Tuesday, 19 August 2014

Scrape Data Point Using Python

I am looking to scrape a data point using Python off of the url http://www.cavirtex.com/orderbook .

The data point I am looking to scrape is the lowest bid offer, which at the current moment looks like this:

<tr>
 <td><b>Jan. 19, 2014, 2:37 a.m.</b></td>
 <td><b>0.0775/0.1146</b></td>
 <td><b>860.00000</b></td>
 <td><b>66.65 CAD</b></td>
</tr>

The relevant point being the 860.00 . I am looking to build this into a script which can send me an email to alert me of certain price differentials compared to other exchanges.

I'm quite noobie so if in your explanations you could offer your thought process on why you've done certain things it would be very much appreciated.

Thank you in advance!

Edit: This is what I have so far which will return me the name of the title correctly, I'm having trouble grabbing the table data though.

import urllib2, sys
from bs4 import BeautifulSoup

site= "http://cavirtex.com/orderbook"
hdr = {'User-Agent': 'Mozilla/5.0'}
req = urllib2.Request(site,headers=hdr)
page = urllib2.urlopen(req)
soup = BeautifulSoup(page)
print soup.title



Here is the code for scraping the lowest bid from the 'Buying BTC' table:

from selenium import webdriver

fp = webdriver.FirefoxProfile()
browser = webdriver.Firefox(firefox_profile=fp)
browser.get('http://www.cavirtex.com/orderbook')

lowest_bid = float('inf')
elements = browser.find_elements_by_xpath('//div[@id="orderbook_buy"]/table/tbody/tr/td')

for element in elements:
    text = element.get_attribute('innerHTML').strip('<b>|</b>')
    try:
        bid = float(text)
        if lowest_bid > bid:
            lowest_bid = bid
    except:
        pass

browser.quit()
print lowest_bid

In order to install Selenium for Python on your Windows-PC, run from a command line:

pip install selenium (or pip install selenium --upgrade if you already have it).

If you want the 'Selling BTC' table instead, then change "orderbook_buy" to "orderbook_sell".

If you want the 'Last Trades' table instead, then change "orderbook_buy" to "orderbook_trades".

Note:

If you consider performance critical, then you can implement the data-scraping via URL-Connection instead of Selenium, and have your program running much faster. However, your code will probably end up being a lot "messier", due to the tedious XML parsing that you'll be obliged to apply...

Here is the code for sending the previous output in an email from yourself to yourself:

import smtplib,ssl

def SendMail(username,password,contents):
    server = Connect(username)
    try:
        server.login(username,password)
        server.sendmail(username,username,contents)
    except smtplib.SMTPException,error:
        Print(error)
    Disconnect(server)

def Connect(username):
    serverName = username[username.index("@")+1:username.index(".")]
    while True:
        try:
            server = smtplib.SMTP(serverDict[serverName])
        except smtplib.SMTPException,error:
            Print(error)
            continue
        try:
            server.ehlo()
            if server.has_extn("starttls"):
                server.starttls()
                server.ehlo()
        except (smtplib.SMTPException,ssl.SSLError),error:
            Print(error)
            Disconnect(server)
            continue
        break
    return server

def Disconnect(server):
    try:
        server.quit()
    except smtplib.SMTPException,error:
        Print(error)

serverDict = {
    "gmail"  :"smtp.gmail.com",
    "hotmail":"smtp.live.com",
    "yahoo"  :"smtp.mail.yahoo.com"
}

SendMail("your_username@your_provider.com","your_password",str(lowest_bid))

The above code should work if your email provider is either gmail or hotmail or yahoo.

Please note that depending on your firewall configuration, it may ask your permission upon the first time you try it...



Source: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/21217034/scrape-data-point-using-python

Sunday, 17 August 2014

Data Recovery Services - Be Wary of Cheap Prices

Data recovery is a specialized, complicated process. Proper hard drive recovery can require manipulation of data at the sector level, transplantation of internal components and various other procedures. These techniques are very involved and require not only talented, knowledgeable technicians, but also an extensive inventory of disk drives to use for parts when necessary and clean facilities to conduct the work.

Unfortunately these factors mean that, in most cases, recovery services are quite expensive. Technician training, hard drive inventories and special equipment all come with a cost.

If you search for disk recovery services, you will likely find several smaller companies that offer hard disk data recovery for a fraction of the prices usually quoted by larger, more experienced organizations. These companies often operate from small offices or, in some cases, private homes. They do not possess clean room facilities, large disk drive inventories or many other pieces of equipment necessary to successfully complete most hard drive recovery cases.

When you take into account all of the training, parts and facilities necessary, you can see how it is impossible for a company to charge $200 for a hard drive recovery and not operate at a loss.

What these companies usually do is run a software program on the hard disk drive. Sometimes, if there is no physical damage to the disk drive, this program is able to recover some of the data. However, hard disk data recovery is much more than just running software. No software can recover data from a hard drive that has failed heads, damaged platters or electrical damage. In fact, attempting to run a hard drive that is physically damaged can make the problem worse. Trying to use software to recover data from a hard drive with failed read/write heads, for example, can lead to the heads scraping the platters of the drive and leaving the data unrecoverable.

Another way these smaller companies conduct business is by forwarding data recovery cases they cannot recover to larger organizations. Of course, the smaller companies charge their clients a premium for this service. In these cases it would have actually been cheaper to use the larger company in the first place.

You will also likely find that many smaller recovery companies charge evaluation or diagnostic fees upfront. They charge these fees regardless of whether or not any data is recovered. In many cases clients desperate to recover their data pay these fees and get nothing in return but a failed recovery. Smaller data recovery services simply do not have the skills, training, facilities and parts to successfully recover most disk drives. It is more cost efficient for them to make one attempt at running a software program and then call the case unsuccessful.

Sometimes you may get lucky working with a smaller data recovery company, but in most cases you will end up paying for a failed recovery. In the worst case scenario you could end up with a damaged hard drive that is now unrecoverable by any data recovery service.

You will waste time and money working with these services. You could even lose your valuable data for good.

If your data is important enough to consider data recovery, it is important enough to seek a reputable, skilled data recovery company. All major data recovery services offer free evaluations and most do not charge clients for unsuccessful recoveries. Sometimes you only have one shot to recover data on a disk drive before the platters are seriously damaged and the data is lost for good. Taking chances with inexperienced companies is not worth the risk.

Source:http://ezinearticles.com/?Data-Recovery-Services---Be-Wary-of-Cheap-Prices&id=4706055

Monday, 30 June 2014

Collecting and Managing Data for Small Businesses

Is your company doing well? Are you profitable? How much longer will it be until you are? Where can you cut expenses? What are your most profitable products or services? Which are the least profitable? What the shelf-life of a particular product? How effective is your marketing strategy?

As business leaders, this type of information is the type of information that we need to have on hand in order to make decisions about the company. Planning solely on what is in the bank, or focusing only on one aspect of what makes your company a) successful or b) keeps it out of closing is a very poor way of operating. This is pure tunnel vision.

If you consider, for a moment, two tools that are widely used in the business world - Porter's Five Forces and the SWOT analysis, you'll notice that part of the analysis is based on things that impact the business - are outside of the business's control. As business leaders, you know that strategically, this cannot occur just in exercise, but must exist in the way that you do business. Monitoring, making adjustments and acting must be an ongoing mentality if your goal is to build an extraordinary business. Several recommendations we have made to clients include:

    Understand what questions you want to answer. Here are some samples:

    How do we know when we can purchase a new building or expand capacity

    How do we know how effective our sales people are

    How do we know how effective our marketing and other business development activities are

    Understand what kind of data you need to collect in order to make your decisions. Typically, these are going to be things such as your financials - sales, cost of goods sold, expenses, profit, investments, interest and taxes, your business development activities, manufacturing costs and rates, etc.

    Determine how to collect the data - including what is feasible. Take into consideration how you operate - does it need to be mobile? does the information need to be housed in a cloud?

    Determine how the data needs to be delivered. If you have a ton of data and like to drill down from "high level" analysis down to the details, perhaps you want something more visual. If you like to play with the numbers yourself and run scenarios, perhaps you like to play with the raw data.

•    Decide how much your level of investment. Consider this:

•    No Investment - If you don't get the data to make decisions, the likelihood of success is minimalized.

•    Your Time - If you collect and mine the data yourself, what else could or should you be doing to build or grow the business.

•    Your Resources - You could have a qualified employee collect and mine the data for you.

•    Your Money - You could invest in a software solution - be it customized, off the shelf, or a combination of the two - that could collect the data. We have used and recommend a product called Work, Etc., to centrally house most transaction that occur in the business in order to give us a single data-collection source.

    Research solutions that will work best for your company, considering the factors we pointed out above. You may consider other factors that are specific to your company, such as the ability to sync with certain existing solutions or the ability to be housed on a centrally located or remote server, etc.. May companies look at Open Source solutions such as xTurple or SugarCRM. Despite your choice, consider the total cost of ownership of the solution before investing in it.

    Determine how the solution will be implemented and how training on the software will roll out. This may mean hiring a consultant, going to a class or classes, investing in an online training solution or spending time with tech support for a self-install. Consider the different types of investment.

    Plan to re-enforce the need to use whatever solution is recommended. Change takes time. Habits take time. By providing some structure, you will increase the likelihood of success.

Your company's ability to collect and decipher the data from the activities in and around your company can be the determine factor between a series of successful ventures and a series of hit-or-miss activities. Even the simplest data-collection activities should help you determine your company's path.

Source:http://ezinearticles.com/?Collecting-and-Managing-Data-for-Small-Businesses&id=6923386

Sunday, 15 June 2014

Data Entry Outsourcing - Important Part of Data Entry Services

It is rightly said if you try to manage everything you end up managing nothing. The business environment, these days, is very competitive. Requirements and technology change by a wink of an eye. It is imperative for any business to keep abreast of the technological and business environment changes. This requires a more focused and strategic approach towards primary function of the business.

Over the years the corporate have become selective on the business processes they put their time and money on. This calls for an arrangement where in the managers can concentrate on their core competencies and get the supporting operations done by someone else. The answer to all this is Outsourcing. Outsourcing means getting some portion of the service, operations, or business done through some other organization that is more familiar with this work.

Data is by far the most important asset of any business. However, before businesses could use the data, it has to be fed in to the computers. Mostly businesses outsource this act of Data Processing for multiple benefits. Firstly, the companies could do away with this tedious task and hence could invest their time and effort on more important things. Secondly, the company or the freelancer to whom the work is outsourced is a specialist in the job and hence the work is completed with more precision and with lower turnaround time. Another benefit is that the data entry work might be for some duration and need not continue for a life time, in such a scenario the company gets away from arranging people and infrastructure for the data entry job.

Having discussed the need to outsource the Data, another important aspect to cover in this domain is the efficiency of the agency to which the work is outsourced. Business houses should do their homework before selecting the service provider. Apart from the work experience and the quality of the people, confidentiality should always be kept on top of the agenda. Business houses may have at face the brunt In case of leakage or misuse of the sensitive information. It is imperative for the service providers to ensure the best security measures at the work place.

Source:http://ezinearticles.com/?Data-Entry-Outsourcing---Important-Part-of-Data-Entry-Services&id=5255220

Tuesday, 20 May 2014

Law of Cards: Beckett Sues Two More for Scraping Data

The recent trend in trading card cases focuses more on protecting trading card data than on trading cards themselves. Beckett has filed two more lawsuits over alleged data scraping.

Collectors Universe (CU) started this trend with lawsuits against MWP Software/Matthew Perry and SaintSoft LLC/John Kountz. In both of these suits, CU alleged the defendants copied CU data available only to paying CU subscribers, and then unlawfully (and in violation of CU's terms of service) used that data on the defendants' websites or in their own apps.

Pokémon then followed by suing the Pokellector (a website which attempts to provide a comprehensive list of all Pokémon cards, along with images of those cards) for allegedly reproducing copyrighted images of its cards without permission, trademark infringement and unlawfully rebranding the images of Pokémon cards with a Pokellector trademark.

Beckett continued the trend by bringing a trade secret lawsuit against Check Out My Cards (COMC) which, among other things, made a big deal out of COMC's "scraping" of checklists and pricing data (although COMC alleges such scraping may have been authorized).

On April 24, Beckett filed two more lawsuits focusing on pricing and checklist data. This time against Custom Plush Productions Inc's The Card Collector and Derek Miller of Miller Cards.

These two new complaints cannibalize a lot of the COMC complaint and are nearly mirror images of each other as well.

It also looks like Beckett might have let an intern from the marketing department edit these complaints. Paragraph six of both state, "Beckett is the preeminent company and most trusted source operating within the collectibles industry, and it has been since it formed in 1984."

Sounds more like a PR piece than a lawsuit, right?

For The Card Collector case, Beckett alleges The Card Collector accessed Beckett's pricing guides through the Beckett website and unlawfully "scraped" Beckett's copyrightable checklist and pricing data. Allegedly, The Card Collector now offers Beckett's card checklists, grading and pricing data on its own website and through a CD-ROM it sells to others. For that Beckett brings claims for copyright infringement, common law misappropriation, "accounting" (bring out the accountants!), unjust enrichment, a violation of Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, trespass and a Harmful Access by Computer Under Texas Penal Code.

A little bit of everything, right?

For the second new suit, Beckett alleges Miller Cards operates several websites (such as millercards.net and freebaseballcardspriceguide.com) that provide checklists and pricing guides for card collectors. Beckett contends that Miller accessed Beckett's price guides through his Beckett membership, violated the membership agreement by "scraping" this data and then unlawfully reproduced the data on his websites. It brings the identical claims against Miller Cards that it brought against the Card Collector.

Giving all of this scraping going on, I guess, the next planking or Tebowing-type meme should be the "scraping" Beckett meme. I'm looking forward to seeing your pictures on what that should look like.

Now, we've only seen Beckett's side of the story, but it looks bad for both defendants. Sure, there are issues about how much copyright protection should be afforded checklists, but these cases are not just about publicly available checklist data. The checklist and pricing information from these cases was allegedly scraped from behind a pay wall at and then distributed to others in violation of Beckett's terms of service.

Allegedly stealing something from behind a pay wall to give or sell to others just doesn’t look good.

Given this, in all likelihood, these cases will disappear (settle) quickly before we get into any real issues.

These two cases (and the COMC case) have another implication for the industry. Beckett has a template complaint that it looks like it's going to recycle again and again against scrapers. And it's policing the Internet looking for infringers. I predict then we'll see this complaint filed again this year, perhaps multiple times.

If you'd like to review a copy of these complaints, click here for the Card Collector complaint and here for the Miller Cards complaint.

The information provided in Paul Lesko's "Law of Cards" column is not intended to be legal advice, but merely conveys general information related to legal issues commonly encountered in the sports industry. This information is not intended to create any legal relationship between Paul Lesko, the Simmons Browder Gianaris Angelides & Barnerd LLC or any attorney and the user. Neither the transmission nor receipt of these website materials will create an attorney-client relationship between the author and the readers.

The views expressed in the "Law of Cards" column are solely those of the author and are not affiliated with the Simmons Law Firm. You should not act or rely on any information in the "Law of Cards" column without seeking the advice of an attorney. The determination of whether you need legal services and your choice of a lawyer are very important matters that should not be based on websites or advertisements.

Source: http://www.cardboardconnection.com/news/law-of-cards-beckett-sues-two-more-for-scraping-data

Tuesday, 25 February 2014

Three Common Methods For Web Data Extraction

Probably the most common technique used traditionally to extract data from web pages this is to cook up some regular expressions that match the pieces you want (e.g., URL's and link titles). Our screen-scraper software actually started out as an application written in Perl for this very reason. In addition to regular expressions, you might also use some code written in something like Java or Active Server Pages to parse out larger chunks of text. Using raw regular expressions to pull out the data can be a little intimidating to the uninitiated, and can get a bit messy when a script contains a lot of them. At the same time, if you're already familiar with regular expressions, and your scraping project is relatively small, they can be a great solution.

Other techniques for getting the data out can get very sophisticated as algorithms that make use of artificial intelligence and such are applied to the page. Some programs will actually analyze the semantic content of an HTML page, then intelligently pull out the pieces that are of interest. Still other approaches deal with developing "ontologies", or hierarchical vocabularies intended to represent the content domain.

There are a number of companies (including our own) that offer commercial applications specifically intended to do screen-scraping. The applications vary quite a bit, but for medium to large-sized projects they're often a good solution. Each one will have its own learning curve, so you should plan on taking time to learn the ins and outs of a new application. Especially if you plan on doing a fair amount of screen-scraping it's probably a good idea to at least shop around for a screen-scraping application, as it will likely save you time and money in the long run.

So what's the best approach to data extraction? It really depends on what your needs are, and what resources you have at your disposal. Here are some of the pros and cons of the various approaches, as well as suggestions on when you might use each one:

Raw regular expressions and code

Advantages:

- If you're already familiar with regular expressions and at least one programming language, this can be a quick solution.

- Regular expressions allow for a fair amount of "fuzziness" in the matching such that minor changes to the content won't break them.

- You likely don't need to learn any new languages or tools (again, assuming you're already familiar with regular expressions and a programming language).

- Regular expressions are supported in almost all modern programming languages. Heck, even VBScript has a regular expression engine. It's also nice because the various regular expression implementations don't vary too significantly in their syntax.

Disadvantages:

- They can be complex for those that don't have a lot of experience with them. Learning regular expressions isn't like going from Perl to Java. It's more like going from Perl to XSLT, where you have to wrap your mind around a completely different way of viewing the problem.

- They're often confusing to analyze. Take a look through some of the regular expressions people have created to match something as simple as an email address and you'll see what I mean.

- If the content you're trying to match changes (e.g., they change the web page by adding a new "font" tag) you'll likely need to update your regular expressions to account for the change.

- The data discovery portion of the process (traversing various web pages to get to the page containing the data you want) will still need to be handled, and can get fairly complex if you need to deal with cookies and such.

When to use this approach: You'll most likely use straight regular expressions in screen-scraping when you have a small job you want to get done quickly. Especially if you already know regular expressions, there's no sense in getting into other tools if all you need to do is pull some news headlines off of a site.

Ontologies and artificial intelligence

Advantages:

- You create it once and it can more or less extract the data from any page within the content domain you're targeting.

- The data model is generally built in. For example, if you're extracting data about cars from web sites the extraction engine already knows what the make, model, and price are, so it can easily map them to existing data structures (e.g., insert the data into the correct locations in your database).

- There is relatively little long-term maintenance required. As web sites change you likely will need to do very little to your extraction engine in order to account for the changes.

Disadvantages:

- It's relatively complex to create and work with such an engine. The level of expertise required to even understand an extraction engine that uses artificial intelligence and ontologies is much higher than what is required to deal with regular expressions.

- These types of engines are expensive to build. There are commercial offerings that will give you the basis for doing this type of data extraction, but you still need to configure them to work with the specific content domain you're targeting.

- You still have to deal with the data discovery portion of the process, which may not fit as well with this approach (meaning you may have to create an entirely separate engine to handle data discovery). Data discovery is the process of crawling web sites such that you arrive at the pages where you want to extract data.

When to use this approach: Typically you'll only get into ontologies and artificial intelligence when you're planning on extracting information from a very large number of sources. It also makes sense to do this when the data you're trying to extract is in a very unstructured format (e.g., newspaper classified ads). In cases where the data is very structured (meaning there are clear labels identifying the various data fields), it may make more sense to go with regular expressions or a screen-scraping application.

Screen-scraping software

Advantages:

- Abstracts most of the complicated stuff away. You can do some pretty sophisticated things in most screen-scraping applications without knowing anything about regular expressions, HTTP, or cookies.

- Dramatically reduces the amount of time required to set up a site to be scraped. Once you learn a particular screen-scraping application the amount of time it requires to scrape sites vs. other methods is significantly lowered.

- Support from a commercial company. If you run into trouble while using a commercial screen-scraping application, chances are there are support forums and help lines where you can get assistance.

Disadvantages:

- The learning curve. Each screen-scraping application has its own way of going about things. This may imply learning a new scripting language in addition to familiarizing yourself with how the core application works.

- A potential cost. Most ready-to-go screen-scraping applications are commercial, so you'll likely be paying in dollars as well as time for this solution.

- A proprietary approach. Any time you use a proprietary application to solve a computing problem (and proprietary is obviously a matter of degree) you're locking yourself into using that approach. This may or may not be a big deal, but you should at least consider how well the application you're using will integrate with other software applications you currently have. For example, once the screen-scraping application has extracted the data how easy is it for you to get to that data from your own code?

When to use this approach: Screen-scraping applications vary widely in their ease-of-use, price, and suitability to tackle a broad range of scenarios. Chances are, though, that if you don't mind paying a bit, you can save yourself a significant amount of time by using one. If you're doing a quick scrape of a single page you can use just about any language with regular expressions. If you want to extract data from hundreds of web sites that are all formatted differently you're probably better off investing in a complex system that uses ontologies and/or artificial intelligence. For just about everything else, though, you may want to consider investing in an application specifically designed for screen-scraping.

As an aside, I thought I should also mention a recent project we've been involved with that has actually required a hybrid approach of two of the aforementioned methods. We're currently working on a project that deals with extracting newspaper classified ads. The data in classifieds is about as unstructured as you can get. For example, in a real estate ad the term "number of bedrooms" can be written about 25 different ways. The data extraction portion of the process is one that lends itself well to an ontologies-based approach, which is what we've done. However, we still had to handle the data discovery portion. We decided to use screen-scraper for that, and it's handling it just great. The basic process is that screen-scraper traverses the various pages of the site, pulling out raw chunks of data that constitute the classified ads. These ads then get passed to code we've written that uses ontologies in order to extract out the individual pieces we're after. Once the data has been extracted we then insert it
into a database.

Source:http://ezinearticles.com/?Three-Common-Methods-For-Web-Data-Extraction&id=165416

Friday, 21 February 2014

Top 20 Fundamentals of Great SEO Content Writing for 2014

S-E-O are three little letters that have caused a world of stress and confusion for many small business owners over the years. For those that don’t know, SEO stands for “search engine optimization” and refers to the process of properly directing search engine traffic to your website. Search Engine Land provides detailed guides that introduce and walk you through the SEO process. What we want to talk about now are the fundamentals of great SEO content writing for 2014, especially those fundamentals that stand out from all of the others.

The New Face of SEO

If you’ve ever been a minor spectator of SEO trends over the past year, you know that 2013 became branded as the year that changed SEO forever. Google released three major algorithm updates: Panda, Penguin and Hummingbird: see the Moz timeline. The most notable change we saw came in the form of a complete revamp of the proper way to optimize content.

Previously, keyword density was everything in SEO content writing. In fact, keyword density was so important that it was upheld over quality writing standards. Then, in 2013, the standards changed. Today, keyword density means practically nothing.

The New “Everything”

How to Blast Off Your SEO Content and Rankings for 2014 is the big question. The new “everything” of SEO is satisfying your audience’s thirst for quality content. Great content writing is no longer about stuffing in high traffic keywords and phrases. It’s about writing compelling, engaging, informative, relevant and entertaining content. It’s about standing out from the crowd as a credible and authoritative resource. It’s about creating the kind of blogs, articles, press releases and website pages that people can’t help but share with their friends and family.

So, where do you start? How do you jump on board and implement the new best practices of SEO content writing?

The Fundamentals of 2014

Let’s talk basics. You need a place to start. First of all, after a thorough review of the new SEO trends, Gianluca Fiorelli has concluded on The Moz Blog: “Sincerely, I don’t think that our daily lives as SEOs and inbound marketers will radically change in 2014 from what they are now.” So, avoid panicking with the thought that everything you previously knew is out of date. In all sincerity, the biggest change we see is the switch from keyword stuffing at all costs to writing high quality copy.

Your 2014 content needs to satisfy your audience’s thirst for quality material. How then do you start building an SEO strategy that delivers? Let’s cover the first three fundamentals:

1. Audience: Get to know your audience. In fact, challenge yourself to know your audience intimately. Before you even begin to brainstorm content ideas, you need to know your target audience inside and out. What are their needs? What do they want? What motivates and drives them? What issues are they seeking resolution to? What style of content will they want to read? Successful SEO content will use the audience as a focal point. How do you get to know your audience intimately? Stop thinking of them as just the audience; they’re people—like you and me! Use social media channels. Talk to them! Engage them. Track the content they respond to the most and encourage their feedback.

2. Keywords: Forget about keyword stuffing. Keyword insertion used to be a science. We had to insert keywords and phrases in a precise manner in order for search engine algorithms to properly crawl, capture and display our content. Today, keyword insertion is an art. Algorithms are smarter. They can mix and match word order while recognizing synonyms. As a result, well written content is the meat of our meal. Keywords are just the surrounding veggies; still important for a well-balanced meal, but not central.

3. Word counts: Focus on content, not word count. Previously, we kept our optimized copy short because we believed short, sweet and simple sold better than long, educational and informative. Well, we were wrong. People don’t want a short, simple sales pitch. They want to be educated buyers, capable and encouraged to make their own informed decisions. As a result, folks want to read meaty content. Don’t shy away from long-form content.

Just how effective are word counts to Google? detailed study indicates that copy of 2,000 words will be more fruitful than copy of 500 words. Check out the screenshot of the average word count the Google-favored blogs got:

Top 20 Fundamentals of Great SEO Content Writing for 2014 image 52f699216c5613.54540799

And guess what else—people on Twitter who shared longer blogs (over 1500 words) almost doubled the amount who shared blogs under 1500 words.

Top 20 Fundamentals of Great SEO Content Writing for 2014 image 52f69921bddd39.27450567

Quality Content is Still King

In 2014, quality content is the king of SEO best practices. But what exactly does this mean? How can you ensure you’re creating and outputting quality content? Well, let’s review the four fundamentals of quality content:

4. Relevance: If the content isn’t relevant to your business, don’t waste your time. For example, if you provide technical support services, don’t clutter your content with artsy design information. The reader will be confused. They’ve landed on your website to learn about technical support, not how to use Photoshop to create cool graphics for their website. If you confuse your audience with irrelevant information, expect to lose them as your audience.

5. Informative: Quality content will offer value in the form of information. People don’t want to be told you have the best product since sliced bread. They want to be educated about your product and how it places in the industry so they can decide if it’s the best product since sliced bread. They want to know how it relates to the problems they face or how it will solve their looming issue.

6. Compelling: Engaging and compelling writing is a must. Quality content will capture the reader’s attention and grip them until the very end. The only way to accomplish this is by writing in a compelling and engaging manner. Make the reader feel involved. Give them something to connect to.

7. Well written: Meaning there are no spelling, grammatical or formatting errors. It is highly important to ensure your copy is as perfect as possible. Content containing spelling, grammar and formatting errors will not only quickly turn off your audience, but it will also decrease your SERPs.

In essence, quality SEO content is applying lessons learned from the well-established and time tested publishing industry. How exactly does optimizing your copy with these four fundamentals relate to SEO? It gets people interested in and excited about your content. They’ll be ten times as likely to share it via social media, which brings us to the next SEO best practice:

Social Media Increases Rankings

Social media is huge for SEO in 2014. Why? Google will actually be referencing your social media presence as they calculate your overall optimization and rank your content.

Looking for proof? Here’s an infographic case study by Social Media Bistro:

Top 20 Fundamentals of Great SEO Content Writing for 2014 image 52f69922b3c3c7.60146429

Creating a few profiles isn’t enough. Your social media channels need to be active. The more active and relevant your social media posts are, the more they will contribute to your SERPs. Let’s cover the four fundamentals of SEO social media practices:

8. Engagement: Get into a conversation. You wouldn’t throw a party just to sit in the corner and avoid talking to your guests, would you? Social media is the same. Once you get your presence going, it’s time to mingle with your followers and get into intelligent conversations that hold relevance to your brand. Use your social media channels to start conversations, ask questions, respond to comments and stay involved in the discussion.

9. Lead generation content: Don’t be self-centered! You need to use your social media for more than self-promotion. Step into lead generation content by seasoning your posts with content about offers, downloadable content and webinars—whether they’re by your company or not.

10. Frequency: You should post frequently for best results. Do you use toothpaste whenever you feel like it? No, you use it frequently to generate the best overall results. Social media is very similar. The more frequently you post, the more active your channels grow and the more shares you generate.

11. Display value: Instead of looking like a spammer. It’s all too easy to blast notifications out through your social channels, but if they lack value your audience will soon unfollow you. Share information that informs, engages, educates and always perks interest.

SEO Link Building

Link building tactics are in, but they come with a warning: don’t be spammy or irrelevant! Building links for the sake of back-linking will quickly put you on the “Google Offenders” list. Before you insert a link into your content, be sure it meets SEO best practices:

12. Build a resource: Blogging is an excellent link building tactic. Google’s engineers even recommend it! You can use a blog to steadily publish relevant, educational material that is informative and entertaining. Then, build links to your posts by sharing your posts over social media.

13. Newsworthiness: The best way to encourage linking from outside sources. You can be and stay newsworthy by offering promotions, free giveaways, new product or service releases and starting conversations about current issues via social media. The juicier (or more exciting) the topic, the more newsworthiness you’ll gain.

14. Inspirational: People love inspiring stories. Who doesn’t inwardly squeal when the movie screen says, “Based on a true story?” It makes us all warm and tingly while inspiring us to do something epic. By creating inspirational content, you’ll create “natural linkbait,” or an open invitation for people to get excited and share your content.

15. Encourage links: Partnership badges can be a solid way to encourage links. People like to showcase who they support. You probably have something showing off your commitment to your favorite sports team. By giving your customers or followers a partnership badge, you’ll encourage them to show off their love of your product or service and link back to you.

Using Available SEO Tools

In 2014, we have some insanely powerful SEO tools right at our fingertips. The awesome part is that they’re free! You can round out your great content writing for SEO in 2014 with these must-use tools:

16. Google Authorship: If you don’t have it, get it. Google is literally handing you a free, easy to use ability to link via Google Authorship. When properly set up, Authorship will create an automatic author biography page link to each piece of copy you post that contains your byline. These links will display on your Google+ account and a visual graphic (your profile picture) will display beside your content on a Google search engine results page.

17. MozBar: a toolbar designed to make SEO easier. The MozBar can make choosing quality links for content as easy as 1, 2, 3. It offers an easily readable interface that includes everything from basic to in-depth SEO information about a given website or page. It’s a free tool worth downloading and learning to use, especially as you begin to choose and implement link building tactics.

18. Wordstream: A great tool for keyword research. While keywords aren’t making or breaking SEO today, they will still be needed to ensure you appear when someone searches for a type of product or service you provide.

Great Content Writing for SEO…

…involves a little bit more than adhering to the 18 fundamentals we’ve covered. While these form the skeleton of SEO for 2014, there are two more all-encompassing fundamentals to keeps in mind:

19. Originality: In order for your content to have a prayer of receiving a search engine rank, it must be original. You’d be smart to enlist the assistance of software, such as Copyscape, to ensure your content is always original and free of so much as a hint of plagiarism.

20. Professional Assistance: It isn’t a bad thing! A professional copywriter just might be your best friend in 2014 as you embark on the creation of quality content that promotes and incorporates SEO best practices.

One thing is certain: while search engine optimization hasn’t dramatically changed, the subtle changes in place for 2014 can wreak havoc with your SERPs if you don’t adhere to them and update your content. We’re likely to see even more changes as the year progresses and search engine algorithms continue to grow smarter.

Source: http://www.business2community.com/seo/top-20-fundamentals-great-seo-content-writing-2014-0777898#!wIjAY