As we move forward, Google’s Fast, Relevant, Comprehensive and Fresh mantra hangs in my mind as does an October 2011 post by Ryan Jones named Mobile SEO is a Myth. Although Jones goes to the extreme of arguing that a mobile site should be one and the same as your normal retail site, there are a few good points worth considering, including how mobile devices are just a mechanism for delivering a good web experience. Would you rate a TV show differently depending on the size of the TV used to display that show? I don’t think it’s true that the “…best Mobile SEO strategy is to not have a mobile SEO strategy…” but the thought ties in perfectly with Huffman’s point about how they judge the quality of Google’s own Mobile Search and “normal” Web Search sites using the same criteria: Fast, Relevant, Comprehensive and Fresh.

Fast is a technical point previously addressed. When we consider the Relevant, Comprehensive and Fresh requirements, fundamentals like content development and on-page optimization (TITLE, META tags, etc.) necessarily join the checklist of things that must be included in “Mobile SEO”, proper.

A second thought stemming from Huffman’s presentation is that they hope Google Search for Mobile delivers a “complete” experience for users. He gives examples of “complete” as i) inclusive of as much information as possible; and ii) information being presented in ways that are sensitive to the capabilities of access devices. Simplistically interpreted, this means mobile site owners should generally avoid things like Flash while leaning toward features created by HTML5 or jQuery – both of which provide more functionality within a device like an iPhone or Blackberry.

To recap, Mobile SEO – On-Page Optimization is largely comprised of:

1. Content Development (be Comprehensive and Fresh)
2. TITLE/META & Text Optimization (be Relevant)
3. Content/Media Optimization (for mobile devices… to be “complete”)

Off-Page Optimization

There’s more to learn from Huffman’s presentation, though. He goes on to point out that they believe Google Search for Mobile best serves user experience by delivering a heavily localized result set. This supplies another element in our definition of “Mobile SEO” – your strategy must include a largely off-page, local strategy including ongoing optimization of each location’s Google Places profile. Check.
When we re-interpret the meaning of “Relevant” to add the increasing influence of social media on Google Search rankings (as reflected by QDF and socially-driven, “personal results”), another off-page optimization strategy should be counted as part of a comprehensive Mobile SEO plan: an aggressive PR, blogging or social content development campaign. Each of these can help create social buzz around your brand or mobile site which, in turn, is beneficial to a company’s total web presence, mobile or not.

To recap, Mobile SEO – Off-Page Optimization can be understood to be largely comprised of:

1. Optimization of local profiles
2. Social media content development
3. Authority building (social media and niche link development)

Mobile SEO – how’d we do at defining it? What elements were forgotten? I do believe Mobile SEO is a pursuit that’s fundamentally different than “normal” SEO but both stress the same thing: results come from good user experience… and good user experience is based on technical excellence, user-focused content and authority that is better than that which is offered by your competition. Sure, there are deeper topics like social content development tactics and mobile A/B testing but the bulleted lists above should serve as a great way to judge your department or service provider’s offering.

First, let’s establish the near-term goal – improvement of your site’s page rankings for top keyphrases searched through Google. Specifically, we’re interested in improving page rankings for top keywords entered by mobile device users and returned via Google Search for Mobile. (Also consider YouTube and other major social sites to be worthy of individual, mobile keyword research and optimization.) Looking forward to farther-reaching goals and KPIs, let’s agree that we’ll save the advanced discussion of mobile conversion optimization for another day and set rankings, traffic and revenue as a good, default three KPIs.

With the appropriate keywords and target site(s) defined, let’s look to Google for advice on what should comprise “Mobile SEO”.

Technical Optimization

Starting in late 2009, Google’s Webmaster Central Blog began offering the basics of what they like to see in mobile websites, what we’ll call technical optimization:

• Help Google index your mobile site, November 13, 2009 – i) “…create a Mobile Sitemap and submit it to Google to inform us to the site’s existence…”; ii) “…If you’d like your site crawled, please allow any User-agent including ‘Googlebot-Mobile’ to access your site…”; iii) “…Check that your mobile-friendly URLs’ DTD declaration is in an appropriate mobile format such as XHTML Mobile or Compact HTML…”
• Running desktop and mobile versions of your site – November 18, 2009 – i) “…When a mobile user or crawler (like Googlebot-Mobile) accesses the desktop version of a URL, you can redirect them to the corresponding mobile version of the same page…”; ii) “…you should serve the same content to Googlebot as a typical desktop user would see, and the same content to Googlebot-Mobile as you would to the browser on a typical mobile device…”
• Making Websites Mobile Friendly – February 22, 2011 – In a more recent article, Google re-confirms the points above regarding the importance of Mobile Sitemaps and how you handle their User-agents.

Let’s also consider how Google judges their Mobile Search site performance. In a May 2009 presentation given by Scott Huffman titled Mobile Search at Google, we’re told Google expects their desktop and mobile-targeted sites to be Fast, Relevant, Comprehensive and Fresh. With the rise of Google PageSpeed and the increasing importance Google has placed on user experience, we can hazard to guess that mobile site load time optimization is also an unspoken but core, technical requirement.

To recap, Mobile SEO – Technical Optimization is largely comprised of:

1. proper redirection of and display to the Googlebot-Mobile User-agent
2. check mobile URLs’ DTD declaration
3. creation and verification of a valid Mobile Sitemap
4. device compatibility & load time optimization

We’re compiling aggregate KPI data across many verticals right now, so it’s time to make a wish list of tactics and theories analytically prove or disprove. Are there any SEO, PPC, social media or general marketing issues you’d like to see addressed in future posts?

Last week I had the good fortune to speak on Pagination and SEO at SMX East in New York. The panel speakers consisted of Vanessa Fox from Nine By Blue, Maile Onye from Google and myself. The core focus of the panel was Pagination and SEO. Individual topics ranged from managing duplicate content from pagination, new rel=”next”/rel=”prev” meta tags and paginated categorical merchandising.

The title of my presentation was “Paginated Categorical Merchandising & SEO.” The primary focus was tips to avoid product URL duplicate content when merchandising products in multiple categories.  To download a complete copy of the presentation, click here.

The answer to the question of “should I merchandise my products in multiple categories” is “yes.” When looking at the Consumer Decision Process or sales funnel (slide 6), the opportunity to increase a retailer’s customer reach (e.g. search demand) by creating more categories in lower tiers of the funnel can be very high. The ability to promote products by season, sales, new arrivals, and the like enable a retailer to create new entry points and better align their brand with the consumer decision process in each stage. The example in the presentation illustrates this opportunity by an increase of 4x based on monthly search volume (click on the image to enlarge).

While the benefit of merchandising in multiple is very strong, there are two primary and serious technical challenges (slides 8-9):

1. In many instances, the product URL changes when accessed from different categories (domain.com/primary-category/product-name, domain.com/sale/product-name, domain.com/seasonal/product-name, etc.). This can create product URL duplicate content at a very large scale.

2.The other concern is that the pagination at each category instance (category pages 2-n) also create duplicate content.

The above technical challenges can result in a loss in natural search visibility and/or page removal from search engine indexes.

From a solution standpoint, I presented two very viable options.

1. Build it right the first time (slide 11) by storing all products in a single database that assigns one unique URL to each product no matter where the product is called. The navigation paths from categories (primary category, needs-based, new arrivals, sale, etc.) do not append to URLs. The ranking results from this option proved to provide the best visibility.

2. When working with an existing infrastructure (slide 14) it is recommended to deploy rel=”canonical” tags to product URLs at the primary category-level. This directs the search bot to crawl the product URL at the primary category/canonical version when the product URL is duplicate when accessed from multiple categories (domain.com/sub-category1/product-name, domain.com/sub-category2/product-name, etc.). While this alleviates duplicate content, the data examples do show that this method performs better with BingHoo than Google.

Another important note for this method is to only include the canonical/primary versions of the product URLs in a XML sitemap feed (click on the image to enlarge).

A .net scripting example to auto-deploy canonical tags that direct indexing the duplicate product URL from multiple categories to a primary was also provided.

No matter what method is chosen, be sure to thoroughly test the deployment, measure successes and non-success and fine tune any future strategies.

There are obvious and powerful reasons for retailers of all scale to focus on search engine optimization, including increased traffic and demand. But more important, search optimization gives the retailer the opportunity to meet and create customer expectations.

As PM Digital analyzes the reams of data that we have regarding natural search optimization generating increased sales and visits from branded and non-branded keywords, it has become clear that the role of search in retail is to create a natural point of connection between searchers and the retailer’s offerings.

This goes beyond simple product listings, and extends the presentation of the retailer into category presentation, editorial presentation and more. Search helps guide the visitor from their expression of intent, their search query, to the right part of your website where your brand promise and conversion funnel of your site can come into full effect.

A major retailer kept the following as a retail sales floor mandate: “We must meet customer expectations, but also create and exceed new expectations every day.” Search can fill this mandate, as well. Search optimization gives the retailer the power to be present where the customer expects them to be, but further, search can create an intersection between your brand and searcher intent where the searcher has no expectation of your participation.

Imagine that as a retailer, you have core products where your customers expect to find you. That meets their expectation. However, search gives you an unparalleled opportunity to insert yourself into searches around categories, products and values that are outside of your core.

This new intersection creates a delightful expectation that your brand promise will be fulfilled in a new arena. This allows you to extend your ability to brand, to engage and to grow.

Search optimization provides an authentic customer experience with its unabashed matching of intent and offering. High-quality search presentation is the real-life, unadorned roadmap to connecting to the brand and, by fiat, the products. Your other brand marketing initiatives create awareness, and offers and promotions create conversion opportunities, but search is where your offerings meet intent.

Search optimization creates customer acceleration. Presentation drives engagement, and engagement drives demand.

Meeting Customer Expectations

For retailers, including those whose strength lies in brand, as well as those wily players that focus on price or selection, quality search optimization allows you to meet the expectation of the searcher. When you meet the searcher’s expectation, they have greater comfort in visiting your site and consummating a transaction.

Primarily, the expectations that searchers have around finding retailers is a clear match between the overall brand along with targeted product presentation and your position in search engines. Our research tells us that more than 98% of all search traffic is generated by listings on the first three pages of search results, with more that 80% of the traffic coming from Google’s top 20 listings.

It is crucial that your presentation capture the highest quality positions in the search engines, otherwise, you are offering your brand promise to an empty room. Throughout all of your marketing, your brand positioning, and multi-channel advertising, the savvy retailer has created a value proposition, a set of expectations that the average consumer will understand through your messaging.

The expectation that you set revolve around your specific brands terms, like your name, your name plus obvious or signature products, and likely, your name plus some assortment of modifiers like “sale,” “discount” and “coupon.” If your customers can’t find you in these spots where you have created the expectation that you should be, then you won’t be meeting customer expectations.

If you are a branded merchant, with a message and a set of core values, your customers have an expectation of reliability and availability from you. If they search for the most basic expression of desire to engage with you, like searching for your brand name or your brand name with some basic modifiers like location or product, and you can’t be found in the most visible spots in search, your customer will experience a disconnect.

There will be some measure of trust that is broken. If your other advertising drives awareness, and that awareness cannot be fulfilled through engagement through search, you have not met the expectations that you have set with the customer.

Create and Grow

Regardless if you are a large brand or an online-only player looking to create a splash, search visibility gives you the opportunity to meet, create and surpass customer expectations in a dramatic way.

For the established brand, search visibility across your core offerings is a primary tactic for reinforcing your brand positioning and activating those customers that you have engaged through other media. Search gives you the leverage to power re-engagement when the searcher is not specifically engaged with your brand. Visibility and position act as enticements and cross-channel brand visibility will drive the searcher to a trusted brand relationship and, hopefully, a resulting click through.

For the brand that is extending beyond its core, or if you are a player that has not invested heavily in brand-building, search optimization can drive visibility and enhanced brand recognition through impression strength and relevancy. In some ways, the major search engines act as a qualified third-party referral. If Google thinks that your site is worthy, that will transfer some level of trust to the searcher who may be more compelled to click through and engage with your brand.

Search visibility creates opportunity to drive ahead new growth categories and new opportunities. It also has the power to activate your customers when, perhaps, they weren’t thinking of you. Regardless of the state of your brand, high-level visibility through search optimization drives visibility, traffic and demand. More, though, it creates and cements emotional brand connectivity that will impact sales for years.

Without it, you will be easily surpassed by the competition and you could be tossed to the top of the brand scrap heap.

In many market sectors, the traditional retailer is under siege. Take the apparel sector. Discounters such as Overstock.com, flash-sale sites like Gilt Groupe and Rue La La, fast-fashion players including Century 21, massive marketplaces such as Amazon, and fashion blogs like The Style Rookie have created a treacherous landscape for apparel retailers, which can no longer expect offline-branding or retail-footprint alone to adequately secure their online fortunes.

An apparel retailer, or any other type of merchant, that has its marketing and branding efforts siloed and is not evaluating its integrated business is at risk of losing its place in the online discussion.   

Case in Point: “Men’s Fashion”

Before you dismiss this as alarmist, let’s look at a simple example: men’s fashion. This is a good benchmark, as most menswear customers look primarily to retailers to inform their fashion choices. But of all the listings on the first page of Google for “men’s fashion,” only two are retailers.

The threat here is not that content sites such as GQ or About.com are taking control of the men’s fashion discussion, but rather that a straight affiliate play like www.mens-fashion-tips.com could capture more natural-search attention than Armani or Ralph Lauren or even Lands’ End.

These results, of course, are an algorithmic byproduct. Search engines aren’t editorial, so they typically do not favor one site over another for content reasons. They focus on how well the site matches their interpretation of quality and relevance for a particular search query. So why did only two retailers show up on page 1 for this query? Because the apparel merchants let it happen. They have ceded their voice in the search discussion for “men’s fashion.” 

As we dive deeper and narrower with search terms such as “men’s pants,” we see a much more retailer-focused environment, with Kohl’s, Macy’s, Banana Republic, and Gap among the diverse merchants appearing on the first page. And while the term “men’s pants” is still a very broad query, it does express significant intent to deeply engage with pertinent content.  And, at this level of query, the retailer rules the day. Why?

For the top-level query, such as “men’s fashion,” the eventual desired destination of the searcher is unclear. It is hard to tell if that searcher wants to learn more about men’s fashion, see videos about men’s fashion, or shop for men’s fashion. Over times, however, search engines have learned that the average search for “men’s pants” yields a click through to a retailer.

The Four Pillars of Optimization

The question remains: How does the apparel retailer—or any other retailer, really—position itself, from a natural-search perspective, to have a place in the broader discussion, at the edges of expressed intent to engage, in order to create a wide funnel and compel as many users as possible to engage with its brand?

There are four basic pillars of search engine optimization that elevate brands to the very widest end of the funnel or to the very top of a particular category.

Pillar 1: Keywords and Targeting. To properly position yourself to be part of a broad conversation, or even to infiltrate a targeted conversation in the search engines, you must have some degree of relevancy or you won’t have the legitimacy, never mind the natural-search ranking, to even be in that conversation. 

To play in the “men’s fashion” game, your site needs to have the keywords “men’s fashion” as a prominent part of it. To be relevant, you must have a clear relationship with the topic at hand. An association with a subject alone does not make you part of the discussion. “Stylish and affordable men’s pants, $79.99, free shipping” doesn’t put you at the table, in the same way that saying, “I once hit three home runs in a high school baseball game” does not reasonably associate you with Albert Pujols, either.

To be part of the conversation, research and target those keywords that show the widest visibility and greatest point of consumer engagement. Create relevancy on your site by creating content that is appropriate to the target keyword, create pages that are appropriate to the target, and create excitement around that target.

Pillar 2: Controllable Variables—On-site Optimization. In the world of the Internet, the only things that you can totally control are the elements of your own site. By mastering these elements, such as titling and tags, as well as search-optimized navigation and site structures, you can create an environment that is more conducive to search engine visibility for the terms that you target. These elements are crucial to the search engine spiders’ being able to access all of your content. And, of course, in order to play at the widest end of the discussion, you need to have great content around the target. (See Pillar 4.)

Pillar 3: Influenced Variables—Off-site Optimization. Off-site optimization, or more fundamentally, link building, is a core exercise in building overall awareness. A laserlike focus on link building from topically relevant sites with anchor text that targets the target keyword is the key to achieving top visibility for a particular keyword.

While this may seem like a dark art to some, targeted link building drives relevance to your site for your target keywords, and the search engines recognize this as authoritative and highly relevant context. The goal is to find the appropriate link partners and craft the right message to get them engaged enough to give you a link with your target keyword as anchor text. We typically find that these kinds of link-building exercises take enormous time and focus.

Pillar 4: Content. Content, they say, is king. And the single biggest reason that apparel retailers in particular have not seen success in infiltrating the broadest kinds of discussion on the Internet is that they do not create much content outside of product descriptions. To compete with the editorially driven sites and earn your right at the premiere place for the largest search volume query, you must have content that is unique, targeted, well executed, and focused on both the search engines and the users.

As with editorial players, the goal of retailers is to drive visibility through the leveraging of your domain expertise. Further, the quality content helps drive the value of your presentation at the edges of search intent. These kinds of presentations create true value for your consumer, and that, combined with the high quality expressed in your brand promise, will help drive the searcher to click through to your site rather than an affiliate site or an editorial site. Once engaged with this content, the searcher is accelerated into your sales funnel at high velocity.

Content is difficult to create, but the double benefit of increased presentation and velocity-driven customers is simply unparalleled. To wit, watch what the Gilt Groupe has done to drive natural-search optimization into an ecommerce model.  They cleverly use content, friend-building and in-bound links to drive up their rankings and, most recently, partnering with the television show White Collar, it’s becoming a storyteller rather than a retailer.

Traditional retailers are under attack. From direct brand solicitations to socially savvy shoppers hunting through Polyvore and Shopbop, they have never faced so much competition. But by focusing on the four pillars of search, a retailer can take back its voice, grab hold of the conversation, and drive ahead its editorial voice and shape the market and maximize its unique advantages. 

Search is powerful…but only when you use it.

So, onto the facts:

FACT: Google Instant is cool. It is the best eye candy that search has ever had. Never before has search been so interesting to look at and engage.

FACT: Because of the dynamic nature of the results presentation, Google Instant makes you pay attention to what is happening on the result pages. Chances are, you will see a compelling search result even before you have finished typing your query.

FACT: Google Instant saves you time. Google Instant saves between 2 and 5 seconds per search. That saves something on the order of 33,000,000 user minutes per month. Talk about productivity boosters!

Now, for the myths:

MYTH: Google Instant means the end of search engine optimization. This makes a terrific headline, but is very far from true. The Google algorithm hasn’t changed. The basics of search haven’t changed. Only the presentation has changed. The search world is all atwitter about Google Instant, but the fundamentals of search and search engine optimization are 100% in tact.

MYTH: Search rankings don’t matter any more. Well, search has become so complex, so distributed across so many presentation layers that there hasn’t been a static presentation in years. (For instance, the same Google search for “black shoes” done from your office, from your laptop in an airport, and from your mobile device when you are visiting your cousin in Toledo is going to be different.) So there hasn’t been anything truly solid about being #1 in Google for a particular keyword. It has been and continues to be a very fluid experience. Search rankings haven’t mattered all that much for at least two years. Google Instant does nothing to change that. Google is trying to provide the right result to the right searcher. Google Instant does that in a visually intriguing way, but it does nothing to diminish or enhance your traffic generation capabilities for a well-optimized site.

And, finally, on to the opportunities:

OPPORTUNITY: Google Instant has added a bit of serendipity to search. As you type in your query, results start dancing on the screen. And you are bound to see something interesting along the way. As Google refines your results, as they narrow in on your search, they are showing you an array of content opportunities with which to engage. I may be seeking information about men’s shoes, but I also get exposed to an editorial about men’s fashion (this is something that happened to me). I did eventually get to my men’s shoe query, but was enthralled when I found a men’s fashion blog that I had never heard of before. This kind of serendipity has always existed in search, but I think the opportunity for this to happen is more pronounced with the changed presentation layer. The opportunity for marketers here is content. Not just products and offers, but editorial content, thought content, and content that is engaging to read. Content begets search visibility, and search visibility will lead to serendipitous engagement. Your content becomes your ambassador.

OPPORTUNITY: Google Instant changes the way users engage with search. It is more interactive and exploratory. And Instant almost forces you to engage in longer tail search queries. (The more you type, the better results you get! The more eye candy you get!) This is a shift for marketers. There has been consistent emphasis on big volume words in search, “Shoes”, “Men’s Shirts”, “Tax Returns”, etc. The miraculous thing about Instant is that where you might have previously searched for shoes, with Instant you see the results and immediately know if there is an appropriate result for you. And big, broad words often provide big, broad results, and that isn’t why we use search. Over time, you might find yourself starting to type “shoes” (368,000 monthly queries)…only to change to “shoes for men” (4400 monthly queries) because the result set is more targeted. And then you might type in “shoes for men brown” (low search query volume) because the result set is even better. Instant rewards the searcher because the searcher suddenly understands that the granular query gets them more targeted information. Instant pushes the long tail. (And Google’s MayDay update which significantly rejiggered the long-tail algorithm, was clearly a precursor to Instant.) Long tail searches become more important. The opportunity for marketers is again in the creation of content that speaks specifically about the products or services they offer. Rather than focusing on shoes, your men’s shoe pages should focus on men’s shoes, along with their attributes (color, type, sole material, etc.). Google is rewarding the searcher for making specific queries, and rewarding the marketer for creating a site that is accessible, content rich, and well constructed.

Google Instant changes search. It doesn’t change the way Google works. It changes the way the user interacts with search. So contrary to popular opinion, SEO is not dead. It is alive and well and will help marketers create better opportunities to offer searchers exactly what they want, exactly when they are looking for it. Instant is powerful.

Anyone who knows me knows that I am mildly obsessed with coffee. I savor it, gulp it, glory in it. But really, it is all about the caffeine. Caffeine makes me feel alive. Caffeine makes me engaged. Caffeine makes my heart purr along at 600 beats per minute. Caffeine is essential. Google shares my love for the caffeinated lifestyle. They are obsessed with speed. They want their servers chugging along like they’ve spent the afternoon with 400 of their favorite baristas. Google is ready to rock Caffeine, their new internal search architecture.  Google Caffeine is ready to roll out after the holidays.

What Does Google Caffeine Mean to Marketers?

Fundamentally, it doesn’t change your current search positions a lot. The essential algorithm that Google uses to determine which sites are relevant for particular terms isn’t really changing that much in the near term (but look out…big changes are coming…more on that before Christmas). But there are nuances that are becoming evident:

1. Indexing - Caffeine is all about indexing speed for Google. How many more pages can Google add to its index and how quickly?  Caffeine represents a significant change in Google’s housekeeping. This is good for Google. They are speeding up the indexing because the web is exploding in its growth. (See my Here Comes The Flood for more info on the whats, whys, and wheres of the explosions).  Google needs to get faster so that it can keep up with the deluge of new information and links. The takeaway for marketers is that you can expect to see your newer pages show up in the index (but not necessarily well ranked) sooner. Speed of indexation is good, but a bigger index means that you have even MORE work to do to keep yourself visible. You will likely have to do less work to become seen by Google, but more work to be visible to searchers.

2. Filtering - Google has become really aggressive about filtering duplicate content. As they speed the indexing, they need to step up the filtering process to insure that they don’t have 6500 versions of the same URL in the index. So, if you have duplicate content, or have pages that are “modestly unique”, like two shirts that are the same except in color, you can be sure that Google will be more aggressive about filtering out one of those shirts. (By the way, there are ways to counteract this issue that I will be covering in a near-term post.) This can be a very disconcerting issue for marketers, especially retailers. Make sure that you are giving search engines every possible opportunity to find all of your URLs through HTML site maps, XML site maps, RSS feeds, Google Product feeds, etc., etc., etc.

3. Content Frequency – If this update is all about indexing and speed, then it makes sense that the marketer ought to adapt to an even faster-moving world. There are tons of ways to make your brand more visible when high frequency is essential. Try blogging, social media, contests, press releases, interviews, editorial content, opinion pieces, giveaways, customer profiles, free advice (and I just came up with all of those in the last 7 seconds…thanks to caffeine!) In so many respects, it doesn’t matter what your industry is, it matters that you are active in it. Static websites that change once a quarter are so 2000…in 2010 it is about dynamic, content-driven information experiences. Frequent, thoughtful, value-added content will grow your opportunity (and your brand voice) in a way that is simply unimaginable in an uncaffeinated world.

4. Site Speed – Google has come out and said it — they are obsessed with speed. The faster something happens, the better. The same goes for your site. Speed matters. Matt Cutts, the uber-search guru at Google has speculated that site speed will become part of the algorithm. If you are lagging, get on the phone with your hosting company, your IT guys and maybe call a content delivery network to drive ahead your site speed. It matters for customers and for search engines. Really. Seconds and milliseconds count. Don’t be satisfied with “fast enough”. Be satisfied with “fastest in my vertical.”

5. Social Media – This may sound like a tired refrain by now, but social media matters. It matters that you are active in it. It also matters that you allow visitors to your site to share what they find. Make it easy for visitors to share what they think about you with everyone they know. Easy fixes are ShareThis or AddThis (not an endorsement, just top of mind). Make your site a spot where information is fluid with opportunities for visitors to interact with you and also share what they find with their sphere of influence.  This matters because Google Caffeine was built to index this kind of dynamic content development and information sharing. If you aren’t adapting to your ever-changing environment, then you will lose marketshare.

Caffeine is about speed. Speed is needed because the internet is growing at such an amazing rate that keeping up with it is an unimaginably complex task. The internet is a wildly growing information organism that is evolving rapidly. Speed is needed to keep up with the expansion. In order for you to stay ahead of the need for speed, take stock of where you stand on these issues. Are you fast enough? Do you share enough? Are you frequent enough? Are you unique enough?

Are you ready for a cuppa?

Tim Kilroy is Vice President of Natural Search at PM Digital.

To that end, below are five easy-to-use SEO tools that we encourage any marketer to check out. And best of all, they’re all free!

1. SEOTools Back Link Analyzer

Back Link Analyzer quickly determines anchor text, page title and number of inbound links to a page. This is a great tool that gives you insight to how the page gets its visibility in search. Links are food for search engines, and this tool gives you an idea how satisfying your page (or a competitor’s page) is. We use this tool to inform our link building and search improvement activities.

2. Website Grader

True to its name, Website Grader attempts to “grade” the effectiveness of your website vs. competitors. It provides a score that incorporates things like website traffic, SEO, social popularity and other technical factors. This tool gives you a great way to objectively look at your page from a search perspective. It looks at all of the on-page elements that search engines look at and points out your weaknesses. Website Grader is a great tool that provides objective measurement with a no-nonsense result.

3. Total Validator

Total Validator provides a one-stop-shop chockfull of validation tools – an HTML validator, an accessibility validator, a spelling validator and a broken links validator.  This tool is a spot check to reveal any technical issues on your page. Search engines value standards compliance, and Total Validator gives you a completely objective look at how compliant you page code is. Poor technical construction and standards non-compliance can cause search engines to skip crawling your site or diminish its search visibility.

And no listing of top SEO tools would be complete without a few Firefox Add-ons, as Firefox remains a favored browser for SEOs everywhere.

4. X-Ray

X-Ray gives marketers a quick way to see a webpage’s tags without having to view the source code. X-Ray is simply an indispensable tool. It illuminates the meta-data, inbound link volume and essential code elements like H1 tags without having to look at source code. This speeds up the technical discovery process and can easily show even the non-search expert points that need improvement.

5. SEOpen

SEOpen gives marketers a quick look at the the number of indexed pages and inbound links on the major search engines. Also you get a look at Alexa rankings and more. This great tool aggregates important information all in one place!

Jeffrey Cohen is CIO/CTO of PM Digital.