SEOenthusiast

Breaking News:2011 Social Media Report is Out!

noreply@blogger.com (sheikmun) — Thu, 28 Apr 2011 03:58:00 +0000

Yup, this is the third annual version of the 2011 Social Media Marketing Report, from the folks over at Social Media Examiner - and as usual, I’m pumped about the results! First, go and download the .pdf for yourownself and then dig in!

I know that if you’re like me, you’ll find this report chock full of great items….on every type and kind of question that one can think about.

You can also watch the video of same too…ion that same page, eh…for a quick summary — but dont think that there aren’t a whole lot of other aspects to learn when you download the full report and read it in it’s entirety!

It will help you to understand how marketers are using social media, Social Media Examiner commissioned the 2011 Social Media Marketing Industry Report. Social Media Examiner, set out to uncover the “who, what, where, when and why” of social media marketing with this report.

Here’s a list of some of the questions that they asked over 3300 marketers for their opinons on all things social media…

• The top 10 social media questions marketers want answered
• How much time marketers invest with social media activities
• The top benefits of social media marketing and how time invested affects results
• The most used social media tools and services
• Marketers’ future social media plans
• Activities social media marketers are outsourcing

Is Social media is important for my business?

A significant 90% of marketers said that social media was important to their businesses. The self-employed (67%) and small business owners with 2 or more employees (66%) were more likely to strongly agree!

Want more, eh? Me too…and I found some very impressive stats on use of various social media outlets and that was changed, I noted since last year.

Commonly used social media tools?

By a long shot, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and blogs were the top four social media tools used by marketers, with Facebook leading the pack. All of the other social media tools paled in comparison to these top four.

It should be noted that in 2010, Twitter was in first place with 88% and Facebook was close behind with 87%. Since 2010, Twitter lost 4%, LinkedIn lost 7% and Facebook gained 5%. In our 2009 study, only 77% of businesses were using Facebook.

The self-employed (80%) and owners of small businesses (78%) were more likely to use LinkedIn. Larger businesses were more likely to use YouTube or other video and less likely to use blogs (68%+).

A close examination of which tools more experienced social media marketers are using compared to those just getting underway provides further insight.

More? Nope, not here…you need to go and get your own copy of same – it’s free and it’s got some very interesting stats and the conclusions made too, are also both surprising and newsworthy too!

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Meta Description Optimization: Writing Effective Meta Descriptions for SEO

noreply@blogger.com (sheikmun) — Thu, 28 Apr 2011 00:58:00 +0000

On the heels of last week’s article on Title Tag Optimization for SEO, I’d like to cover another important aspect to optimizing websites to place well in the SERPs – Meta Descriptions.

Meta tags in general have been a very controversial topic over the years in the SEO industry, and rightly so. In the early days of SEO, search engine optimizers and many webmasters used the Meta Keywords tag as a platform to stuff as many target keywords into a page as possible – whether they were relevant or not. Finding ways to game the system is a typical practice in the SEO industry, and this strategy actually worked for quite a while.

The problem is that people were abusing the use of this tag and many pages that shouldn’t have been ranking well were taking top positions for keywords they had no business showing up for. The quality of search results suffered, and search engines soon laid the smack down on these sites, knocking them from top positions in favor of websites that were of a higher quality.

And so – like the dinosaurs – the use of Meta Keywords as an effective SEO strategy has died out. However, it is another Meta tag that lives on and is (if used in conjunction with other SEO best practices) a very effective way to achieve better search engine rankings.

It is the Meta Description tag.

The Meta Description tag is typically a sentence or two of content which describes the content of a particular webpage. Search engines may consider or display this tag at their discretion. Relevant meta description tags often appear in search results as part of the page description below the page title.

Your Meta Description can be found between your webpage’s section. Here’s how a Meta Description typically looks for in a site’s source code:

As stated above, your webpage’s Meta Description may also show up in the search results:

Okay, now we know what and where you Meta Description is. Let’s discuss some strategies on how to compose it effectively for SEO.

The length of your Meta Descriptions is a very important matter. If you’re familiar with search results, you’ll notice that search engines typically only display so much of your webpage’s SERP description before it cuts them off with an ellipsis (…).

In addition, the length of the description being displayed can vary depending on the search query and the pages that are being served up.

Typically, for more general search queries (i.e. “car“), your site’s top-level pages will be the ones that show up in the SERPs. However, for search queries that are of the long-tailed variety (i.e. “2011 chrysler 200 red sedan columbus“)

Based on my research and experience, here are the average character space lengths that show up before the cutoff for search queries of the more general variety – typically bringing up top-level pages:

Google: As few as 136 characters, as many as 156 characters in length.Bing: As few as 135 characters, as many as 169 characters in length.

The average character space lengths that show up before the cutoff for search queries of the more long-tailed variety – typically bringing up your site’s deep-interior pages:

Google: As many as 299 characters in length.Bing: Did not show a noticeable expansion of SERP descriptions for long-tailed searches.

One thing that should be remembered with these expanded SERP results is that it is not necessarily just pulling the Meta Description, it is usually pulling together text from different sections on the page. Therefore, it may be mashing together as many as 3 different sources of information into the SERP description.

Why does that matter to you? You should stay conservative with the lengths of your Meta Descriptions on deep-interior pages. I’d say 175-225 characters spaces is good.

The expanded SERP descriptions are definitely not a license to blow out all deep-interior Meta Descriptions to 299 characters or beyond, but merely a reference point to show you that they could potentially be expanded a bit from how you write your top-level descriptions.

Note: The character space thresholds before cutoff are just what I’ve seen after thoroughly examining the SERP results. They may be subject to change as the search engines change how they display results.

The moral of the story is that you need to maximize the space available to you in the Meta Description tag – especially for top-level pages. Try to write complete thoughts and finish them around the cutoff points. If the description goes beyond, search engines will find an appropriate point to cut it off and what comes after that point probably won’t matter as much for your rankings.

Just as with title tags, this one should be a no-brainer. Use your target keywords in your Meta Descriptions. For example, if your website’s main purpose is to help you sell “Used Cars,” then you’re going to want to mention that in your Meta Description.

Before you do that, I recommend conducting extensive keyword research to determine which keywords are best for your site’s Meta Descriptions.

Search engines are in the business of displaying the most relevant results for any given search query. Relevancy is their main goal! This means that you’re going to have to ensure that the keywords you’re targeting in your site’s Meta Descriptions are highly relevant to the content on the page.

For example, let’s say you have an internal page on your site about “2011 Chrysler 200.” Which of the following Meta Descriptions would you consider to be more relevant?

Our dealership sells new and used cars. Find the latest new and used cars from our vast inventory of vehicles.

The 2011 Chrysler 200 mid-size sedan offers consumers exceptional craftsmanship, a refined driving experience, innovative technology, an abundance of standard safety features, and more. Test drive a 2011 Chrysler 200 today!

If you’re thinking like a search engine, then you’d probably guess that the second description is more relevant to the term “2011 Chrysler 200.” If all other things are equal, then you’d probably be right!

In addition, having Meta Descriptions that are highly correlated with on-page content is good for both usability and click-through rates. If a user is searching specifically for a 2011 Chrysler 200, then they’ll be more likely to click on a result with an enticing and relevant SERP description like in the 2nd example above.

If a website visitor land on a page that is about something different than what they were searching for, that could be a turn off which will lead to more bounces and poor user engagement/conversion.

Keywords at the beginning of a Meta Description tend to have more weight and ranking power than those at the end – or those that are past the cut-off point. Therefore, you should place your most important keywords towards the beginning of each Meta Description.

For example, if on your homepage you wish to target the keyword “new cars” as your most important target keyword and “used cars” as your 2nd most important keyword, then it might make sense to write a Meta Description similar to this:

Jake’s Auto Dealership sells new cars and used cars in Columbus, Ohio. Come in and test drive on of our new or pre-owned vehicles today!

If you’re really targeting the keyword “new cars” more so than anything else, then it would make less sense to write a description like this rather than the one above:

Jake’s Auto Dealership sells used cars in Columbus, Ohio. Come in and test drive on of our new cars or pre-owned vehicles today!

Just remember, the more important a keyword is, the closer it should be to the front of your Meta Description. But that’s they easy part. Writing an effective Meta Description can be much less black-and-white if you’re trying to target more than just two keywords.

While simply repeating keywords is probably easiest – it is not good for someone who might be reading the SERP description after performing a search query, and it is certainly not good for targeting multiple keywords in a non-spammy way.

There is no need to be repetitious in your keyword usage within the Meta Description tag. Mentioning the same keyword over and over again won’t help you rank any better. Instead, try to think of ways you can combine phrases and utilize a search engine’s natural ability to match phrases together so as to give you more room to target multiple relevant phrases in the Meta Description.

For example, if you’re trying to target both “new cars” and “used cars” in your Meta description, then you could write:

Another example, let’s say you want to rank for “car dealer columbus ohio”, “auto dealer dublin ohio,” “new cars columbus”, “new cars dublin”, “used cars columbus” and “used cars dublin.” In order to target all of those phrases in your Meta Description, you might write something like this:

Auto dealer selling new and used cars in Columbus and Dublin, Ohio.

A search engine can match all of the individual words together, allowing you to hit many keywords at once – all while saving the space you’d have used if you simply listed out the keywords in order. Finding opportunities to write sentences in ways that a search engine can match the keywords together can help you hit on many keywords all at once.

Note: Both examples were obviously shortened in order to make a point.

As with title tags, here’s where it gets tricky. Utilizing keyword combinations and matching is a great way to hit on multiple keywords at once while saving space. But I will flat out tell you that nothing beats a good old exact-match phrase in your Meta Description in terms of relevance.

For example, if somebody is searching for “new car,” a Meta Description that actually used the phrase “new car” should win out versus one where the keywords “new” and “car” aren’t right next to each other – if all things are equal.

The issue is keyword proximity. Keyword strings that appear closer together are better than having to rely on a search engine’s ability to match them together. Consider the following sentence…

The woman drove her car to the store to buy a new purse.

In a round-a-bout way, the above sentence could be considered somewhat relevant to the term “new car.” A search engine would loosely be able to distinguish this. But is it more relevant to the term “new car” than a sentence that says…

The woman drove her new car to the store to buy a purse.

I’d say the second one is more relevant to the term “new car” than the first, and that is where you have to strike a balance. It really comes down to just how focused do you want to be in terms of keyword targeting.

If you have a need to target multiple keywords on a page, then combination-matching is the way to go. However, if you have a page that has more of a singular keyword focus, then using an exact-match keyword is better for relevancy.

Each webpage on your site should have a Meta Description that is unique, different from other pages, and uniquely relevant to the content on that particular webpage.

Why does this matter? Google only displays a max of two results from one site in the SERPs. So having multiple pages with the same Meta Description may make it difficult for them to determine which one is more deserving of being ranked prominently. And thus, they may choose to rank none at all.

To go back to the reference I’ve used before about duplicate titles and meta tags, think of it like reading a book. If you’re skimming the table of contents and see that all the chapters have the same description, how will you be able to quickly jump to a highly-specific point in that book with any confidence in what that section is actually about? You won’t. You’ll just put it back down, and so will a search engine.

Duplicate Meta Descriptions can cause the appearance of duplicate content (even if on-page content is different and unique from page-to-page). This may cause some pages to get stuck under a search engine’s filters. Also, it tends to look like spamming, which is the opposite of what you want.

As I’ve said before, every webpage and every title has to be able to stand on its own two feet in terms of ranking in search engines. Its perfectly okay to have Meta Descriptions that are very similar and correlate with an overarching site theme, but having duplicates really hinders their individual ability to be highly relevant to the site’s on-page content, and thus for any search queries.

It is very important to remember that your site’s Meta Description tag serves the function of advertising copy. It’s main purpose is to draw readers to a website from the search results – making it very important to write it in such a way that it is highly readable (while still integrating target keywords) and compelling enough to draw a click.

Writing a highly-readable, compelling Meta Description that integrates important keywords can serve to draw a much higher click-through rate to a specific webpage.

Additional note: In order to maximize click-through rates on search engine result pages, you’ll need to remember that Google and other search engines bold keywords in the description when they match search queries. Using keywords that are relevant to search queries is a good way to stand out in the mess that is a SERP.

If you service a specific geo-area, then you’re absolutely going to need to mention it in your Meta Description in order to show up for a local search query such as “Car Dealer Columbus Ohio.” If you’d like to target more than one city that you service, then it may be worth mentioning both. I try not to go beyond 4-5 depending on length of city name.

Remember, search engines are very literal – meaning if you want to show up for something it should be mentioned on your page. So if you want to show up for “car dealer dublin ohio,” it will need to be somewhere on your site – unless you have a nice local listing built out. It probably should still be on there either way.

I’d recommend something like:

New and used car dealer selling sedans, SUVs, convertibles, and more. Serving Columbus, Dublin, Hilliard, Westerville, and Central Ohio.

Important note: Make sure that the use of a geo-term in the Meta Descripiton correlates with similar use within your site’s content or it won’t be as effective.

You should not be using any special symbols in your site’s Meta Descriptions. They aren’t helpful in terms of rankings and are simply a waste of space. I’d just stay away from them altogether when it comes to Meta Descriptions. Some special symbols include (©), (®), and (™).

Here is a full list of HTML Accent Entity codes that I refer to often.

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Anyhow, hope this helps you write better Meta Descriptions. I’m sure I didn’t quite cover everything as there is much that goes into it, but I tried to be as comprehensive as I could. Let me know if you have any questions or suggestions for additions to the article!

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The Times They Are A-Changin’

noreply@blogger.com (sheikmun) — Wed, 27 Apr 2011 20:53:00 +0000

To quote Bob Dylan:

The Times They Are A-Changin’

Indeed they are.

Effective April 4th, I’ll be changing employment to begin working as the Internet Marketing (something or other – not sure yet) at Germain. I’ve already put in my two weeks notice at People To My Site where I currently serve as the Director of SEO.

I just wanted to take some time to announce it here and assure my readers (all 200+) that I’ll be continuing my blog. This has been the primary reason for my inactivity lately. I’ve decided to take this precaution to avoid the mass panic and hysteria that I’m sure would follow the dissolution of the Agent SEO blog and brand!

Everyone can sleep well at night knowing that I’ll continue to plug away here with quality SEO tips and occasional rants. I wouldn’t normally take these types of precautions, but my following is so die-hard that I didn’t want anyone to lose their minds and go off the deep end. So there that is. Just kidding by the way (like anyone would lose sleep over this little thing).

The real purpose of this post is to take an opportunity to thank People To My Site. Without them, I would have never been able to cut out my little slice of the world (i.e. my blog) or gain the amazing professional experience that their company allowed. In my 3 years with the company, I’ve had the great pleasure of working with awesome clients and even better people – not to mention the cool perk of being able to bring my dog “Rocky” to work every day for the last 1.5 years!

I’ll definitely miss and reminisce about some of the best moments including Christmas Karaoke, “Grilled Cheese Wednesday” Softball, Pot Lucks, Dog Parties, NCAA Tourney Pools, and just shooting the shit with good people.

As an organization they supported my blog and the development of my personal brand, and even supported much greater causes like helping me in my efforts to donate warm winter clothing to needy school children this past Winter! I am ever grateful.

The people at PTMS are all top-notch, and I consider them all to be my friends! So, thank you….

Jen Ridenour, Jason Walker, Guy Jacks, Ben Clarke, Brendin & Jessica King, Zack Singer, Mike Wright, Jared McKinley, Drew Krebs, Andy Anaya, Mike Ashcraft, Terrence Tuy, Sean Hill, Karin Oliver Kreft, Scott Sharkey, Bob Masters, Larry Blagg, and of course my right-hand man Aaron Flax (also a groomsman in my wedding)!

I’m really going to miss working with all of you guys, and the chance to bring my dog to work!

And to those employees that have moved on to other opportunities but who I became great friends with, thank you…

Steve White, Nate Riggs, Cheryl Harrison, Robby Herbst, Gabriel Escamilla, Arlette Garay, Chris Wright, Monica Leck, Sara Kear, Hedy Asal, Josh Boles, Josh “Butters” Wilson, Chris Johnson, Dave Schirtzinger, Dan Weatherby, and I’m sure there are a few more!

(I hope I spelled all last names right, and I tried to link to all who had Twitter handles)

If your name was mentioned above – it is because you are awesome! To anyone looking to connect with great people, I’d recommend getting to know each and every one of them as they are all high-quality!

As for my new opportunity, I must admit I’m very excited and very nervous.

My excitement comes from chance I’ll have to continue to do SEO, while getting the opportunity to also do Social Media, Web & Graphic Design (my true passions), and more.

My nervousness comes from a general fear of change, up to and including missing my friends (and hoping the PTMS continues to do well after I leave), missing bringing my dog to work, and the change in the every day reality that has been my life for the last three years.

Whatever the outcome, it WILL be a shock to my system initially as is the case with any big change or transition.

Do I think I’ll do great work at my new job? Hell yes. Am I sad to leave the awesome people I work with now? Hell yes. Will the change to my every day reality take time to get used to? I’m sure it will.

Most importantly, will I be happy? I think yes

I’ve heard that they say in order for a door to open, another must close. This is absolutely true, but it sure can leave an empty feeling when you do close some doors. Here’s hoping that everyone does well, and that we see each other often. Although the paths of our journeys are now changing, they’ll be sure to cross again some day.

Okay enough with the mushy philosophical stuff!

Check back soon for some good-old SEO awesomeness!!!

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Title Tag Optimization: A Comprehensive Guide to Writing Effective Titles for SEO

noreply@blogger.com (sheikmun) — Wed, 27 Apr 2011 18:27:00 +0000

For a blog about SEO, its been quite a while since I’ve written a post about the topic of Search Engine Optimization. Well, that’s about to change. Over my next few posts we’re going to be hitting proper SEO techniques hard!

We’ll be starting with a comprehensive guide to optimizing your site’s title tags. Writing good title tags is one of the most important aspects of SEO, and is the backbone of any solid Search Engine Optimization program. But before we get into tactics involved with writing good title tags, lets first identify where it is on your site and where it will show up in search engines.

The title tag is the text that appears on your browser’s title bar. A title is required in every HTML and XHTML document.

You can find your title tag in your site’s source code:

Columbus SEO Expert + Search Engine Optimization Tips + Agent SEO

You can find your title in your site’s browser window:

See your title in your the search results:

Okay, now we know what and where you title is. Let’s get on to tips on how to compose it effectively for SEO.

Okay, here comes a baseball reference. Think of your homepage as your clean-up hitter and your site’s internal pages as the rest of the lineup. Your cleanup hitter (i.e. homepage) should be the page that gives you the most production and should have the most power. Your site’s internal pages should be built in support of your homepage, should act as a supplement to your homepage’s optimization efforts, should get into far more detail about your site, but should be able to stand on their own two feet in terms of ranking abilities.

Your homepage typically wields the most ranking power and should be used to target the most top-level generalized keywords. Your site’s internal pages typically wield less power (especially the deeper they are in the site), but can be much more targeted in terms of keyword focus and conversion opportunities (i.e. long-tailed keywords).

The length of your title tags is a very important matter. If you’re familiar with search results, you’ll notice that search engines typically only display so much of your webpage’s title before it cuts them off with an ellipsis (…).

Based on my research and experience, here are the average character space lengths allowed in titles before the cutoff, along with the max length I’ve seen:

Google: average if 66 character spaces, max of 70Bing: average if 65 character spaces, max of 71

What I’ve see is that if your title tag is over 70 characters, the search engines will find an appropriate place to cut it off. If it’s right at around 70, then they’ll typically allow the full title to show.

The moral of the story is that you need to maximize the space available to you in the title tag – for now that’s about the first 65-70 character spaces. This means that you should try to focus on only 2-3 keyword phrases per page as that is probably all you’ll be able to fit within reason.

Stay away from title tags that are too short (shorter than 50 character spaces) as those waste valuable space, and try to stay away from writing titles that are too long (anything over 80 is too long) as there is a diminishing return after the title gets cut off – not to mention that nobody typically reads after the cutoff point and it might look like spam to a search engine (if you use it to stuff keywords).

This one is a no-brainer. Use your target keywords in your title tag. For example, if your website’s main purpose is to sell an “Apple,” then you’re going to want to mention that in your title tags.

Before doing that, you’ll need to conduct extensive keyword research to determine which keywords are best for your site.

Search engines are all about relevance – meaning they are in the business of displaying the most relevant results for any given search query. In order to meet that criteria, you’re going to have to ensure that the keywords that you’re using in your site’s title tags are relevant to the content on the page.

For example, let’s say you have an internal page on your site about “D’Arcy Spice Apples.” Which of the following title tags would you consider to be more relevant?

D’Arcy Spice Applies – Yellowish-Green Apples – Agent SEO

If you’re thinking like a search engine, then you’d probably guess that the second title is more relevant to the term “D’Arcy Spice Apples.” You’d be right!

In addition, having title tags that are highly correlated with on-page content is good for both usability and click-through rates. If a user is searching specifically for D’Arcy Spice Apples, then they’ll be more likely to click on a title that says as much. Also, if they’re looking for D’Arcy Spice Apples and they land on a page that is about something different, that could be a turn off which will lead to more bounces and poor user engagement/conversion.

Keywords at the front of a title tag tend to have more weight and ranking power than those at the back of a title tag – or those that are past the cut-off point. Therefore, you should place your most important keywords should be at the beginning of the title.

For example, if on your homepage you wish to target the keyword “green apples” as your most important target keyword and “red apples” as your 2nd most important keyword, then it might make sense to write a title similar to this:

Green Apples – Red Apples – Agent SEO

If you’re really targeting the keyword “Green Apples,” then it wouldn’t make sense to write a title like this:

Red Apples – Agent SEO – Green Apples

Pretty self explanatory. But this is the easy part. You’ll see that there are far more dynamics that go into writing an effective title tag out than just listing keywords in order of importance. Please remember, its about maximizing the space!

While simply repeating keywords over and over again may have worked with SEO 2004, that is simply not necessary today. There is no need to be repetitious in your keyword usage within the title tag. Instead, try to think of ways you can combine phrases so as to give you more room to add other relevant phrases to the title tag.

For example, this keyword phrase is 25 character spaces long:

This one is only 18 character spaces long:

That’s a difference of 7 character spaces, and you’ve still targeted both keywords. I know 7 may not seem like a lot, but when you only have 70 to work with every little bit counts. Remember, search engines are smart so they can match and map keywords together to determine relevance. Use that to your advantage in order to maximize your space.

Okay, here’s where it gets tricky. I will flat out tell you that nothing beats a good old exact-match phrase in your title tag in terms of relevance. For example, if somebody is searching for “Green Apples, ” a title tag that says “Green Apples” should win out of one that says “Green & Red Apples” if all things are equal.

The issue is keyword proximity. Keyword strings that appear closer together are better than having to rely on a search engine’s ability to match them together. Consider the following sentence…

The boy jumped over the red fence carrying an apple.

In a round-a-bout way, the above sentence could be considered somewhat relevant to the term red apple. A search engine would loosly be able to distinguish this. But is it more relevant to the term “Red Apple” than a sentence that says…

I think not.

The issue here that you must find is balance. If you only want to target the keywords “Green Apple” and “Red Apple” then writing a title tag like the one below makes more sense:

Green Apple – Red Apple – Agent SEO

However, if you have a need to target more keywords, then you’ll need to work in combinations rather than exact-match phrases by necessity.

Green & Red Apples – Planting Orchards – Agent SEO

Hopefully that helped demystify the issue a bit.

I have a couple of opinions on brand names.

Brand names help create trust. Therefore, it is important to use them in your site’s title tags. For example, Nike’s click-through rate is probably a bit higher than that of a blog talking about Nike shoes simply due to the brand trust factor alone.However, unless your brand has a very important keyword in it, put it at the end of all title tags. Remember, important keywords need to go towards the front of all title tags, so putting your brand name at the front of every tag inadvertently steals weight from your target keywords.

Your title tags for ever webpage should be unique and different. Why? Well, since Google only displays a max of two results from one site in the SERPs, then having multiple pages with the same title may make it difficult for them to determine which one is more deserving of being ranked. In this case, they may choose to rank none at all.

Think of it like reading a book. If you’re skimming the table of contents and see that all the chapters have the same name, how will you be able to quickly jump to a highly-specific point in that book with any confidence? You won’t. You’ll just put it back down, and so will a search engine.

Duplicate title tags can cause the appearance of duplicate content, which may cause some pages to get stuck under a search engine’s filters – which is the opposite of what you want. This can be done by accident, negligence, or on purpose. Either way, its something that should be corrected.

Every webpage and every title has to be able to stand on its own two feet in terms of ranking in search engines. Its perfectly okay to have title tags that are very similar, but having duplicates really hinders their individual ability to be highly relevant to the site’s on-page content, and thus for any search queries.

“Stop-Words” are words that are extremely common (pronouns, prepositions, etc) that most search engines skip over in order to save disk space, or to speed up indexing. They have no inherent value to a search engine.

Some of the stop-words: a, about, an, as, are, but, be, or, and, and there are many others.

Try to avoid using them if at all possible. The best example I can think of was a client a while back whose homepage title started with, “The official website of the…”. This was pretty bad, and a tremendous waste of space in terms of optimization of target keywords.

This one is up to you. I’d say using dashes (-), the (&) symbol is okay. Hell, I even use plus signs in my titles (thinking about changing that). However, I’d stay away from using other symbols that may just serve to waste space such as the (©), (®), or (™) symbol.

Here is a full list of HTML Accent Entity codes that I refer to often.

If you service a specific geo-area, then you’re probably going to need to mention it in your title tag in order to show up for a local search query such as “Green Apples Columbus Ohio.” I’d recommend something like:

Green Apples – Columbus OH – Agent SEO

Important note: Make sure that the use of a geo-term correlates with similar use within your site’s content or it won’t be as effective.

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Anyhow, hope this helps you write better title tags. Let me know if you have any questions!

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Flash & SEO? Not for Us Anymore!

noreply@blogger.com (sheikmun) — Wed, 27 Apr 2011 14:31:00 +0000

Over the years, I’ve been a staunch follower of the simple understanding that for Google et al to “read” your website HTML pages, it needs to find them. The HTML, that is…it must be totally findable, searchable, readable and indexable. And there’s the “rub” when it comes to those beautifully designed Flash sites, eh….

And my own thinking, based on actual trial and error testing, appears to be vetted by many many other SEO practitioners on the web…folks whose thoughts and blogs and counsel I follow religiously. Most of us think and agree, that using Flash is a serious mistake in the SEO ranking world. It adds too too many obstacles to what should be a solid process and it makes you use work-arounds to get anything done. It’s time time time and that as you all know by now, is that costs dollars and that is why we take on no new clients who insist on a full Flash site. Oh, eye-candy navigation is fine…we SEO around that, but a single HTML page holidng a monolithic Flash .swf? Nope…not for us!

On point, here’s a link to a recent post on her blog, by Jill Whalen of HighRankings.com, a noted SEO practitioner from Massachusetts that she also sent out on her blog too (here’s a link for the signup) and she noted as I’ve always done too, that Flash is a non-starter!

And she tested for same, using real-world methodology. She went and found keyphrases in the Flash content of a test Flash website page, plugged same into Google and searched….and almost all were not found. The couple that were, used both the Meta description tag or had those keywords placed below the Flash embed itself to try to help. And Jills comment here is very apropos –

“While that’s a good alternative, the info they had was very different from the info contained in their Flash. That’s a bit of a dangerous game to play with the search engines, if you ask me. If that info is good enough for search engines and iPhones, why isn’t it good enough for your most important users?”

You should go and read that piece, and see what else she tested for, what the results were too…all solid counsel from a great SEO practitioner, eh!

My Canadian SEO disclaimer: we have only 1 client (a graphic designer shop) who uses a full Flash site, ie not just for some eye-candy navigation, but for the whole site. And so far how are they doing? Well like most designers, the look and feel is beautiful….but like most Flash folks it was built in one monolithic Flash file that sat on 1 single HTML page…..ie very very bad SEO!

But they listened and then reworked all of their 25+ pages by breaking them all down into single HTML pages, that we can use for seperate title tags, H1's, image alt’s, H2's, keyword placements, footer tags, outbound links…etc. etc. They listened, as I said, and they’re slowly climbing their rankings in this region….it’s still Flash, yes….but indexing is happening and link building too….it’s all about work-arounds and time time time…sigh….but yes, they are ranking in spite of Flash, and not because of it, eh!

So, Flash and SEO? Is this a marriage that we seek? Nope, not even a little….your mileage of course may vary, but if you want SEO serps, you need to get indexed to rank….and until Flash is transparent to googlebots, it’s not happening here!

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Why Opinion Blogging Has to Be More Than Just Attitude on Paper

noreply@blogger.com (sheikmun) — Wed, 27 Apr 2011 10:25:00 +0000

Today we’ve got a guest post from a good friend of mine, Dr. Erika Pryor. Erika and I met a couple months ago through Twitter and our respective blogs, and have since become fast friends. I’ve had the pleasure of guest hosting on her radio show, and now I’m trying to return the favor (although a guest post isn’t nearly as cool as radio).

Erika is an Independent Digital Communication consultant who works with a variety of business professionals and small businesses on digital identity, social media, blogging, content development and more. She blogs at “Erika Pryor At Large.” She is also host and content director of Internet radio show, Digital 411 — heard exclusively on TalktainmentRadio.com, recorded live 10am EST, Saturday mornings. It’s a “soft tech” radio show exploring what’s happening on the social web from the user’s perspective.

And now, I give up the floor to Erika…

—

I’m pretty stoked to be guest posting on the Agent SEO blog. Since I know enough to be dangerous when it comes to SEO — but I’m lethal when it comes to the social media side of things I couldn’t resist the opportunity to share my love of social media with Jake’s readers. So, thanks Jake for the invite. (And I figured you wouldn’t mind having one less blog article to think about while starting your new “suit and tie” gig!)

So, let’s get to it. Why opinion blogging has to be more than just attitude on paper? I’m not sure what lingo you prefer, opinion or personality bloggers, but whichever they are I don’t much care for them — that is until recently. In a rare admission I declare here that I was a bit of a blogger snob. (This won’t surprise people who actually know me IRL!) I still am. I’m typically interested in reading blogs to learn something new, and frequently the content I found on personality blogger sties was a little contrived. I felt as though they were just spitting out some attitude on paper to incite throngs of readers to react in disparate opposition to one another.

BORING!

I mean really, isn’t that what traditional media already does? As bloggers — we have to continue to be a little outside the mainstream in order to keep mainstream media on their toes. Right? We’ll I wasn’t exactly sure.

So, like a good blogger, I experimented with on my platform. I wrote a few pieces relatively close together less on the informative side, and more on the sharp opinion side. Here are some of the titles to titillate you “Now we’re concerned about mediocrity: My response to Why Rebecca Black is Every one’s Fault,” and “Why Face time is essential to your niche community.” As the top rated posts on my blog during the month of March, I realized why opinion bloggers are making inroads with readers.

First, the ones that are doing well are doing so because they are honest. For example, a personality blogger that did help change my opinion on things. Sarah Storer of The Naked Red Head. She’s all about some honesty. What I appreciate about her work is that she’s brutally honest. She has this whole theory of soul puking which you have to check out. None the less, opinion can function well when it’s an authentic or honest take on something.

Next, I think personality blogging can really work well to expand the voice of a blog. I don’t know about you, but I’ve been writing on the same topics for a while and have gotten a little bored. In thinking about how to expand the range of topics I write about with alienating my readers, I’ve found some success with including more sharp opinion pieces. This can be a way to expand your topic family without going off the deep end.

Finally, to be a good personality blogger, you need to have more than one platform. Okay, this might seem a little strange, but consider each social media and traditional media channel has it’s own personality with audiences that have expectations. This is really another great way to expand your audience and reach because you’re revealing different aspects of your personality and using the medium to help shape that growth. That seems like a pretty smart way to operate.

So, what do you think about personality bloggers? Any good or horrific sites you’d like to share?

—

Thanks for the post Erika! It came at a time of great need, with my wedding coming up, school, job change, etc. However, the job is going well so far, although I may never be able to get used to the suit and tie.

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My Story: Facing Adversity, Believing In Yourself, Kicking the Door Down, and Knowing Your Value

noreply@blogger.com (sheikmun) — Wed, 27 Apr 2011 07:24:00 +0000

Today we’re going to get a little personal as I’ve been apt to do lately and talk about a few things that can often be tough subjects – especially in a work environment.

I recently finished my first week at my new job, and let me tell you it has been everything I expected – fun, challenging, and a bit eye-opening in many regards. As the new Internet Marketing Director at Germain of Columbus, I’ve had to make some fundamental changes to how I go about my day.

These would include shifting my mindset from just SEO or Social Media to working on a holistic marketing approach that evaluates every angle, going from being the vendor to managing them, and – my least favorite change – wearing a suit and tie to work. But hey, it comes with the territory.

The reason I talk about these changes is just this – I am a long way from where I was personally and professionally about 6 years ago. This post will by no means be to toot my own horn. Rather, it will be more about the power of believing in yourself, knowing your value, overcoming adversity and naysayers, and showing what a little elbow-grease can do.

So time to tell my story…

Six years ago, I had just quit the worst job of my life as a Part-Time Supervisor at UPS and was working 7 days a week at Staples and Petland to pay the bills. I dropped out of Ohio State University while at UPS as I couldn’t afford to finance the large out-of-pocket tuition payments that Financial Aid and UPS’ tuition reimbursement programs didn’t cover.

I had ZERO experience in anything related to marketing except my few graphic design programs at OSU. I repeat, ZERO experience! If you’d told me six years ago that I’d be doing anything of importance, I’m not sure if I’d have believed it. My outlook on life was very bleak.

There we two month stretches where I didn’t have but 1 day off of work. I honestly hated life and felt I’d been dealt a really shitty hand. I felt so out of control of my own destiny.

And then, things changed. Fate intervened. At the time, I couldn’t have known it but I was about to be introduced to a person who has had a bigger impact on my life than just about anyone else – save for my fiance (although he had a part in that too).

Who is that person? The well-known Eric Leslie (aka @BeOnScene).

Eric just happened to be dating the best friend of my ex-girlfriend. Luckily, that friend had talked to Eric about my background in graphic design and he was able to work his connections to get me a job at his company, the now-defunkt Cornerstone Local Marketing Services.

When I started at that company, there were two sides to the business. One side was a pure call center, and the other side – which Eric managed – did internet marketing. At first, I was put in the call center.

I was super-appreciative that Eric had given me the opportunity to get out of my 7-day a week hell, but I’ll be the first to say that talking on phones (and making cold calls) is not my forte. In fact, I even made a few calls where I got too flustered and hung up on the person I was calling. Imagine that, a cold caller that hangs up on you?!?

At the moment that I was surely on the brink of being fired for being a horrible telecommunications rep, Eric was kind enough to move me onto his team and take me under his wing a bit. And then, he effectively enabled me to kick the door down and begin to unlock the keys to what I didn’t know then would be my career path.

At first, I did cold-calls (yet again) to try to get people to sign up for Yahoo listings, but then I graduated into being allowed to to utilize my graphic design experience to tinker with people’s sites.

An the somewhere, it happened. From humble beginnings, I began my career as a web designer – tinkering with logos and graphics on people’s websites! Here was the problem. I had no idea how to design websites?!? I had always been a graphic designer, never a web designer.

In addition, I also had little experience with design software at the time – as most of my design courses at OSU were beginner courses. I had a HUGE learning curve.

So there was my fork in the road. I had a decision to make. I was given a great opportunity to take my graphic design skills and try to translate those into web design skills for a company that at the time barely sold websites.

What did I do? I bought a book. Where did I start? On the Blogger platform if you can believe it. The first design software I ever semi-used? Adobe Fireworks.

From there, I dedicated all waking hours to learning how to become a web designer – from learning that first bit of HTML code all the way to creating really (what I thought were) good-looking websites.

This part of my life involved little sleep, and many nights of being up till 4AM and going to work at 8AM for very little pay. It was quite a struggle to say the least. It was an amazing time and – slowly but surely – I was able to overcome that huge learning curve (although I’ll always have much more to learn).

But little did I know the real work was just beginning.

Being an unproven commodity is quite a thing to get your head around. Besides the part where you have to prove your worth, you will always start out as the only one who believes in yourself. Nobody else will.

There were literally times when I would get my paycheck, add up my bills, and realize that even if I spent $0 I’d still be in the red.

Sometimes it made me want to quit, made me question if I was going down the right path or not. Was it worth it in the long-run?

What I Will Say About Adversity:

Are there people out there who have faced or face more adversity than me? Of course. However, what I will say is that overcoming adversity is hard. If it were easy, then everyone would be skipping around with happy lives, happy jobs, and nobody would ever have any problems.

But we know that isn’t the real world. The real world is tough and unforgiving. If you want to succeed you have to do a couple things, work hard and work smart.

In my life, I’ve run myself into the ground working hard, but where I finally started to catch breaks was when I started to work smart. Sometimes people are lucky, and I have been lucky in many regards – meeting Eric for example at just the right time in my life. However, I wouldn’t rely on luck as it will only take you so far. Work smart and you’ll get opportunities to prove your worth eventually.

I’ve been told I don’t believe in myself enough. That is NOT true. There are many ways to believe in yourself and show confidence – and not all of them involve pounding your chest in front of everyone.

Believing in yourself comes from deep within. It is that feeling that gives you knots, that spurns you on to try harder, to learn more, to keep picking yourself up by your bootstraps when you fall.

And so, as we progressed at Cornerstone Marketing Services our team developed to and we were able to launch a retail marketing and web design initiative called Your Marketing Corner in Columbus and Orlando. The team in Columbus (where most of the work came through) was led my Eric, and included myself along with Aaron Flax.

As we were churning out websites for clients here in the U.S. and even in Latin America, we began to notice one thing. They sites we were building – although pretty – were not doing so well in the search engines.

And – much like my start in web design – I saw my opportunity to begin learning Search Engine Optimization (SEO). So how do you learn SEO? Well, I’ll say it isn’t like design. I couldn’t go and get a degree, or learn too much from books.

How I learned SEO was by obsessively reading blogs and forums about it by industry leaders. It is for that reason that I try to pay it forward to this day. I owe those SEO bloggers my career – even if they don’t know it.

What drove me? Besides my own internal desire to be better, there was one statement from a manager (not Eric or Aaron) that really stuck in my crawl. I was told:

If you’re going to be a designer, be a designer. If you’re going to be an SEO, be an SEO. Most people can’t do both.

I thought that was bullshit then, and I do now! Although it is true that most people with those competencies compartmentalize and don’t branch out, I have a strong belief that the two go hand-in-hand.

In fact, from then on I completely understood who I was, what my value was, and where I had to go (see below).

What I Will Say About Believing in Yourself:

If you don’t believe in yourself, nobody else will. It starts with you! Now this isn’t to say that you have to be all “rah-rah” cheerleader-glass-half-full all the time, but you have to have the internal confidence that believes in you even when nobody else does (and that may happen).

This can be a struggle, and sometimes you may feel quite alone. But when you finally succeed, it is totally worth it!

When somebody cracks that door, kick that f@$#ing thing down!!! Opportunities don’t come very often, so when they do you have to take advantage.

For me, the crack started when I was given an opportunity by Steve White, Jen Ridenour, and Julie Brown to join People To My Site in 2008 as a full-time SEO analyst.

It was kind of cool to change from being full-time web designer/part-time SEO to full-time SEO/part-time web designer – although I may never be rid of my true passion for design.

From there, I’ve started this blog (which was one of the best things I’ve ever done), was promoted to SEO Director at PTMS, and then 3 years later was lucky enough to land the position I’m currently in as Internet Marketing Director at Germain of Columbus.

It’s crazy! I went from mopping floors, stocking shelves, and selling pets to designing websites and having a great – and probably career-defining – job in such a short time span.

I’ve barely had time to catch my breath and realize how much my life has changed for the better.

What I Will Say About Kicking the Door Down:

If someone gives you a chance and you’re smart enough to recognize the opportunity, then work your ass off the exceed their expectations at every turn. If you can continue to exceed expectations, other opportunities will come, and other doors can then be kicked down.

Half the battle is knowing when you have a good opportunity versus when you have a great opportunity. Again, this is where working smart helps. Don’t always take the first opportunity that comes along, take the BEST opportunity that comes along (referencing when looking for jobs). And don’t put money as the number one factor. It helps, but it isn’t always what makes you happiest!

As I referenced above, it is very important to know your value – even if nobody else does. For me, it was being a combination web designer/SEO/blogger/social media punk. That combination of skill sets is what makes me different.

For you, it could be something else. The key is knowing what makes you unique and different from everyone else, knowing what type of value can then be associated with that difference, and getting others to realize it too! This may not be easy, but never let people get you down and tell you you’re not with what you think you’re worth.

In fact, when somebody tries to knock you down a peg, take it as a challenge to prove them wrong. If you think you’re worth 40k, 50k, or more – or think you deserve to be treated with more respect, prove it.

If you can prove it, then there will be somebody out there who will see that value and give you a chance. Either that, or you’ll realize that what you’re worth isn’t something that can be measured by money or respect. In that case, you may choose to go on your own.

To each his own.

—

To my readers: Sorry that this post got long-winded, but I had a lot that I wanted to get off my chest. It’s not to blow my own horn or anything, but just to tell the story of how I got to be where I am.

It is my hope that there is somebody now who might be in the situation I was six years ago who might benefit by knowing if they can work hard and smart, that there is a chance they can be both professionally successful and happy in the not-so-distant future.

The moral of the story is sort of cliche: You can do anything you set your mind to if you work hard, work smart, know & believe in yourself, know your true value, and take advantage of opportunities when they come.

Hey, it happened to me! I have a great job, a beautiful fiancé, I’m back in school, and I’m very happy for one of the rare times in my life! And it all happened despite the fact that I was totally down and out six years ago. What a difference some time and hard work makes.

P.S. Sorry for the creepy picture and bushy eyebrows. I took it myself.

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RankTracker: SEO Ranking Software Review

noreply@blogger.com (sheikmun) — Wed, 27 Apr 2011 03:37:00 +0000

We live and breathe, SEO. We run reports daily, sometimes twice a day and when Google makes changes like so many times last year, we run them three or four times daily. We compare and contrast what we find in the rankings and then hypothesize as to the “why” the Google algo handled our client’s sites and in what manner we can learn from same. SEO is our life, and for that we of course, like to use the absolutely top-notch BEST tools out there.

So for serp ranking reports, one must somehow find them all, test them all and then decide which “works” for your business best….which is exactly what we did 6 months ago. We were using at that time WebPositionGold4…which we’d tested and had been using for over 5 years. We liked WP4 and it’s methodology of handling all of the variables that such serp ranking software finds issues with and we were very very sad to learn that the owners of same, decided to deprecate the stand-alone desktop version in favour of an online version. We hate online apps, and that’s even more prevalent IMHO when it comes to ranking a clients SEO Campaign. WP4 worked perfectly for us on the desktop – we ran reports, dozens of same weekly on over two dozen client campaingns and only once or twice in the 5 years we used that software, were there ever any issues with that process….and the WP4 support team provided updates for those items within days.

But as I said, the WP4 folks stopped the app from being updated and all of us desktop users were out of luck. I would offer that I did attempt to buy the app from them…oh, it would’a stretched our cash-flow out dramatically I’m sure, but they were not interested in selling same. So, as of last fall, I was “out” of SEO ranking software. And the search began in earnest to find a replacement.

Google searches of course, led me to a short list of what seemed to be the major serp software, desktop versions only mind you, that were out there, and I worked my way through my short list carefully…and what I was interested in was ONLY ranking software desktop apps….I didn’t want to at that point, even think about as suite of SEO apps, just the one that would show me and my clients how their sites were ranking. This also shortened the list down to the following top three contenders…

As you can see, from what must be thousands of these apps out there, I knew enough to check with other SEO peers, and had lots of anecdotal evidence and forums and boards to go and learn what others thought of same to be able to get to the highest rated serp ranking apps out there.

And I tested, after downloading and installing their trial versions, I did what anyone else might do, I used three of my own sites to test for the full serp ranking functionality of each of these three apps. And I was surprised….almost at once…at the speed that only one offered right outta the box. RankTracker kicked ass!

I ran over 300 keywords for one site and the report was done and I was looking at it – i.e. it completed then used those serps to create the report in under 4 minutes. Done. I was looking at thoses rankings in less time than what my older software used to “initialize…” and that was a real eye opener, eh! My older WP4 software took 21 minutes to run that same set….so I was a happy canuck camper for that simple speed increase! The other contenders were still warming up when RankTracker was done. Score 1 for RankTracker, eh!

Okay, so it was much much quicker than the other two apps….but were the rankings true…after all, that’s why you buy an SEO serp ranking app, eh?

Did it report what a simple Bing or Google search would show – with all the various filters and screenings turned off…ie to give complete default rankings? And answer is – yes! Well, a caution here….things don’t “always” work that way anymore, in that what I might find to be a ranking in my hometown might differ from what someone in Las Vegas or Boston or Seattle might find…that’s a fact we’ve learned. But here locally, I can say that after testing I believe almost 100 keywords one by one by one by one….sigh….RankTracker had one variation only, by 3 positions on the second page….it showed the keyword phrase to be #14 and a manual search showed it to be #11….so I’m more than happy with that level of reliable true rankings. I also of course, tested the other two apps, and found that both were about the same, they both reported only 3 or 4 errors against what I’d manually tested….so while they were also very good, score 2 for RankTracker.

So, speed? Check! True rankings? Check…but what else did that app offer, you might wonder?

Things I’d not much ever thought about reared up quickly. I could simply use HTML to change the look/feel of the reports I wanted to generate. Scheduling reports? Yes, RankTracker allowed me to setup complete scheduling for various clients and their ranking reports to be done. Competitor tracking? Yes, RankTracker allows me to track a client against their top 10 competitors. KEI for keywords and phrases? Yes, RankTracker features that too. Human emulation for search engine timing issues? Yup, once again RankTracker offered up this workaround to solve CAPTCHA issues with the search engines too. FTP of reports/files/folders up to client sites for their review? Yup, RankTracker does that too…and that made the overall score in favour of RankTracker, eh!

Is it any wonder then that I chose this app?

The other two on my list did some/most of those items that I needed but not all, only RankTracker fitted our needs. So I did what any other SEO practitioner would do, I bought the Enterprise version of same, and it’s been running here daily ever since.

You just can’t beat quality, eh….and RankTracker is just that. A quality SEO ranking desktop based software application!

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Outbrain: Content Discovery Report is Out!

noreply@blogger.com (sheikmun) — Tue, 26 Apr 2011 23:42:00 +0000

Okay, you’re thinking who’n heck is this “Outbrain” group and why should I pay any attention at all…which is perhaps a valid query in today’s harried and hurried times. But this one is very interesting, folks…and let me explain why, eh!

Outbrain is found here…and their About Us page says the following –

“We all love how Netflix recommends movies and how Amazon gives us great recommendations for books we would enjoy reading right? Here at Outbrain, we are doing the same for blog and article content on the web. Information overload is real and growing as the amount of content on the web grows exponentially. We are committed to helping readers of blogs and media sites find the best content that is most relevant to them on a personal basis…”

What I guess they mean is that they help sites to monetize the great content found on that site, thru a variety of means and allow your website visitors to get to your great content while using sponsored links to monetize that great content. Seems like a model that has existed online for a bit, but that’s not what this blog post is about — instead, I wanted to point out the release of the new Outbrain Content Discovery trends report that you can find here…

Basically, what they did was they used their own archived data of more than 100 million sessions to distill down some very intersting stats to see how readers are accessing content, where they’re finding it and how they’re engaging with that content. And the results are in, eh and somewhat surprising….

While search still reigns supreme in terms of directing traffic to content pages (41% of external referrers), social is gaining share at 11%.Of the six content verticals examined, stories in the news, entertainment and lifestyle categories are the most likely to receive traffic from social sources.Traffic coming from social media sources has the highest tendency to bounce.

But there’s more, eh!

Very interestingly I noted that currently, search methods (including Google, AOL Search, Bing, Yahoo and Ask) send the largest slice of referral traffic to content. Links from publisher sites make up 31% of referral traffic to content pages, portal homepages (AOL.com, Yahoo.com, MSN.com) account for 17% of traffic, and finally, social media sites (Facebook, Twitter, StumbleUpon, Fark.com, reddit, Digg) send 11% of traffic to content pages.

Download the report itself here if you’d like and then DO pay attention to the explanation of the above piechart….it has some very interesting numbers there that help to rationalize IMHO, the whole SEO Campaign strategy….and the coming-on-strong social media blitz too!

And my conclusions after a solid read of this report are yes, very similar to their own…”though traditional methods like search still reign supreme, we’re keeping a close eye on new trends such as social sharing and the increasing openness of content sites to link freely to one another…”

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Google +1: Reviews when You Need Them?

noreply@blogger.com (sheikmun) — Tue, 26 Apr 2011 20:37:00 +0000

Well, keeping up with Google is a real chore at times and a new, just launched program entitled “Google +1? has entered the online social mileu in the last few days. And what do I think? Ummm…well, here’s the skinny on this attempt by Google to try to IMHO, institute a new “social” indicator into their web results.

First, do go to that link and look over the video that explains what it is Google is attempting to “do” by instituting such a new method for those of us who wish to “review” a site, can do so. When you’re done that, come on back….

Back? Okay, so, what’d you learn? Did you hear the comment that “when you click +1, you’re telling your friends etc, that this is something you should check out!” In other words, you’re reviewing the link and offering up a postive review…least that’s how I read this….it’s a method for Google to collect reviews for web result links.

Here’s a quick sceenshot of what I see when I’m “in” the test program and have made a search…i.e. the new +1 button is now there — click to enlarge…

Here’s a quick screenshot of what I get (after enrolling in this test and making a click or two) here — click to enlarge…

Okay, so what you ask? Yes I do see the new bluish +1 buttons there on the far left hand side of the web results URLs…and I note that below it says “You +1'd this”…but so? IMHO, the addition of this is a “nice try” for Google, but I also think that there are already folks out there trying to “game” this new social ranking tool and that’s a worry always. I’ll wait and see, of course…but will be watching carefully, eh….as should all SMBs out there!

Well, let’s go a step further shall we? Google says this about this new program…”we will record information about your +1 activity in order to provide you and other users with a better experience on Google services…”

Oh, by the way, this whole area, i.e. the +1 reviews is all controlled by your own Google Profile area…here’s my own for instance for you to see what I’ve setup and your own will be similar of course…you can not keep those reviews a secret either, as the program is totally open to the web results searcher. Anything you therefore review by clicking on the +1 icon in a web results page WILL be indexed by Google and WILL be available for all others to see if that URL comes up again in a later search.

So, your comments are open for all to see….which, if you think about it, is a good thing, eh! Which gets me back to my point here….which is

So….think about using this…it’s an attempt as I said for Google to “move” into the social stratosphere…and from my own tinkering with same over the past couple of days, it’s interesting to say the least!

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SEO CatchUp: Monday Matters…

noreply@blogger.com (sheikmun) — Tue, 26 Apr 2011 18:12:00 +0000

Hey all….we’ve been so wrapped up in various client matters that this morning I’d just like to catch up with many great items out there in the SEO world!

To begin, yes, Google has made a change in their own branded online review process which “used” to be the Google HotPot….but no longer, eh!

First, we pointed out this move by Google back last fall, here…and then reviewed same specifically on HotPot here…and then commented more on how Yelp was handling this foray into review/ratings here…

Official news on this change, whereby Google is “rolling” the HotPot process “into” Google Places can be found here…and they go on to say this –

“Rolling Hotpot into Google Places helps simplify the connection between the places that are rated and reviewed and the more than 50 million places that already have an online presence through Google Places—places that millions of people search for and find every day on Google…”

As you will be able to make the same “use” of the old HotPot process but now via the Google Places page, it’s really (so far at least) not that much of a change, but one that other SEO types have commented on too…Greg Sterling here and Mike Blumenthal here….and thanks to both for pointing out some real-world numbers and stats too, eh!

Majestic has a new item too, that is very much worth mention in this SEO roundup….and that’s the rollout of their brand new Site Explorer dashboard!

If you’re a Majestic user when it comes to using the biggest set of site stats around, then you’d already know that while the information is a MAJOR factor in planning SEO tactics, the format has always been somewhat “thick.” What I mean is that every time I’d login to see the latest Site Explorer stats, I’d have to work and work at assembling the data in a way that was of value to me and my clients. That’s gone now, as they’ve launched a new dashboard that makes the Majestic Site Explorer so much easier to fathom…and I’m a happy camper too on that update! Just watch the video and you’ll see what I mean! Well done Majestic!

The folks over at e-Marketer, have compliled a new 2011 Canada Retail ECommerce Forecast that has some surprising numbers and you’d be wise to pop over to that Exec Summary page to take a good read, eh!

It appears that our online e-commerce spending will double in the next 4 years to over $30 billion!

“Retail ecommerce in Canada is late blooming compared with the US. But over the next few years, it will start to realize its potential. In 2010, consumers in Canada spent CAD16.5 billion ($16.0 billion) on domestic and foreign sites for products and services (including travel). By 2015, online spending will nearly double, reaching CAD30.9 billion ($30.0 billion)…”

The Summary goes on to further inform about what we Canucks “buy” and also shows that aggressive US retailers are coming to Canada for new e-commerce opportunitys….I suppose they somehow “missed” the Zappos abandonment of Canada…but I sure didn’t! But it does appear that all the sources for this Forecast are the web’s top ones, eh…ie Forrester, Aegis, StatCan. Has made me think about e-commerce again and how we might talk to some of our retail clients about new opportunities within that channel, eh!

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Best Blog Commenting Systems & Platforms

noreply@blogger.com (sheikmun) — Tue, 26 Apr 2011 14:34:00 +0000

Today we’re going to talk about blog comments and why they’re an effective tool for engaging blog readers and developing relationships. A couple of months back, I decided to shift from using WordPress’ native system to manage my blogs comments to a 3rd-party system.

For me, there were several of reasons:

Spam: The 3rd-party systems have often proved to be better at combating spam comments.Integration: It integrates seamlessly with your WordPress site’s design (and on other platforms too). As a web designer, I enjoy getting my hands dirty with coding, but WordPress’ native comment template can get a bit tricky when you’re designing for nested comments, author comments, etc. So, I decided to take a load off and let a 3rd-party system handle it.Helps Foster Discussion: WordPress comments when left untouched do nothing in the way of getting blog commenters to come back after you’ve replied to their comment (you need a plugin for that). However, these 3rd-party blog comment systems help you foster good conversations, discussions, and interactions right on your blog. Rather than having to opt-in, most users are sent an email when the author replies (or can manage it in their own accounts).Managing All Comments: What I love about blog comment systems is that it gives you the ability to manage comments and interactions on your blog, but also gives you the ability to manage and review comments you’ve left on other blogs, as well as see responses left for you by that blog’s author. Now that’s convenience!Easy Blog Integration: Typically, these commenting systems integrate into the blog fairly easily. As a WordPress user, it was especially helpful that they came with plugins. Basically what happens is the commenting system will attach and skin itself over top of wherever your have installed your comments template on your WordPress single post page (or any other page). This is very easy and convenient!

I’m sure there are more benefits, but those are the ones that have struck me as incredibly positive. So without further adieu, here are the best blog comment systems according to me…

DISQUS is my top pick and is the preferred comments platform here on the Agent SEO blog. You can see it in action below. There are several things that I like about it and a few things that I don’t.

The good:

Flexible options for management of comments, comment moderation, comments template appearance, and access control.Great notification system that lets authors know when a comment is left, and also lets a commenter know when the author has responded to their comment via email. This keeps the conversation going.Easy ability to import and export new & old WordPress comments.My personal favorite: Integration with social media and the display of reactions and trackbacks in the comments (see below). This helps me know who is sharing my blog post on Twitter, etc. and is especially useful if they forget to include my username (which means I wouldn’t see it in my mentions feed on Twitter).The community profiles feature allows you to moderate comments on your blog and manage your own comments and interactions on other blogs all in one basic dashboard.Very good at combating spam, and also gives you the ability to whitelist or blacklist certain users, as well as word filtering.

The bad:

When I originally installed it, it blew up and rendered invalid any scripts outside of the comments template having to do with comment count – for instance the counts underneath post titles or next to popular posts. After much digging, I found that hey have a script that you have to install to correct this comment count issue – it then shows comments and reactions. However, if you’re not familiar with code, then this will be a huge issue.

All in all, my experience with DISQUS has been good and I would recommend it to anyone as my blog comment system of choice. Here is the link to the WordPress DISQUS Comment System plugin.

Intense Debate is another blog comment system that I’ve had experience with. It is very similar to DISQUS and has some good features and some bad features. It was originally my comment system of choice until I decided to switch to DISQUS.

The good:

I actually preferred Intense Debate’s design over that of DISQUS. That’s my inner designer speaking and is very subjective, so take it for what it’s worth.Intense Debate also has a very good email notification system.It does a good job of combating spam and gives you a lot of options for comment moderation and management.I like their idea of ‘Reputation Points’ and ‘Comment Voting’ which helps your blog’s commenters build up their reputation by submitting quality comments.They do have some social media integration, although I don’t quite think it is to the level of DISQUS’ product.It was fairly easy to import & export old WordPress comments.

The bad:

When I originally started using Intense Debate, it did an odd thing. It installed some sort of page reload script that caused my webpage to reload itself about every 30 seconds. This was not good for usability, and their customer service team was unable to help me figure out why that was happening. I’m sure that bug has been worked out, but it wasn’t when I made the switch.I liked the social media integration including reactions on DISQUS much more than those on Intense Debate.

Now don’t get me wrong, I think Intense Debate is a fantastic blog comments platform. However, I still think DISQUS has a bit more to offer in terms of functionality, management, ease-of-integration, and social media characteristics. Here is the link to the The IntenseDebate WordPress Plugin.

Here are a few blog comment systems that I’ve seen and heard good things about but haven’t tried out for myself.

LiveFyre is another real-time blog comments system similar to DISQUS and Intense Debate. Although I haven’t personally used it, from what I’ve seen it is probably most similar to Intense Debate in terms of functionality.

You can see it live in action on Lewis Howes’ blog.

You can learn how to install on your WordPress blog by following the instructions on LiveFyre’s Quick Install page. Just a note, there are some features of this system that are free and some that are paid.

The old commenting system SezWho has since been taken over by Echo, who has repurposed their commenting system and released it to the public under the Echo Commenting name.

From what I can tell, it definitely looks a lot more slick in terms of functionality and design that the old SezWho blog comment system. However, I haven’t tried it out so I wouldn’t know. You can see it live on the Washington Post’s website.

All-in-all it looks like a solid system, although I won’t go as far as to put my stamp of approval on it just yet. Also, it doesn’t appear to be free.

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So now I’d like to ask you to share your thoughts on the above blog comment systems, tell me your likes and dislikes of each, and even introduce a blog comment system that I haven’t listed here. Thanks and have a great day!

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How To Use Google Analytics & Click Distribution Data To Project Traffic Boosts

noreply@blogger.com (sheikmun) — Tue, 26 Apr 2011 10:44:00 +0000

Today’s article is a guest post from Kevin Lenton. Kevin works with companies to build and maintain their online relationships with clients, as well as prepare content geared at high conversion rates. In his spare time he enjoys playing the harmonica – an activity he’s been involved in since the age of 12.

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Most are well aware of the power and benefits of installing Google Analytics to find out who is coming to a website. Many are even aware that you can see exactly what keywords are being searched for to find that website. There are not many out there however, who are aware of the fact that you can use that data to skyrocket your traffic numbers.

If you follow the steps in this guide, you will see a significant traffic boost. The beauty of this strategy is that it is often limitless (depending on how big the market is for any given website). This is also a strategy that works no matter how much traffic you are currently getting. The only requirement is that your website is getting some sort of traffic from search engines. It works best if you are getting 35+ visitors per day via search engines. The more traffic you currently get, the easier this technique will be to implement.

There are dozens of different options for bringing a website live these days. If you are serious about your website/blog and increasing the traffic, you have to prepare for achieving that goal. If you are on a low grade hosting plan, be aware of the consequences associated with going that route. You do not need anything extreme, but a simple plan from a good web hosting provider will suffice. That way, you do not have to worry about your site going down or some sort of security issue arising. The traffic is not going to skyrocket over night, but it is better to switch hosting servers when your site is getting less traffic versus more. There is always that risk of a small downtime when you change servers.

The idea behind this strategy, is that you will be analyzing your current traffic data, to figure out new pages that should be added to your website and/or blog. There is a lot that can be seen from looking into this data. Sure, it is nice to be able to see the keywords that people are searching for and how many visitors you are getting each day, but what good does that do if you are not utilizing the data you are looking at? Depending on the traffic level of your website, there may be dozens (or even thousands) of keyword phrases that are bringing traffic to your website. Many of these are long-tail keyword phrases.

Taking a look at the list of keywords in question, along with where you currently place for those keywords, will allow you to further target them. If you are ranking fairly well for many of these keywords on accident, imagine what you could do if you actually tried to rank for those same keywords?

The theory behind this strategy is simple. Your job is to find keyword phrases that you already rank for (on accident) that bring you traffic. The key is to find phrases for which you rank below #1. If you are already ranking #1 for the keyword, then there is no point in taking this strategy.

The first thing you must do is login to your Google Analytics account and access your keyword data.

Find your way to the dashboard of the website for which you are attempting this strategy.Click on Traffic Sources on the left hand side of the page.This will expand and give you more options. Click on Keywords.On the bottom right hand corner, you will see an option that says Show Rows. Choose the option to show 500 rows.

You should now have a large list of keyword phrases from which to choose. From there, you can scan through and see what keywords are bringing traffic to your website. Additionally, you will be able to see how many visitors have come from each specific keyword phrase. You want to find a keyword phrase that looks like it is bringing in a few visitors and also was not something you were targeting on purpose.

As an example, notice above a list of keywords from a website. The keyword that was chosen was olay return policy.

This keyword brought decent traffic as is.This keyword was not something targeted to rank for.The current ranking is not #1 (it is #5).We do not have a current page revolving around this keyword.

Notice above, that the circled result is where we are currently ranking. Also notice that the page really has nothing to do with olay return policy. If we build a page all about olay return policy, we could easily rank #1 for this keyword phrase.

In the example, the page that currently ranks is an Oil of Olay Skin Care Review page. An option would be to build an additional page added on to this review called Oil of Olay Return Policy. Optimize the page around the keyword phrase olay return policy, and it should rank #1 fairly easy. This is what could be called a low hanging fruit.

According to available click distribution data, there is a significant difference between the 1st and 5th listed ranking results on Google. While approximately 45.46% searchers click on the 1st result when searching for something in Google, only 5.00% click on the 5th result. While this is just a study based on a lot of different variables, and there are far too many involved to get an accurate number, there is still going to be a lot more action from the first result versus the fifth.

In theory, if you were to go off the above study, then olay return policy could yield approximately 73-75 visitors per month if our page ranked #1 instead of #5, where it currently brings in 8 visitors per month. It is likely that the number would be much lower, however there would still be a significant increase in traffic. The numbers above would tell us that traffic could potentially increase more then 900%, at least in traffic from that specific keyword. If you were to rinse and repeat this process with 10 keywords in total, all similar to the example described above, then the numbers would quickly add up.

It is not possible to calculate an exact rate of traffic by analyzing your current traffic. In the example, the percentage of clicks may perhaps be significantly higher than normal, because the results listed above #5 are all irrelevant and do not give the user what they are looking for. They may even notice that right away within the results, and skip straight down to #5. Who knows what the variables could be with your website, but they are worth looking at. Really take your time with your keyword data to figure out the perfect keywords to target.

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A big thanks goes out to Kevin for writing a fantastic guest post!

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Password Protection:Be Secure and Safe!

noreply@blogger.com (sheikmun) — Tue, 26 Apr 2011 07:00:00 +0000

Passwords. We use them every day. We have them for everything from LinkedIN to Facebook, to Twitter to our own WP sites, Paypal, online banking and more. And we’re all at risk, eh!

Why? Well, passwords aren’t so tough to crack, are they? Not really and for me, the remembering has always been the “toughest” part of same. But let me explain, eh while you look over this infographic from ZoneAlarm….

Had a client call just last week and asked if I could help them come up with a better password for their LinkedIN account…seems they’d been hacked somehow and while it was not a big deal in the scheme of things, it was worrisome enough to get them to call us.

My first question was, just how tough had they made their password to begin with…and as is most usual, they had no idea about my point at all. “We just used our company name and then added a 99 at the end….” was their reply and that made me begin to think about this error in judgement.

Why is such a password an “error of judgement” you might ask…and the answer (available from Google of course) is pretty simple….it’s an example of one of the most commonly used passwords out there…so a hacker need not have many skills at all to crack your LinkedIN account. Or your Facebook account. Or your bank account or Paypal account. It’s just that easy, eh! Wikipedia has a very interesting set of pages on this whole topic, and my own fav was here on their Password Cracking one…some stats there that just might be surprising, eh!

Using your name, your spouse’s name, your kids names, your middle name, your maiden name, your street name, your company name…and then just adding a “99? or a “123? is about the most common method that folks use out there. Or just use “password” – that outta work eh? Or “QWERTY” maybe? Or maybe just “123456? might work? Nope….the list of passwords that are most in use covers ALL of these as losers….and that’s to be expected.

Most of the advice you find on the web about passwords is actually pretty dang good. I liked this piece very much by Troy Hunt, a Microsoft MVP, here…who went on to offer both criticism of bad password formulation thinking as well as some further advice on storing of those needed multiple password accounts. You need to read this, as it points out much that is obvious and from a guy who knows, eh! And I love his line “the only secure password is the one you can’t remember” eh!

As you may know, I love the guys over at Sophos, the online security firm and this video from Graham Cluley, is spot-on! Give it a look/see…and you’ll see what I did about a year ago. That this makes great sense….and while my own password has nothing to do with Bedrock citizens, the obfuscation of a phrase that has been a part of my life for decades worked well with me….and Graham made this easy for me to both understand and practice!

Incidentially, the Sophos channel over at youTube is chock full of other videos too…on a wide variety of security tips and tactics…and is well worth bookmarking too, eh!

Passwords. A necessary evil….for those multiple accounts….it’s an issue we all face. But better “faced” than “hacked” eh!

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RankTracker: SEO Ranking Software Review

noreply@blogger.com (sheikmun) — Tue, 26 Apr 2011 04:39:00 +0000

Okay, so it was much much quicker than the other two apps….but were the rankings true…after all, that’s why you buy an SEO serp ranking app, eh?

So, speed? Check! True rankings? Check…but what else did that app offer, you might wonder?

Is it any wonder then that I chose this app?

You just can’t beat quality, eh….and RankTracker is just that. A quality SEO ranking desktop based software application!

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Popping My #CBusr Cherry & Why Taking Online Offline Is Important

noreply@blogger.com (sheikmun) — Tue, 26 Apr 2011 00:54:00 +0000

Last night I popped my #Cbusr Meetup cherry! To quote Austin Powers, “Ooo, Behave!”

First off, I’ll just say that I have a pounding headache, but I guess that just means that I had a good time! Second, it was great to finally meet a lot of awesome people, as well as to catch up with old friends. A big thanks to Woodlands Tavern for hosting, Cheryl Harrison for planning and promoting, and CBusr.com for making it possible for so many local Columbus peeps to connect, and TechLife Ohio for sponsoring.

As far as CBusr goes, I must say I really love what they are doing and I really think they are building a new type of social network – that is, one based around cities and communities. In my opinion, their platform and model could easily translate to other cities (although the name may have to change). It will be interesting to watch where they take it.

I just want to give shout outs to some of my old friends that I was able to catch up with, my online friends who I was able to finally meet in person, as well as those new faces that I had the pleasure of meeting for the first time last night (in no particular order):

I’m sure that I met more than that, but the cloudiness of a slight hangover is stopping me from remembering. Either way, if you’re on the list above or not, I toast you and look forward to attending future events with you!

Also, I got a wicked-awesome CBusr t-shirt! I’m a sucker for cheap (or free) t-shirts…

Note: The Awesome T-Shirt was made by a Local Columbus T-Shirt Company called TraxlerTees. Props to them!

In my opinion, the whole point of social media is to develop relationships. Social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, and in this case CBusr are the tools by which people can start the relationships and interact. The crazy thing is that many of these relationships wouldn’t have been formed otherwise without the platforms.

However, what the platforms are not is an excuse to be lazy. I repeat – social media platforms are not there to enable you to be lazy. If you want to develop relationships, you have to try.

So what I realized earlier this month when I decided to attend the event last night was that I was not practicing what I was preaching. I said to myself, “You’re such an A-Hole. You’re out there telling other people how important it is to develop relationships and you’re not fully following your own advice! Flippin idiot! Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh (Napolean Dynamite reference).”

So for me the next logical step was to take the online offline and start meeting the people I only know on Twitter, etc in real life – i.e. stop being a damned lazy geek and actually be social. Now, since I’m super awkward when it comes to making small talk with strangers, I naturally had a fear of this. BUT the best part about this was that the people I was meeting for the first time weren’t strangers at all.

In fact, there were several people who I’d never met in person in my life who I was able to walk up to and say “Hey (so and so), how’s it going?” and get the same response in return as if we’d known each other for years! I knew people by name as well as things about them without ever meeting them. If you ask me, that is pretty cool – and maybe creepy – but I’ll stick with cool!

I’ve heard people say that meeting social media folks in real life isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. I totally disagree. After last night, I confirmed that belief. Taking it offline is a great way to meet new people, make new friends, develop more trust, solidify relationships, etc. Plus it’s cool to see how people differ from their online persona.

Anyhow, that’s my 2 cents. It was nice to meet everyone and I look forward to seeing you all again in the future.

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21 Major Benefits to Blogging (Not Involving $ But That Could Get You Paid)

noreply@blogger.com (sheikmun) — Mon, 25 Apr 2011 22:01:00 +0000

Starting a blog has been one of the single-smartest things I’ve ever done in my life. However, when I started it I had no clue that it would ever be worth anything whatsoever – let alone a place that has helped me along with a lot of my career goals.

Then – and even now to some extent – its inherent value was only as an “idea” or a representation of who I am personally and professionally. That “idea” is something that nobody can take away from me, and the personal and professional representation of myself is something that I truly consider to be a long-term investment.

I don’t make any money off my blog, and I don’t really intend to right now. However, I perceive its value to be priceless, and many of the positive things that have happened as a result of my blogging are things that can’t be measured right away or by money.

Full disclosure:

In one instance, a business entity (who will go nameless) tried to have me shut my blog down as they perceived it as threatening and undermining. I adamantly refused to shut it down and would have rather been fired or quit.In other instances, I’ve had prospective employers express concern over my blog as they feared it would detract from my dedication to them. I would have flat turned them down for job offers in order to keep my blog up and running. Luckily it never came to that, and lucky for me that my current employer has a very progressive mindset about my blogging.

Photo Credit: www.pinartarhan.com

So without further adieu, here are the 21 major benefits to blogging according to me (in no particular order):

Helps you build a trusted following.Affords you the opportunity to connect with others whom you may not have connected with otherwise.Helps you grow your following (ex: RSS, Email Subscriptions, and especially word-of-mouth).Over time, your subscriber-base will begin to read and share most of what you write.Gives you the opportunity to create a brand around your personality.Gives you an opportunity to show off your personality and what sets you apart from others.Helps to build brand trust around you or your company.Helps to establish or solidify your expertise in your industry.Build and manage your reputation within your industry.Over time, it can become your personal portfolio.Gives you an opportunity to help or teach others.Gives you a chance to promote others and their content (links, guest posts, positive mentions, etc).Can help you build and solidify online (and potentially offline) relationships with your following.Builds long-term SEO equity within search engines.Allows you to target keywords that you may not normally be able to target with your website.Allows your “expertise” to live on forever in search engines (ex: I wrote some posts 2 years ago that still pull significant traffic).Build SEO equity through inbound links back to your root domain (if your blog resides in a subdirectory off that root).Gives you the opportunity to scratch creative itches (for me it’s my web design itch).Allows you to leverage cross-promotional opportunities (ex: social media, promotional posts, etc).Interact with your readers through blog comments.If you’re good enough, eventually you may begin to be included in discussions mentioning and involving your top industry peers (in my case, being mentioned in the same breath as a Rand Fishkin, Danny Sullivan, or Aaron Wall would be a goal that I strive for).

I’m sure there are more, but this is my list. Feel free to add to it below in the comments section.

I started blogging 5 years ago – and started the Agent SEO blog almost 3 years ago. I have never made any money off of it, but for me (due to many of the reasons above) it has been far more valuable than anything a job or money can give me.

And I realize that is kind of odd that I say that in a post that talks about how these things could get you money eventually.

The way I see it, my blog has helped me build respect among my peers (which I am absolutely grateful for), as well as many new friendships. Those are things that are priceless, but in the long-run through the connections you’ll be sure to develop, the respect you may stand to gain, and the experiences blogging will help you build are sure to lead to a better job, a nice contract, or other things that involve money.

The key is getting in there and being real, which is what really matters – the money can come later. So start a blog today. I highly recommend it!

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DIY SEO: A Round-Up of Experts, eh!

noreply@blogger.com (sheikmun) — Mon, 25 Apr 2011 19:09:00 +0000

Yup, I used the word “expert” and yup, I’m on that list and yup, that’s a heap of gumption, eh!

But I’m just re-stating the title that the folks over at DIY SEO used, honestly…I claim no such a title…I’m just a working SEO practitioner !

You see, they polled 45 SEO folks that they determined might have something to say to this question…

And what was compiled here in this blog piece, were the answers for many of the SEO folks that I read every day…blog about often…send leads/referrals to too… these folks know SEO, eh…and I wanted to point out a few of their tips herein.

Rand Fishkin…if you don’t know who this guy is, then you don’t belong in SEO, eh! Rand points out something pretty interesting, eh!

“ if you merely copy a competitor, you’re not innovating or creating a unique value proposition/advantage. If marketers built resources and citation-worthy content, crafted compelling designs + user experiences and leveraged the principles of inbound marketing, they’d often be in a far better position than a simple “copy/paste” strategic model…”

Think about that for a bit. If you’ve watched the whole SEO channel grow like I have, many many times I’ve heard it preached that all you need to do is to copy the top ranking competitors in your channel, to enjoy the same success. Rand says “not” to this, and I think he’s right…I do know that differentiating your client from their competiton is the best way to create a unique reputation and that appears to have been ‘vetted’ here by Rand. Great tip here for us all to follow, eh!

Marty Weintraub…of aimClear out in Minnesota is also an acknowledged expert in the SEO world…and his answer to that same question –

“The era of playing beat the algorithm is over, and the focus should be on important content targeted to salient demographic segments who would be interested in it…”

Think on that one for a moment too, eh. Too too too many times at forums, on blogs, on community boards, in webmaster help areas, I read that SMBs are asking how to “game” the algo. This is not only “warped” thinking but in fact, the total wrong end of the stick. As Marty goes on to explain, that what is important is for SMBs to offer up true content for their visitors and to then use SEO to increase the visibility of that content that matters to their users. End of story…and yup, I like that one too, eh!

Mike Blumenthal…is one of the most knowledgeable LOCAL experts around…he’s taught at the #LocalU since it’s inception and as he lives like 80 miles from my offices, he’s a true “local” expert, eh! Mike makes no bones about what he thinks the answer to the question is at all –

“If I had to identify the single biggest mistake it would be that many think that SEO and online marketing is a one time action. Build it and done….”

Done….as in the line “if you build it they will come” type of rationale. And that’s so dang prevalent out there in the SEO world, that my head was nodding YES as soon as I started to read Mike’s answer. Done. Too too many SMBs think that once the site is built and semi-optimized, that this is now complete and the traffic will be here in the morning and now on to other things. Ain’t so, SMB owners….SEO is a long hard process that requires much in the way of constant reasearch, hypothesizing, testing, analyzing and then making tactical changes/revisions to your SEO campaign. When you’ve done that, take a breath….okay, then do it again and again…and again!

While I could go on here…there’s tons of other friends I have on this list….but space and time are limitations that one can not ignore.

So please DO go and look at the piece and even print it out and save it for reading tonite at the dinner table or tomorrow as it’s a holiday….there’s a ton of “easter eggs” buried in this piece!

And KUDOS to the folks over at DIY SEO and Ken Lyons of Measuredsem.com for his work and research on this too! Great piece…now all we gotta do is use the tactics in same, eh!

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Breaking News:2011 Social Media Report is Out!

noreply@blogger.com (sheikmun) — Mon, 25 Apr 2011 15:45:00 +0000

I know that if you’re like me, you’ll find this report chock full of great items….on every type and kind of question that one can think about.

Here’s a list of some of the questions that they asked over 3300 marketers for their opinons on all things social media…

Is Social media is important for my business?

Want more, eh? Me too…and I found some very impressive stats on use of various social media outlets and that was changed, I noted since last year.

Commonly used social media tools?

The self-employed (80%) and owners of small businesses (78%) were more likely to use LinkedIn. Larger businesses were more likely to use YouTube or other video and less likely to use blogs (68%+).

A close examination of which tools more experienced social media marketers are using compared to those just getting underway provides further insight.

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Google & CIRA: Free Websites for Canucks!

noreply@blogger.com (sheikmun) — Mon, 25 Apr 2011 12:26:00 +0000

Yup, this new program, just launched, offers up to any Canadian business the opportunity to get a free website, a free hosting deal, free tools to help build that site and a dot.ca domain address…and who’s footing the bill for this? Ah….well…it appears that this is from Google, RBC bank, Rogers Communications, the Globe & Mail, CIRA and a Toronto based firm called Silver Lining Ltd.

This is interesting….and as you’ve most likely alredy clicked on this link, and read the whole ITBusiness Canada story on same, you should have noted the following items….especially from a Canadian SEO point of view.

That CIRA, our non-profit authority governing dot-ca domain names in Canada says that they’re not giving away a single .ca domain…but that Google is buying each and every one of them on behalf of the up to 1,000,000 Canadian businesses who dont have a website. With only about 1.5 million .ca sites created since the start of the internet, this kind of a new domain creating initiative would be a real boon for those of us who love our .ca’s….and specially good for those of us who market to just that kind of an audience for all things SEO! Good news, eh!

That other discounted Web and business services are being tossed into Google’s CIRA program by it’s partners. Silver Lining is offering its business planning software up for a free month, and then a discounted price of $365 for a year – the software typically costs $1,000 per year, sure they’ll attempt to latch onto some of the program members, but that’s not a bad thing, IMHO. And yes, there’s other deals available from various partners and some AdSense offers too….you do need to go and take a look/see….honest!

But to really see what’s offered – at least what is planned at this point, you need to go to the “Get your Business Online” site here…and see and read and learn….and here’s what the partners have to say about their goals for this program –

“The Internet is where the majority of Canadians go to find what they want and where more Canadians are buying what they want. Businesses without an online presence are missing out on a huge opportunity to find new customers, and to have new customers find them. We believe that any business, no matter how big or small, can grow and succeed online…”

Terrific deal in our mind…as “free” is always good, eh! We’ve signed up to be a full supporter of this and I’d hope that if you’ve a .ca of your own – or if you’re looking for a free one, that you’ll take the plunge to get online now — for free!

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Going with the flow of Google’s Panda Update: 3 Easy SEO Tips

noreply@blogger.com (sheikmun) — Mon, 25 Apr 2011 01:17:00 +0000

Google recently released an update to its search results ranking algorithm more popularly known as the “Farmer Update” because of the clear focus on removing or demoting content farm websites. The update is internally known as the “Panda” update.

Everybody wants to know exactly what happened, who was affected, and what can be done to retain legitimate rankings and avoid being removed from search engine results. Here’s what you need to know to be successful in your SEO efforts with regards to this recent Google update.

1. High Quality Content

It has always been Google’s goal to point users to high quality content and high-quality websites. This update basically emphasizes this objective further by penalizing websites that basically copy-paste content from other websites and those sites with numerous ads surrounding the content.

Always make sure to have unique authoritative content in your website that provides value to your users. This builds brand trust and increases traffic and usage as well.

2. Consider your Audience

Simple but absolutely useful. Before creating content for your website, ask yourself, “is this something that my audience find useful?”If your answer is yes, then proceed and publish your content into the website.

The next step would be to monitor your analytics closely and check the bounce rate of your new content. If the bounce rate is high, this could mean that your audience finds the new content to be invaluable. You will have to change it or remove it all together.

3. Stay Calm

Looking at the bigger picture, nothing much has changed. If your website has unique content and is useful to your audience, you have little to worry about. If you want to find out if your website was affected in any way, visit the Seomoz website to find out how you can use Google Analytics and identify any effects of the Google update to your site.

In any case, the best solution for any website is to improve the design, usability and of course relevant content of the website. If you achieve this, users will link to your website, drive traffic and basically ensure your ranking on top of Google’s search results.

About The Northern Office

The Northern Office (TNO) is a marketing and sales consultancy firm in the Philippines that caters to small to medium sized enterprises that do not have their own marketing department, but are big enough to need it. Our specializations include internet marketing, website design and development, content development, social media monitoring and sales support.

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Web Design Singapore: Most Trusted SEO and Web Designing Company In Singapore - PR Web (press release)

noreply@blogger.com (sheikmun) — Sun, 24 Apr 2011 22:51:00 +0000

(PRWEB) April 21, 2011

Web Design Singapore Pte. Ltd. is a Complete Web Design and SEO - Internet Marketing Solution Company Based in Singapore. It has two separate Arms Web Design Singapore and Singapore SEO that provides solution for all the web needs of Singapore Web Community. The Company has large team of best Skilled SEO and Web Designing Experts and is operational since past more than 10 Years. It has helped to achieve small business to grow in size thanks to the expert work in web designing and SEO. Having served more than 5000 pages on the web and satisfying 300+ clients it is definitely the best SEO and Web Designing Company in Singapore.

The Services offered by Web Design Singapore Includes

Web Design
From Planning to Implementation, The Web Design Singapore team of experts provides the complete Web Designing Solutions so that your website is unique and creates a deep Positive Impression in the mind of your users.

Graphic Design
Today the importance of best attraction is very important. The using Graphic Designing plays a very important role in creating that first impression towards your target customer. At Web Design Singapore we have the best Graphic Designers from across Singapore who have helped build the best campaigns including Advertisement Campaigns of Biggies like ELLE, ADIDAS, BINARY CODE, MAXIMAL and for many other huge names. Web Design Singapore are masters in the art of designing and concept building for print materials like BILLBOARDS, POSTERS, PAMPHLETS, MAGAZINES, LOGOS, CATALOGUES, JOURNALS and simply anything related to print.

SEO & SEM
Today with Millions of websites on every topic, it is necessary to have the website promoted and marketed in such a way that they are made visible through natural search engine results. This is achieved with the help of expert Search Engine Optimization Consultants. SEO Consultants help your site be promoted in such a manner that your site appears among the top results in the search engines like Google and other engines.

Singapore SEO Are Leaders in providing result oriented SEO Services and guarantee nonstop traffic to their client website from the start of the website.

With The Changing trends in web technology, Singapore SEO caters to Social Media Marketing needs too. Today when Generation Y spend their 90% time on the social networking sites, optimizing the sites as per the Social media is very necessary. It increases your online presence and also establishes your brand name and reputation among the visitors. The Back links and Web Traffic are the added benefits.

With the large range of services offered by Web Design Singapore, the users need not have to go anywhere once they trust and appoint Web Design Singapore as their trusted Web Service Provider.

For more information on our Web Design and Development Services please visit our official website:
http://www.webdesignsingapore.org

For SEO and SEM related Services please visit our SEO mini site:
http://www.singaporeseo.org

###

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Inbound Marketing: The next big thing!

noreply@blogger.com (sheikmun) — Sun, 24 Apr 2011 18:55:00 +0000

Hubspot has been in the news these past few weeks due to the $32 million investment of Sequoia Capital, Google Ventures and Salesforce.com into the HubSpot company.

Hubspot has been in the forefront of the inbound marketing trend.

Inbound Marketing is a marketing strategy where in a website/company gathers information about themselves, their product/services, and any other social news and information, optimizes them for search engines and finally share them via social networks (eg. Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Social bookmarking), blogs, forums, etc to generate interest and leads which will also generate website traffic.

Why is Inbound Marketing the latest trend in online marketing?

The mere fact that Google (the company) itself has invested millions of dollars into a company that specializes with inbound marketing is reason enough to take notice. There is no doubt that inbound marketing produces good quality website traffic and leads. This only shows the growth of the market in giving importance to good unique content and creating value for users.

In all of these latest development, early adopters of online marketing and inbound marketing like The Northern Office – Innovative Marketing Support, can rest on the fact that the market is becoming more mature and seeing the value in online marketing, SEO and social media strategies.

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Trouble-at-DMOZ

noreply@blogger.com (sheikmun) — Sun, 24 Apr 2011 14:49:00 +0000

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Trouble at DMOZ
Frustrated webmasters who have tried getting sites listed in the free directory DMOZ have found it be somewhat hit and miss. Attempts to hurry things along make it worse, attempts to obtain acceptance status may make it worse, and in a young industry, months and years can elapse before any inclusion is experienced, if at all. If the open directory is the directory it believes itself to be, it should radically change. Even with the best site in the subject, original content, a site that visitors like and visit, good genuine traffic, Google PR, etc. submissions and acceptance is too slow and too subject to chance. TurnerDow has client sites scoring on the first page of the SERPS and even at number one for competitive phrases without inclusion in DMOZ, but it would be much easier and less frustrating if there was a realistic process at ?The MOZ?. It?s become a directory that results in sub-optimal results for it?s main influence ? the leader of the search engine pack ? Google.

Submission:
To submit to the OD ? the webmaster will go to DMOZ.org, find a category ? fill out the fields and submit the site. Sometimes there is an automated acknowledgement of the submission, and sometimes there is not. There?s no real way of knowing if the submission occur? If you attempt to submit again when the submission was accepted ? just not indicated ? it harms the chance of being included in the directory. If you submit several times because you?re not getting any indication that the submission was successful ? one may be determined to be a spam webmaster. Sites that may be already accepted in the past in your name may also now be in jeopardy ? and the one you are now trying to submit is at risk. Forum postings from DMOZ editors suggest this is completely wrong ? that the process works perfectly and submission success is always emailed. But we know this to be wrong and misleading.

Attitude of Editors:
DMOZ editors think they are very important. It?s true to say that webmasters do need them to perform a responsibility they?ve been given. Some editors live up to it, but most don?t. DMOZ editors will do things in their own way, in their own time, and on their own terms. If you don?t submit a site in exactly in their right way, your site won?t be listed and you?ll never know whether it?s still in the queue, moved to another editor, or just rejected. As of mid 2005 ? there is no status coming out of DMOZ.

Prima Donnas:
Similar to above ? Most DMOZ editors think they are a cut above the rest of us. They believe they hold the key to life or death ? that for obviously meritocratic reasons they have been selected to wield power over webmasters who need to come crawling to them to plead their case. The problem starts at the top ? the senior editors are geeks who?ve been operating in the upper hierarchy of DMOZ since the time that only computer geeks were really interested in the role. Like many geeks, they?re very intelligent but kinda out of touch with aspects of the real world. Aspects of great importance to an individual webmaster are not regarded with due diligence by senior editors and those they loosely oversee further down in the pecking order. Prima Donna?s? Attempt to contact editors to find out any information meets with a response such that you might think you?ve offended a third world dictator. The Open Directory Prima Donnas are the only interface between you and the OD ? and if you treat them without due respect they react with the attitude of some offended movie star. How can something so critical be so badly managed? It?s only a matter of time until Google, the search engine that uses the repository most concludes the same (the other search giants have their own directories).

Enquiries:
Once submitting a site to DMOZ ? one should be able to check progress along the way. But enquire at your risk. Prior to early 2005 DMOZ had a forum where progress could be checked ? though the forum was subject to the replies of editors with all the characteristics cited in this article. It was a difficult and arcane way of getting information, and marginally better than nothing. But now there is no way at all to get any status. But there are editors for each section with contact details ? can one enquire of status. As previously warned ? enquire at your risk. It will almost definitely result in a negative effect for your site?s listing potential. The temptation to plead with one of the DMOZ Prima Donnas is strong. It may be all you have and you may have nothing to lose ? but we have found the results to be bad ? so think carefully about the wording and attitude. It may be difficult to find their email address ? if so this is an indication that they don?t want to be contacted. It?s a closed organisation and it?s just so surprising that the heavy-weight search engine Google has such a high regard for a badly operated structure like DMOZ.

Becoming an Editor
Since the backlog for editors seems to be so great ? the obvious attitude of submitters is to offer to become an editor to speed the process along. One would imagine that such an organisation would welcome such free assistance. But the organisation is dysfunctional. If you have submitted a site and declare your situation (if you don?t they?ll search for your sites and entries), they will block the application in the vast majority of cases. We don?t know of a single case of acceptance. The intention any well be to assist and add quality sites to the index ? but they?ll assume you just want to get your own site in. Sites need to be listed with the directory to have easier Google weight ? and the fact that it?s such a hit and miss pursuit is frustrating and pointless. There are not enough editors, the editors don?t approach their responsibility with due diligence and they don?t easily accept new editors into the organisation. How can it work? It can?t. Google should see this and reduce the influence commensurately.

DMOZ Corruption:
One hesitates to accuse of corruption ? but the forum postings of so many webmasters complaining of corruption and apparent postings of editors who themselves say they are corrupt cannot but lead one to the conclusion that there is corruption at ?the MOZ?. There are editors that just will not accept sites into a category where the site competes with existing sites they have a financial interest in. There are editors that will do worse than not list a site. They will change the description of the site that appears by default in Google search listings such that surfers will not see the site as appropriate to their search (as of mid 2006 Google have permitted a ?NOODP? tag to be used to overcome this ? but the knowledge of this mechanism isn?t widespread). There are supposed editors that have posted in forums that themselves say they invite payments to be made to have a site listed ? payments to be made to the email address that sometimes appear along with the editor details, and others that can be found through web searches for that editor name. There are editors that will deliberately seek out other editors that have a very high queue of sites to consider and who aren?t doing much about reducing the workload and pass the site over to them ?which delays the site consideration for perhaps 2 or 3 years! When it is eventually turned back to the correct editor, the editor may do the same with another over laden editor. One forum posting by a supposed editor said that he combined the above two techniques by finally adding the site in his category after giving it the run-around for some period of years, then changing the description of the site to repel visitors. This is dysfunctional to the point that most objective observers would conclude the existence of corruption. Sites which exist as a small business with one or two hard working employees have this kind of behaviour to grapple with ? the webmasters are close to powerless ? Google should recognise this and reduce the value they attribute to a DMOZ listing.

So What to Do?
If DMOZ is to continue to be the directory of choice for Google, the solution is obvious. A volunteer group assigned to do something so important is a bad business model. The editors need to be paid employees and the system needs to be fair, instead of arcane and very probably corrupt. We struggle to see how Google don?t appear to already recognise this ? it?s blindingly obvious.

Another solution would be a real coup for the two parties concerned - webmasters and the combination of Google with the Open Directory. Google could either forget DMOZ or purchase it. If they junk it ? build another directory. Then, with their new directory or with the DMOZ in new (capable) hands, charge webmasters for commercial site consideration just like Yahoo do. Yahoo is greedy and too expensive especially for smaller businesses, but small businesses would be happy to pay a substantial sum like $100 for listing consideration in such a heavy weight directory. Webmasters would pay with pleasure ? content that the previous DMOZ travesty is now gone.

Conclusion
DMOZ has big weight without doubt. But its arcane way of operation makes it a liability in the SERPS. The submission process doesn?t work properly. Editors have a higher royal attitude towards their conferred responsibility and act like spoilt Prima Donnas. They are largely geeks and are our of touch with the real world of business and eCommerce. There is no feasible way of getting any status of sites, they may have been rejected or may still be in the queue, and any attempt to find out in order to put things right puts the listing at peril if it?s not already rejected. You can?t become an editor, and reports of corruption at DMOZ are so plentiful that it has to be at the very least a probability. When being listed in DMOZ has such an influence on helping to make or helping to break a small company, DMOZ is a farce and an inappropriate influence on Google SERPS. We believe it is only a matter of time before Google recognises this and enhances their results accordingly.

Further Reading: Forum - DMOZ Headaches | A Less Cathartic View

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Top 10 Online Marketing Acronyms

noreply@blogger.com (sheikmun) — Sun, 24 Apr 2011 11:48:00 +0000

Are you new to online marketing? You might have hired someone to do it for you and you get confused by the language used? You do not have to be an Internet geek to understand the ‘language’. Here are the top ten acronyms used in online marketing explained in a simple way.

HTML
HTML stands for HyperText Markup Language. This is the standard language behind most websites and what the search engines read when they look at/crawl your site. It is made up of hundreds of tags which has all the content on your website and tell the search engines exactly what is in that content. You can easily see this by going to any website and view the page source by hitting ctrl+u on your keyboard. Each tag opens with an angle bracket and the tag closes with an angle bracket followed by a forward slash and another end bracket (i.e.

CSS
CSS stands for Cascading Style Sheet and dictates the way the HTML code looks and is presented.

XML
XML stands for Extensible Markup Language. This language is more generic and is one that is read by a computer. In online marketing, you most likely need to have a XML sitemap, which means having a map of all the content on your site because search engines specifically prefer to read this format.

CRM
CRM stands for Customer Relationship Manager. This is great at making sure that your sales team can see what revenues have increased. It also helps identify things like who are your loyal customers and what aspect of your business is not doing too well.

CMS
CMS is a Content Management System commonly used to manage the content of your website. Examples of this are Joomla and WordPress. They allow you to access a private admin area where you can either add, edit or delete pages of your website.

URL
Uniform Resource Locator states exactly where your content is located on the Internet. Example: http://www.thenorthernoffice.com

SERPs
SERP’s stands for Search Engine Results Pages. If you hear your SEO telling you that your site is at position 20 in the SERP’s, this means your site is appearing around the middle of page 3. Its best to have you site appear to a closer position.

SEM
SEM stands for Search Engine Marketing and can encompass just about anything that involves publicising your website on the Internet. In includes things like SEO and PPC, social media, and Online PR.

SEO
You would probably hear this one more, SEO stands for Search Engine Optimisation. The purpose of this is to improve your websites visibility in the organic search engine results pages.

PPC
PPC stands for Pay Per Click. These are the results that appear in the paid results in the right hand side under the heading ‘Ads’. You only pay when someone actually clicks on your ads.

There are still other acronyms and marketing jargon that you might encounter later, but this should give you an idea about the basics of online marketing. Need help with your business’ Online Marketing? The Northern Office is a marketing consultancy firm specializing in innovative marketing support for SME’s. The Northern Office can provide you a complete range of online marketing strategies that will help you get concrete results out of your investment. Contact us for more details.

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