Assuming that my understanding of why these pages do well is true, the question now is what can we do to capitalize on that fact. Well, I have a simple idea - get a free Wordpress plug-in called Ultimate Tag Warrior and start tagging your posts with relevant tags. These tags essentially function like category pages, since each tag has it’s own page. That means that each and every time you add a new post to a particular tag you are changing the content for that tag page. Again, this is exactly the type of page that Google likes.

It’s certainly worth a try.

P.S. I’ll try and write a follow-up post showing you step-by-step how to use the Ultimate Tag Warrior.

Technorati Tags: Wordpress, blog, blogs, blogging, plugin, plugins, plug-in, plug-ins, Ultimate-tag-warrior, Ultimate tag warrior

a) your click-through-rate goes up

and

b) the amount you receive per click goes up.

I recently did a quick experiment with my site and found that both went up (even though the ads seem less targetted than the text ads). Not only that, but I think that the image ads look more professional. So, you win on both accounts, you look more professional and make more money at the same time. Of course, you have to see if it works on your site, but it’s worth a try.

Technorati Tags: Adsense, Google, Google Adsense, Google-adsense

Watch the video

Read the article

Imagine that you’re a cell phone vendor and that a potential customer is searching on Google for the phrase “free cell phones”. That customer will most likely reach a page like this:

There are three parts of this page that we need to note. The first is the search term (in this case “free cell phones”), the second are the paid ads and the third are the natural search results. See image below:

For these tutorials we are only interested in the search term and the natural search results. We can forget about the paid ads as they have nothing to do with search engine optimization. You don’t optimize your site for the paid ads, you bid for them. They are part of Google Adwords program and will be discussed in our Paid Search (aka pay-per-click) tutorials.

Search engine optimization only deals with what are called “natural” or “organic” search results. Nobody pays to show up in the natural results. The results displayed in this section are there only because Google “decided” that they are the best pages on the Web to display for the search term “free cell phones”. If you entered a different search term you would see different results.

Now, with that said, let’s return to our imaginary cell phone site. As a cell phone vendor, your goal would be to have your web site show up in the top 10 - 20 search results for all searches related to cell phones (most people don’t scroll down beyond the top 10 - 20 search results). By showing up in the organic search results for the major search engines (Google, Yahoo, MSN, and Ask.com) you can bring in large numbers of potential customers to your website…for free!

On the other hand, imagine the business you’re missing out on by ranking poorly in the search engines. This is why so many people spend a great deal of time, money, and effort trying to get their sites to rank well in the search engines.

Youâ’re probably wondering, what do I have to do to rank well for the terms and phrases related to your site? Simple, you have to optimize your website for the search engines. That means you have to figure out how the search engines determine their results for any given search and then build your website accordingly. Tha’s what we mean by “optimization” building and marketing your website to rank well within the major search engines.

This brings us to our next article: How do search engines rank and determine the order of their search results?

Technorati Tags: seo, search engine, search engines, search-engine, search-engines, search engine optimization, search-engine-optimization, seo-tips, seo tips, search engine optimization tips, search-engine-optimization-tips

So, what’s the secret? Simple, SEOMoz are givers, not takers.

To start with, Rand time and again comes up with post that provides great value and benefit to the readers of SEOMoz. He really reveals methods and tactics that are of value. What’s more, many of these ideas and tactics aren’t easily found anywhere else online. Now, I imagine that more than once the thought crossed Rand’s mind that perhaps he shouldn’t share some idea or other - after all these are trade secrets. His competition can easily read his posts and apply his ideas to their company.

But share them he did, and I think the pay-off for him has been tremendous. His name is well known in the SEO community and I’m sure he has a better shot today of getting some big-paying clients than he did before he started his blog. In other words, Rand’s willingness to share some of his ideas has more than paid him back. Whatever he lost in competitive advantage he more than gained in branding, reputation and trust!

Further note how SEOMoz invites and respects your input. Rand spends a lot of time reading and answering peoples posts and comments. He offers valuable ideas and suggestions. Furthermore, SEOMoz has now offered more avenues for people to participate in their site. In other words, SEOmoz is not focused on just promoting Rand or SEOMoz. It’s more than that.

Again, this has benefited SEOMoz - people like visiting the site. They enjoy participating in it. That translates into increased traffic and visitor loyalty. What’s more, now there are more ideas floating around at SEOMoz, more food for thought, more conversation and discussion, etc. These new conversations and discussion provide SEOMoz with a greater sense of what is on their visitors minds - thus allowing them to better tailor their content to their site visitors. This, of course, allows them to create a better blog, which increases their popularity, etc.

So, what can you learn from all this? That a key ingredient to succeeding online is giving. Look for ways to help your clientele or those people who can help bring your clientele to your website. Try and find ways to make your site more inclusive and inviting. Think first about what other people can get out of your site. If you do that, you’ll have plenty of time later on to think about what how you can financially benefit from the increased traffic that you’ll be getting.

In short, give and they shall come.

Technorati Tags: SEOMoz.org, SEOMoz, Content, Content Creation

I’ll start with a question - when you produce content for your site, who do you produce it for? Until today, I would have said that we produce content for our customers - after all, they are the people who we ultimately have to please. And while I think that is still true, I no longer think that it is totally true. There is another group of people who you need to write content for, and they are the Link Masters (Rand Fish at SEOMoz calls them the linkerati, but I like link masters better).

The link masters are the people who control the links, and they often times are not your customers. In other words, they are the masters of the links - they decide who gets them and who doesn’t. Who are these people? Well, it depends, in part, on which industry you are in, but there are some generalities that we can mention. The link masters tend to belong to the following groups (this is, btw, Rand’s list):

• Bloggers
• Forum posters
• Web News Writers
• Content Creators
• Resource Editors
• Social Taggers
• Viral Connectors
• Journalists

This list definitely needs to be expanded upon, and Rand does a good initial job at his post entitled “Identifying the Linkerati” (I suggest you go check it out and then come back here).

The existence of this group of people has serious ramifications for your site in general and your link building goals in particular. It means that you are going to have to broaden the type of content that you write. Some content you will need to write for your customers, while other content you will have to write for the Link Masters. Of cousre, if you can make your content appeal to both groups, that’s great, but that’s not always the case.

This means that not only will you have to figure out who your target audience is in terms of your customers, but you also have to figure out who your target market is in terms of the Link Masters. In other words, it is important that you spend some time figuring out who are the Link Masters in your particular industry. And then, you have to figure out what they want to link to and create it. We’ll discuss those issues in future posts.

Technorati Tags: Linkerati, link building, link, links, linking, link building strategy, link-building, link-building-strategy, linking strategy, Link Masters, Link-Masters

Enjoy!

P.S. I will create screen shots, but that will have to wait until another post.

Technorati Tags: Google, webmaster, tools, webmaster-tools, webmaster tools, google-webmaster-tools, google webmaster tools, marketing, blogging, online, free tools, web development, seo, keywords, webmaster, google, Marketing Tools, SEO Tools