So what is different about this recent Penguin update? It mainly affected certain types of sites like porn sites and gaming sites. However, it also punished a couple of big brands, like the Salvation Army and Dish. Another interesting thing about this update is that Google pointed out a new form which allows you to notify them if you still see what you consider to be spam websites ranking highly. What this shows to many is that Google’s most recent updates were not very effective – if they were, why would they provide a way for users to point out what they might have missed?

Some people might think that his is actually a good tool. After all, if you have a quality site that provides useful information and content and you are being outranked by sites that are clearly spammy, isn’t it helpful to be able to let Google know? While this may be the case, many SEOs believe that Google is asking users to do their job for them. Also, they worry that it will make abuse easier.

You can check out the form here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1rhRenrd16MDSgAOwnMVx9KQbp–0JoY9vKiJdIcMe44/viewform

As far as SEO going forward, it continues to be extremely important to vary anchor text to include branded terms, bare URLs, natural unoptimized terms, and a wide range of other anchors. Simply dividing up the anchor text you are targeting into a few keywords is no longer something that is recommended. Take a look at a breakdown of the anchor text of a big brand like the Home Depot:

Notice how their anchor text profile includes bare URLs like http://www.homedepot.com, as well as brand anchors like home depot, the home depot, etc. They also have unoptimized anchors like ‘website’ and ‘here’. The only anchor text in their 10 most used anchors is ‘wifi enabled thermostat’. This is a good profile to model your own link building after and seems to be Penguin safe (for now at least).

There are a slew of paid keyword research tools, many of which are well worth the money if you’re promoting multiple sites. There are also some excellent free keyword research tools out there – they are effective for the professional as well as someone that is just looking to get their feet wet.

Google External Keyword Tool

The first tool everyone should be familiar with is Google’s External Keyword tool. If you’ve ever used AdWords, this is the same tool provided inside accounts. The external keyword tool is one of the quickest, easiest to use tools out there and doesn’t require much (if any training).

WordStream

WordStream offers a simple keyword suggestion tool that is free to use. Their goal is to return keywords with commercial intent so you target terms where money is actually being spent. They claim to have more than a trillion keywords in their database, so you can probably find good terms to target or include in your content by taking it for a spin. WordStream also offers paid options.

KeywordSpy

Another excellent keyword tool is Keyword Spy. Technically, it’s a paid tool, but you can use the free trial and get quite a bit of information out of it. It does exactly what the nae says – it lets you spy on your competition by checking out their keywords. You can also take a look at what they are spending on AdWords (if anything). Thought it’s not as simple to just pick up and use as Google’s tool, you might check it out if you have a competitor you’re interested in spying on.

Other free keyword tools (most which offer paid versions with more functionality) include:

Wordtracker
SEMRush
Wordpot
SEOBook Keyword Tool
Trellian Keyword Discovery

Keywords are an integral part of any SEO campaign, but they’re only one part of it. Using them as a springboard for content creation and helping your market is the best way to go. They can also help you to diversify your anchor text profile, making it look as natural as possible to Google.

Before the internet, when a customer was not happy with the service they received, the worst they really could do was complain to their friends and family. Now, someone that is not happy can go on heavily trafficked sites and make complaints that hundreds, if not thousands will see. What’s worse is because the sites they tend to complain on can actually outrank you or your company in the search results. Imagine if one of the first results that comes up in Google is someone complaining about your company?

Thankfully, with SEO, it is actually possible to get rid of those sorts of complaints. Obviously, you want to address any complaints or problems someone might have with your products or services and do what you can to make them happy, but sometimes the customer might not remove the things they’ve already said (or they might not be able to). In those cases, even if you follow up with the complaints it still doesn’t look very good to potential customers. By pushing those sorts of complaints down in the search results however, you will keep them out of sight and out of mind of future prospects.

So how can you use SEO to manage your reputation online? What can you do if complaints come up when people search for you or your business?

One of the most effective ways to drown out the noise of complaints is with press releases. Press releases are typically articles that announce new products or services that your company might be offering. Anything that can be considered newsworthy would make a good press release. There are services that will write these for you, usually ranging about $50-$100 a piece. Once you have one written, you can distribute it out through a variety of Press Release Distribution services. Press release distribution services have media outlets that they will submit the press release to, which will post them.

From there, press releases can get picked up by even more media outlets and syndicated. When this happens, the press releases will start showing up in Google very frequently and can fill up the search results pages, effectively blocking out any negative comments about your company. Posting videos on video sharing sites like YouTube or DailyMotion can help to drown out negative comments or complaints as well. They also give you a very good opportunity to set the record straight.

So take the time to check out the search results for your company name every once in a while. Get in the mind of a potential customer and try to search as though you were someone researching your company. If you find anything negative, try to address it and if it persists, you have ways to manage that.

It’s important to note that SEOs aren’t saying that backlinks are becoming useless, but rather that they are becoming less important (relative to how important they used to be). In other words, Google is getting smarter and starting to look at other factors. After the Penguin updates started happening at the beginning of 2012, many people erroneously though that backlinks were no longer a factor, but that is still not the case (and probably will not ever be, at least in the foreseeable future.

So if the importance of backlinks is (theoretically) decreasing, what is Google looking at (or going to start looking at)?

Some think that Google is starting to look at word associations as though they were links. This is very similar to how they rank their places pages. Rather than Google Places pages needing backlinks, they need “citations” from around the internet. These citations usually come in the form of the business’ address and telephone number. When Google sees those citations and matches it with the places listing, it begins to trust the location more and more. This usually leads to ranking increases.

Google can do this with any type of website as well. If many websites that are about Star Wars mention Disney, then Google may learn that Disney is associated with Star Wars. This can occur without actual links, and is already happening in the SERPs. If you have ever done backlink analysis on a page that is ranking very well for a given keyword and found that it doesn’t have any ideal anchors, it’s likely that this type of citation ranking is going on.

If the importance of citations is really on the rise, what will this mean in terms of SEO and promotion? It will mean that content marketing and distribution will be integral parts of your campaigns, in addition to backlinks.

Guest blogging is a great strategy for SEO because it is almost impossible to truly automate. In order to get a legitimate guest blog link, you need to actually build relationships with others in your industry. Not only will this yield the possibility of powerful links, it will also provide you with potential offline partnerships.

For example, if you are in the real estate business, getting a guest post from an electrician or interior decorate would be a perfect fit. They wouldn’t be your competitors, and those that are buying a home or renting a space would very likely be in need of their services. In the same way, a chiropractor might want to do a guest post on the site of a personal trainer or a dietician. Visitors to any of those sites would be interested in what the other type of professional has to say, and would then be encouraged to visit the site if the post is good enough. Even if they didn’t, you would get the benefit of the link back to your site which would greatly help rankings.

Guest posts are not very easy to come by, but because they are so powerful you don’t need a large number of them to see results. Obviously, the more that you have on relevant sites the better your results will be, but you can see results with just a single guest post. So how do you go about getting them?

First, determine all the complementary businesses in your niche. Think outside the box when you do this. Any business that is even remotely related to your own might be worth pursuing. When you have an idea about the types of businesses you want to promote, check out the highest ranking sites on Google and find their contact information. When contacting them, you really don’t need to do much more than tell them how you liked their site and would like to write an article for it that their users might enjoy.

When you’ve found some business/website owners that are interested, create the article for them and cultivate the relationship from then on. Hopefully you’ll get a business that you can run promotions with and refer customers to offline (and vice versa, of course). At the very least, you’ll have some extra exposure and another high value link pointing back to your site.

In the past, having an exact match domain for the keyword that you wanted to rank for could greatly improve your chances of ranking for the keyword quickly. Part of the reason that this is the case is because Google assumes that domain names refer to the brand’s name.

Currently, exact match domain names are not as effective as they used to be. Some SEOs even believe that they don’t make a difference any longer. No matter where you fall on the issue, you should consider a few things before choosing your domain name:

1. Going out of your way to choose a keyword rich domain name is generally not a good idea. Not only will it be much more difficult to remember for potential customers, it just doesn’t look that great (unless it also happens to be the name of your business).

   For example: www.thebest24hourplumberinseattle.com vs. www.seattledrainpros.com

   The former might give you a very slight edge in the search engines, but the latter is clearly better to look at and more memorable.

2. Having your business name as the domain is better from a brand standpoint.
3. If there is a benefit to having an exact match domain, it’s not going to offer a huge boost. You can get any domain ranking for a keyword through the proper SEO and promotion.

Another type of domain name is a partial match domain. These often include part of the keyword you are trying to rank for or the whole keyword plus some extra words (like the, best, cheap, discount, etc.). Like exact match domains, these can give you a very slight boost in the rankings when competition is not incredibly high, but they are not going to make your site rank well on their own.

Ultimately, your best bet when choosing a domain name is choosing something that will be memorable, brandable, and not too long. Imagine how it will look on your business card or company letterhead, and you’ll realize that many exact match domains and partial match domains are not that pleasing to look at.

If you’re someone that likes hard numbers, you should check out what SEOmoz.org has to say on the subject of exact match domains.

The first thing you need to do when you are working with a new client is to make sure that they understand what SEO is all about. You won’t be able to get very far if you do not take the initiative here because these people need to know exactly what you are doing for them. Some people will say they do not care what you do and basically give you a clean slate, but you are going to have to work with the business owner to get the best results. You will have to explain the value of SEO to your client if they do not seem to understand what it is all about right away.

One way that you can make sure everything goes smoothly with your client is if you create a plan that they will be able to understand. You have to remember that you will probably be editing your client’s website, so you need to make sure that they are along for the ride before you get started. Even if they do not seem that interested in your work, you have to make sure that you lay out exactly what you are going to do for them in the online world. As long as you client understands what you are trying to do, they are less likely to get upset at you for some strange reason in the future.

Try to answer any questions your client may have. It’s always a good idea to answer your client’s questions, even if you think he or she will start to think that you are useless. You can only improve your working relationship by being honest with your client because that is one of the core values of a great working partner. When you are honest with your client, there is a much better chance that they will be honest with you. If you want to make sure that everyone understands each other and that the expectations are set correctly, then you should definitely let your client know that you are happy to answer any questions.

Try to get some help with an increase in the budget. Many business owners are not sure of how much SEO really costs, so some of them will think twice about increasing their budget. Sometimes the budget you are given is simply not going to be enough, and these are the jobs you will need to avoid. If your client is not going to give you the funds that you need for the job, then there is no reason to stick around for much longer.

As long as you stay open with your client and talk with each other on a regular basis, there should be nothing to worry about. When you are honest with each other, you will notice that the problems will come to the surface in the beginning. This means that you will be able to get out of the job rather quickly if you feel like there is going to be some kind of problem.

If you really want to find someone who will be able to teach you a thing or two in addition to helping you get better rankings, then you will need to stick with your local classified ads. Although there are plenty of people available on the Internet, you will probably want to meet with someone in person. There is an extra bit of clarity and better communication involved when you can talk with someone in person, so you should stick with locals if this is something that interests you more than anything else.

In reality, the best person to handle any kind of small job is going to be you. Sometimes SEO isn’t about all of the technical details that come with the job, and that means the kind of knowledge that is in your head is more important than anything else. You always have to do something on your own if you want it done correctly, so that’s the best way to start your SEO campaign. While you may be able to get some pointers from a real SEO professional, it’s important to remember that you are the person who can create quality content. Although an SEO specialist will know all about keyword density and backlinks, you are the one who actually knows about your product or service.

Try to get an SEO professional to show you how to run your own SEO campaign. By getting an SEO specialist to do some of the more technical work, you can make sure that the quality of the content stays high while certain keywords are targeted. This is usually the best route to take on an SEO campaign because it combines the best of both worlds. You can eventually learn enough about SEO to take over the technical aspect of the job as well, but some people prefer to leave that to the pros. Anyone who thinks that they will not be able to handle a bit of the SEO work is probably going to end up with less than perfect content at the end of the day.

There are plenty of different resources to use when you want to find someone to help you with SEO, so make sure to use all of them to your advantage. You can’t leave any stone left unturned when you need help because that is the only way you are going to be able to find the perfect person for the job.

The first important aspect of an SEO business relationship that you need to think about is engaging the client or engaging with that certain SEO professional. Without proper communication with your working partner, it will be hard to make sure that there is a clear plan for your SEO campaign. You have to stay in constant communication with all of the people you are working with because that is the only way you will be able to build a relationship that is beneficial for everyone involved. A lot of people think that they can just hire someone to get the job done and not worry about checking in on that project very often, but that kind of thinking is far from how things work.

If you are the person hiring an SEO you need to make sure that you learn a little bit about SEO along the way. You have to know a little bit about SEO when you get started because otherwise anyone could charge you rather unfair rates. Have your SEO helper let you in on a few SEO secrets, and make sure that you understand the entire process. It’s important to know the methods that your professional is actually using, so you can understand what it means to run an SEO campaign. You have to understand how SEO works to know who is going to be the right option for your business.

One of the main reasons that a working relationship could go wrong is that the expectations between the client and the business could be incorrect. This kind of ties into having good levels of communication with each other, so you need to clearly state what you want to have on your website or what kind of quality you can offer. Being honest and upfront with people will go a long way because telling someone you can do something that you cannot do will just end up as a waste of time in the long run.

At the end of the day, you just need to make sure that both of you understand each other because that is the only way anything is going to get done. There needs to be a strong relationship between you and your partner on your quest for a better ranking. Without this strong relationship, you will notice that things tend to go sour rather quickly when something goes wrong. As long as you are working with someone who understands what you want and what kind of keywords will be able to help you bring more traffic to your website.

As a business owner, you need to make sure that you know a little bit about SEO, just like you need to know a little bit about advertising. You don’t need to know the whole story, but you at least need to get a general idea of what goes on in the world of SEO. When you know what is going on behind the scenes, it makes it much easier to pick out a fair price for an SEO specialist. If you do not know what your SEO professional is doing for you then he or she would really have the ability to charge you whatever they wanted.

SEO is not a one time job. While some people think they can just post some articles around the web and be done with it, the best SEO campaigns are the ones that seem to never end. You need to continually update your articles and get new links if you want to maintain your page’s high ranking over the long term. Anyone who decides to leave their SEO budget closed for a long time will notice that their first page standing may not last very long.

You cannot depend on your normal marketing department to handle SEO because online marketing is a completely different monster. At the end of the day, you have to realize that online marketing is very different from the kind of real world marketing that most businesses already do on a regular basis. While the end goals of both of these marketing types are the same, you still need to recognize the different between the two before you get started.

Try not to get all of your SEO packaged in one deal because sometimes it works better to get specialists in certain areas. You do not want to get one streamlined package for all of your SEO needs at a low price because these packages tend to lack real quality. You may be able to save money in the short term, but you will actually lose money in the long term by having low quality links and content associated with your company.

SEO can definitely help your business reach new customers, but you have to make sure you are hiring people who are actually going to do a good job. Without the right contractors to help you out, you will notice that there have not been a lot of benefits to your SEO campaign.