Web Analytics for SEO can be a completely different animal than other traffic sources. You want to know what keywords are performing well on your site. You want to know what search engines are giving you the best converting traffic. You want to know what keywords you should be going after more aggressively. When the right data is researched, you can increase your SEO abilities ten fold. Look at the right data and well…let’s just say you can’t afford to look at the wrong data. I wanted to quickly show you the 8 Google Analytics reports I rely on to help me with SEO. 1. Search Engine Organic Report Google Analytics allows you to create segments in your data using the Advanced Segments tool. One of those segments you want to create (which will help you for all of these reports I am going to explain to you) is an [...]

Want to know the best SEO advice I have? Here it is. And you’ve heard it before. It’s all about High Quality Content! Sure there are a few other SEO fundamentals that need to be in place. But once the foundation of your site has been laid, your ability to focus your time and resources on creating high quality content that is of some benefit to visitors is the best SEO tip any SEO professional can give you. Let me explain to you my experience with this. This Blog Has Been A Major SEO Test When I started writing in this blog 3 years ago, one of the goals I had was to test certain aspects of search engine optimization with the content I was writing. I had been hearing from other SEO pro’s about how quality content can improve your SERP’s dramatically and wanted to test their methods myself. [...]

You’ve got choices to make when it comes to 3rd party services and your website. What do you choose for an Analytics platform? What A/B testing service should you use? What should you use for search functionality? What about ads? What ad publisher should you run with? In my opinion (this is my theory and by no means actual fact) all of these decisions have everything to do with your Search Engine Optimization (SEO) strategy. Let me explain. Note: this article is now a section of my Free SEO Report called the SEO BlackBook. I have made it free to download so check it out. Here is my theory. And let me preface what I am about to tell you with the fact that there are many SEO professionals (much smarter than me I might add) who also agree with this. It’s the concept that Google gives higher credit to [...]

Been doing some research lately on the effects 301 and 302 redirects have in different situations in regards to SEO. So I thought I would take the time to explain the difference between the two types of redirects. So what’s the difference between a 301 Redirect and a 302 Redirect? Here is the simplest way to explain it… Note: this article is now a section of my Free SEO Ebook called the SEO BlackBook. 301 Redirect = A Permanent Redirect 302 Redirect = A Temporary Redirect Here’s an image from Searchengineland.com that visually demonstrates this explanation… 301’s Great for Canonicalization According to Matt Cutts (the search engine super master genius at google) Canonicalization is the process of picking the best URL when there are several choices. When Google “canonicalizes” a url, they try and pick the url that seems like the best representative. For example all of these URL’s go [...]

An interesting SEO related question here. Can Google actually see your data hidden behind a private registration? In other words, if you purchased a domain and paid for “Privacy” services to protect your personal information, does Google have the ability to still see that information? After quite a few hours of research, I’ve gathered together some helpful information to shed some light on the subject. First let’s look at why you would want your WHOIS data Private. Typically it’s because you don’t want your Name, Address, Email, and Phone number to be visible to the public. But from an SEO perspective, SEO experts don’t want Google to know that all of their domain names are owned by the same person. Is this a Black Hat SEO tactic? Not really. Especially considering the fact that many people run legitimate content heavy websites (more than 1) and deserve the SEO strength that [...]

There are 3 lessons I’ve learned with SEO (search engine optimization) from blogging on this blog over the past 2 years. Just so you understand where i’m coming from, I started this blog not only to write about my passion which is open source, but to also run SEO tests to figure out the truths behind what Google likes and dislikes. I was curious to see what Blogging alone could do in the search engines, without the common SEO efforts such as Keyword inserting and Link Baiting. Here are 3 valuable lessons I learned: Note: this article is now a section of my new Free SEO Report. It’s free to download so check it out. Keyword = Direct TV Commercials This is an interesting one. Awhile back I was in the mood to write something of no relevance and of no real importance on my blog. I had seen a [...]