<H1>Heading</H1>
<H2>Subheading</H2>
<H3>Lower subheading</H3>

The H1 tag describes the subject and should only be used once per page. The H2 and subsequent tags should break down more specific areas of the subject. Following each heading tag should be some content. Since the heading tags are numbered sequentially, they should appear in that sequence in the HTML coding of the page.

An example of heading tags would be:

<H1>How to Make Pizza</H1>
Content about making pizza.
<H2>Making the Dough</H2>
Content about making the dough.
<H3>Making the Sauce</H3>
Content about making the sauce.
<H4>Picking the Toppings</H4>
Content about choosing toppings.

etc., etc.

Of course, when you do place keywords in headings, you should make sure that the keyword phrase sounds natural and non-spammy. Also, the headings and content should be unique to that particular webpage, otherwise Google could flag it as duplicate content. As with all things SEO, keep the user’s experience in mind and make sure the information is relevant and readable. Your professional at SEOhaus can help you with proper heading tags and SEO services.

Brian Carver is an Account Manager at SEOhaus. If you would like to stay up-to-date on all of the latest SEO industry news and tips, you can subscribe to our blog here.

The post Optimizing Heading Tags for SEO appeared first on SEOhaus - Search Marketing Blog.

However, this led me to think of the nature of search, and how the way in which people query for information may be shifting. Google has become some sort of guru for answering questions as much as indexing URLs. Along with the knowledge graph, predictive search suggestions, and most recently, the Siri-inspired Google Now, Google has ushered in new innovations and prioritized user-experience and familiarity with almost pin-point precision. In tandem, users have responded by treating the search engine more and more like a friend. Instead of seeking a particular type of page that might give a user the answer to their questions, it seems as if more searchers are actually just typing the question directly into the search engine, begging for an answer.

Using a small sample of data related to financial terms, this trend becomes quite clear. Looking at the images below, one can see a steady increase in searches involving the phrase “how do I buy”, and an almost corresponding decrease when just starting with the phrase “buying.” The same is true of “how do I sell”, and “selling”, “how do I make”, and “making”, etc.

Google Trends: A graph showing “how do I buy” searches, from 2004-present.

Google Trends: A corresponding graph showing searches for “buying”, 2004-present.

It seems as if as time goes on, users are continuing to expect a more human-like response from the search engine for questions of all shapes and sizes. This trend continued with other, more open-ended and complex questions: For example, “why does” shows a dramatic increase in search activity over the past few years.

Google Trends: An increasing number of searches containing the phrase “why does…”

So what implications does this have for SEO? Well, as Google encourages webmasters to prioritize user experience, the data suggests that users, too, have come to expect a pretty conversational rapport with the world’s leading search engine. Google’s response to this has been to condition their search results with previews and quick answers to search queries via tools like the Knowledge Graph and Google Maps. Though this is an important advantage to how Google works to answer your questions, this can also rob webmasters of organic traffic. Google answers their question before they have the chance to click on any other search results. Beyond that, and considerably more important, this trend should be considered in one fundamental component of any SEO campaign: Determining your target keywords.

We all know that good sites always put the user before the search engine. But many search engine marketing campaigns tend to define keywords by trying to identify what the site is, in broad terms, or general terms that sum up their services, rather than what solutions it offers or questions the site may answer.

Instead of looking for descriptors, try thinking of questions that might yield those keywords, as those searches might prove to be the game changer. Consider the user who searches for a “certification program”.  Now, think of the user who instead might ask “how do I get certified”. These variations may open doors for organic search traffic, changing the competition level and ultimately leading to more conversions.

Now more than ever, it’s crucially important to get inside the mind of the target user. What questions might they have or problems might they be looking to solve? Instead of assuming they know the answer or the potential solution, sometimes it might be best to let the site simply do the asking.

The post Search Engines Get More Personal – How Google Works to Answer Your Questions appeared first on SEOhaus - Search Marketing Blog.

In a world where thousands of websites have optimized pages, abide by the Google webmaster guidelines, have their target keywords in the content, and contain hundreds of backlinks, Google had to determine a way to differentiate which sites are ultimately better than others. They’ve spent multiple years scoring various types of links and how they are obtained. However the reality is, as long as anyone and everyone can build a link, Google has to veer away from giving backlinks the strength they used to give them. Therefore Google had to incorporate other measures such as site performance, referral traffic and social shares when ranking websites.

Site Performance: There’s no better way to measure how your website compares to your competition than to see how users interact with your site. Are users spending more time on your website than others? Are visitors clicking the back button as soon as they land on your webpage and moving on to the competition? Are people visiting 10 pages on your website while only checking out 2 on the competitors? These types of questions help Google determine how to rank websites. After all, Google prides itself in delivering the best results to its searchers. The best way to evaluate your sites performance is to use Google Webmaster Tools and install Google Analytics.

Referral Traffic: Google is starting to measure the true relevance of your backlinks through referral traffic. If you have thousands of backlinks to your website, and only 5 referring visits that says a lot about the links you created. It implies that these links are not seen by visitors, are on pages with no value, are on pages that aren’t relevant to what that page’s visitors are reading, and are probably there solely for SEO purposes. You should seek to get links from sites that will send you targeted traffic.

Social Shares: In combination with site performance and referral traffic, Google had to address the most obvious measure which is social shares. What better way to see if a page deserves Google’s recommendation than to see if it gets shared/recommended by users? A great way to see how valuable a website is, is to track if people are willing to share it socially with friends, email to co-workers, + it on profiles, etc. If the website is legit, resourceful or interesting users will want to bookmark and share it.

Facebook shares and Twitter tweets are great indicators of the value of a website. However Google, does not own or control those websites, so the information they get from them isn’t 100% accurate. All they can do is speculate and use comparable measures that are at best a guesstimate. This is why Google had to come up with its’ own social network, Google Plus. And just like Google always does, they provided us with a tool to help determine the spread or reach of our target URLs. The tool is called Google Ripples.

Google Ripples allows you to enter a URL and see how far it’s gone within the G+ network. Sometimes you’ll see that a post has just been shared by a couple people here and there. Then sometimes you see a post shared by one, then shared by someone in their circle and spreads out from there. Just getting a high number of G+’s is not enough. I believe the goal is to create “ripples”, where you share a page with people in your circles, those people share the page with their circles, and then the people in their circles share the page with their circles and so on.

I encourage you to play around with this awesome tool. See what types of pages didn’t receive any shares, which posts just got G+’d, and which ones created ripples. Once you find a couple of pages that got ripples, Google something similar to that post and see how it ranks. You’ll notice the correlation. Have fun and start turning pages into skipping stones!

The post Google+ Ripples – Another Awesome Tool by Google appeared first on SEOhaus - Search Marketing Blog.

My first thought when I heard about that? The joke was really on Google, because virtually no one looks at the Real Time report. Practical joke fail.

This has got me thinking about under-used Google Analytics resources, though. I mean, why would Google provide a tool that isn’t really used?

Because it should be.

In fact, my eyes have recently been opened to the vast array of tools and resources available in Google Analytics. I used to think that Analytics was simply a source to see basic website traffic data and compare it to a previous time period. But it is so much more than that. It’s a source to see complex website traffic data and compare it to previous time periods… that really sounds a whole lot less impressive than it is.

For example, did you know that with just a few clicks in Google Analytics, you can see a table which shows you a breakdown of all your traffic, a primary metric, like where they came from, and a second metric (in total and by individual source)?

So when a client tells me that they have a Facebook campaign running and asks me if I can prove the traffic to their site has come from our SEO work or from Facebook, not only can I report back the exact number of organic searches, but I can also report back the number of visits that have been referred from another source (e.g. Facebook) as well as examine the bounce rates or the average visit duration for visitors from both these sources. Simultaneously. Probably while they are on the phone.

But that one is easy. We should talk about Google Analytics and RegEx.

The real shame is that, although I think a lot of people are using Google Analytics, I don’t think the majority of people realize just how vast the wealth of information it can bring is.

So let’s talk for a minute about the different tools that Analytics provides, and why they are useful.

The “Reverse Goal Path” report is something you can only see if you have goals set up on your account. Shocking, I know.  This report is similar to a funnel, in that it shows you the path people took through your site to get to your goal. The difference is that the funnel is predetermined when setting up the goal and is used for showing where people exit and enter the goal path. The reverse goal path is the organic steps taken by visitors which lead to a conversion. So where a goal funnel can show you key pages that may lose you conversions, the reverse goal path shows you what you’ve done right.

The “site content” reports are some of my new best friends (which probably says a lot about my social life). I have a client who has a bounce rate of very nearly 90% which has been really bugging me. Their rankings keep climbing, but it’s still a fact that has concerned me. But now I know about “Landing pages” and “Exit pages” in the site content reports, and know that people are landing on and exiting from the “find a location” page. This tells me that perspective customers are simply finding the right page, the first time and finding the information they need easily. In short, my clients are providing a good user experience and the high bounce rate does not need to be a concern for me, at the moment. It has also given me a plan of action, should that ever change.

Oh! And remember my little example of Facebook traffic versus organic search traffic? Yeah, there’s a report for that as well, under Social- in Traffic Sources, but it can also show you things like how many visitors from social referrals lead to a conversion, the landing pages of those visitors, etc. etc.

Google Analytics is a well of pertinent and useful information.

I have carried on long enough. And the funny/mildly amusing/just barely notable thing is that I have only just scratched the surface of all the little nuggets of data goodness that Analytics can produce. Whether you are a new webmaster, an experienced SEO or anywhere in between, getting familiar with the resources available in Google Analytics will only be beneficial to you.

The post Get to Know Google Analytics appeared first on SEOhaus - Search Marketing Blog.

Quirky and Creative Headlines – This is the first opportunity you have to make an impression and to captivate your readers. Be quirky, ironic, or just flat out funny!

Interesting Content – Although factual excerpts are great and well, informative, they aren’t always interesting to the reader. Engaging content, that is presented in a creative and (sometimes) comical way will help to draw in your readers. It will also keep them coming back for more. Can you say, “Subscribers”!?

Lists – I don’t know why lists work, but they do. Let’s just say it’s, “easier on the eyes”. Use these sparingly, however. Too many lists can complicate things and create for a messy page.

Speak in an Authoritative Voice – Speak your mind, but don’t be snobby, offensive, or opinionated. Also, be sure to review your facts before pushing them out into the universe. You just know someone is poised to call you out – save yourself the embarrassment!

Infographics –Creating visual representations of data can be a highly effective way to display your information, plus it much more interesting for the visual learners, like myself. Infogr.am http://infogr.am/ offers a great service for building infographics. Just plug-in your data and, with a few simple adjustments, you will have a graphical representation of your cherished data right before your very eyes! 

Following these simple rules with provide you with engaging, exciting and informative material that will lock in your visitors and help you to establish yourself as an authority. Before you know it, you will have a huge following and be riding around in a limo. Well, maybe not the limo part, but one can dream…

Jori Stevian is an Account Manager at SEOhaus. If you would like to stay up-to-date on all of the latest SEO industry news and tips, you can subscribe to our blog here. Thanks for reading the SEOhaus blog!

The post A Blog about Blogging appeared first on SEOhaus - Search Marketing Blog.

However one notable omission from all of this debate is the right of companies to be forgotten. Many people before making an online transaction will, wisely, search for that company online to find out more about who they are about to hand over their credit card details to. In some cases a bad review that shows up on a search for a company can be years out of date, targeted at a different company or just plain wrong. Regardless of any of these factors, those reviews can be poison to that company’s reputation and can have a very real impact on their ability to conduct business online. In an increasingly online world where more and more of America’s economy is migrating from physical to digital this can well be all that is needed to kill a business.

People assume that litigation is an option, but often for small business that is too cost prohibitive. So what options do we have?

No one wants to censor the internet and limit the scope and possibility that have seen it become what it is today and a great deal of the consumer side of the debate has focused on this aspect. But as anyone who has dealt with a dishonest review will know, online review sites are hugely exploitable and attempts by these sites to mitigate this are at best, hit-and-miss. So how best to deal with this and ensure that customers see only the material that they should?

An increasing trend in SEO services, Reputation Management, is aimed at doing just that. Normally SEO focuses on promoting a single site in rankings until it is seen before direct competitors. Reputation management is a different approach, in many cases, it doesn’t matter what pages they do see, as long as it’s not the review or page that is damaging your online presence. One of the benefits of this freedom is that rather than trying to promote a personal or company site that may have a much smaller web-presence than the site it is competing with, you are able to pick targets that can more easily pull rank over the offending search result. The key is in knowing which target URLs to go for. You want to ensure that the content being provided answers searcher’s questions while at the same time allowing you to present the best of your company to them.

Facebook pages, LinkedIn profiles, news sites, articles and other review pages are all ideal candidates. Not only do they allow you to present the best face of your company or industry to the searching public but the massive web-presence of their hosting sites allows you to very easily use them to dominate search engines results with a pro-active and focused SEO campaign. Similarly, the content on them is relevant to your customer’s searches and so encourages them to move forward with a transaction with you rather than continue their search for a reason not to. It is a balancing act between trying to control your online profile and presenting an honest and open image to potential clients.

The debate regarding personal and corporate rights to control their online data and record is one that will likely be going back and forth in the government for a long time and based on current trends the end result is far from certain. There can be no doubt, with the increasing digitization of the economy, that it is an important topic not only for individuals but for companies as well. Until the law-makers weigh in however there is still the possibility of rescuing a tainted online profile with a properly targeted SEO campaign.

Andrew Martindale is one of the Account Managers at SEOhaus. If you would like to stay up-to-date on all of the latest SEO industry news and tips, you can subscribe to our blog here. Thanks for reading the SEOhaus blog!

The post A new face online appeared first on SEOhaus - Search Marketing Blog.

49% of small businesses have never updated their online listings

50% of small business listings are inaccurate

The first thing to keep in mind is that is Google, and you still have to play the game. Just because you have a local business doesn’t give you a free pass to Page 1. A recent study done by the Constant Contact SmallBiz panel showed that almost half of the local businesses haven’t even attempted set up their local listing or didn’t follow through all the necessary steps in making sure their info at the very least is up to date, much less even there. Local business optimization is now just as important web site optimization and taking the time ensure that everything is accurate and up to date could mean make you a major player in search results.

Your first step to be included in the new “it” group is going to be to verify your business. At times, the listing may have been created for you and your work may seem like it is done but in reality you allowing someone else with limited information of your business advertise for you. For a good number of your customers, this will be their first impression on your company and if a suite number is overlooked or the wrong zip code is included, not only will it hinder people from actually finding you, it could cause you to look unprofessional.

This brings me to another point and one of the major limitations of local listings at the moment. You will need an to use an actual physical address. While this may not seem like a disadvantage to storefronts, home-based business owners usually do not want to make their home address known to the general public. This, in addition to, Google being known to only list business that actually receive costumers at their location, unfortunately keeps them from results in the local listing field and forcing them to continue to compete for just organic listings.

To get verified with Google, you can start here but keep in mind you aren’t finished when after you submit all your info. You will need to look for a small postcard in the mail with a verification code that needs to be submitted to Google. Once that is completed you’re officially a “local” business and have the opportunity to be listed. The keyword here is opportunity. Just like organic listings, you still need to prove you’re worth listing. The best way to do this is to remain proactive in getting Google Plus and Yelp reviews, as well as making sure your social media presence remains strong. Showing Google you’re a favorite with the locals, will in turn open allow you to open the door to new local business.

The post The Small Business’s Secret to Page 1 : Local Listing Optimization appeared first on SEOhaus - Search Marketing Blog.

You want your company to be on the #1 position of Google when you type in a keyword phrase. Well to do that, SEO companies have different strategies on how to get you to page 1. Some of the less-honest SEO strategies can get you up there in “one month” or “two months” or “three months.” But, most-likely your website will not stabilize in those positions.

A quick way to get your website visible on page 1 of Google is to create thousands of backlinks in a short period. Google link authorities will say, “So how did you get up there so quickly?” and realize that your website is over-optimized and/or over-link- building and then they say, “I don’t think this company is trustworthy.” There’s also a possibility that Google will put you on time out, in a corner with a dunce hat on you, or the technical term also known as putting you in the sandbox.

We all have to understand that Google wants our help to sort out billions of websites for them. SEO firms help Google to create relevant pages and relevant searches. The end results in successful searching. Google needs our help, but they need us to do it right. Google is constantly giving us tips and suggestions by the one and only Matt Cutts who is the head of the web spam team at Google.

There are 3 big tips in order for a successful campaign:

1. Relevancy means to make sure your keywords and website are relevant to one another. An example is that you can’t rank for “dogs” if you sell “dog toys.” If you type in “dogs” you’ll notice actual dogs and not toys for dogs.
2. To be unique means to make sure you are different from all the other companies out there that you’re competing with. Make sure you have unique content from yourself and other competitors. Try to have something unique about your company to stand out from the rest.
3. You want to have a natural flow – of well, everything. You want to sound natural in the content you provide – don’t overstuff your keywords. You also want to run natural links towards your website. Don’t go wasting effort on too many backlinks or too many keywords.

That takes us into quality vs. quantity. Higher quality links is better than higher quantity of links. Higher quality of optimized keyword content is better than higher quantity of keywords in the content of your web page. One higher quality website is better than a higher quantity of mediocre websites.

To conclude, guaranteed results means the company may be doing something fishy. We’re here to walk you through the process of SEO, and how we work with you to get your page visible in Google’s eyes.

–

Uyen Ochsner is one of the Account Managers at SEOhaus. If you would like to stay up-to-date on all of the latest SEO industry news and tips, you can subscribe to our blog here. Thanks for reading the SEOhaus blog!

The post Respectable SEO Firms Should NOT Promise Search Engine Rankings appeared first on SEOhaus - Search Marketing Blog.

I recommend updating your profiles at least weekly. The reason why is it shows you are active and adding new content. This does not go unnoticed by Google! Google loves providing users with quality and relevant search results for any given keyword term. By keeping active on the social front, you are demonstrating to Google that your website is geared towards users and their experience.

Maintaining and updating these profiles regularly may seem daunting and a job unto itself, especially if you are running your business and website. Don’t despair, though– there’s great tools out there like Hootsuite that allow you to manage and update your social media simultaneously through an easy-to-use dashboard interface.

When creating content for social media, make sure the content is share-able  Ask yourself: is this something my users will want to share with their friends and acquaintance? One great tip for social media updates is to ask your followers a question. This encourages your followers to interact and generate a discussion. If you share blog posts, news, offer events, just remember to keep your users in mind. Is this something that will interest them and will they want to repost your update? Most importantly, don’t forget to include a link back to your site where these items are posted. You want to make sure your social media updates will drive people to your site and potentially increase your traffic.

Here’s a rundown of some of the bigger social media platforms out there:

Facebook

The reigning king of social media right now and for good reason: established and versatile, Facebook offers exposure to millions of users all over the world. The ease in sharing updates means your posts could possibly spiderweb exponentially, given the number of your followers.

Twitter

The birthplace of the ubiquitous hashtag, Twitter’s brevity lends itself well to sharing links and succinct blurbs. Twitter is great for generating discussions and keeping your customers up-to-date on news, offers and events.

Google+

Although, not as popular as Facebook or Twitter, Google+ is essential for setting your business’ place page and profile. Having a Google+ page is especially important for ranking higher on geo-targeted Google searches. Also, Google authorship allows bloggers to attach their face and name to their content, thus demonstrating quality and relevance to Google.

Instagram

If Facebook is the king of social media, then Instagram is the prince and may usurp the throne. There’s good reason that Facebook shelled out $1 billion to buy Instagram. With the rise of smartphones, the easy of sharing and picture-orientated format that Instagram provides has rivaled if not eclipsed Facebook as the preferred social media platform. Also, you can use hashtags and share your Instagram posts on Facebook and Twitter.

Pinterest

Much like Instagram, Pinterest boils down and simplifies aspects of Facebook and Twitter, with it’s photo-centric format. Essentially, Pinterest acts as a digital bulletin board, allowing you to organize and share your interests, as well as allowing users to share your business or website with their friends.

Linkedin

For the professionals out there. Connect with business associates and clients. Linkedin is a great networking tool to manage your business’ identity and create new business opportunities.

Stumbleupon

Stumbleupon is great for the adventurous (or bored) social networker. This platform allows users to find new websites based on their interests. Establishing your profile is great because it can help you find your audience and lead them to your website.

In summation, social media is a powerful tool to diversify your website’s audience and reach. Even if you’re a novice, take the plunge! All the aforementioned social media platforms offer step by step guides to set up your profiles. It’s well worth spending a few hours developing your social networking presence and once your profiles are established, updates are a breeze and will surprisingly take little time out of your day.

Brian Carver is an Account Manager at SEOhaus. If you would like to stay up-to-date on all of the latest SEO industry news and tips, you can subscribe to our blog here.

The post Don’t be Anti-Social (Media) appeared first on SEOhaus - Search Marketing Blog.

WordPress is currently the most popular CMS on the net and quite frankly it’s one of the best. However, there are some plugins you should absolutely avoid installing on your WordPress. These plugins tend to have bad intentions from the start. Here is a list of WordPress plugins that we found on most WordPress sites that have been penalized.

1. SEOPressor – Seeks to help you stuff your post with your target keyword (Over Optimization)

2. SEO Smart Links – Make 100% of keywords’ internal links point to assigned pages, without capability to diversify text. This used to be one of my favorite plugins. (Anchor Text)

3. SEO SearchTerms Tagging 2 – Automatically converts searched terms on your blog into blog pages (Duplicate Content)

4. Deep link Juggernaut – More advanced version of SEO Smart Links. (Anchor Text)

5. WordSpinner - Builds ‘spinners’ in your posts or pages to help you avoid duplicate content penalties. (Penguin & Panda)

6. DoFollow Comment Love – Guilty by association. Giving reason for others to comment on your blog just to give them a dofollow link is bad on all kinds of levels. (Panda & Penguin)

Below are plugins that can get your website in trouble IF misused.

7. Global Translator – Actually a great tool to automatically recreate your pages into different languages. But be careful not to create Australian, New Zealand, South Africa, Canada, Ireland, Scotland, Great Britain and USA versions (Duplicate Content).

8. Automatic-SEO-Links – Another plugin similar to Deeplink Juggernaut & SEO Smart Links, but has a couple more features making it kind of easy to work around the 100% keyword anchor text penalty (Anchor Text)

9. EasyWpSEO – Provides you with onpage keyword placement scores for your posts and pages. If you aim to get 100%, you may be borderline keyword stuffing. (Over Optimization)

Please keep in mind, the plugins themselves aren’t getting penalized (except for a couple of them), it’s the way they are being used that is making your website susceptible to being penalized. You can still use most of them strategically to help with SEO and avoid getting penalized, however the effort required to make them help is far less efficient than just doing SEO naturally.

If you have any of the above plugins installed on you WordPress site, I recommend asking yourself why they were installed in the first place. If the reason is ‘you are trying to trick the search engines’ or ‘solely for SEO purposes’, REMOVE THEM!

Another issue some are claiming to be grounds for penalty is having “too many plugins” installed in your WordPress.  However, I am not sure what is considered “too many”. One of our clients came to us with over 50 plugins installed, and it’s not hurting their site one bit.

Sources:

• http://seobraintrust.com/seo-smart-links-penalty/ – SEO Smart Links Penalty
• http://www.workinghomeguide.com/13666/google-penguin-targeted-many-wordpress-blogs-with-hidden-links-in-pluginsthemes – Hidden Links in Plugins
• http://w3techs.com/technologies/report/cm-wordpress – WordPress Market Report
• http://www.johnon.com/512/ – Trusting WordPress Plugins

The post 9 WordPress Plugins that Could Be Hurting Your WP Site appeared first on SEOhaus - Search Marketing Blog.