Is All SEO Trying To ‘Get Something The Content Doesn’t Justify’?

I ran across this lively “SEO” discussion on Reddit and I can’t help but agree with what AnonJian had to say on the topic:

“Past getting listed, most SEO is bad SEO. White hat. Black hat.Because when you strip off the rationalizations, all SEO is trying to get something the content doesn’t justify..”

In other words, we have to realize that Google is in the business of providing quality, relevant search results for the user. If your SEO does not help Google to accomplish this goal, you’re working against Google and their business goals, which means you’re working a short-term strategy.

At the same time, if you focus on the content first, then make sure you’re hitting on at least one targeted keyword in your title as sort of an after thought, I don’t think you’re doing any harm and can only stand to benefit from increased search traffic. What do you think? Is all SEO bad?

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Why A Site With Bad Links Could Still Be Ranking High (Video)

I’ve had a couple clients ask me why sites with a bunch of spammy backlinks are still ranking high in Google. With Google’s Panda and Penguine updates, most of these sites should be banished from the top 10 right? Yes, but as Matt Cutt’s explains in the video below, Google has some fine-tuning to do still:

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5 Loud and Clear Messages About Search, Social and Content Marketing

Iris Creative has been kind enough to give us a little SMX West wrap-up. I’m going to have to try and make it next year!

Via IrisCreative

“1. G+
Google is serious about Google Plus. They have made significant changes over the last few months – rolling Places into G+, requiring a G+ account to write a review, and most significantly, displaying search results based on who you are connected to on G+.
Presenter Mark Traphagen said “Unlike any other network, G+ extends your reach far beyond the network itself”. And in another session, Panelist Brent Csutoras said (strongly) that the one place he won’t automate social is on G+. In all other social networks, what you do is fairly self contained, with Google Integrating G+ into search, the impact of your footprint extends to your entire online presence.

2. Sharing
Last week I attended the District 2 CASE Conference where it was discussed that sharing could be considered the key measurement of success in social. I have seen this brought up on the AMA Nonprofit Marketing forum as well as other places lately and wrote about it in What Makes a Post Sharable?

It was a central topic at SMX West as well. Its not just social media, its not just a sharable web. We are moving to a connected economy where who you are, who you know and what you do are transparent and integrated into online functionality…” [Continue Reading]

How To Use Google+ Pages To Drive More Traffic From Google Search

When Google+ first launched business pages, you weren’t allowed to follow people unless they were following you. You could follow other business pages, but not people. Somewhere along the way, this has changed, and you can now circle or follow anyone and anything on Google+.

When first starting off, this is the best way to build an audience on Google+. It’s not all that different from Twitter in this regard. You follow others, and there’s a good chance they’ll follow back.

The best part is, thanks to Search+, if somebody following you performs a search on Google that is related to your site, there is a good chance Google will list your site on the first page of the search results, all because that person is following your business page on Google+.

Not only that, Google might also list your site high in the SERPs for people who are friends of those following your page, meaning they’re not following your page directly. That’s powerful!

In order for this to work right however, you must add the Google+ “publisher” tag to your site, connecting it with your Google+ page.

I also highly recommend publishing unique content on your Google+ page and make sure you’re posting to the public! Public posts show up in the Google search results and it would seem Google likes to rank Google+ posts high in the SERPs.

Yet Another Awesome Gmail Productivity Tool

As a freelancer or business owner, you want an easy way to keep track of your business expenses for the year. For this reason, Gmail labels makes a lot of sense, you just put all of your receipts in a Gmail label.

The problem is that when it’s time to print these emails out, you have to open EACH email and print each one seperately. Not anymore, thanks to Gmail Print All For Chrome:

“Gmail Print All for Chrome is here to help you quickly export messages right to a Google Doc that you can print, save as a pdf, share with others, or store in a way that works for you. Built to be simple to use, all you do is add messages to a gmail label and run Print All from your Chrome Apps screen. This will create a Document in Google Drive containing the content from your messages.

Each conversation thread gets a page of its own with the subject at the top, the number of messages in the thread and messages organized by the date.“