Important Resources for Search Engine Marketers

Following are the websites/blogs that I would recommend to follow to keep yourself updated with recent developments in “search” world. You can sign up for email updates. List is in order of importance.

SEO

1.       Google Webmaster Blog- This is official blog of Google Webmaster Tool (GWT). Google announces major changes they are bringing in GWT, the search engine in general, latest algorithm updates etc. on this blog. http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/

2.       YouTube Channel of Google Webmaster- You can find videos of Matt Cutts on this official channel of GWT. He answers queries in these videos which are really insightful, but never follow the suggestions blindly ;). After all, Google is also a commercial organization. You can subscribe to the channel. http://www.youtube.com/user/GoogleWebmasterHelp/videos

3.       Search Engine Land- This blog led by Danny Sullivan is like newspaper of search world. One should visit this blog daily if one has to keep up with latest developments no matter it’s related to SEO, PPC, search engines, little tips and tricks etc. etc. subscribe to email list. http://searchengineland.com/

4.       Moz Blog- They are wizards of SEO. They provide really cool SEO, web analytics and social media tools like Open Site Explorer, Followerwonk etc. They have two separate blog sections- one Moz Blog and another YouMoz. On Moz blog, mostly you can find posts from Moz employees and on YouMoz from other blog members. Nice way to learn new techniques. http://moz.com/blog. Don't forget to catch up with whiteboard Friday every week. You can find more learning stuff here: http://moz.com/learn/seo.

5.       Quick Sprout- This is personal blog (as he promotes, but I don’t think so he manages it alone) of entrepreneur Neil Patel, he is CEO of company which provides amazing analytics tools like kiss metrics and crazy eggs, you can check their separate blogs also. On quick sprout most of the times he shares very genuine and out of the box tips for SEO with links to useful resources. http://www.quicksprout.com/blog/

6.       SEO.com- It’s basically an agency. You can find some useful blog posts on their blog: http://www.seo.com/blog/.

7.       Blog of Matt Cutts- Last but not the least, this is blog of Matt Cutts, head of Google’s webspam team. I think this is enough for introduction of his blog. J http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/

PPC

1.       Inside Adwords- This is official blog of Google Adwords. Just like GWT blog you find recent updates Google is bringing in Adwords. http://adwords.blogspot.com/

2.       PPC Hero Blog- PPC Hero is agency, as per me they are becoming for PPC what Moz is to SEO. They provide good insights on managing PPC accounts. http://www.ppchero.com/top-stories/

Analytics

1.       Google Analytics Blog- Stay abreast with latest developments by Google Analytics. http://analytics.blogspot.com/

2.       Omniture/Site Catalyst Blog- Official blog of web analytics tool by adobe. http://blogs.adobe.com/digitalmarketing/analytics/

3.       Avinash Kaushik’s Blog- I am fan of this guy, he breathes analytics. Just check out about page on his blog if you want to know about him. http://www.kaushik.net/avinash/. Caution: He blog once a week but his posts are really long. You need to spent some time to absorb all the information.

4.       Justin Cutroni’s Blog- He is current analytics advocate at Google. So, if you are a Google fan and using Google analytics then follow this blog. You will find really cool stuff to do things with Google Analytics. http://cutroni.com/blog/

I don’t say this is it but this is a good list to start with. There are many more awesome people out there. Let me know the ones you follow.

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How to Optimize the Website for Bing?

When it comes to doing SEO for Google then we get loads of articles, blog posts and other content on how we can optimize the website and get better rankings and traffic. But when it comes to optimizing the website for Bing then we have very less information from people on internet or World Wide Web (WWW).

Recently, Duane Forrester Senior Product Manager of Bing’s Webmaster Program organized a webinar on crawling basics. In this webinar he described factors Bing considers important before ranking any website for a particular search term.

Here is the summary of Bing crawling basics webinar describing important ranking factors for Bing:

• Content is King: A lot of fresh and unique content is important for crawlers of Bing.
• XML Sitemaps and RSS Feeds: Bing insists on using error free sitemap.xml. XML sitemap should not have URLs leading to 404 pages; Bingbot might ignore whole sitemap if it finds even one URL leading to 404 errors. RSS feeds are more important for Bing, by RSS feeds Bingbot will get update about latest content coming on website.
• Robots.txt: In a survey conducted by Bing they found that most of the websites which Bingbot cannot crawl don’t have correct robots.txt file. They found that these websites have blocked crawlers from indexing the websites. So, check your robots.txt before doing SEO for the website.
• Bounce Rate: Bing also considers bounce rate as a major ranking factor. If they find that most of the visitors are leaving a page before spending certain amount of time on that page, then they may rank down the website. So, keep a check on your bounce rate also. Make your website engaging enough for the visitors.
• Bing Webmaster Tools: Finally, if you want to rank well on Bing then you should start using Bing webmaster tool. Benefits of using Bing Webmaster Tool are that you can have a better control on your website when it comes to indexing in Bing. Besides using an array of SEO tools like keyword research, back-link analysis etc. you can submit sitemaps, control robots.txt, URL parameters etc.

Besides all this, social media plays an important role in SEO for Bing. Hope this will help you in getting better ranks on Bing.

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New Features and Tools in Bing Webmaster Tool

With merger of Bing and Yahoo we lost very good link analysis tool (Yahoo! Site Explorer). Now with new look and user experience Bing has reintroduced that tool in its webmaster tool. Go and explore new tools under diagnostics & tools section of bing webmaster tool. Bing has introduced these new tools which are useful for any SEO:

Link Explorer (beta): Just like yahoo site explorer you can check backlinks of any website.

SEO Analyzer (beta): This tool generates SEO reports for websites which are verified by the account you are currently logged in with.

Fetch as Bingbot (beta): See your website as seen by the crawler of bing (Bingbot).

More information can be found at Bing Webmaster Community Blog

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Google’s New Privacy Policy - What does it mean to you?

Recently Google unveiled its new privacy policy. Privacy policy and Terms & Conditions are things which no one likes to read :) . So this blog post will explain you in short and simple terms what Google’s new privacy policy is all about and how will it affect you as a user of Google’s services.

According to Google’s new privacy policy it will centralize all your data or personal information and one service of Google can use your personal data related to another service. 

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Page Layout Algorithm Update by Google

This algorithm update by Google is not only important for SEO’s but it’s important for Website Designer also.

With this update Google will penalize websites in which content appears below the fold. So, if the user/website visitor has to scroll down to see the content then it’s a bad user experience and Google will consider it as a negative factor.

So, SEO’s must take care that this doesn’t happen and website designer should make a layout which follows this guideline.

Have a great week ahead. J

For more details see Google Webmaster Blog: http://goo.gl/eQDum

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