More Questions and Answers

My last few articles have dealt with typical questions posed by SEO companies for part time and full time positions. Here are a few more.




5. Why might you want to use nofollow on an internal link?

I would want to use nofollow to navigate inside a website with links that will compromise my SEO efforts. For example if I want to attract people to the home page of NJ.com with the keywords “ headline news “ I will work very hard with varied tools to point people and convince the search engines that “ headline news “ should point to my site. I will want the least competition for my efforts. For that reason if the word “ home “ points to my home page I would prefer that link be hidden or nofollow.



BTW According to Google advice the usage of nofollow is counterproductive but it may be used to link a bad site .

6. Do you recommend using XML sitemaps? Why? What different types of Google XML sitemaps you have used in the past?

As I mentioned earlier I highly recommend sitemaps both internal and external. These sitemaps help the bots cache the pages and see the links in one spot. Google really likes that a lot and caches much quicker sites that have sitemaps.

I have used XML sitemaps for the Robots and text or HTML sitemaps for users of the site.
There are other types of XML sitemaps like than can be created separately or together. News sitemaps should be separate and are very important for inclusion in Google news.

7. Under what circumstances would you look to exclude pages from search engines using robots.txt vs. meta robots tag?

There are always pages that do not need to be indexed by the search engines for those pages use the robots.txt if for some reason that file cannot be added to your site then the meta robots tag is the next best thing. It is important to note that the meta robots tag is not always reliable.

8. If the company whose site you've been working for has decided to move all of its content to a new domain, what steps would you take?

I would use a tool provided by Google called the “change of address”. Google will update index to reflect the new URL. This is the safest and best way to do this.

9. What are your thoughts on the direction of Web 2.0 technologies with regards to SEO?

If done correctly social media should complement SEO efforts. If SEO efforts are meant to bring customers to a site to increase revenue for a client then Social media efforts should be doing the same. Often a social media campaign can bring in results quicker than SEO efforts with a BUZZ that will deliver a message or content to a site to thousands or more people very quickly. If things are done properly then branding of the product or service or website will begin to happen. Obviously every campaign will be different and only experience will let someone use both these tools in the optimum fashion for a client.
How do you integrate SEO and Social Media efforts in your new rule?
As I just said this is varied for each client. A rule of thumb would be to find through Social media channels the group or groups that are interested in the product or service. They need to be accessed through all channels possible. Finding these targeted individuals is no easy task and necessitates hard work and correct analysis. Again experience is crucial in doing this properly.

Some more Questions and answers

4. Improving the NJ.com,

a. What would you do in your first 60 days if you were given the mandate to improve the Search Engine Optimization of the site for news optimization?
As far as local news the site is doing very well as its #1 for New Jersey News, NJ News, New Jersey Local news , NJ local news. They are the first 4 keywords. See attached Excel Spread sheet for all words + New Jersey Sports news and Jersey Local news . The words that would give nj.com a more international flavour are “ Local news “ “sports news “ “breaking news “ “online news “ . They are close to the first page of Google in some ways. If there was not a page designated for “ Local news “ “sports news “ “breaking news “ “online news “ Pages would be created . “local news “has its own page and there is a sports page as well but the others do not. After creating these pages I would optimize them in such a way as to make sure those terms are # 1 for those pages. For example on sports news I would make sure as many articles on sports topics are written that link back to the present sports page. The Keyword would obviously be “sports news”. Each page that existed or needed to be created would start including the keyword in its content as much as possible within the limits of proper keyword density strategy. I would launch a link campaign in the site itself linking through keywords pages. A link in the site that leads to a page is as good as a link outside the site (in some experts opinion)
b. List 2 fixes/changes you feel must be applied NJ.com and why?


1. Title on home page is to long and mentions things that should a title elsewhere, proper titles are very very important

2. There is page/s where there is a broken link that should be fixed ASAP. Google hates broken links and punishes sites that have them. There are usability and browser issues on a number of pages that need to be addressed. Apparently the IE8 does not recognize some links and some links are unclear in terms of where they go. This may confuse the user somewhat. There are other issues.

These types of issues weaken a website though the site looks and feels very powerful it could be even stronger if the issues I mentioned and others were resolved.

5. Why might you want to use nofollow on an internal link?

I would want to use nofollow to navigate inside a website with links that will compromise my SEO efforts. For example if I want to attract people to the home page of NJ.com with the keywords “ headline news “ I will work very hard with varied tools to point people and convince the search engines that “ headline news “ should point to my site. I will want the least competition for my efforts. For that reason if the word “ home “ points to my home page I would prefer that link be hidden or nofollow.



BTW According to Google advice the usage of nofollow is counterproductive but it may be used to link a bad site .

Q + A for SEO JOB

I recently was sent some questions before an interview for a internet marketing position. I will share in the next few articles those questions and more importantly some cool answers

SEO/SMO Manager – Candidate Questionnaire
Candidates for the SEO Manager position are requested to respond to the following questions. Completed questionnaires will be reviewed by our team and candidates for the next round of interviews will be contacted the following week.
Regarding this questionnaire, Please provide as complete a response as you feel is necessary for each question, don’t just copy and paste from external resources but provide your own explanation using your own words.
1. How do you stay on top of trends in the industry?

Read, Read and Read some more. I read and subscribed to a number of high profile websites that include webpronews.com, searchengineland.com, googleblog.blogspot.com, .seomoz.org/blog and mattcutts.com/blog. There are often articles on new developments in different news sources that I read and digest. I am in constant contact with fellow internet marketing people and we often discuss new developments and how they will affect us and the industry. I also can see how new developments have an impact on marketing methods. I sometimes write on my blog some reflections and insights I have.

2. What tools, resources would you need to perform your role as a SEO/SMO Manager?
a. PEOPLE

The most important resources are the people you are working with and their drive to see an internet project succeed. These people need to have enough experience and internet savvy to understand new methods and strategy going forward.

b. SEO
Advanced Keyword research tools that would make a keyword list that much more accurate. Advance backlink tools to check competitor sites and utilize for link strategies. Logfile analytic tools to analyze with precision all traffic and action on website. This info will inform where improvement is needed and give a clear picture of everything that is happening on the site. Heat map software to determine where people click on site and which parts of site could be improved.
c. SMO

Utilize tools that could disseminate quickly and efficiently updates and important messages on the major social networks. Connecting and cooperating with powerful players in the field of Social Media. This type of cooperation would get messages out to massive amounts of targeted people in a timely manner. The company or the client or both should have powerful social media sites available where updates can be made. These would include Facebook profiles and groups; Linkedin groups that discuss the particular product or service that is being serviced ; a twitter account that is ready to send to followers and “real time” search information ad updates on product development etc.

d. Putting it all together. Strategy of assigning individuals with responsibility for SEO/SEM work. Clear goals that need to be met by the SEO team and SMO team. For example
The SEO team would need to place 100 links on similar sites within 60 days of launch of project. Twenty different articles with back links will need to be placed on article sites such as ezinearticles.com, articlealley.com . The SMO team would need to place updates on 50 groups within a certain time frame and/or create a set amount of new groups forums related to the marketing plan. These are just examples of how goal oriented targets are to be met. Clearly every campaign will have different targets and goals but all should accountable to a team.


3. What are five of the most important on-page SEO factors affecting ranking pages? Explain why.

No one really knows this for sure but these five are very important indeed:

1. Title of page- If you have chosen a optimum keyword use it in your title. This simple step will tell the bots the most important part about your page, namely your title. If you do other important steps this will help Google point people to your site for that keyword
2. New and relevant content: Have relevant content with key word that was in title and other keywords in article. This is also called keyword density. Make sure article is 500 words or more. Make sure it is completely original. Google claims that positive user experience is what it strives for. If you give a user info about a product or service or anything else for that matter, that’s the key. If you later backlink to that page with powerful links you will strengthen that trend and move up on the SERPS for that keyword/s
3. Using webmaster tools make sure there are no mistakes/ broken links emanating from the site on any pages. Make sure pages will be cached and noticed by Google as fast as possible.
4. Internal and external sitemaps. These sitemaps make it easier for Google to crawl the whole site at once. The Google Robot loves sitemaps
5. Meta tag description. Many say that the importance of Meta tags for Keyword and description has waned but there is still importance in the meta tag structure. The description is still important in case the site is seen in the serps. A good description will draw targeted people into the site which is what you want anyway.

There are others factors to consider that can be used rather easily like H1 tags, speed of navigation, and avoidance of flash for navigation.