SEO meetups happen all across the country, and for good reason.  Just as in every industry, internet marketing has conferences, roundtables, and meetups where professionals and consumers interested in the industry can meet, learn, discuss, and network.  Every couple of months, the Lancaster Online Marketing Group holds a meetup.  The most recent, named the 2012 Lancaster SEO Panel and Live Audit, occurred on October 24^th, 2012.  Oliver Feakins and Mike Canarelli, CEO and COO, respectively, of Web Talent Marketing were kind enough to provide a venue and some of their own professionals for the panel.  There were 4 seasoned pros on the panel this time around:

• Lorianna Sprague – Director of Search Marketing, Web Talent Marketing
• Jonathan Bentz – Director of Client Marketing, ProspectMX
• Ray Carboni – Senior SEM Specialist, Web Talent Marketing
• Ganesh Harinath – Owner, The Dilatorg Group

Matt Self, the Vice President of Web Talent, acted as moderator.

Topics covered ranged from the buzz question, “is SEO dead?”, to the effects of social, to Panda and Penguin, and beyond.  It was a truly helpful, beneficial panel for beginners in SEO to advanced professionals.

Is SEO dead?

There was recently an article on Forbes with the title “SEO is Dead.”  It caused a flurry of activity and what could be considered a maelstrom of activity in the internet marketing world and on social media platforms.  Although much of the hubbub has died down, it’s still a question a lot of people haven’t answered yet.  Lorianna was the first on the panel to tackle the question and summed up the sentiments of the rest of the panel.  She explained that SEO has been defined and redefined over and over again.  One version “dies” and another one comes up.  It’s not so much that SEO is dead – it’s just evolving again.

How is social media affecting SEO and how do we know?

Bentz explained that it was easily manipulated and easy to see when the Google+ button was right next to the search results.  Once that disappeared from the SERPs, the focus shifted even more towards content.  If you have a piece that can go viral, social media platforms make it possible and shift the focus to making good content, something engaging, something that will convert, something that people will want to share and pass on.  Lorianna mentioned these are social metric validation factors.  Google, in particular, no longer ranks specific tweets in the SERPs, instead it ranks user profiles and content that has a lot of tweets.  The more social attention a piece of content gets the more it is validated as good content.

Ray added that it’s important to get involved through social media and post about what’s going on in your business.  Ganesh mentioned, in regard specifically to Google+, that since Google has the “keys to the henhouse,” of course they’re going to use that information to show more relevant search results.  Citing a recent article, if you’re using it for free, you’re the product.  Lorianna and Ganesh both mentioned that social is a great tool for getting bodies to your site and improving rankings, but Ganesh warned that Google will index personal profiles, not tweets, so if you’re using Twitter for rankings, you should probably change your strategy as you cannot rely on it alone.

Panda vs. Penguin

Two of Google’s largest algorithm updates have been named after cute animals starting with the letter “p”.  Possibly to soften the blow?  We’ll probably never know.  A lot of people are still confused on what exactly these two changes did and how to handle things moving forward.  Ray pointed out that Panda was released to target the content farmers.  Bentz added that Penguin was related to stuff happening off-site, specifically targeting backlink profiles and those links coming into your site that were obviously placed there just to improve rankings.  Lorianna continued, saying that the most recent Penguin updates targeted older sites who had gamed the system in the past.  Those who changed content benefitted from this update, but those who didn’t were penalized as they showed a declining backlink profile and just a few indexed pages without new, fresh content.

As far as what to do about it, Ganesh warned that though we should care, we shouldn’t change everything to change things tomorrow – it’s like chasing a moving target.  At the end of the day, Google is making search more relevant to make more money.  It’s a for-profit industry, so the best thing to do is print out those 23 questions to ask yourself for content and keep it in front of you.  Lorianna adds that it’s essential to stay on top of what is changing and why it is changing and employ those tactics.  Looking at updated webmaster forums, webmastering101, and those 23 questions are a good frame when starting out with SEO.

Other tips and tidbits

• Anchor Text Diversification Post-Penguin:

Lorianna stated it simply – think about what you’re doing.  The goal is to make a natural-looking backlink profile.  When you do keyword research, keep relevant long-tails.  Use brand names where it makes sense to use a brand names, add a keyword if you really want, but don’t be afraid to use the brand if it makes sense.  Utilize naked URLs and No Follow links.  Bentz continued, adding to comment on blogs, without links, but to remember one thing with backlinks and blogs for comments – you better have something useful to share.  If you have something good and helpful, you can link to that in comments, not to your product pages.

• Press Releases:

Ganesh and Ray mentioned, and the panel agreed; press releases are still a viable strategy; they’re a part of any successful marketing strategy and should be a part of any successful digital marketing strategy.  As long as press releases are not over-optimized and victims of keyword stuffing, they can be a great tool for engaging with your audience, raising brand awareness, and even getting some of those authoritative links coming back to your site.

• Free Tools:

Ray offered that Majestic SEO and Open Site Explorer can give a good preview of what’s going on behind the scenes of a website, but he acknowledged you would have to pay for the full scope from both services.  Bentz added that SEO Book has something like that and for registering on the site, you can access a whole suite of free tools for checking rankings and other stuff, especially if you use Firefox.

• Bing It On!  Or Not?

Bentz mentioned that based on Analytics, Bing is not much of a contender right now, but if you want to decrease spend in AdWords, PPC in Bing can be a little bit of a lower cost with a little higher conversion rate.  Also, exact match domains tend to rank better in Yahoo and Bing than in Google.  Ganesh agreed that Bing may not be a huge contender today, but he’s not taking them off his radar just yet.  He asked us to take the wayback machine to the 90s when Google wasn’t a contender – look at it now.  Bentz added that the optimization we usually do for Google, normally works well for Bing too.

After the live site audit, Oliver jumped in to say that if you’re learning SEO, get a foundation before you get distracted by all the toolbars.  Page Rank is a good example.  It’s a number and, if you don’t understand the methodology behind the number, you can’t properly analyze it.  Read first.

In closing, stay educated, stay on top of what’s changing and why, employ the right tactics, and above all, create good, helpful content.

About the Guest Blogger: Bob Bentz is president of Advanced Telecom Services with offices in Philadelphia, Toronto, London, and Prague.  Bob helps companies make more sales through mobile marketing enhancements.  He sent 3879 text messages last month, just slightly more than the average teenage girl.

Going Mobile

Americans are on the go more than ever.

And, that means that they are searching for your products via the one medium that is always with them — their mobile phone.

In fact, according to Pew, 17% of all internet searches now come from the mobile phone and not the traditional desktop computer.

Do I Need a Mobile Website?

I always tell people to use the “thumb test” when considering whether they need a mobile website or not. If you can navigate your desktop website on your cell phone with your thumb only, then you will know what it’s like for a man with large fingers, or an older person with declining eye site, to navigate your site on a mobile phone.

In most cases you will find that a traditional desktop site simply doesn’t provide a good user experience for cell phone access. Mobile users are often on the go and not near a high speed internet connection so expect their load times to be slower. With 57% of visitors saying they will tune out if your site doesn’t load within 3 seconds, you need a lighter site that will load quickly.

Best URL’s for Mobile Search

The best way to optimize for a mobile website is to use the same URL on the mobile site as the desktop site. This way, you don’t have to do anything differently and you benefit from all of the optimizing that you’ve already done for the desktop site.

If you can’t go with the same domain, then it’s best to use the m.domain.com. This URL structure doesn’t provide any additional built-in SEO benefit, but it has become the industry standard as opposed to the original thinking that the .mobi suffix would become the mobile standard.

But, the best strategy is actually to use device detection to determine whether the user is coming in from a mobile device or not. Then, use canonicals so that your desktop site shows up in search results regardless of what device the consumer is using. When the visitor clicks on the desktop search result, the device detection will take them to either the mobile or desktop site depending on whether the user is on his cell phone or not.

Don’t Forget About Tablet Users

With over 75 million Americans owning tablets, this is clearly not a market that you can ignore. And, with the larger screen of a tablet, the customer may be on a wireless device, but want to use the greater content available from the desktop site. That’s why it’s important to always have a link back to the busier desktop site on the mobile site as well.

A Mobile Customer is Your Most Valuable Customer

Studies show that the mobile searcher is actually closer to making a buying decision than the desktop searcher. 85% of restaurant searchers, for example, convert to making a purchase. Hence, the mobile searcher is more likely to be a buyer now while the desktop searcher is more likely to be gathering information.

That makes mobile searcher the perfect storm of just the right searcher at just the right time.

The web is a huge marketplace for promoting and selling your products and services. If you’re not already utilizing the internet to its fullest extent in regards to sales and marketing, you’re missing out and in a huge way! Just having a website can increase sales, grow your customer base, service your current customer base and increase your brand presence and awareness.

Whether or not you’re ready to engage in an in depth internet marketing strategy, there are plenty of free tools available that you can start using today to set goals and plan growth strategies for your site.

The following tools can help you be found on top search engines like Google and Google Maps, especially for local searches that relate to your company. You are able to identify and track specific search trends for relevant keyword or phrases over several months or even years. You can also track and analyze your web traffic, but more importantly, where the traffic comes from and to see what pages are visited the most. You are also able to discover what keywords people are searching for online related to your business while analyzing how many backlinks you obtain. Lastly, you can monitor mentions of your company and how people are talking about your company, both positively and negatively.

So the free tools you ask? Check them out below:

Google Places

With the great emphasis that Google has put on local search, you want to create a free business listing on Google Places so you can engage customers with photos, offers, testimonials, etc.

Google Insights

This tool is a great way to determine if there’s a hot keyword out there that seems to be getting more and more searches. You can compare search volume patterns for keywords related to your business across specific regions, time frames, categories, etc.

Google Analytics

You are able to analyze direct traffic, organic keyword traffic, most popular pages of your site, track goals, and more for free. This is one tool you can’t live without. If you don’t have some sort of analytics tracking installed in your site, how are you able to monitor what’s working and what’s not?

SEMRush

Determine out how much search volume a relevant keyword is getting – or spy on the competition and see what keywords they’re ranking for!

MajesticSEO

Get a cumulative look at how many sites are linking back to yours month over month – or check the same for a competitor! Backlinks are one of the major factors in getting your site ranking for a ton of keywords in the search engines.

Google/Yahoo Alerts

You can sign up to receive weekly, daily or “as it happens” emails from Google and Yahoo whenever someone mentions your brand or products online.

Many of the tools have both free and paid versions. If you’re a beginner, sign up for a free account and determine for yourself if it’s worth paying for the full monty!

We all know that LinkedIn is a great networking tool used to get connected with past and present colleagues and classmates. The outlet is often referred to as “Facebook for professionals” because business leaders can power their career and obtain inside connections for job searches or new business ventures as well as having the ability to share and obtain advice from other industry leading experts.

What most professionals fail to recognize, however, is that you are 40 times more likely to turn up in search results if your profile is a 100% complete. Having a 100% completed profile is easy, with a few basic additions to your profile:

•    Upload a Photo
•    Add Current Position
•    Add Past Positions (2)
•    Include Education
•    Provide a Profile Summary
•    Describe Specialties
•    Get Recommended (3)

Once you have a completed profile, you may also want to continue searching for contacts within your network and become more involved in groups and associations. Updating status updates and integrating web based applications adds greater value to your profile. The more activity you present as a professional employee of your company, the better you and your company appears, since after all, your company profile on LinkedIn is comprised of all employee statistics.

Another helpful tip, from an SEO perspective, is optimizing your website listings on your profile for the keyword you wish to rank for in search engines. To do so, “Edit” your website and select “Other.”

For “Website Title” include the title of your website, category or keyword you wish to rank for. From there, simply enter your URL string.

It’s that simple! Now get out there and stir up some industry leading conversation.

Due to the ever evolving world of technology, people are looking to the internet to find business recommendations locally. Businesses that appear in the local search results are found on several online business listings. Submitting your business online can help with your companies search engine optimization. So don’t wait to be found! Submit your business information to get listed on some of the free directories including:

Google Places

As the number one search engine, it’s critical that your business has a local search page. In doing so, your business can be found and you can physically verify your information. Google also allows your business to stand out among the crowd. You can make the public aware of what types of products and services you offer and upload photos, videos, current offerings and more. The best part? You can get insightful information about your listing and make sure you’re making wise businesses decisions moving forward.

Bing Local

Bing Local allows your business to appear in the results when users are looking or are near your location. Bing Local gives you the opportunity to improve or update your business listing at any time. If you have more than one business location you can manage those listings as well. A thorough verification process further enables you to protect your account and authorize your changes.

Yahoo!

Yahoo! Local listing permits you to customize your business listing by selecting a basic or enhanced profile that is easy to manage. The basic option lets you display your business contact information, store hours along with your products and services and it’s free! With the enhanced feature, you will have everything the basic listing includes in addition to your business logo and tagline, photos, and a detailed business description.

Yelp

Yelp allows every business owner or manager to setup an account to post products and services, hours of operation, offerings, photos and even message their customers. Users can rate and provide comments on your business as well as forward the listing to a friend for more information. You also have access to see who your competitors might be of those viewers who viewed your listing.

Best of the Web Local

Best of the Web Local allows you to provide your business contact information including website and email as well as driving directions, photographs and payment options. BOTW Local Premium offers you more visibility and detailed information that can ultimately drive greater foot traffic to your location.

It’s important to keep in mind there are a slew of other online business listings that must be completed to really make an impact and get your business found.