There are a lot of fun things Siri can do including transcribing text to voice, setting reminders, playing music, checking the weather, getting directions, and yes carrying out search queries. Undoubetedly, Siri will catch on like wild fire, and as a result will compete with many apps and tools, including search engines.

Optimizing for Siri

The integration of Siri will begin to affect strategies and optimization efforts, but most of these things should be part of an immersive SEO program from the start.

Local Search for Siri

People search from mobile devices on the move; they’re not sitting down to do indepth research. A majority of mobile searches are loaction-specific including directions, finding nearby restaurants, or other local services.

With Siri, it’s not about people getting to your website through Google placement alone because visiblity comes from other sources. Siri wants to give users a visual experience and draws data from local listing sites such as Yelp, Google Maps, Citysearch, YP, etc. There are more than 60 of these sites on which it is well worth your time to create a listing. It’s not just for Siri, getting listed on (and links from) all these sites improves local listing and organic placements in SERPs as well.

Obviously you’ll want your information to be correct, up to date, and fully filled out on these sites with accurate address, phone number, images, positive reviews, and a high number of ratings. For more info on local optimization, check out our post on local listings SEO.

Rich Snippets and Schema Tags

Schema.org lets you use a specific markup language (web code) to identify specific information about your business and web presence and make that information more easily found by search engines.

Search engines are using on-page tags in a variety of ways. Google uses them to create rich snippets in search results and will continue to do so more and more. These snippets include author information, address, phone number, operating hours, and so on. So you can see how these tags have value to local searches such as are the focus of Siri. Offering a highly structured format for this information, makes it that much earier to be found.

Variety in Linkbuilding and Long Tail Keywords

This is the first version of Siri, and its depth of language capabilities will continue to increase with new versions. Therefore the following effect will only continue to grow. Already, the length of Siri queries are longer because users are searching in natural speach rather than pecking away at keyboards or small iphone touchscreens.

The result is more long-tail and highly targeted searches. Optimizing for long-tail means more words on the page and more flexible link building. Both of these strategies work in organic search as well, so you won’t even have to duplicate your efforts.

It used to be that you chose your anchor text and could simply bang away at it over and over. With enough links, you’d move on up. That hasn’t been best practice for a while, and Google is becomming even more focused on natural-looking anchor text profiles. Not only is this a saftey-first method, but it’s also more efficient. Flexible anchor text (anchor text with the keyword integrated here and there, but also broadly varied) is more efficent in increasing rankings, even for the targeted, high-volume terms.

Back to Siri, the efforts you make to naturalize and get the most out of your link profile will also help you rank for long-tail searches, which Siri is all about. As a bonus, long tail searches are more targeted to the specific needs of a given search query and therefore convert at higher rates.

The iPhone 4s (S is for Siri? Seems that way to me…) is Apple’s best selling phone to date, with 4 million sales in three days. Verizon started carrying the iPhone earlier this year and even Sprint has had no choice but to jump on the bandwagon. It’s a monolith, and it’s the impetus for a new fold of search optimization.

Leo Laporte’s Keynote Address:
Marketing in the Social Era and the Future of Search

Leo Laporte is an Emmy Award winning veteran of technology broadcasting, and a great thinker with respect to internet and marketing. He had some noteworthy messages.

Leo offered some insights into where advertising and marketing has evolved to the present day. If we look back to say, 1890, and examine a Sears catalog, we’ll see basic descriptions of “features and benefits”–no marketing fluff there. But as the 20th Century progressed, marketers injected skill and technique to bend a product’s message to appeal to buyers on an emotional level, or to force brand identities upon consumers. An effective technique to be sure, but not necessarily in the interests of consumers. A related idea: “brands are the refuge of the ignorant.” In other words, a brand is what a consumer refers to when they have no true benchmark for the underlying quality or suitability of a product or service. More recently though, in the very recent few years, consumers have come to depend on online reviews, ratings and recommendations from their social circles to make buying decisions. This is a fundamental shift in purchasing motivation. As Leo notes, it’s as if the circle has closed and “features and benefits” now become the linchpin of purchasing decisions. He sees social media and websites with engaged users as the great drivers of purchasing decisions in the present and near future.

Leo also offered some predictions about the future of search engines and Google specifically. He does not feel that Google will be as relevant in the future and went as far to say that Google will have some serious challenges in the future. The example he gave was Apple’s new Siri app. Siri lets users speak a command like “find me a dentist near 78704″. Siri then completes the search and offers the user an answer to that query. Note that something very fundamental just changed: the interface (Siri) now controls how the query is executed, rather than the user (as is the case with a simple search at Google.com). So, if Apple chooses to direct Siri queries to Google, then Google controls the query. Leo noted that the internet was a “disintermediary”–it killed travel agents because users could simply make their reservations at the airline directly. Services like Siri are “re-intermediaries”– they insert themselves between the user and the search engine. So, theoretically, if a manufacturer like Apple can control the user interface (as is the case with Siri), Apple can control the search, thereby threatening Google.

Google’s Matt Cutts and Amit Singhal Talk About Upcoming Initiatives at Google

Matt Cutts, the head of Google’s spam team (he also authors and appears in Google’s Webmaster Central Channel Videos on YouTube), and Google’s Amit Singhal spoke at the commencement of the 2nd day of the session. Conferences like this are a great way to learn what Google thinks is important and how they value sites and decide rankings.

I ran into Matt Cutts at the Wynn Casino. He was gracious enough to spend a few minutes speaking with me and my wife.

Beside some expected disagreement with Leo Laporte’s earlier warning that Google was in big trouble, one particular highlight caught my attention:

Google Testing an “Above the Fold” Algorithm

Matt Cutts stated that Google was testing an “above the fold” algorithm change that “so far…looks pretty good.” The term “above the fold” refers, simply, to the top of a webpage. The term is inherited from the newspaper industry, the fold being the upward-facing part of the newspaper as it lays flat. This algorithm change would look for quality content at the top of a webpage. So, if a particular website were stuffed with ads, that website might not perform as well in search following the change. No word on if or when this will be implemented.

Some additional insights into search headed forward: Mobile search will continue to grow in importance, and Google will be working to continue to build quality in that area. Social sharing and activity will continue to be more important headed forward. Matt Cutts also proposed a way to protect the original creators of content from having that content stolen by scraper sites. He said that Google may soon begin allowing a notification system that works as follows: when new content is created by a website owner, the creator can ping Google with an alert that confirms that “I am the creator of this content and all other copies are not to be indexed and appear in search.” If implemented, this improvement will be a valuable tool for website owners. Matt also spoke about author reputation in search, noting that author reputation and authority can serve as a great measure of the value of content created by those authors.

General Ideas Presented at PubCon

From the broad pool of speakers, some general ideas emerged that present great opportunities for ranking, placement, and visibility headed forward.

Author Profiles in Search Results

This idea echos what Matt Cutts said about author reputation. In the screenshot below, you’ll note a screenshot image of some search results with a thumbnail photo of Matt Cutts and the text “by Matt Cutts – In 135,595 Google+ circles”. This is a recent search feature that links an author’s content to his or her Google+ profile.

This feature is easy to implement by tagging content with a link to each author’s Google+ profile. We’ll be rolling this out for our clients in upcoming weeks, and of course, we’ll be working with clients to help build out properly optimized Google+ profiles. It is also important to note that this connection between author profiles will add authority to the content and potentially can increase the ranking positions of such content. In a WordPress environment, this feature will apply to posts, but not to your commercial pages, and contact pages, etc.

The Power of Social Sharing

Another prominent theme at PubCon (the second PubCon in a row, actually) is the power of social sharing to increase ranking and visibility. Besides the obvious effect of gaining additional placement through the sharing of content (after all, if content is shared, that means other people will see it), sharing of content can serve as a signal to search engines that “this content is valuable” and “this site is a legitimate source of content.” Remember, Google’s mission is to filter out thin content and deliver valuable content in response to search queries. Social sharing continues to rise in importance as a ranking factor within Google and other search engines.

Site Value Over Page Value

Another topic discussed at PubCon was the continued shift in how Google values individual pages of content. Typically, in the page, Google would tend to rank an individual page based on the merits of that page: the page elements, keywords used, load speed, inbound links. More recently, Google is shifting its focus to the value of the site as a whole. And so, a loose collection of well-optimized pages will not perform as well as a website that has developed overall authority. Ways to achieve this? Start by removing weak content from your site–weak content can actually harm your valuable content by lowering the authority of the site as a whole. Also, social sharing, discussed above, can increase the authority and power of a site.

That’s something that we talk about in chapter six, the link building chapter, of our SEO for WordPress book.

But which directories are good and which are junk? There are a lot of lists of free article directories out there, but most of those lists are out of date, or they don’t have the needs of SEO in mind. You need directories that won’t give you too much of a hassle. You need a directory that will give you a lot of PR juice through a fair number of dofollow links, and you can’t have them throwing in a lot of editorial back talk.

That’s why the TastyPlacement team has compiled a list of the easiest SEO article directories out there. This is all current information, with the directories listed from most to least suitable. We had to look at over 600 directories to find 80 that are suitable to your needs. We’re posting this resource for free because we feel that you shouldn’t waste your time with article directories that won’t give you dofollow links or will be careless with your valuable content.

So give it a shot and let us know how it works out! We’ll update this post every month, so keep coming back!
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Updated November 2011

List Your Keywords

You should carefully plan out what keywords to use in your content. There are tools online that could also help you choose keywords that are often used in search engines but most of the time, you have to pay to use these kinds of tools. List keywords you have thought of and if you can, consult with other SEO specialists to know which among your chosen words should be used.

Never Flood Your Article

Choose only one or two keywords to include in your article, maybe three the most. Putting so many key phrases on just one article does not give focus to any one of those keywords. Also make sure that the keywords come naturally in the content and are used in such a way that it makes sense. Flooding or putting too many of the keywords in the article also will not help.

Prioritize Your Market

Always keep in mind that your website is for people and not for search engines alone. Write contents that would cater to the needs of your market; something that is beneficial for them and one that they could share with others. This would also add traffic to your website.

Include Keywords In The Header Tag

The title of your article is as important as the body of the article. Search engines that are crawling your site look at the text in the header tag first. So the exact keywords you have in your content should also be in your header.

Utilize Exact Keyword Phrases

The phrases you choose for your site should be consistent throughout the content. Remember that search engines are machines so it wouldn’t be able to distinguish the difference in the meaning of the words being used. For example, the word wash in the phrase “white wash” or “wash basin” would be all the same for search engines. So exact phrasing of keywords being used should always be implemented in the content.

Using Photos

Images also help a lot in content marketing. Adding pictures that are related to your content especially to the keywords you are using would be useful on images searches. Ultimately, this would direct more traffic to your website because of the relevant images present.

All these tips can be used for a successful Search Engine Optimization. Although the contents in your site play an important role in the marketing of the site, there are other things to consider as well. So learn more about SEO marketing for a successful traffic generation to your website.

Getting Links Takes Time

First of all, securing inbound links takes time. A typical white hat SEO campaign will involve writing to other websites and web directories and inviting those other websites to link to our own. Without an SEO campaign, links from other websites take years to develop naturally. One way of looking at an SEO campaign is a process that accelarates what would occur naturally. And, as we all know, inbound links are counted by all great search engines as a “vote”–sites with inbound links are deemed stronger, and hence are ranked better.

This process of writing to other websites takes time. Even if you or your SEO consultant completed say, 100 requests in a day, the webmasters of those 100 other sites may not get around to answering immediately. I have received messages back from other websites over a year after I have made the link request. So, you’ll get some links quickly, and some links will take much longer. The good news is that when you do undertake link requests, you can reasonably expect that your requests will bear fruit down the road, and it’s good to know that you’ve got some links that will be coming in months down the road. It’s like saving for a rainy day.

Once You Get an Inbound Link, It Takes Time for That Link to Be Indexed

Now, let’s assume that a few weeks have passed, and you have secured 50 valuable inbound links from 50 great websites all pointing to yours; remember, you requested 100 and you will never get every link you ask for so this example might even be very rosy. Some webmasters will never answer your request, and some will not not link back for whatever reason.

But, so far so good, you have some links pointing in to your site.

But wait–Google and Yahoo may not get around to indexing those 50 pages for days or weeks. Google will generally index most sites in 3 to 4 weeks; Yahoo takes quite a bit longer, and MSN longer still (as these 2nd tier search engines improve their technology, look for their indexing speed to catch up; they are slow to index and they know it). And, until the search engines update their indexes of the pages that link to your site, it’s as if the link doesn’t exist.

And if that wasn’t complicated enough, search engines are not slaves to webmasters–search engines do not index every page they find. So, even if Google comes upon a web page with a link to your site, it may index that page immediately, it may return a few times before the page is indexed. In that case, some links may take months to be indexed.

Only after your link is indexed do you enjoy the inbound linking power that that site gives you.

The Sites that Link to You Have to Wait for Their Links Too

And, don’t forget that the sites that link to you are “living” websites too. The strength of their web presense is based upon the links that they receive–and that landscape is constantly changing. When your site is new, the sites willing to link to you are going to tend to be new as well. As such, the inbound linking power of the sites that link to you will tend to be on the lite side. However, those sites will grow into stronger sites as they age, and then the inbound links that you enjoy from other sites will rise with that tide.

The Sandbox Effect

And then of course there is the sandbox effect. The sandbox effect refers to the phenomenon of a temporary ranking penalty applied to newer websites that undergo rapid expansion in either size or inbound links. The effect is fiercely debated and never conclusively proven either for or against.

Google’s informal mouthpiece, Google employee Matt Cutts, has publicly stated “[t]here are some things in the algorithm that may be perceived as a sandbox that doesn’t apply to all industries.” Mr. Cutts’ statements are carefully crafted, frustratingly rare, and are widely regarded as extremely reliable.

And so, the sandbox effect may serve to temporarily dampen the effects of any promotional campaign that you undertake.

The lesson? Patience.

First, a quick definition. Keyword density is the frequency of a particular search phrase within a body of text or element within a web page. If a keyword phrase appears 100 times within the body of a web page with 1000 words, this frequency represents a keyword density of 10%.

I recently began thinking about keyword density after researching the question and learning that very few experts agree on the proper percentage of keyword density needed to achieve superior search engine results for a given keyphrase. So, we set out to run some analysis on a high-value, highly competitive search phrase to see what we could learn about keyword density. We selected the top search engine results pages and ran the results through a keyword density analyzer; we tabulated the results below.

How to Test Keyword Density: What Keyphrase to Test?

Our test had a few parameters:

1. First, the search phrase had to be something that was competitive. We wanted to test a search phrase that the SEO’ers had worked hard to optimize. A competitive phrase was more likely to have been tested and retested to obtain high rankings.
2. Second, we wanted a phrase from within the world of SEO–again, a phrase that was worked by its handlers, people that are versed in the idea of keyword density.
3. So, we settled on the phrase “SEO Expert”.

We Googled our sample test phrase and sure enough, the top results were from easily recognized names in the world of SEO. The number 1 result was Brad Fallon’s (of the StomperNet SEO education courses) page, BradFallon.com.

And here are the top 3 search results for the search phrase “SEO Expert” (using a Chrome browser):

1. www.bradfallon.com
2. www.top10seotips.com/seo_expert.htm
3. www.mrwebguru.com

Keyword Density – Running the Analysis

The table that follows shows the keyword density analysis for the top 3 performing pages for “SEO Expert” for a variety of HTML elements. We have also included the total number of on-page words.

What It Means, and Solving the Riddle

These results intrigued me–at first. Top10SEOTips and Mr.WebGuru’s keyword densities, while for the most part relatively equal, bear almost no relation to the number 1 result, BradFallon.com.

First, with respect to Top10SEOTips and Mr.WebGuru, the results make sense. Sure, there are some differences: Mr.WebGuru has no Meta Keyword for “SEO Expert” and has no bolded body text. Nevertheless, the similarities between these two pages are striking: the keyword densities for Title Tags (22 vs. 28%) Total Word Count (1228 vs. 1366), and H1/H2/H3 Tags (23.5% vs. 25%) are nearly equal.

Meanwhile, Brad Fallon hardly seems to be trying–hence the riddle. Except for a very high keyword density in BradFallon.com’s Title Tag, the search phrase hardly appears at all. And, a reading and review of the pages themselves makes quite clear that Top10SEOTips and Mr.WebGuru are highly focused and hyper-optimized pages, while BradFallon.com is simply a blog front page which displays his 10 most recent posts.
So why does BradFallon.com rank so well for “SEO Expert” when his on-page keyword density is near zero? The answer lies in the number of backlinks that each page enjoys.

As this table shows, BradFallon.com enjoys a tremendous number of backlinks, more than 10 times the 2nd and 3rd results combined. BradFallon.com’s backlinks obviously “brute forced” the search rankings and pushed it to the top of the results–despite BradFallon.com’s lack of specific optimization for the phrase “SEO Expert”.

Keyword Density: The Lesson

But we set out to learn about keyword density–we already know backlinks are important. Setting aside BradFallon.com, the 2nd and 3rd ranked sites offer a valuable lesson. These highly tested pages are obviously finely honed–and thus the keyword density percentages that appear on these pages are a valuable and reliable benchmark that I’ll use going forward–at least until I can get 16,000 backlinks.

-Michael