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If youre an SEO company or someone who is just really good at SEO, I want to save you some time and let you know you may find this article a little too basic.

If youre a local business who is confused by SEO and looking for some simple advice that works, this article was written specifically for you.

This is the first of several articles on SEO written for small local business. Theres a ton of really good SEO training out there. But most of it is catch all training that is often too general.

My goal with these articles is to help the Main Street businesses out there who serve their local community. So if youre an attorney, dentist, moving company, accountant, restaurant or businesses like them; read on. This was meant for you.

SEO That Gets You Customers Starts Here

The secret to the success of your Search Engine Optimization and entire search marketing strategy begins with keyword selection.

Commonly known as keyword research, this is pivotal to get right. If you get it wrong, everything you do later will either not work effectively or flat out not work at all.

If you plan to do your own SEO, getting help with keyword research can be money well spent. You really need to have this done well.

Ive had the opportunity to perform a keyword audit on many websites. And one of the most common things I find is that businesses are just targeting the wrong keywords.

SEO Is Not Easy

If youre doing your own SEO or even hiring an SEO company to do it for you, one thing you will learn is it is time-consuming and can be technically difficult.

Googles algorithm has changed dramatically in the past few years. The Algorithm is a complex system that decides in real time what the search results will be. It sifts through mountains of data and matches sites that are stored in Googles database, also called the Index, to they keyword. It then presents the results in order of what it believes the importance to be.

First, you need to make sure that your website is in the Index for the keyword you want to appear in search results for. Then you need to make sure your website is the most relevant and authoritative of all the other sites competing for the same keyword. No small task.

But To Make It More Difficult

They update their algorithm all the time and it makes it much harder to do SEO. You have to stay one step ahead of the ever changing way Google makes its decisions.

Not only does Google change, users change too. Users are more sophisticated. They cant be fooled into clicking on a search result simply because its on the first page. So how you display in the search results is more important than ever. And your content needs to be better than ever so that when they do click, they want to continue reading it.

And to make it even worse there are more competitors vying for the same keywords than ever. And new competition joins in all the time. Just think about how much local competition you have. They all probably have websites and are trying to be on page 1 of Google just like you.

Webcast, February 16th: Build Your Growth Roadmap in a Day

Google makes changes, your prospects behavior changes, your competitive landscape changes.

What has not changed is:

1: Theres still only a limited number of spots on page 1 of Google. So you need to be smarter and work harder than everyone else. If you dont, you cant compete. And

2: Search runs off keywords. Whether these are typed or spoken, the search engine still needs keywords to understand what it is the person searching wants.

While theyre getting much better at deciding what they want, Google still needs a question asked first in order to give you an answer. And this is the best way to think about your keywords. Think of them as questions your prospective customers are asking.

Things like:

Who are the best IT professional in New York

Or

I need a commercial mover in Danbury CT

Or

Find Stamford CT Dentist reviews

These are keywords. And to compete on the search engines, this is your first and most important step to success: identify the best keywords.

This Is The Best Way To Find Great Keywords

Before you begin, create a spreadsheet to dump these keywords into as you uncover them. Dont worry about organizing it. Dont worry about whether you have duplicate keywords. Just brain dump them into this spreadsheet.

Step 1: Ask

Forget fancy techniques. Forget keyword tools. Forget anything you may have learned and start here first.

Start with your customers. Go ask every single one of them how they found you. If they say Google, ask what they typed.

If they didnt find you on the search engines, ask them what they would have typed to find you.

Ask everyone you meet for the next 2 weeks what keyword theyd use if they were looking for your service. Ask your friends, family, customers, random strangers, people in your business community, competitors. Ask anyone and everyone.

Step 2: What you do

List all your services. If you are an IT Solutions Provider, you might list things like:

Make sure to put all these services into your spreadsheet.

Step 3: Solutions

List all the problems your products or services solve:

Once again, list all these solutions to your prospect and customer problems into your keyword research spreadsheet. Youve now got something really cooking here

Heres What To Do Next

There is a lot more to proper SEO than I am covering here. The goal of this article is to give you a great start to easy keyword research without overwhelming you.

From here, you can take this list and dig deeper into keyword research. You can discover more keywords based off of the list you just created. You can research what your competitors are doing. You can uncover the possible search volume and competitiveness of these keywords.

Or you can just start creating useful content for your website or blog that answers these questions. Even without worrying about things like keyword density, title tags, meta descriptions and all the other little SEO nuances, you can create powerful content with this data.

If you create content from here, just speak to your customer, keep it very simple (no techie talk) and make it at least 500 words. If you do that, youre going to do more for your SEO than most.

In upcoming articles, I will share ways to refine your research and organize your strategy for solid SEO. So come back next week after youve spent time asking and placing what you find in your spreadsheet.

Continue reading here:
A Simple Keyword Research Technique For Small Business SEO - Business 2 Community

Recently, I attended Baidus annual search conference for agency partners in Beijing. One of the premier search events in China for SEO professionals, the conference was hosted by engineers from Baidus core search and Webmaster Tools teams.

The agenda covered Baidus eco-empowerment strategy, its Mobile Instant Page (MIP) project and a wrap-up of the 2016 algorithm updates. The event made it clear to me that 2016 was the year Baidu SEO came into its own. If you arent already investing in Baidu SEO, 2017 is your year to start.

The concept of eco-empowerment was introduced by Dai Tan, Baidus Chief Architect of Search. With search, Baidu wants every practitioner in the internet ecosystem to have better efficiencies in production, execution and monetization. In order to fulfill eco-empowerment, Baidu needs to provide relevant technology and form a mechanism for the ecosystem, supported by two pillars: page load speed and HTTPS.

Every half-second delay in page loading will cost you 3 percent of user visits. This is why Baidu moved quickly to follow Googles Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) feature with the MIP project (Chinese language). At the same time, security is a critical factor to an engines reputation in a market where site hijacks, spams and PII data leaks are rampant. In May 2015, Baidu launched Not Set, which is its own version of Not Provided.

The main accomplishment in the mechanism of Baidu Search is in the release of Spider 3.0 (Chinese language), which was launched in early 2016, dramatically increasing the speed of URL discovery and indexing. As a result, crawl speed has increased by 80 percent, and Baidu is now capable of indexing trillions of web pages in real time. The Divine Domain project planned for mid-2017 promises to further boost indexing speed.

Mobile Instant Page is a bold name. Even Googles AMP only claims to be accelerated. The results speak for themselves.As reported in the Conference, more than 2,800 sites have implemented MIP, reducing load time by 30 to 80 percent and subsequently increasing landing page clicks from 5 to 30 percent.

The technology and structure of MIP are very similar to Googles AMP; even the page code is virtually identical. And just as AMP has been a controversial idea in the SEO world since its launch, so is Baidus MIP within the Great Firewall of China. Convincing webmasters to adopt this new technology has been a challenge, given the sacrifice of page flexibility in favor of improved loading speed and ranking signals.

Baidu has been fighting its way through obstacles, having learned valuable lessons from AMPs rollout. A channel has been added in Baidu Webmaster Tools for page submissions. An open-source project is now on GitHub. A tutorial provides quick training for programmers. An integrated development environment (IDE) and an online validator are published. Themes are available for popular content management system (CMS) platforms like WordPress. Most importantly, the Flashy icon is now attached to all MIP results on the Baidu mobile search engine results page (SERP).

By December 2016, three months after MIPs release, Baidu had already indexed more than 900 million MIP pages.

An MIP result entry with the MIP icon on the mobile SERP of Baidu

The anniversary of the MIP Project

You may see Baidu MIP as a copycat of Google AMP. But there are nuances. First, Baidu MIP is using scripts to maintain compatibility with mobile browsers other than Chrome or Safari in China. In addition, MIP pages put JavaScript before the ending tag, while in AMP, you still put scripts between and . Both MIP and AMP only allow asynchronous scripts, but it doesnt make a big difference, because neither approach will delay the page rendering.

Since Google retreated from China in 2006, the only two G-products that remain functional in that market are Google Maps and Google Translate. Mobile internet users are unable to access the AMP in mainland China.

Many people believe that if Google hadnt been expatriated, Baidu would not have its dominant power in the search market. However, even when Google search was still in China, its market share never exceeded Baidus. And Bing, which is still in China, isnt challenging Baidu at all.

When it comes to other players like QQ and MSN Messenger, only those engines that are customized for local markets (or work with the government) will have the chance to win the battle against Baidu.

A map of the world showing the real-time activity of Baidu search, on a screen in the lobby of Baidu Building in Beijing

Baidus ambition is not confined to China. Alliances with partners like Merkle in other regions are helping Baidu to learn about other markets and expand business reach. If you still see Google as a threat to Baidu, you may be wrong. A better term, frenemy, may better describe their relationship.

Now, through Googles DoubleClick for Search, you are able to bid for Baidu pay-per-click (PPC) ads. On the other side, Baidu is actively working with Google on the alignment of AMP-MIP and developing standards for Progressive Web Apps. And finally, Baidu intends to adopt the Schema.org data structure in 2017, having already documented the Schema.org markup support in the MIP specification.

Anti-app-fraud, Ice Bucket, Skynet and Blue-sky are the four main algorithm updates made by Baidu in the second half of 2016, and in almost every month, there was a negative update.

While the Chinternet environment is getting more complicated, Baidu is investing a significant amount of effort to protect and improve the ecosystem they have defined:

In late 2016, there has been a drop in discussions around indexing in the Chinese webmaster communities. This seems to signal that Baidu can now better identify pages with low quality.

From the other angle, it is evident that Baidu has a clear view that the mobile-first web is transitioning into a mobile-only web. Apart from the core project of MIP, three out of four algorithm updates are aiming for mobile pages.

Historically, SEO strategies and investments were second-tier priorities for brands in China. Too many paid ads appeared on the SERP, where organic links had limited exposure, leaving little opportunity for SEO. Additionally, leadership had no idea of how long they would be in their roles. They wanted quick success and shortcuts, suggesting paid search is the best way out.

Things are changing. Due to regulations and the release of Chinas Internet Ad Law, Baidu cut down the number of sponsored results in the main column of the SERP from up to 10 to no more than 5. With some exceptions where larger ad formats are served, users will see a much cleaner SERP with fewer ads.

Obviously, it is a positive change for SEOs because paid traffic and organic traffic play a zero-sum game. Organic results now have more viewability with fewer sponsored links overhead.

As my colleague, Adam Audette, wrote in Merkles Dossier, your SEO effort is critical and will account for 3050 percent of traffic online. As such, I offer the following recommendations for your 2017 SEO strategy in China.

Some opinions expressed in this article may be those of a guest author and not necessarily Search Engine Land. Staff authors are listed here.

Read the rest here:
2016 was a coming-of-age year for Baidu SEO; why you should invest in 2017 - Search Engine Land

Forbes

3 Steps For Mobile SEO Success Forbes The short version is that if your brand isn't presenting well on mobile devices, your SEO campaign is hobbled. This development shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone after all, over 60% of search engine queries are submitted on mobile devices.

View original post here:
3 Steps For Mobile SEO Success - Forbes

Photo: Contributed Photo /

Kate Centofanti and Marc Whittington were married Oct. 8 at the Pavilion on Crystal Lake in Middletown.

Kate Centofanti and Marc Whittington were married Oct. 8 at the Pavilion on Crystal Lake in Middletown.

Newly engaged Greenwich residents Katherine Suzanne Knetzger and Dr. Mark Anthony Vitale plan a June wedding.

Newly engaged Greenwich residents Katherine Suzanne Knetzger and Dr. Mark Anthony Vitale plan a June wedding.

Celebrations: weddings, engagements

Wedding

Kate Centofanti, the daughter of Alan Centofanti and Dr. Babette Caraccio of Stamford and Cocoa Beach, Fla., married Marc Whittington, the son of Christiana and Ned Whittington of Hanover, N.H., on Oct. 8 at the Pavilion on Crystal Lake in Middletown.

Robert Powers, a friend of the couple and a Justice of the Peace, officiated at the ceremony. The bride and groom are 2014 graduates of Wesleyan University in Middletown, where they met. A small family ceremony was held the day before at St. Agnes Roman Catholic Church in Greenwich officiated by the Rev. William Carey.

The bride is a 2010 graduate of Greenwich High School. She is an account coordinator for Jacobson Strategic Communications in Philadelphia.

The groom graduated from Hanover High School in New Hampshire before attending Wesleyan. He is an SEO strategist at Haystack Needle in Philadelphia.

Following a wedding trip to Costa Rica, the couple will continue to reside in Philadelphia.

Engagement

Diane Knetzger of New Canaan and Hugh Knetzger of Greenwich are pleased to announce the engagement of their daughter, Katherine Suzanne Knetzger to Mark Anthony Vitale, son of Dorothy and Aldo Vitale of Brooklyn, NY.

The future bride is a graduate of New Canaan High School and received her bachelors degree in nursing at Villanova University. She went on to positions at Norwalk Hospital and the Hospital for Special Surgery before returning closer to home to work as a registered nurse in the outpatient clinic at Greenwich Hospital. She is now pursuing advanced training through a nurse practitioner degree at Fairfield University while concurrently working in the Greenwich Hospital clinic.

The future bridegroom graduated from Tufts University with a bachelors degree in biopsychology, and went on to medical school at Columbia University. After completing a residency in orthopaedic surgery at Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center and a hand surgery fellowship at the Mayo Clinic, he is now a board-certified hand and upper extremity surgeon working in Greenwich at Orthopaedic and Neurosurgery Specialists (ONS).

The couple resides in Greenwich, where they look forward to exchanging wedding vows in June of 2017.

The rest is here:
Celebrations: weddings, engagements - Greenwich Time

As a medical student, do you ever wonder what its like to specialize in rheumatology? Meet Philip Seo, MD, a rheumatologist and featured physician in the AMA Wire Shadow Me Specialty Series, which offers advice directly from physicians about life in their specialties. Check out his insights to help determine whether a career in rheumatology might be a good fit for you.

Shadowing Dr. Seo

Specialty: Rheumatology

Practice setting: Academic

Employment type: University employee

Years in practice: 13

A typical day in my practice: Three days a week, Im in the clinic seeing patients. I start around 8 a.m. and see my last patient around 4 p.m., sometimes with the help of a trainee.

One of the advantages of working in a university setting is that it has allowed me to develop a narrow specialty. Although Im a rheumatologist, my area of expertise is systemic vasculitis, and patients will travel long distances so I can help them with microscopic polyangiitis, granulomatosis with polyangiitis, Takayasus arteritis and other diagnoses that might not walk into most clinics every day.

I am also the program director for the Division of Rheumatology at Johns Hopkins, so on the other days of the week, I run the fellowship programs and work on other projects.

Six weeks out of the year, I am assigned to supervise the inpatient consult service at one of our two hospitals. The disadvantage of this is that the workflow can be unpredictable. One day we may have five consults, and the next we may have zero consults. The advantage is that it forces me out of my comfort zone and makes me think about diagnoses and diseases that I might not typically see in my clinic.

As a trainee, I think its hard to get a sense of what rheumatology is because we are often the service of last resort, the service that gets called when everyone else has seen a patient and no one can come up with a unifying diagnosis. My clinic is almost the exact opposite, and in my typical clinic day I will largely see patients who are doing well and are just coming in for a tune-up.

The most challenging and rewarding aspects of caring for rheumatology patients: Most rheumatic diseases are diagnosed clinically, meaning that theres generally not one single test that can prove what diagnosis a patient has. As a practicing rheumatologist, this is endlessly gratifying because it never gets old. Generally, even within a given diagnosis, each patient will have his or her own unique set of symptoms, and an approach that worked for one patient may not work for another.

Because so many diagnoses in my field rely on clinical assessment, they are generally not diseases that you can diagnose by reading about the criteria on UpToDate. It is incredibly rewarding to realize that I have picked up a skill set that allows me to help patients whom other doctors cannot.

Adjectives to describe the typical rheumatologist: Detail-oriented. Storytellers.

How my lifestyle matches or differs from what I had envisioned in medical school: Work-life balance is always a challenge, and I frankly try not to give a lot of thought to my college classmates who have already made more money than I will likely see during my lifetime. I also know that Im making a bit of a trade-off: I work in an academic practice so I can see patients I find interesting and rewarding, and in exchange, I make somewhat less money than my trainees who went directly into private practice.

As an academic, I also do a reasonable amount of traveling to give lectures and meet people in other institutions, which is rewarding, but it also means that I spend fewer nights each month in my own bed. On the other hand, in my field, there arent that many reasons that I would have to go into the hospital urgently in the middle of the night, and its nice to have that level of predictability and stability in my life. In fact, there are a good number of people who choose rheumatology specifically because it allows them to work part-time.

Skills every physician in training should have for rheumatology but wont be tested for on the board exam: E.Q.: emotional quotient. The ability to walk into a room and place a patient at ease is incredibly important, and its not a skill that is easily taught. I think that every patient needs a different type of doctorsay, a buddy, a father-figure or a confidantand it is up to us to determine how to best respond to those needs.

The ability to communicate effectively is also incredibly important. Many diagnoses in rheumatology are complicated, with complex regimens, and learning how to explain everything in a comprehensible fashion is crucial. A good deal of my time in my clinic is spent explaining other doctors plans to my patients!

One question every physician in training should ask themselves before pursuing this specialty: How much do I enjoy the story? More than any other specialty, rheumatology is full of storytellers, people who enjoy listening to patients talk about how they were doing well until Memorial Day, when they looked down at their legs and realized that they were developing a rash that they had never seen before. In my field, its often the journey from health to illness that gives us the diagnosis, and listening to the patient tell his or her story is how we collect the pieces to the puzzle.

One book every medical student interested in rheumatology should read: When Breath Becomes Air, by Paul Kalanithi, MD

The online resources students interested in my specialty should follow: Johns Hopkins Rheumatologys website, the American College of Rheumatologys website and the American College of Rheumatology on Facebook and Twitter.

Quick insights I'd give students who are considering rheumatology:If you think you might be interested in rheumatology, go out and find a rheumatologist! I think that too many people are dissuaded from the field because of the one crazy case they had heard about without realizing the broad spectrum of patients rheumatologists see. The best way to figure out if the field is a good fit is to shadow a rheumatologist.

Rheumatology is a good field for people who want to get to know their patients. Ive been in practice long enough that I have cared for some patients for over a decade, and not every field gives you the opportunity to become such an important part of your patients lives.

Original post:
What it's like to specialize in rheumatology: Shadowing Dr. Seo - American Medical Association (blog)