KeywordsMirna Bard | Mirna Bard

The Best Way to Blog for SEO – A Beginner’s Guide
Posted Aug 30th, 2011 By Mirna Bard in Blogging, Search Engine Optimization (SEO) With | 1 Comment

Are you clueless on how to blog for SEO? This beginner’s guide will take you through simple steps on how to get your blog posts in tip top shape for when the search bots come crawling.

Why Blog for SEO?

There’s two very good reasons you should do this, which lead me to put together this beginner’s guide on how to blog for SEO.

1. Since you’re already taking the time to write the blog, so you might as well know how to blog for SEO.

2. It will help drive extra traffic to your blog in the long term – which is why you’re blogging right?

How to Blog for SEO

First you should plan out your blog post. It might seem like extra work, but believe me it will make the whole process a lot easier. You can download the plan I used to prepare this blog for SEO here.

Topic – First you’ll need to decide on the topic you’ll be blogging about. Ideally it should be a trending topic or something you know is popular with your target audience. There’s no point writing about something no one’s interested in.

Keywords – Probably the most important consideration when tailoring your blog for seo is the keywords you’ll use. Once you’ve decided on your topic, the best way to select keywords is to head on over to the google keyword tool, which will show you a bunch of suggestions for the topic you enter. Ideally try to choose 2 or 3 phrases which have high search traffic and low competition. If you downloaded the plan I used for this post, you’ll see that the phrases I’ve selected are ‘blog for seo’, ‘how to blog’ and ‘beginner’s guide’, which all have low competition and searches in the thousands. (more…)
Incredibly Effective SEO Tips for E-Commerce Sellers
Posted Jul 2nd, 2011 By Mirna Bard in Search Engine Optimization (SEO) With | 4 Comments

Setting up your online shop for search engine optimization is a crucial part of making it a success. There are certain characteristics of web pages that the search engines view favorably, while there are other characteristics that they do not. Knowing what these are and tailoring your online shop presentation to be viewed favorably will land you higher in organic search results than a site or online shop that has not taken these important points into consideration.

If you’re just now beginning to set up your online shop, this is the best time of all to review these points. If your online shop is already open, it’s certainly not too late to make some key updates to your website and its item listings.

A few important points about SEO:

First, the search engines don’t officially publish a rule book on how they evaluate web pages. However much has been researched and published on what they look for and many characteristics are clear. It’s also important to note that the search engines are constantly updating their algorithms and strategies in a quest to deliver the most relevant, high- quality search results. The points covered here are those that are not likely to change in the near future.

It’s also important to remember that you are not just setting up your shop and its listings for the search engines, but equally important is for it to be attractive to online shoppers as well. Setting up your shop with both groups in mind is the ideal. (more…)
The One Single SEO Tip That Will Get You Targeted Website Traffic
Posted May 19th, 2011 By Mirna Bard in Search Engine Optimization (SEO) With | 1 Comment

What is the one thing I should do to my website that would improve my SEO? This is a common question I am asked and I always have the same answer.

I tell people all they have to do is make their listing in the search engines the one that more people will want to click on. Simple!

Of course, there is a lot in just that simple statement. First, for people to be able to click on your listing it needs to be seen and for them to actually click on your listing then it needs to offer the answer they are looking for. Put simply, it needs to say “Here I am and I have exactly what you are looking for”. Actually, it needs to shout it at you!

So how do you do this? Well it’s all down to two very important fields on your webpage. The Title tag and the Meta description tag. If you are using a content management system to update your pages then the fields are probably called Page Title and Page Description.

Now before any purist SEO specialists chime in and say that the description field has no place in your SEO strategy let me tell you they are plainly wrong. What they mean to say is that the search engines place no value on what you include in your description field. However, it isn’t the search engines that click on your listing. It’s people that do that and they read your page description. (more…)
62 Ecommerce Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Tips & Ideas
Posted May 16th, 2011 By Mirna Bard in Search Engine Optimization (SEO) With | 4 Comments

One of the reasons I like ecommerce SEO is that there is a tremendous amount of opportunities to increase the optimization quality of an online store. Unlike service businesses or online brochure websites which typically only have a few pages, a catalog of products creates a great opportunity to increase the amount of content and provide relevance for the search engines.

Here at Best Rank, we spend a lot of time educating clients about optimization and how they can use it to gain a competitive advantage in their marketplace. Having a specialty in ecommerce, my conversations are often about tips and advice on what online store owners can do to improve their rankings and increase traffic. There are plenty of resources for learning SEO online, but not a lot specific to ecommerce.

For those interested in getting their hands dirty, I have created a list of 62 Ecommerce Search Engine Optimization Tips & Ideas. Of course there are tips here that apply to non-ecommerce sites as well, but ecommerce SEO does deserve its own list.

The list is in no particular order. If you have some tips or feedback you want to add, please feel free to comment .

1. Do a search in Google using site:www.yourdomain.com. This allows you to see what pages of your website are being indexed and how they look. The results should be keyword rich and have call to action for users to click.

2. Do a site: search in Google for your competitors. While you are looking at your own indexing, look at your competition. Are their search engine results better optimized or better written? Don’t let them win.

3. Use Google’s Keyword Tool to find keywords. If you have an Adwords account you are probably familiar with Google’s Keyword Tool. If not, you can use Google’s External Keyword Tool Be sure set the match type on [exact] so you are looking at the number of searches for that specific keyword.

4. Don’t forget text on your homepage. Graphics are attractive and are great for users. Be sure that there is some html text on the homepage as well. If you have to put it near the footer, fine. Just make sure it is somewhere.

5. Be sure your homepage title uses your 3 most important keywords. I prefer to limit any given page to focus on 3 keywords. Some people like 4 and some people 2. Your homepage optimization is really important to tell the engines what your site is going to focus on. (more…)
Should You Make SEO and PPC Changes for Google Instant?
Posted Dec 3rd, 2010 By Mirna Bard in Google, Pay per Click (PPC), Search Engine Marketing, Search Engine Optimization (SEO) With | No Comments
I am still getting a lot of question about Google Instant, and I am sure it’s because everyone is concerned about their search engine optimization efforts, so I thought it may be best to clarify this in a post.

Google Instant is real time search that was launched a few months ago to help make searching faster and more user-friendly. According to Google, here are a few of the core features in Google Instant:
- Dynamic Results – Google dynamically displays relevant search results as you type so you can quickly interact and click through to the web content you need.
- Predictions – One of the key technologies in Google Instant is that we predict the rest of your query (in light gray text) before you finish typing. See what you need? Stop typing, look down and find what you’re looking for.
- Scroll to search – Scroll through predictions and see results instantly for each as you arrow down.
Google Instant works from any of the popular browsers, and the main difference between Google Instant and regular search is that Instant populates the results page before the user has completed typing their search query, giving you different suggestions. There’s no need to press Enter to generate search suggestions. Users instead select from the suggested terms or look below to see what websites come up as they are typing.

Searchers can also turn off Google Instant if they choose not to use it.

Most importantly, you can stop worrying. Google Instant does not kill SEO nor does it have any impact of rankings of search results. Google Instant search results will show three paid ads and one organic listing while the auto-complete box is activated. This means it’s likely click-through-rates on the first and second listing will rise, while those in the third and fourth position will fall. Thus, this may increase competition if you are using Google PPC.

If you haven’t already done so, here are a few best practices for Google Instant that you can do right away:

For SEO:
1. Edit your website’s meta titles on your main pages to include both the main keyword or phrase and a call to action.
2. Integrate new long tail search terms into your search engine optimization efforts. Use your analytics software to monitor these terms performance and find out how your users have adapted and what kind of impact it made.
For PPC:
1. Refine your negative keyword lists as necessary to lessen the chance of your ads are not displayed for less relevant terms.
2. Monitor click-through-rates carefully because many advertisers will be focusing on broader terms, and this can lead to a lot of competition.
If you need more information, there were a couple of excellent article written about Google Instant. These will help you make changes to your SEO and PPC plans, if necessary:

Google Instant 101

Google Instant – 10 Things Marketing Teams Need to Know

Are you still using Google regular search or have you switched to Google Instant?