How can you help SEO clients, whether internal or external, understand what SEO (and isn't) and set proper expectations for an SEO project? What are the key signals of SEO quality on a website? How does the increasing use of social media affect SEO efforts? What common SEO mistakes should you avoid, and what myths to dispel?

Find the answers to these questions and others here in more of the best blog posts and articles on search engine optimization from the past year.

B2B Marketers: Setting Expectations For Your SEO Campaign by Search Engine Land

What’s the magic formula for SEO success? Julie Shumaker writes that "Setting realistic goals, measuring the right thing, and establishing a baseline" are all key parts of the process. She emphasizes that SEO is a long-term project, that getting on page one of Google isn't always realistic (at least in the short term), and that ultimately, traffic and conversions are what matters—not just rankings. Another excellent SEO post from Search Engine Land is The Evolving State Of Social Media & SEO. Eric Enge notes that "social media will be a major source of ranking signals for the search engines in the future," both due to its link-building potential and the emergence of real-time search.


Setting Expectations for Search Engine Optimization by Search Engine Watch

Following on the same theme as the post above, Mark Jackson writes a case study on setting realistic expectations with SEO clients. It's very difficult for small websites to outrank large ones, particularly for highly competitive phrases. Among his conclusions: more content helps. Blogging helps. Social media works. Link buying isn't supposed to help, but it does, and some large companies spend big bucks on this, which is difficult for smaller firms to compete with. Focusing on longer-tail terms can provide respectable traffic and conversions without huge costs.


Why it Makes Sense to Target Longtail Keywords First by SEO Book

Aaron Wall explains that because new or small sites without a large number of external links pointing to them are unlikely to rank well for highly competitive search phrases, it's better to focus on long tail terms first, building up trust, links and traffic gradually. This post includes a couple of excellent graphics showing the differences in how search engine algorithms treat highly competitive terms from more specific longtail phrases.


12 Easy Mistakes That Plague Newcomers to the SEO Field by SEOmoz

For those new to SEO, Rand Fishkin provides some excellent advice on mistakes to avoid including reciprocal linking (it doesn't work, and it looks spammy), targeting the same keyword on multiple pages, and not using XML sitemaps. My only quibble would be with his advice to use the nofollow attribute for PageRank sculpting; the nofollow tag is insidious and the value questionable.


SEO Quality Indicators & The Heap Paradox by Search Engine Journal

Ryan Caldwell ventures from the philosophical to the practical in this post, providing 10 key indicators of website SEO quality, from "lean code and meaty content" along with proper tag usage to listing a physical address and toll-free phone number. Another notable post from Search Engine Journal is There Is No Secret Sauce in SEO! , in which James Morris debunks several common SEO myths, such as that there is "mystical secret formula" or "complicated scientific method" to achieving SEO success. He closes with advice on where to begin, and the missions of an SEO including a clear understanding of goals up front and collaborating with developers and writers to optimize content.


Blog SEO: 5 Tips To Improve Ranking and Increase Traffic by PCWorld

Mike Keller offers a helpful set of tips for new bloggers to optimize their blogs for search, covering basics such as variable title tags in Blogger (note: this won't work with all templates), meta tags and setting up RSS feeds.

Previous posts in this series:

Best of 2009 (So Far): Social Media Marketing, Part 1
Best of 2009 (S0 Far): AdWords Tips and Tactics, Part 1
Best of 2009 (So Far): Blogging for Business, Part 1
Best of 2009 (So Far): SEO Guidance, Part 1
Best of 2009 (So Far): Cool Web Tools, Part 1
Best of 2009 (So Far): Twitter Tips and Tactics, Part 1
Best of 2009 (So Far): Social Media Marketing, Part 2
Best of 2009 (So Far): AdWords Tips and Tactics, Part 2
Best of 2009 (So Far): SEO Guidance, Part 2
Best of 2009 (So Far): Cool Web Tools, Part 2
Best of 2009 (So Far): Search Engine Marketing
Best of 2009 (So Far): Social Media Marketing, Part 3

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Contact Tom Pick: tomATwebmarketcentralDOTcom