How to get the new WordPress SEO 2.0 to Join Google's Knowledge Graph

The 'WordPress SEO 2.0' is the latest addition to the notorious YOAST SEO Plugin.
All what you have to do is to either download it, or if you already have it, just update it.


Once you do you will find this new feature which support Google’s new Knowledge Graph.

When Google has picked it up and shows a Knowledge Graph block for you or your company, it would look like this: (but it is not guaranteed of course)

Content is God

We all know for sure that Content is said to be the king of SEO. But I will prove to you in the coming 3 minutes that it is not just a King but God.

Good content is that that helps your customers and potential customers. A blog you write, a video you create, or an ebook you giveaway should be all about giving and nothing but giving.

Most new marketing and advertising strategies now know how important free content is, so they try their best to "manipulate" it and use it as a "bait" to attract people and after they are hooked in they ask them to "Pay the Money" whether through premium services or simply via advertisements.

I am not saying that advertising is wrong and paid services are evil. of course not. What I mean is that when you think content generation, your mindset needs to be focused on giving a true value not exploiting the readers/users/viewers. Think of it as charity!

God is Love: How does God Define Love? 

The Bible tells us that "God is Love" (1 John 4:8). But how? The most well known verse is John 3:16, "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life." 

So one way God defines love is in the act of giving. However, what God gave (or should we say, "who" God gave) was not a mere gift-wrapped present; God sacrificed His only Son so that we, who put our faith in His Son, will not spend eternity separated from Him.

Another great verse about God's love is found in Romans 5:8, "But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." In this verse and in John 3:16, we find no conditions placed on God's love for us. God doesn't say, "as soon as you clean up your act, I'll love you; " nor does He say, "I'll sacrifice my Son if you promise to love Me." In fact, in Romans 5:8, we find just the opposite. God wants us to know that His love is unconditional, so He sent His Son, Jesus Christ, to die for us while we were still unlovable sinners. We didn't have to get clean, and we didn't have to make any promises to God before we could experience His love. His love for us has always existed, and because of that, He did all the giving and sacrificing long before we were even aware that we needed His love. 

God is Love: It's Unconditional 

God is Love, and His love is very different from human love. God's love is unconditional, and it's not based on feelings or emotions. He doesn't love us because we're lovable or because we make Him feel good; He loves us because He is love. He created us to have a loving relationship with Him, and He sacrificed His own Son (who also willingly died for us) to restore that relationship. - 

God is Love: True Love Only Comes Through a Relationship With Him

God is Love! As such, true love -- God's love -- can be summed up in this passage of scripture: "Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God. He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love. In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him. Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another" (1 John 4:7-11). 

Conclusion

Your content is your expression of unconditional love, you expect nothing in return.

Moreover, your content is not just an act of one way giving, but an act of building a strong and passionate relationship. And finally, every time you post a piece of content, it has to be a masterpiece, a sort of sacrifice of time and resources for the sake of those you love.

Inspired by: Neil Patel, the generous content provider. 

Google Analytics Adds Basic Cohort Analysis (Beta)

In statistical analysis, a cohort is a group of people or subjects who all share some time-bound event, characteristic, or experience. For example, shoppers who visit an ecommerce site for the first time on January 30, 2015 could be said to be a cohort since they have a shared characteristic — they visited for the first time — and the experience was during the same time period, Friday, January 30. Cohort analysis is, perhaps, most useful when two or more cohorts are compared. This comparison lets marketers and analysts see the relationship between the two cohorts over time.


The Analytics’ cohort report can be configured around cohort type, cohort size, metric, and date range.

• Cohort type. At the time of writing, the only available cohort type was acquisition date, thus one could look at how folks who visited the site on a particular date behaved over time.
• Cohort size. This report attribute may be set to day, week, or month. In the email example above, each cohort was defined by folks who registered in January. It may be the case that if Google added additional cohort types, it would also expand the list of available cohort sizes to include other sorts of dimensions.
• Metric. This is simply the thing one wants to measure. Presently, metrics include conversions per user, page views per user, sessions per user, user retention, goal completion, conversion, and more.
• Date range. The relative date range for the data to be displayed.

The cohort analysis can also be run across segments. As an example, one could look at the average session duration for visitors on mobile devices versus visitors using desktop computers. Or cohorts could be based on new visitor acquisitions the week before Christmas 2014, the week including Christmas, and the week after.

This example shows session duration for three cohorts.

Doing this analysis, we might learn that visitors using desktop computers generally spend more time on site than do visitors on mobile devices and that this effect is even more extreme during the week before Christmas.

You can read all the article about it here: http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/79720-Google-Analytics-Adds-Basic-Cohort-Analysis

Google Study: PPC and SEO for Branded KWs is better than Just SEO

It used to confuse me before, why would I add my brand keywords or keywords that I am already on top of SERPs for in my PPC campaign? I was thinking that people are going to click on my links automatically because they are already on top.
But I still ran the camapigns with those KWs, just to prevent competitors taking them.
Then I found an inetresting study to justify the paid clicks on branded and organically ranked KWs:

The study which was conducted by Google concluded that 50 percent of clicks generated by paid ads are not replaced by organic clicks when the ads are absent and the website has a first position organic search ranking. The study also shows that as the organic search ranking decreases, the percentage of clicks not replaced by the paid ad increases. This implies that organic search alone cannot drive as much traffic to a website as organic search combined with paid search.
Here is the Abstract:

Impact Of Ranking Of Organic Search Results On The Incrementality Of Search Ads

Abstract: In an earlier study, we reported that on average 89% of the visits to the advertiser’s site from search ad clicks were incremental. In this research, we examine how the ranking of an advertiser’s organic listings on the search results page affects the incrementality of ad clicks expressed through Incremental Ad Clicks (IAC) and as estimated by Search Ads Pause models. A meta-analysis of 390 Search Ads Pause studies highlights the limited opportunity for clicks from organic search results to substitute for ad clicks when the ads are turned off. On average, 81% of ad impressions and 66% of ad clicks occur in the absence of an associated organic search result. We find that having an associated organic search result in rank one does not necessarily mean a low IAC. On average, 50% of the ad clicks that occur with a top rank organic result are incremental, compared to 100% of the ad clicks being incremental in the absence of an associated organic result.

To Read the The Full Study (PDF): http://static.googleusercontent.com/media/research.google.com/en//pubs/archive/37731.pdf 

20 Reasons why Localization is Important to Website Conversion

Thanks to the global reach of the internet, website localization is one of the best things you can do to increase website conversions. By creating a culture- and language-specific version of your website for each demographic market you target, you become a truly international business. All businesses, even small online retailers, can benefit from localization. In fact, you can’t afford not to have localized websites, and here are 20 reasons why.

1. It offers global expansion and increased reach.

Although English is still the predominant language online, other languages, most notably Chinese, Spanish, French, and Arabic, are quickly closing the distance. Offering web content in additional languages and cultures helps you increase your reach and become a respected international business.

2. Localization helps you appeal to multicultural audiences.

Translation helps international visitors find and buy from you, but it doesn’t consider cultural differences and sometimes doesn’t convey your message or brand very well. Localization includes both cultural and linguistic concerns, helping you reach audiences in different cultures much better.

3. It increases web traffic.

Search engines rank websites with localized versions or pages higher than non-localized websites and return your website as a result more often. On top of that, local sites are more likely to link to you when you provide information in the local language. Increasing traffic is one of the three most important things you can do to boost revenue, and more traffic means more sales.

4. You get more traffic from regional and language-specific search engines.

These smaller search engines have much less competition because they’re small and most businesses don’t have localized websites to appear in results. This means it’s much easier for your localized websites to rank higher than your English website. The higher you rank and the more often your website appears in search results, the more traffic and sales you get.

5. Localization increases brand recognition.

When you translate your website into the language and culture of your target market, you show that you respect and value your audience. They in turn are more aware of your business than your English-only competitors because they see your website more often and more easily understand your message.

6. Localization increases website stickiness and sales.

Having a strong localization plan boosts your presence and sales in a targeted area, such as localizing in French and German to increase sales in Europe. Multiple studies have found that when users are presented with a website in their native language, they stay on the site twice as long and are four times more likely to make a purchase from it.

7. It increases overall ROI.

Increased traffic, conversions, and brand awareness also leads to increased trust, credibility, customer loyalty, and satisfaction, in turn leading to more conversions. Localization is also scalable for both your audience and your budget, delivering huge benefits for only a marginal additional cost.

8. Localization maintains low printing and content distribution costs.

Localizing your website increases reach without raising these costs a few ways. First, you can reuse much of the same content across multiple languages; second, translating your website into a new language and culture is scalable; finally, having a web presence costs the same no matter what language or culture. Having a localized website may also eliminate the need for direct mail such as catalogs and brochures in various languages.

9. It is a cost-effective virtual branch office or satellite location.

Instead of building a brick-and-mortar store or renting an office in an international location, your localized websites become those virtual stores by offering information, products, contacts, and everything else you can deliver digitally.

10. Localization lowers customer support costs.

By answering questions and providing information in a target market’s native language and culture, you give customers what they need online in the best format for them, which reduces the need for multilingual phone and chat support.

11. It allows you to target minorities in your own area.

Many countries have large subgroups with their own languages, cultures, and skyrocketing purchasing power, such as the Latino market in the USA. Creating localized websites for these groups helps you solidify your presence and boost sales in your own area.

12. Localization maintains brand image and voice across cultures.

The problem with straight translation is that it doesn’t consider cultural differences and doesn’t always maintain your branding message. Localization is better than translation because it considers communication, sales incentive, design, layout, and programming specific to each culture and area, so you don’t lose the integrity of your brand across languages.

13. You become a local business.

Localizing your website turns you into a local business, which boosts conversions because many people want to buy locally, you get more traffic from local keywords, and you have an easier time building brand awareness.

14. Localization makes your local marketing stronger.

When you have a website specific to a certain area’s language and culture, your local internet marketing efforts (including search engine optimization, directory listings, and social media) benefit from having a local resource to point visitors to.

15. It makes you more trustworthy and credible.

By using the area’s local slang, idioms, metaphors, and figures of speech, you can communicate with your target customers more easily and directly, reducing confusion and boosting your own reputation.

16. Localization appeals to more customers.

Most web users don’t buy products online in a language other than their own. By offering them that option, you attract more prospects and close more sales.

17. It means fewer abandoned carts.

Programming can be as much a barrier as language or culture. Localization includes proper programming to prevent backend problems such as forms that make it difficult to input personal and payment info. Fewer problems means more closed sales and higher average order value.

18. Localization makes payment easier.

When you enable local credit cards, shipping and tax codes, and buying practices, your localized websites attract customers that would shop elsewhere otherwise, boosting your ROI, conversions, and revenue.

19. It increases local sales.

Offering products, support, FAQs, and other information in your customers’ native languages makes them more likely to buy from you because they have all the information they need in a format they understand to make an informed purchase.

20. Localization increases revenue.

Most consumers care more about language than price. So even if they know they can find a product cheaper somewhere else, they are more likely to buy from you at full price if you have a localized website for them.

How to know where your visitors go when they leave your website?

How can I see which specific pages/URLs people visit after leaving my site? In other words, I can see the percentage of people that EXIT on a certain page, but I want to be able to see which links on an exit page they follow (i.e. what percent of the visitors to a certain page of our site click on each outbound link on our page)? Or are they just leaving our site without necessarily visiting an outside site we've linked to?

Short Answer: You add this code to your link so it looks like:

<a href="http://www.example.com/" onClick="javascript: pageTracker._trackPageview('/example');">Co name or link info</a>

Will show up in Google Analytics as a page view.

Detailed Answer: (From Google Support) 

You can customize your Google Analytics tracking code to find out when users click outbound links, or links that take users to a website other than your own.

This article gives you an example of how to set up outbound link tracking. This is a two-step process, and you need to follow both steps complete the process.

You must have Google Analytics account and the web tracking code set up before you can track outbound links. You should have a basic knowledge of HTML and JavaScript or work with a developer to complete the set up.

Step 1: Set up an Event to track outbound links

Event tracking is a way you can track user interactions that aren’t automatically collected by the Google Analytics tracking code snippet, including clicks to outbound links. Learn more about Event tracking.

You can copy and paste the example below into your own pages to set up Event tracking for outbound links. We recommend you put this script in your page headers, but not within the basic Google Analytics tracking code snippet.

When you set up an Event, you must define values for the Event components. The Event components define how the data appears in your reports. In this example, the Category, Action, and Label are defined (in bold). You can use these values, or change them and define your own values. Learn more about Event components or refer to our Developer Guides for more technical information on the Event tracking.

The changes you need to make to your web pages depend on which tracking code you’re using. See if you have Classic Analytics (ga.js) or Universal Analytics (analytics.js).

This example uses Event tracking for Universal Analytics. If you’re using Classic Analytics, refer to our Developer Guides for more information on how to track outbound links with Events using the ga.js JavaScript library.

<script>
/**
* Function that tracks a click on an outbound link in Google Analytics.
* This function takes a valid URL string as an argument, and uses that URL string
* as the event label.
*/
var trackOutboundLink = function(url) {
   ga('send', 'event', 'outbound', 'click', url, {'hitCallback':
     function () {
     document.location = url;
     }
   });
}
</script>

Step 2: Add the onclick attribute to your outbound links

After you have Event tracking set up (Step 1), you must also add (or modify) the onclick attribute to your links. This is how data from a specific link gets sent to Google Analytics.

Use this example as a model for your own links:

<a href="http://www.example.com" onclick=”trackOutboundLink(‘http://www.example.com’); return false;">Check out example.com</a>

Additional resources (for developers)

This example includes the hitCallback field, which tells Google Analytics when the user interaction is complete., and uses the trackOutboundLink() as the JavaScript function. This makes sure that you collect the interaction data before the user leaves your site.

For more information on how this works, refer to the hitCallback reference in our Developer Guides.

This tutorial describes how to track outgoing links using the NEW Google Universal Analytics.js code, commonly called Analytics.js or UA. If you are using the OLD ga.js code click here.

This guide describes how to track outgoing links using Google Universal Analytics or commonly known as Analytics.js - the NEW (since late 2013) tracking that Google provides it's webmasters.

If the tracking code you use on your website starts with

(function(i,s,o,g,r,a,m){i['GoogleAnalyticsObject']=r;i[r]=i[r]||function()

... then you are using the NEW Analytics.js code and you can continue reading below.

If however your tracking code starts with

var _gaq=_gaq||[];

... then you are using the OLD Google Analytics code, and you should refer to the other guide: Track outbound links with Google Analytics (ga.js)

The issue tracking outbound links

Since Google introduced the Asynchronous Tracking method, one of the most common questions is: "how do I track outgoing links"? The solution is quite simple, one has to track outgoing links as events (found in Google Analytics under Behavior - Events). The problem however is that it does not always work for everyone, the reason being that events are only recorded once a link is clicked. If that link takes you away from a page (such as an outgoing link in the same window), that tracking event often does not have time to register with the analytics server before the new page starts to load and the tracking request cancelled.

In order to ensure that tracking is done properly, we either have to ensure that the target window is a new window (eg: _blank), or delay the opening of the link by about half a second, giving your browser enough time to register the event and load the tracking url.

Automatically track outbound links

The best method of "auto-tracking" outgoing links is to automatically detect outbound links with JavaScript when they are clicked, and automatically track that event. That tracking event should first check to see whether that link is destined to open in a new window (target="_blank"), and:

• If yes, register the track, and open the link in the new window
• If no, register the track and delay opening the link by half a second, then proceed to open that link.

This method is by far the most robust, and simply means you need to include an external JavaScript file on your pages.

function _gaLt(event){
    var el = event.srcElement || event.target;

    /* Loop up the tree through parent elements if clicked element is not a link (eg: an image inside a link) */
    while(el && (typeof el.tagName == 'undefined' || el.tagName.toLowerCase() != 'a' || !el.href))
        el = el.parentNode;

    if(el && el.href){
        if(el.href.indexOf(location.host) == -1){ /* external link */
            ga("send", "event", "Outgoing Links", el.href, document.location.pathname + document.location.search);
            /* if target not set then delay opening of window by 0.5s to allow tracking */
            if(!el.target || el.target.match(/^_(self|parent|top)$/i)){
                setTimeout(function(){
                    document.location.href = el.href;
                }.bind(el),500);
                /* Prevent standard click */
                event.preventDefault ? event.preventDefault() : event.returnValue = !1;
            }
        }

    }
}

/* Attach the event to all clicks in the document after page has loaded */
var w = window;
w.addEventListener ? w.addEventListener("load",function(){document.body.addEventListener("click",_gaLt,!1)},!1)
  : w.attachEvent && w.attachEvent("onload",function(){document.body.attachEvent("onclick",_gaLt)});

Manually Track outbound links

If you are wanting to track links manually (ie: in the code), an outbound link on your website should look something like this:

<a href="http://outgoinglink.com"
   onclick="ga('send','event','Outgoing Links','outgoinglink.com')" target="_blank">Link Text</a>

What this will do (when clicked) is track an event called "outgoing_links" as "outgoinglink.com". This means that in your Google Analytics account, which has an "Event Tracking" section, you now get a category called "Outgoing Links" containing an action (and total recorded) of outgoing links. Please note the target="_blank" as this ensures your web browser is kept open and the event is able to register.

Tracking any other links

Using this new method, you can theoretically track anything on your website, including downloads, videos, etc. You just need to assign an "onclick" event with your own category and "description" (action), such as:

<a href="/myfiles/mypdf.pdf"
 onclick="ga('send','event','downloads','/myfiles/mypdf.pdf')" target="_blank">Link Text</a>

Impact of Design on Conversions (InfoGraphic)

Here are 8 important tips to increase your conversion rate only by landing page (re)design: 

• Let your primary conversion target dominate the page.
• Test using an impactful and contrasting photo as your hero shot, and mirror the palette choice and contrast levels on your CTA (Call 2 Action) to draw a parallel and guide the visitor from the emotional element to the conversion goal.
• Use photography of people or animals on your landing page and have them stare directly at your CTA with either the angle of their head or their eyes (in a closeup).
• Go a bit punk and try something radical on your landing pages.
• Use strong dynamic shapes to constrain your points of interest.
• Call attention to your most important page elements by using strangely placed and angled arrows. Tie a sequence of arrows together to define a path for the visitor to follow, ending at your CTA.
• Design converging lines to draw people to your Call To Action. Triangles are the most dynamic of all shapes, and their natural tendency to point make them a special design tool (in the same way that an arrow is a more intricately designed pathway).

Source: Unbounce

Let People Know "In Real-Time" When Your blog is Updated with PubSubHubbub

As a blogger (Publisher) you want to notify the cyberspace about your new blog post, first to get it crawled faster, and second to avoid your article being stolen by another Blog and it gets crawled and ranked before you do.

That is when PubSubHubHub comes in handy as it sends realtime notifications to blogfeed hubs when you update your blog.

A simple, open, server-to-server webhook-based pubsub (publish/subscribe) protocol for any web accessible resources.

Pubsubhubbub is used for content publishing by many websites, including all blogs served by blogger.com and WordPress.com, news sites including CNN and Fox news, and social networks like diaspora

Parties (servers) speaking the PubSubHubbub protocol can get near-instant notifications (via webhook callbacks) when a topic (resource URL) they're interested in is updated.

The protocol in a nutshell is as follows:

• An resource URL (a "topic") declares its Hub server(s) in its HTTP Headers, via Link: <hub url>; rel=”hub” . The hub(s) can be run by the publisher of the resource, or can be acommunity hub that anybody can use: Google's, or Superfeedr.

• A subscriber (a server that's interested in a topic), initially fetches the resource URL as normal. If the response declares its hubs, the subscriber can then avoid lame, repeated polling of the URL and can instead register with the designated hub(s) and subscribe to updates.

• The subscriber subscribes to the Topic URL from the Topic URL's declared Hub(s).

• When the Publisher next updates the Topic URL, the publisher software pings the Hub(s) saying that there's an update.

• The hub efficiently fetches the published resource and multicasts the new/changed content out to all registered subscribers.

The protocol is decentralized and free. No company is at the center of this controlling it. Anybody can run a hub, or anybody can ping (publish) or subscribe using open hubs.

Google and Superfeedr offer a public and scalable open hub for anybody to use.

How to Use PubSubhubhub with your feeds?

• Add an //atom:link tag under //atom:entry for Atom feeds or under //rss:rss/channel for RSS feeds. The //atom:link tag should haverel attribute set to hub and href attribute set to https://pubsubhubbub.appspot.com/
• Alternatively, your feed can be served with two Link headers:
  • one with rel attribute set to hub and href attribute set to https://pubsubhubbub.appspot.com/
  • one with rel attribute set to self and href attribute set to the feed URL of the feed
The above is covered in more detail in the PubsubHubbub 0.4 specification.
• Whenever new content is added to a feed, notify the hub. This is accomplished by sending a POST request tohttps://pubsubhubbub.appspot.com/ with Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded and two parameters encoded in the body:
  • hub.mode equal to publish
  • hub.url equal to the feed URL of the feed that has been updated. This field may be repeated to indicate multiple feeds that have been updated

Hub debug

From here you can,

• Subscribe to a feed or debug your subscriber
• Publish a feed or debug your published feeds

If you are a WordPress Blogger and wants to Ping the hub easily, there is a Plugin for that.
https://wordpress.org/plugins/pubsubhubbub/

The Plugin does the following:

Sends realtime notifications when you update your blog
Supports multi-user installations (WordPress MU)
Supports multiple hubs
Supports all of the feed formats used by WordPress, not just ATOM and RSS2
Supports latest spec (Version 0.4)
Announces which hubs you are using by adding <link rel="hub" ...> declarations to your template header and ATOM feed
Adds <atom:link rel="hub" ...> to your RSS feeds along with the necessary XMLNS declaration for RSS 0.92/1.0

How to make the internet a better place with SEO? by Matt cutts

Does Google Consider SEO to be spam?
A 3 years old video by Mat Cutts that answers a question people still ask.

And the answer is yet the same and will still be the same:

SEO, Stands for Search Engine Optimization, is about trying to make sure that your pages are well represented to search engines. 

How?

• By making sure the site crawlable (Robots, sitemaps, etc.)
• Finding the Right keywords (KW and competitors research)
• Usability and design (titles, headers, landing pages, content, multimedia)
• Speed 
• Responsiveness (is it mobile and tablet friendly or not)
• Update rate (How frequent the site adds new content, and how valuable and informative it is)? 

Read more: Search Engine optimization Starter Guide

E-Commerce Product Page / landing Page Optimization 2 infographics

Quick Sprout and Catalyst Search Marketing have just published 2 interesting infographics on landing page optimization specially when it is for E-commerce products.

Enjoy!

The Future of SEO is Taking your Visitors to Your Company's Kitchen

Many of you must have heard of Google's new R&D projects to emulate human interactions on website to base their ranking algorithm on the user experience and whether the visited site offered a perceived value or not.

That is why the future of SEO will not be keywords or backlinks but "Users"
Therefore, site owners need to offer a true user experience to their visitors by being more transparent with them. i.e. involving them in the kitchen :


So, Forget about the famous quote, attributed to Otto von Bismarck: 

Laws are like sausages, it is better not to see them being made.

How To Be More Transparent?

1. Add a company page.
2. Add images to your company page (let your visitors see you.)
3. Add team video. Let your visitors see and hear you and your team
4. Photos or video of your office. Let your visitors see where you work and what you offices look like.
5. Don’t hide your phone number. This is a huge red flag.
6. Integrate your social media accounts
7. Show customer reviews and testimonials
8. Embed a Google map of your office
9. Show a photo and name of your sales person on the sales or contact page
10. Don’t use stock photos of people in offices. Instead take real photos of your people in your offices.
11. If you sell services, then describe your process
12. If you sell products, then show how they get made

(I know a Toronto based SEO company called Powered By Search that has an animated photo of their office on the Main header on the Home Page showing visitors their employees while working.) 

Here are some extra guidelines from the Stanford Web Credibility Project: 

Resources:

1. http://credibility.stanford.edu/ 
2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_Web_Credibility_Project
3. http://blog.seogroup.com/the-most-important-website-trend-in-2014-is/

Landing Page Optimization Checklist - Infographic

Oli Gardner is Co-Founder & Creative Director at Unbounce. He's seen more landing pages than anyone on the planet. Several years ago, he made an exciting infographic "The 5-Minute Conversion Health-Check Scorecard" To check how effective a landing page is.

Google Publisher Toolbar: To know Everything About the ads on your site

Avoid clicking on ads on your sites to know their destination URLs. With the Google Publisher toolbar for Chrome you can view your DoubleClick for Publishers, AdSense or AdExchange Seller account data without leaving your website.

Whether you're using AdSense, Ad Exchange or DoubleClick for Publishers, with the Google Publisher Toolbar you can view information on each of your Google ads, block unsuitable creatives, and see an account overview, all while browsing your own site. 

The Google Publisher Toolbar adds an overlay to each of your Google ads, which provides some basic information about the ad, including its size, display URL and the advertiser name. 

Clicking on the overlay generates an Ad Details pop-up with more detailed data including:

• A link to the ad’s landing page, allowing for safe clicks. 
• Summary reporting on the ad unit including performance metrics, such as clicks, RPM and estimated revenue. 
• The buyer name. 
• The display URL. 

From the Ad Details pop-up, you can also take action on an unwanted creative to block the ad, the URL or the ad network, or send feedback to Google. Clicking on the Google Publisher Toolbar icon generates the Account Overview pop-up that provides a helpful summary including: 

• An estimated account earnings summary for today, yesterday, this month or last month. 
• The top five channels or top five sites in descending order of revenue for today, yesterday, 7 days, this month and last month. 

With the Google Publisher Toolbar, you get an easily accessible account overview and enhanced insight into the ads on your page, together with the ability to manage creatives, without ever leaving your site.

How to Screw an SEO Interview? A Crash Course for Internet Lovers Who Want to Make a Living

What really disgusts me in the world of SEO is to find a smart person who loves the internet and social media, eager to learn and have high sense of creativity, being asked some silly questions about SEO and based on his/her "By the Book Answers" will be hired or rejected.

What those employers do not know is that SEO is not a Science, it is Literature; It is ART. 

And as an employer you may stumble one day upon an SEO Picasso, Michelangelo, Bernini, Dante, etc,... will you ask them by which hand do they hold the brush, or What is the definition of "Mosaic"? If you do, then congratulations, your future as an Internet Businessman is almost over. 

Anyway, This post is not for employers, but for those fresh-minded Internet Lovers who, like me, believe that SEO is an Art, and want to pursue a career as SEO specialists, Web Strategists, or Internet Marketing Professionals but need to get pass all those silly HR background checks or Old-fashioned SEO questions. 

I am not saying an SEO specialist should not have "The Basic SEO knowledge". What I am saying is that such knowledge can be simply acquired in a couple of days. Plus, SEO is always evolving and changing, and what was considered "Basic SEO tasks" is now considered spamming and harmful, Further, if the SEO algorithm is pure science and everybody did it according to the theory, how do you think millions of sites will be ranked if all of them used the same techniques on that same book?!!

OK Let's Start.... 

Q: What are the most important onsite SEO factors?

A: Meta Tags, Content, inner links

Q: What is a good Back-linking Strategy?

A:  

1. Directory listing (relevant niche) inc. DMOZ and Yahoo! Dir
2. Local Directories (for Local Businesses)
3. Link Baits and Skyscrapers (Content based)
4. Link Chains and Link Pyramids
5. Social Media
6. Press Releases
7. Guest Posting (on relevant and authoritative pages) 
8. Social Bookmarking
9. Microsites (WordPress or Tumblr)
10. Affiliation links
11. Review links
12. Testimonial Links
13. Sponsorship Links
14. Links from clients or suppliers
15. Sweepstakes, Promotions, and coupons distribution 
16. Forums Participation (relevant and authoritative)
17. Commenting on relevant blogs (avoid automatic scraping and Spinning)
18. Monitoring backlinks (with tools like OpenSiteExplrer, MajesticSEO, or ahrefs)
19. Disavowing harmful links
20. Analyzing Traffic Channels (Google Analytics) 

Q: What is a good Local SEO Strategy?

A:

1. Use a Local TLD (Top Level Domain) - .CA for Canada, .IT for Italy, .EG for Egypt, etc.
2. Submit to Google Locals and link map to contact us page
3. have business address, phone number, and working hours onsite (in a Structured data format)
4. Use Local Keywords 
5. Use a Local phone number (not a 1-800 toll free)
6. Submit business to Local Directories
7. Participate in online Local social activities (Forums, social media, etc.)
8. Get reviews and testimonials
9. Add the site link and logo to employees email signatures
10. Be active on social media with promotions, discounts, competitions, sweepstakes, and seasonal coupons (use scarcity marketing) and do a local press release (online and offline) to advertise such promos. 

Q: What is Canonicalization, EMD, Pagination, KeyWord Proximity, Keyword density, Keyword Frequency, Keyword Prominence, Keyword Stuffing, Cloaking, 404, 301, LSA, and LSI

A: 

1. URL Canonicalization: picking a canonical (preferred) URL as the preferred version of a page with a duplicate version.
2. Pagination: Using rel="next" and rel="prev" attributes to tell search engines that a page is continued in other pages (used mainly with products or long articles)
3. EMD: Exact Match Domain; Using the target KW as a domain name (e.g.: www.WhatisTheBestInsuranceCompanyinCanada.com" Although Google says that an EMD is devalued, many experts believe that it can still be effective to rank for a specific KW. 
4. KW Proximity: The distance between Keywords in a long-tail phrase; The shorter the distance the more relevant the Phrase is to the search query. (For example: a website contains the keywords that make up the search term “dentist Montreal implant” in the heading “Your professional dentist in Montreal; dental practice for minimally invasive implants”. The search term proximity between “dentist” and “Montreal” is one word, between “Montreal” and “implant” it is five words. The smaller the distance between a search term’s individual keywords, the more relevant it will be from a search engine's point of view.)
5. KW Density: the ratio (percentage) of keywords contained within the total number of indexable words within a web page. (A good ratio is between 2 - 8%) 
6. KW Frequency: the number of times a keyword or keyword phrase appears within a web page.
7. KW Prominence: A KW is prominent if placed in the Title tag (or H1 header)
8. KW Stuffing: a Black-hat (not good) SEO technique where you add all the Keywords you want to rank for next to each other or allover the page just for the sake of SEO without giving a logical meaning to the reader.
9. Cloaking: Another Black Hat technique where the content presented to the search engine spider is different from that presented to the user (like hiding some KWs with a JavaScript code or CSS, or just using the same color of the page background) 
10. 404: A Not Found error message could be caused by a broken link, a deleted page, or just a URL typo (It is important to have a 404 page to navigate users to other pages on the site instead of showing them an error)
11. 301: Permanent Redirection: to redirect links and pages to other URLs and keep the link juice flowing
12. LSA: Latent Semantic Analysis:  Analyzing relationships between a set of documents and the terms they contain by producing a set of concepts related to the documents and terms. LSA assumes that words that are close in meaning will occur in similar pieces of text.
13. LSI: Latent Semantic Indexing: identifying patterns in the relationships between the terms and concepts (Synonyms) contained in an unstructured collection of text. (So make sure when using a KW in the title of an article to write relevant content about such KW even if you are not mentioning the exact KW)

Q: What are the names of Google Algorithms:

A: The Panda Penalizes bad Content, The Penguin Penalizes bad backlinks, and the Hummingbird is an algorithm that understands the intention of the search query and does not penalize. 

Q:  Where do you get your SEO news and updates from?

A: Blogs (Google Webmasters Central, SEroundtable, Mattcutts, Kiss Metrics, Moz, Search Engine Land, and Have Results)

Q: What is the first thing you do to analyze a website?

A: I crawl it with Screaming Frog SEO Spider and check its backlinks

Q: What tools do you use?

A: There are thousands of SEO tools and most of them do the same thing since they just grab data from the top tools through APIs. Bit for me I feel comfortable with the following: Google Analytics, Webmaster tools, Tag Manager, Adwords KW Planner, Moz, My Seo Tool, Woorank, Rank Tracker, Raven, SEM Rush, SEO Profiler, Pingdom, Similar Web, and some browser extensions for quick analysis. 

All My Best Wishes 

Other resources: 

• http://www.slideshare.net/malarkodiseo/seo-26811106 
• http://moz.com/ugc/-7-job-interview-questions-to-ask-a-senior-seo-specialist 
• http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2295280/9-Interview-Questions-to-Ask-Your-SEO-Hires