Mobile Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is becoming increasingly necessary as website visitors increasingly use mobile devices (including tablets) to visit your sites. In fact, 25% of all search engine traffic comes from mobile devices. The real question is, what should I be doing to increase traffic to my websites for people who are using mobile devices?

Here are 5 Mobile SEO Tips to help you get more free traffic from the search engines.

Tip #1 – Stop Building Mobile Sites

Yep, you heard me right. Not only do users dislike mobile sites, but so do the search engines. Even Larry Page, co-founder of Google, said in a earnings report that he did not like mobile designed websites because they are small and confusing. What is Google’s solution then? Keep your websites just like they are. Avoid adding a Mobile Video Sitemap unless you are sure your website is only serving mobile device visitors, otherwise desktop users will not see any results. Google, all by itself, transcodes (modifies) your website for mobile viewing.  To ensure the best experience for mobile devices, build your website with a ‘responsive design‘ and follow Google’s recommended best practices for building mobile optimized websites.

Retail searches are normally the only one’s who benefit from a specific mobile site, but even then, all mobile searchers want are Directions and Hours of Operation, a Google survey revealed. Thus, if you do Local SEO for Businesses, and you are setting them up with a mobile site, be cautious. Your customers will be paying you money for less results, which leads to your seo credibility going down the drain.

Tip #2 – Use Video SEO Best Practices To Stand Out From The Crowd

A Video Thumbnail in the search results stands out from the other listings and gets you more clicks. Period. The great news, is that Mobile Video SEO is an extension of regular Video SEO Best Practices for your website.

I have seen some ridiculous products for sale for video seo, including mobile seo.

Want to see another WSO Scam? This guy, no idea who he is, other than his skype id has the name ‘reilly’ in it. Anyways, a few months ago he sold a product called WP Media Sitemap as a Warrior Special Offer Here, and he touted he sold 400+ using JVZoo as the marketplace. It was being sold as a Mobile Video SEO Sitemap. Even had other warriors giving testimonials. Hmmm…makes me wonder! This is hilarious really. His proof shots on his salespage are search engine screen shots of Youtube videos in the search engines. Hmm….that is funny…Youtube indexes their own videos. Don’t need a video sitemap for that. This guy was making money “selling ice to Eskimo’s.” And, he was touting that his was a ‘mobile video seo sitemap,’ as though a ‘video sitemap’ was not enough. Interestingly, the WSO is closed, and his product is no longer for sale on JVZoo. I guess it doesn’t work!

The fact is, you do not need a video sitemap for your Youtube videos. And, there is no such thing as a ‘mobile video sitemap’ edition.

To Rank your Self Hosted Videos in Google’s Desktop Search and Mobile Search, you just need a Video Sitemap…NOTHING MORE…NOTHING LESS!

Watch this video for some cool tips on “How To Rank Your Website On Mobile Search”:

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Here is some proof of why my Google Video Sitemap continues to be the Number One Video Sitemap WP Plugin on the market. With the click of 1 button, this wp plugin will scan every page and post on your blog for self hosted videos and will create both a videositemap.xml (for Google) and videositemap.rss (for Yahoo and Bing).

These video sitemaps are automatically created with my Google Video Sitemap.

• http://www.markdulisse.com/videositemap.xml
• http://www.markdulisse.com/blog/videositemap.rss

What is more cool, I just added support with the video sitemap and my latest and greatest Covert Player wp plugin.

Here is a screenshot from a Ipad showing one of my posts on this blog with a Video Thumbnail in the search engines.

Next, here is a iPhone screenshot of the same post from this blog with video thumbnail in the mobile search results. Once again, proof that all you need is my Google Video Sitemap.

And to get even better, here is proof on the MRSS video sitemap url working in Bing’s search results with Video Thumbnail in search results…

Isn’t that just awesome news! The search engines are doing its job and indexing content for mobile search.

Tip #3 – Take Advantage of Local Business SEO For Mobile Search Results

If you have a local business with a business local, you need to do Local SEO for your website so that customers and prospects can easily find you, and you get prominence in the mobile search engine. Zain Shah wrote an article on the 5 Easy Steps of Local SEO, as well as Jayson DeMers on the Definitive Guide to Local SEO.

Tip #4 – Have Strong On-Page & Off-Page SEO For Your Website

Once again, mobile seo is an extension of regular seo. The same principles apply. Some of the basics are:

• Canonical URL Structure
• Easy Navigation (all pages/posts accessible within 2 clicks)
• Browser Speed is good, and even better, fast. Don’t have a ton of images and flash. Text is better.
• Unique Content: Do what I do. Text, Video, Images, Social Shares, Comments, all one each page/post for best results.
• Image SEO with Alternate and Title Tags
• Video SEO with Google Video Sitemap and Video SEO Best Practice Tips
• Have a Google Video Sitemap
• Add Rel Author Google+ Support to your website. Get Free Rel Author WP Plugin Here
• Social Sharing Backlinks
• Anchor text backlinks from authority sites, including DMOZ, Yahoo Directory, .Edu and .Gov sites, forums, blogs, and more.
• See video above for keyword tips. Have main keyword as home page keyword and long tail keyword as inner pages, pointing back to home page.
• Visitor Engagement with Commenting
• This topic can be an entire post all on its own. These are the basics.

Tip #5 – View Your Websites and Videos On Mobile Devices, on Various Browsers, and Bring Support To Them

This sounds really simple, but you’d be surprised how many people do not do this. Test your websites on both Android and Apple Mobile Devices (ipad, iphone, etc.), and on all the browsers: firefox, chrome, opera, etc…

If you are using self hosted videos, and are using a HTML5 player, have both a mp4 and webm video file, as this will cover 99% of all browsers.

So there you have it, some really cool tips on Mobile SEO and how you can get more traffic from those doing searches on their mobile devices.

PLEASE LEAVE A COMMENT, I READ THEM ALL!

]]> http://www.markdulisse.com/blog/articles/seo/mobile-video-seo/feed/ 4 http://www.markdulisse.com/blog/articles/products/google-authorship-plugin/ http://www.markdulisse.com/blog/articles/products/google-authorship-plugin/#comments Sun, 24 Mar 2013 20:34:42 +0000 Mark Dulisse http://www.markdulisse.com/blog/?p=1793

Want to see the soon-to-be-released and coolest upgrade for the Covert Player, the video marketer’s delight for bloggers? Enter your email address to watch this video.

Enter Your Email Address To Play Video!

By entering your email, you are registering to be on my Getresponse email list for Covert Player Pro version Optin Edition. All features can be viewed by clicking here.

 Please leave a comment, I read them all!

53MQGF937E9N Thank you for visiting this post. There is a FREE GIFT for you at the end of this article.

The 2012 Social Media Industry Report (PDF is here) states that 76% percent of marketers plan on increasing their use of Youtube and video marketing this year. eMarketer also has reported that online video is expected to grow 55% this year and is the top format for content marketing. These fact alone easily makes Youtube and video the top marketing strategy to invest in for 2013.

Is video your top content and branding strategy for 2013? If it is not, it needs to be. Youtube is a force to be reackoned with if you are looking to legitimately BRAND your business online. Many online business and careers have been launched and developed simply by the power of Youtube’s leading marketability.

The Youtube stats are staggering…

• Youtube still is the 2nd largest search engine in the world.
• Youtube is the World’s Largest Video Sharing Platform
• Youtube has over 800 million unique users, receives over 4 billion video views daily.
• In 2011 Youtube had over 1 Trillion total views. That’s over 140 views for every man, woman, and child on earth.
• In One Minute Online there are 2.8 Million videos viewed on Youtube.
• In 2010, Youtube saw over 1 million views per day from mobile devices. In 2011, those tripled. Today Youtube is available on over 350 million mobile devices.

From a marketing standpoint, it is fascinating that video now converts more than text.  iMediaConnection confirms that with a 41% higher click-through rate than plain text, video is predicted to reach 90% of all web traffic by the year 2014.

What does all this mean? If you are not focusing on Youtube and video marketing for your content and branding strategies in 2013 and beyond, it is time to get ambitious.

Here is one ACTIONABLE step you can take right now to increase your traffic, views, and subscribers.

I’m not sure if anyone noticed or not, but if you do a quick Youtube search on some of the most popular Youtube channels will often see that the top users are doing a sneaky little trick at the end of their videos referred to as a “Youtube Directory.” Simply, the “Youtube Directory” is a 10-15 video clip that is placed at the end of each of their channel videos with Annotations.

Watch my video below to see….

If you click on the thumbnail video images below, you can watch a tutorial series on how to exactly do all of this. And to make it even more convenient for you, I have included below a Template in PSD format (Photoshop) that you can easily change your Youtube Directory to fit your needs.

And now for your bonus that I promised you above. For a short period of time, I am providing a link to the PSD file of my Youtube Directory. You can easily change yours and make it better than mine.

–> Download 100% Free – PSD Youtube Directory Image

Go for it. Spend time on your video marketing starting right now. Learn the skills. Do the work. Yes, it is work…you are not afraid of that, are you? For those who do consulting and work for local businesses, this is one more content marketing strategy to present to them to add to their branding and online business. It will add value to them, and to you as a professional.

Now for the good stuff. Tell me your thoughts by writing a comment below. I read them all.

Is video marketing your content strategy this year? Please, take action. Show my your videos you have made for yourself or your clients. Tell me what you are doing right and what is not working. Please share for all of us.

Please Make  A Comment! And “Let’s Make It Happen!”

The Covert Player is about to take its debut, launching Wednesday, January 16th at 1 am, EST, and in anticipation I’d like to give a review as to its features and benefits.

But first, the question must be asked…why another video player? I already own The Traffic Player and there is already a large number of video players on the market today.

Over the past year there has been an onslaught of new video players that have arisen. All of them are fascinated with adding html overlays on top of the video container, everything from banners to buttons inside the video container. Even more expensive video players being launched, like one being released this week, offer nothing new…but continue to add content inside the video container. Some even attempt to come with a page creator and then charge you $300-$400. Your joking, right?

I have opted to NOT get into the HTML Overlay game for video players. Why? If video helps conversions, why do we want to distract the viewers experience by inserting banners, buttons, etc., inside the video container? For me, I would rather add any Call To Action instructions with Captions and Voice.

This brings me to the Covert Player and why I designed it. Watch the Introductory Video by clicking on the first thumbnail below.

As an incentive to order the Covert Player during launch week I am adding the following Covert Player Bonus. Everyone who orders during launch week will get a complimentary upgrade to the Covert Player, FlowPlayer module, set to be released a week after launch. During the initial launch, Covert Player will have Youtube and Vimeo supports. We are adding Flowplayer 5.2 so that you can play self hosted videos, or  videos hosted on your amazons3.

After launch week, the price for the FlowPlayer module will be more than double. I am also adding a lot of bells and whistles to the FlowPlayer module, so you want to get in early.

Now, to show off more features…here are the TOP 5 Awe Inspiring Videos Of 2012:

Pretty nifty…eh? The Covert Player has the ability to add Top Lists from Youtube at the click of a buttom: Most popular videos, most watched, most discussed, top rated, top favored. You can set it for the “Most Discussed Videos For Today, or for This Week,” for example. This is awesome! You can add your own playlists in membership sites for training/tutorials and use the Embed Pulldown method.

Get access to the Covert Player – Click Here.

People will naturally ask, why did I develop another video player? Why not just add on more features to your existing Traffic Player? There are reasons for this:

1. It is practically impossible to have every option available on one script. Each has its strengths.
2. Traffic Player uses Flowplayer ver 3.2 while Covert Player will be using the newest Flowplayer ver 5.2.

If you have any questions at all, feel free to write a comment and I will try my best to answer. Full features will be revealed on the Salespage at launch. Please, no support questions here. My support desk is here.

Make a Comment. Tell Me What You Think! I Read All Comments!

In this article you will learn the incredible news of Google Indexing of Youtube Embed Videos on your websites, and how you can take advantage of this.

Google and Youtube, partners and co-conspirators of search engine domination, continue to bring havoc on SEOs and webmasters worldwide with their recent move in their verticle video search engine technology.

This is the biggest shake up for 2012 thus far.

You thought Google’s spam team is busy penalizing webmasters with their Google Panda and the new Google Penguin doctrines?

This is nothing compared to the shake up (and opportunity) in video seo and marketing…and many of us have not noticed. And what makes matters worse, is that as soon as I am done writing this blog post, Google most likely will be changing this loophole or pandora again….

Let me get right to the crux of the matter….

Google Indexing of Youtube Embed Video

What is more staggering is that you can take other people’s videos on Youtube, iframe it on your website, and the video will show up in the search engines with a thumbnail pointing to your domain.

And it gets better….

You do not even need a video sitemap for this to work! Nor do you need a markup schema as was previously suggested by Google Video.

And it gets more awesome! Even many self hosted videos are presently getting in the search engines without a video sitemap. Check out this image of one of my websites in the serps. I have highlighted the videos with “YT” that are youtube videos:

Video SEO History Lesson:

Back in 2008 when I first started online with my business, I did a massive amount of video marketing on Youtube and embedding my videos on my websites. However, the Youtube video in the search engines would never point to my website, but would point to Youtube.

In 2009 I created the Google Video Sitemap for self hosted videos. I extensively tested putting Youtube videos on the sitemap (which you can easily do), but the Youtube videos in the search engines would mostly always point to Youtube, not my domain. I say “mostly” because out of 50 Youtube videos embedded on my website, and on my video sitemap, I did have 1 Youtube video in the serps pointing to my domain. However, I felt this was a random mishap, and I could not replicate it.

Mark Robertson at ReelSEO and myself conversed by email in 2009 on what Google is doing at the time, as he was having similar results. Our conclusion was that self hosted videos is the surefire way to get your videos in the search engines pointing to your domain using a Google Video Sitemap. This still holds true today. What has changed is Google’s recent inclusion of embedded Youtube videos pointing to your own domain, without the need of a video sitemap. Mark Robertson gives evidence of this at ReelSEO as well. When Mark first wrote the article, Google was still making changes and so I sat and waited for the dust to settle.

WARNING

Watch out for scam profiteers! I laughed when I saw Alex Goad and Bryan McConnahea launch a Warrior Special Offer at the Warrior Forum selling a video sitemap wordpress plugin and stating that their video sitemap puts Youtube videos in the search engines. Let me repeat. You do not need a video sitemap for Google to index your embedded Youtube videos on your domains. Google does this without a video sitemap. Anyone who tries to sell you a tool that does this is a scammer.

Google has enhanced their ability to index videos without a video sitemap, both self hosted videos, and Youtube videos. For example, has anyone noticed that the Duration of the videos is automatically inserted in the serps now? See the Video Duration in the serps:

This is my humble opinion on what you should do for Google Indexing of Youtube Embed Videos….

1. Google and Youtube are STILL making changes. The results you saw last week for your videos in the serps are not the same today. Youtube alone is going through upgrades at an outrageous speed.
2. Be cautious! Do not go and delete all self hosted videos and set up all Youtube’s on your websites in the hopes that they will forever be indexed in Google. Google has not formally given us announcement on this. Are they testing? Are they fixing? Are they researching? Have the messed up? We do not know.
3. Self Hosted Videos with a Video Sitemap is still the best and surefire method to ensure your videos are in the search engines.
4. Protect your own YT videos by disabling the ability for others to use Youtube embed code function.
5. In my mind, Google needs to link up Google+ verified websites and authors, and have their Youtube channels verified, and then allow embedded Youtube’s to be indexed. This will help for any copyright issues, or swiping/stealing in the search engines. Perhaps this is what is coming shortly. So get prepared now!
6. Currently, if two separate websites embed the same Youtube video, which one will be indexed? Google will surely sandbox one of them so their users will have good search results. The best optimized website wins out. If the YT URL video and channel is better optimized, it also will win out in the serps. Video seo is an extension of regular seo.
7. Build up your Youtube channels. Google and Youtube videos will continue to dominate the search engines. Youtube’s search function alone is the 2nd largest search in the world for traffic.
8. Embed Youtube videos on your websites for indexing, but be prepared for quick changes.

Why is the video on this post above not using Youtube embed but is self hosted using my Google Video Sitemap?

It is because Youtube can unilaterally delete my channel, particularly if they are targeting direct sales types of videos. Self hosted videos gives me more control, and when it comes to online marketing, you don’t want to leave anything to chance and fate, or what if’s…..

So, tell me what you think!

Is the new Youtube embed indexing friend or foe?

Make a comment, I read them all.

In this article you will learn how to be number one on Google moving forward.

First, a little bit of background…. In my last blog post I mentioned that Google is shifting towards Brand SEO, and I recommend that you do everything covered in that post.

In this posts I want to take it to the next level for Google Authority in Ranking.

In the early days of Google, co-founder Larry Page set up a link analysis algorithm to determine how a web page ranks in the search engine, from where we get the term “PageRank.” While the exact formula is Google’s closely guarded secret, SEOs estimate that the quality and quantity of backlinks make up about 70% of this ranking factor. Other metrics mainly focus on on-page seo factors.

Google is getting tough on SEOs who produce web content simply to spam the search engines with backlinks. Recently they announced on Twitter their recent Panda refresh. This was just the beginning.

Panda refresh rolling out now. Only ~1.6% of queries noticeably affected. Background on Panda: goo.gl/mTKCH

— A Googler (@google) March 23, 2012

Like a FBI raid, with one broad stroke, Google de-indexed millions of websites. Blog Networks such as Build My Rank and Brad Callen’s SEO Link Monster blog network got de-indexed. Many EMD’s (Exact Match Domains) with no content got de-indexed or penalized. Google Bombing (having all your links come from one domain) is history. Anything and everything un-natural has been targeted.

The Google FBI team has expanded its sweep as webmasters worldwide recently received warnings of ‘unnatural’ or ‘artificial’ inbound links, and there has been countless blog posts on how to deal with that.

The question moving forward is: “How will Google determine if a backlink coming to your webpage is trustworthy?” Even social signals (tweets, fb likes, G+, etc.) can be manipulated. While it is hard for Google to penalize a webmaster for bad links (otherwise you could destroy your enemies…LOL), what they have done in the last year is set up a new ranking system that filters link authority.

How to be Number One on Google:

1. Write powerfully unique content that readers will love (more on this with my next post. Stay tuned!).

You want to attract an active readership and be a person of web influence. You are heading in the right direction if your web content is being chatted about (Gchat), Tweeted, FB liked and shared, mentioned in Discussions and Forums, linked to in the Blogosphere, and written about in the News sites. Your website surely is getting Google’s attention as an authority in its niche if this is the case.

2. Follow the steps in my Brand SEO post and follow Google’s Search Engine Optimization Guidelines, including Google friendly sites.

3. Become a Author On Google Search using Google+ Authorship Markup

The question SEOs will need to be asking is not WHERE are my links coming from, but from WHOM are my links coming from?

• GPlus WP Plugin Download Free – does the job, simple and used in my video above.
• Authorsure – Free WP Plugin (more features) – more features
• Do a Google search on rel author wp plugin, etc.. There are many.

True Story – I saw a promotional email on a Author plugin a couple weeks ago on the Warrior Forum using Mike Lantz Warriorplus system selling for $10 or more. I posted on the thread saying, “What the heck, these are free on the wordpress.org plugin repository.” And I posted links giving the free sources. I was banned for 3 days for putting links on the wso thread of free links for the same thing. LOL

Simply install the plugin. Add your Google Profile URL. Add your website to your Google Profile to verify.

Authorship Markup is Google’s answer for determining what is a high trustworthy backlink. A Google Author is verified by Google+. The website they contribute to is verified by Google+. If a Google+ verified author links to your website using one of their Google+ verified websites, their backlink will flow a tremendous amount of link juice to your website because of their ‘trust factor’ as a Google+ verified author.

Additionally, the larger social connections an Author has,  the more link juice you will get. Hence, you will get a lot more link juice having Gary Kawasaki who has 1.7 million Google+ followers link to you website, than John Doe with no brand recognition and with only 3 followers.

As SEOs we are used to thinking that a good backlink comes from a webpage that has a high PageRank. This is no longer the case as Google rolls out its new criteria. Google is moving away from Pagerank (too easy to manipulate) as a key determining factor and moving towards AuthorRank using the Google+ Authorship Markup.

You want to be Number One on Google?

Increase your AuthorRank.

Here is an example of a search query where I have used the Google+ Authorship Markup on my blog below. Notice the additional markups highlighted in red:

Everything you need to know about Google Authorship Markup is here:

• http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=1408986
• http://support.google.com/plus/bin/topic.py?hl=en&topic=1257354&rd=2

4. Approach Authors on Google who have a lot of social connections and ask them if you can be a guest Author on their blog or website.

Now that we know that Google is giving a lot of credibility to links given by verified Google authors on Google verified websites, the best approach is to approach these authors and ask if you can write a guest article on their blog or website. Show them your blog and the quality of your content. Show them that you are a verified Author on Google. Give them a sampling of an article topic you have in mind. Make it highly relevant to his/her readership.

If you do this correctly, you will have incredible AuthorRank juice flowing to your websites.

You can connect with them via Google+, or their contact page on their website, or if they have a support desk, etc..

5. Measure your success by the size of your readership, not by your Google ranking in the search engines.

[note]Two Quick Tips – Open up Google Free Keyword Tool and do a search on your brand name. If the results are zero monthly searches, you are in trouble. Seek to raise this number. Next, open up Twitter search and do a “@username” to find out if people are tweeting about you. If not, your brand needs some nurturing.[/note]

Your goal is to have an active readership who listen to your voice. Google proof your business by getting them on your list. I know many people who focus on rankings, as though it is an end to itself. Our goal as SEOs is to help people get free organic traffic for the purposes that people will take action, and come back again. If you have a website that is ‘one product’ shop, I encourage you redo your online business planning.

Be a Author on Google mover and shaker, a powerful force to be reakoned with.

In doing so, you will Be Number One On Google.

Please, share your comments, I read them all.

Google Has A New SEO Paradigm For Webmasters.

In this article you will learn everything you need to know about increasing your web traffic to your sites through Google’s huge free search results.

First, not everything has changed. I have been in the seo school for a while, since 2008, and you still need to do the basics, which include:

1. On Page SEO – You need to know about things like title tags, meta description tages, putting the keyword in your URL, using images with ALT tags, h1-h3 tags, videos and video sitemaps, related keyords, inner linking of your website, easy navigation, etc….

2. Off Page SEO – Using the keyword you are trying to rank for, getting anchor text backlinks from external sites pointing to your website.

In the days of old, if you followed a simple formula you could pretty much gaurantee first page domination.

This included:

• Target a keyword with low competition and good search volume.
•  Set up a WordPress Blog and use a sitemap with a seo pack plugin. Fill in the seo details (title, description, etc.) of the site and posts, using your keywords.
• Get backlinks from a variety of different sources and different IPs (blog commenting, press release sites, web 2 properties, bookmarking, forums, article directories, video sharing sites description box, etc.).
• Get backlinks from authoritative sites like .gov and .edu’s.
• Get backlinks from the same neighborhood and genre
• Get backlinks that are “wrapped in content,” instead of a link list.
• Get your site listed and indexed at Yahoo and DMOZ directories.
• Set up profile pages at free web 2.0 properties with a banklink in your profile page, and your rss feed (if allowed).
• Create a network of free blogs/hubs (blogger, wetpaint, etc.), and put backlinks to your website.
• Submit RSS Feeds of everything to RSS Directories
• Ping everything
• Use some automation softwares to do most of this for you, spamming and blasting spun content all over the internet with backlinks backlink pointing to your website.
• Sign up for some paid blog networks, and submit articles to the network with your backlinks.

Sounds great thus far. The only problem is: Google updates (see a good Google update history here). Google’s spam control department is finally getting serious and taking action, thereby cleaning up the search results from spammy content.

**The old approach as listed above to dominate Google’s page one is getting harder to do.**

Google is now able to smell spun content like a top cop blood hound. Blog networks, and their blogs, have been de-indexed and virtually shut down. Article directory sites have been penalized with Google’s panda update. Any backlinks coming from web 2.0 properties and feeder sites are such low quality, that their impact on search results is minimal at best. On-Page Title and description tags do not carry the weight like they use to. Even having the keyword in the domain does not carry the weight it once did. And, Google’s panda update squashed the idea for years that Google only looks at pages, and not websites. Your entire website can now get devalued if you have spammy content in some sections, or if there is more ads than content. In fact, Matt Cutts has warned SEO’ers of the danger of over optimization, and even working on a penalty.

Here is, in my humble opinion, the leading ingredients in Google’s new SEO paradigm moving forward:

SEO Ingredient 1: On-Page Basics

Know your on-page seo basics and do them well. While on-page seo has little weight compared to off-page seo, particulary for smaller sites, you still want to do this. The largest on-page seo factor that will sky rocket your ranking is Unique Potent Content that engages Users and is exactly what they are searching for.

SEO Ingredient 2: Off-Page Basics

You still want to get a variety of backlinks from a variety of sources: article directories, bookmarks, forums, press releases, video sharing sites, rss, etc.. BE NATURAL. And remember, these backlinks will count very little in Google’s eyes for ranking, particularly for a moderately competitive keyword.

Warning: Do not use spun content, and DO NOT SPAM using automated tools. Do not ONLY use a paid blog network, even if it is one that has not yet been de-indexed. Otherwise, your entire business is at risk. If you do use these tools, be very slow in your approach, and make sure you are using good private proxies.

My good friend Jason Katzenback and I often bounce ideas off of each other. One of them was an article that talks about Google’s recent warnings to webmasters about suspicious inbound links. What we did agree on was some solid points, and the dangers of webmasters using bad linking schemes, or other shenanigan over optimization seo methods, which are the following:

From our vantage point we see some basic commonalities existing from an off-page perspective when sites experience a significant ranking loss subsequent to a warning letter.  The sites commonly feature:

• Volumes of over optimized anchor text (generally to the most competitive head terms)
• Links coming from multiple outside websites which show clear signs of being networked (same IP or C-Block class, cross linking, same Google AdSense ID,same/similar coding or CMS technology – double check the links your vendor gets you using SpyOnWeb.)
• Poor overall deep linking ratio to the site
• Low quality sites (repurposed content) and off topic sites

Source: http://blog.iacquire.com/2012/04/10/googles-2012-phishing-expedition/

Once again, be Natural. Do not have all Tweets. Do not have all FB likes. Do not have all forum backlinks. Be Natural. Variety is the spice of seo life. Balance is key.

SEO Incredient 3: Be an Avid Keyword Research Geek

Keyword research is hard work, but worth the effort. Buy some great keyword tools to have in your arsenal, and know them inside and out. I will talk more about this in point 5 below.

SEO Ingredient 4: Social Signals Count

Bing and Google have both stated that they take social signals into account in their search results. In the days of old, webmasters create backlinks. In the new age of seo, everyone web surfer can create a backlink.

If your content is being shared and ‘liked’ on the social sites, Google see’s this and factors it. Admittedly, ‘likes’ and ‘shares’ can be manipulated. You can get a $5 gig at Fiverr.com for 250 Facebook Like’s or Tweets, for example.

What is hard to manipulate is the grand kahuna of SEO in Google’s new paradigm moving forward, namely…

SEO Ingredient 5: Brand User Engagement SEO

The huge new change from what I see is Google moving towards Brand SEO and the extent and quality that User Engagement is involved, coming from a variety of sources.

First, what do I mean by Brand SEO?

Google gives a lot, and I mean A LOT, of authority to those sites who have decided to brand themselves in a particular niche, and in a particular way. Let me explain….

Brand SEO is not about using long tail keywords and building a ton of minisites. Rather…

Brand SEO focuses on building ONE website that posts potent and relevant content that users are searching for and want, and in doing so, the brand builds up a lively readership and ‘following.’ Your BRAND and website is quoted, shared, tweeted, liked, discussed, chatted, and linked to. When people do a web search, they type in ‘your brand website’ to find you. (people actually type in ‘mark dulisse’ to find this blog).

Secondly, what do I mean by User Engagement?

When a visitor lands on your page are they bouncing right off, or are they sticking on your website? If they bounce off quickly, the search engine’s will take this to mean that your website does not have quality content and no user engagement.

We already know that Bing counts people bouncing off your website as a factor in ranking, and most likely Google does the same, particularly since webmasters can already track Bounce Rate for themselves using Google Analytics.

Here are things you can do right now to increase your Brand SEO and User Engagement:

A. Connect your website to Google services AND non-Google services

• Create a Google+ Profile and add your website link to it. Create a nice profile with picture, links, and other practical information about you.
• Install and use Google Chat. Did you know that when you build up your contact list inside Google chat, when other people on your contact list do a Google search, your website and BRAND links will show up in search results?

Yep, Google knows your connects, and also has a good knowledge of your non-Google connections. When you are logged into your Google account, click on your Social Connections to find out.  I find it now interesting that Google+ profile almost looks like a Facebook Timeline with image on top.

• Create a Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Linkedin profile (make them all nice), and connect them to your Google+ profile.

You are creating your Brand. You will need to manage these social sites and build up for followers, friends and contacts. Having someone tweet your content that has 50,000 followers is much more authoritative than someone who tweets your stuff that only has 5.

B. Put Social Buttons on your website for people to share your content. Make the buttons highly visable and engaging.

Google Analytics Social Interaction now allows you to measure your Social Traffic. There is also a free wordpress plugin called Social Essentials that will keep stats for you as well and add the social buttons to your blog. If you want a quick and dirty method of checking the social sharing stats of any of your web pages, simply add this bookmark. Drag and Drop this link,  Shared Count, to your Firefox toolbar, and the click it when you are visiting any of your pages you want stats on.

C. Make Site Speed Fast For Users.

Matt Cutts of Google has told us numerous times to increase User Engagement  by having a speedy site, and they have even created a cool Google site speed tool for us to check our websites speed. Vladimir Prelovac has created a great free Firefox Addon called SEO Doctor that will check your website speed, and a whole lot for doing a website audit. If people click on your website in the serps, and it takes forever to load, users will not stay. They will click away. Hence, do the recommended changes. (fyi – MarkDulisse.com/blog has a score of 90%.)

D. Write your content for what Users are searching for, not what the search engines are looking for.

This is hard to do for a SEO’er. But, any type of Push Button SEO mockup tool or automated script that tries to give Google what it thinks it is looking for is old school thinking that will not be rewarded in the search engines any longer. And for pete’s sake, stop buying links (thought I’d throw that in there). Start building a Brand and start engaging Users on your website.

E. Do your keyword research and zero in on helping people find the solutions and results to their search queries.

If a user does a query on “How to build my business on the internet,” and they see your website in the first page results of Google, with the title as, “Build your Business Online: Learn How,” when they land on your page the headline and first sentence should be something like: “Step by Step Guide on Building Your Business Online: In this article I am going to show you the right way to build your business online.”

Make the keywords flow from the search results to the landing pages, giving the User exactly what they are searching for – quality and engaging content.

F. Make your website have good cosmetics and presentation.

You can spot a spammy website or blog network site right away. Your Brand SEO and User Engagement website site will be different.

When people land on your website they will say…

“This is a business. There is a real person behind this website. In fact, I bet there is a contact form and I can contact this person. Oh, look at this…they have Facebook page, and Google+ too. What a great brand and business they have here. I will bookmark this site and come back. Do they have a rss feed? I will add it to my reader. Hmm…. What a great post, I’m going to add it to my Facebook and share it. I love this video, very inspiring. I will share that too. Do they have a newsletter? I’m going to get on it. I like this site. It adds value to the web, has easy navigation, great copy, and is engaging.”

F. Do not annoy the User Experience with a lot of Ads.

Users will bounce off your website if there are a lot of ads, so use them sparingly, but logically placed in good positions. If a User see’s that you are simply trying to entrap them the ads, instead of letting you feed their minds with real engagement, they will bounce and click off.

G. Add a commenting system to your website.

Encourage User Engagement by asking them to make a comment and participate in dialogue with your readership.

F. Google Proof your Brand Website

When you have successfully branded yourself online, you have avid readership and following. Not everyone may agree with you, and some may even not like you, but they respect you and your voice which is being communicated through Brand SEO and User Engagement.

Ask people to get on an autoresponder newsletter so that even if Google unilaterally decides to de-index you, or their super computers worldwide get a super new virus, your business still thrives.

Please tell me your thoughts and post a comment.  I read them all.

It is high time that internet marketers who do business at the Warrior Forum and Warrior Plus to look elsewhere. For one, it has become a bit of a monopoly, and that is never good for anyone. Size does not equal quality, but just dilutes it. Secondly, it has become a monetary scam on many fronts.

Allan Says (yep, ‘Says’ is his last name) of the WarriorForum.com, and Mike Lantz, of Warriorplus.com, have created a system that is fast becoming the next platform for scam-minded internet marketers. Let me explain….

First, the Warrior Forum and its Warrior Special Offers subforum.

The ‘Warrior Forum’ is a internet marketing forum that has a huge membership. What has become very lucrative for both Allan Says and Mike Lantz is a subforum called, Warrior Special Offers. In this specialty forum, product creators can pay Allan $40 to post on his forum, and in doing so, you will get some traffic from the general membership and visitors of his forum.

Note: Don’t get all excited thinking you will get rich by making a Warrior Special Offer and getting all this free traffic and make a bunch of sales. From my stats, it will only count for about 5% or less of your total sales. The bulk will come from good JV partners who mail to your offer, not warrior forum free traffic. My list does not care where the salespage is hosted, as long as it is a great offer.

Let me add, there are Warrior Forum fanatics and zeolous warriors. Their entire day is spent doing nothing but forum marketing on this one forum by making posting, replying to messages, establishing relationships, commenting on posts, etc….

Also, just like there is Clickbank JV inner circle crap, so there is Warrior Special Offers JV inner circle crap, with reciprocal business and promotions.

Next, there is WarriorPlus.

For a $19 fee (per product listed), you can list your Warrior Special Offer in the WarriorPlus marketplace. WarriorPlus brings sellers and affiliates together, offering instant payments of commissions, including sales and affiliate tracking.

What has become popular by Mike Lantz is, what he describes, as the ‘Warrior Special Offer of the Day.’ I am not really sure of the requirements, but every day Mike will choose one (1) Warrior Special Offer listed at the Warrior Forum, that is also listed at his WarriorPlus, and email his entire list as the Warrior Special Offer of the Day. Just think of your local grocery store emailing all customers a “special of the day.”

When Mike emails his Warrior Special Offer of the Day, he will make a number of sales from his Warriorplus list (yep, you are on his list when you register).

I have been on this WarriorPlus list, and two weeks ago, I unsubscribed.

Why? Because it is sheer rubbish and marketing crap. The Warrior Special Offer of the Day is meant to do one thing: make money for Mike Lantz. Sure, it brings in sales for the product creator (mostly from Mike’s personal sales), but if you think because it is a ‘Warrior Special Offer Of The Day’ that it is a great product, worth the investment, and you should buy it, think again.

In fact, 95% of the Warrior Special Offers of the Day that Mike Lantz promotes are sheer crap, and some of them are even blatant scams. And, although I have no way of verifying this other than my own story (see below), it is highly probable that Mike does not even look at the the product he is endorsing. And in my story below, this certainly is the case. What is more likely to be looked at is, ‘how much money will he make if he makes this Warrior Special Offer of the Day.’

What is worse is the WarriorPlus affiliate marketers and Warrior Special Offer marketers. I am now reluctant to promote a Warrior Special Offer to my list unless I know the marketer will not abuse their list with offer after offer of pure rubbish.

Have you been on a list where the list owner will try and sell you anything and everything?

I should write another post entitled: “How you know your guru is out to scam you.” It is easy to spot. They have absolutely ‘no plan’ for your success, other than taking your money and putting it into their own pocket. They are all over the map in their email marketing to you.

True Story:

About 6 weeks ago I received Warrior Special Offer of the Day by Mike Lantz. He was promoting a “Free Backlinks System 2.0.” I visited the salespage on the Warrior Forum, was impressed by the social proof, and I purchased.

Being a seo focused marketer myself, I wanted to see this ‘free backlink system’ that generated the social proof, as displayed on the salespage.

When I first logged into the ‘Free Backlink System 2.0′ I was immediately taken to a welcome video by Todd Gross, who I personally know. My first thought was, ‘what the heck is Todd doing here.’ As it turns out, Todd was just the marketing point man, while the product creator is someone else, by the name of Jonathan.

The Free Backlink System 2.0 in a nutshell, as taught, is getting backlinks from press releases, video sharing sites, PAD directory sites, bookmarking sites, article directory sites, and forum marketing.

This was all stuff I taught back in 2008. However, these methods do not work like they use to.

Here is where the table turns. I go back to the Free Backlink System 2.0 salespage, and I look at the social proof screenshots. I reverse engineered some of these social proof website rankings, and to my astonishment, Jonathan leaves a footprint on all of his backlinks, but the backlinks DO NOT come from any of the sources that he teaches in his Free Backlink System 2.0. All of the backlinks from the websites on his salespage are from a PAID blog network, not from any of the Free Backlink system 2.0 sources that he teaches, and what his salespage proof is selling.

So, I skype Todd Gross and say, ‘what the heck is going on.’ Todd is like, I have no idea, I will talk to Jonathan. Todd Gross gets back to me and says, “Well, I asked Jonathan about the salespage proof, but you will not like the answer.”

I then make a couple postings on this Warrior Special Offer thread saying, ‘all your backlinks come from a blog network,’ not from press releases, or bookmarks, or article directories, etc…. Jonathan responds, ‘ya, I know, but I taught about blog networks in Free Backlink System 1.0.

At this point, my scam indicator is sky high. This was a pure scam and money grab by all parties involved, and what is worse, Mike Lantz branded this as Warrior Special Offer of the Day.

I emailed Mike Lantz about it, and his response was, “well Mark, you have to be careful what you call a scam, etc, etc, etc….”

My response to that is: Bull-Do-Do.

In summary, be very careful that you are not lured into the Warrior Special Offer of the Day hype because most of it is garbage, and some of them are scams by criminal minded money grabbers who care nothing about you other than taking money from you.

Many Clickbank product scammers are currently being shut down at Clickbank and not getting their salespage and products approved. These same scammers are now reappearing at Forums where there are no rules, no moderation of salespages or their products.

Sure, there are some good Warrior Special Offers, and some are even great, but they surely are not every day, and hardly even every week. Additionally, if you buy a warrior special offer, and you immediately start getting promotion after promotion from this person, unsubscribe to the list fast.

If you are a ‘would be’ of great internet marketing products for your business, or if you are a product creator, I recommend you look for other platforms to do business.

Some of the rising stars are:

Marketplaces To List Your Products

• JVZoo.com
• DigiResults.com

Forums To List Your Products To Send Your Traffic To:

• WSOForum.com – brand new and did over $25k in sales on its first offer.
• ForumSpecialOffers – forum built by Bobby Walker

I can go on and on about this topic. If you have any questions about this topic, please ask.

Post a comment please.

What are your thoughts on this?

For us who do online marketing, using URL shortening services is an everyday event. Emailing a link that is 500 characters long is not cool. Additionally, if it is an affiliate link, you certainly want to hide your affiliate id from being hijacked.

There are plenty of free online url shortening services, that are hosted elsewhere. There are 100′s that you can pick from. Some of the more common one’s are: goo.gl, tinyurl.com, bit.ly, is.gd, tiny.cc. The problem with all of them is that most of them look spammy and many email providers see them this way too. For WordPress users, there are a variety of free plugins that will shorten URLs, track and cloak, links for you. In the past, I have used GoCodes plugin. The problem is, I have to login to each wordpress install to look at my stats, or change the urls, or add another one.

The best service that I am currently using is a free script that you host on your own server called Yourls.org. You manage all your links from one dashboard. You are in control. It shortens your urls, offers cloaking, tracking, and many more features with additional free plugins. Thus, this requires your own hosting. I find Hostgator an excellence choice for hosting. I have created a video that explains how to install Yourls.

Video powered by The Traffic Player

There are marketing dangers to using free online URL shortener’s like bit.ly, namely, you do not know what is lurking on the other side of the link, and if this link can be trusted. Additionally, many email providers filter out these free online shortener’s as being spam email.

If you do email marketing, or blogging, you want to look trustworthy. I would rather click on markdulisse.com/likes/offer, than to click on www.bit.ly/8ha35.

Then there are the paid install scripts that offer you much of the same services of shortening, cloaking, and tracking, but installed on your own domain. And of course, I have purchased most of the better one’s.

If you any type of selling online, you want to cloak and track your links. The BEST method is to install a script on your own server with a admin dashboard that allows you to control all your links from one dashboard. If you need to change the affiliate id on one of your links, no problem, simply login to the dashboard and make the changes and all links that are published on the web will now have the new affiliate id attached to it.

For our purposes, Yourls.org offers the best features, benefits, and advantages.

 Make a Comment. Tell me your ideas. I read them all.