Choose Company That Offers More Than Just Affordable SEO

There are plenty of companies that offer SEO services to small and medium sized businesses. As with most buyers, businesses are on the lookout for unique cost savings services to benefit their online presence. They choose companies that offer more affordable SEO over those that offer the same service with a higher price.

As an Internet marketing strategy, SEO can be very tricky. It requires intensive knowledge about how search engines work and what people search for. For this reason, it can be sometimes costly. However, you can still get affordable SEO from among many competing companies in the industry.

As soon as you find out about the affordability of the SEO services, your next concern should be the effectiveness of the services. You should see how the affordable SEO company effectively boosts your site's traffic and ranking. Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of improving the volume or quality of traffic to your web site from search engines via "natural" or un-paid ("organic" or "algorithmic") search results. Typically, the earlier (or higher) your site appears in the search results list, the more visitors it will receive from the search engine. You need to ensure that you get such results from the affordable SEO company that you choose.

So how would you know that the company gives effective SEO services? You need to look at the following:

• Ethical practice. You need to know if the company is using ethical techniques in their affordable SEO services. This way, you can ensure that the result can last longer as opposed to having instant result that only lasts for a while due to your site being penalized for employing unethical SEO practices.

• Targets market niche for high traffic and sales. You should look at the online marketing strategy of the company. The affordable SEO firm should precisely target your customers to increase traffic to your website and eventually increase your revenue.

• Experience. You should deal with a company that has substantial experience and comprehensive knowledge in affordable SEO. Choose a trusted provider in the industry. As much as possible, the company that you deal with should be transparent and sincerely ensures that you get what you really want.

Before signing any contract, read a review or know the background of the company that offers affordable SEO. Don't just settle for the affordability of its service. Get the most value for your money by knowing the company you are dealing with and ensuring that you get the results that you need for your online business.

read more...

Content Writing Makes Higher Ranking In Search Engines

There are infinite SEO professionals all around but the count for exceptional content writers is very few. Websites earn revenues by selling authentic information to customers. Google and Yahoo are widely used by folks all over the world. A single appearance of one's link in these search engines would draw the attention of thousands of visitors.

Website content writing is an evolving new genre of profession, which has a wider and important role to play in the arena of Internet marketing. The profession is already playing an indispensable role over the Internet, and is a boon for online business marketers. It is done by content writers and such genres of content churners especially write for spiders and not for their own good. The main aim is to keep the crawlers satiated and going.

This is the soul purpose of content writing. You have to comprehend the basic fact that the content of your website will be read by different people from diverse educational and cultural backgrounds and therefore, it has to be unique and should shun difficult words, technical jargons, circumlocutions, euphemisms etc as far as possible for seizing the attention of the readers.

Keywords play a most important role particularly for superior rankings in the search engines and also to boost the traffic of the website. Specialized content writers realize the significance of keywords in the given content and will for that reason edge them in a web page or article.

A good article normally maintains utmost objectivity in tonality. An objective piece of writing will not be clouded by the writer's personal views. To give an example, the writer may well be a teetotaler, yet his article on different types of wines in the market will not express his dislike for wine in any way.

The best way to go about proofreading is to make sure that there is someone to proofread everything you publish to ensure that your site has professional, organized web content. Experts feel that all web content .

SEO is essentially a part of the online marketing strategies. The technique, when properly implemented by a professional link building services, would direct the traffic from search engines. Writing website content SEO is beneficial for your business. Here you can employ a few strategies while being careful about certain factors. In a scenario where numerous websites exist with the same theme, the content makes the site stand out from the rest.

Outside the world of the internet also creates opportunity for these services. Initially it may seem that article writing services are unnecessary, but if you work in the corporate world then you may need professional content writing services. The other side of the coin is if you are selling your writing services, you need clients.

There are many offering web site content writing services from India. One area in which the Internet has proven especially invaluable is in turning people's dreams into reality through various writing services available on the Web.

Content writing is getting its big wave in the call center industry. If the account caters to website development and marketing tools, writing articles about your website is an effective way of promoting your website in the Internet.

This enables existing employees in the field of IT itself to shift their career interests to technical writing. Thus, online texting is very dynamic field where industry analysis has shown this field to have an increased growth rate.

read more...

MMA Pound For Pound SEO Contest!

Although I am not the first one who found this news, yet I think it’s still okay to publish MMA Pound For Pound SEO contest announcement in this blog. As I said yesterday, this was supposed to be announced in December 18, but in our time zone, it’s already 19. Well, it doesn’t matter whether it’s delayed or not. The most important thing is that this seo contest is already begun. To know the rules and any requirement for competition which probably to promote mixed martial arts pound for pound videos, game and news, please come to the promo junkie official forum or in their seo contest page. Otherwise, just read here, I will inform you as complete as I can both with the main faq.

* MMA Pound For Pound SEO Contest News:

The challenge has been started from today and will end up next March 18 (12.00 AM GMT+7)
* MMA Pound For Pound SEO Contest Rules
* No keyword domain allowed. Sub domain is no problem and the main domain that contains some part of the keywords seems that allowed. However, let’s wait for further explanation by the MMA Forum moderators.
* MMA Pound For Pound SEO Contest Prize

First winner will deserve $1000, then $300 for second place, and $200 for third. Yet it’s not fixed at all since I heard from some people who active in the forum talk that the amount can be bigger.
* MMA Pound For Pound SEO Contest Registration

To enter this great battle, you should be the PJ’s member first then you can register your blog or entry in the official form.

Well, I believe this simple news already cover any questionable thing from this SEO contest. Now, it’s all up to you whether to participate MMA pound for pound or not. Before I go, I just need to say that never hesitate to leave a feed back through the comment form below whenever you have something that not clear. Good luck!

read more...

Why Should You SEO?

As SEO enters the mainstream of business marketing strategies you would think that less time would have to be spent educating people on why SEO is so very important. But the fact of the matter is, many people still just don't understand SEO or the benefits it can bring. Worse, many companies haven't yet grasped the fact that SEO is crucial to long-term online success, especially for small companies without big brand names or budget.

Jake Matthews put together a great post at 10e20 obtaining why search engine optimization is crucial for small businesses. He discusses a handful of benefits that a good SEO can bring to any online business, small or large.

* Obtain Increased and Higher Quality Sales
Just as you begin to optimize your website, long tail search volumes will improve. Over the long term, with a lot of hard work, you can achieve significant positions on the major search engines leading to positive, bottom line results.
* Increased Search Engine Visibility
When a searcher finds you, they have INTENT. They pulled themselves right to you for a reason; they are looking for what you have.
* Brand Recognition
Strong niche oriented organic search results can lead to your brand being associated with that niche over time. Your brand awareness and brand recall strength will increase as time goes on.
* Enhanced Credibility and Legitimacy
Search Engine’s organic / natural results are viewed as authority referrals.
* Investment in your Domain Name
Your investment in SEO is an investment in the value of your domain name and your website as a whole.
* Competitive Edge and Research Advantage
Competitors who see you succeed and beat them out in major search, may in turn bow down to you and want to strike deal with you in any number of business negotiations. Or, you may one day say – hey, I have too much new business coming to me on the web, can you handle my overflow for me and I’ll take a cut????
* Ad Spend predictability and High Return on Investment (ROI)
Optimization has more predictable long term costs and ROI metrics as compared to other components of marketing strategies.
* Passive Business Development
Organic rankings help build traffic from other long-tail (more specific) terms and you site gains more and more momentum.

Expanding on each of these points in greater detail, Jake provides some outstanding reasons why all small businesses should be engaging in SEO. The overall benefit received is substantial, provided the person or company doing your SEO really knows their stuff. While many suggest that good SEO is expensive, like ignorance, not doing SEO properly can be even more expensive.

read more...

Outfox, Outsmart and Outgrow Your Big-Business Competition

I believe that one of the key things that keep small businesses small is that the owners maintain a small business mindset. For many, being small is just fine. They don't ever want to be anything more than a mom and pop operation. But others dream big and want to see big goal accomplished but continue to struggle to "make it big." They can't ever seem to get over that hump that propels them out of small-time territory.

If you don't want to be a mom and pop operation, or you want to be more than the small business you are, then it's time to start thinking not like the small business you are but like the bigger business you want to be.

The first place to start is with your online marketing campaigns.

With a few exceptions, online marketing has leveled the playing field significantly for the small business. However, as more companies make the move into online marketing the playing field is becoming slanted again. Bigger companies with larger budgets, better recognized name brands, and a larger team of people to manage multiple online marketing campaigns are gaining an advantage. It's becoming increasingly difficult for small businesses to make headway into competitive fields against this onslaught.

But that's not to say it can't be done. There are still plenty of opportunities for small businesses to succeed, even against well-financed competitors. But to do so it requires some clever thinking and swift moving; two things which big businesses are generally not too good at.

Think smarter than a big business

Online Marketing and SEO success is not always about achieving number one rankings. Over the years I've learned to quickly determine which of those businesses that come to us are serious about their success. Those who "want to be #1" are looking for a quick fix. Those that want to build visibility and improve conversions and sales are looking at the bigger picture. Rankings are a means to an end, not the end itself.

Are #1 rankings still possible? Sure. Are they wise? Depends on the phrase, the targeted traffic it draws, the conversion rates it achieves, and the amount of time and money it takes to get it there. There are a lot of great #1 rankings that can be achieved that will do wonders for your company, yet many business owners focus on getting #1 rankings for the keywords that don't give them a good return on their investment.

Even if you already own the top positions, so long as you have the small business mindset you're going to find yourself disappointed. You can only hang on to the tops spots so long with a budget of a few thousand a year, when some upstart comes along and throws tens of thousands of dollars a month at their online marketing campaigns. Enjoy the success while you can, but don't expect to hold onto that forever. Rankings change.

Success is always relative. A small business does not have to spend $10,000 per month in order to do well online. Most small businesses, even if they had such a budget, are not set up to handle the same kind of success as large businesses. You have to grow into that. But every small business owner investing in online marketing needs to keep their expectations in line with what can be done and what kind of success they can handle. Budget doesn't always make or break success, but it does play a role in it. The key is to find the areas where your budget will see the most return.

Organize time like a big business

As a small business owner, you need to determine how your own time is best spent. Do you have time to do it all yourself? Or is it time to think outside the small business box and hire someone to handle certain jobs that you don't need to be doing?

Most small businesses hire help as needed but when it comes to their online marketing they want to "save money" by doing it on their own. Why is the marketing any different from the other jobs you hire for? Would you try to do everything yourself? And if you did, would you be able to grow your business as you want? The answer is likely "no."

Part of thinking like a bigger business is being willing to not do everything yourself and put it in the hands of those who can really bring you the most success. Let skilled people do the jobs they are good at so you can focus on the job you're good at.

Move more swiftly than a big business

While the small business can't always hire everybody it wants for every job there is, they do have one advantage over the big business that can work in their favor. That advantage is adaptability. Big businesses often move too slow, but as a small business you have the luxury of being able to adapt and move fast.

You can have a big business mindset but take advantage of your small business position. Moving swiftly into new areas of marketing can reap huge rewards as you invest in areas your competition is overspending and underperforming, without having to go through layers of approval and red tape.

This is where outside consulting can come in handy. Having someone take a strategic look at your online marketing efforts and help you identify your own and your competitor's weaknesses can really open up your eyes to new opportunities. Of course, you then have to be willing to do what it takes to invest in those opportunities.

Small businesses have to stop letting the small business mindset keep them from performing big. You don't have to be a big business to win in the online marketing game, but you do need to get out of the mom and pop rut.

Be willing to take risks, but do so wisely and well-informed. And like big businesses, be willing to fail a little here and there if it teaches you how to succeed bigger later. You don't have to spend like a big business, but you won't go far so long as you keep thinking like a small business.

read more...

5 Worries That Can Kill Your SEO Campaign

Small businesses are often seen fumbling around in the dark when it comes to figuring out which SEO strategies really work and which don't. There is an onslaught of information freely available online, much of it contradictory or confusing. Small business owners who attempt to perform SEO for themselves don't often know which strategies are more important than others, which are worthwhile and which are worthless, or how do you tell the difference.

Slogging through SEO forums, blogs and article sites can provide a great deal of good information, but it can also leave the small business owner confused on what--or what not--to do.

Those that choose to hire an SEO provider can push some of their SEO decision-making burdens off onto someone else, but some then open the door to a whole new set of worries that can circumvent their online success, even with a successful SEO working for them.

Spending nights worrying about your SEO campaign can eat up a lot of energy that is better applied to other, more important matters. While every business owner needs to be fully aware of the progress being made by their SEO's efforts, they also need to trust that the SEO knows what is needed for them to succeed. For that to happen, here are a few things the business owner need to stop worry about. Failure to do so can kill an SEO campaign in its tracks.

1) Worrying about making page edits

Without changes there is no SEO. You can focus on link building, social media, ad campaigns, etc, which can bring you limited success on their own. However, if you want your site really perform for your targeted keyword phrases, you have to be willing to make keyword focused and other architectural edits.

All too often site owners don't want to make necessary changes to their site's because they are afraid of losing customer focus. This is a legitimate concern but also one that is often misplaced. Site improvements designed for search engines often align with site improvements for your visitors. If searchers are using specific phrases in their search, it makes sense that your visitors will be served seeing those very same specific phrases on your site.

Don't be afraid of making changes to your site. The goal of any good SEO is not to just improve your search engine rankings, but help you increase your business.

2) Worrying about shifting rankings

It's a simple fact of life that search engine rankings change. New sites are always going online, old sites are disappearing, new information is added to the web, and new competition with fresh marketing dollars emerges. Add to that the fact that search engines are always tweaking and adjusting their algorithms and you've got a search engine ranking roller coaster.

That doesn't mean that you ignore keyword rankings completely, but if you're compelled to monitor your rankings, don't do it on a day to day basis. Most search engine ranking changes are insignificant and just part of the normal fluctuations that occur.

What you do need to be concerned about is overall trends. If you do start seeing a month to month trend of a loss in rankings dropping that's when you need to start looking at things more closely. Don't sweat the small stuff, but instead look at the bigger picture.

Another problem worrying about small shifts in rankings is people often get concerned about the wrong keywords and the wrong engines. Google drives the most traffic, but isn't always the best at converting. Improvements in other engines that may convert better may be worth a sacrifice of lower rankings in Google. Again, it's about the big picture.

3) Worrying about trying new things

Good optimization and marketing isn't a linear process. Every site is different as are the site's needs. Many changes recommended will be standard fare while some will seemingly come way out of left field. Give all proper consideration, and don't be afraid about doing something different.

One thing to keep in mind is that success comes through trial and trial produces error and failures. We've all heard the story that when Thomas Jefferson failed thousands of times for every success he ever made. Hopefully you won't have to fail that often in your website marketing, but be prepared for some things not to work.

Fear of failure is not a reason not to try. We tell the same to our kids and we need to take that to heart in our businesses. Step out, and be willing to try something new.

4) Worrying about making large-scale changes

Before a site can be optimized for your targeted keywords, it needs to be optimized for search engines. I call this having a "search engine friendly" website. A lot of sites are build by developers that don't know much about SEO beyond meta tags. The sites they build may look good but won't perform well in the search engines because the site architecture isn't search engine friendly.

The last thing you want to do is to pay a lot of money on an expensive optimization campaign if your site isn't in a position to be optimized. That's just putting SEO frosting on a website dung pile. Big changes need to be made before you can really start focusing on the actual on-page keyword targeting. In many cases you have to be willing to burn the site to the ground. Other times it's less severe but many structural changes will need to be made before any SEO can be effective.

Failure to make these big changes will ultimately result in poor performance of any optimization campaign you implement. Don't be afraid to make the big changes necessary for your small SEO changes to succeed.

5) Worrying about investing in long-term SEO

SEO is a long-term investment, not a one-time expense. The changes you need to make to optimize your site will cost you both time and money.

All too often businesses looking for an immediate boost turn to SEO as if it's some sort of magic bus ride to the top of the search engine rankings. They don't want to spend much money but they have very high expectations. Unfortunately, SEO isn't like building a fence. There is much more to it than having a bit of knowledge and a few tools to work with.

Those who are afraid to spend what it takes for their SEO campaign to succeed rarely ever do succeed. They limp along with sites that under perform and ultimately cost more to market than if the money was spent sooner to make the changes requires.

Worry tend to cause bad decisions. When we worry, we tend to make decisions based on how we feel at the moment rather than basing our decisions on facts and evidence. When you turn your SEO campaign over to another person, or even do it yourself, there is enough to worry about without adding to it.

As business owners you have enough on your plate. Make wise SEO decisions but leave the worries over superficial matters behind. By focusing on the wrong things you can sink your SEO campaign before it even has a chance to get off the ground.

read more...

4 Basic seo step for wordpress blog

SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is the steps taken to increase visitors to a website or blog through search engines (search engines) like Google. The steps in the process of SEO is very much at all and there are a variety of ways.

For wordpress blog that use self hosted (like this blog), particularly the new blog, SEO is a step we can do to increase the number of visitors. WordPress is already very SEO Friendly, but we still need to do several steps to optimize SEO on wordpress blog and get the best results on the SERP (Search Engine Result Page). Here are the basic steps SEO we need to do :

1. Permalink Setting

The default setting of permalink structure (URLs for each post) on wordpress is not good for SEO. Basically the search engines is not have any problem with the permalink like that (the default) but it would be much better by using “clean url”. For best results in the SERP, use the permalink “%postname%” only. Go to your Dashboard and open the Settings menu, then select the Permalink menu.
2. All In One SEO Pack Plugin

For SEO on wordpress, All In One SEO Pack plugin is absolutely you need to install. With this plugin, you will be very helpful in the affairs of SEO your blog. Plugins All In One SEO Pack will handle the problem rewrite tittle, meta keywords, meta description, and others.
3. Related Post Plugin

One important plugins that need to be used on wordpress blog is Related Post Plugin. This plugin also benefit visitors and search engines. Related Post plugin automatically displays the related post (related article) under each post that we make, usually based on the tag of each post. Your blog visitors will be very helpful to find links to articles related to the post which he read.
4. Update Services

Update services is a tool we can use to make other people know we are updating our blog with a List of Ping Sites. This list can be found here, then copy and paste on your blog Update Services. Please open the Dashboard, then click Settings and open the menu Writing. Update Services are usually located at the bottom of this page.

read more...

long keyword

I know my title is long and ridiculous, but it does help emphasize what long tail is all about. “Long tail” keywords are a string of three or more words that make up a phrase. The concept of long tail is pretty simple: Tap into the large amounts of search traffic using longer keyword phrases. Like traditional (one or two word) short tail keywords, long tail keywords define what is on the web page and what the website wants to be located under in search engines and on SERPs.
Search engine algorithms’ are getting more and more complex. When a website gets crawled by search engines, they are taking into account the keywords and phrases found in the indexable text of the web site. All indexable words on the page factor into which keywords and phrases the page ranks for. Of course, the frequency and placement of consecutive words are the biggest factors into which keywords and phrases rank the best.
Because of this fact, long tail keywords serve a dual purpose. They can refine search terms to a web page, as well as assist a searcher in locating something very specific. For example: if a consumer is looking to purchase “pink furry strawberry slippers” it makes more sense to search on the entire phrase than to put in “furry slippers,” “furry strawberries,” or “strawberry slippers” and attempt to filter through irrelevent search results.
Another big difference between short and long tail keyword phrases are the search results. If you were to search the keyword “counseling” in Google, you will receive 55,200,000 results. Then, if you look up the short tail keyword phrase “counseling jobs” in Google, it returns 10,900,000 results. Finally, if you enter the long tail keyword phrase “drug counseling jobs” in Google, it provides 323,000 results. Although the long tail keyword phrase is searched less than the shorter keyword phrases, there is much less SERP competition.
Using long tail keywords to corner a smaller market has just as much potential, if not more, than using short tail keywords in a larger, more exposed market. Some sites may discover that the long tail isn’t quite as rich in their market, while other sites will do far better by targeting the long tail. Either way, using long tail keywords where you can, will definitely give you the advantage over your competitors.

read more...

what does alexa with seo?

Disappointed? Yeah. Threw me into my low-mid-life crisis. We should have held a memorial for baseball as we knew it.
I remember the years when baseball was a man’s sport, not a cheaters sport. I loved it. I couldn’t miss a Mariner’s game rain or shine…more rain than shine, but the King Dome ruled. I was there to watch Griffey’s rookie season, the Jr. and Sr. tandem, his first Grand Slam and A-Rod’s inaugural homerun. Jay Buhner, Pete O’Brien, Dave Valle, Harold Reynolds, Tino Martinez, Omar Vizquel, The Big Unit…all ancient memories now. We’re talking stone-age ancient, or so it seems.
When the recent news came out about Alex Rodriguez, I was broken for a day. Extremely disappointed. Literally every last one of my hopes for baseball’s future was finally strung out to fade in the sun on an unreachable limb of shame.
How does baseball bounce back from having its icon player completely, publicly wamboozled? Who knows. Alas, we’re not here to talk about the MLB and roids. Thankfully.
Something Profound Amidst the Muck
And what else is there to do than apply the A-Fraud stuff to SEO? Yup, we can apply what A-Rod is going through to SEO. It’s brilliant, check it out.
A-Fraud broke the cardinal rule of SEO, and, well, of life too. Though steroids weren’t in the day to day conversation back then, he marginalized his personal brand integrity and partook of ‘grey area’ stuff when the consequences of taking it weren’t even considered. Steroids was part of the ‘loosey goosey’ era in baseball where players, coaches and trainers just looked the other way and let it happen (I would have considered it flat out cheating, but, to be fair, it actually was a grey area back then. It baffles me as to why but that’s just how it was).
Every day at magic-seo.blogspot.com we come across webmasters that have doomed their business to SEO failure. They’re doing the exact same thing that A-Rod did, but to their businesses. They marginalize their site’s integrity by partaking in grey area, loosey-goosey stuff without concern for future consequences. They pump the juice to get some cool short term results without a thought for future ailments that may come of it. Bad idea. Very bad idea.
When you have an all-seeing and omniscient powerhouse like Google looming over you, as a webmaster, you can’t hide under ‘ignorance’ like A-Rod did for so many years. Google doesn’t care who you are. They know everyone and are everywhere, watching you. Kinda creepy. More creepy knowing they control your web business, at least the free traffic part of it. So you HAVE to make them happy. You have no choice. They are no respecter of persons [or websites]. They will find you and they will dump your site as if it didn’t even exist. And search engine placement resurrection is a difficult, lengthy process.
Avoid Grey-ness Like You Would Steroids
Using A-Rod as an example of what happens when you go the grey hat route, you get hammered when the sun exposes the true colors or when the market/boss changes expectations. In other words, once Google finds out or changes policies (and they will) you get hammered. Once the U.S. found out about her golden boy baller’s ugly, old, stale grey stuff, golden boy got hammered. Wouldn’t A-Rod have been better to steer clear of anything that could be considered cheating? Duh. Your business is no different.
For your main site, things that are considered ‘grey hat’ should be avoided completely. It’s not worth the long term repercussions. It just isn’t. Build your site right the first time. Keep as far from the ledge as possible and you’ll be loved by Google and you’ll find a place in your niche’s Google hall of fame. Good luck A-Rod.
For long term sustainability, steady and white hat will win the race. Don’t go for the ‘quick’ score.
What is Grey Hat?
Here’s the legit definition so bookmark this page or tweet it to your friends because this is good:
Grey hat SEO is the employment of techniques that are not technically against Google’s policies but that don’t provide value and are done solely for SEO purposes without regard for user experience.
Here’s the kicker. Pay attention. Grey hat today can literally become black hat tomorrow.
I’ve seen grey turn to black too many times. Here’s an example: Remember when blog commenting was the craze about 18 months ago? Everyone came out with their own software to almost automate blog spamming because it was cool. An immediate billion anchor text links!
All of a sudden, Google laid the smack down and it hurt. Blog spamming will kill you now. That’s not to say you can’t comment on a blog and point to your site, but you have to actually make a real comment and join the conversation.
***Don’t risk sandboxing your brand for the latest SEO craze. Be real all the time***
What Are Grey Hat Techniques?

Before we lay out the common grey hat mojo, know that there are literally unlimited grey hat areas. When building SEO focus on adding value and user experience and you will win, always. Period. Limit the things that you do that are ONLY for SEO purposes. Remember, grey hat today can be black hat tomorrow morning so pick your battles wisely. Don’t blow it like A-Rod did.
These are a few grey-hat tactics that could be just as bad for your site in the long run as steroids were to A-Rod:
• Stuffing keywords in alt tags, link titles and image titles.
• Linking to sites that have nothing to do with your niche or industry.
• Obtaining inbound links that have nothing to do with your niche or industry.
• Purchasing links under the guise of ‘advertising’ or ‘traffic purposes’ when they are really for SEO.
• Social media spam.
• Blog comment spamming is now black hat.
Have you committed the grey hat A-Rod steroid sin? Repent. Do you have anything to add to the grey hat areas that we’ve gone over?
Bling.

read more...

buzz marketing link

I’ve been trying to come up with a formula for success in creating link bait for our clients. The best thing to do for me has been to read the book “Buzz Marketing” by Mark Hughes. Mark was the former Marketing Director at Half.com, who had the town of Halfway Oregon rename itself to “Half.com” as part of the buzz marketing/link bait campaign.
Although Mark didn’t set out with creating a “link bait formula” when he wrote his book, the principles involved can be used very easily to create link bait.
Principle 1: Be Outrageous
Remember when Al Gore invented the Internet? That’s probably as much as I need to say on that principle. But I’m a small to medium sized business, you say, and I can’t think of anything outrageous about my sock puppets; you’re wrong. You just have to be willing to put up with the negative effects that might ride on the coat tails of some outrageous story.
Principle 2: Use a Celebrity
Britney Spears is a prime example of using celebrity status to further your agenda. But you are a small business, and you’re not famous. What if that sock puppet you make was used by Kid Rock’s nanny when he was growing up? Or maybe that fax service you provide was used to facilitate the negotiations between Russia and Germany in World War 2? (a stretch I know, but you get the idea)
Principle 3: Be Funny
This is the hardest but most profitable as far as risk vs. reward is concerned. The idea is to create a story that is so funny, people will just automatically start telling the story at the water cooler at work, or in the lunch room or on breaks. Like I said, this one is hard, but if you can pull it off, it’s pure gold. Sometimes making fun of yourself is the easiest way to be the funniest.
Principle 4: Do Something No One Else Has Done
This is where you’ve got the most leeway, because there are always lists, widgets, contests, prizes, and much more that no one else has done quite like you could. However, this principle doesn’t pack as much of a punch as you might expect from the other principles, just because you may have created a super de duper list of some kind, but there are already millions of lists, so yours has really got to stand out. I know you can do it though!
Principle 5: Be Controversial
Did TuPac really die, or is he holed up in his L.A. studio creating records still? Does Area 51 really exist? Does Scrapbooking paper really cure Alzheimer’s? (No it doesn’t by the way) Having a good team of lawyers will increase your likelihood of being safe with this one. That guerilla marketing campaign in Boston with the electronic bomb looking thing flipping the bird; Controversial. Your latest product release with New and Improved flavor; Not Controversial.
Principle 6: Be The Underdog
ClearPlay wins the award for best Underdog. The DGA and studios filed a lawsuit in 2002 against ClearPlay and a Colorado video rental store, CleanFlicks, which uses its own software to decode a DVD, alter it for content, then burn a new, edited version, back onto a DVD for rental.
The lawsuit is still pending. ClearPlay contends its software is not illegal because it does not alter the original DVD. But the amount of press that ClearPlay got from that lawsuit couldn’t have been bought in 100 years. They took on one of the biggest entities in their industry and stuck it out and got huge publicity.
Overall, you’ll be the most successful with a linkbait idea that genuinely entertains, inspires, offers something brand new, or gets people talking. If you can combine one or more of the major principles above into your campaign, you are on the road to a successful link bait strategy.

read more...

title tag

Looking for a quick fix that will improve your rankings? Take a look at your title tags. A title tag is the line of text that is normally displayed at the top of the browser window. Title tags are arguably the most important SEO tags for any site.
For most search engines, the maximum length of a title tag to be displayed is between 60-70 characters. If your title tag is over 70 characters, your title will be cut off around 70 characters on the search results page.
Search engine spiders use these title tags as the main source for determining the page topic. Spiders or crawlers examine the title and then translate the topic of the page. This is one reason why it is always best to use your keywords in the page title, and to place them as close to the beginning of the title as possible. Remember, the text included in the title tag is also the text that will appear in the SERPs (search engine results pages) as the linked title on which users will click to access your page. In fact, just fixing the title tags of your pages can often generate quick and significant improvements in your rankings.
For example, let’s say you have an educational site that provides information and guidelines on teacher certification requirements. You’ve decided that the most important keywords for your site are “teaching certification” and “teaching requirements.” In this case, a page title along the lines of “Teaching Requirements for Teacher Certification” is highly relevant to the topic of the site. Spiders will crawl your site, and because the title is the first factor it sees, the spider will “read” it and then examine the rest of the page finding the keywords used in other places on the page to determine how relevant the title is to the rest of the content. If the content, H tags, and title tag all relate—you’re in business! This is why it’s so important to target the most critical keywords in the title tag.
Follow this same process for all of your pages, and remember to create unique titles that are relevant to each page and do not keyword stuff. This greatly improves the effectiveness of those tags and will increase the search engine rankings for your keywords. Although your home page might show up for 20 or 30 different keyword combinations, only your top two or three keyword phrases should be included in the tittle.

read more...

Caution! rel=”nofollow” Discussion

The Rel=”NoFollow” link attribute made its debut back in January 2005. It was brought to the internet scene by Google to help combat comment spam for blogs and guestbooks.  The name implies that search spiders should not follow the link. What it really means is, “don’t pass on any rank to the following link” or “don’t give any score to this link.” The general idea was to limit the exposure comment spam was giving to unrelated and spammy websites. It is NOT used to keep search engines away from certain website pages.
It has since mushroomed to other areas of internet marketing and linking. Google now recommends adding it to paid/advertising links. Others suggest using it on a site’s internal links to help manage page rank. Still, many think it is hurting the internet and should be eliminated.
There has been significant confusion over the nofollow attribute for the last few years. What is it? Should we use it? Should I add it to all of the links on my site? Will it hurt my site rank?
Allow me to shed some light on the subject.
When to use or not to use the nofollow attribute:
1. DO NOT use when you have a link to a legitimate and useful website. The internet thrives on links between different sites and pages. Think of a link as a recommendation. With a link from your site to another, you are telling your readers/users the following site is useful. When you add a nofollow attribute to a link, you are effectively removing your endorsement for that webpage.
2. DO USE nofollow for paid links. This is definitely an area of debate. When choosing sides, my money lies with Google. They clearly state, “In order to prevent paid links from influencing search results and negatively impacting users, we urge webmasters to use nofollow on such links.”
3. DO USE nofollow on untrusted content, or if you don’t want to vouch for content your site is linked to. A great example of this is what nofollow was originally created for, untrusted user comments on blogs and pages. This can discourage spammers from using comment fields in your system. You may decide to remove the nofollow attribute from trusted contributors, and users who are adding value and usefulness to your content. It is common for webmasters to use follow blog comments to encourage more interaction and higher quality comments on their site.
4. DO USE nofollow on links that search engines won’t be able to use otherwise, registration or sign in pages.
There will continue to be discussion regarding when and how to use the nofollow attribute. My advice is to follow the recommendations from the search engines. After all, they are using nofollows to help rank content.

read more...

choosing the best keywords

Ah, the beauty of search marketing! What other marketing medium lets you get your ad in front of your potential customer at the precise moment they are looking for exactly what you sell? Of course, your success with search marketing hinges on your selection of the right keywords. Good keyword selection starts with a brainstorming session. Get together with your team and make a list of all the keywords and phrases that people might be searching for to find a business like yours. Try to include terms that people outside your industry would use. Take a look at your competitors’ websites to see what keywords they are targeting. Review their meta keywords, titles, and content on their websites to identify additional keywords to add to your list. Another great place to look for keywords is forums, blogs, industry sites, and Q&A sites like Yahoo Answers. What are the words people use to find the product or service you offer? Once you’ve built your list, use online keyword tools to see how often your keywords are searched on and refine your list. A few of these tools are Keyword Discovery, WordTracker, Google’s Keyword Tool, and Yahoo/Overture Keyword Inventory Tool. These tools will allow you to see how often your keywords are searched on and give you ideas for other keywords to consider.
It’s important to target keywords that are relevant to your business, but don’t sacrifice relevance for search popularity–I mean don’t forget about your most targeted keywords just because they aren’t as heavily searched. You want to use keywords that will drive traffic to your site AND increase sales. Once you identify the keywords that are most relevant to your website, you can use that list for search engine optimization, pay-per-click (PPC) keyword ads, and any other keyword advertising. After you start getting traffic for these keywords, spend some time reviewing your analytics reports. Monitor the keyword conversion report to see which keywords are generating sales. If you find certain keywords perform better than others, shift your focus to those keywords to achieve the best possible results. Over time you will fine-tune your keyword strategy to the point where you know exactly which keywords perform best and you will enjoy a steady flow of new business from the search engines.

read more...

freshest summer blogging tips

It’s summertime and if you’re like most people, you didn’t include your blog in your spring cleaning rotation. Just as artists and musicians go through different phases and creative change-ups, bloggers need to “clean house” and evolve with the seasons as a way to improve, fine-tune and stay relevant.
These blogging ideas are hot out of the oven, right off the conveyor belt, organically grown and sealed air-tight to preserve freshness. These fresh ideas are guaranteed to win new readers and increase the interaction and engagement levels of those you already have.
Web Development
1. Change the background color(s) on your site. It’s like rearranging your furniture.
2. Rework (or create) your logo. Make it something that will scale, big or small (something you can turn into a favicon or print on a t-shirt).
3. Ditch the long URL by upgrading your Wordpress- or Blogspot-hosted sites to your own hosting (the mark of a serious blogger).
4. Commit to implement, learn and use Google Analytics. Digging into your site’s metrics is the best way to improve your design and your writing. It empowers you to give back to your readers.
5. Add social bookmarking buttons and an RSS button to your site and posts (Wordpress plug-ins make this a piece of chocolate cake).
6. Make your site “open” by allowing readers to post comments without registering (registration can be a barrier to participation).
7. Cross-pollinate your blog with your Twitter account (which implies that you should have a Twitter account). Once again, this is cake-easy with Wordpress plugins.
8. Learn HTML and CSS so you can make the kinds of minor tweaks that will sharpen your design.
Content
9. Revamp your writing ambience. Write outside, write with a huge grin on your face until you finish, or write with a lemon wedge in your mouth. (It may even shorten your writing time).
10. Develop theme days to create some reader-reward attachment. SEOmoz does “Whiteboard Friday.” Maybe you do “Rainy Day Reviews” when it rains.
11. Create something offline and share it online, be it photography, a cooking experiment, a poem, or a blind contour drawing. Do it as a planned post rather than an afterthought.
12. Go the extra mile for a post to show your dedication. For example, instead of just raving about something, make a Facebook fan page and pitch it to your readers. (As an example, see a page I created about my passion for retro stripes).
13. Look for opportunities to interview a professional as part of a blog post. It’s more than most bloggers are willing to do for their readers.
14. Do way too much research for a blog post so that you become the comprehensive, exhaustive “blogosphere” reference on the topic.
15. Shorten your blog titles. Make them short enough to get mileage on Twitter, i.e., someone can retweet and include the blog post, host blog, short URL to the post, and a personal endorsement–all in under 140 characters. Format: “RT @scottcowley 25 Freshest Summer Blogging Tips | SEO.com http://bit.ly/abc123 – Nice post.”
16. Use a story or example in every post. A commonality of buzz-less posts is that while they may be true and helpful, they are unmemorable and have not pushed any “reader engagement buttons,” which is what stories and examples do.
17. Devote a paragraph to a particular niche of people you find interesting. SEO guru Jeff once highlighted librarians in just a portion of his post about new search engines and random librarian news sites started linking to it, sending hundreds of visitors his way. You’ve got to give credit to those types of plugged-in groups.
18. Write amazing titles. In the Twitter and social bookmarking world, you are judged by your headlines and not by your content. Use the words “fresh, new, hot, or end-all” (5 points if you can do all of them in one title). The great marketing secret is that one man’s “old and boring” is another man’s “fresh, new, hot, or end-all” so don’t be self-conscious about making such claims.
19. Create a video tutorial. Make sure it exudes the “you” brand like your writing does. For example, my wife’s Masters research explores new media’s place in the writing classroom so she created a video called “What is New Media?” Low budget, but effectively “academic.”
20. Highlight current events. Hot topics are the sharpest hooks. As proof, one of the most read SEO.com blogs ever was actually a review for a new Android phone that our CEO bought. If you have any connection whatsoever to a current trend or event, jump on it before it stales.
Aftermath
21. Commit to marketing your own posts. Don’t be a purist. You wrote it. If it was good enough to post, it is good enough to market, share, Tweet, Digg, Stumble, etc. Self-promotion as a blogger will give you valuable experience.
22. Be a blogosphere/Twittersphere octopus. If you mention someone, someone’s blog or post, site, company, or anything with a figurehead web presence, use a brief blog comment or tweet to let them know that you did. People love recognition, and goodwill spreads like the pox.
23. Try responding directly to all comments made about your post. You may be surprised at how easy it is and how responsive your readers will be at this newfound interaction.
24. Use targeted requests for comments on your post. After you post, make a list of the people who would be most interested in the topic and send them a Twitter DM asking for their comments. Last week, Jacob Brown used this great technique to get my feedback on his post.
25. Use blogging as ongoing experimentation. Take detailed notes and track the metrics surrounding your blog posts. Figure out what works for your blog and readership and revisit successful approaches as a means to test and refine your best practices.
Have you ever done a major clean-up of your blogging? Did you try anything with amazing results? Any failures you’d share with others

read more...

link building strategies for new website

Believe it or not, all SEO’s were newbies at one time or another. Launching a website can be a very exciting event for an individual or new business owner. However, that excitement can quickly turn to disappointment when the site owner finds out that they are getting little or no traffic. If they are getting traffic, it is most likely coming from family members or friends who they notified through an email or Facebook.
Being involved in SEO and marketing in general, I am usually bombarded by family members and friends with questions about marketing their website or their future website on the Internet. Because of this and my willingness to help just about anyone I know, you can usually find me in a small dark corner at a family party (it has to be small and dark because my wife gets ticked when I’m not up and socializing with everyone), on the phone in the car, or answering an email, Facebook message, or Twitter message about SEO and other internet marketing tactics.
I was on a call yesterday with one of my best friends from high school. Our conversation was focused on general search engine optimization principles and link building tactics that could provide a good foundation and hopefully, if he does them right, some strong rankings in the search engines. One thing I emphasized is the fact that what ever he does, he needs to build links naturally. A natural link building campaign is crucial for success in SEO.
A natural link building campaign is one that is just that, natural! Getting 50,000 links within the first twenty days of your website’s existence is definitely not natural. Getting a slow trickle of links coming into your website and then building up looks much more natural. Also, getting 50,000 links pointing to your home page with the same anchor text is not natural. Vary your anchor text and include long tail versions of your keywords. You should also build links to other pages of your site in addition to your home page. All of these things help with building a natural link campaign.
In terms of links, there are two types of links you can get for your websites, external and internal links. Both are very important and can make a huge difference in your search engine rankings. I want to discuss in detail, ten ways to effectively jump-start your link building campaign.
Friends & Family Members
When beginning a link building campaign, one very natural way of obtaining links is from friends and family members. I just opened up our family blog and counted all of the friends and family who we have added in our blogroll. The grand total… 41. How hard is it to simply call up (recommended – it’s more personal) or email your family and friends who have blogs or other sites, and ask them for a link to your new website? Not hard at all! In fact, because they are your friends or family members, they will probably do it without hesitation. You can do the same thing with Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, etc.
Add A Blog To Your Domain
Google loves blogs! Google loves fresh content! Google loves internal links! Internal links from other pages of your website are a guaranteed way to help you increase your rankings in the search engines. Adding a blog to your domain is a great way for you to easily add new content to your website on a regular basis. In most cases, adding a blog to your main domain is rather simple and can be done in as little as three clicks of your mouse. Web hosting companies like myhosting.com, Hostmonster, & Bluehost offer one click installations of blog platforms like Wordpress or b2evolution.
Adding a blog, posting to it at least once daily, and linking back to your home page and other important pages of your website with keyword anchor text is a great way to gain a lot of internal links. When blogging, you should also link out to other websites that interest you and websites that are in similar industries. You might also consider adding images, videos, polls, etc. Mix things up! Make it look natural! Most important, have fun!
Local Organizations
Just about every city in the country has a local chamber of commerce; mine would be the Lehi Area Chamber of Commerce. Joining a chamber of commerce will not only get you a very good link back to your website, but also provides networking opportunities with other local businesses. Most times, depending on your business, you can generate new leads rather easily by getting to know other individuals and businesses in your area.
Local News
Developing relationships with local newspaper writers and always making yourself available for comments on news stories that involve your industry is a great way to build awareness about your company and get links back to your website (if the newspaper is published online).
Help A Non Profit Organization
You would be surprised how many non-profit organizations are operating in your city and your state. Every one of us has been given talents and certain things that we are good at. I guarantee that there is a non-profit organization that could use your help, whether it is with designing their website or painting the conference room of their new office building. If you offer of yourself and your services freely, you can most likely ask for, and get a link to your website from theirs.
Submit Your Site To Local & Industry Specific Online Business Directories
Anyone studying SEO can usually find a blog post about submitting your website to directories on the Internet. Yes, this is a valuable link building tactic, but before you go crazy and start submitting to thousands of directories, seek out local directories and directories that are specific to your business. Submit to these first and take your time filling out all of the information that they ask for. These will be some of your most valuable links since they are so relevant to your website and business.
Social Bookmarking
You have probably heard the term social bookmarking. You have probably heard that social bookmarking is a great way to build links. Well, it is and it isn’t… You can waste a lot of time social bookmarking if you are submitting to the wrong sites. I limit my social bookmarking to Mixx, Propeller and sometimes Kirtsy. The trick to social bookmarking is to not only bookmark your website, your blog posts, and other things related to your website, but bookmarking lots of different things that interest you. This will make your bookmarking profiles look much more natural to both viewers and the search engines.
Write An Article And Submit To Article Directories
Writing articles and submitting them to sites like Ezine Articles, Article City, and Go Articles, also known as article marketing, is a great way to get links back to your website. Take time to write a very detailed article about your industry and submit it to a few article directories like the ones I listed above. You will get links back to your website by properly using the author resource or bio box at the end of the article. You should tell a little about yourself and your company, while adding keyword rich anchor text links pointing back to your website.
Write And Submit A Press Release
Writing press releases and submitting them to places like PR Web or Web Wire is a great way to generate interest and buzz about your business and also to get links back to your website. This method of link building is a little more difficult than other links that you can get for your website. Writing a press release takes skill… a skill, which the average person, like me, does not have. Press releases have certain requirements that must be met, a certain format that must be followed, and in most cases, need to be super interesting. Not having any of these elements can almost guarantee that your press release will either be outright rejected or not distributed to other news related websites.
Build A Hub Page Or Squidoo Lens
Building a Hub Page or Squidoo Lens is a fun way to get links back to your website. To date, I have built 73 Hubs and 25 Lenses for my own personal websites and hundreds for clients that I have managed. The most effective Hub Pages and Squidoo Lenses are those that have at least 450 words of text about a certain topic or subject, videos, pictures, polls, and other gadgets that are easy to add. You want to make the page as interactive as possible so it provides value for anyone who happens to read it. You are allowed two links to other websites from your Hubs and a handful of links (be conservative, don’t spam) from your Lenses.
Building links isn’t pretty. But, in order to rank well in the search engines, it is absolutely necessary. These are ten excellent ways for new companies or new website owners to start building links to their websites. There are many others and I encourage any of our readers to add to this list by commenting on this post.

read more...

duplicate content

Just like the lamb lying down with lion, but the big three search engines came together for a rare joint effort to announce the launch of a new feature that will help ease the world’s duplicate content problems. The new feature, called the tag tells the search engines what version of the URL is the correct one to want index.
The link tag goes in the section of the page of looks like this:

The search engines have been doing a pretty good job figuring out the right URL when people use redirects properly, but it’s not always easy to get it right–especially when we build these nutty sites with 50 different URLs pulling up the same content. This change should help a lot of webmasters sleep easier knowing that their proper, canonical URL will be indexed and given all the link juice it deserves. I look at it like a page by page sitemap to tell the search engines what URL to index.
Official blog posts about the new link / canonical tag:
Yahoo
Google
Microsoft
Coverage on other blogs:
Search Engine Land
Joost already created a WordPress plugin for this feature
3 Reasons to Use rel=canonical, 4 Reasons not to use it

read more...

my keyword density popped

“My density has popped me to you.” How true that is. This misspoken statement by George McFly in may have had more meaning than he ever knew. But the question is how much influence does keyword density really have in the search results that are “popped” to you?
I think we can all agree that proper keyword usage on a site plays a key role in how your site ranks for those keywords. But what is the best placement for these keywords? And how much is too much? When does it become keyword stuffing?
We’ll address these and other questions…after the break.
Just kidding, we’ll do it now.
What is the best placement for keywords on your site or article? Well, let me answer that by asking you this: What do you remember most when you read an article? The first and last paragraph, right? At least that’s how it is for me – and for Google, apparently. So when you’re wondering where to place your keywords, of course you want to have them spread throughout the content. But if you can, do something to make the first and last paragraph stand out. The h1, h2 and h3 headers are always dependable for this, as well as internal linking (if possible) or even just using bold type. That way you can use the keyword in several other places, but the places that stand out the most will basically be highlighted for Google.
How much keyword density is too much? That is actually a great question that it seems no one really knows for sure. The word on the street is that it can be as low as 3% and as high as 12%, with Yahoo and MSN being more tolerant of keyword stuffing than Google. I also found sites that were majorly stuffed with keywords (www.halloween.com, which was rightfully mentioned in the SEO Fail Blog for having over 21% keyword density for the keyword “Halloween”), but were not banned by Google. I guess they may still be penalized in their rankings, but that’s very hard to tell from the outside looking in. One thing I couldn’t find though is some good examples of pages getting banned from Google for keyword stuffing. In fact, I actually found one keyword stuffing experiment where keyword stuffing of up to 51% had no perceived effect on the PR of the page or the ranking for the tested keyword. So I thought I’d open that up in the comments section of this post. Got any good examples of keyword stuffing getting a page banned?
Bottom line: despite the vagueness of the limits on keyword density vs. keyword stuffing, I think it’s safe to say it’s always a matter of good practice. As long as your article or page flows naturally and is readable to the human eye, you’ll make friends with your readers as well as Google.
Oh, and just for your information, I have posted the keyword density for a couple of the keywords in this post just below:
Keyword: Keyword Density (1.13%)
Keyword: Keyword Stuffing (1.32%)
Keyword: Keyword (4.73%)

read more...

do keywords came

It seems to come up with almost every child – the somewhat awkward yet vitally important question that every parent knows will one day be voiced. Although we aren’t in the business of educating youngsters about the origins of babies, we are in the business of helping SEO youngsters understand where keywords come from.
Let’s imagine we have just created a website where we want to promote web hosting companies as an affiliate. The site is designed just how we like it, and now we’re ready to begin driving some serious traffic. Although there are many different steps and processes involved in SEO success, the foundation is in the keywords. We need targeted traffic that is relevant to the products, services, or information on our site, so we need to choose keywords wisely.
Understanding this process and how we as “SEO storks” deliver the right keywords is an essential part of the optimization process. SEO for Firefox, a free Firefox add-on from SEOBook, provides the stork services we need. Through this tool we will be connected with the needed resources to truly know where quality keywords come from. Let’s use the example of our hosting site to understand the path of the SEO stork.
Go to the Firefox add-on page, download SEO for Firefox, restart your browser, and activate the add-on. Once the add-on is active, search for “web hosting” in Google, and you’ll see something like this:
Notice the links below the search bar. We will take a look at the most significant of these. As we understand each resource, our SEO stork will advance in his journey of delivering the proper keyword focus. Each resource will provide us with a new perspective, change of opinion, or new idea relating to keywords. In other words, watch and learn from the stork…
KW Research – This link takes you to SEOTools and gives a breakdown of daily search estimates for Google, Yahoo, and MSN on our keyword of choice and very similar keywords. From this tool, I can get estimates on each search engine for my keyword of choice, plus other closely related keywords. I see that “web hosting” is by far the most searched for term. The fact that my site doesn’t directly provide web hosting services might influence me to steer away from that phrase and consider different options listed below. …SEO stork arrives for pickup…

AW Sandbox - This link takes me to the Google Adwords Keyword Tool. Since we’ve decided to go against “web hosting,” we need new ideas. In order to get a better idea of what to focus on, I will choose 3 or 4 broadly related keyword phrases such as “compare web hosting”, “web hosting reviews”, and “rate web hosting.” These words would be more relevant to my site if I plan on marketing for hosting companies. I enter these phrases and the tool reports on exact and related terms. From this simple report, I can compare traffic on a broad range of keywords. At this point, we can discover that “compare web hosting” and “web hosting reviews” are relevant to our site and receive plenty of traffic. …SEO Stork takes flight…


Traffic Estimator- This tool shows me useful information on costs related to PPC campaigns. Once you’ve settled on a keyword phrase, this tool will give you great estimates on how much you should expect to spend on a PPC campaign surrounding that keyword. In this case, I could expect to spend $140 a day using “compare web hosting” as a primary phrase. …SEO Stork is cruising on course…

Trends – If nothing else, Google Trends helps you decide what to avoid. If we are trying to decide between two phrases, this tool will indicate the trends in search traffic. As shown below, the term “cheap web hosting” is on a decline whereas “business web hosting” seems to be more stable. …SEO Stork avoids a deadly collision with an airplane…

Insights-Here we can focus on quantities of searches relating to geographic locations, and potential alternatives with rising trends. Insights also displays other suggestions of possible keywords. If everything looks good up this point, we are well on our way to landing a great keyword phrase. …SEO stork comes in for landing…

Our flight is near completion. The remaining resources under the Google search bar are Sktool, Sponsored Results, 100, and CSV. Sktool is very similar to the Traffic Estimator, providing information on potential PPC campaign costs. Sponsored Results simply shows the sponsored results of the search. 100 shows the top 100 results rather than the default. CSV creates a comma separated value document with your results. Although all of these tools are helpful for other purposes, they do not provide the insight that the other tools give relating to keyword research.
As the SEO stork lands, let’s consider what we’ve learned. As we use each tool, we gain additional insight and information that helps us target proper keywords. And perhaps the most important thing to glean is we should base our keyword decisions on current search traffic, relevant information, and past statistics rather than guesswork. …SEO stork has safely delivered our keywords.
And that is where keywords come from.

read more...

matt cutts domain roundtable

Matt Cutts made an appearance today at the Domain Roundtable conference. Matt started things off with a few introductory comments, then spent most of the time answering questions from the audience and from questions that people sent in ahead of time.
Here are the highlights of what he discussed:
The primary litmus test for whether something is acceptable, ask yourself, “What is the regular user looking for?”
-Does it add value for the customer?
-Will they be happy to find this site?
-Is it relevant?
-Is the content unique?
He talked about how there are lots of great reasons to buy domains, but not as many domainers want to actually design and build out sites around the domains. He gave some examples of parked pages that don’t really add value, gmhs.com, earthday.org.
He mentioned ajaxian as a site that has great content even though their domain isn’t generic/premium. It’s a multi-author blog about all things AJAX.
Someone asked about duplicate content/stolen content. Matt said Google keeps track of when/where they first find content, and they do a pretty good job of rewarding the original source of the content and not the thieves’ version of the content. There was an attorney in the audience who was asking about DMCA requests and Matt referred us to the DMCA process with Google, and admitted that this stuff is outside his area of expertise.
When somebody asked about moving a site to a new domain, he recommended reading the recent post about moving a site on the Google Webmaster blog. He said people often overlook the suggestion to test the redirect with a small part of your site first (subdomain or directory), and it works smoothly and quickly, you will be fine to do the 301 redir on the whole site.
The question came up about whether it matters which TLD (top level domain) you’re using. For example, do .com domains carry more weight than a .net, .us, .info, etc. He said that TLD doesn’t matter–that’s the way Larry and Sergey originally designed the Google algorithm. The algorithm doesn’t care where the page is located, it’s all about pagerank (LINKS) of the particular page. At the end of answering this question he did admit that they might have started to look at particularly cheap (and spammy) TLDs differently than other TLDs–or they might start considering TLD in their algorithm if they’re not already doing so.
Regarding interlinking between sites, he said it’s fine to interlink if the sites are related, but he said not to overdo it. When pressed, he said over 10 sites interlinking might be asking for trouble. He said it would also be ok to break out your network of sites and interlink sites within a certain category. The specific example was a network of local sites, and Matt said you could either have a single portal with links to all the geo-portals, or maybe interlink between all the various plumbing sites.
Matt mentioned that sites don’t automatically get pagerank just for existing. They need backlinks to get pagerank. Also, he said if you have a network of sites and add a bunch more sites, it’s like spreading the same amount of peanut butter across a bigger piece of bread. In that case, each site in the network gets a smaller share of the pagerank distribution.
On expired domains, Matt said Google tries to reset pagerank/links for all expired domains to zero when they are registered by someone new. They don’t try to penalize the expired domain, but they also don’t want to give credit for the previous owner’s links.
He said keywords in the domain carry weight with users, and for this reason, Google also gives some weight to a keyword in the URL and/or domain name.
I don’t have the question in my notes, but something prompted Matt to mention Google Ad Manager, which I wasn’t familiar with (who can keep up with Google’s products?). It’s an ad serving solution that’s free and lets you serve ads on your site. You can serve up adsense ads, but you don’t have to, or you can use Adsense as your backfill for any unsold inventory.
Matt suggested doing a site: search to check if a domain is indexed before buying the domain. He also talked briefly about webmaster tools and how to submit a reinclusion request if needed.
Matt was asked what is the best way to park your domains without ticking off Google. He replied that Google can detect any change in content as it recrawls the site, so it’s fine to park a domain with a simple PPC parked page or whatever, and then when you start building out the site, Googlebot will notice and start indexing the site as quickly as possible. He also made the obligatory recommendation for using nofollow for links on parked pages, “just to be safe,” and then he explained what nofollow does and how it is used.
He suggested reading and abiding by the webmaster quality guidelines.
He was asked about IP delivery and he said that IP delivery is not bad, but it is bad to cloak–serve up different content to Google than what everyone else sees. If you use IP delivery (for geotargeting content for example), you should simply geotarget the content to Googlebot, too.

read more...

list-great-firefox-plugins-seo

I’m a fan of Firefox mainly for the additional functionality you get from using plugins. In fact, it’s always frustrating when I am on someone else’s computer, and I don’t have access to my own set of “tools” that I use on a daily basis. Simply put, if you aren’t using Firefox, you’re missing out on a more effective way to work.
Below is a list of some of my favorite SEO plugins. I have also included a short list of web developer plugins that have some crossover into SEO. I know there are other tools out there, so if you have some additional plugins you like to use, please add them in the comments!
Plugins Specifically for SEO
SEO for Firefox
This one is a standard tool for most of the SEOs that I personally know. This plugin gives you a ton of additional information when you do a search on Google. You can see a site’s PageRank, age, Yahoo links and other data that can help you when analyzing your competitors.
It also gives you access to a handy little tool called SEO XRay. This sub-tool will show you the meta information, H tag use and internal and external links on a page. There are so many ways to use SEO for Firefox, it’s no wonder that it’s a standard tool! Aaron Wall (SEOBook) did a great job with this one!
Get it here: SEO for Firefox
Rank Checker
This is another great tool from Aaron Wall. If all you want to do is a quick ranking update, Rank Checker is the way to go. This tool is usually quick, and you can export your findings to a CSV document if you want to compare them with previous rankings.
As with any rank checking tool, it is not always 100% accurate. However, it is still a great free way to keep up on all of your keywords.
Get it here: Rank Checker
SearchStatus
Do you ever get tired of the Google Toolbar? If you’re like me, the only reason you really use the Google Toolbar is to find out the PageRank of the page. Well, with SearchStatus, you can get PageRank, Alexa Rank, Moz Rank and Compete Rank in your status bar. There are many other things that this tool does, but that’s what I mainly use it for.
Get it here: SearchStatus
SEO Link Analysis
I consider this plugin to be one of the essentials in my toolbox. This tool works when you go to the Yahoo Site Explorer or into your Google Webmaster account looking for back links. Rather than just seeing what sites are linking back, you can see the anchor text and the PageRank of the page linking back. You can also find out if the link is still there or has a no follow attribute.
This tool is great for spying on your competition. Go to the Yahoo Site Explorer and you will very quickly find out what keywords your competition is targeting. This makes it great for site analysis and competitive analysis.
Get it here: SEO Link Analysis
Helpful Web Development Plugins
If you’re going to do SEO, you need to know some of the basics of web development as well. Because of this, I thought it might be helpful to list a few plugins that you can use mainly for web development, but also have a crossover into SEO.
Firebug
I have loved this plugin ever since I first found it. As an SEO, I find that I am constantly helping to fix web development problems as part of the job. This tool will let you go through a site and find the different elements so you can see where the problems are in the HTML or CSS of the page. You can also make changes to a live site to see what would happen if you tweaked certain things.
Get it here: Firebug
HTML Validator
By having your HTML valid, your site is more likely to look the same in the different browsers. This tool will show you where the problems are in your code that could be causing inconsistencies from browser to browser. It also gives you suggestions on how to fix them.
Get it here: HTML Validator
Web Developer
This tool has similar functionality to some of the other tools above and is very handy. I use it frequently to turn off JavaScript so I can see how a site is handling its main navigation. Most web developers that I know of use this plugin.
Get it here: Web Developer
Add to the List!
Now it is your turn. Do you have some favorites that I did not include on this list? If so, please add them in the comments below!

read more...