Effective Post sphenisciform penguin SEO methods

This 2013, expect to check stronger and stricter computer programme terms and conditions. As such, corporations and net marketers square measure left with no possibility however to amend and strengthen their SEO methods so their have a higher likelihood of obtaining hierarchic on search engines.

Considering that the Google sphenisciform penguin  was free to grant lessons to websites whose still still observe quality content and spamming. they're currently taking live to spice up their websites through making original, distinctive and helpful articles, correct link building techniques, smart keyword improvement and on-the-scene and off-site SEO.

You must keep in mind that websites and little businesses that do not follow these techniques would get a foul impression on computer programme like the gawk.

Abide with Google's Rule

Website improvement is an important tool to extend traffic and sales. thus so as to survive within the terribly powerful competition of SEO you have got to follow Google's recommendations. Therefore, some very important factors in SEO techniques this 2013 ought to use.

High-level Google and Engagement - it's the latest giving of Google that provides several advantages that alternative search engines and social networking sites don't have. It finally comes out with terribly fascinating options that offer helpful advantages to the users to widen their client base and on-line recognition.

Author Rank - This tool has become one in every of the foremost vital SEO barometers for Google once it involves assessing however distinctive and informative your contents square measure. the best thanks to build your name is thru making quality content.

Create and Share totally different Content - so as to strengthen and boost your website's exposure you have got to make and share contents in several varieties. a number of the simplest ways square measure webinars, videos, Screencasts, graphs, infographics, articles, blogs and podcasts.

Practice Google's New Role - you'll surprise what it is? It's no apart from content supplier. does not knowledge to try and do that? it is a manner of golf stroke the most plan of your content like victimization the primary sentence to focus on customers via press releases, blogs, social media content, RSS feeds, video descriptions and article submissions.

Make Use of Social Media Solidly

It cannot be denied that they become an important technique of growing your website's exposure and widening your client base. Also, they're effective in crawl and spidering search engines to extend you web site rankings. you will miss one 1/2 the selling strategy if you are not victimization this technique.

Hence, social media specialists square measure extremely recommending the subsequent steps to become victorious in your chosen niche:

1. recognize what the vital keywords that square measure trending on Twitter.

2. create use of the Google's keyword choice tool to well decide the simplest and most relevant keywords for your content to use for web site improvement of your websites.

3. produce a Facebook fan page for your web site. Facebook is that the leader of the pack of thuscial media so it's an efficient manner of stigmatisation for your merchandise and websites.

4. interact your journal readers and guests to supply some backlinks, feedbacks and suggestion so you'll be able to create changes for the progress of your websites.

SEO : 10 most mistakes which is overly used for Websites

You’ve just heard about the latest and greatest website technique. Everyone is doing it you should try it too! Right?
Well, you might or you might not.
Too often, sites pick up a technique just because another site uses it, thinking awesome, that’s cool for me, too!
However, just because someone is doing it, even the biggest, baddest, coolest someone doesn’t always mean you should as well.
Here are some of the most commonly overused site techniques and why they're bad for users, SEO, and conversions.

1. Infinite Scroll

Sure this is a great technique for some sites, just not all sites or even most.
Infinite scroll is great for sites like Facebook where you have linear information that is best delivered in a never-ending story, but is this true for all sites or site pages? Definitely not!
Before you start laying out your page into long-form scrolling bottomless wells, ask yourself the following questions:

• Do you have a story to tell?
• Does the scroll make you want to keep going or do you feel tired?
• Does your information naturally lend itself to a listed format?
• Is there a reason your users might be better served by pagination?
• Are you proposing using it where it shouldn’t be used (e.g., your homepage)?

Never use infinite scroll on your homepage! Sorry Mashable this even means you. Your endless scrolling homepage is a nightmare for usability. Why?

• Homepages are used to direct users to information inside the site. Endless scrolling defeats this purpose.
• They are bad for SEO.
• Too much information, no direction.
• They are very heavy and in this case, can overload the browser with a 6 MB download (and that is where I stopped, bailed, and vowed never to return).

2. Sticky Nav

A sticky nav is one that doesn't move with the page. This can be a top nav, a footer or even a side nav.
Can anyone say frames? Maybe you're too young to remember when frames where cool (not) and why they went away. Sticky navs are no different, just a different way of implementing what used to be called frames. If you can bring back the Dodo, do you?
Sure, there are certain types of sites and implementations where it makes sense to take up 125-200 pixels of your top nav screen at all times with a navigation element that never disappears (oh and don’t make it disappear and reappear – just don’t).
However, a really good site search might be an even better method for quick site access. If ecommerce is your site goal, do you really want to lose that much real estate to a nav bar?
There aren't going to be hard and fast rules on when and when not to use a sticky header except that your site content is going to be your best determinant. Rule of thumb: if your users aren't going to use your nav on a regular basis once inside your site, don’t.
So how about a sticky footer? My advice? Don’t. Almost anything you put in a sticky footer bar is only good for your marketing department, not your users, but don’t take my word on it. A/B test.
In the case of the sticky navs, annoyance factors will be dependent on use case and audience.
However, always allow your users the option to disable the feature.

3. Auto-Sliders

Usability expert Jakob Neilsen just came out with a report on this technique for carousels and accordions. His advice. Just don’t. Well unless annoying your users is your goal, then please do!

4. Auto-Play Anything

Please never auto-play audio, video, or animation when users click on your site. It will only attract the wrong kind of attention from your visitors.
Visitors don’t want to hear the sound of a woman’s voice talking in the background on their computer while they scramble to find it and shut it down because it’s interrupting whatever else they’re doing at the time.
And animation? Well maybe yours is audioless, so you’re thinking you’re cool. Nope! Just don’t.

5. Banner Ads, Promo Boxes, Ads for Ads Sake

Ten or 12 years ago users used to click on those ads and even bought things. Today they are taking up valuable real estate and possibly putting you at risk for a Google ad space penalty.
Unless you're one of the lucky few who are making real revenues from these third-party traffic detours, best to leave them off your site or if you must have them replace them with internal ads to your own pages. This way you keep your visitors on your site and focused on your content.
Remember, for every cent you make for a click, you’re also taking users off your site. Is this really helping you make money in the end?

6. Pop-Up Anything

If it pops up, kill it. Whack that mole!
Seriously, with pop-up blockers almost no one is seeing it and with mobile devices you are just impeding the users ability to access your content. Now this is not referring to lightbox implementation or other styles of layered div techniques, just the actual popover or even pop-under.
Although, really? Is someone going to register to use your site if they have not gotten to the content yet? And have you tried it on a tablet or mobile device? A/B test these and see whether they are helping or impeding.

7. Websites as Apps

Your website is not an app! Repeat, in case your mind was wandering. your website is not an app, stop treating it like it is one.
Website users are a multivariate group with varying user intents, whereas the app user is looking for the app to take them quickly to definitive and finite goals. Don't confuse the two purposes.
Your website should offer all the same content on mobile and tablet that it does on the main desktop site, and your app should have 2-4 main user goals that your site data indicates are desired and needed.

8. Copy For Copy Sake

Yes, copy is all the rage these days. Non-SEO people discovered copy is good for SEO and suddenly 2012 was the year of content marketing and content development and content everything. New? No, but new to some.
So what is wrong with this? Nothing if you content is clear, consistent, and contextual.
But for many, content is about driving metrics such as pageviews and impressions and quality be damned as long as people are visiting. That isn't OK.
This type of content development, search engine trolling, is against Google’s TOS and bad for users. If it is bad for users, it is likely bad for your site. Just ask those who haven’t recovered from their Google “Content Trolling” slapdowns, well if you can find them.

9. Keyword Tagging

Keyword tagging originally started as a way to group content into sets of pre-defined keywords so users could find all articles under one topic. Now authors make up tags on the fly, are given unlimited tagging capability, and create multiple one off pages acting as topics giving the site duplicate content issues.
Your content tagging should be keyword appropriate, but limited, fixed and finite. Don't allow your authors to just make these up as you go along and don't have infinite topic creation. Keyword tagging should help find content, not drive SEO terms and unlimited topic page creation.

10. Vertical Scroll Sites

This site actually does it right. As does this one. These sites eliminate the perception of the page and allow their users to engage with the information at whatever point the page lands. These sites integrate the changes between top and bottom as a seamless flow without the need to stop at exact points.
This one is less successful. I have to try to stop it at the right stop points. This is more annoying than interesting and begins to equate to a negative user experience.
This one is a failed experience. Unless I'm on a tablet where I can easily control the stop points with my fingers or hand the movement of my fingers on my laptop pad or mouse move me past the stop point to awkward “dead spaces”.
When using HTML5 and CS3 for new styles of presentation, do not ask yourselves, why not? Ask yourselves why? If you cannot answer the why with very specific business goals supported by research and user data, then it is best to skip the “cool” and stay with the “what works”.
Oh and one SEO note, these types of sites are really bad for SEO, so if you need to be found in the search engines, don’t. Use this on a landing page or mini-site.

Why Oh Why So Much Bad UI?

Why do so many sites use these techniques if they really shouldn’t? We’ll first usually because someone in marketing or biz dev or even IT person thought hey – “THIS IS COOL! WE MUST DO THIS! PEOPLE WILL LOVE IT!” But herein lies the rub, testing shows, people don’t love it

But… But… It’s Cool!

I was speaking at an internationally recognized conference in Austin, when someone from a Fortune 100 came up to me to ask me why the landing page they just launched was not working. After all, it was so cool! They used HTML5/CSS3, vertical scroll, how could people not love it!
”Easy,” I told him. “Because people don’t care about your cool. They just want to the information and an easy way to buy if they are interested. If you do that, your page will convert.”
He then showed me a page that was converting and they could not figure out why, nothing flashy, some nice graphics, good information and a clear buy button. Well there you go, information and a way to buy, just as I had told him.
So I told him to A/B test and let me know what he found out. He did and every time the info page outdid the “cool” one.
People want to do what they came for, to get info, perhaps buy, and go home – same as if they were in your real world store. Imagine if in a brick and mortar you had to decipher how to get into the store just to get to the shoe section? But Everyone Else Does It!
“Well, Mashable does it, so we must be missing out on some sort of awesome!”
Slow your roll folks; does it seem awesome when you go to Mashable’s 6MB and growing, endless scrolling page? Or do you want to run away as your browser gets overloaded with bytes it slows to a painful crawl and you cannot find that one article you just heard about? Just because someone else does it, does not mean it is right, it is good or it even works.
In fact, just because someone else does it doesn’t mean anything. Too often today these decisions are made by marketing groups and business units, not the people who would tell you why it might be an endlessly bad idea to have an endlessly scrolling homepage.
We often don’t see these ideas perpetuated because they are good, but because we live in the age of resharing, retweeting, regurgitating and repurposing. So next time someone tells you to use what seems like a bad technique on your site, ask them what is the business reason? Where are our metrics? Why would we do this? Show me the A/B tests.
Granted, it may not stop the implementation of another notorious bad idea, but it might slow it down long enough for some other “hot idea of the day” to come take its place and maybe time to move on to something else.

Subdomains | Subfolders | Top-Level Domains

Many of the client issues we've been working with recently have centered around canonicalizing, re-directing and structuring URLs for content. Marketing, sales, executives and IT departments all seem to have a unique viewpoint on these matters, making compromise and agreement especially difficult. For the purposes of this post, I'll focus solely on the "best practices."
When to use a subfolder
99.9% of the time, if a subfolder will work, it's the best choice for all parties. Subfolders have all the flexibility of subdomains (the content CAN, if necessary, be hosted on a unique server or completley unique IP address through post-firewall load balancing) and none of the drawbacks. Subfolder content will contribute directly to how search engines (and users for that matter) view the domain as a whole. The link in to subfolders are considered relevant to the domain as a whole, and while this rule applies for many subdomains, the exceptions make it worth avoiding them.
When to use a subdomain
If your marketing team decides to promote a URL that is completely unique in content or purpose and would like to use a catchy subdomain to do it, it can be practical. Sites like maps.google.com, blog.searchenginewatch.com and even SEOmoz's own web2.0awards.org are examples of wher the marketing considerations make a subdomain an acceptable choice.
Be wary of press and media attention to the domains, as un-savvy users often don't understand the concept of subdomains or that domains can be on the "world-wide-web" without a "www." It's much less expensive to use a subfolder and have slightly less marketing panache than it is to educate through branding and advertising.
When to use an entirely new domain
When you don't want it to rank at the search engines . Seriously, though, a new domain, even for many of the world's largest brands, is not a particularly good idea. It's practical for entirely new campaigns, like a new movie (though if I were Warner Brothers or MGM, I'd opt for warnerbrothers.com/newmovie) or a new brand, and it's obviously necessary when building a new company. Other than these limited uses, however, multiple domains hosting content that could fit on an existing domain is brand dilution. I'd liken it to retail stores only taking American Express Gold cards and rejecting AmEx Corporate or AmEx Blue - overly segmented and dangerous for the consumer mindset (particularly consumers named Google, Yahoo! or MSN).
Giving up the value of incoming links, the branding of an existing domain and the historical weight given by search engines is exceptionally inadvisable, particularly in a post-sandbox era.
When to use a TLD other than .com
Only these few rare situations would sway me to move away from the .com domain:

• When you own the .com and want to re-direct to a .org, .tv, .biz, etc. possibly for marketing/branding/geographic reasons. Only do this if you already own the .com and can re-direct.
• When you can use a .gov, .mil or .edu domain (.jobs, though technically restricted to HR and hiring organizations, is available to anyone who hires, and doesn't have any special search benefits)
• When you are serving only a single geographic region and are willing to forever forego promotion outside that region (i.e. .co.uk, .de, .it, etc.)

I have no doubt my strict rules have some omitted exceptions - feedback is always welcome.

On-page Question..

Q: How does browser compatibility affect the design?

A: Very little. All recent versions of browsers (including IE 6) support web fonts, so design is only compromised by browser CSS compatibility. For example, some versions of IE won’t allow text to be displayed on an angle. In these scenarios, the browser will ignore the CSS entry, and then results in layout issues that we would have to fix by creating a separate CSS for the offending browser. In most circumstances, it is possible to make design exceptions for incompatible browsers without compromising the design.

Q: Are there any good tools for creating “live text” graphics? 

A: In truth, I haven’t come across any great tools yet. Tools like Adobe Edge do show some potential, although at the moment the file sizes of the elements it generates are too large, and it is heavily tied into its own webfont library Typekit. We tend to create our own elements as in their basic form these are just classic HTML and CSS which incorporate webfonts and these can be created with any standard web development tools.

Q: Is there a good resource for using “live text” within web pages?

A: Again, there isn’t an all-encompassing resource that caters for webfonts, HTML, CSS, and SEO. There is, however, a lot of resources that deal with these items individually. The best advice I can give is to utilise the work that other people have created and borrow that. The example site shown above shows some great examples of common elements, so please feel free to use the code from there. I am planning to create code snippets for the various elements of the demo site so they can be more easily used. Please drop me a tweet or an email if you would like me to notify you as they become available.

Q: Do webfonts slow down page load?

A: Each webfont is around 50k in size, so overuse of webfonts can affect page load. As webfonts are often used to replace graphics, the end result can be that webfonts could easily decrease page size. My advice is to evaluate the file size during the development process and keep to your existing page size thresholds. Obviously it makes no difference if bandwidth is used downloading a graphic or a webfont.

Q: What about roll-overs and mobile viewing? Do they work on touch screens?

A: Roll overs (or mouse overs) don’t work on touch devices, there are two solutions to this, either remove the mouse over event for touch devices so that the panel just acts a button, or change the mouse-over event to an on-click event to show the text behind the rollover. Either scenario is fine as the text hidden behind the mouse over event will still be visible to search bots.

New updates from google

Receiving an email like this is scary. At best, your business won’t receive any organic search traffic from Google for weeks. At worst… well, you get the idea.
What follows are the best practices for minimizing the amount of time that you spend outside of the Google search index.

Don’t Panic

Panic causes people to do stupid things – like filing a reconsideration request before taking any meaningful action to correct the problem. Simply downloading your backlinks from GWT, then uploading some or all of them to the Disavow Links Tool is not a solution. You have one chance to make a good first impression on the spam team – don’t blow it.
Your link removal efforts need to be proportionate to your link spamming efforts. If you’ve built thousands of unnatural links, then you’ve got a lot of work to do before you even think about filing a reconsideration request.
The following methodology will also work if you have been affected by Penguin. The only difference is that there is no need to file a reconsideration request. Since Penguin is an algorithm and not a penalty, there is nothing to reconsider.

Conduct a Link Analysis

Your first priority is to identify those links which are suspicious or potentially toxic (unnatural). Since all of the major back link services have their own version of Google PageRank, we’ll start by exporting the data from your link checker into a spreadsheet.
Next you will sort the links from low rank/low authority to high. Once your sort is complete, it’s time to review each link to see if it passes the “natural” link test (a.k.a. – is it real?)
The types of links that need to be reviewed and considered for removal are those that:

• Appear on a domain that isn't indexed in Google. This usually signals a quality problem, but it could also indicate a new website or a muffed up robots.txt like:
  • User-agent: *
  • Disallow: /
• Appear on a website with a malware or virus warning:

• Appear on the same page as PPC links – in this case, I mean porn, pills or casinos (or any number of non-related and/or spammy niches). This is the classic “stay away from bad neighborhoods” warning that your Mom gave you.
• Appear on a page with Google PageRank that is gray bar or zero. This usually signals poor quality or low trust, but it could also indicate a new page.
• Appear on a domain with Google PageRank that is gray barred or zero. As with non-indexed pages, this usually signals a quality problem, but it could also indicate a new website. Many low quality, made for SEO directories, share this characteristic.
• Are coming from link networks (a group of websites with common registrars, common IPs, common C-blocks, common DNS, common analytics and/or common affiliate code).
• Sitewide – especially blogroll and footer links. Most are unnatural and none pass the juice that they once did. The payback isn’t worth the risk.
• Automated. Many sites hit with a manual link penalty use SENuke or something similar.
• Paid. Now is not the time to be clever and try to “slip one by” Google. There are countless stories of people not disclosing select paid links, resulting in a rejection of their reconsideration request. They didn’t think Google would notice. But Google did. Just assume that Google knows it’s a paid link.

Create a Spreadsheet

Once you've identified the bad links, it's time to drop them into a spreadsheet with the following information:

• Link From URL: URL where the link resides.
• Link to URL: The page (URL) on your website the link points to.
• Anchor text used.
• Email contact: For the “Link From” website.
• First Link Removal Request: Insert date of removal request.
• Second Link Removal Request: Insert date of removal request (One week after request one).
• Third Link Removal Request: Insert date of removal request (One week after request two).
• Link Status: Live or removed.

Keep meticulous records on this spreadsheet. This is the supporting documentation that you will be submitting with your reconsideration request to prove to Google that you have made a serious effort to resolve the problem.

Request Link Removals

Now it’s time to get those toxic links removed. Begin by creating a dedicated Gmail account for nothing but your link removal campaign.
Later, you will include the login credentials for this email account to Google when you submit your reconsideration request. It will provide further documentation of your efforts and provide additional evidence that you're serious about your link clean up.
For the sake of efficiency, you’ll be using an email template for link removal requests. Every email will require some level of personalization, in order to be most effective.
This is done by setting up as a “canned response” in Gmail.
Start by logging into your new Gmail account, click on the gear icon in the upper right corner of the window, and select Mail Settings from the menu.
Next, click on the Labs tab and scroll down the list of options, clicking the Enable button for canned responses. Don’t forget to click the “Save Changes” button.
Next, create a template. I’ve had good success with the following:

By including the unique details shown above in red, you increase the odds of being perceived as human and also make it easy for the webmaster to find and remove the link. It also provides a compelling reason for the webmaster to take action.
After you've composed a template that you want to reuse, click on the Canned Reponses menu, choose “New canned response,” give the reply a name like “link removal request”, and click OK.

Let the Emailing Begin!

Using the information on your spreadsheet, add the necessary details, and then send. Record the send date on your spreadsheet. In some cases you will need to submit a web form in lieu of an email – remember to record these form submission dates, as well.
Record all link removals and stop emailing the webmasters after links are removed. Wait a week and resend a “second notice”, to those who failed to respond the first time.
Once again, record all link removals and stop emailing the webmasters after links are removed. Wait one more week and send a “final” notice to any holdouts.
Finally, let another week pass and any links still remaining will be sent to Google via the “Disavow Links tool.”
Yes, a month seems like forever, but failure to show a good faith effort to resolve the problem will only extend your penalty time. A rush job doesn’t show good faith.

Disavow Links & Submit Reconsideration Requests

Log into Google Webmaster Tools go to the Disavow tool and select your domain.

Clicking ‘Disavow Links’ prompts a menu asking you for a file containing the links you want to disavow. This is the list of any remaining links that you could not get removed manually. Upload the file and you’re done.
IF you're under a manual penalty, now it’s time to file a reconsideration request. When filing your request, here are some key points to consider:

• Be specific. Carefully review Google’s webmaster guidelines. Disclose all activities that you were engaged in that fell outside of the guidelines as well as the steps taken to come into compliance. This is where your spreadsheet and email documentation will be helpful.
• Confess everything and hide nothing. This is the time to be completely honest and upfront. Nothing bugs the spam team more than a reconsideration request that simply says, “My site now adheres to the guidelines.” Avoid wasting everyone’s time and burning goodwill. If your link building efforts were centered on SENuke and the BuildMyRank blog network, then say so. You won’t be telling Google anything they don’t already know. (Yeah – they know about that really juicy paid link too – it must go).
• Accept responsibility and promise it will never happen again. Explain what you're doing differently now and why it will never happen again (e.g., you fired the person who was doing your SEO or you’ve changed your policy). If the spam team doesn’t get the sense that you have put the effort in to change, don’t expect a quick resolution.
• Don’t bring up your AdWords budget, expecting to get preferred customer status.The spam team couldn’t care less about your PPC budget. It’s irrelevant.

Keep in mind that there is no need to file a reconsideration request unless you have been assessed a manual penalty. The best way to get back in the index is to follow these steps. Trying to cut corners or being less than forthcoming will only prolong the pain.

The Most Important Point to Consider

You get one mea culpa – once you get penalized you must adhere to the webmaster guidelines, religiously, from that point forward. If you get penalized a second time, there will be no quick re-entry.

How to Extend the Shelf Life of Your Content?

No matter what the goal of your strategy, if you want people to sit down to read and interact with your content, think about how you can incentivize them to do so. Why should they choose your content over the hundreds of others vying for their attention across the Internet?

We saw some big changes this past year in the way people use the Internet, with continued increase in social media use, and people engaging with content in a variety of new ways. Stellar blog posts are a good start, but it’s time to start thinking about how you can offer your readership some real value.

Use Social Media More Intelligently

You could write an entire blog post about using social media more intelligently, but what do you need to be thinking about right now?

While most big brands have a social media presence at this point, the big mistake that I see made across these channels is they exist solely to publish links to new posts, or even worse – shop listings.

It’s become something of a tired cliché to say “Social media is a conversation, not a campaign,” but no matter how many times people say it, it’s still ignored as corporate Twitter accounts shout their messages at followers.

Betfair Poker@Betfairpoker

In hindsight, building our offices over the foreboding subterranean lair of the Mole People was probably a mistake.

4 Jan 13

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Dave Allain is a marketer in Berlin. He was doing some freelance work for Betfair Poker when he offered to take a look at the Twitter account as a way to drive traffic to the work he was doing on the main site. “My style of tweeting was not working,” Dave said of his earlier attempts. “I marvelled at the creativity of some of the people I followed and came up with the idea of a fictional character who tweeted anything but poker in the hope of increasing the follower count and gaining some awareness of the brand.”

The plan worked, and Betfair Poker went from a relatively unknown on Twitter to 24,329 followers (as of January 2013). But more importantly, according to Allain, many members of the broader poker community and media follow and retweet material Betfair publishes. This is not only great for branding, but also has knock-on effects for Betfair Poker — one example being more prominent display on affiliate sites. The account has had a positive impact on the Betfair sports betting brand as well.

Betfair managed to find a unique slant for their social media marketing that fits their audience’s interests and drives viewers to their content. What we can really take away from this, is that Allain identified what wasn’t working, and wasn’t afraid to try something new. Content marketing isn’t an exact science — don’t be afraid to try something novel if you’re not getting the engagement you want.

Think about how you can use social media to add more context to your blog posts:

• Share some of your additional thoughts on a post you’ve recently published.
• Link to content from an outside source that adds something to a recent post.
• Repost a few gems from your archive.

Try using social media to build interest in the content you’re delivering while showing your followers a flash of personality.

Target your social media presence well; it’s better to have no Facebook page at all than to have one filled with poor content and a muddled identity. Don’t be afraid to pare down your social accounts if they’re not used.

Recycle Evergreen Content

If you’re lucky enough to have some well performing evergreen content on your blog (which hopefully you do as part of your content strategy), why not repurpose and recycle it for your readers?

Kevin Gibbons wrote a great post on identifying your best performing content. From there, creating something special with strong content is easy, as long as you play to the content’s strengths:

• Data-intensive posts could make great infographics.
• A solid case study could be republished as an e-book or white paper with extra information.
• If you’re feeling brave, you could pitch a popular blog post as a presentation or podcast.

When it comes to delivering this “bonus” content, use it to work towards a goal:For example, YouTube repurposed data collected on user interactions with videos to make attractive content like this infographic produced for their end-of-year review. Visual Economics regularly pairs up research with infographics to make the sometimes dry topic of economics more palatable. If you’ve done it right, you’ve delivered two great pieces of content for one idea, which is a win-win situation for you and your audience.

• Encourage subscriptions by offering exclusive content only to subscribers.
• Promote liberally on social media with the aim of boosting brand awareness.
• Tap a whole new niche with retargeted content.
• Attach the content to your brand’s new e-book so people want to download and share it, furthering the reach of your content.

Encourage Your Community

A great community that engages with your blog posts is one of the more valuable assets a brand can have. But you’ll need to give your readers value before asking them to interact with your posts via comments or shares.

While you could have many reasons for wanting to harness and engage your community, I’ll assume here that it’s solely to build a strong following around the brand. To do so, you’ll want your followers to share your stuff, enter your contests, and link organically to your content. For many digital marketing agencies, this is usually a good indicator you’re doing something right, rather than the artificial vanity metrics like followers and “likes.”

Encourage reader buy-in by turning the last sentence of your post into a textual call to action, where instead of selling to them, you ask for their opinions or feedback around the topic covered.You want to get your readers to add their own voices to the mix. Once you’ve got this conversation going, keep talking by responding to comments and sharing thought-provoking comments via social media.

Finally, in this emerging community, keep an eye out for your key influencers and embrace them. Don’t be afraid to offer them something valuable in return for their help. Using a select few key influencers brought big success for the PR team behind the wizarding world of Harry Potter.

The firm decided to make their initial outreach to online Harry Potter communities rather than traditional media. They invited the owners of the ten biggest Harry Potter fan-sites to a live webcast where they announced the new park. Because they had targeted the enthusiasts directly and offered them exclusive, valuable insider information, they received attention from both their target audience and the mainstream press, with more than 1000 articles appearing internationally within 24 hours of the announcement.

Ford had similar success with their Fiesta Movement, putting the new cars in the hands of 100 people and letting them promote the car for them via blogging and Twitter. Mashable reported that after a six-month period, the campaign had achieved more than 3 million Twitter impression and they had 50,000 interested customers, 97% of whom didn’t own a Ford at that time.

Leveraging support from the more vocal members of your community could be a great way to make waves while also showing your community that you care.

What Is On-page SEO? ( My reference )

To add to the confusion, “on-page” can mean a lot of things to a lot of people. Here, I’m taking a  very broad view – it could mean keyword research, writing good TITLE tags, internal linking and crawl architecture, or even content creation. For the purposes of this post, on-page is anything you directly control in the code or content of your site.

Case #1: The Authority

70% On-page, 30% Link-building

The Authority is an established site with a solid, trusted link profile and usually a good base of content. In many cases, it’s a site that’s evolved “organically”, which is a fancy word for “without a plan”. The Authority could be suffering from any or all of the following:

• Keyword research is 5 years out of date
• Keywords are cannibalized across many pages
• Internal links have grown like weeds
• Site architecture doesn’t reflect business goals
• Page TITLEs overlap or are duplicated
• Old but valuable (i.e. linked-to) content is 404’ing

In many cases, no one notices, because The Authority’s strong link profile and solid content keep it ranking well. The problem is that you’re sitting on a gold mine of untapped potential. Of course, The Authority should keep building solid links, but a shift (even for a few months) to really planning and focusing on on-page issues, from keyword research on up, could produce huge dividends.

Case #2: The Perfectionist

30% On-page, 70% Link-building

The Perfectionist often comes out in new webmasters. They’ve read 500 SEO blogs and are following all the “rules” as best they can, but they’ve become so obsessed with building the “perfect” site that they’ve hit the point of rapidly diminishing returns. The Perfectionist wants to know how to squeeze 0.01% more SEO value out of an already good URL by moving one keyword.
It’s time for The Perfectionist to remember the 80/20 rule – there comes a point where your on-page is good enough, at least for now. You have to get Google to your site to put that on-page magic to work, and that means building links. It’s important to develop content (which is why I’ve left on-page at 30%), but put almost every other on-page tactic to the side temporarily and spend a solid 6 months developing and implementing a link-building campaign

Case #3: The Hot Mess

90% On-page, 10% Link-building

The Hot Mess is a Google engineer’s fantasy (or possibly nightmare). She’s broken every single rule of on-page SEO, which worked fine for a while, but then came “May Day” and “Panda”, and now Google is even talking about penalizing her for optimizing too much. The Hot Mess has let something spin out of control, including:

• Blocked crawl paths and bad redirects
• Massive URL-based duplication
• Excessive internal search, categories, and tags
• Aggressive ad-to-content ratio
• Extremely “thin” content
• Nonsensical site architecture and internal linking
• Keyword stuffing that would embarrass 1998

In some cases, this could be “over-optimization” and an attempt to manipulate the search engines, but in other cases the Hot Mess is just that – a mess. Whatever the cause, put down everything and start fixing the problems now. Chasing new links without fixing the mess is like having your carpets cleaned while your house is burning down.

Case #4: The Bad Boy

10% On-page, 90% Link-building

Finally, there’s the Bad Boy – he’s broken every rule in the Google link-building playbook, and they’ve finally noticed. This could be a large-scale devaluation or a Capital-P Penalty, including:

• Paid links
• Link farms, networks and exchanges
• Excessive low-value links
• Aggressive anchor-text targeting

If you’ve been bad enough, you could be talking a serious ranking penalty or even de-indexation. At that point, all the on-page tweaks in the world won’t help you (I left 10% just to keep the site up and running). You have to fix the problem and address the problem links. Bare minimum, you have to stop doing what got you into trouble and show a pattern of positive link-building. You may even have to file for reconsideration. The fix can be tricky, and depends a lot on the situation, but until you fix it, the Bad Boy isn’t going anywhere.

But What About Social?

Before I get a ton of comments, I purposely left social factors out of this post. I think the influence of social is growing and it definitely deserve your attention (and budget), but I don’t want to confuse an already complicated issue. Also, at this point, there are no major social “penalties” (small-p or Capital-P), so it’s hard to have an SEO crisis related to social – with the exception of an ORM problem. Still, social should certainly be a part of any healthy mix in 2012.

Is There a Perfect Mix?

I'm adding this after the fact - a few people asked me in the comments about the 50/50 scenario. Of course, the four scenarios in the post are just examples – based on common problems I've seen – and there are many other valid permutations. I specifically avoided the 50/50 mix for one reason, though - it implies that there's one "perfect" mix that you can sustain throughout the life-cycle of a website. The optimal mix is dynamic, and you should never leave it on automatic pilot.
When you first build a new site, you're going to need to invest in your site structure, keyword research, and on-page aspects. That mix may be 100% or 90% on-page for a couple of months. When that structure's in place and you launch, you'll still need to build content, but you'll also want to get your link-building in gear. For a site that's naturally based on new content (like a blog or news site), on-page may still be 70-80% of the mix (since I'm counting content as "on-page"). For a directory or resource site that has a critical mass of content, you may go 30% on-page, building out the long-tail and 70% link-building for a while. The mix will always be changing, as your site evolves and your business needs change.

One Size Never Fits All

I'll try to keep the point short and sweet - when it comes to the right mix, there is no one-sized-fits-all solution. On-page SEO and link-building are both important, but how important each one is really depends on your current strengths and weaknesses. Long-term, everyone should pursue a mix of solid on-page structure, unique content, an authoritative link profile, and substantive social presence. Diversity is the best way to future-proof your SEO - if the algo changes or you hit a snag on one pillar, at least there will still be enough left standing to keep your roof up.