Content Marketing Is A Great SEO Strategy But It Is Not The New SEO

Author : Bharati Ahuja

The regular series of Panda updates have sent across the message to all SEOs that if you neglect the quality aspect of content then Google is going to neglect your site and deprive you of the search presence that you are trying to gain by optimizing your site for search engines.

But, this has put forward a misconception that if you focus on content the rest will be taken care of. When Google introduced the PageRank and gave importance to links the whole focus was shifted to getting links and gave rise to the link spam and a bad reputation for the SEO industry. Similarly now people think that if we regularly go on adding content the SEO is taken care of. This can result into a content spam which again will need some update stronger than a Panda update.

Link building was never SEO and neither content creation and its sharing should be considered as SEO. Content has been king since the first page was published on the web. It is 2012 that Google’s algorithms were capable of identifying quality content to a great extent and hence penalized low quality and thin content. Your website or blog is a container and the container is safeguarded or valued because of the content inside it.

SEO and content marketing are two different industries. Your SEO may or may not create content for you and at the same time your content creator or writer may or may not optimize your site. No doubt that every piece of quality content gives a boost to your search presence provided your site has been optimized wisely for the search engines and the search engines can easily index and extract the right context of the content to make it prominently visible on the search results for their users.

SEO makes the site capable of being indexed and SEO is that unbalanced force which sets the ball rolling and gives it an initial speed. The push of the regular quality content converts the speed to velocity and acceleration. Yes the right content gives it a direction which converts the scalar quantity of the initial speed to the vector quantity by giving it the right direction.

The content cannot get a direction and go far if it does not have the potential for the initial speed which is determined by the SEO of the site.

The SEO activity can be categorized as follows:

On Page Factors:

  • Title Tags
  • Description Tags
  • Suggestions for landing pages to make them more effective
  • Work on the site architecture and navigation
  • Image optimization
  • Making the maximum benefit from videos on the site
  • Header Tags
  • Working on the content to ensure that it falls in the category of quality content

Off Page Factors and Quality Web Presence:

  • Integrating Social Media
  • Guiding the in house staff on how to use social media effectively to establish trust and authority
  • Guidance on how to develop a blog and maintain it
  • Improve on the quality of existing inbound links to the site by working on the details about the domain authority, Anchor Text and the relevant linked pages from the external site.
  • Work on cleaning the link profile of non topical links.

Local Search

  • Add the details to Google Places and Google Maps
  • Integrate the Google Places account with the Google+ Business Page
  • Suggest methods by which you can encourage customers to write reviews
  • Optimize for Local intent keywords for organic search

Other Technical Factors:

  • Set the canonical issues
  • Robots.txt
  • XML Sitemaps
  • Add Structured Data in the form of Microformats and Microdata wherever applicable on the site
  • Customize 404 (Page Not Found) Page
  • Work on Improving the Site Speed
  • Add Authorship Markup to the blog
  • Add Twitter Cards and FaceBook open Graph meta tags to the blog
  • Guide the web developer to implement microformats or schemas for products and reviews.

The content of the site can reap rich dividends only if the above mentioned aspects are taken care of. Content Marketing or content creation and sharing is not the new SEO but undoubtedly it is an essential strategy to future proof your search engine presence.

All content creators may not be good SEOs and all SEOs may not be good content creators. These are two separate industries supplementing each other qualitatively.

If we value our industry and want to establish the true identity of the SEO industry, I think we should not propagate content marketing as the new SEO just like in the past some SEOs propagated Link Building to be SEO and brought a bad name for the industry. A Content creator needs to have knowledge about the concerned industry for which you want to create content but a SEO needs to have knowledge about the search engines , their algorithms , updates, webmaster tools, analytics,etc.

If your site is not optimized for search engines then it is like a body at rest in the invisible web. When you optimize the site it becomes capable of getting the search presence and is displaced from the invisible web to the search engine index and gathers speed. The regular quality content and sharing give it a direction and it gathers velocity and further acceleration to reach the targeted destination.

If Content Is King Then Context Is Queen And The Trust Factor Is The Royal Crown

Author : Bharati Ahuja

‘Content Is King’ is a clichéd line which I think the entire universe must have heard by now . The recent Panda and Penguin updates by Google have made everyone work out a content strategy for 2013 if they are seriously interested to have a valuable search presence.

But by just adding content to your blog if you think your job is done then be assured that all the resources allocated to add that content will not reap any dividends if you are not focusing on certain factors.

In 2012 we saw Google trying to leave no stone unturned for removing the spam , malicious links which degraded their PageRank factor and tried their very best to eradicate or rather push the thin and irrelevant content to the invisible web.

But in 2012 Google started giving more importance to social media signals, consolidated data from Google+ accounts, authorship markup , schemas and webmaster tools accounts. By doing this Google is trying to assess the credibility, popularity , reputation and reliability of the site.

We have written in detail about the various factors influencing content and thereby the content creator in the following posts:

http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2214849/Googles-Knowledge-Graph-Implications-for-Search-SEO

http://blog.webpro.in/2012/03/how-semantic-web-html5-microformats-and.html

As you can see in the above image of the semantic layers,  'TRUST'  is the top most layer. All the other layers contribute in creating the Trust Layer. Trust is the emotional and logical aspect of the users decision to refer and recommend the site and content if he has been getting valuable information from the site.In the long run when the web will be facing the problem of Content Explosion this will be the most important factor determining the overall search presence of any website.

In May 2011 Google discussed More guidance on building high-quality sites

When Google answered the question What counts as a high-quality site? Out of the 23 questions that Google asked, the first and foremost question asked was :

Would you trust the information presented in this article? And all the other related questions determining the quality of the site contributed or correlated to this trust factor.

So the most logical question that follows now is what are the factors influencing the TRUST FACTOR or How does Google determine or rather will be determining the TRUST FACTOR ?

As in the image above the Trust Factor attribute is at the top most layer hence it is influences by the sum influence reflected by each layer below it. It is not like the cherry at the top of a cake having layers of icing but is like the fruit on the top most branch of a tree which has got its nutrition from each and every part of the tree starting from the roots.

Some Of The Factors Influencing The TRUST FACTOR OR Rather The Jewels Which Make Up The Crown Are:

  •  Age of the domain
  •  Quality of the content
  •  Social media signals
  •  Authorship Markup
  •  Security
  •  The context of the content
  •  Usage Metrics (CTR, Bounce Rate, Time On Site, No. of New Visits)
  •  Topical Inbound Links
  •  Webmaster Tools Account verification
  •  SSL Certificate or a secure payment gateway incase of Ecommerce sites
  •  User Privacy Option in user preferences
  •  User reviews on Google Local search, on reputed local directories and user onsite reviews
  •  UGC - User Generated Content by way of comments on blogs
  •  Regular updation of the site as per the latest web standards
  •  Consistent Contact details on site and across the web Address, Phone no, Social Media Accounts linking to and from site to social media account and vice versa
  • The quality, content and reputation of external links

There is no such thing as a “Trust Rank” as mentioned on some SEO blogs but yes there are certain factors which influence your overall ‘Trust Factor’ and accordingly affect the rankings.
Matt Cutts explains in the following video:

Every piece of content you publish, share or link you get associated with influences your trust factor accordingly. I am not aware of the mathematical formula or the grading system used by Google to evaluate the ‘Trust Factor’ but all the factors mentioned above are collectively responsible in influencing it.

Next time you publish or share content on any web platform, place the quality and the context of the content in mind rather than the quantity so that every footprint you make on the web adds up to your web karma and thereby influence the ‘Trust Factor’ to future proof the search presence.

The Trust Factor can make the site an "Authority Site".

If ‘Content Is King’ then it needs a crown as monarchy is incomplete without the royal crown and the TRUST FACTOR  is that royal crown.

How To Get More Comments On Your Blog Posts

Guest Post By: is an SEO consultant and the founder of GuestBlogPoster.com services. In his free time, he enjoys building websites and walking his dogs. In a perfect world, each of your blog posts would have at least 10 Facebook Likes, 20 Tweets, 30 Google +1s, and 50-100 comments. There are so many benefits to having an engaged community on your website, including far-reaching social signals, a natural conversation around topics related to your content, and with the blog comments, a source of superb user-generated content (UCG).
Detail
Detail (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
But comments on your blog posts can be sparse, and there could be days that go by where you would hardly see any interaction. Why is that? You’re spending time writing great content, researching and reaching out to others in the community, interacting with others on social media, talking with your friends and coworkers about your blog, and on and on. Why aren’t your posts getting any comments? Before I jump into some actionable tips for increasing the number of comments on your blog posts, I’d like to spend a few minutes discussing why comments are important in the first place.
Fresh, user-generated content User generated content is an integral part of a healthy website. Imagine you’re driving down a highway, and you stop to fill up for gas and grab a bite to eat at the service station. You sit down at the table, and you can’t help but notice swarms of people coming in, buying a package of gum, and then leaving in a cloud of dust. Where’s the conversation? Why are people in such a rush? Don’t they want to hang out here? Google uses a lot of factors when determining how to rank a page, but one of the things that is important to remember is user-generated content can add natural keyword variations that you couldn’t add naturally on your own. Without blog comments, your page may rank just fine, but it could rank better with a natural influx of comments, much like my gas station metaphor. If people noticed others sitting down and having a conversation, they might be inclined to do the same. User-generated content can also affect your freshness score. In a 2011 post on SEOmoz, Cyrus Shephard mentions the fact that the amount of change on your page can play a role in its freshness score. Obviously there are other factors at play, but a living, breathing document (a page with new comments coming in) could rank higher than if it didn’t have any comments at all.
How to increase your blog post’s comments OK, now on to the nitty-gritty. There are some things you can change right now that could increase the level of engagement on your blog posts, including:
1. Placement of the comments widget Place the comments box as close to the end of your content as possible, so users won’t become lost in a sea of calls-to-action such as related posts, ad blocks, social buttons or other distractions. 2. Participate in the conversation Let’s say you’ve come across a new blog post that you really enjoyed reading, and decided to leave a comment. Weeks go by, but there’s still no response from the author. Bad form! At the very least, that author should have thanked you for reading! You can keep the momentum going with your post long after you write it by asking questions, sparking conversation and responding to comments.
3. Make it easy to comment How many hoops are you making your readers jump through to leave a comment? Sure, you want to combat spam (who doesn’t), but college-level algebra CAPTCHAs should not be mandatory, and registering for an account in order to leave a comment will only turn people off. There are a host of great WordPress comments plugins that are easy to use right “out of the box”.What are your tips for increasing the number of comments on your blog posts?Leave a comment!
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Points To Ponder On For SEO 2013

The 24x7x365 moments of 2012 have flown by leaving evolutionary and historical footprints on the web for the SEO world. Its that time of the year again when on a cold wintery day its time to sit and look back and reflect ahead with the light of good and bad experiences of the past year.

After the Panda and Penguin updates by Google for penalizing spammy links and thin content the optimization took an about turn for SEOs who focused their SEO efforts and strategies on links and low quality content as they got warnings from Google via friendly emails. In response to these emails they had to go on an undoing spree and remove and disown the links created just in the name of SEO. Google also created a Disvow tool to make them confess the unethical work done by them.

I know the above words allude to spirituality and ethics but are very much correlated to SEO as these black hat activities and misconceptions led the SEO industry to a juncture where the SEOs themselves wanted to call their services by some other name and give a fresh start and meaning to their work.

But, just by addressing it by any other term does not solve the problem. We as SEOs need to spread the true meaning and scope of SEO widely rather than campaign and write posts for its rechristening.

Its not only the search engines which have upgraded their algorithms and made them smarter but the searchers and website owners too are more aware of the search scenario and have become smarter. In early 2000 when a website owner wanted to optimize his site he just thought about rankings but today when people discuss SEO projects they focus on immediate goals to be achieved to have quality search presence and these goals vary from industry to industry.

Search is not only limited to the search engines it has got integrated to the various other inbound signals like social media, blogging, comments and discussions, videos, etc. hence an SEO has to integrate the overall web presence on all these platforms and shape up an online identity for the client’s business and this is possible only with due cooperation and help extended by the client. Today each and every aspect of the business is contributing to the search presence or cutting it down depending on what footprints they are leaving on the web for their business.

Overall Aspects to Focus On for SEO 2013

1. On Page optimization as per the W3C standards

2. Have a web presence on various platforms

3. Update blog regularly

4. Co relate web presence with fresh content by blogging, commenting, discussing, sharing links on social media from your own site and blog plus from other authority sites of your industry.

5. Have YouTube video channel and share videos and embed them on site or blog.

6. Google+ as of now may not be the most widely used social media platform but it as major Google products in some way or the other converge on Google+ your Google+ account has the potential of becoming your passport to your online identity hence ignoring this platform or not having a presence on Google+ is like applying for a VISA without a passport .

7. Submit XML sitemaps for site, blog and video XML sitemaps for videos embedded on site or blog.

8. Apply for Twitter Cards and integrate them with your blog once the application is approved by Twitter.

9. Integrate FB Open Graph on blogs.

10. Integrate Authorship Markup on the blog to co relate your content with your online persona which can lead you to be a thought leader of your industry which in the long run can add to the trust factor.

11. Focus on ‘Less Is More’ instead of having 5 posts a week publish 2 posts per week but of relevant in depth information in all forms i.e text, video, infographics, podcast,etc. It’s the quality that counts not the quantity.

12. If you cannot create content regularly then curate content.

13. Use Schemas for addresses, events, people, recipes, books, ebooks,video, etc.

14. Focus on building a community and retaining their trust as your community can play a major role in helping your content go viral.

15. As in real life you are known by the friends you keep , in the online world you are known by the people that follow you and the people that you follow.

16. In the real world you are what your thoughts are and in the online world you are what you publish and share.

17. The above points help you earn links. Let the inbound links get built as a result of quality web presence rather than running after them.

18. All the above points have a direct impact on the off page optimization giving a boost to the search presence .

19. Focus on the technical SEO by working on XML sitemaps, by monitoring Google WMT , canonicalization issues, HTTP headers, rich snippets in search results which are achieved by using schemas and microformats , customized error pages, robots.txt, improving the site speed, etc.

20. Local search is as important as global search hence cannot be ignored.

21. Follow the path of hard work to develop this overall presence gradually rather than following the short cut of buying fake likes , followers and +1s . The short cuts followed today will become a penalty in future once Google upgrades its algorithm for detecting it like the Penguin Update for spammy links which made all the link builders undertake the task of undoing those same links which they ran after once.

22. Go mobile and check the accessibility of your site on hand held devices else develop Mobile Apps. For widely used services of the site.

23. Help Google to give quality search results to the users and Google will help you in return by giving you the search presence you deserve.

24. Focus on the metrics that matter in Google Analytics according to what goals and priorities you have set for yourself to improve search presence.

25. Do not put all your eggs in one basket. Have a Bing WMT account too and monitor the search presence on Bing too.

The SEO industry is at that point of the graph where its going to scale new heights and emerge as more meaningful and essential for website owners and search engines as well. Content and quality have been king since the first web page was published but it in 2012 that Google has been successful in penalizing the low quality content and help clear the content and the linked clutter on the web with its algorithmic updates.

2012 has witnessed the most evolutionary phase of the SEO industry and I think this is the most positive phase too. As these quality algorithmic updates by Google are making the SEOs and website owners think and work on the quality aspects of the website.

Wishing Everyone a Great And A Successful 2013 ! 

 

 
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Google Introduces Data Highlighter To Webmaster Tools For Event Data

Google has been lately giving a lot of importance to rich snippets in search results. Data Highlighter is a point-and-click tool that can be used by anyone authorized for your site in Google Webmaster Tools. No changes to HTML code are required.

Instead, you just use your mouse to highlight and "tag" each key piece of data on a typical event page of your website.

To get started with Data Highlighter, visit Webmaster Tools, select your site, click the "Optimization" link in the left sidebar, and click "Data Highlighter".

As of now it's available in English only and for structured data about events, such as concerts, sporting events, exhibitions, shows, and festivals.

Source: http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.in/2012/12/introducing-data-highlighter-for-event.html

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The Google+ VP Bradley Horowitz Says: “Google+ is not like the social networks of the past”

In one of his recent interviews, the Google+ VP Bradley Horowitz mentioned that if FaceBook had 1 billion users then Google+ too had 1 billion users or more if the users of all Google products were put together. According to him unlike FaceBook, Google Plus is not only a social media platform but an attempt by Google to weave all the Google products together to offer more value to users and brands.

Google plus is the foundation layer and not a parallel product which exists individually. It is the identity and relationships system for Google which is woven in all the Google products. As per their statistics 400 million users have signed up for Google Plus but 100 million of them are active as per their strictest definition of an “ Active Google+ User” and the numbers are growing on a regular basis.

The Google+ VP Bradley Horowitz also mentioned that Google+ is not like the social networks of the past. It had a completely different edge and was following a different path. It was clearly indicated by him that they considered FaceBook was a social network of the past. He further added that they want Google+ to work the way the real world works and the advertisements and Sponsored links on social networks is annoying the users and they want to add the commercial aspect to Google+ but in a very holistic way. All the examples given by him clearly indicated that Google+ signals enhanced and added value to search Ads. by offering recommendations from users in your circle.

Hence, the search and social are supplementing each other rather than having independent individual existence for Google. He also added that in 5 – 10 years from now Google is aiming Google+ to be a platform for uncluttered meaningful communication where context is also in the picture along with the connections.

As a SEO I get the message clear and loud that Google+ signals will get more and more integrated in search results and if brands adopt and adapt to Google+ as soon as possible then they are going to grow alongside with the growth of Google+ as they have an opportunity to create footprints on social and get topically correlated ASAP. As mentioned above all the Google products are being woven into Google+ and Google+ as a social media platform converges to diverge and diverges to converge.

 

 

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The Evolving Face Of SEO - 14 SEO Facts For 2013

Author : Bharati Ahuja

Google turned 14 in 2012 and like any teenager it is still trying to acquire skills to face the world with more confidence and put its best foot forward. Obviously SEO – Search Engine Optimization has a direct correlation with search engines but as the search engines become more capable and as the search algorithms evolve and become more sophisticated many in the SEO world are even contemplating to rechristen SEO with some other name.

But does calling SEO by some other term change the true meaning of SEO? As a matter of fact has the SEO process and procedures changed or as they say is actually SEO dead?

The answer is NO, NO and an emphatic NO.

As black hat SEOs first focused on keyword stuffing and then went on link building sprees now after the Panda and Penguin updates this confused lot is talking about content development and undoing all the link building they have done in the past.

Survival of the fittest
Survival of the fittest (Photo credit: onkel_wart (thomas lieser))

But some of the SEO Evolution facts are:

1. SEO is not dead but has gained more life for people who understand the genuine meaning of optimization for search engines.

2. SEO has come under more scrutiny as the search engines are more capable now to detect spam and have upgraded their algorithms to penalize spammy techniques.

3. As websites moved from static websites to dynamic websites increasing the potential for regular additional content the search engines too first worked on indexing such content but this year the focus has been on penalizing thin and poor quality content to give more quality results to the users.

4. Websites penalized are the ones with poor quality non topical, spammy links and thin content.

5. Websites which catered to technical aspects of SEO and do not have low quality links and thin content were not affected by the updates.(That’s what my experience says) Its like if you have a good track record it adds up to your goodwill.

6. With social and search integrations and upgraded algorithms one needs to do more that just on-page optimization and technical SEO. One needs to focus on UGC (User generated Content) and offer a regular flow of content in the form of blog posts , videos, infographics , images, podcasts, etc. to be able to generate the UGC and share it on various social media platforms to generate the much needed social signals.

7. Panda or no Panda content has been king since the first web page was published on the web. It is Google who has become capable in picking quality content in 2012

8. The on-page and technical SEO still remain the same but as the search engines have evolved and are better equipped with advanced algorithms the completion for high rankings has increased and Darwin’s theory of “The Survival Of The Fittest” is largely applicable today on the web.

9. Where there is content there is a creator hence Google came up with the Authorship Tag and the Knowledge Graph – The next big step to qualify content and the creator.

10. If content creation is a necessity then content curation is the answer if coming up with regular content is a problem.

11. SEO is just one aspect of the whole online presence. As Scott Gardner of Bank of America had mentioned in a related discussion on SEO 2013 : Search is multifaceted. Don’t forsake any part of the pie. Make sure you don’t lose the market share you’ve gained in other areas. You need a balance.

12. When we optimize the site the focus is on factors which will retain a long term search presence and thereby generate targeted traffic .

13. Rankings are important but when we speak of SEO we work on the quality factors of the website and then earn the rankings to get targeted traffic but incase of PPC we pay for the rankings and buy the targeted traffic.

14. It is the prime duty of every SEO to educate the client about the true meaning of SEO and make them set realistic SEO expectations.

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SEO Objectives, Budgets, Metrics, Challenges and SEO Fee Structure In 2012 As Per The SEMPO Survey 2012

Author : Bharati Ahuja

The State of Search Marketing Report is based on an online survey of nearly 900 client-side (advertisers) and agency respondents. The survey was live between March 12th and May 15th 2012. A total of 883respondents from 36 countries took part in the survey, with US-based respondents accounting for 64% of the total. The sample included 272 advertisers and 611 supply-side respondents (mainly agencies) carrying out search marketing and social media activity on behalf of clients.

Following is a brief synopsis of the survey regarding the SEO trends for 2012 :

Objectives For SEO 2012 

 

To generate leads and drive traffic to the website is the major SEO objective for companies investing in SEO. But the objective of driving traffic to website has gone down by 8% in 2012 since last year.

The other main SEO objective is to sell products, services or content online which is the prime objective for companies investing in paid search according to the survey.

As the focus on driving traffic decreases the focus on increasing brand awareness and enhancing reputation has gone up by 6% since 2011. I think this indicates that companies investing in SEO are focusing more on quality SEO metrics and activities.

Metrics To Measure For SEO In 2012:

From the above metrics being focused on, by the companies the SEO trend will take a true turn for quality when the quality of the sales/leads will be more important that the quantity. As good SEO should drive targeted traffic not just volumes of traffic.

Secondly, it is not only about keyword rankings but about ranking for global keywords and global terms and terminology for the products and services offered by the companies. So its more about getting the site rank for correlated terms which can be achieved only by having substantial quality content and an engaging social media presence. This global keyword search presence should be a more important metric than traffic volume as the traffic volume and brand perception will follow if this has been achieved.

Though from the above objectives we can see that the companies are more open to quality SEO activities, a lot still needs to be done to educate the clients to focus on quality metrics so that the objectives can be achieved.

Budget For SEO In 2012

 

Though the companies having a budget of $1 to $25000 has gone down by 7% in 2012 as compared to last year , the companies allocating a budget of $25000 to $75000 has gone up by 9% in 2012. There is a 4% increase in the no. of companies allocating a budget of more than $3 million too. This again is a positive trend that companies are willing to allocate higher budgets for SEO.

This will pave the way for quality SEO activities as good content and good social media presence both are highly priced.

SEO – Inhouse v/s Hiring An SEO Specialist or Agency 

Glad to see that there are more companies willing to hire SEO specialists rather than SEO agencies. This again proves that SEO is a specialized service which needs to be implemented by individuals or small close knit and like minded teams for better results.

Challenges For Managing SEO In 2012: 

Measuring the ROI from SEO seems to be still at the helm for the challenges faced for managing SEO. This problem will be automatically solved when the metrics to measure SEO is decided upon by the company. This will be a continuing trend though, because the total ROI from SEO can never be measured as the ROI from SEO is an ongoing thing. This is because the brand and reputation created by SEO makes the company accrue returns in future. Many times the targeted traffic which visits the site as a result of SEO services may not take any immediate decision for buying or contacting the company but may delay the decision for various reasons.
Typical Fee Structure For SEO 

40% of the companies pay a flat fee to their SEO specialists or agencies. This is again a very positive trend and I am glad to see this because we have been having this SEO flat fee structure for our annual SEO projects since 2005.

Overall SEO seems to be on the main agenda of the companies. This again proves that SEO is evolving and not dying.

The full SEMPO report is available to SEMPO members which can be downloaded from SEM Research page.

Google Adds “Associate” Feature To Google Webmaster Tools For YouTube Integration

Google products integration seems to be getting stronger day by day. Google has added the “Associate” feature to Google Webmaster Tools for organizations having multiple presences on the web. This feature allows webmasters to add "associates" -- trusted users who can act on behalf of your site in other Google products. Unlike site owners and users, associates can't view site data or take any site actions in Webmaster Tools, but they are authorized to perform specific tasks in other products.
Google Webmaster Tools logo
Google Webmaster Tools logo (Photo credit: Kinologik)
Image representing YouTube as depicted in Crun...
Image via CrunchBase
For example, Webmaster Tools lives atwww.google.com/webmasters, but it also has a Twitter account and a YouTube channel. It's important that visitors to these other properties have confidence that they are actually associated with the Webmaster Tools site. To add or change associates In Webmaster Tools: 1. On the Webmaster Tools home page, click the site you want. 2. Under Configuration, click Associates. 3. Click Add a new associate. 4. In the text box, type the email address of the person you want to add. 5. Select the type of association you want. Settings In YouTube Account: It’s also possible for users to request association from a site’s webmaster. 1. Log in to your YouTube partner account. 2. Click on the user menu and choose Settings > Associated Website. 3. Fill in the page you would like to associate your channel with. 4. Click Add. If you’re a verified owner of the site, you’re done. But if someone else in your organization manages the website, the association will be marked Pending. The owner receives a notification with an option to approve or deny the request. 5. After approval is granted, navigate back to this page and click Refresh to complete the Google explained on its official blog that - for example, Webmaster Tools lives at  www.google.com/webmasters, but it also has a Twitter account and a YouTube channel. It's important that visitors to these other properties have confidence that they are actually associated with the Webmaster Tools site. Currently , there is only the YouTube option available for this feature. It will not be surprising if gradually other Google products also get added to it. I presume (Just guessing) Google+ to be the immediate next product to be integrated soon.
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The Website Owner And The SEO Company – The Mutually Beneficial Association

All this hoopla about Google sending notifications to web masters about unnatural links and warnings about removing them from their link profile is just like a teenager being caught with wrong friends and is warned by his parents to stop hanging out with them else he would be grounded and all allowances and perks shall be withdrawn.

Last Year the crux of my YouMoz post - “tation-of-the-seo-industry-12060" target="_blank">The Question About The Reputation Of The SEO Industry” was :

The reputation of the SEO industry is getting tarnished because of two main reasons:

.False promises by people who want to make a fast buck by calling them SEOs
·Very high expectations of website owners

If you see both are inter-connected if SEOs give realistic perspective about the whole SEO process then the expectations of the website owners would also be realistic. On the other hand if the website owners do not have false notions about the SEO results and they do not put pressure for quick results then the scene would be much different.

The article http://www.seobook.com/curious-case-small-business-and-seo also clearly points out how the business owner, the SEO Company, Google and the SEO community is directly and indirectly responsible for tarnishing the much needed SEO service by all businesses.

I totally agree that people falling under these 4 categories are sometimes jointly and sometimes individually guilty and responsible for such a situation of ultimate penalty to arise.

Many times due to lack of knowledge and at times due to impatience and greed the business owners join hands with SEOs who guarantee them 1000s of links and show them a quick short cut method for page 1 rankings.

We have been advocating natural links and vouching for on page SEO with a focus on content since we started working on SEO services in early 2000. I remember losing out on many SEO projects due to our non-compliance to offer them link building via mass submissions .

We have even got many "Thumbs Down" on our comments and views for our opinion on links for example http://www.seomoz.org/blog/dont-ask-sites-for-links-find-people-and-connect#jtc142513 but have never deterred from that view point despite all the discouragement. 

When we told business owners about our natural link building methods, Google WMT , Google Analytics and focus on content strategies we were not taken seriously and they thought that the other SEO companies who went on a link building spree were the ones who worked hard .

But today when we see them coming back to us asking us to help them undo those links , we can sense the repentance and the lesson learnt in their discussions.

This is not a matter of unnatural links only this is infact a matter of attitude towards your work and a simple law of life that there is no short cut to success and no substitute for hard work.

This same situation will reflect in case of social media signals and stuffed content in future.

Fraudulent webmasters in the past have been involved in Keyword stuffing earlier then went ahead with the link spam methods and now I am sure people having that temperament and attitude will go ahead with the social media scams and content stuffing until Google gets more equipped with detecting it and starts penalizing sites for it.

The business owners have to be savvy in adopting the right approach and not go for quick results. They also have to accept that SEO is a continuous process which keeps on increasing the potential and probability of improving the search presence of the site on an ongoing basis. This onus of making the website owners develop the right approach is to a great extent on the SEO company.

If your SEO company is working on the following aspects and offers you reports regarding them then it is going on the right track.

  •  Increased targeted traffic 
  •  Increase in the keywords with which actual searches take place (increase In The Search Queries) 
  •  Increased no. of impressions 
  •  Stable rankings 
  •  Increased visibility in more no. of Google geographic domains 
  •  Rankings and search presence not being drastically and adversely affected by changes in the algorithm 
  •  More and more pages becoming landing pages 
  •  Increased indexation 

And

Constantly upgrading and educating you with the latest updates at Google so that you are aware of the changing search scenario .

All this can be easily monitored via Google WMT and Google analytics.

 
SEO Ahmedabad

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