I am a big fan of Marketing Sherpa and I have recommended them before when I posted ‘About Us’ pages can increase conversions. Well, another Marketing Sherpa study has caught my attention, describing how words increase conversions.

A few months ago I wrote an SEO tip explaining why you don’t want to use ‘click here’ for SEO, but we also know conversion rates increase when visitors are instructed to ‘click here’, ‘read more’, ‘buy now’ and so on. What is an SEO company to do?

How can search engine optimization and good user experience coexist? Both are important to the success of your website, but at times they seem at odds with each other. The solution is very simple, if not well known. Use the “nofollow” tag on the ‘click here’ links and make sure you also have a descriptive link with keyword-rich text available as well.

While the “nofollow” tag was originally set up as a spam fighter, it can be used with surgical precision to increase conversions, without hurting you SEO campaign. (Read more about the uses of nofollow) It helps because it will tell the search engines not to count or follow the link with the nofollow attribute. This means the keyword-rich link, without the nofollow, will be followed, helping the destination page’s link popularity.

How do you use nofollow?
Normal link:
<a href=”http://www.site.com/page.html”>Click Here</a>

Adding the nofollow attribute:
<a href=”http://www.site.com/page.html” rel=”nofollow”>Click Here</a>

Using it on your site might look like this:
Click here for the best deals on dog treats.

The HTML code would look like this:
<a href=”http://www.bestbullysticks.com” rel=”nofollow”>Click here</a> for the best deals on <a href=”http://www.bestbullysticks.com”>dog treats</a>.

Finally, SEO and Site Usability living in perfect harmony, until we start talking about graphics vs. text.

Optimization of Search Engine Results in Bing

If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

I’ve played around with Bing over the last few days to see what it offers. Most of my evaluation has been of the results page from the user’s point of view.

• Are the results I’m getting relevant?
• How would I use the tools on the left side (”refined” results, Related Searches, Search History, etc)?
• How would I pick which result to click on?

As an SEO company, we know it’s important that the client’s site ranks well and that search engine users click through (more traffic + more sales = more revenue which makes our clients happy). Users only have a few pieces of information to help them decide what site to visit when they’re looking at a results page: the title (that is also the link to the page), a short description, and the URL of the page.

From what I’ve seen of the results in Bing so far, it looks like the results page is pulling the title tag and meta description, which is pretty standard. However, they’ve added a little something extra to help users decide if this is the site they want before they click. When you hover over a search result, a horizontal line with an orange dot appears on the right. Mouse over the dot and a Preview window opens. In that Preview there is copy from the page, maybe a phone number and/or email address for the site, and sometimes even 5 deep links. So where is this information coming from?

It looks as if Bing is pulling the first content on the page and the first links. This isn’t so great if you’ve put a tag line at the top or Global navigation above your more-customer friendly links. Here I did a search for “diamond engagement rings” and found MySolitaire as the #3 result. The Preview included the first content on the page (double bonus, it also contained the terms “diamond”, “engagement”, and “rings”) and the first links.

I personally use the directory more for backlinks than for referred visits. A lot of these directories have the page filled with Ads, and the chances of a visitor clicking on the 2 resource link is very small. This is why I look towards just putting those two links, and making sure they rank on the search engines. If your article ranks for the keywords you are optimizing for, then I believe that it will also help the links you have placed in the article resource box.

My first advice is to ALWAYS place unique articles on your website FIRST! I have seen a lot of people posting articles on article directories, and not have any content on their own site. Remember that you are promoting YOUR SITE, and not trying to promote an article directory by giving them more content. We all know that content is king, and our own site should be FILLED with articles/blogs. I would recommend posting it on your site then changing it around before posting it somewhere else.

My second advice is ‘try’ to place a link in the beginning of the article, and at the end. We want the spiderbots to see the links upfront, and at the end. There are a few articles indicating that spiderbots may not even read the whole content, but just the first/last sentences. Another reason why I recommend putting it at the beginning is that there are a lot of people who like to ‘copy’ our articles, and ‘forget’ to give someone credit by adding a backlink. If you have the links at the beginning, then chances are that it will be copied over to their webpage. I would also recommend that you bold the links with anchor text so it stands out.

My third advice is picking the right title. This is the most important part of the article. I never try to ‘pick’ a good title that will catch a reader’s attention. Stuffing your title with too many irrevelant terms will hurt your chances of ranking. I research the keywords to make sure that the key terms get searched, and to see what order the users search with. Some may search Writing SEO Article, but the vast majority use SEO Article Writing. Notice that my title isn’t “How to use SEO Article Writing effectively” or “Using SEO for Article Writing”. I’m using what users search for which is the term SEO article writing.

My last advice is making sure to use the right keywords, and bolding them within the article. Make sure to research what keywords to use for the title, content, and anchor text. There’s nothing worse then promoting keywords that do not get searched for. I recommend placing 2-3 different keywords within the article, and to bold them. It’s important that you read Using Bold Tags to help out your SEO article writing.

Note – some well known article directories will not allow you to place links within the article, and some will not allow you to have a short title. If you plan to use the link resource box, then I would recommend writing a short paragraph with the anchor text links in it. I do not recommend just placing only the links side by side. Also, if the directory does not allow you to use the short title then make sure to put the keywords in the front of the title like SEO article writing techniques instead of Techniques for SEO Article Writing

Why You Need Outbound Links

http://www.seomoz.org/article/beginners-guide-to-search-engine-optimization