Digital Marketing Mastery: Insights, Strategies, and Tactics for Success

Monthly Archives: August 2014

Common Issues With Duplicate Content

If you’re a website owner, you know that it’s vital that you get your content as high up in the search engine rankings as it can get. Otherwise, no one is going to view your web pages, and that means no one is going to buy what you’re selling. Search engine optimization, or SEO, is a term that anybody who has web content knows and knows well. In fact, SEO experts are playing a vital role these days in optimizing content, as page rankings, key words, and quality content become more important than ever. The first thing you want for your website is to get a high ranking from one of the big search engines like Google. And the last thing you want is for your content to lose its high ranking, or never get to the top in the first place. Sometimes duplicate content just happens, and webmasters don’t know it. However, sometimes it’s purposeful, and this is considered malicious. 

What is Cloaking?

Cloaking refers to a search engine optimization, or SEO, method used by webmasters to deceive search engine crawlers by presenting different content to the search engine than that which is presented to a user. Search engines such as Google’s consider this a violation of ethical internet practices, and there are consequences for doing it. Current digital marketing strategies must include ways to avoid cloaking, and SEO experts warn against it. When Googlebot, Google’s web-crawling device (that essentially ‘crawls’ the web and discovers new and updated pages to be added to Google’s index) finds cloaking, it considers it unethical and there are consequences. Therefore, it is necessary to be able to recognize cloaking and avoid it.

What Are Google’s Quality Guidelines?

If you own or manage a website, you know that getting to the top of a search engine’s page rankings is very important. Without a high ranking, your page can get lost among the other hundred million pages out there. But how do you know how a search engine like Google rates your page? How does Google classify types of content, and what does it consider quality content? Is there anything you can do to get to the top and stay there? And what are the things that Google finds so egregious that will make them take action against your website? The good news is that Google does have specific guidelines they use to rate your page and rank your site. And following their guidelines can aid Google in locating, indexing, and ranking your website.

Basic principles

Google’s quality guidelines contain some pretty basic principles that ensure search engines are providing users with the most diverse information and the best quality possible. Here are Google’s basic principles to follow when building a website and creating content for it:

How to Think About Content Freshness

You’ve probably heard it … content is king. Actually, it’s not. It’s Caesar. It’s overlord. In other words, content is pretty doggoned important. If you have a business, especially with an online presence, quality content that remains relevant and valuable to consumers is a marketing tool that continues to grow in influence. Pertinent content that keeps your page as high up in search engine rankings as possible is an integral, even critical, part of promoting your business. If you already know that, then you probably also know that content freshness is important. But how important is it to keep your content fresh, and what kind of a role does freshness play in your pages’ rankings? The answer might surprise you.

Domain Name Strategies

It seems everybody’s got a domain name these days, whether they use it or not. But you’re different. You’re ready to start a business, and you’re ready to get serious about making it a success. And you know that, in today’s business environment, the internet is a vital tool that you can’t overlook. In fact, it will be an integral and fundamental component to growing your brand, and that’s why choosing a great domain name is so important. There are so many things to consider when selecting a domain name. You want it to be memorable and recognizable. You want it to stick in people’s heads, and you need it to remind them of your product. SEO experts recommend certain strategies to consider when choosing a domain name. So just how should you go about choosing the right domain name? What are the factors that go into the decision?

How Does Google Treat Duplicate Content?

Duplicate content may be an issue for your website and you don’t even know it. SEO, or search engine optimization, is key for every website. You’ve worked hard to get your content as valuable and relevant as possible, but if you’ve got duplicate content, your page rankings can suffer, and that’s not good for your business. Naturally, you want your websites to get as high up on the search engine results as possible, and duplicate content can keep that from happening. If you’ve got duplicate content on websites, it can work against you in the search engines. Here’s information about the types of non-malicious duplicate content and how Google treats it.

What is Content Marketing?

Are you content with your content? No? Shame on you! Content marketing has become quite possibly the most important promotional tool in the modern business world. If you aren’t doing it, then you aren’t doing business. And if you are, but your content isn’t what it should be, then neither are your profits. Promoting your business via content marketing is taking over just about every industry nationwide and globally, and its importance is only getting stronger. The big guys are doing it, and so should you. As an SEO strategy, it can help you get your website to the top of the page rankings, and it can drive more customers into your store. Good content … really good, relevant stuff … is what drives customers to your brand. It can grow a customer base like nobody’s business. But content marketing is your business … and you know why? Because your competitors are using it to gain an edge over you. So, what exactly is content marketing? And why should you use it to promote your business?

SEO Today

SEO Rank
SEO elements

We are all aware that the only thing about SEO that is constant is that it is continuously changing. This is due to the fact that Google and the other major search engines are always changing and tweaking the search algorithm in an attempt to improve search results for users. Of course this means that updates like Panda, Penguin and Hummingbird have the SEO specialists running to keep up. But for those who observe SEO best practices there is still a lot of consistency with maybe a few tactical changes here and there. SEO practices that worked before the release of the Hummingbird update still work. That means that we should all continue pursuing strong strategies like:

  • Creating engaging and original content
  • Legitimate and relevant backlinks that are earned and not purchased
  • Using keywords to enhance content without overdoing it

The biggest change we may notice is the way that Google uses the new algorithm to interpret and deliver search results.

How Does Social Media Marketing Work?

Your business minus social media marketing equals … do you hear crickets? In today’s business environment, social media marketing is not just vital; it’s critical. Sure, it takes time and effort to market your business through social media, but that’s true with every marketing campaign ever implemented. The good thing about social media marketing is that it creates a kind of level playing field that never existed before. Think about it. In the past, if you didn’t have a ton of money, brains, connections, a brilliant marketing strategy, and an ingenious product, it was almost impossible to get a business off the ground, let alone experience the kind of success entrepreneurs imagine. But today, with all the online tools, digital marketing strategies, networking, and information available, growing a successful business is no longer just for the privileged few.

SEO Trends for Fall 2014

Talk about a needle in a haystack! There are literally billions of pages on the internet, and if your website’s content is deemed irrelevant by search engines, it’ll be as lost as a skipper on a 3-hour tour. That’s where SEO comes in. Search engine optimization is one of the most important tools you have of getting your website’s page ranking as high up on search engines as possible. And if you’re not keeping up with the latest SEO trends, you might as well close up shop. Some trends from last year are still going strong this year, and SEO experts are still recommending them to boost page views. Here are some of the hottest SEO trends and predictions for fall 2014.