Seven Ways to Jump-Start Your SEO Before a Site Launch

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You’re about to launch your new website. You have a fantastic idea/product and a great team. You understand the basics of SEO. But you think you cannot do SEO without a live site. It is impossible, right?

Actually… no!

It is more than possible. In fact, it is critical.

Way too often, website owners fail to do pre-launch SEO. This results in a poor index of their site. So instead of jumping up in the rankings, their site is ignored by Google and the other search engines and buried deep in the results. They then are stuck with a long climb, even, in many cases, for their branded terms.

Following are seven smart ways to jump-start your SEO before your site launch, and I’m going to show you exactly how to implement each one.

1. Create a “coming soon” page and optimize the basics

Creating a strong, optimized “coming soon” page should be one of the very first things you do as you contemplate your new site. There are lots of reasons why this is important:

  1. Search engines give older sites more authority. Remember, it takes time to get ranked by the search engines, so start doing it with your “coming soon” page to cut some wait time after your launch. Robots don’t care if there’s a “coming soon” message on the page; they care about the content, keywords and user experience.
  2. Your coming soon page is a source of leads. Include a strong call to action here and entice visitors to fill out a lead form, perhaps by giving them something like a PDF guide, a video, an entry in a giveaway or detailed infographic in exchange. Keep adding to this leads list and nurture these leads throughout the process of getting the site done.
  3. This page can help build your brand. Express all of the information on your page in your brand’s voice. Use high-quality images on the page. Make sure all messaging is on point.
  4. You can begin to connect with users, even without a full site. Connect your “coming soon” page to your social media presence. Use your growing social media circle to create buzz about the new site and your content. Engage with people to entice them to visit the site as soon as it’s launched. Let everyone know that something big is coming soon.
  5. You can showcase press mentions and make it easier for press to contact you. Include a media kit on your “coming soon” page. Your media kit should be attractive, colorful and easy to access. It should include all of the basics about your business and website, and this is yet another chance for you to optimize content on this page with rich, descriptive content. In your press kit, include:
    • logos that media contacts can download and use;
    • all contact information for you and the business;
    • your mission statement and company overview;
    • a FAQ section, bios for you and your core staff; and
    • a summary of media coverage to date.

    Update the kit frequently. Not only will this ensure that it is more complete, but it’ll lead search engines to see fresh content here regularly. Make sure to do the kit on standard web pages so that it can be linked to and ranked.

If you’re still not convinced, remember: Google has advised webmasters to use a “coming soon” page in the past.

2. Build out all your social media profiles

It is absolutely critical to start building your social media community before your site launches. You want to make sure that you already have a loyal following who is invested in your business when the launch happens.

By engaging your audience on relevant social media platforms and sharing great content, you are fostering trust in your brand and business and furthering your reputation as an authority.

Make sure you have complete profiles on all of the biggies (Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+) and any of the other platforms that specifically speak to your target audience.

Connect each profile with your “coming soon” page, and make it simple for people to follow your social media presence and get updates about the launch by just clicking a button.

3. Get (at least) 10 blog posts ready

Well-optimized, actionable content will bring tons of organic traffic to your site even when it’s still very new. There is no shortcut here; you need your content to be high-quality. And while you need to keep that content coming long after the site has launched, you should already have a healthy content reserve in place at launch.

This is because the web crawlers will be visiting your site to index it right away, and you want them to have plenty of information-rich content to index from day one. Long-form content, in particular,  is going to provide a depth to your brand-new site that can’t be replaced, and it simply ranks higher in search results.

Also, in some cases, it is a good idea to start a blog pre-launch. This will allow you to do pre-launch announcements, add continual fresh content and build up a little SEO authority and buzz.

Hopefully, you will also be able to attract some links. In addition, when you start doing press releases, you will have your blog ready so that news sources and consumers can refer to it for more information.

4. Create all your pages, and make sure they are optimized

Along these same lines, you need multiple pages within your site, and each must be optimized. Include long-form, high-authority content that your target visitors will use on each page. Don’t reinvent the wheel from page to page; instead, make sure each page is focused and useful.

Remember to use keywords, long-tail keywords in particular (Your site will not rank for large terms right away), on every page and in page titles. Put your keyword database for your site to work on every page. You want to make sure you’ve created a fantastic, optimized page for every possible aspect of the business before the launch happens.

Then, when you go live, search engines will index the pages properly and (hopefully) give you some initial rankings.

5. Guest blog to build links to your domain

When I bring up guest blogging to build links to your domain, I’m not talking about spammy self-promotion. I’m talking about producing some of your best work to share with the audiences of sites you admire.

When done properly, guest blogging is a fast, powerful way to generate traffic to your site and leads for your email list. It also allows you to build your credibility and eventually become an influencer.

Search for the best guest blogging opportunities by checking the sites in your niche and finding out what kinds of guest posts they’d like to see. You can also search out the keywords and phrases that you want to be associated with to see where people read and write about those topics.

Finally, you can simply search for “guest blogging opportunities” or “write for us,” along with your niche keyword or phrase.

6. Put your site in key, niche directories

This step is critical before your launch. A directory simply lists sites and businesses and breaks them down using categories and sub-categories.

By getting your website listed in the right ones before launch, you will have built authority to your “coming soon” page that will be transferred to the rest of your pages when they go live.

If the directory is well-known and widely used in your area of business, it will be worthwhile. But don’t pay for just any directory. Make sure you know the directory is a real powerhouse in your field before paying.

7. Sign up for core sites

These core sites include, but are not limited to, the following:

  • Google +
  • Yelp
  • Best of the Web
  • Bing Places

There is a great service called KnowEm, which can help you do this more quickly.

The Checklist

There are a lot of things you can do prior to launch; I have not added every idea under the sun here. But this is generally a good checklist to build upon:

  • Create a “coming soon” page.
  • Create a media kit.
  • Get 10 blog posts ready, or just start blogging one to five times a week pre-launch.
  • Create and optimize all your pages on the back end before you launch.
  • Guest blog (shoot for one to four posts a month for the three months leading up to launch).
  • Sign up for niche directories.
  • Site up for core websites.
  • Do a series of press releases (product or company updates, benchmarks and so on).
  • Create YouTube videos if relevant.
  • Send products to bloggers to review before launch.
  • Pay for pre-launch advertorials, if possible.
  • Start building an email newsletter and send out updates.
  • Get in the press. (Craft your story and pitch it to editors. Respond to Help a Reporter Out requests and promote your product.)

Post-launch bonus: Remember to use metrics to monitor your results

The time immediately following your launch is crucial to your success. This is the time you must monitor your traffic, assess your results with metrics and test/tweak your strategy. Don’t lose time here. Stay on top of it.

Watch for red flags like these:

  • unusual dips and gaps in traffic, as well as general trends;
  • losses in keyword ranking;
  • spikes of 404s which signal crawl errors; and
  • unusually slow pages on the site that may be getting missed in the indexing process.

Also, make sure you have a great launch strategy. This will be the time to really hustle.

A little more wisdom…

One of the worst things you can do is launch an unoptimized site. Ask yourself this: How many websites do you think are launched a year?

You want to stand out, and to do it right, you need to have an optimized site. And not just optimized a little, you need to really put in the time. If you are new to the online space, make sure you work with someone with experience, so you have an optimized site and a great pre-launch SEO strategy.

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R/T: Search Engine Land

Link Wars: The Force Awakens

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Link building looked different a long time ago (in a galaxy far, far away). Columnist Winston Burton explains how things have changed and what works today.

Google’s algorithm to impact website visibility takes hundreds of factors into account, but none of them have been as important and impactful as the almighty link.

“When I first started in SEO more than 10 years ago, the link was the most powerful factor in improving your search engine rankings, especially if you secured links from high-quality, trusted domains with keyword-rich anchor text from sites with high Page Rank.”

Getting a link used to be the way Google found and indexed sites. A lot of companies made a lot of money by selling links, because back then it was easy to manipulate rankings in various ways, including:

  • getting links from affiliate networks;
  • purchasing links from high-authority sites;
  • obtaining links from .gov and .edu sites by exchanging some services or items;
  • using blog networks;
  • procuring links from microsites;
  • and purchasing domains just for links.

Those were the good old days. But now, a link is just a link, unless it is clicked on many times by humans with specific intent, which is the new force in search.

Search engines have been devaluing some link tactics over time because of past abuse, which is evident by all of the Penguin updates. However, securing high-quality links is still absolutely necessary for ranking high with Google, Bing and others.

In short, a lot of tactics and strategies that were used back in the day no longer offer any value and, in fact, can be harmful. These days, it’s all about building high-quality content, securing (and maintaining) links from relevant and authoritative sites and weeding out spammy backlinks to your site.

Offering High-Quality Content

One of the best ways to secure links is to offer high-quality content that meets the needs of users based on their intent. Offering content in a user’s moment will increase conversion rates and drive more sales.

Consider a consumer’s path to purchase. For example, if a person’s car battery dies, he or she may turn to the web and do a search for “car battery.”

This is the beginning of the research phase, just seeing what’s out there. The consumer will continue to refine the search based on the kind of battery that fits their vehicle and price range. Once the consumer figures out exactly which battery to buy, he or she may perform a branded search (e.g., “DieHard Advanced Gold AGM PowerSport Battery 9-BS”) and make a purchase from there.

Each of these searches represents an opportunity for a car accessory retailer to be found by the customer and gain brand exposure. Brands must have high-quality content for each stage of the user journey to maximize this opportunity.

Having great content at all stages of the user lifecycle provides consumers with a great experience that has the potential to keep them coming back for more.

Pro tip: When you build new content, test it through paid social media to give it the extra boost it needs to get in front of your target audience and attract more endorsements and links.

Monitoring Your Existing Links Closely And Taking Action Where Necessary

Always monitor your existing links, keeping track of the good ones and pruning the bad ones.

Ensure that your links are contextually relevant and provide value to the user by offering additional information, products or services that will help them. Remember that Google is taking user engagement into consideration in its algorithm.

Carefully monitor any losses from high-quality and authoritative sites. For example, if you’re a computer manufacturer, and you had a link from CNET with a great review of your product, you want to ensure that you keep that link. Not only is it a relevant link from a well-respected site saying positive things about your brand, but the presence of an easily clickable link has the potential to drive sales.

If you lose such a link for some reason (e.g., you change domains or someone updates the page), you must contact the webmaster to get it back. Otherwise, this could have a negative impact on your search engine rankings.

Additionally, you should seek to remove any suspicious or unnatural links to your site that have the potential to cause website penalties. This might include paid links, links from spammy blog networks, links from questionable sites or links from pages/websites that aren’t relevant to yours. If the webmaster doesn’t want to remove those links, you can use the disavow tool in the Google Search Console.

Final Thoughts

While the very fabric of the web originally was built around links, that was a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away. It pays to keep in mind that links were invented to be clicked on, not just for search engines to consider in their ranking algorithms. Thus, end-user behavior is the new force in link power.

Obtaining high-quality links is still very important for improving search engine visibility. Brands should focus on creating high-quality, engaging content that meets the needs of end users based on their intent at all stages of their journey.

Always focus on quality over quantity, because it is not about who has more, it is about who is more trusted and offers value and a great user experience. Quality and relevance win every time.

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Ref: Search Engine Land. Winston Burton. 

Bing Now Powers AOL Search: What Advertisers Need To Know

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The move is now official: Bing has taken over serving search results and ads for AOL from Google. Initially announced in June 2015, the 10-year deal affects all AOL search traffic worldwide and on all devices. Here’s a look at what the move means for those managing Bing Ads campaigns.

First, the Ad distribution section under Ad Group level settings now includes AOL along with Bing and Yahoo.

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You can now also change ad group level network distribution within Bing Ads Editor. Whatever your settings are now, they won’t change, other than the fact that AOL is now included.aol-bing-ads-editor

Bringing AOL into the fold also includes AOL’s syndicated search partners in relevant locations. You’ll have insights into this type of traffic that wasn’t available when AOL ads were served by Google. In the Website URL (Publisher) report, the URLs of AOL owned and operated websites will be shown on separate lines and not consolidated with Bing and Yahoo’s owned and operated websites listed under “Bing and Yahoo! Search Properties Only.” You might not necessarily know that the site is part of the AOL syndication, but you will be able to add individual sites to exclusionlists.

AOL search also now appears as a new value in the Network and Top vs. Other columns in reports (including those run from the Reporting API), such as the Keyword performance report and Campaign performance report, and AOL is listed with Bing and Yahoo syndicated search partners.

AOL traffic now factors into both Bing Ads Campaign and Keyword Planners, as well. For more details, see the Bing Ads blog post on the updates.

 

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H/T: Search Engine Land

5 Reasons Your Business Marketing Is Incomplete Without SEO

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Search Engine Optimization is a tool to increase your visibility in the digital space. Organic Search Engine Optimization or SEO, is absolutely vital to achieve long term search engine visibility for your website. It is treated with high regard in the online marketing sphere because it increases your chances of reaching relevant prospects and proves to be an efficient marketing strategy by targeting the user intent. If you delve deeper into the science of SEO, you will surely find it to be very effective and proficient tool which brings good results in no time if implemented well.

When we compare both outbound and inbound marketing services, we get to the conclusion that inbound marketing tends to bring in interested parties who are looking for information based on your business. This is exactly what SEO tends to do. If your business is looking for more ROI with minimal investment, ensure that SEO forms the part of your marketing initiatives. Rather than embracing outbound techniques that are interruptive in nature, SEO is customer-centric and the message is only presented to the prospects when they need them.

Here are 5 reasons that will prove why your business needs the best SEO services:

1. SEO Brings Traffic

Within 3 months of consistent and high-quality search engine optimization efforts, your business could see an unbelievable difference in the way your online visibility gets positively affected. The main aim for any SEO initiative is to help you in gaining valuable rankings on search engines that could result into more click-through-rates and more traffic.

SEO also focuses on on-site optimization that brings greater visibility on search engines. It is beneficial to have optimized tags and web pages to help you in increasing the click-through-rate for your website. More relevant traffic to your website means more conversions and revenue.

2. Measurable ROI

SEO offers quantifiable results for all kinds of business’ sites. So, you don’t have to worry about measuring the ROI of your SEO. The agencies providing search engine optimization services are capable of scaling almost all the aspects of their SEO campaigns, such as traffic, conversion rate, revenue and more.

Detailed analytics report helps in getting accurate information of all the visitors of your site and their journey in the conversion funnel.

In the case of e-commerce websites, SEO agencies helps by short-listing people who used a particular keyword that you are targeting.

3. SEO is Cost effective

SEO has earned the reputation of being one of the most reliable and cost-effective marketing strategies due to the simple fact that it only targets relevant visitors who are searching for the goods and services or any information that you are providing.

In complete contrast to outbound marketing, where you target several people you don’t even know whether they are interested in your brand, SEO methodology only targets interested audience and that’s why it is cost effective as it saves you from spending hugely on outbound such as newspaper ads, tele-commercials, billboards, cold-calling and more.

The traffic generated by SEO is more qualified than other marketing strategies.

4. Increased Site Usability with SEO

When you implement the various factors of SEO into your website, it will make your website user-friendly and the focus would be on making it more navigable. Not only does the user will find it easy surfing through your website, but it will also help you in getting a better ranking on search engines.

The principles of SEO tend to rearrange the website’s links and architecture and this will make your website user-friendly. The users find it easy to find out more information on your website, which boosts the engagement rate of your website, lessens the bounce rate, and could increase conversion rates for your website.

5. Brand Awareness

SEO is the most cost effective way to enhance your brand awareness. Undoubtedly, SEO will help you in gaining more exposure and click-through-rates, but the best things that SEO could do is to redefine your brand with some great content. You could definitely try and get better rankings with extensive SEO, but what will retain the visitors on your website is your content.

Search engines factor the quality of your content in their SERPs and have released some strict algorithms that help them in considering only those websites that fulfill the user intent. Every search request is an opportunity; each action on a social site is an opportunity. Having the correct brand, product or service positioning is essential.

For further expert advice and services in SEO contact Onimod Global today.

 

Ref:  Lifehacker  Onimod Global

Google Panda Update Coming Soon

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Google’s Gary Illyes announced that the next Panda update will happen in the upcoming 2-4 weeks at SMX advanced.

Illyes referred to it multiple times as not an algorithmic change but a data and info refresh. This is an interesting piece of rhetoric as it has been noticed that the organic results in the last few weeks have been uncharacteristically stagnant.  This data update refresh is sure to shake up the organic rankings a bit, however we are not expecting an algrothimic shift style change.

Illyes also explained that it is in Google’s best interest to keep this data fresh, so the they want to keep it updated as frequently as possible. This particular algorithm needing manual refreshes as it is not as automated as algorithms in the past.

Keep an eye on our Blog for more updates as these changes come live.  As always do not hesitate to contact an Onimod Global expert to discuss your organic rankings and website visibility.

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Rolling out the mobile-friendly update – Google Webmaster Blog

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As we noted earlier this year, today’s the day we begin globally rolling out our mobile-friendly update. We’re boosting the ranking of mobile-friendly pages on mobile search results. Now searchers can more easily find high-quality and relevant results where text is readable without tapping or zooming, tap targets are spaced appropriately, and the page avoids unplayable content or horizontal scrolling.

This update:
  • Affects only search rankings on mobile devices
  • Affects search results in all languages globally
  • Applies to individual pages, not entire websites
While the mobile-friendly change is important, we still use a variety of signals to rank search results. The intent of the search query is still a very strong signal — so even if a page with high quality content is not mobile-friendly, it could still rank high if it has great content for the query.
To check if your site is mobile-friendly, you can examine individual pages with the Mobile-Friendly Test or check the status of your entire site through the Mobile Usability report in Webmaster Tools. If your site’s pages aren’t mobile-friendly, there may be a significant decrease in mobile traffic from Google Search. But have no fear, once your site becomes mobile-friendly, we will automatically re-process (i.e., crawl and index) your pages.  You can also expedite the process by using Fetch as Google with Submit to Index, and then your pages can be treated as mobile-friendly in ranking.

Mobilegeddon? We find out Today

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Today is the big day, known as Mobilegeddon, with the Google Mobile Friendly Update starting to roll out today.

Read more

Google Update is Coming April 21st – Is Your Website Mobile Ready?

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Non-mobile friendly websites to see lower ranking in mobile search results.
Read more

Seven Reasons Why Your Business Should Invest In SEO

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Here’s a list of 7 specific reasons why your business should definitely consider investing in your organic SEO:

1. It still works – First and foremost, the techniques employed to improve SEO still work. Even though data regarding organic traffic from Google was pulled fairly recently, the techniques themselves remain sound. Plenty of SEO case studies performed post-Panda can verify this.

2. It is not going to stop working any time soon – Based on the way search engines appear to be developing, it is not likely that SEO will cease to be effective any time in the foreseeable future. On some level, even audio and video searches ultimately depend on keywords the same as traditional text-based content; this link ensures the continued success of SEO techniques as long as it exists.

3. It is cost-effective – Compared to the costs associated with other forms of online marketing such as PPC advertising, social media marketing, or purchasing leads for an email marketing program, SEO provides fairly good ROI. While PPC may drive more revenue and social media may be more important for your image, your organic SEO in many ways remains a bedrock of your online presence.

4. Search engines grabbing more market share – Somewhere between 80-90% of customers now check online reviews prior to making a purchase, and this number is only expected to increase. It won’t be long before virtually everyone is searching for products and services online. Do you want them to be able to locate your business, or not? Without organic SEO in place, people will have a very hard time finding you and will instead find your competitors.

5. Rise of mobile bandwidth and local search optimization – Later this year, the amount of traffic delivered to mobile devices is expected to exceed that delivered to traditional desktop devices. With this dramatic explosion in mobile usage, a whole new world of effective SEO techniques have opened up for companies, such as local search optimization.

6. Not having a healthy content profile is damaging – With each and every update to its search algorithm, Google and other engines change the way they look at websites. Things which didn’t exist a few years ago, such as social media indicators, are now given fairly high importance in terms of their impact on your rankings. Not building a healthy content profile spread out months and years is potentially damaging to your business, as it is one of the factors Google evaluates when looking at your site.

7. Your competitors are doing it – Remember, SEO is a never-ending process. If you’re not moving forward and improving your position, you’re losing ground to a competitor who is. That’s a simple fact of how the process works. Don’t let your competitors out maneuver you by ignoring this valuable tool for your business.

Investing in organic SEO is more important now than ever before, despite the current difficulty everyone finds themselves facing regarding the lack of organic keyword data and traffic. Your business definitely needs to have an SEO strategy in place if you are interested in succeeding in terms of online marketing; it remains one of the single most important components of any organization’s branding efforts and online presence.

Being found in the top-tier results of the organic search listings is vital to the long term success of your website and business. Onimod Global’s team of Internet Marketing experts will provide your company with an Internet Marketing Solution that will take your website to the next level.

Dominate the natural, local business, and the sponsored ad results of search engine listings. Contact an Onimod Global Marketing Consultant today. Call us at 1.888.263.7046

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