1 SEO for Chrome

Pros:

• Reports on a ton of different SEO stats

Cons:

• Slow
• Frequently breaks for random data points

2 SEOMoz Mozbar

Pros:

• Tons of great information in sexy interface

Cons:

• Need SEOMoz Pro account to get all the data

3 META SEO inspector

Pros:

• Lightweight and reports very useful information
• They built-in my Ad Sniffer plugin

Cons:

• Ugly terminal style interface

4 SEOQuake Lite

Pros:

• Lightweight – includes two important data points: Google PageRank & Alexa Rank

Cons:

• No MozRank or SEMRush data (which is weird since SEOQuake owns SEMRush)

5 Sorezski SEO Plus

Pros:

• Tons of useful data in a sexy interface

Cons:

• Takes up too much space and requires too many clicks to access all the information

6 SERP Preview Tool

Pros:

• Great preview of SERP listing for given page
• Allows you to enter your own info to optimize listing
• Can test what it would look like for a given search query

Cons:

• That’s all it does

7 WooRank

Pros:

• Allows you to easily run a WooRank report for the site you’re on

Cons:

• Not really an extension, just opens up the web-based report

1) A healthy mix of tracking mechanisms, social media integration, usability testing mediums and user experience value add systems will play an increasingly role in determining a site’s ranking.

Looks like TechCrunch has the right idea.

With Google’s recent Panda update it is clear that SEO is becoming more focused around better user experience. If you are implementing mechanisms on your web site to improve your end user’s experience your site is more likely to be of higher quality in all forms. This will come obviously as a result of increased engagement from using these tools, but it would be short-sighted to think that the search engines would not use these types of detection to influence the quality of their results. Take a look yourself, install the Google Chrome Sniffer plugin and see what the best sites are using. On a side note, if you’re interested in what they’re doing to generate revenue you can use the Google Chrome Ad Sniffer plugin I built recently for this purpose.

2) A new site explorer will launch to compete with the likes of SEOMoz Linkscape, Majestic SEO and now SEO Spyglass with the recent shut down of Yahoo’s Site Explorer.

Frankly I’m shocked the SEOQuake team hasn’t launched their own yet considering how many great tools they have and how effective they are at collecting absurd amounts of valuable data. In any case someone needs to cover the gap between SEOMoz’s Linkscape (spectacular data, high-quality, smaller index) and Majestic SEO (lower-quality data, larger index). Perhaps SEOMoz will accomplish this by growing their index significantly, but at the rate thus far that would be unexpected. I’m quite surprised Bing didn’t adopt Yahoo’s Site Explorer and expand on it, perhaps they will fill this gap this year.

3) Google Analytics will expand real-time Analytics to all their reports

Really Google? Is that all you can do for us? Hook us up!

4) Google organic click-through rates will drop another 25%

Slingshot SEO recently reported on an exhaustive study on the latest click-through rates in Google. Based on the rate at which Google is further diminishing the organic results with advertising to further improve their bottom line, I would anticipate a 25% decrease in click-through rates by the end of 2012.

Position	Current Google click-through rates	Predicted Google click-through rates
1	18.2%	13.7%
2	10.1%	7.6%
3	7.2%	5.4%
4	4.8%	3.6%
5	3.1%	2.3%
6	2.8%	2.1%
7	1.9%	1.4%
8	1.8%	1.3%
9	1.5%	1.1%
10	1.0%	0.8%

5) SpyderMate SEO Tools will take off as one of the leaders in the internet marketing software industry

Get Ready for it.

I’m a little biased, but MentorMate’s new product SpyderMate has some seriously innovative tools on the horizon. Just launched in October 2011 and made an appearance at PubCon Las Vegas. Also, just made PC Magazine’s Top 100 Sites of 2011 list in the Undiscovered: Tech category.

Obvious 2012 Predictions

1) Bing will increase in market share

Well obviously, you expect that trend to go South all the sudden, especially with all the money Microsoft has to pay for an increased market share? Plus people like that there’s a semi-serious newcomer/competitor to Google. The internet needs it desperately. Plus the whole default search engine in Internet Explorer situation obviously has its perks for capturing the non-techies out there.

2) (not provided) will get much worse

Obviously more and more people will learn to cover their tracks by logging in and searching. Plus Google’s social network and continual launching of new products that people love and use will only make this worse and worse.

3) Anchor text and link metrics in general will decrease in impact in rankings

This is one of the oldest methods of determining ranking and of course it should become less significant. Search engines are looking to innovate and continual reliance upon old methods is the opposite of innovation.

4) Google will force Google+ adoption through search engine rankings impact

Danny Sullivan All over the SERP Google+ Style

Everyone’s bonus in Google is tied to Google+ being successful, of course they’re going to leverage their search engine to make this happen!

5) Social media share buttons will show up everywhere

Social’s taking over and it’s starting to impact rankings in addition to all it’s other inherent value as a marketing vehicle. Expect social sharing buttons everywhere! For example, feel free to share this post =P

Facebook supports their own public API for bulk share counts using this URL: https://graph.facebook.com/http://seopeng.com

Twitter’s Private API

Twitter does not support a public API for bulk share counts, but their private one can be accessed through this URL: http://urls.api.twitter.com/1/urls/count.json? url=http://seopeng.com (private – use at your own risk)

Topsy’s API for Twitter

A better option for Twitter is to use Topsy’s public API at this URL: http://otter.topsy.com/urlinfo.json?url=http://seopeng.com

LinkedIn’s Private API

Like Twitter, LinkedIn does not support a public API for bulk share counts, but their private one can be accessed through this URL: http://www.linkedin.com/cws/share-count?url=http://seopeng.com (private — use at your own risk)

Google Plus Hidden API

Tom Anthony generously created a PHP script for acquiring bulk Google Plus counts from Google’s hidden API in their Google Plus widget, find the details at Tom’s blog: http://www.tomanthony.co.uk/blog/google_plus_one_button_seo_count_api/

Domain-wide Redirect

Search engines consider separate sub-domains to be separate web sites. This is why domain.com and www.domain.com are considered separate web sites. External web sites will sometimes link to your site using both variations and this can lead to you not capturing the full potential of your backlinks.

To avoid this problem, you simply need to setup a domain-wide 301 redirect on your Apache web server. Assuming your site is running on Apache (the vast majority are) then you can use the following code. You’ll just need to edit your .htaccess file in your root public directory, or you’ll need to create a text file and save it as “.htaccess” and upload it to your root public directory.

Ideally you’ll want to redirect the variation with the least unique domain backlinks to the version with the most unique domain backlinks. You can utilize Majestic SEO’s Site Explorer to determine this. Just register for a free account, then enter both variations of your domain (http://domain.com and http://www.domain.com), be sure to “Use Historic Index” so you’ll see all the backlinks for each. Then, by using the following lines of code, redirect the version with the least unique domain backlinks to the version with the most unique domain backlinks.

non-www to www

RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^domain\.com [NC]
RewriteRule (.*) http://www.domain.com/$1 [L,R=301]

www to non-www

RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www\.domain\.com$ [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://domain.com/$1 [L,R=301]

Proper Page Title Usage

Make sure your page title is no more than 70 characters in length. Place your targeted keywords as far left as possible, throw in your site/brand at the end after a pipe (|) symbol.

good page title example

The following is a good page title because it is exactly 70 characters in length. In addition, it has the most relevant keywords at the beginning and includes the web site name at the end.

<title>Search Engine Marketing & Optimization Blog, Tips & Guides | SEO Peng</title>

bad page title example

The following is a bad page title because it is very short. The only keyword it has in it is SEO. It is only 8 characters in length, meaning it is not making use of the additional 62 characters it could be to target additional, longtail keyword phrases. It also explains nothing about the web site’s home page.

<title>SEO Peng</title>

Proper Meta Description Usage

Make sure your meta description is no more than 155 characters in length. Place the keywords you anticipate the page ranking for near the beginning of the meta description and be sure to finish it off with a nice call to action. If your page comes up in the results for the keywords you have in the meta description they will be listed in bold. This will help your listing stand out more, then your call to action will entice users to click on your listing even further. Both of these tactics combined can help increase the click through rate on your search engine result page listing.

good meta description example

The following is a good meta description because it is exactly 155 characters. It also includes keywords that the page is targeting and likely to rank for. In addition, it has a nice call to action that will entice viewers to click on its search engine result page listing.

<meta name="description" content="A blog dedicated to SEO (search engine optimization) - complete with tips, guides, tactics and tools. Grow traffic to your site today by reading SEO Peng!" />

bad meta description example

The following is a bad meta description because it is very short, does not include many keywords and has no call to action. It is only 57 characters in length, meaning it is not making use of the additional 98 characters it could be to explain in more detail what the web site is about and include more relevant keyword phrases as well as a call to action to entice viewers of the search engine result page listing.

<meta name="description" content="SEO Peng is a blog all about search engine optimization." />

Use ALT Attributes

Images on a web site are like a black box to search engines. This is why alt attributes exist. All search engines have to go on is the name of the image file if you do not use alt attributes. Blind people have the same problem with images on a web site that search engines do. You should always use alt attributes to explain what the image is about. Ideally you can find a happy medium between describing an image and utilizing relevant keywords you are targeting.

Conversion Rate by Keyword Phrase Length

good alt attribute example

The following is a good alt attribute example for the above image because it explains in detail what the image is about and it also includes many relevant keywords. This is equally good for visitors and search engines to consume. In addition, the alt attribute does a good job complementing the image file name.

<img src="conversion-rate-keyword-length.gif" alt="How the length of a keyword phrase impacts conversion rates" />

bad meta description example

The following is a bad alt attribute example for the above image because it explains nothing specific about the image. Simply “seo graph” is too generalized. If you typed “seo graph” in Google would you want to see this image? Perhaps, but you’d be far more likely to want to see this graph if you typed in “keyword length conversion rates”. In addition, the image would likely rank much higher for the phrase “keyword length conversion rates” than “seo graph” because it is a far less competitive keyword phrase. The alt attribute in this example, is also not very complementary to the image file name.

<img src="conversion-rate-keyword-length.gif" alt="seo graph" />

Use SEO-Friendly URLs

SEO-friendly URLs are equally people-friendly in that they are easy to remember and include keyword phrases in them. They are important because they help re-emphasize what the page is all about. Not only that, but when people link to a web page they commonly will copy and paste the URL. If your keywords are in the URL, then you get backlinks pointed to your site that have your targeted keywords in the anchor text.

SEO-friendly URL example

The following is an SEO-friendly URL because it utilizes hyphens to seperate words and english words to explain what the page is about. Just looking at that URL, you have a pretty good idea about what you’ll find after you click on it don’t you? If you did a Google search for “seo friendly urls” the keywords “seo”, “friendly” and “urls” would be bolded, which again helps with clickthrough rates on your search engine result listing.

http://seopeng.com/seo-friendly-urls-create-more-traffic

SEO-unfriendly URL example

The following is an SEO-unfriendly URL because it tells you nothing about what the page is about. All I can tell is that it’s one of many posts on seopeng.com. If I had never been to the site before I would have no clue at all what its about. Perhaps it has something to do with search engine optimization? For a site about SEO, they don’t really seem to know what they’re doing!

http://seopeng.com/post.php?post=5

Host all your content on your own Domain

So many business web sites have a blog hosted on a free blogging service such as Blogger. This is a horrible idea because the point of a blog from an SEO perspective is to create great content, which generates backlinks organically. When You host this on your own domain such as http://www.domain.com/blog/ it associates these backlinks with your root domain and increases its overall domain authority. When you have your site hosted on a third party site is doesn’t give you the same benefit. This applies to any content you produce that is hosted on a third party site, always place it on your own root domain when possible.

Install web analytics

How are you going to measure the success of your web site if you have no data on what it’s doing? There is absolutely no reason not to install analytics on a business web site. You need to establish goals for what you want people to accomplish on your web site. These are known as conversions, desired actions you want users to take on your site when visiting. For a business web site this could by filling out a contact form, requesting a quote, giving you a call, signing up for your newsletter or purchasing a product. There’s no excuse, setting up analytics is very easy and there are many free web analytics packages out there. Google Analytics is one of the best free web analytics packages out there. Stop flying blind and install it today if you have not already!

Open Site Explorer Report for SEOBook.com

Authority

You want links from places with significant authority and ideally trust as well. Not only domain-wide, but for the specific page in question as well. The more the merrier, but focus on the sites that have equal or higher authority than yours. Run a free Open Site Explorer report on the domain. For this example we are looking at SEOBook.com.

Relevance

Alright, so not all links need to be relevant. Ideally most will have some form of relevance. Avoid getting many irrelevant links, as they don’t really add that much value. Too many can be negative. The truly relevant ones are where it’s at! Try to find the cream of the crop, the links from domains that have backlink profiles that include the leaders of your industry. For example, that would be like SEO Peng getting a link from SEOBook.com or SEOMoz.org.

Number of existing external links on page

The less external links on the page the better. This means more authority will be passed your way, the more links you’re sharing with, the smaller your piece of the pie.

Relative difficulty for competitor to replicate

Can your competitors get links from the same source? If not, then this link is gold! Get as many of these as possible! If they can easily replicate the link, then you should still acquire it as the competition probably will in the future. Since your link campaign will probably start with you scouring through all your competitors’ backlinks, this will probably be one of the first things you do.

rel="nofollow" link on Wikipedia, highlighted with SEO for Chrome

rel=”nofollow”

Is the link going to be tagged with rel=”nofollow” so it passes no authority? Don’t waste too much effort going after these, but you’ll need to get them too to keep your link diversity at a healthy ratio. Install SEO plugins to quickly point these out as you surf around. I’d recommend SEO for Chrome for, you guessed it Google Chrome and SEOBook’s SEO Toolbar for Mozilla Firefox. You can enable settings in these to automatically highlight rel=”nofollow” links as you surf around.

Direct traffic potential

SearchStatus Firefox Plugin

How many direct visitors is this link likely to send? Are these the types of visitors you want? How likely that any of them will result in a conversion? If it has no direct traffic potential, then it better provide some SEO value! Obviously there’s no way for you to know how much traffic a site gets unless you have access to their analytics. For this reason, we’ll have to rely on third party traffic estimation services like Alexa.com and Compete.com. You can use the SearchStatus Firefox Plugin to see these estimates for every site you browse, then you can hover over each for specifics. This plugin also allows you to show Google PageRank and MozRank if you’re interested.

Location on web page

A link within the main content area is ideal. This will pass the most value to your site. Links from sidebars and footers are not considered as important. People are more likely to place paid links in these areas so they have been devalued relative to links placed in the main content area.

Anticipated link duration

How long is this link going to be around after you acquire it? Indefinite links are what you want. You don’t want a temporary boost.

Relative control of link

How much control over the link do you have? Can you choose the anchor text and placement? Are you able to tweak the link in the future as it fits your needs? In most cases you will not have any control.

Acquisition potential

How likely is it you’ll be able to even get a link in the first place? Is it really worth the effort to pursue? Money is valuable. Time is money. Keep the costs low unless the link really deserves it!