June 2007, Issue 3

In this Issue

	Freshly Squeezed: Links vs Content and Long Tail vs Short Tail Keywords
	Stump the SEO: Same Content, Multiple Sites
	From the Vault: Top 5 Top Blog Posts in SEO
	Super SEO Articles
	Subscribe to the SoloSEO Blog

5-minute SEO Tip

Looking for some potential backlinks, but not sure where to look? Try starting with your competitors for your top keywords. Where are they getting their backlinks?

SoloSEO has a nice tool (under the "Links" section, "Competitor Links") for checking where they get their backlinks, and even finding sites that link to several of your top competitors for a keyword.

Links vs Content and Long Tail vs Short Tail Keywords

Everything in life has its opposites. There is light and dark, hot and cold, black and white, and of course links and content. Even years after the debate began, the debate still continues. Before I uncover some insight into the answer to links versus content, let me give some background.

When search engines came into being, it was all about content. We still see a lot of companies going off of 1990s philosophies of search engine optimization, focusing solely on meta tags (keywords and description), page titles, header tags, and even using hidden text and links. Google came into being (and was actually named BackRub first) and changed the face of search forever by giving weight to "citations" or links. So now instead of a top 10 results page full of pages that had lots of the keyword you used listed, the top 10 would be full of pages that others linked to using the keyword you just used.

Over time Google has evolved and has hundreds of factors that contribute to its algorithm. The top 2 factors, according to search marketing experts, are (1) Keyword use in Title Tag and (2) Anchor Text of Inbound Link. Obviously there are other important factors, such as who is doing the linking, and the context of the link, and so on. But obviously the title of the page still has importance too.

So, is it content or is it links? The answer lies in the keyword. Is your keyword in the short tail or the long tail? Now before I explain, let me cover short and long tail keywords, to make sure everyone is up to speed.

Long tail keyword is by far a more common term versus short tail keywords, mainly because "short tail keywords" really just means "keywords". Look at the graph below, you'll see the left hand side is where the more common keywords are. They are more popular, more used, and also more competitive in most niches. As an example, short tail keywords would be like "home mortgage", "home loan", or "loan rates". Short tail keywords are typically one, two, or three word keyphrases. The right hand side, the "tail", contains lots of keywords with less popularity, less traffic, and the landscape is typically less competitive. As an example, long tail keywords would be like "home mortgage provo utah", "30 year fixed home loan", or "credit union loan rates". Long tail keywords are usually three, four, five, even six keywords long.

Finding out if your keyword is long or short-tail is pretty simple. Most you can just look at, count the words, or ask a friend. For others, if you really want to be more certain, you can consult a keyword research tool (SoloSEO happens to have a pretty good keyword research tool!)

Back to links vs content, as promised. Hopefully I'm not oversimplifying here, but long-tail keywords can get top rankings (yes, even top 10) based on content alone. Contributions from internal linking structure, title tags, header tags, and so forth are all bundled into "content". On the links side, links help you rank for short-tail keywords, the more popular and competitive keywords. The better your linking strategy, the better your ranking. I recently posted about anchor text of inbound links, and this gives several examples of sites that have very few if any instances of a keyword that they rank in the top 3 for.

Practically speaking, a good place to start is to organize your keyword list into short and long-tail keywords. For your long-tail keywords, order unique content or write articles for your site/blog. For your short-tail keywords, identify the top 5 keywords you want to rank for and analyze your competitors in that search field. Then pursue a link building/buying strategy that will get you there.

Stump the SEO: Same Content, Multiple Sites

We have been asked this several times in the last few weeks, "Will I rank better if I put my content on multiple sites?"

No! This is what we call "duplicate content" in SEO, and it is a no-no. There was a whole session at a recent advanced SEO conference (SMX) all about duplicate content. Your sites should have unique content, and that doesn't mean just change the city name and another field in a few different places. Google's not dumb, and they won't rank all 10 of your sites for the same keyword because you have 10 sites using that keyword. You'll be lucky to get one page to rank for it!

If you want to play "Stump the SEO" send your questions to us! Just reply to this newsletter or email us at newsletter@soloseo.com.

Top 5 Top Blog Posts in SEO

I love a challenge. In fact, if I don't take on a challenge it drives me nuts. So when Darren Rowse came out with his group writing contest (project) with the topic of "Top 5″, I had to come up with an entry. I thought I would get creative and make a top 5 list of top posts from top experts in SEO.

Obviously I couldn't cover more than 5 industry experts, as they are many more than 5. Also, if you don't have a "Top Posts" page on your blog I couldn't include you. Stuntdubl highly recommends you do that.

1) Michael Gray (GrayWolf) has a remarkable series on local search, but one of his top 100 posts on local search is titled 13 Ways to Promote Your Local Business for Free. He gives a comprehensive list of local search techniques and websites that anyone can make use of, no matter their budget. (Interestingly, GrayWolf's review of SoloSEO is found on his top 100 posts page…neat!).

2) Todd Malicoat (StuntDubl) has a wealth of posts at his top posts page. One of the top posts that I will never forget is on The Link Building Cycle - 6 Steps of the Link Building Process. He goes through the entire process of building links, a great primer for anyone interested in SEO. I couldn't leave out The SEO Playbook too, which will go down as a classic in Todd's blog posts and SEO history.

3) In Lee Odden's (Online Marketing Blog) most popular posts page he includes the top 10 posts in terms of traffic received. One that stood out to me is one of Lee's signature topics, The Lowdown on Press Release Optimization. Lee was part of an excellent panel at PubCon last year on Press Releases. From his top blog post on press releases:

Other than press releases, another way to get into sites like Google news is to write articles and submit them to publication web sites and also blogs that are already getting picked up by Google newsbot. Perform a search on Google News for relevant keywords and note the sites that are getting picked up. Find out if they accept articles and press releases and submit.

4) Rand Fishkin (SEOmoz, which I prefer to pronounce as sea-moss just for fun) has a most popular ever page but you can also break it down to the past day, week, month, etc.. The top post ever related to SEO (first is his proposal) is Ranking Factors Version 2, which actually points to the actual article, but discusses its overall findings. This Ranking Factors gets help from industry experts to decide on what is important, what is not, and to what degree, in terms of ranking factors for search engine optimization. It is a must read (and must study) for everyone in SEO.

5) Brian Clark (CopyBlogger) is one of the blogs that really made a significant impact in our content business, and is a staple blog for anyone in Internet Marketing. In the sidebar of his blog he lists popular posts, and one that I love is How to Attract Links and Increase Web Traffic Ð The Ultimate Guide. He links out to an incredible list of resources that combat the topic of attracting links and increasing traffic. Refer to this list often, and you will find your SEO starts improving quickly.

These experts and others have provided a wealth of information for SEOs. Without much formal instruction in search engine optimization, this is where we can dive in and learn everything we can about optimizing for both users and search engines. This is one amazing facet of SEO, that SEO experts that charge thousands and thousands for this information will share it freely on their blog. It's a fantastic community, and I have certainly grown in my knowledge by leaps and bounds just from learning from the experts.

Read the original blog post

Super SEO Articles

Optimizing Your Video Pages in 10 Easy Steps, Andrey Milyan of Search Marketing Standard

How do you Measure a Link? by Rand Fishkin, of SEOmoz

7 Experts Share Advice on Marketing a Website on a Budget

Two Companies Using PPC, One Flourishes, One Starves

Six Elements for Effective Landing Pages, by Greg Howlett at Marketing Pilgrim

Search Illustrated: Google PageRank Explained by Danny Sullivan, Search Engine Land