• by Laurie Sullivan , Staff Writer @lauriesullivan, December 12, 2012

Search marketers have been challenged by whether they should optimize for search engines or consumers, or Web sites for visitors. A recent report puts this into perspective as marketers begin to implement more complex processes to remain competitive in the rankings.

MediaWhiz's white paper "SEO In 2013: The Year of the Consumer" calls attention to content as the biggest influence on conversions. The paper suggests that the Google algorithm updates Panda and Penguin changed the strategy, and that optimizing SEO campaigns for site visitors or consumers will not only provide long-term success, will but reduce the risk of losing ground to future algorithm updates.

MediaWhiz tells marketers to avoid wordy content, keyword stuffing, factual errors, grammatical errors, and spun content. For the most part, the advice should seem like common sense to marketers, such as making sure to know your audience, and making content educational.

The MediaWhiz paper also suggests better understanding link-acquisition strategies and the breakdown of link profiles related to anchor text. Use naked URLs, brand variations, brand and keywords, and universal generic words or phrases.

MediaWhiz also recommends that marketers diversify anchor text and strive for certain milestones when it comes to natural looking profile links -- for example, no more than 50% of links should be keyword anchored, and Web site names should remain one of the top five most-used anchor texts, and at least two of the top five most-used anchor texts.

It's important to consider building social signals with natural profiles. Stay away from automation to maintain a "natural looking authority signal," according to the paper. This will require attention to each manually generated signal. While social signals influencing search ranking are not new, they are expected to have a greater impact in 2013.

Consider this list of tips when it comes to optimizing content for SEO in 2013:

SEO in 2014 and the Importance of AuthorRank

18 SEO Killers You Must Clean Up and Avoid for 2014 and Beyond

Best Practices for Building Your 2013 Enterprise SEO Campaign

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