare far better by plugging the holes in their site to bring in those immediate sales, then worry about delivering more traffic to the site once that issue has been corrected.

Testing is an important part of this process. You can’t just make a change because it feels good. Test every change to see if it actually improves the bottom line or not. If not, change it back. If it does, keep it and move on to the next improvement.

Copywriting

A good Copywriter is essential to being sure that your content performs its conversion duties properly. Far too many people create text for the sake of text, not realizing that it is an extremely important part of convincing and converting searchers to become buyers.

If you lack good copy on a page, you just have a bunch of words and/or pretty pictures. Visitors read copy because it helps them learn about what you offer, the quality of the products or services, and what they can expect. It also tells them what to do next or provides them more ways to find needed information.

On-Page Optimization

On-page optimization is critical for optimization success, but it’s not a stand-alone process. It’s more of an oversight process. The SEO needs to have a balance between keyword targeting, usability, site architecture and more. SEOs have their hands in all of it, hopefully with the goal of creating a perfectly balanced page for both visitors and search engines.

Social Media / Links

I like Social Media over traditional link building because it is far more audience targeted. Link building is about getting a link purely for the “link juice” it provides. Social Media leverages your target audience to get links, name recognition, and branding. So instead of a link for link juice, you get a link for your audience that comes with link juice.

Using Social Media, each link gets passed around and broadcasted, which generates even more links, therefore reaching even more of your potential audience. When it comes to customer acquisition, the value is in Social Media. But, sometimes you just need a link. Either way, links are an important part of the process.

Analytics

Optimizing without analyzing is like getting all dressed up for a date, but not looking in the mirror before going out. Sure, you see people giving you a double-take as you walk by, but do you really know why?

Analytics provides you with the feedback you need to see why people are reacting they way they are. It allows you to plug more holes and open up other opportunities for success.

SEO Maintenance

SEO isn’t set-it-and-forget-it. It’s an ongoing process of optimizing, reviewing, analyzing, tweaking, and optimizing some more. There is always some new problem that can be uncovered and fixed. There are always more keywords that can be targeted. There is always something that can be improved.

SEO maintenance allows your SEO efforts not to go stale. Competitors are actively engaged in bumping you for those top spots. Inactive SEO makes that all the easier.

PPC

PPC isn’t necessary for an SEO campaign, but it can be a valuable asset. Roughly 30% of searchers click into the paid ads. That’s 30% of traffic you can be missing. Not only that, but running PPC ads with SEO efforts helps fill in gaps where the SEO is under-performing (there is always something, somewhere) and increases brand awareness where the SEO is performing strongly. This results in more traffic and higher sales.

As you can imagine, rolling all these into a single optimization campaign can be quite pricey. But, take any one of them out, and you’re missing a crucial component. Cut corners on any of them, and you’ve got half measures that may move you forward, but not necessarily as fast as you want.

This is where you have to balance budget with expectations and results. Lower your budget, and you have to lower your expectations… because you will get lower results. Increase your budget, and you can increase your expectations because that will increase results.

Leave something out, and you may get good results in one area, but it won’t necessarily translate to good results in another.

For example, even if you get rankings, but no one is converting, what’s the point? Or, you can test and make sure your pages convert well, but if you’re not driving traffic to your site, then you’re just all dressed up with nowhere to go. If you build traffic through Social Media, but the site isn’t optimized to target specific types of keyword searchers, you’ll see higher than normal bounce rates. I could go on and on…

Unfortunately, too many people look at all of these as separate entities that can be added or removed ad hoc. And while they can, they are best when working together for a common goal: your business success.

Building Links

There are a lot of different approaches to building links. The different types of links discussed in the previous post in this series can gain you links in various degrees of goodness. But like most things, quick-fix solutions rarely ever provide excellent long-term value. That’s not to say quick fix solutions aren’t sometimes needed or warranted, but they rarely make a good long-term investment.

A link only has a certain amount of value, much like the value of a casual acquaintance. But like a true friendship, a link relationship goes much further and has a lot more potential.

The concept of building links is best when it’s focused on building relationships. You’ve heard it said, “give a man a fish and he eats for a day. Teach a man to fish and he eats for a lifetime.” In the same way, build a link and you get a link. Build a relationship and you get a lifetime of links.

Below are some questions and statements presented to me regarding links. I have provided my thoughts and input that will hopefully give you additional input or confirmation of what you already believed to be correct.

Offline, ads are something to be admired. I enjoy looking at billboard ads, and have been found to take more interest in the marketing materials handed out at NBA games than the games themselves (sorry, just not a big sports fan!) As for commercials, I’m blessed with TiVo so the last time I watched a commercial was… well, actually, a few days ago when I was sick and for the first time in years I actually watched live TV.

I was pretty appalled by what I saw. I don’t know if all commercials were just that bad or if AMC gets the special selection of commercials rejected from the “real” networks.

But let’s get back to online ads. I’m blind to them, mostly, but recently came across some ads that are just absolutely spectacular. So far I’ve only seen these ads on a few sites, but they do a phenomenal job of using up otherwise empty background space.

The first time I came across one was for the TV show Burn Notice. I can’t remember the site, probably tv.com or some other entertainment site. Unfortunately I didn’t take a screenshot, as that was absolutely the best one I’ve seen since, absolutely beautiful. But I got a screen capture of another ad for a TV show, Sci-Fi’s Eureka.

You can see how the top center banner ad actually flows into the background of the site, creating a full-page ad without getting in the way of the page’s content. You can see, if you scroll the page a bit, that the image ad moves but the background doesn’t.

In this case it doesn’t cause too much of a break in continuity, though you can clearly see the hard lines. I’ve seen others where the continuity break between background and banner was more drastic.

Since I work with four monitors I wanted to stretch this out to its limit, just to see how wide the background goes. It fills out pretty nicely. Of course the main action is close to the page body content, but for those with wider screens it goes pretty far before going black.

As far as ads go, these ads pretty much rock the ad world. I love the fact that they are using background space that otherwise serves no real purpose and that the background is a continuation of the main center banner area.

But this one took the whole concept a step further. It’s interactive! Click any of the images in the main banner ad area and you can change the background to your liking.

This one is my favorite:

If Salli Richardson-Whitfield isn’t enough of a reason to put aside your ad-blindness, then I don’t know what is!

A quick client history

I’m not a fan of garbage SEO which includes link building and everything else, but a few months back we were needing a little extra push for a client site. The site had sunk from #3 to #6 for two of its core terms and had been there for over a year. With the busy season approaching the client asked us to do everything we can to push them back up to the top three.

Now granted, the client’s business had been doing well with year over year growth in sales and conversion rates. We’ve been successful at getting hundreds, if not thousands, of keywords into top spots for a wide range of products. But still, to the client, these two keywords represented the success of our efforts. For whatever reason, they couldn’t see anything else other than the traffic they were missing by “not being in the top three.”

Looking for solutions

With all our educational efforts about rankings not being all they crack up to be falling on deaf ears, I knew we had to do something. The pages that were optimized for the two terms were solid, no doubt about that. We’ve fixed many architectural issues over the years and knew that the site was pretty solid there as well. After looking at just about everything else, we were left with one conclusion: we needed links.

They had fallen behind in raw link numbers compared to some of their competitors. I knew they had some quality links but those were not doing enough to pull them up. I mean, they were only on the first page, and they wanted top 3!

We were desperate. So we recruited a firm to help us out.

I’m always leery of link firms; you never quite know what you’re gonna get. We did our research and found one that look respectable, not too expensive and appeared to do quality work. So we threw down some cash and let them at it.

Since this was essentially a trial run we requested no more than 30 links. Not exactly a representation of “quantity”, which isn’t what we were going for any way. We wanted a handful of good links that would allow us to analyze the results and see if we wanted more.

Quality? Who needs quality?

Once the link run ended we spent some time analyzing what we got for our money. We were not impressed. Most of the links were on sites that we determined to be of very low quality. This trial was a failure.

As we kept researching for other firms to help us out, we noticed something peculiar and completely unexpected. Our client’s rankings started to climb. In a matter of days they were in the number 1 and 2 position for one keyword and number 2 and 3 position for the other. This was a far cry better than the single number six and seven ranking they had before. A few days later they held the first and second spot for both keywords!

We were stunned. How could this be? The links were not that great, and we only got a little over two dozen. Is this really happening? Surely this can’t be for real.

I started watching the keywords closely. Almost daily I was making sure they they stayed put in their new spots. After a few weeks I started to feel better. Almost confident that our little experiment actually worked, despite everything else.

Prepare for blowback

For several weeks the rankings held and then all of a sudden, one of the keywords dropped down to the number eight spot. Uh oh. Here we go!

But I didn’t react. I didn’t go out and purchase more links or better links or do anything else. I just waited. The other keyword held the #1 spot, but a lot (and I mean a lot!) of other rankings dropped as well. But still, I didn’t want to rush and do anything drastic.

Again, I’m checking rankings almost daily. Watching and waiting. Hoping that this is just a glitch. A fluke. A hiccup. And then suddenly, all was restored. Both keywords were back in the first and second position and the other phrases were back in their places as well.

Can quantity produce quality?

While that was going on, something else happened that I didn’t know about until later. Somewhere along the way the client managed to secure a very high-profile, quality link. By being in that #1 spot the client was contacted by one of the top news organizations in the country. They wanted to test out one of their products and asked the client if they would send it to them. They did.

The product was then reviewed on a national morning news program. That was then followed by a write up on their news website. The online article provided a link to the client suggesting readers go there to get more information!

Was that new link responsible for the return in rankings? Maybe. But regardless, here is a case when a bunch of garbage links helped the client shoot to the top of the rankings. Those top positions led to at least one very high quality link and very likely many many other natural links. Those links solidified that client into the top position for their keywords.

So I come to realize that it’s not always about quality links. Sometimes getting a bunch of low quality links can have an affect that allows you to get more of the high quality links you’re after. Our client’s backlinks are still significantly lower than the competitors, but they are outranking them all over the place. Overall, quality is still trumping quantity, but it’s nice to know that sometimes a quantity of low quality links can be all that’s needed to push you over the edge. Just make sure you know which edge it’ll push you over.

One of the areas of confusion that many have regarding paid links is knowing when a paid link is really a paid link, and when is a paid link penalized. I think a fair argument can be that a payment doesn’t necessarily always have to be monetary. Any quid pro quo on a link can legitimately be considered a “paid” link.

But not to worry, Google and the other engines don’t work that way. In fact, in their attempt to eliminate all forms of paid links from affecting their natural algorithmic search results Google has left one giant loophole in the paid link witch hunt: paid directory links.

Today I have answered questions regarding books for beginners, SEO techniques and how they have changed, pro’s and cons of CSS, different types of architecture and favicons.

On with the answers…

Ok, first of all, that’s a bad URL shown above, but aside from that, tacked on at the end there is the session ID. Both URLs pull the same page pulled open via a different browsing session. The bad stuff happens if the session IDs also get attached when the search engines come for a visit.

Since a new session ID is attached with each new visit, each time the search engine comes around they are essentially fed all new URLs. If you have only a ten page site, the second time the search engines visit they add the “new” 10 pages to the index, for a total of 20 pages. When they come around a third time they now have 30 pages in their index. Once they start analyzing these pages they find page after page after page of duplication.

An additional problem arises as site visitors start bookmarking and linking to your site. Every link they add contains their very own session ID. The search engines follow that link to your site and now you’ve got another 10 pages of duplication. If they follow another link to your site, that’s 10 more. You starting to see where this is going? Essentially you can turn a 10 page site into endless duplications.

Even with a small site you can see why the search engines would stop coming around. But if you have a site with hundreds, or even thousands of products, you find two things happen. 1) The search engines will stop spidering new pages because there is just too much duplication. 2) The engines will start dropping pages out of the index altogether.

Now this is where my lack of programming skills show. I know there are some systems that will withhold the session IDs from search engines. This still has the potential of creating problems with inbound links. I can’t say for sure how search engines handle incoming links with Session IDs in the URLs, even if those IDs get stripped once the engine hits the site. I would think the link value will pass as if the ID isn’t there, but I don’t know.

Like sex, the only guaranteed protection here is not to do it at all. There are alternate means of tracking users for whatever reason. Avoiding session IDs completely ensures that you don’t open yourself up to inadvertent site duplication.

Related posts on duplicate content:

• Theories in Duplicate Content Penalties
• How Poor Product Categorization Can Frustrate Shoppers and Search Engines Alike
• Duplicate Content Issues: www. vs. no www.
• Duplicate Content Issues: Domain Name Redirects
• Preventing Secure & Non-Secure Site Duplication