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Sunday, January 5, 2025
Wednesday, January 1, 2025
Casino News Media Blog: US News
Casino News Media Blog
U.S. Gambling Regulations in 2023
Gambling in the U.S. is worth millions of dollars every year, but things aren't always so cut and dry. Each state has autonomy over its own gambling regulations and can decide which in-person and online betting markets are permitted.
With regular changes to bills taking place, it can be challenging to know which states permit what gambling activities (sports betting, poker, online casinos). Even those states that only allow sports wagering, the rules vary. Illinois, Virginia, New York do not allow betting on in-state schools, Oregon does not allow any mobile gambling on college sports. States like Iowa and Massachusetts prohibit use of a credit card for opening a betting account. And then there's Nevada. The Silver State requires individuals to register in-person (not remotely).
The legality of online gambling markets in the U.S. is determined by individual states, most of which must amend their current state laws. There are some exceptions such as New Mexico. The Land of Enchantment allowed a few retail sportsbooks to operate on tribal lands without any type of legislative considerations.
The federal government has not immersed itself in gambling regulations in America since the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act in May of 2018. Instead, the sausage making all occurs at the state level (just not New Mexico) where lawmakers must find a way to get a final version of a bill through both the state house and senate. Once legislation passes through both chambers, it's up to the governor to sign off or veto. In 2020, Maine Gov. Janet Mills opted to veto a sports gambling bill that landed on her desk. The Maine senate would go on to override Mills veto. Only now is that state in the process of approving operators, three years later. It's not always a pretty process.
All states apply tax rates on betting activities with taxes typically varying between 10% and 20%, but much higher in some states. Case in point, Pennsylvania is over 30%. New York flirts with the 50% mark. License applications and renewals are another way that states benefit financially from gambling operations.
Online gambling has enjoyed a surge in popularity due to the popularity of mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets. This provides users with a convenient way to place bets from the comfort of their own home or on the move.
Online gambling is typically split into a variety of markets that include online casinos, sports betting, horse racing, fantasy sports betting, lottery, and poker.
At present, online sports betting is legal in Arizona, Colorado, Delaware, Illinois, Iowa, Louisiana, Maryland, Michigan, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Virginia, Washington DC, and West Virginia. It is estimated that over $180 billion has been wagered legally on sports betting in the U.S. and many states are interested in the possibility of tapping into this revenue stream.
This week, the Supreme Court rejected a challenge to Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’ multi billion agreement with the Seminoles to offer online sports betting in Florida. And while it may appear the sky is the limit for the Seminoles to launch their Hard Rock sportsbook, various court challenges remain. Clarity is not anticipated before the next Super Bowl. Florida makes up the top three most populous U.S. states, none of which currently offer sports wagering. Texas and California are the other two. on October 27 it was announced that the most populated state, California, will once again feature two ballot initiatives asking voters to determine the fate of sports betting in 2024. The last effort failed miserably.
Even in states that have yet to regulate sports gambling, there are ways for consumers to legally place wagers. Offshore betting is not covered by regulations, meaning citizens can sign up and play with operators from based outside the U.S. Some offshore sportsbooks have opted not to accept new customers from New Jersey and Nevada.
Because offshore books are not regulated by any state, players are not afforded the same protection as those granted a license. Offshore sportsbooks do tend to be far more established however. That's resulted in a stellar reputation built over time. Some of the best options for 2023 provide players with great incentives, state-of-the-art software, and high-security levels, and are licensed by reputable authorities overseas, like the Curaçao Gaming Control Board.
When it comes to state regulated sports betting, the tribes do have significant influence over gaming in several states including Connecticut, California, Florida, Wisconsin, Minnesota and New Mexico. This is both a blessing and a curse.
Native American tribes are permitted to operate casinos on tribal land. These permissions are based on the 1988 Indian Gaming Regulatory Act, which created a framework based on set conditions.
Conditions include gaming compacts with the state and a license being granted by the NIGC (National Indian Gaming Commission). But conflicts are common. We're seeing this in Florida where the Seminoles are influential but not the only game in town, so to speak. Connecticut's Mohegan and Mashantucket Pequot tribes, on the other hand, were met with little resistance in their quest to oversee the mobile and retail sports betting market. California can't get over the finish line as a result of in-fighting among tribes. For the better part of a decade efforts to legalize online poker fell apart courtesy of differing tribal agendas.
During 2023, there were bills either newly proposed or rehashed across the country looking to regulate sports wagering. Lawmakers in Kentucky and North Carolina were ultimately able to take a victory lap. Georgia? Better luck next time.
Until now, there's been little effort to push for online gaming and/or poker legislation. That seems to be changing.
Indiana launched an attempt to legalize iGaming under HB1536 with a proposed 20% tax rate that would see money going directly to services to support gamblers. This attempt failed in February and will have to wait until 2024 for another attempt.
Iowa's HSB227 to legalize online casinos isn't being considered while Illinois' HB2239, SB1656, and HB2320 to create an internet gaming act saw proposals of 12% and 15% tax rates, but there has been little movement. Illinois is relatively unique in offering biennial legislative sessions, which means the proposal will stay active until 2024.
There were high hopes for New York's attempts to legalize online casinos in 2023 under bills A1380 and A3634. The state has the potential to be one of the highest-grossing gambling states because of its population (4th largest in the nation), but support appears to have slowed down after the legalization of sports betting on the NFL, NBA and others bringing in massive revenues since 2022. New York is also considering retail casino applications at present. With this in mind, iGaming will have to take a back seat for now. There is a real possibility in 2025 following the election year.
Rhode Island surprised a lot of people by agreeing to SB948, which will legalize online casino gaming. Regulatory framework and licensing are still to be decided, but this is just a formality.
Maryland missed the 2023 deadline to pass iGaming legislation to compliment the already approved sports betting market. Bill number SB267 will face a referendum so campaigners will be pushing for support if it gets the nod for 2024.
Maine's LD1777 proposal to legalize online casinos based on the current tribal agreement over online sports betting hasn't moved quickly (we mentioned the three year lag period for sports betting above).
Betting laws in the U.S. will continue to change to accommodate different betting markets. States are seeing significant revenue streams from allowing legalized betting, and many others are eager to explore these options.
Assurances that a percentage of gaming revenues will go towards programs to help problem gamblers along with other social programs will appease some detractors for sure.
States that have zero forms of gambling like Utah and Hawaii may never see mobile sports betting or iGaming in our lifetimes. Georgia, South Carolina and Texas are not the most gambling-friendly states in the nation but, nevertheless, there are those at least trying to make an effort. Anything is possible. Just look at Tennessee. This is a state that has no casinos yet embraced mobile sports betting with open arms not too long after the 2018 SCOTUS decision.
(Gambling911)
Casino News
Man faces Perth court charged with woman’s murder at Crown hotel
A man has faced court charged with murdering a woman in a hotel room at Crown Towers Perth.
A man charged with murdering a family law barrister at a Perth hotel has faced court wearing a white forensic jumpsuit.
The body of 34-year-old Alice Rose McShera was found at Crown Towers Perth in Burswood on Monday morning.
Cameron John Pearson, 42, was also found at the scene with allegedly self-inflicted wounds and was treated in hospital.
Homicide squad detectives charged the Bibra Lake man with murder overnight.
Pearson, represented by solicitor Reid Hogan, briefly faced Perth Magistrates Court on Tuesday morning wearing a forensic jumpsuit and was unshaven.
Magistrate Stephen Butcher remanded Pearson in custody to face Stirling Gardens Magistrates Court on November 22.
Ms McShera was based at the Murray Chambers in Perth.
Her profile said she was “an experienced advocate who appears and advises as counsel in all family law and restraining orders matters”.
Before commencing practice as an independent barrister, Ms McShera practised as a senior associate in a boutique family law firm and, prior to that, was a legal associate to a WA Family Court judge for four years.
She obtained her Master of Laws from the Australian National University in 2015 and was a member of the Family Law Practitioners Association of Western Australia and the Law Society of Western Australia.
Outside court, supporters of the victim, who are believed to be family members, declined to comment to the waiting media.
Emergency services were called to the hotel about 11.10am on Monday after reports a woman was found dead inside a room.
St John Ambulance paramedics treated Ms McShera at the scene but she could not be saved.
Police said Pearson had sustained “serious self-inflicted injuries”.
A spokesperson for Crown Resorts issued a brief statement following the woman’s death.
“We can confirm police responded to an incident at Crown Towers Perth earlier today,” the statement read.
“Our team are assisting WA Police with their investigation, and we are supporting our team members.
“Any further inquiries should be directed to WA Police.”
The $650m Crown Towers in Perth, which includes 500 guest rooms and villas, was opened in 2016.
Anyone with information is asked to contact Crime Stoppers.
Anti-domestic violence organisation White Ribbon Australia said Ms McShera was the 43rd woman to die this year due to alleged violence.
“We’re faced with a shocking reality that should make all of us feel equal parts outrage and sadness — on average, one woman is allegedly murdered every nine days in Australia,” chief executive Melissa Perry said in a statement.
“As a society we cannot be so numbed and desensitised that we view family and domestic violence and the resulting deaths as just another statistic.“
Ms Perry said the time for silence and indifference had passed.
“As a nation, we need to be doing more to change this unacceptable set of statistics,“ she said.
“We also need to recognise that this won’t happen without greater investment across all areas of the family domestic violence and abuse sector.
“This includes primary prevention strategies and education campaigns to stop violence before it starts, behaviour change programs for men who have chosen to use violence, and victim-survivor support services.”
007 News
James Bond producer Barbara Broccoli admits she hasn’t started working on next instalment
The producer admitted in an interview with The Guardian that there is "a big road ahead", before the iconic British spy is "reinvented for the next chapter" following the end of Daniel Craig's run in 2021's No Time to Die. Broccoli explained her team "haven't even begun" the process of modernising the franchise, which they believe is necessary whenever a new actor takes over the role. When Craig signed up for Bond with 2006's Casino Royale, the producers "wanted to focus on what a 21st-century hero would look like"
James Bond 007 News
California man prepares to sell nearly 60-year James Bond memorabilia collection for $1 million
Collection includes over 30,000 items — posters, books, magazines and much more
A retired California schoolteacher is ready to cash in his collection of all things James Bond-related.
Steve Oxenrider has a collection of over 30,000 items related to the Bond phenomenon, with some items dating back to the early 1960s when the series was first released.
The San Francisco resident has shipped half his items so far to Ewbank’s Auction House in Woking, Surrey, England, ahead of the auction.
Due to the large number of collectibles, Ewbank’s will auction off Oxenrider's collection in two parts — with the first half of the miscellany going live in November.
Some of the items included in the auction include original posters for "Dr. No," valued at over $15,000, and a signed "Thunderball" gala charity premiere brochure from 1965, which is expected to sell for over $1,000.
Although Oxenrider has over 30,000 items of memorabilia, he told Ewbank's that he still wishes he had call sheets from the earlier films in his possession.
"They provide an intriguing insight into the production of a film," he said.
Oxenrider said the first items he acquired were James Bond trading cards in 1965.
These then led to books, lobby cards, magazines, comics, merchandise such as toys and games, music, posters, press material, scripts, still, movies and more.
The two-day auction for the first half of the collection will begin on Nov. 16.
It will be highlighted by posters from the earlier films — with the second auction scheduled for spring 2024.
Ewbank’s partner and head of entertainment memorabilia Alastair McCrea said the collection is "breathtaking."
"We have been holding dedicated James Bond auctions for years now, but this collection is on an entirely new level," he said.
Oxenrider said the first items he acquired were James Bond trading cards in 1965.
These then led to books, lobby cards, magazines, comics, merchandise such as toys and games, music, posters, press material, scripts, still, movies and more.
The two-day auction for the first half of the collection will begin on Nov. 16.
It will be highlighted by posters from the earlier films — with the second auction scheduled for spring 2024.
Ewbank’s partner and head of entertainment memorabilia Alastair McCrea said the collection is "breathtaking."
"We have been holding dedicated James Bond auctions for years now, but this collection is on an entirely new level," he said.
The sheer breadth and depth of the collection is breathtaking and a tribute to the dedication and perspicacity of Steve Oxenrider — the ultimate collector of 007 material."
For those looking to grow their own memorabilia collection, Oxenrider said that doing your own research is key.
"Do research on auction websites to see what’s available and price estimates," he said.
"Limit what you’re looking for and how much you want to invest."
The collector recommended getting in touch with trusted establishments that might be interested in selling or trading material.
James Bond, also referred to as "Agent 007," was a fictional character introduced in "Casino Royale" in 1953 as a British Secret Intelligence Service agent, according to Britannica.
Bond was the product of British novelist Ian Fleming — who featured the character in 12 novels after "Casino Royale" and film adaptations, as Britannica also noted.
Some actors known for playing the role of Bond include Sean Connery, Pierce Brosnan and Daniel Craig.
For more information on how to bid for the Bond memorabilia, visit Ewbank’s Auctions.
Fox News Digital reached out to Ewbank's for further comment.
(FOX)
Content News Media
SEO News
Search News Media News
Content News Media
Ways to find unique content ideas from real-life insights
Find out how to create content that sets you apart from the competition using untapped sources. Here are four areas to explore.
Marketers often work at a distance from frontline operations.
We may not directly build the product, deal with angry customer phone calls, or be out in the field selling.
We might even be at an agency, an additional level removed from the shop floor or direct interactions with the target customer.
How, then, can you:
Know what to write about?
Insert meaningful insights into your landing pages or ad creative?
Effectively persuade your target audience that you are the clear choice over your competitors?
Digging new wells to find new content
One of the best writing tips I’ve ever received is to “dig new wells.” That is, to get content no one else is writing, you need to establish different sources.
Too often, content writing for the web starts with the search results. While it makes sense to look at what’s ranking for your target keywords, it should not be your only source of information.
The rise of 10x content and the Skyscraper Technique led some content writers to rely on rewording and combining top pages into a long, SEO-focused page. But it’s not getting outside sources of information.
For me, the best type of content for the web comes from outside the web. Pulling content ideas, inspiration, and even language from real-life sources can help your content stand out, resonate with your target audience, and even alleviate any concerns they have.
Plus, combining outside-sourced content with an SEO’s skills in finding keywords, structuring content, and generating links can form a powerful piece of content that performs nicely.
Here are a few ways to dig new wells to find new content.
1. Source content from employees
The single greatest source of content is from front-line employees. Depending on your business, you might have:
Salespeople
Salespeople earn their living by earning trust, highlighting benefits, and alleviating fears of potential customers or clients.
Any successful salesperson has already worked out a script based on common pain points and exactly what message can help convince people to buy.
Customer service representatives (CSRs)
As frontline workers who come in contact the most with existing customers, they know the most common questions and objections people have.
If a CSR gets asked the same question regularly (say once per week or greater), the answer to that question should become content on your site.
Those doing the work
Another great source of content is from those doing the actual work. Visit the factory floor, buy coffee for the production team, or go for a ride along with the installation team.
By spending time with those who actually make your products or carry out your services, you will get a newfound understanding and appreciation for what they do.
Plus, they should be able to provide great insights into how you are different than your competitors – whether it is better materials, unique processes, or attention to detail.
Example of sourcing content from employees
I had a client in the agriculture industry who wanted to grow by getting their brand in front of more farmers. My main contact was a salesperson working in the field six days a week, traveling from farm to farm.
In some ways, he functioned more as a consultant, helping generate ideas and sharing best practices from others to help each farmer expand their operation.
He would be the first to tell you he was not a great choice for writing new content for their website. Here’s what worked for us: I would get him on the phone while driving between farms, and he would rant.
For half an hour, he would brain-dump his thoughts on a certain product or service his company was offering. I was simply there to transcribe and ask follow-up questions.
When it was time to write the website content, I found that the salesperson’s rants would form 80% of the page. I was merely there to edit and shape it into a logical flow and ensure it was optimized for search and conversions.
2. Source content from current customers
Another well of great content ideas is from your current customers or clients. They are your best source for entering the buyer’s mind and decision-making process.
If possible, make it a habit to regularly interview some of your current customers. Ask them questions about:
Their pain points.
How they researched options.
What mattered and didn’t matter to them as they made a decision.
You can sometimes use these stories as the basis for case studies or featured project pages for your site. At the very least, you will uncover phrases, words and concepts that can become integral parts of your website content and marketing efforts.
Example of sourcing content from current customers
A few years back, I was working on a branding campaign for a furniture company. Their core business was selling through furniture stores; they saw an opportunity to increase sales by working with high-end interior designers.
As we worked on drafting content for their website and marketing material, our team booked calls with a handful of interior designers with whom they currently worked.
These phone calls were a wealth of information and insights into these interior designers’ pain points, goals and dreams.
Some insights they provided were completely unknown to the furniture company. What we learned from these calls proved invaluable in shaping the website content.
3. Source content from past customers
Past customer reviews are among the easiest yet impactful wells to pull content ideas and language.
Whether past customers have left reviews on your Google Business Profile, Amazon, a third-party review site, or your own internal system, these are great sources of info about how the market views your product or service.
Customer reviews are great because they provide a glimpse into your customer's thinking at scale – no need to interview them. Online reviews also collect the right language, pain points, and angles you may not have noticed.
Whenever I take on a new local SEO client, I make it a point to read every review on their Google Business Profile. I like looking for trends and themes across the reviews and see anecdotally what really matters to customers.
Google does pull out themes by seeing the top 10 topics or phrases mentioned in reviews.
You can take your reviews and put them in a sentiment analysis tool to see topics, trends, and talk points that you can share with your CSR or use in your marketing, advertising and website efforts.
Example of sourcing content from past customers
One time, I was reading reviews for a new client in the home service industry.
A few reviews told a similar story: each mentioned the same salesperson by name and how professional and informational the salesperson was – especially compared to other companies. And each said a surprising detail: the salesperson gave a gift of local jam.
One specific salesperson was doing this to make connections with his prospects, but it was leaving such an impact on customers that they mentioned it in their reviews.
When our client found out about this, they made it a standard across all sales staff, and we mentioned it as part of the online appointment scheduler.
4. Source content from competitors
A surprising source of content ideas can come from your competitors.
As we saw above, if online reviews for your own products or services can provide helpful insights for your marketing efforts, what can you learn from reading the reviews of your competitors? A lot!
Find a few of your competitors and read every review of theirs that is three stars or lower. Bad or mixed reviews can provide a gold mine of information about what people don't like about your competitors.
These points can be used in your marketing efforts, as they are pain points your target audience has, and your competitors are not meeting.
Example of sourcing content from competitors
While conducting competitive research for an outdoor structure company, I noticed their main competitors had a fair amount of indifferent reviews. As I read these reviews, I noticed themes. Most reviews mentioned:
A lack of communication.
Misunderstandings about the delivery and installation process.
I took this to the client, and we discussed how we could make their service better. The client worked on strengthening their already solid customer communication system.
On the website, we invested in content to fully explain how they deliver and install their structures, answering every single question their CSR is regularly asked.
Finally, we created a comprehensive guide on the entire sales process, from initial order through installation. We used this as a target for a remarketing campaign to help reengage with potential customers.
Dig deeper: Competitor content analysis: Here’s what you can learn
Start creating new content today
To create content that no one is creating, you need to get different sources no one else can get.
Interview your employees and current customers. Summarize feedback from past customers and those disappointed with your competitors.
Gain valuable insights to tell your unique story and stand out.
Thursday, December 26, 2024
Casino News Media: Pop Culture Flashback
Casino News Media Blog
Australian gambling and media billionaire has taken a calculated gamble with his green lighting of a Tiger Woods special visit to Perth, Western Australia.
Golf fans are not likely to see Tiger Woods in the flesh when he comes to Perth as a guest of James Packer, Burswood Casino and friends.
Golf nuts and the public at large have buckley's of catching Tiger Woods in the flesh when he stays at Burswood next month for a special corporate golf day.
Woods, 35, is being remunerated with a secret amount of money - likely around half a million bucks - by Crown Limited, which owns Burswood Entertainment Complex, to play in the invitation-only tourney and conduct private golf clinics on Saturday November 5. "Private" may be open to interpretation.
A deep throat at Burswood Park Golf Course source the press that Woods was an uncertain starter for the event and would probably only conduct golf clinics for the high-profile business associates of the casino's owner James Packer.
"High-profile gamblers and high-rollers from overseas are expected to form the majority of the field," the leak said.
"One field will go out in the morning, and another in the afternoon."
He said Tiger's visit would be a closed shop for golf fans, with security ensuring Perth golf fans could not walk the course or enter its public car park. It's all under lock and key.
"The course has been booked for the whole day," the source said.
"The entire complex will be closed off."
He said extensive conditioning work had begun at Burswood Park in anticipation of Tiger's visit.
"The course will be pretty flush for Tiger's visit," he said.
A Burswood Entertainment Complex spokesperson told News Limited the invitation-only day was a corporate event organised by Mr James Packer and featuring Burswood's VIP patrons.
"It's not a charity event, it's corporate event," the spokeperson said.
She said Packer would invite his business associates plus the casino's biggest clients to play with him in the corporate day.
"James Packer will be playing, plus Burswood's VIP patrons," she said.
She confirmed that Woods, a 14-time major winner, would stay at Burswood digs during his Perth visit before holding a similar clinic in Melbourne on November 7 ahead of his appearance at The President's Cup at Royal Melbourne Golf Club in mid-November.
The State Government's event agency EventsCorp confirmed the Tiger visit was very much a closed event after a spokesperson said it still hadn't established what, if any, opportunities there may be to promote Perth and WA around Tiger’s visit.
The agency historically has a very close relationship with Burswood.
"It does sound though ... that his visit is very much a private affair," a spokesperson said.
Golf WA CEO Gary Thomas said it was a boost that Woods was in Perth albeit for a private event.
"It's not something that was scheduled and would normally not happen," he said. "We don’t have a major event in Perth that would draw a player of that calibre and for him to now be coming to Perth, albeit for what seems to be a private event, is great.
"It will be a boost for golf and in some way in WA it will attract media attention. "It will mean the sport of golf is in the spotlight which is all good ... it's probably fantastic we've been able to squeeze him in for at least a day in Perth."
Thomas said he didn't know of anyone who has been invited or approached by Crown Limited.
"Whether they're going to be in touch with golf clubs or giving opportunities for people to play are yet to be heard," he said.
Burswood Park, WA's oldest golf course, will ironically be demolished once construction begins on Perth's new $700 million sports stadium at the complex.
Sure sounds like Packer's Burswood has scored a hole in one.
Tuesday, December 24, 2024
Casino News Media Blog: SEO
Casino News Media Blog
SEO News via Media Man: Ways to Improve your Site’s Ranking (SEO)
Ways to Improve your Site’s Ranking (SEO)
New strategies for Search Engine Optimization
Search engine optimization (SEO) is an essential digital marketing practice that plays a vital role in making your website visible to both visitors and search engine crawlers. The primary objective of SEO is to optimize relevant and authoritative content to assist visitors in finding solutions to their queries efficiently.
The ultimate aim of SEO is to create high-quality and informative content that increases the volume of traffic that your website receives daily. Optimizing your website involves creating and expanding your content to ensure that search engines will choose your site over its competitors.
The focus of SEO is to perfect the quality and quantity of your webpage to make sure that your website has an edge over others. Therefore, SEO plays an essential role in driving traffic to your website, which is crucial for the visibility and success of your online Business.
1. Publish Relevant, Authoritative Content
This article provides valuable suggestions on how to improve search engine optimization (SEO) and enhance website ranking on search engine results. Creating quality content that caters to the user’s needs is the driving factor of SEO marketing, and the article emphasizes that there is no substitute for great content.
The article further provides guidance on identifying appropriate keyword phrases for each authoritative content page and making use of them strategically throughout the content. Creating distinct web pages for each distinct targeted keyword phrase is advisable to enhance ranking.
The article suggests using keywords in headings, subheadings, URLs, and titles, and stressing the importance of readability and user-friendliness of the content. Using emphasis tags and strategically linking to relevant sources is also encouraged. By following these valuable suggestions, users can create SEO-friendly content that benefits the readers while improving their website’s overall ranking.
2. Update Your Content Regularly
Maintaining updated content is crucial to improve your website’s relevancy, and it is a crucial factor that search engines prioritize as well. We highly recommend scheduling regular content audits, for instance, on a semesterly basis, to update your webpages and blog posts accordingly.
Writing additional content frequently on your departmental news blog can enhance your search engine rankings by incorporating relevant keyword phrases. Brief blog posts can also be helpful if they offer specific updates related to your targeted topics.
Moreover, interlinking your related CMS webpages and blog posts can provide readers with a better understanding of your website’s content and additional information on the subject. Thus, keep your website updated and relevant to improve your visitor’s user experience and attract more traffic to your site.
3. Metadata
Website designers use metadata to provide information about a website’s content. When creating a webpage, a space between the “head” tags is reserved for metadata.
If you use a CMS website produced by the UMC web team, they have already filled in the metadata. However, as your content changes, it is important to review and update the metadata.
Title Metadata
Title metadata is the most important because it determines the page title that appears at the top of a browser window and in search engine results. For those with a CMS website, the web team has automated this process based on your page title. Therefore, it is essential to use well-thought-out page titles that include keyword phrases.
Description Matadata
Description metadata is a brief and interesting summary of what your website contains. It’s like a store’s attractive display that encourages people to visit. Usually, it should be two sentences long. Search engines may or may not use this summary, but it’s good to have it in case they do.
Kayword Metadata
Keyword metadata is not very helpful in improving your search engine ranking. However, it’s useful to include some of your important keywords in the metadata. You should select a few phrases with one to four words each and add three to seven of them. For example, “computer science degree” is a good keyword phrase to use.
4. Have a Link-worthy Site
Making your website popular involves efforts in developing valuable content and enhancing its search results. To achieve this, you must focus on creating informative and unbiased content that caters to the readers’ interests and queries.
Furthermore, your website might earn a backlink from other websites if it provides good value to the readers. This can improve its search engine ranking immensely, which can bring in more visitors. It is also crucial to incorporate descriptive hyperlinks in the text as opposed to generic “click here” links.
This helps in giving proper context to people who use screen readers and makes it easier for search engines to crawl your website. You can lift your website SEO performance by using appropriate keywords in your content and developing internal links. These techniques can help you build a better online presence and increase your website’s popularity.
5. Use ALT Tags
Want search engines to find your website and to make it more accessible for people who use text-only browsers or screen readers? Simply put, use alt tags to describe your media content, like images and videos, with alternative text descriptions.
These descriptions act as labels for search engines and help them identify your page better. They also provide context for those who cannot view the media directly. By making your website more accessible and searchable, you can improve its overall user experience.
News
New strategies for Search Engine Optimization
New areas of digital marketing are as changeable and require so much adaption and new-thinking as the world of SEO. Search Engine Optimization has come a long way from its beginnings in the 1990s, and the technologies deciding what is “good SEO” or not changes from year to year.
That’s why tech companies such as IncRev are launching new strategies aimed at long-term goals in both data-driven and relations-based SEO all over the world, by implementing tactics from both traditional PR and modern SEO and link-building.
Below, we will discuss the nature of SEO, how SEO is changing, and why choosing an agency such as IncRev will be the key to your SEO success.
Best SEO practices 2023:
Find your customers with data-driven market analysis
Find authoritative marketing partners using data-driven PR
Reach your customers with high quality outreach and credible link-building
What is SEO?
In order to discuss the ways in which SEO works, it’s important to understand the basic principles on which the concept is built. SEO is an acronym for Search Engine Optimization, and is an umbrella term for processes in which users optimize their websites in order to rank higher on search engines such as Google whenever customers search for keywords relevant to their website.
By optimizing the various aspects of a website, SEO aims to improve its ranking on search engine result pages (SERPs), thereby increasing the quantity and quality of traffic. In layman’s terms, it helps more people to find your website by increasing its digital visibility.
Why is SEO important?
There’s an old SEO joke that goes like this: A man asks a detective “Where’s the best place to hide a body?” The detective answers “Why, on the second page of Google, of course!”. In other words, ranking on the first page of Google is the key to getting traffic and therefore sales or viewings on your webpage, as few people bother to look past the first results page.
In fact, the first spot on Google is ten times more likely to get a click than results number ten, and the top three results receive over half of all clicks. That’s why the goal of every SEO strategist is to get a website into the top ten search results on Google, and preferably in the top three.
That’s why SEO marketing lives on, despite some people saying that SEO is dead. The answer is: it’s more alive than ever. It just doesn’t fit into the mold of the quick-results culture of the modern world, but it is still effective.
The evolution of SEO
SEO as a term first came into use in 1997, despite the first website being published in 1991. The coin was termed John Audette of Multimedia Marketing Group early that year, and so the hunt for the top of the search engine results pages began.
In the beginning, there were several competing names for the concept, including search engine ranking, website promotion, etc. The strongest competitor was the term “search engine marketing”, which was originally pitched as a successor to SEO. But ultimately, search engine optimization proved to be the most steadfast and all-encompassing term, while SEM is used to describe concepts like paid search marketing and advertising.
Google’s rise to power
In the 2000s, Google grew to become the search engine giant we know it as today. Soon enough, the organization was able to survive on its own. At that time, they also launched effective web crawlers and PageRank algorithms, which changed the SEO game.
Google began measuring both on-page and off-page content to decide SERP listings, forcing SEO to expand their work sphere and link-building took off as a popular tactic. Around the same time, Google also introduced PageRank scores, a website score between 1-10, which was an early version of today’s Domain Authority.
These measures were broken down further with the introduction of Google Analytics and the Google Webmaster Tools (Search Console) in 2006. Later major updates, such as Panda and Penguin in 2011 and 2012 respectively, were put in place to sort out poor quality SEO work and reward those with quality websites.
To this day, Google continues to release core and minor updates that impact the way that SEO can work. The platform has grown to be such a reputable platform that in 2022 it was estimated that Google accounted for more than 85 percent of the search engine usage, which is why it’s the platform that most SEO strategies focus on today.
The big three: Local, social, mobile
There have been three major changes in the way that people search the web, that has not been a result of search engine updates. The first of these came in the mid-2000s, when there was an adaptation toward geographical searches, which birthed local SEO. This meant that people were now searching for businesses near them, such as restaurants or car washes, thus increasing the need for separate local search engine strategies. This development also resulted in the advancement of end-user data, including search history and personalized interests.
Fast-forward another decade into the 2010s, and a whole new set of searching and web-using emerged. Rather than just using the universal search-functions, users were now turning to medias such as YouTube, Facebook, LinkedIn and other social medias for news and knowledge. Most importantly for SEO, these networks became revolutionary in building brand awareness. As such, the old term of search engine marketing (SEM) became ever more important on these platforms.
As users started to bring their lives and entertainment from the big screens, such as laptops or TVs, they also began to use search engines straight from their mobile phones. This third change in user patterns led to mobile searching overtaking desktop searches in 2015, and added mobile adaptability to the list of SEO tools.
The 2020s, AI, and the future of SEO
We’ve finally arrived at our current time. The 2020s have brought with it a continued increase in digital usage and SEO is perhaps more important than ever. One of the biggest challenges the world of SEO stands before today is generative AI. Chat GPT, the free global access to generative AI as a search function, was released in the winter of 2022/2023, and has garnered instant attraction from both customers and competitors, including Google. It is still unclear what impact generative AI will have on SEO practices such as keywords analysis, although it is already affecting the quality of content on the web.
New strategies for new challenges
As new SEO directives arrive from Google’s updates, they also require new strategies. However, some companies – such as IncRev – have decided to create new strategies with a focus on longevity. Among IncRev’s new strategies are both traditional link-building and outreach including, in combination with inspiration from the traditional PR marketing sphere.
The other two strategies that they’ve developed are strongly data-driven market research and PR. The market research is a process in which the company can help customers who want to scale globally to find the best geographical place for them to start their SEO journey, based on SEO factors such as demand and competition.
The market-driven PR can build on that market research or stand alone, as a new way of reaching new marketing partners in international business circles. From these new partners, it is then possible to continue with link-building as well as traditional PR strategies. This is a unique way of piercing niche markets across the globe to attract potential customers.
How does SEO work?
Now that we’ve seen the evolution of SEO it’s time to get to the real question: what is SEO marketing actually, and how does it actually work? In order to understand how SEO works, it’s important to understand these two things: what Google wants and what the customers want. Only by doing so will you understand how you should optimize your web page.
What Google wants
One of the reasons why Google rose to such immense heights early on was due to the founders’ initiative to implement RankPage, or clear guidelines for how to rank content on their platform. Initially, the program worked by ranking content dependent on the linkstructure of the website, that built the foundation for the modern linkbuilding strategies. Simply put, links to the webpage acted as votes of confidence for the webpage.
Today, this concept has developed into the E-E-A-T formula, where Google ranks content based on Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness. These measures are interpreted by what the site’s linkbuilding looks like, such as what EEAT websites include links back to their landing page. They then ensure that the webpage produces reliable and accurate information, and are most likely to answer their customers’ questions.
Ultimately, the reason why Google wants to prioritize high quality content is because happy Google customers are more likely to return to Google for more information, and therefore generating income for the search engine.
So, how does Google find and rank the webpages? They do this through three stages: crawling, indexing, and serving results.
Crawling means that Google sends “bots” or computer programs to scan through large chunks of the internet to find new or updated pages. They can only find it by going through a link.
Googles then sorts through and organizes the content and puts it in the huge Google Index – a database for webpages.
Lastly, Google serves the results by how relevant they are to the customer queries.
What the customer wants
Broadly speaking, there are three types of searches that customers make, and they can be described as Do-Know-Go. Whenever we search the internet, we either want to do something (such as make a purchase or visit a tourist attraction), know something, or go somewhere. These three types of searches can be further broken down, but these are the basic concepts.
These three prompts can help you optimize your content so that you are answering the demand of the people. By realizing what your customer wants, you can provide SEO-optimized content which is relevant and fresh, which Google will reward you for.
SEO components, or how to do SEO
So how does a webpage get to that top of the search engine results page? While there is no quick fix, SEO provides a long-term strategy which aims at doing just that. SEO incorporates several different tactics in this long-term strategy, in which there are three main components:
Technical SEO
On-page SEO
Off-page SEO
Technical SEO refers to optimization on your webpage. This can for example mean implementing site maps so that Google can crawl the page more easily, increasing the website speed, or making the site mobile adaptable.
On-page SEO refers to edits to the content that is already on the webpage, rather than the technicalities behind it. This can for example include keyword optimizing headings, producing SEO-optimized blog posts, URL and picture optimization, and adding meta titles and descriptions.
Off-page SEO, on the other hand, is part of the link-building strategy. The focus here lies on building credibility and brand awareness by for example writing guests posts and linking to your webpage on other, reputable sources. The key here is to create backlinks, which give authority and endorsement to your website, and thus giving Google a sign that you are a credible source too.
To get good results, it’s important to implement all of the tactics above in a combined effort to get Google’s attention. However, these general descriptions are only scraping the top of the iceberg of SEO. Beneath these lay a whole science of various methods and strategies to rank at the top of the results page.
Link-building
The on-page and off-stage SEO practices can also be called SEO link-building. That’s because they both refer to building a link-system which Google will reward, whether it’s by driving links to your website from other credible sources or creating a seamless link-flow internally on your webpage.
Links to and on your website act as votes of trust, credibility and authority, which is why they are a crucial part of your SEO strategy. However, the links need to be carefully and thoughtfully crafted so that they maintain the right level of relevance and credibility, which can be done through producing high quality SEO content.
SEO content
For both on-page and off-page work, SEO content plays a huge role. As mentioned earlier, Google ranks webpages depending on both their link-building and how credible, authoritative, and expert their content is. However, these two factors are not as separate as one might think: with high quality content, it is also easier to build a good SEO link-building network.
Often when we discuss SEO content, we tend to think of texts of lesser quality that are packed with poor quality links. However, due to Google’s updates, such as Penguin, poor content is continually being phased out. That means individuals and agencies are having to spend more time recruiting better writers and spending more time on content.
As we discussed earlier, SEO content needs to be adapted to both the demands from the customer (a.k.a. the searching person) and Google. That means texts need to be relevant, authoritative, credible, and high quality. These texts also need to be SEO optimized using meta-data, such as titles and descriptions, and keywords in the headings in order for Google’s crawlers to pick up better on the relevancy factor.
That being said, the research and preparation for both good and bad content remains the same – all SEO content needs proper keyword research.
Keyword research
Finding the right keywords will not only make you more competitive as an SEO user, but will also help you understand your audience better. That’s because keywords are clues to who your audience is. For example, the keywords “how to ski” and “ski maintenance” could technically be placed in the same text contextually, but they imply that we’re dealing with skiers of different skill levels.
The keywords are both guides for the link-building process and the content. When building links, it’s important that both the link, the placement, and the publishing website are relevant in the context in order for Google’s crawlers to give it a credible ranking.
There are several tools on the market for finding the best keywords, and there are also a ton of metrics for understanding how good a keyword is and what the chances are of breaking into the competition for that specific keyword. Common metrics include keyword difficulty, traffic potential, cost-per-click, etcetera.
Brand awareness
Ultimately, what these various tactics aim to do is to bring brand awareness to your website. People are twice as likely to purchase from a brand they recognize. An American study found that 75 percent of shoppers tend to go for known retailers, and nearly 70 percent do the same when deciding what search result to click on.
Doing SEO: alone or SEO agency?
As you can tell, there is a lot of information and knowledge that goes into producing and completing good SEO strategies. If you are considering adapting some SEO strategies, you may be wondering whether you should do it all on your own or hire an agency.
Without sugarcoating it, doing SEO alone is a lot of hard work. First and foremost, you got to have basic understandings of both SEO tools, Google Analytics, and good writing skills. Then you need good networking skills and a sense of price bargaining to get your links out to credible sources. On top of this, you need to stay up to date with all the latest developments within Google updates, market changes, and new technologies such as generative AI which can impact your SEO strategies. All of this can be both time consuming and costly.
If it feels overwhelming, there are a ton of SEO agencies on the market that are ready to help. Some of them focus solely on SEO content production, whereas others focus solely on technical SEO or solely on SEO link-building.
Some agencies, such as IncRev, offer entire packages, where staying SEO updated, building and optimizing webpages, link-building, content production, and publishing is included. Together with the new data-driven strategies and tactics, IncRev offers services that are great for both those who are somewhat new as to those who are already familiar and wanting to grow beyond.
FAQ: Frequently asked questions about SEO
What is SEO?
SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. It is a digital marketing form that focuses on creating digital visibility on search engines such as Google by improving websites’ rankings in the search results.
What is the difference between SEO and SEM?
SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization and works with creating organic ranking improvements on platforms like Google. SEM stands for Search Engine Marketing and focuses on paid promotions and marketing on platforms like Google.
How long does SEO take?
Good SEO typically takes between 4 months to a year to see good results. However, it’s crucial to understand that SEO is a long-term strategy, that is never really finished. If you are lucky enough to rank at 1 on Google, the job doesn’t stop there: then you want to maintain that spot by continuing your SEO work.
Why do you need SEO?
SEO helps to build brand awareness, which is key in gaining credibility amongst both Google and potential customers. That’s why SEO is worth it, even if it is a long game.
Media Man
The Media Man Group is primarily and online news, media and sports management firm and website portal developer. By default Media Man developed many effective SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) techniqes and strategies since their launch in 2001. SEO helped elevate Media Man websites into Hitwise "Top 10" status (entertainment - personalities) category. Media Man also offers a range of media and convergent media services including article copy, PR (public relations), text link based campaigns, product placement and endorsement, buzz marketing (via websites and social media) and brand building. The company is best known for insightful media analysis, specalising in pop culture/entertainment, streaming and subscriber television including PPV (Pay-Per-View), pro wrestling aka sports entertainment coverage, MMA (mixed martial arts), and commentary and coverage on an array of trending topics, with strong focus on Twitter, Alphabet (Google, YouTube, Blogger etc) and new and emerging technology and news platforms and developments. Media Man is often referenced in both mainstream, niche and alternative news media stories. The company motto remains "Putting Your Name Out There".
Saturday, December 21, 2024
Casino News Media Blog: SEO
Casino News Media Blog
SEO News via Media Man: Ways to Improve your Site’s Ranking (SEO)
Ways to Improve your Site’s Ranking (SEO)
New strategies for Search Engine Optimization
Search engine optimization (SEO) is an essential digital marketing practice that plays a vital role in making your website visible to both visitors and search engine crawlers. The primary objective of SEO is to optimize relevant and authoritative content to assist visitors in finding solutions to their queries efficiently.
The ultimate aim of SEO is to create high-quality and informative content that increases the volume of traffic that your website receives daily. Optimizing your website involves creating and expanding your content to ensure that search engines will choose your site over its competitors.
The focus of SEO is to perfect the quality and quantity of your webpage to make sure that your website has an edge over others. Therefore, SEO plays an essential role in driving traffic to your website, which is crucial for the visibility and success of your online Business.
1. Publish Relevant, Authoritative Content
This article provides valuable suggestions on how to improve search engine optimization (SEO) and enhance website ranking on search engine results. Creating quality content that caters to the user’s needs is the driving factor of SEO marketing, and the article emphasizes that there is no substitute for great content.
The article further provides guidance on identifying appropriate keyword phrases for each authoritative content page and making use of them strategically throughout the content. Creating distinct web pages for each distinct targeted keyword phrase is advisable to enhance ranking.
The article suggests using keywords in headings, subheadings, URLs, and titles, and stressing the importance of readability and user-friendliness of the content. Using emphasis tags and strategically linking to relevant sources is also encouraged. By following these valuable suggestions, users can create SEO-friendly content that benefits the readers while improving their website’s overall ranking.
2. Update Your Content Regularly
Maintaining updated content is crucial to improve your website’s relevancy, and it is a crucial factor that search engines prioritize as well. We highly recommend scheduling regular content audits, for instance, on a semesterly basis, to update your webpages and blog posts accordingly.
Writing additional content frequently on your departmental news blog can enhance your search engine rankings by incorporating relevant keyword phrases. Brief blog posts can also be helpful if they offer specific updates related to your targeted topics.
Moreover, interlinking your related CMS webpages and blog posts can provide readers with a better understanding of your website’s content and additional information on the subject. Thus, keep your website updated and relevant to improve your visitor’s user experience and attract more traffic to your site.
3. Metadata
Website designers use metadata to provide information about a website’s content. When creating a webpage, a space between the “head” tags is reserved for metadata.
If you use a CMS website produced by the UMC web team, they have already filled in the metadata. However, as your content changes, it is important to review and update the metadata.
Title Metadata
Title metadata is the most important because it determines the page title that appears at the top of a browser window and in search engine results. For those with a CMS website, the web team has automated this process based on your page title. Therefore, it is essential to use well-thought-out page titles that include keyword phrases.
Description Matadata
Description metadata is a brief and interesting summary of what your website contains. It’s like a store’s attractive display that encourages people to visit. Usually, it should be two sentences long. Search engines may or may not use this summary, but it’s good to have it in case they do.
Kayword Metadata
Keyword metadata is not very helpful in improving your search engine ranking. However, it’s useful to include some of your important keywords in the metadata. You should select a few phrases with one to four words each and add three to seven of them. For example, “computer science degree” is a good keyword phrase to use.
4. Have a Link-worthy Site
Making your website popular involves efforts in developing valuable content and enhancing its search results. To achieve this, you must focus on creating informative and unbiased content that caters to the readers’ interests and queries.
Furthermore, your website might earn a backlink from other websites if it provides good value to the readers. This can improve its search engine ranking immensely, which can bring in more visitors. It is also crucial to incorporate descriptive hyperlinks in the text as opposed to generic “click here” links.
This helps in giving proper context to people who use screen readers and makes it easier for search engines to crawl your website. You can lift your website SEO performance by using appropriate keywords in your content and developing internal links. These techniques can help you build a better online presence and increase your website’s popularity.
5. Use ALT Tags
Want search engines to find your website and to make it more accessible for people who use text-only browsers or screen readers? Simply put, use alt tags to describe your media content, like images and videos, with alternative text descriptions.
These descriptions act as labels for search engines and help them identify your page better. They also provide context for those who cannot view the media directly. By making your website more accessible and searchable, you can improve its overall user experience.
News
New strategies for Search Engine Optimization
New areas of digital marketing are as changeable and require so much adaption and new-thinking as the world of SEO. Search Engine Optimization has come a long way from its beginnings in the 1990s, and the technologies deciding what is “good SEO” or not changes from year to year.
That’s why tech companies such as IncRev are launching new strategies aimed at long-term goals in both data-driven and relations-based SEO all over the world, by implementing tactics from both traditional PR and modern SEO and link-building.
Below, we will discuss the nature of SEO, how SEO is changing, and why choosing an agency such as IncRev will be the key to your SEO success.
Best SEO practices 2023:
Find your customers with data-driven market analysis
Find authoritative marketing partners using data-driven PR
Reach your customers with high quality outreach and credible link-building
What is SEO?
In order to discuss the ways in which SEO works, it’s important to understand the basic principles on which the concept is built. SEO is an acronym for Search Engine Optimization, and is an umbrella term for processes in which users optimize their websites in order to rank higher on search engines such as Google whenever customers search for keywords relevant to their website.
By optimizing the various aspects of a website, SEO aims to improve its ranking on search engine result pages (SERPs), thereby increasing the quantity and quality of traffic. In layman’s terms, it helps more people to find your website by increasing its digital visibility.
Why is SEO important?
There’s an old SEO joke that goes like this: A man asks a detective “Where’s the best place to hide a body?” The detective answers “Why, on the second page of Google, of course!”. In other words, ranking on the first page of Google is the key to getting traffic and therefore sales or viewings on your webpage, as few people bother to look past the first results page.
In fact, the first spot on Google is ten times more likely to get a click than results number ten, and the top three results receive over half of all clicks. That’s why the goal of every SEO strategist is to get a website into the top ten search results on Google, and preferably in the top three.
That’s why SEO marketing lives on, despite some people saying that SEO is dead. The answer is: it’s more alive than ever. It just doesn’t fit into the mold of the quick-results culture of the modern world, but it is still effective.
The evolution of SEO
SEO as a term first came into use in 1997, despite the first website being published in 1991. The coin was termed John Audette of Multimedia Marketing Group early that year, and so the hunt for the top of the search engine results pages began.
In the beginning, there were several competing names for the concept, including search engine ranking, website promotion, etc. The strongest competitor was the term “search engine marketing”, which was originally pitched as a successor to SEO. But ultimately, search engine optimization proved to be the most steadfast and all-encompassing term, while SEM is used to describe concepts like paid search marketing and advertising.
Google’s rise to power
In the 2000s, Google grew to become the search engine giant we know it as today. Soon enough, the organization was able to survive on its own. At that time, they also launched effective web crawlers and PageRank algorithms, which changed the SEO game.
Google began measuring both on-page and off-page content to decide SERP listings, forcing SEO to expand their work sphere and link-building took off as a popular tactic. Around the same time, Google also introduced PageRank scores, a website score between 1-10, which was an early version of today’s Domain Authority.
These measures were broken down further with the introduction of Google Analytics and the Google Webmaster Tools (Search Console) in 2006. Later major updates, such as Panda and Penguin in 2011 and 2012 respectively, were put in place to sort out poor quality SEO work and reward those with quality websites.
To this day, Google continues to release core and minor updates that impact the way that SEO can work. The platform has grown to be such a reputable platform that in 2022 it was estimated that Google accounted for more than 85 percent of the search engine usage, which is why it’s the platform that most SEO strategies focus on today.
The big three: Local, social, mobile
There have been three major changes in the way that people search the web, that has not been a result of search engine updates. The first of these came in the mid-2000s, when there was an adaptation toward geographical searches, which birthed local SEO. This meant that people were now searching for businesses near them, such as restaurants or car washes, thus increasing the need for separate local search engine strategies. This development also resulted in the advancement of end-user data, including search history and personalized interests.
Fast-forward another decade into the 2010s, and a whole new set of searching and web-using emerged. Rather than just using the universal search-functions, users were now turning to medias such as YouTube, Facebook, LinkedIn and other social medias for news and knowledge. Most importantly for SEO, these networks became revolutionary in building brand awareness. As such, the old term of search engine marketing (SEM) became ever more important on these platforms.
As users started to bring their lives and entertainment from the big screens, such as laptops or TVs, they also began to use search engines straight from their mobile phones. This third change in user patterns led to mobile searching overtaking desktop searches in 2015, and added mobile adaptability to the list of SEO tools.
The 2020s, AI, and the future of SEO
We’ve finally arrived at our current time. The 2020s have brought with it a continued increase in digital usage and SEO is perhaps more important than ever. One of the biggest challenges the world of SEO stands before today is generative AI. Chat GPT, the free global access to generative AI as a search function, was released in the winter of 2022/2023, and has garnered instant attraction from both customers and competitors, including Google. It is still unclear what impact generative AI will have on SEO practices such as keywords analysis, although it is already affecting the quality of content on the web.
New strategies for new challenges
As new SEO directives arrive from Google’s updates, they also require new strategies. However, some companies – such as IncRev – have decided to create new strategies with a focus on longevity. Among IncRev’s new strategies are both traditional link-building and outreach including, in combination with inspiration from the traditional PR marketing sphere.
The other two strategies that they’ve developed are strongly data-driven market research and PR. The market research is a process in which the company can help customers who want to scale globally to find the best geographical place for them to start their SEO journey, based on SEO factors such as demand and competition.
The market-driven PR can build on that market research or stand alone, as a new way of reaching new marketing partners in international business circles. From these new partners, it is then possible to continue with link-building as well as traditional PR strategies. This is a unique way of piercing niche markets across the globe to attract potential customers.
How does SEO work?
Now that we’ve seen the evolution of SEO it’s time to get to the real question: what is SEO marketing actually, and how does it actually work? In order to understand how SEO works, it’s important to understand these two things: what Google wants and what the customers want. Only by doing so will you understand how you should optimize your web page.
What Google wants
One of the reasons why Google rose to such immense heights early on was due to the founders’ initiative to implement RankPage, or clear guidelines for how to rank content on their platform. Initially, the program worked by ranking content dependent on the linkstructure of the website, that built the foundation for the modern linkbuilding strategies. Simply put, links to the webpage acted as votes of confidence for the webpage.
Today, this concept has developed into the E-E-A-T formula, where Google ranks content based on Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness. These measures are interpreted by what the site’s linkbuilding looks like, such as what EEAT websites include links back to their landing page. They then ensure that the webpage produces reliable and accurate information, and are most likely to answer their customers’ questions.
Ultimately, the reason why Google wants to prioritize high quality content is because happy Google customers are more likely to return to Google for more information, and therefore generating income for the search engine.
So, how does Google find and rank the webpages? They do this through three stages: crawling, indexing, and serving results.
Crawling means that Google sends “bots” or computer programs to scan through large chunks of the internet to find new or updated pages. They can only find it by going through a link.
Googles then sorts through and organizes the content and puts it in the huge Google Index – a database for webpages.
Lastly, Google serves the results by how relevant they are to the customer queries.
What the customer wants
Broadly speaking, there are three types of searches that customers make, and they can be described as Do-Know-Go. Whenever we search the internet, we either want to do something (such as make a purchase or visit a tourist attraction), know something, or go somewhere. These three types of searches can be further broken down, but these are the basic concepts.
These three prompts can help you optimize your content so that you are answering the demand of the people. By realizing what your customer wants, you can provide SEO-optimized content which is relevant and fresh, which Google will reward you for.
SEO components, or how to do SEO
So how does a webpage get to that top of the search engine results page? While there is no quick fix, SEO provides a long-term strategy which aims at doing just that. SEO incorporates several different tactics in this long-term strategy, in which there are three main components:
Technical SEO
On-page SEO
Off-page SEO
Technical SEO refers to optimization on your webpage. This can for example mean implementing site maps so that Google can crawl the page more easily, increasing the website speed, or making the site mobile adaptable.
On-page SEO refers to edits to the content that is already on the webpage, rather than the technicalities behind it. This can for example include keyword optimizing headings, producing SEO-optimized blog posts, URL and picture optimization, and adding meta titles and descriptions.
Off-page SEO, on the other hand, is part of the link-building strategy. The focus here lies on building credibility and brand awareness by for example writing guests posts and linking to your webpage on other, reputable sources. The key here is to create backlinks, which give authority and endorsement to your website, and thus giving Google a sign that you are a credible source too.
To get good results, it’s important to implement all of the tactics above in a combined effort to get Google’s attention. However, these general descriptions are only scraping the top of the iceberg of SEO. Beneath these lay a whole science of various methods and strategies to rank at the top of the results page.
Link-building
The on-page and off-stage SEO practices can also be called SEO link-building. That’s because they both refer to building a link-system which Google will reward, whether it’s by driving links to your website from other credible sources or creating a seamless link-flow internally on your webpage.
Links to and on your website act as votes of trust, credibility and authority, which is why they are a crucial part of your SEO strategy. However, the links need to be carefully and thoughtfully crafted so that they maintain the right level of relevance and credibility, which can be done through producing high quality SEO content.
SEO content
For both on-page and off-page work, SEO content plays a huge role. As mentioned earlier, Google ranks webpages depending on both their link-building and how credible, authoritative, and expert their content is. However, these two factors are not as separate as one might think: with high quality content, it is also easier to build a good SEO link-building network.
Often when we discuss SEO content, we tend to think of texts of lesser quality that are packed with poor quality links. However, due to Google’s updates, such as Penguin, poor content is continually being phased out. That means individuals and agencies are having to spend more time recruiting better writers and spending more time on content.
As we discussed earlier, SEO content needs to be adapted to both the demands from the customer (a.k.a. the searching person) and Google. That means texts need to be relevant, authoritative, credible, and high quality. These texts also need to be SEO optimized using meta-data, such as titles and descriptions, and keywords in the headings in order for Google’s crawlers to pick up better on the relevancy factor.
That being said, the research and preparation for both good and bad content remains the same – all SEO content needs proper keyword research.
Keyword research
Finding the right keywords will not only make you more competitive as an SEO user, but will also help you understand your audience better. That’s because keywords are clues to who your audience is. For example, the keywords “how to ski” and “ski maintenance” could technically be placed in the same text contextually, but they imply that we’re dealing with skiers of different skill levels.
The keywords are both guides for the link-building process and the content. When building links, it’s important that both the link, the placement, and the publishing website are relevant in the context in order for Google’s crawlers to give it a credible ranking.
There are several tools on the market for finding the best keywords, and there are also a ton of metrics for understanding how good a keyword is and what the chances are of breaking into the competition for that specific keyword. Common metrics include keyword difficulty, traffic potential, cost-per-click, etcetera.
Brand awareness
Ultimately, what these various tactics aim to do is to bring brand awareness to your website. People are twice as likely to purchase from a brand they recognize. An American study found that 75 percent of shoppers tend to go for known retailers, and nearly 70 percent do the same when deciding what search result to click on.
Doing SEO: alone or SEO agency?
As you can tell, there is a lot of information and knowledge that goes into producing and completing good SEO strategies. If you are considering adapting some SEO strategies, you may be wondering whether you should do it all on your own or hire an agency.
Without sugarcoating it, doing SEO alone is a lot of hard work. First and foremost, you got to have basic understandings of both SEO tools, Google Analytics, and good writing skills. Then you need good networking skills and a sense of price bargaining to get your links out to credible sources. On top of this, you need to stay up to date with all the latest developments within Google updates, market changes, and new technologies such as generative AI which can impact your SEO strategies. All of this can be both time consuming and costly.
If it feels overwhelming, there are a ton of SEO agencies on the market that are ready to help. Some of them focus solely on SEO content production, whereas others focus solely on technical SEO or solely on SEO link-building.
Some agencies, such as IncRev, offer entire packages, where staying SEO updated, building and optimizing webpages, link-building, content production, and publishing is included. Together with the new data-driven strategies and tactics, IncRev offers services that are great for both those who are somewhat new as to those who are already familiar and wanting to grow beyond.
FAQ: Frequently asked questions about SEO
What is SEO?
SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. It is a digital marketing form that focuses on creating digital visibility on search engines such as Google by improving websites’ rankings in the search results.
What is the difference between SEO and SEM?
SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization and works with creating organic ranking improvements on platforms like Google. SEM stands for Search Engine Marketing and focuses on paid promotions and marketing on platforms like Google.
How long does SEO take?
Good SEO typically takes between 4 months to a year to see good results. However, it’s crucial to understand that SEO is a long-term strategy, that is never really finished. If you are lucky enough to rank at 1 on Google, the job doesn’t stop there: then you want to maintain that spot by continuing your SEO work.
Why do you need SEO?
SEO helps to build brand awareness, which is key in gaining credibility amongst both Google and potential customers. That’s why SEO is worth it, even if it is a long game.
Media Man
The Media Man Group is primarily and online news, media and sports management firm and website portal developer. By default Media Man developed many effective SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) techniqes and strategies since their launch in 2001. SEO helped elevate Media Man websites into Hitwise "Top 10" status (entertainment - personalities) category. Media Man also offers a range of media and convergent media services including article copy, PR (public relations), text link based campaigns, product placement and endorsement, buzz marketing (via websites and social media) and brand building. The company is best known for insightful media analysis, specalising in pop culture/entertainment, streaming and subscriber television including PPV (Pay-Per-View), pro wrestling aka sports entertainment coverage, MMA (mixed martial arts), and commentary and coverage on an array of trending topics, with strong focus on Twitter, Alphabet (Google, YouTube, Blogger etc) and new and emerging technology and news platforms and developments. Media Man is often referenced in both mainstream, niche and alternative news media stories. The company motto remains "Putting Your Name Out There".