Cyberwalker Blog

The digital marketing tools we recommend and can’t work without

We use a lot of tools in our digital marketing practice at Cyberwalker Digital, so it’s safe to say that we’ve have found some of the best over the years.

There some that we simply can’t live without. So here is a list of the tools we love and highly recommend.

Learn what content ranks well on Google and Bing

Search engines like Google and Bing love good content that is helpful and useful to people. If you produce it, your site will rank well. But here are some tips on what content ranks well:

  1. Detailed unique content that best answers the keywords typed in by a searcher.
  2. Longer quality content with word counts of over 1000 words will rank (as a rule) over shorter content. That said shorter content will also rank if it gives a great answer.
  3. Unique content not found anywhere else. Copying existing content that everyone has won’t attract better rankings. But if you create content that no one else has created or produced it in a way that is unique and useful then it will rank better.
  4. Good content will be linked to by other sites which give it credibility so this is a huge factor in the validation of good content.
  5. Content with mixed media types also ranks well, so ensure you include when available related videos, image galleries, audio embeds, related social media content (ie dynamically show the latest or best tweets or posts about the topic.
  6. Content that is written in good English (or your language). Spelling and grammar also count.
  7. And this is the best advice that produces solid ranks that we have discovered in our SEO practice, above all: Create clusters of related content. This is callef cornerstone content. For example, if you produce content about the best dog food, then a cluster of content that answers these related questions search engines will define it as content that ranks well and promote it accordingly:
  • Which brand of dog food is most healthy for your dog
  • What is dog food made of?
  • The difference between vet-sold dog food and grocery store dog food?
  • What is the price range of dog food
  • Dog food brands and types ranked
  • What is limited ingredient dog food?
  • Reviews of all the top brands of dog food
  • What dog food do you give a puppy vs. an adult dog

As you can see in the tip above, this demonstrates a solid understanding of the topic. It also demonstrates your site’s expertise on the topic and is likely unique relative to your competitors.

Content types that rank well on search engines

Here is a list of content types that also rank well on search engines.

Comparative lists:

Content that means a list that explains or compares thing and how they rank against each other.

This vs. that reviews

Comparative reviews tend to do very well then they are unique.

In-depth examination of a topic

Go long and deep and provide all the answers in one long helpful article.

Related videos in a cluster

Create content focused on embedded video that explains a common or related topic

How to content

How-to content is the king of web content. If it answers a question or shows you how then it stands a good chance of ranking well as most people go looking for that kind of content to solve their problems.

Related to the topic” What content ranks well”, see also:

Intro to URL shorteners

URL shortenersSometimes you just need a shorter web address also known as a URL. So this is an intro to URL shorteners.

These are useful to share long addresses in email and social media. This especially true where sharing URLs on Twitter where a tweet is limited to 140 characters. I also use shortened addresses when sharing Google Maps URLs and Amazon addresses. That’s why I like to use any one of the following four shortcut services.

Bit.ly

The Bit.ly web address shortener offers a lots of cool features. It tracks clicks to each shortened URL. And, you can assign titles and tags to help manage them. Here is what a link to the Famous Quotes site http://quotehamster.com looks like http://bit.ly/2gyiJEK using the Bit.ly service. I also like that it is SEO friendly and since the site has a high domain authority that is handy to improve backlinks when you use it to point to a website of your choice.

TinyURL.com

TinyURL.com was the original web address shortener. The site is a bit old and tired. Still, it is quick to use and a wonderful free service. No SEO benefit to using this one though. Here what the site http://awesomelifeclub.com looks like when you shorten one of its longer addresses with TinyURL.com: http://tinyurl.com/y9wlqf26

Goo.gl

Google also got into the web address shortener game. Its Goo.gl service can track clicks. This data is public and is easy to access. Here is a page from the website http://rollerderbyroster.com shortened with Goo.gl URL shortener.  goo.gl/27dovs

Custom URL shorteners

Finally, if you want to use your own web domain as a shortener, then can register our own shorter address at Hover.com and use the company’s built in address shortening builder for free.

For example, here at Cyberwalker we registered http://cwd.link at Hover and so we have a series of short addresses used with it. For example this address http://cwd.link/dsnyc points to one of our client’s New York City location sites which has a long address of https://www.drivesaversdatarecovery.com/geographic/new-york-city-data-recovery/.

The service is available for any domain registered with Hover. And is accessible from the control panel where you manage or domains. Get $2 off our first domain with Hover using this link: https://hover.com/XYxr7Luk

Why the World’s Leading Brands Use WordPress to Power Their Websites?

WordPress hosting
What does Usain Bolt have in common with CNN, Kim Kardashian with eBay, and Snoop Dog with GM? The answer is, they all run their websites on WordPress. In fact, according to a Forbes article, WordPress supports almost 75 million websites, which is more than 25 percent of all the websites in the world. It is the preferred content management system for many of the biggest brands in the world, including Disney, LinkedIn, BBC, The New Yorker, Bloomberg, News International, and others. Here’s why.

Content is King

These days, few buying decisions, be they car purchases, vacation bookings, or restaurant reservations, are made without checking online reviews first, last time I took a vaction when I went camping, I had to read reviews from Survival Cooking for about two days. As a result of this trend, Internet bloggers and online marketers have become the new thought leaders in the world. WordPress is so widely used today because it enables businesses and individuals to easily create and present useful information, opinions, and ideas to influence the buying decisions of consumers.

Search Engine Optimization

Search engines rank webpages according to the quality and quantity of their content, as well as how frequently it is updated and refreshed. One of the main reasons to choose a WordPress hosting solution is its search engine-friendly nature. It was developed using standards-compliant high quality code and high semantic markup, which reinforce the meaning of information in webpages and web applications.

Other Benefits of WordPress

The popularity of WordPress stems from the fact that it is easy to use, without the need for expert knowledge. With more than 2,600 free templates and themes, as well as about 31,000 plug-ins available for download, there is almost no limit to its flexibility and functionality. WordPress is also safe to run on any website, and it uses open source software, making it widely supported by an extensive global community of content management system developers.

Choosing a Web Hosting Solution

To run WordPress, all you need is a domain and a web hosting service. There are numerous hosting services out there, and you can read some reviews and do some comparison shopping to find the best WordPress hosting solution for your purposes. Prices vary, but it is possible to find ways to reduce your cost, such as looking for a promotion or getting a WordPress coupon code.

Whether you have an existing website or wish to create your own site for the first time, it is worthwhile to give WordPress a try. After all, if it is good enough for Forbes and the fastest man on earth, shouldn’t it be good enough for you?

Backlink secrets demystified – Why backlink strategy matters

You probably know that creating backlinks for your website is really difficult, boring and time consuming. And yet SEO backlink strategy is the most important task you can do when growing organic traffic with search optimization.

It’s almost impossible (remember I said “almost”) to rank well in Google without a decent volume of backlinks to any given web page. (You can rank without backlinks on low volume keywords however.)

But any search keywords that have any kind of real traffic volume are likely to be competitive. So, you’ll need to build backlinks to rank well against your competitors.

MORE BACKLINKS = BETTER RANKING

That is because a backlink is a vote of confidence as far as Google goes. A webpage with a lot of backlinks gets a lot of votes, and so it gets driven up the search results.

If you analyze any of your website’s competition in the search results you will notice that in most cases, a site ranks higher than yours because it has more backlinks.

In rare cases, it could have fewer and that is only because the backlinks are going from websites that have more Domain Authority or Page Authority.

You can calculate a page’s DA or PA by using either Moz.com or our favorite here at Cyberwalker Digital a site called Ahrefs.com.

WHY DOMAIN AUTHORITY IS IMPORTANT IN SEO BACKLINK STRATEGY

The DA and PA values at Ahrefs.com are a score from 0 to 100 that tell you how trusted the site and page are. This correlates to how much traffic they get and how trusted – or “authoritative” – they are.

So Amazon.com has a DA of 87

While the Los Angeles used bookstore Samjohnsons.com has a DA of 41.

If one linked to your website and the other linked to your competitor who would benefit most?

The Amazon.com link. Why? Because the backlink is from a site and webpage that has more authority.

There are two more things you need to know about backlinks when you go hunting for them.

There are two more things you need to know about building backlinks when you go hunting for them.

A BACKLINKS VALUE MATTERS

1) A backlink’s value is amplified if it originates on a site and page that has similar topical content to its target site.

2) The page authority (PA) is as important if not more important than the domain authority (DA).

The first point is pretty self explanatory. A link from a industrial car parts manufacturing page to a knitting blog is going to be suspect as far as credibility goes. However, a link from northhouse.com (a knitting supplies manufacturer) with a DA of 53 to a knitting blog is going to be really credible and will boost the knitting blog’s authority.

When you pursue backlinks ensure that the page content and site category you get the backlink from is relatively consistent with the page you are optimizing for better ranking. A B2B site should be used for a B2B site. A fashion site or at least consumer trends site should be used to enhance a clothing store. You get the idea.

To the second point, you will want to test the page authority as well as domain authority of the page you are backlinking from. Use a tool like Open Site Explorer from Moz.com or our preference the Page Explorer tool at Ahrefs.com.

Pick one then there use it to evaluate the site and specific page you are trying to rank and also the site and page you are trying to get a backlink on.

As an aside the homepage of any site has both a PA and DA.

Here is an example using our two pages on our agency site using ahrefs.com:

https://cyberwalker.com (homepage) – DA: 35 PA: 37
https://cyberwalker.com/backlink-authority/ – DA: 35 – PA 8

Notice that a backlink from our Cyberwalker.com homepage would impart much more authority than a backlink from the page (ironically) about backlink authority. That is because many more sites link to Cyberwalker.com’s homepage so its page authority is killer high.

Backlink secrets demystified – Why backlink strategy matters

Intro to URL shorteners

Sometimes you just need a shorter web address also known as a URL. So this is an intro to URL shorteners. These are useful to share long addresses in email and social media. This especially true where sharing URLs on Twitter where a tweet is limited to 140 characters. I also use shortened addresses when …

Continue reading “Intro to URL shorteners”

Backlink secrets demystified – Why backlink strategy matters

You probably know that creating backlinks for your website is really difficult, boring and time consuming. And yet SEO backlink strategy is the most important task you can do when growing organic traffic with search optimization. It’s almost impossible (remember I said “almost”) to rank well in Google without a decent volume of backlinks to any …

Continue reading “Backlink secrets demystified – Why backlink strategy matters”

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