<link>http://www.seonoobie.com</link> <description /> <lastBuildDate>Wed, 08 Jun 2011 11:10:32 +0000</lastBuildDate> <language>en</language> <sy:updatePeriod>hourly</sy:updatePeriod> <sy:updateFrequency>1</sy:updateFrequency> <generator>http://wordpress.org/?v=3.1.3</generator> <atom10:link xmlns:atom10="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml" href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/SeoNoobie" /><feedburner:info uri="seonoobie" /><atom10:link xmlns:atom10="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom" rel="hub" href="http://pubsubhubbub.appspot.com/" /><feedburner:browserFriendly></feedburner:browserFriendly><item> <title>Spammertunity and Innovation Is The Future Of Search http://www.seonoobie.com/2011/02/spammertunity-and-innovation-is-the-future-of-search/ http://www.seonoobie.com/2011/02/spammertunity-and-innovation-is-the-future-of-search/#comments Mon, 21 Feb 2011 16:12:15 +0000 SEO Noobie http://www.seonoobie.com/?p=3348 ChangeThere are a whole slew of reasons why the efforts you put into conducting SEO 5 years ago are simply not the same anymore and even more so the efforts from 10 years ago. Technology, spammers and innovation continue as the front runner for this great industry morphing and evolving into something much different than it once was. SEO is dynamic which means we all have to be dynamic to be able to roll with the punches the industry hands out to the community of marketers. Depending on how you look at things you can view the punches as positive or you could look at them as negative changes. Personally I follow guidelines at all times and keep my online marketing efforts very clean. I embrace the changes that occur in search because I enjoy seeing progress along with increasing the value of the overall user experience.
Innovation
Innovation is on the fore front and it changes the way we communicate. Every web app, social networking tool and advertising platform changes the way we approach the search engines every single day. You can’t blame innovation because it is the engine that drives or digital space well into the future. Innovation is the reason why we have sites like Facebook, Google and Twitter allowing us to waste precious time each and every day or building a solid business depending on how you look at things. As long as venture capitalist firms are willing to hand over millions of dollars in investment money there will always be innovation giving us ridiculous digital communication tools.
Spammers
Spammers have really stepped up their hunting efforts in locating new search loop holes they can jump through in order to push their own rankings or their clients. Spammers keep the search engines on their toes at all times by pouncing on the search engines vulnerabilities. Sometimes the search engines don’t even know what types of windows of spammertunity they have until the spammers get their filthy little mitts on them.
Technology
Technology is so ramped up there is no possible to way to even slow it down if we wanted to. Technology is what keeps our society moving quicker and quicker every single day. Technology coupled with innovation is why we are where we are. It is the reason why with the click of a button we can reveal to the whole world that we just bought a venti, non-fat, no foam, no water, 6 pump, extra hot beverage from Starbucks. Why do people even need to know this information? They don’t but the technology is there so we use it.
]]> http://www.seonoobie.com/2011/02/spammertunity-and-innovation-is-the-future-of-search/feed/ 1 Tips on How to Learn Social Media Marketing http://www.seonoobie.com/2011/02/tips-on-how-to-learn-social-media-marketing/ http://www.seonoobie.com/2011/02/tips-on-how-to-learn-social-media-marketing/#comments Fri, 18 Feb 2011 16:02:34 +0000 SEO Noobie http://www.seonoobie.com/?p=3343 Learning Social Media
For some of us applying social media to our business comes very easy but for others they might as well be building a rocket. Social media can be as difficult as you want to make it but at some point it really is important to at least try it for your business because you might surprise yourself. Social media is one of those areas of online marketing that brings along a great deal of skeptics but you really don’t know how it will work until you give it all you got. The reality is that it does truly work but you need to have patience along with a solid approach to see good results.
Here are some ways you can learn how to be successful at social media marketing for your business:
Read Social Media Blogs
Reading social media blogs is a great way to identify opportunities you might have not thought yourself. There are so many great resources out there where you can learn how to market yourself socially online your head might end up spinning. There are a handful of really great social media blogs that are updated very frequently with the latest and greatest when it comes to social media marketing.
Here are a few great blogs where you can learn some really great things regarding social media:
http://www.chrisbrogan.com/
http://www.socialmediaexplorer.com/
http://mashable.com/
http://www.convinceandconvert.com/
Taking a Social Media Training Course
There are many different social media training programs out there than can help you put together a custom social media strategy in order to get yourself off the ground. Depending on your skill level these courses can either be over the phone or in person and they could also require just a few hours per/week. It really depends on your capabilities to learn the material enough so you can get out there and experiment with the communication efforts yourself.
Attend Seminars & Webinars
Depending on where you live you could have numerous search engine marketing companies around you that host a variety of seminars free for people who would like to learn how to use the search space to promote themselves. Sometimes there is a small cost involved which is typically relatively inexpensive but can supply very generous amounts of information. The same goes for webinars, webinars are a great way to learn the ropes of social media or any other form of search engine marketing you are trying to apply to your business.
Or You Can Just Dive In
You also have the option of just diving right in and learning by experience. Experience is a great tool for learning as long as you don’t give yourself a reputation management issue right out of the gates. Testing the waters is perfectly fine and if you don’t want to go through all the training you can simply create some social accounts for yourself or your business and just start by using them at your own pace. You don’t have to become a social media guru by the end of the week so don’t stress about it.
]]> http://www.seonoobie.com/2011/02/tips-on-how-to-learn-social-media-marketing/feed/ 0 How To Stay Ahead Of Algorithm Changes In Search http://www.seonoobie.com/2011/02/stay-ahead-algorithm-changes-search/ http://www.seonoobie.com/2011/02/stay-ahead-algorithm-changes-search/#comments Thu, 17 Feb 2011 16:07:18 +0000 SEO Noobie http://www.seonoobie.com/?p=3338 algorithmEvery once in a while the search engines will go through an algorithm change with their search engines really get everyone all rowdy while disrupting the news sources. You can’t blame them because typically the change is either closing up a loop hole or making things a little bit better for the user. Very rarely does an algorithm change make a negative impact on user experience and at the end of the day the user is the most important part of the equation not really the marketers. There are ways to stay ahead of those pesky algorithm changes you just have to be willing to do things the right way and be patient with your online marketing efforts.
Here are some ways to stay ahead of the algorithm changes so you don’t see your website crumble in the rankings.
Think More Marketing Less Trickery
Honestly if you are still trying to figure out the latest and greatest loop holes in search your website is doomed long term. You can’t grow a business online from pouncing on search loop holes. You build a business online by being a good marketer and thing out side of the box and always getting creative with your exposure.
Build Your Brand
If you follow search engine news you will know that there has been a great deal of chatter over the last few years especially from Google about brand & trust building making a strong impact on rankings. Branded hyperlinks are slowly starting to generate more power than keyword hyperlinks and this is a direction that things are heading whether you like it or not. Brands are starting to get more attention that just single SEO’d web pages.
Rankings Alone Don’t Build Success
If you focus on nothing else but rankings you will never grow a successful company, guaranteed. You have to be willing to explore the social community and take part in online conversations along with good solid business building activities to grow your business online into the future.
Stay Away From the Black
The phrase “black hat” should not even be in your vocabulary. Black hat “marketing” (And I use that term loosely) is nothing more than a short winded spurt of visibility followed by years and years of pain and anguish. Not to mention black hat techniques are the reason the algorithm changes typically occur in the first place!! Stay away at all costs.
Follow Search Guidelines
Have you taken the time to review the search guidelines lately? They offer really great information on how to market a website online safely. When you follow guidelines you tend to avoid the pitfalls of the algorithm changes. Sure things take longer but it sure is fun to see things ramping up when you take a quality approach to marketing a business online. There is nothing better than writing a good solid article or press release and seeing solid traffic and movement from that writing piece. The article/PR is just an example but I think you get the picture.
]]> http://www.seonoobie.com/2011/02/stay-ahead-algorithm-changes-search/feed/ 0 What Is A Twitter Hashtag? http://www.seonoobie.com/2011/02/what-is-a-twitter-hashtag/ http://www.seonoobie.com/2011/02/what-is-a-twitter-hashtag/#comments Wed, 16 Feb 2011 14:14:27 +0000 SEO Noobie http://www.seonoobie.com/?p=3331 HashtagFor some of us using social whales like Twitter is a lot like brushing our teeth, we log on, we communicate and we are active without even blinking or really thinking about it. To some it doesn’t come that easy. There are vast amounts of people that simply still don’t get it. That is ok because social media for some is a difficult concept to grasp and coming up with the right strategy for a business on Twitter can sometimes be a difficult journey depending on your business niche. The hashtag feature on Twitter is one way you can leverage your tweets for certain keywords. By simply using “#” in your tweets strategically you can gain visibility with your tweets. Twitter hashtags are a great way to poke your head through the crowd of tweets especially if you utilize certain keywords in your tweet.
According to Twitter it is:
Definition: “The # symbol, called a hashtag, is used to mark keywords or topics in a Tweet. It was created organically by Twitter users as a way to categorize messages.”
“Hashtags: helping you find interesting Tweets
People use the hashtag symbol # before relevant keywords in their Tweet to categorize those Tweets to show more easily in Twitter Search.
Clicking on a hashtagged word in any message shows you all other Tweets in that category.
Hashtags can occur anywhere in the Tweet.
Hashtagged words that become very popular are often Trending Topics.
Example: Below, @VegNews added the hashtag before the word “vegan” in their message. The word is now a link to search results for all Tweets containing “#vegan” in the message.”
Twitter Hash Tag
When it comes to aggressively utilizing some of these large scale communication giants such as Twitter it is important to be able to employ the features that are available to strengthen your approach. When hitting the online search space it is all about being efficient in order to stand out. You don’t want to be obnoxious with being efficient because too much efficiency sometimes looks a lot like spam.
Example of proper use of hash tag:
]]> http://www.seonoobie.com/2011/02/what-is-a-twitter-hashtag/feed/ 0 How Social Media Liberated An Entire Country http://www.seonoobie.com/2011/02/social-media-liberates-egyp/ http://www.seonoobie.com/2011/02/social-media-liberates-egyp/#comments Tue, 15 Feb 2011 14:23:06 +0000 SEO Noobie http://www.seonoobie.com/?p=3328 Social Media Liberates CountryYou can not doubt the power of social media any longer. If you are one of these people who still think social media doesn’t work watch this video on how social media played a rather large role on liberating Egypt. Some might think it could be far fetched but the first thing that happens during these events is the internet is shut down as quickly as possible. Sometimes even before military can be brought onto the scene.
]]> http://www.seonoobie.com/2011/02/social-media-liberates-egyp/feed/ 0 Important Things That Could Occur From A Link http://www.seonoobie.com/2011/02/important-things-that-could-occur-from-a-link/ http://www.seonoobie.com/2011/02/important-things-that-could-occur-from-a-link/#comments Mon, 14 Feb 2011 16:19:51 +0000 SEO Noobie http://www.seonoobie.com/?p=3322 Link Building TipsIf you own a website and you haven’t figured it out by now relevant website links are a very important ingredient of marketing a business online and becoming visible. One link positioned correctly could deliver a generous amount of traffic and business to your website not to mention link power from the search engines as well. One link positioned incorrectly could also cause damage to your rankings. A link can deliver a great deal of positive results for a business which is why they are so important to acquire. Some links can happen naturally such as a customer or client giving a good review and leaving a link behind in the content and sometimes good links can happen through proactive campaigns.
New website traffic: One link can deliver massive amounts of repeat traffic depending on how it is positioned online. A website link sitting in the right location can deliver a very generous amount of website traffic on a continuous basis if it continues to stay live.
Additional SEO Strength: SEO strength for a website can occur through a variety of different efforts but building links is a sure fire way to increase strength to a website. Search engines analyze the strength of a website by the types of links that point to is on the web.
Trust Building: Search engines look at how trust worthy a website is through their link building efforts. If a link sits on a websites that is highly trusted the search engines look at that website like it should be trusted as well. This is why bogus links spread wide often times do not pass on any valuable link power.
Whenever possible a link should be sought out when doing anything online. Of course it has to make sense to the business and be relevant but a write up on your business or a nice business profile without a link simply doesn’t have as much power as with a link present. Remember that link building is not something happens overnight and it is not something that is successful without proper planning.
Purchasing that link building service for $49.99 per/month is not going to get you the quality links that you seek out. Link building requires proper research along with great hunting through the vast wilderness of the internet. Building relationships with other like-minded website owners and providing expert information in your industry is a great way to get things moving.
]]> http://www.seonoobie.com/2011/02/important-things-that-could-occur-from-a-link/feed/ 0 Some Important Keyword Research Tips http://www.seonoobie.com/2011/02/some-important-keyword-research-tips/ http://www.seonoobie.com/2011/02/some-important-keyword-research-tips/#comments Thu, 10 Feb 2011 14:13:40 +0000 SEO Noobie http://www.seonoobie.com/?p=3319 Keyword Research TipsKeyword research can be fun or it can be painful depending on how you approach the entire process. It is important to realize that the keyword research portion is probably one of the most important parts of optimizing a website not just for the act of optimizing but also how the website will respond in the online search space in the future. Depending on your industry you could have thousands of keywords or you could only have a dozen keywords it really depends on your business space.
Here are some keyword research tips I have found useful throughout my SEO journey:
There is no Magic Pill: Meaning that you have to think about what you do as a business and not over think the entire process. Don’t try to locate a magical word nobody has found or used yet because it most likely doesn’t exist unless it is a new industry slang phrase you invented.
Organize Yourself: When you start getting into very competitive spaces your keyword research can be extremely vast so organization is going to be a must. I like to organize everything in excel and list out the columns according to keyword attributes. (Example: column 1 – solution keywords, column 2-company keywords, etc…)
Don’t Copy Your Competitors: Trying to copy your competition is not the right approach to take when trying to grow your business online. Sure you might have to look at their keywords to get ideas on what direction to take but to copy their keywords completely is not going to allow you to immediately compete with them. Things are still going to take time.
Always Use A Tool: Don’t try doing keyword research without a tool of some sort. Personally I like to use Keyword Tracker because it gives very valuable data surrounding keyword research and also usgage statistics so you can gauge competitiveness. Sure there are some free tools out there like the Google tool but the Google tool data just doesn’t seem correct to me.
Remember that keyword research takes time depending on how large of an industry you are in. You have to allocate enough time to really go through the keyword research because you might just find some targeted words that you didn’t know existed.
]]> http://www.seonoobie.com/2011/02/some-important-keyword-research-tips/feed/ 0 Great Seth Godin Videos Regarding Technology, Internet and Culture http://www.seonoobie.com/2011/02/seth-godin-business-videos/ http://www.seonoobie.com/2011/02/seth-godin-business-videos/#comments Wed, 09 Feb 2011 15:25:00 +0000 SEO Noobie http://www.seonoobie.com/?p=3315 Seth GodingHere are a few great Seth Godin videos where he discusses the concepts of technology and streamlining business processes to create the world of commerce that we live in today. He discusses things like the internet and how social media has impacted the business world and how customers and employees interact with our current business culture which I find intriguing. If you are not sure who Seth Godin is he is sort of a marketing god so to speak. Huge public speaker, very successful author and when he speaks about marketing and business people really listen to what he has to say. He was recetnly featured in a series of videos over at TechCrunch and he had some pretty interesting things to say about technology in the marketplace.
]]> http://www.seonoobie.com/2011/02/seth-godin-business-videos/feed/ 0 Facebook Fan Page Awareness Is Multi-Pronged http://www.seonoobie.com/2011/02/facebook-fan-page-marketing-tips/ http://www.seonoobie.com/2011/02/facebook-fan-page-marketing-tips/#comments Tue, 08 Feb 2011 14:39:32 +0000 SEO Noobie http://www.seonoobie.com/?p=3312 Facebook Fan Page Marketing TipsLet’s face it, people like Facebook and if you are one of those business owners that says “I hate this thing” you might be losing out on good solid customer building. Facebook fan pages have become a very important area for businesses to be visible in. Many owners are still not a 100% sure how they should be approaching their Facebook fan page because in some industries it could be tricky. Remember that there is no one single way to build exposure and it is typically a multi-pronged approach.
Here are some ways you can get others to start seeing and using your Facebook fan page:
Put it in your newsletter: If you send out a newsletter list to your current recipients you should be letting them know you have a Facebook fan page. Give them a few links so they can visit it and become a fan. You might even have to entice them to come over and check it out so just get creative with it.
Let your Twitter followers know: You might have a Twitter account that has some followers in it and they might like to know that you are visible on Facebook. Let them know from time to time you got a Facebook page and drop a link to it.
Make it visible on your site: A Facebook like box positioned correctly on your website could grow your Facebook exposure to new heights. Take a step further than just having a link, give people the button! It will reduce a step for them to become a fan which is always good.
Conduct special FB promotions: Let people know that you will be running special Facebook coupons and promotions to get people to want to sign up and become a fan. Sometimes you just have to give them a reason to do it.
Start conversation threads: Try starting up some conversation threads in your Facebook fan page to get others to chime in. If it is a juicy thread you should get some nice responses from your fans.
Upload photos & videos: Your Facebook page should have some photos and videos uploaded at some point. Take photos of the office and your employees at the very least to get something in there to start. If you have a company video drop it in there as well.
Facebook marketing might not seem important to you but it is an important part of growing a business online in today’s business world. People look at Facebook branding from a stability standpoint also. Take the time to create a robust approach within the Facebook space and you will see your customers and fans look at you in a different light.
]]> http://www.seonoobie.com/2011/02/facebook-fan-page-marketing-tips/feed/ 1 How To Use Separators In Your Title Tag According To Google http://www.seonoobie.com/2011/02/how-to-use-separators-in-your-title-tag-according-to-google/ http://www.seonoobie.com/2011/02/how-to-use-separators-in-your-title-tag-according-to-google/#comments Fri, 04 Feb 2011 16:16:08 +0000 SEO Noobie http://www.seonoobie.com/?p=3305 I don’t care what anyone says meta data information is an important part of search engine optimization. It provides a direct connection between you and your users and if written correctly it could increase click through rates quite a bit. Here is a short video directly from Google explaining what should and shouldn’t be used when you need to separate words in your meta title tag.
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