How can I change a Google+ custom URL?

Rules for getting a custom URL

There are a few rules to keep in mind when you’re trying to get a custom URL. If you’re having trouble, make sure:

• You have ten or more followers (people who have added you to their circles)
• Your account is at least 30 days old
• Your profile has a profile photo
• Your account is in good standing
• Get a custom URL for your Google+ profile

Mastering PPC: What is an MCC & Why do agencies use it?

When it comes to selecting an agency, one question many clients are concerned with is, who “owns” the AdWords account? Does the agency own the account? Does the client own the account? Will the client even have access to the account?

In most scenarios, if the client has an existing account, the agency will link the client account to their My Client Center or “MCC”. If the client does not have an existing AdWords account, the agency should help the client create their own AdWords account then link the Client account to the agency MCC.

By linking the client account to the agency’s MCC, the client will always “own” the account and the associated data. The client will also have the ability to grant or terminate an individual or agency’s access to the account as they desire. By linking the client account to the MCC, the client can be reassured that they will always be able to access the account’s data even if the relationship with the agency ends. Therefore, linking to an MCC also provides the client an additional level of security as they will never need to share their password with the agency and risk having multiple users accessing the account from one login.

Bing Ads,LinkedIn and Facebook also have similar interfaces to manage multiple client accounts. However, for this post, we will focus on Google’s MCC.

What is an MCC?

MCC stands for “My Client Center” which is an AdWords account type for advertisers or agencies who are managing multiple client accounts.

The Google My Client Center account, allows agencies to access multiple AdWords accounts through a single log-in. With all client accounts available through one log-in, an MCC allows agencies to easily view performance statistics across multiple accounts in one centralized location.

When you log into an MCC, there are two main tabs “Performance” and “Budget”, each allows you to view performance or budget metrics across all of the accounts that are linked to the MCC.

Additional Features for MCC users

Using an MCC grants agencies access to a few additional AdWords features like Manager Defined Spend (MDS) billing and multiple Client Reporting. MDS billing is a simple way for MCC users to control multiple client account budgets across one single invoice. This feature can be beneficial if a client has flexible budgets that need frequent updates due to seasonality or a large client that requires multiple AdWords accounts. We will go into further detail regarding client billing options in an upcoming Mastering PPC post. In addition to MDS Billing and Client Reporting, you can also review account alerts and set up automated rules across multiple clients.

Reporting Across Multiple Clients

One of the most beneficial features of using an MCC is the Client Reporting tool. This reporting interface provides the ability to pull reports across multiple client accounts at once. This can be extremely helpful when reviewing Agency-wide performance, or if you want to measure trends across clients within a similar industry. Account managers can also run accounts specifically for just the clients they support. For example, if an account manager is on 4 accounts, they can easily run 1 report for all 4 of their accounts in Client Reporting compared to running the same report 4 different times within each account. This feature saves valuable time when it comes to reporting and analysis.

Advanced Filtering and Segmentation across Multiple Clients

Along with the ability to report across multiple clients, Client Reporting also allows for simpler filtering and segmentation of data compared to the standard campaign reporting. When creating a report in the MCC’s Client Reporting interface you are given the ability to layer up to 3 segments on one report across multiple accounts. You can also combine the 3 available segments with filters for an even more granular look at the data. For example, if I wanted to view all of the enhanced campaigns that have an invalid click rate greater than 15% by day of week and device across all my eCommerce clients, I can easily get that level of detail in Client reporting by setting up a report with the following settings.

Report Type: Campaign Performance

Segments: Device & Day of week

Accounts: Select applicable accounts

Filters: Network, Enhanced, Invalid clicks >15%

The MCC Client reporting feature also allows users to schedule recurring reports and have them delivered via email on a regular basis.

One of my favorite Client Reports I have set up on a recurring basis is a Multi-Client – Search Term report which is emailed directly to me each Monday morning for the previous week. This allows me to easily open the report in excel, make a quick pivot table, and review all search terms that produced traffic over the past week. Through the use of excel filters; I can quickly spot negative keyword opportunities and/or keywords that we should add on exact or phrase match.

Back the original question, what is an MCC?

An MCC is an AdWords account type that allows advertisers to access multiple client accounts via one interface. By using an MCC, users benefit from simplified reporting across multiple accounts along with some additional advanced billing and management features.

How To Generate Leads Through Social Media

How To Generate Leads Through Social Media

When most marketers think of social media they immediately associate it with brand building, and not sales. After all, no one really buys products because of a Tweet, right?

Wrong.

The truth is that social media is much more than just a way to grow your brand and connect with your current customers. When done correctly, you can actually use sites like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Instagram to generate real leads for your business. And the cherry on top is that social media lead generation is cost effective, and produces results: 

1. Social media marketing has reduced costs for 45% of businesses. 
2. Revenue increased for 24% of businesses when they utilized social media for lead generation. 

The question is: How do you take your social media marketing campaigns from a customer service and branding tool, and turn them into lead generating machines?

Connecting Social Media & Lead Generation

Let’s start with the basics. Lead generation is all about bringing people into your sales funnel. It’s not the same thing as selling. Think of lead generation as gathering intelligence on your customers. You’re getting to know: 

• What your target audience is interested in 
• Which products you could potentially sell to them 
• What their pain points are 
• How you can eventually turn them into paying customers 

A long time ago, lead generation consisted of things like sending out surveys in the mail, or having you fill out a form in the back of a magazine. But the Internet has completely changed the way businesses get leads—for the better.

Today, it’s all about gated content, video marketing, email opt-ins and paid ad campaigns that are aimed at getting potential customers into your sales funnel. Since it’s all done online, it’s quicker, easier to track and the possibilities for the data you can collect for each lead is amazing. The most popular piece of information to gather from leads is an email address. Some marketers also like to get a name.

Here’s how social media sites come into play. Social media makes the process even easier because of all of the information that people readily share, and also because of the sheer number of users on sites like Facebook and Twitter. We’re living in a time when 40% of people spend more time socializing on social media than face to face. So needless to say, social media makes for the perfect place to find your target audience and turn them into new sales leads.

Pick the Right Channel

One of the worst mistakes you can make right from the start is trying to get leads from the wrong social media channel. This step is all about knowing your customers. With over one billion users, it’s easy to assume that Facebook is the go-to choice. But that’s not always the case.

For B2B marketers, 44% have generated leads through LinkedIn, while 39% have done it through Facebook. Twitter comes in third with 30%.

Not sure which site your target demographic is on? Check out this post and infographic which breaks down the user bases of all of the top social media sites.

The techniques you use to generate leads is going to partially depend on which social media site you’re focusing on. Here’s some ideas to get you started.

Generating Leads With Facebook

Generating a significant amount of leads through Facebook is usually going to mean running paid ads at some point. The changes to Facebook’s algorithm have made it increasingly difficult to get organic reach. The bright side is that Facebook Ads can be budget-friendly, especially when compared to other networks like AdWords. The average cost per click (CPC) for Facebook Ads versus Adwords is: 

• Facebook: $.80 
• AdWords: $2.50 

But whether you’re running paid ads or just trying to turn existing fans into leads, here are some tips that can help.

1. Contests

Contests have been huge hits on Facebook for years. The upside is that they draw a lot of attention. The downside is that the leads you get aren’t always the most qualified because you’ll have a lot of freebie seekers. But nonetheless, it’s a good way to gather emails. Shortstack is a great tool to help you setup Facebook contests and collect your leads because it integrates with most major email marketing tools like AWeber and MailChimp.

2. Create a Custom Tab

Facebook lets you setup custom tabs on your Page, making it a great spot for contact forms. There’s different apps you can use to set these up like Pagemodo and Static HTML. These forms are the perfect way to capture leads on Facebook without having to send fans to an external site. In order to get more eyes on these tabs, make sure you link to them in your posts or when you’re running paid ads.

3. Treat Your Page Like a Website

Stop looking at your Facebook Page as just a way to get Likes. Shifting your Page to a lead generation tool will impact the type of content you post, what kind of ads you run and even the tabs that you set up.

Gold’s Gym is the perfect example of a company whose Facebook Page is built for generating leads. Everything from the “Find your gym” tab to the “Sign Up” call-to-action shows that its Page has a purpose beyond just branding.

Generating Leads With Twitter

Using Twitter to generate leads is still kind of a new thing. Before Twitter Cards hit the scene, a lot of businesses had no idea how to even get started with getting or tracking leads through Twitter. But these days, you’ve probably started to notice that Promoted Tweets (ads) are being given a little more priority in your stream. If you want to use Twitter for more than just growing your audience, follow these tips to get leads.

1. Use Twitter Cards

In 2013, Twitter released its new Lead Generation Twitter Card, like the one in the picture above. In one of the most infamous case studies of the new feature, the outdoor clothing company Rock/Creek got over 1,700 new email leads in less than a week. And you can see another case study from the first B2B company to use the lead generation cards, Webtrends.

Here are some tips for using Twitter Lead Generation Cards: 

• Use an eye-catching image 
• Statistics help 
• Make your copy very appealing—you only have 140 characters 

2. Track Brand Mentions

Are you listening to what people are saying about your company on Twitter? If not, you could be missing out on easy leads. In some cases, you could even be losing out on making sales. That’s why it’s crucial to have some sort of social media monitoring tool setup that lets you track the conversation and never lose out on a missed opportunity.

View image on Twitter

Some examples of what you can track are: 

1. Mentions of your company name 
2. Common misspellings 
3. Industry related keywords 
4. Mentions of your competitors 

3. Create Events

Twitter chats, Ask Me Anything (AMA) and other time-sensitive events on Twitter are useful for generating leads in a creative way. The key is to make sure that you have some sort of call-to-action for each campaign. For instance, Blog Elevated is a community for bloggers, centered around an annual Blog Elevated event. It uses weekly Twitter chats every Tuesday which achieve two things: 

1. Spark great conversation for bloggers about relevant topics and challenges they face 
2. Introduces people to the brand’s event (a.k.a Lead Generation) 

By hosting an event on Twitter that’s related to your industry, but not directly about your company, you’re offering free value. In turn, people will naturally want to know more about the company hosting the event, which can translate into new leads for you.

Generating Leads With LinkedIn

LinkedIn is the the top social media site for B2B leads. Since it’s catered toward professionals and networking, it’s a natural lead generation tool. But that doesn’t mean that you can (or should) just go into it blindly without any rhyme or reason.

1. Offer a Free Sample

This is a very powerful technique that can result in highly qualified leads. LinkedIn Premium gives businesses the opportunity to find qualified leads based on job role and other criteria, then contact them directly with InMail. What’s so great for B2B companies is that it lets you get past the gate keepers and go directly to the decision makers.

2. Combine LinkedIn & Inbound Marketing With LinkedIn Publishing

Inbound marketing is insanely effective. Running ads and making sales calls can still work, but the numbers show that inbound marketing is where it’s at. In fact, inbound marketing drives 54% more leads into your marketing funnel than traditional outbound tactics.

One of the techniques that falls under the inbound umbrella is content marketing. LinkedIn’s rapidly growing Publishing platform is the perfect place to: 

1. Show your expertise as a thought leader 
2. Offer valuable information about your industry that professionals will see 
3. Gain some leads in the process 

LinkedIn doesn’t exactly make this feature very visible on the site, but here’s a quick link to add a new post. And check out this case study on 30 days of publishing on LinkedIn.

3. Get on SlideShare

LinkedIn acquiring SlideShare is probably one of the best things that could’ve happened for marketers. SlideShare is a content sharing platform focused around slide decks, and they get a lot of traffic. After buying SlideShare, LinkedIn integrated it into the site so your accounts can be connected. Here’s how you can use it to gain leads:

Focus on creating slide decks that are highly relevant to your target audience. Make sure that your SlideShare and LinkedIn accounts are connected so that your presentations are visible on your LinkedIn Profile or Company Page. Most importantly, have some sort of call-to-action either inside your presentation or at the end.

Here’s a look at how getting your presentation featured on the home page can help your traffic.

How to Generate Leads on Instagram

Instagram is still in the early stages in terms of its options for marketers. It doesn’t directly cater to marketers and advertisers like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn or, more recently, Pinterest. But that doesn’t mean that you can’t use it to generate leads.

1. Don’t Ignore the Comments

Instagram isn’t only about vanity. Getting tons of likes on a photo is cool, but if you’re not keeping up with the comments people are leaving, then you’re missing out. Instagram isn’t exactly known for deep conversations, but taking the time to respond to the people that are engaging with your photos shows that you care, which in turn makes people more likely to buy from you.

Check out these apps to help make managing your Instagram account easier.

2. Use video

Don’t forget that Instagram allows you upload short video clips. This allows for some really interesting marketing tactics. Quest Nutrition has pretty much mastered using Instagram videos to generate leads. In this post, the brand made a video promoting its banana cream protein powder. This works for a couple of reasons: 

1. The video is creative and entertaining 
2. It tells you how to buy the product 

Even though you can’t post clickable links in your captions, that doesn’t mean you can’t include a URL. As a bonus tip, use a unique URL that can be tracked, so you can monitor your ROI.

3. Create Unique #Hashtags

How often has this happened to you? You’re browsing Instagram and notice that a certain hashtag keeps popping up. You’re not 100% sure what it’s about, but a lot of the people you follow are using it. So you look into it and find out that the hashtag has to do with a certain brand.

That process is how a lot of people find out about new companies. It’s almost like the new word of mouth advertising, but through social media. People “in the know” start using the hashtag, then it just keeps building and spreading. Your job is to come up with a hashtag that’s not directly about your company, but can be tracked back to you.

Notice in the Quest photo above, the company uses the hashtag #LoveProtein. If you do a search for that hashtag on Instagram, you’ll see a bunch of results with Quest products in them. Can’t you just smell all of those new leads?

Social Media Isn’t Just About Branding Anymore

Start changing the way your business uses social media today. Stop thinking of Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn as just tools for branding, and get more value by using them to generate leads.

How are you using social media lead generation? Let us know in the comments.

Tips to Avoid Being Blocked by Facebook

The problem is that reading the terms and conditions either ends up confusing us or flat-out putting us to sleep. In this post, we bring you 10 essential tips to avoid being blocked by Facebook … and not fall asleep reading the fine print.

1. Get out of Facebook Jail: Let some time pass between posts

Whether it’s because of enthusiasm, in a  productivity rush or persistence, we often end up posting identical content in multiple groups or pages at the same exact time. This is the type of behavior that gets us into trouble with the “Facebook Sheriff” as he’s on the hunt for SPAMMERS.

If they notice that you’re sharing the same information everywhere all at once, it’s very likely that you’ll get thrown into virtual FB jail (Facebook Jail).

 

To save you the ordeal, we’re going to let you in on a great tip, followed religiously by those working with Facebook professionally. To avoid penalties and infractions while trying to publish the same content on multiple pages, you’ve got to leave at least a few minutes in between each post. This strategy is an excellent method to avoid being seen as “suspicious” by the site.

If you don’t want to sit around and wait out those time intervals each time for every single group and page (Who does??), then, you should use Postcron. This app is for scheduling posts, and what’s awesome is that their posting menu offers the perfect solution for this situation. They actually give you the option to publish to multiple Facebook accounts and set up time intervals of five minutes (minimum) in between each post. This will help you avoid being blocked for excess posting. If you want to find out more about this feature, check out this this article from our blog.

2. Avoid Facebook Jail: Create original content

This wise advice comes from several Community Managers who constantly work with Facebook, and who have extensive experience in preventing getting blocked. One of the most important strategies in this regard is creating original content.

Experience shows that administrators are often blocked because they’ve used images from Google’s search results, which had already been marked as SPAM. Basically, if you use the pictures that Google suggests, you run risk that they are actually photographs that have previously been reported on Facebook as spam. That means, when you go to share them, your post will also obtain all the complaints that photo might already have.

 

Along the same lines, it’s important to check that the photos you post to your site (if you don’t do it yourself) have a proper license so you can use them without having problems.

It’s not always easy to find legal and free images on Internet, which is why we recommend that you check out safe places where you can get legit pics. On top of that, you can also create your own cards, photos, and postcards on sites like: PicMonkey.com.

Keep in mind that the warning of originality isn’t limited to just photos. Any file that’s shared by many people at once, is likely to be marked as SPAM. This also applies to text and links that you share as well. For that reason it’s always better to create your own content, as an essential part of strategies to avoid being blocked by Facebook and sent to Facebook Jail.

3. Stay out of Facebook Jail: Make it personal (and be careful with tagging)

Try to avoid as much anonymity between your “friends” as possible. Knowing who you add and making sure people know who you are significantly reduces the risk of being considered as spam and improves your credibility and your image in the long term.

The above is the conceptual benefit of this tip. However, the concrete application is as follows:  Keeping your Facebook conduct based on honesty and “real” links prevents Facebook from reading your activity as SPAM. It can hurt you if the site detects, for example, that many users don’t accept your friend or group requests. This type of behavior often results in SPAM complaints by those affected, because they don’t know who you are or why you want to add them.

Other types of behavior that you should avoid are: adding people to groups without their consent and posting on Facebook pages with non-personal profiles, such as garage sales or classifieds (which themselves are often filled with SPAM – and not being a physical person runs the risk of being reported and/or closed. Remember that Facebook’s policies state that only people can have profiles).

And last but not least, we recommend that you don’t tag people directly in  images if they’re not actually in them (a situation frequently detected as SPAM by the site). If you want to mention someone, you can do so in the comments below.

All these rules are directly linked to common sense, basically, because nobody likes to be tagged in a photo that they have nothing to do with.

4. Avoid being blocked on Facebook: Understand how Facebook works

Reading each item of the Help section of Facebook can put you to sleep immediately or just be plain confusing. So, thats why were gonna show you the most important parts based on research by an expert in digital marketing, Karen Clark.

Specifically, there are three basic rules you should follow to make sure you’re using Facebook properly:

• • Don’t use the name of a business for a personal account. You can not create a “human” profile with a name like “Mary’s Bakery”, with the idea of posting and participating in groups on behalf of your business. Biographies are intended to be used by people with their real names. You can create your actual profile and from there, mention your business in your personal information, or create a page for your project directly.

• • Every human being on the planet can have ONLY ONE Facebook account.From your personal account you can create multiple pages for businesses and enter multiple email addresses, that way that your customers can contact you easily.

• If you want more information on this, please review the Facebook terms and policies for both personal biographies and business pages.

5. Stop Facebook from blocking your account: Don’t act like a spammer

There are a number of behaviors on Facebook that, besides being annoying to everyone, can threaten the very existence of your account. Here we review the online behaviors that act as non-stop tickets to Facebook Jail.

First of all, and as we mentioned above, Karen Clark says you shouldn’t send friend requests to people that you have no connection to. In other words, try to connect only with people who could actually recognize you. This is convenient because, after rejecting your friendship, Facebook asks users if they know you, and if many of them say “no”, then you’ll be marked as SPAM.

She also recommends not promoting your business on the business pages of other users, not as a post, nor as a comment. Don’t even do it by “liking” their project.

These are unethical behaviors and the account managers of those accounts will NOT hesitate to mark you as spam. Along the same lines, don’t use private messages for promotional purposes, or else you will also be reported by the recipients of unwanted notifications.

6. Beware of saboteurs

Unfortunately, there are always people who “play dirty”. Since it’s really easy to mark someone as SPAM on Facebook, there are quite a few users who do it to their commercial competitors just to harm them. Thus, any posts you make can be attacked by “trolls” on the Network.

If you ever detect such behavior by one of your contacts, the first thing you should do is to block them from your page. If they can’t see your posts, they can’t attack them. You can also visit their personal profile and individually report them by clicking the button with the three little dots. Finally, you can contact Facebook to explain what happened, by using institutional links available at the bottom of the page.

7. Don’t let Facebook confuse you with a SPAM-bot

Business specialist Francesca Esposito-Rose in a recent article explains which actions on Facebook could get you marked as a SPAM-bot, a term that refers to automated programs, created to mimic human behavior on social networks.

When Facebook brands you as SPAM, Francesca indicates (who herself was a “victim” of the site’s policies), the first thing that happens is that they stops you from being able to comment on other pages. According to each case, they can also stop you from even LIKING anything on the social network, among other sanctions due to “excessive behavior”.

To avoid getting a “Facebook Time Out” or sent to Facebook Jail, we basically have to control the speed at which we like and comment on things. This is not only to avoid being detected as SPAM, but also to control traffic information on Facebook (which would collapse if all users do too many things in too short of time.)

8. Avoid being blocked by Facebook: Don’t go crazy posting

This is a fundamental tip if you want to avoid being sent to Facebook Jail. Professional Community Managers recommend a maximum of 5-6 daily publications in the biography itself. Also remember that it’s not necessary to tell customers EVERY nitty-gritty detail about your business. The idea is to provoke them to visit your website, where there they can learn more about your project if and when they want to.

On the other hand, Francesca Esposito-Rose suggests posting your own business page two to three times a week. She also notes that this varies from industry to industry and business to business. She also advises to experiment to find out the ideal frequency of responses according to each audience. It’s not the idea to saturate your followers’ timelines with incessant publications, which is a direct invitation to getting marked as SPAM.

9. Provide accessible and permanent information about who you are

This is a very cool tip, as it ensures a warm welcome to new followers who wish to join your ranks. It basically assures that users can find out who you are by just looking at the information section of your page or biography.

That way, people will have some information about you, which will make them feel comfortable interacting with you. A really good paragraph in the about section is usually enough of a kicker to get them to like your page.

Check out this study by moveouttheoffice.com, specialists in digital marketing. It says we should remind people what we DO and what we are about, every few posts. This will help welcome new users and will finish convincing potential followers.

10. Use “shortened links” on your page biography when linking to your site

While the technique to shorten links is more characteristic of Twitter (to save space and characters), the truth is that it’s an excellent strategy to stay out of Facebook Sheriff’s sight. Because as we know, posting the same link on multiple pages and posts, is a behavior frequently detected as SPAM.

To avoid Facebook from marking your URL as SPAM (for whatever reason), one of the best things you can do is shorten your links. To do this you can use sites like wp.me, bit.ly or goo.gl.

Following these 10 tips to avoid being blocked by Facebook and sent to Facebook Jail, that we brought you in this handy post, will save you from getting locked up in Facebook’s “prison cell”.  which would be extremely detrimental to the prosperity of your business, especially if you consider the effort you put in to your social media strategies.

Biggest Lies Told by SEO “Experts”

For as long as business has been around, there have been salesmen that can only be described as snakes – they want to come in, take your money and leave without much of a footprint left. Although not very common these days, it can be difficult to judge someone’s performance when employing in an area that you do not know much about.

Search Engine Optimisation is a classic example of this, because even though many businesses are aware that they need to have a well-run digital campaign, many are unsure of how to do this. This leads to the hiring of supposed SEO experts for help. The difficulty in employing the correct digital marketing agency for this job is identifying who is going to be the best for the job and is up to date with industry adjustments.

Many potential employees will tell lies in order to convince the business that they are the right people for the job. Here are a couple to look out for:

“Every industry is the same, I don’t need experience in your field”

Whilst there are consistencies across industries with Search Engine Optimisation, as is the case for all jobs, it is important that a business does their best to find someone with experience in their industry. An industry’s competitiveness for keywords and rankings varies significantly and this is why it is a good idea to employ someone with experience.

“SEO is all you need”

Even though SEO is a major component in marketing, it cannot be the only method used in reaching an audience. In order to maintain a successful and prosperous business, it is important to use a combination of channels including; social media, content marketing and Search Engine Optimisation.

Not only does this diversify the reach and potential sources of information reaching the audience, but the studies also show that each of these tactics complement each other and can all be used to improve the efficiency of one another.

“The more links the better”

Many outdated SEO experts will say that lots of back linking will help to improve rank – it will not. Whilst this used to be a permitted practice, Google has since shifted is emphasis from quantity to quality.

This means that it is still important to provide links to your sites but through related pages of quality rather than just spamming. When employing a digital marketing agency, ensure that they know the types of back links you want in the form of high quality and legitimate ones.

“Duplicate content won’t hurt your SEO”

This statement leads to another important point – it is extremely beneficial to hire an expert who has experience in content marketing. Content marketing plays a key role in the Search Engine Optimisation success however the most crucial point is to not have duplicate content.

Google now picks up on duplicate content and this can lead to a reduction in ranking and even penalties enforced by Google. Duplicate content is seen as a way of manipulating traffic to your site and does not fit within the regulations that the search engine sets. Re-posting an article to your blog that was published elsewhere will have negative consequences.

“The more keywords the better”

Keyword density use to be a big buzz word in the digital marketing world however, now it is more about spreading a diverse range of relevant keywords, and their variations, through content and the sites naturally. This makes things easier to read but it also enables the business to reach a greater audience by diversifying the use of worse and matching with more searches.

“I know the algorithms”

The fact of the matter is that no one knows the exact nature Google’s algorithms. True SEO experts that dedicate hours and hours towards studying Google’s algorithm will have a fairly solid idea of what’s included, but they will never know 100% of the algorithm.

Amongst the hundreds of algorithms that Google uses to rank websites, there is no way possible for anyone to know them all. On top of this, Google is constantly updating them to perform a better ranking process and even the best SEO experts in Australia don’t know about the updates until months down the track.

“I’ll submit your site to hundreds of search engine directories”

There are not hundreds of appropriate directories that any one business wants to be established on. Large scale link building is actually not beneficial and can lead to penalties from Google. So whilst it is possible to submit a site to hundreds and hundreds of web directories, it will yield no benefits for the firm.

“I’ll get you on the first page of Google” or “I’ll get you to the #1 position on Google”

The truth is, not even the best digital marketing agency can promise any rank on Google. In fact, any Search Engine Optimisation firm that promises a quantifiable change in your ranking is lying, because Google’s guidelines quite simply state that this is both not possible and they also warn against these types of organisations.

It takes time to improve rank and any page’s rank can change from day to day for reasons outside the organisations control.

“I’ll get your SEO issues resolved in a month for a flat rate”

There is no quick fix for and nor is it a set and forget type operation. It requires constant attention to adapt to the competition that is doing the same thing. Setting the foundations for Search Engine Optimisation may well be a one step process (although updating these every now and again is beneficial).

However, constant work is required in to maintaining a high rank and increasing the audience to ensure a business stays competitive. This also links into the changing algorithms of Google that were touched on above and need constant attention and development.

When choosing an agency to complete your digital marketing needs, it is important to keep an ear out for any of these common lies. These lies are simply a selling point and none will help to improve the businesses rank. Some may even incur penalties and reduce the ranking position of the site.

SEO Interview Questions and Answers For Experienced 2017

SEO Interview Questions and Answers for experienced

1. What is SEO?
   In straight forward words, SEO Stand for “Search Engine Optimization” which indicates to any action performed for the change of Search Engine rankings of sites, items, or other content. This is a free and organic traffic which comes on search engine after applying SEO techniques in website or items which you want to get rank well in search engines.
2. What is a parasite SEO?
   Parasite SEO is the method where you can add your website content on the top high authority website without any verification. You have to just register and start adding your content with proper links and images and you will get the rank of that content with keywords through different websites.
   E.g Medium.com, Quora.com, and much more website.
3. What are optimization types in SEO?
   Two Types of SEO Optiomization:
   • On Page Optimization
   • Off Page Optimization
   Also Read: What is SEO ? Types and Techniques of SEO
4. What is Google optimize?
   Google optimize is a new Google’s free tool which provides the A/B testing and optimizes visual editor of any website. Google optimizer gives a great feature to marketers to test their site in order to improve conversions. This is a beta version of Google optimize and Google Optimize 360. Read More at Google Optimize now free — for everyone.
5. What was the first search engine?
   The first search engine was Archie, which invented by Alan Emtage in 1990, then various search engines roll out which are WebCrawler (1994), Lycos (1994), AltaVista (1995), Excite (1995), Yahoo (1995), and many more.
6. What is the Semantic Search ?
   Semantic search is a search which improves the results appears on the search engine explicit and what going on the presents. In other words, if you do a search on the search engine like “temperature in Washington dc” then the search engine will show result what temperature is present right now. From this search engine, users can easily understand the temperature of the city without any hassle.



7. What are types of Off-page SEO Techniques?
   • Directory Submission
   • Social Bookmarking
   • Profile Linking
   • Event Submission
   • video Submission
   • PPT Submission
   • Classified Submission
   • Article Posting
   • Business Listing
   • Product Listing
   • Image Submission
   • Infographic Submission
   • Press Release Submission
   • Blog Commenting
   • Document Submission
   • Review Submission
   • Guest Blogging
   • Yahoo & Quora Answer etc.
8. What are types of On-page SEO Tecniques?
   • Meta Tags Optimization(Such as Meta title, Meta Description and Meta Keywords)
   • URL correction
   • Keywords Optimization
   • Content Optimization
   • Use header tags(H1, H2, H3, H4…)
   • Use proper Alt tags in images
   • Apply title on Images
   • Use no-follow for external links and follow for internal links
   • Post long content
   • Use OG graph for Social media
   • Minified CSS and JS file
9. Give me name of top SEO tools you used so far?
   Top SEO tools are Google analytics, keywords research, Alexa, open site Explorer, Google Webmaster, Aherf, Majestic SEO, LSI Graph and Keywordtool.io.
10. What are heading tags?
    In SEO, heading or header tags are utilized to isolate the heading and subheading of any content from whatever is left of the website page. There are 6 heading labels utilized as a part of SEO in a top-down progressive system. Running from h1 to h6, header tags get intelligibility content alongside pertinence and watchword consistency in the list items showed on SERPs.
11. Difference between SMO and SEM?
    SEM (Search Engine Marketing), it is utilized for the advancement of site through Search Engine Result Page (SERP), while to advance the query output of your site page or site SMO (Social Media Optimization) is for brand awareness for products and website utilized.
12. What is Googlebot?
    To file a website page Google utilizes the Googlebot programming. Reserving, Crawling and ordering of a website page are done through Googlebot by gathering subtle elements from that site page.
13. What is a XML sitemap?
    XML Stand for “eXtensible Markup Language” XML sitemap is a file where search engine understands about your website structures, your website content and then your website start appearing in search engine results. Search engines only understand sitemaps structures, not normal contents. Sitemap also provides metadata information to the search engine. If you change any core file of your website then you have to submit again sitemap in the Google webmaster tool. For check, your website sitemap Just type on your web browser your website full URL and /sitemap.xml e.g: www.tendtoread.com/sitemap.xml
    
    
    
14. What is a sitelink?
    Sitelinks are links which appear on the search engines just under the website subpages to help the user to know more information about that page/website. Two types of sitelinks paid site links and organic sitelinks. Search engine adds such types of sitemap to their own algorithm.
    
    
    
15. What is Cross linking?
    • Cross linking is used to insinuate the path toward interfacing one site to another site and give a way to deal with allow the getting to it.
    • It gives the customer’s reference districts that involve the substance related to the chase.
    • It ought not to be guaranteed by an unclear individual from it gives the techniques that have been found on the Internet.
    • It fills the need to show the page on the web crawlers utilizing site design improvement procedures and techniques.
    • The site positioning is ascertained on the premise of the significance of the destinations and after that, it is pondered the web search tool.
    • It utilizes SEO devices that give proportional connections and inbound connections that can be utilized as our SEO.
16. What are Robots, Spiders, and Crawlers?
    Creepy crawlies, robot, and crawler they are all same and alluded by various names. It is a product program that takes after or “Slithers” diverse connections all through the web, and after that snatches the content from the locales and adds to the internet searcher files.
17. What is difference between Crawling and Indexing?
    Crawling deal with a crawl or spider or bot which fetch your web page content and give information to the web. whereas indexing refers to when crawling is done then whole content went for indexing when your web page index means your website appear on Serch engine.
Note: Every crawled pages not indexed by search engine but every index pages get crawled by search engine
18. What is Different between Submitted and Indexed in Webmaster?
    Submitted means URL’s which you have created on your website that has been submitted by sitemap in Webmaster. Submitted also refer to how many URLs you have submitted in your sitemap. A submitted site can either be non-indexed or indexed.
    Indexed means that URLs which has been showing result in search engine when you do a search.
19. What is SEO friendly URL?
    SEO friendly optimize URLs are utilized to streamline the structure and word utilization in URLs so that the way of ordering a site via web search tools get to be distinctly moved forward. Search engine optimization methods, for example, putting keywords and having appropriate length and record structure in the URLs, help in enhancing site positioning and upgrading site route.
    Valid URL: http://www.example.com/seo/on-page
    Invalid URL: http://www.example.com/seo/on_page??
    
    
    Web crawlers (Google, Bing, Yahoo and so on.) and clients may have issues with convoluted URLs. Perfect and straight forward URLs helps clients and web indexes to comprehend a page subject effortlessly.
20. What is Google Sandbox?
    Google sandbox is a non-existent zone where new sites and their pursuit rating are put on hold until they demonstrate commendable to rank. At the end of the day, it checks the standard of the site.
21. What is a Do-Follow link?
    A Do-Follow Link, as the name recommends, permits Google interface number cruncher called PageRank to check all the inbound connections from other site pages and sites as connection focuses. The higher the connection squeeze or connection focuses are, the more prominent would be the hunt positioning of that page, as these connections make the website page seem exceptionally important and mainstream to the Google web indexes.
22. What is a No-Follow link?
    A No-Follow link is precisely the inverse of a Do-Follow interface in that capacity the connection characteristics don’t permit the Google bots to tail them. These connections can’t be trailed by robots; no one but people can do it.
Example of No-Follow
a href="http://www.example.com/" rel="nofollow">Link text


23. What is rel=”noopener” tag?
    When you use target=”_blank” without rel=”noopener” then some vulnerability or malicious link can be injected and manipulated to the your website pages which can be hacked. So if you use rel=”noopener” with target=”_blank” then no one can phishing your page and you are with secure hand tags. Keep try to use this tag during external links for any website. For more information benefits of rel=noopener
24. What are search engines and it’s types?
    This is a web based tool which gives the best result related to the keywords or query which asked by users on the web or search engine.
    Types of search engines are Google, Yahoo/Bing, Baidu and Yandex.
25. What are Meta Tags?
    Meta tags are text which define that what type of HTML page is about and this also help to search engine results page, when user searcess for any query on SERP. Meta tags are -> Meta title, Meta Description, Meta keywords, Meta authors and Meta robots.
    
    
    
26. What is characters limits Of Meta Description and Meta Title?
    • Meta Description characters limits are 150-160 characters with space included
    • Meta Title characters limits are 55-60 characters with space included
27. What is Robots.txt ?
    Robots.txt is a file or coding text where you gives instruction to bot block or allow your webpage URL of your website by simple code which is:
    User-agent: *
    Allow: For allow ( By default All pages are allowed you can disallow by below code )
    Disallow:/ It’s disallowed crawl bot or search engine bot.
    
    
    To view your website robots.txt file just type in your web browser http://www.yourwebsite.com/robots.txt.
28. What is Google Webmaster tools?
    This is a tool which gave by Google from where you can get all information related to your website such as
    Search appearance, Search traffic, Crawl information, Security issues, Indexing information and many more information.
29. What is Drop off in Google Analytics?
    A drop off means the user which went out of the flow that you’ve defined in your Google Analytics for paths visitors took through your site, from the source, and through the various pages. This could mean that they left your site, or that they simply left the flow of pages you’ve defined in your funnel in Google Analytics for completing a Goal.
30. Name Types of Google Algorithms Updates
    • Google Hummingbird
    • Google Mobile Friendly Update (Mobilegeddon- launched in 2015)
    • Google Panda Update
    • Google Penguin Update
    • Google Pigeon Update
    • Google Payday Update
    • Google Pirate Update
    Read More about Google Algorithms updates
31. What is Keywords Density ?
    The amount of percentage of keywords or phrases which use in your contents for optimizing. Basically, keywords density calculated by the formula ( No. Of Keywords /Total Number of content ) ∗ 100. Suppose If you have content with 100 words then and use keywords two keywords then total keywords density is 2 %. Which is very good for search engine. Don’t stuff and loaded with full keywords.
32. What is Keywords Prominence ?
    Keywords prominence place your prominent keywords or keywords phrases on prominent place of your web page like Meta tags, Header tags, paragraph, anchor text and create strong tag and place your prominent keywords.
33. What are long tail Keywords ?
    Long tail keywords are one of the most important factors for a search engine, users mostly search long tail keywords for any related query. Long tail keywords are those keywords which are the mixture of four or five phrases of words. Long tail keywords drive more traffic and get more conversion.Let’s take an example of long tail keywords: “Buy Noika Android Mobile” or “Buy Nokia Android Mobile With Dual SIM” these are the long tail keywords which lead more visitor to your website.
34. What is Keywords Proximity ?
    Keyword Proximity Refer to the closeness of keywords which close to each other. Suppose example if a keyword is “Buy Nokia mobile” then you write “buy cheap online Nokia mobile” than the proximity distance between buying and Nokia too much. Try to keep your proximity distance between keywords least as possible.






35. How to optimize keyword in SEO of any websites?
    Keyword is a solitary word and keeping in mind that a blend of those keywords makes phrases. These keywords or expressions are utilized by the web search tools to populate the subjects over the web. Web crawler stores keywords in the database, and when pursuit is done, it will think of an ideal match.
36. What are paid results?
    Paid results in SEO mean the correct inverse of natural outcomes. It, for the most part, means to promotions that are shown over the natural outcomes. A few site proprietors make installments to Google to show their sites for certain pursuit terms or keywords. Paid results show up when some client enters an inquiry question with those keywords.
37. What is rich snippets?
    
    
    
    Rich Snippets is a structured data markup which provided by search engine to more information about website for users like reviews rating ( star rating which was shown on SERP page), Event details, local business details, authors name and date on which website or blog is updated
38. What do you mean by Cloaking?
    Cloaking is a search engine technique which misleads the search engine bot into the content on SERP is different from what users looking for. This technique usually counts as SPAM by the search engine to violence the searh engine rule. Suppose, If user searching on SERP for “SEO Interview question” and many results appear on the SERP and one of them is cloaking then user click on that link and landed on the other page what he/she looking for this is count as cloaking.
39. What is Alexa Rank?
    Alexa is a set by alexa.com (a subsidiary of amazon.com) California-based company that provides web traffic data and which includes Global rank and country rank. Alexa rank also provides audience demographics with Gender, Education and browsing location.
40. What is Canonical URL?
    When you created a page and that page created a different-different URLs suppose taking a example: If you have a product website and users landed on your website and try to search RED color T-shirt so First URL where user is landed look like www.products.com/tshirts but when user apply filters for the red T-shirts then URL might be www.prodcuts.com/tshirts/?q=red/ so this is another URL of the same products page. So we tell to the search engine that this URL is not duplicate and apply canonical URL for the main page to prevent search engine not detected as duplicate URL.
    For example, similar URLs:
    • www.tendtoread.com/seo?q=bookmarking
    • tendtoread.com/
    
    
    
41. What is Keyword cannibalization in SEO?
    This is quite similar to keywords stuffing. Keywords cannibalization is techniques which repeat same keywords or phrases on your website Header, title, anchor text and in content. This can harm your ranking. For example suppose your article is related to keywords or phrase “buy men t-shirt”, then you have repeated this keyword more and more times in your header, title, in the content of your website/blog and many places. Read more about keywords cannibalizaion
42. What is keyword effectiveness index?
    This is a great way to find the top keywords which have a great traffic and competition on SERP, which also help your website to get more traffic from that keywords.
    To calculate KEI: Number of results pages/Number of searches.
43. What is Black Hat SEO?
    With a specific end goal to get a high positioning in web search tool result page, sites go for different strategies and systems which are portrayed by two classes. One technique that is adequate via web index rules is known as White Hat SEO, while the other strategy which is not satisfactory via web search tool rules is known as Black Hat SEO.
44. Grey Hat SEO?
    As name define that combination of two techniques white hat and black hat to reach the better rank than white SEO. A gray hat SEO contains less risk of penalized on a search engine. If you do more or more than you counted as black hat SEO or you could penalize by search engine.
45. How to get backlinks for a website?
    From the point of view of SEO, For backlinks Firstly we check the DA of the website and apply Off-page SEO techniques like blog commenting, Guest posting, Event submission, directory submission, social bookmarking, content outreach and competitor analysis using SEO tools.
46. What is PPC?
    PPC remains for Pay per Click and is a promotion crusade facilitated by Google. It is divided into two modules CPC (Cost per click) and CPM (Cost per thousand impressions) through level rate and offering separately. In CPC, if the client taps on the advert, at exactly that point the promoter will be charged.
47. What is 301 redirect?
    301 is a permanent redirect from one web page to another web page permanently.Let’s take an example if you type on your browser tendtoread.com then it will redirect on the www.tendtoread.com. It is a lasting sidetrack and it is additionally helpful in guiding connection juice to new URL from old URL.
48. What is the difference between soft 404 error and 404 error?
    Soft 404: Soft 404 error gives 404 error but its returns HTTP status code 200, that means this page returns homepage of the site which defines 200 OK code. Search engine crawl and index this page of status.
    404 Error: This error define that the website page which you looking for is not found or page has been moved or might the address of this URL changed.
49. What is Pogo-Sticking in SEO?
    Pogo sticking occurs when users do a search on SERP page and get many relevant results then he/she landed on a page which does not fulfill their requirement which they want and users instantly click back button or close the browser. This type of action or behavior is called pogo sticking.
50. What is LSI in SEO?
    LSI stands for Latent Semantic Indexing which means similar words. Suppose If you are using in your content keywords called “Image” and user search for picture then image and picture related to same words so try to use similar words in your content if you publishing a content on your blog for proper ranking.
51. Tell me top SEO NEWS blogs which you have read daily?
    There are many top SEO NEWS blogs few of them which I’ve read daily–> Search Engine Land, Search Engine Watch, Search Engine Journal, MOZ blog, Search Engine News, Marketing Land, and many mores.
52. What is knowledge graph in search engine?
    
    
    
    Knowledge is is a knowledge which used by search engine to give more build up information easier and faster about products, business name, famous person and company which asked by user on search engine page result.
53. What is search engine saturation?
    SES is defined by which the amount of space which occupied by search engine including their ads, images, search quires and knowledge graph, which shown on single page.
    Read more about Search eninge saturation
54. Differentiate between bounce rate and exit rate in SEO?
    Bouce rate is calculated by the percentage of users who landed on your website and left without doing any additional interactions within only one session. Bounce rate is based on number of session when users land on your website.
    Bounce rate calculted by (Visits With Only 1 Pageview) / (Total Visits)
    Exit rate is define as a users who exit from your website after navigating from landing page and left from that page is called exit rate, means when a user landss on your homepage of your website and do interaction and again he land on another page of your website, without doing any interaction he left of your website. So last page which user left is called exit rate.
    Exit rate is calculated by (total number of exits) / (total number of unique pageviews).