Search Engine Optimization Case Studies and Tidbits

SEO What the Hell Happened?

2011-07-30T20:52:00.000-05:00

I think I figured out exactly what is going on with my website and why it lost so much ranking. It has nothing to do with content vs ads, amount of content on a page, page speed, or any of that other stuff webmasters have been talking about.

It is a combination of a few things: authority, web address, and links.

Authority:
My website doesn't have too many links to the homepage. Other sites ranking higher have more links to the homepage and less on the inner pages. To remedy this, I need to simply get more links to the homepage.

Web address:
Sites ranking higher have the keywords in their web address. Mine only has partial. I'm not going to change this. I'm sure this is something Google will tweak sometime anyway.

Links:
Some of the links which were giving the website so much power are now gone (host went offline or directory listing deleted) or the links have been given less power by Google for whatever reason. Either way, I can't control it. I can only try to get more links.

I've been hitting my head against the wall ever since the Panda Update to find out what the hell happened to the website. But these seem to be the only true reasons.

A month gone by and no noticeable changes

2011-06-14T03:56:00.000-05:00

Since I announced my new venture into starting a new link campaign, I have found that no real changes have been made towards the amount of traffic received. This is horrible. A month long worth of work and nothing to show for it.

I have another angle to take on this and hopefully it works out. However, I'm quite a bit disappointed in this outcome. Perhaps a few more months and this idea would work, but I'm not ready to wait that long for it to turn out. Too much money is being lost right now due to loss of traffic.

I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

Update Stating There's Not Much of an Update

2011-05-19T01:24:00.001-05:00

If you keep up with the blog, you know that I do a lot of testing. I'm trying to find a new way for better links. I've tried link baiting, simple article writing, creating widgets, and good ol' plain content writing. However, with the new changes at Google, that doesn't seem to be enough.

A ton of links don't seem to show up on Google Webmasters any longer. Whether this is due to major devaluation, the links disappearing, or under-reporting by Google (which, of course, they were known to do in the past) I don't really know. But what I do know, is that PoemofQuotes is no longer at the top of some major keywords.

In the past, I would become complacent with where the website laid. Getting the traffic and the money was great, especially when not much work needed to be added to the website in terms of link building and SEO. Of course, that was rather silly of me. Link building and other SEO should always be done.

I'm continuing with my current mission of link building. So far, there isn't much results. But much of that has to do with me being sidetracked to fix another issue with the website. Now that I'm back to link building, we'll hopefully see some results in the coming weeks.

In the meantime, I created a new squidoo page titled Best TV Quotes. Check it out.

Marketing is Tough, So is Creating a Popular Squidoo Page - Funny Quotes Addition

2011-05-16T02:22:00.000-05:00

I've been doing quite a few things on Squidoo over the past few months, although I've taken a little break recently. Squidoo is a site which allows members to write articles about anything you can think of, as long as it isn't pornographic or illegal in nature. This allows marketers to use the service in order to create backlinks and gain exposure from a new audience.

One article which I'm currently trying to pump juice into is Funny Quotes. This is a long and tedious venture, but the rewards of doing so will be aplenty.

Here's what I'll receive in return: money directly from Squidoo, money indirectly from Squidoo members.

This sounds great, right? Of course it does. However, it isn't as easy as it sounds. Squidoo members are close-knit group for the most part and like most communities, community participation is a must.

Luckily, I'm not too interested in Squidoo rankings for this particular page. I want the traffic and links.

Changes Still Affecting Sites

2011-05-11T22:17:00.000-05:00

Google's major search engine results changes rolling out has changed the traffic being sent to PoemofQuotes quite a bit. Not only have many major keywords not been sending traffic but even minor keywords are down.

The devaluation of certain links have definitely taken a huge toll on PoemofQuotes. I do not trade links nor spam the links in questionable areas. However, a major part of link-building has been through EzineAricles, Squidoo, and other article directories.

The overall traffic sent to EzineArticles was said to be down the first couple weeks of the rollout but has since climbed back up to their norm.

So what is the true cause of PoemofQuotes's traffic failure?

It's a tough question to answer, but when looking at the major keywords on Google, I notice a few things right off the bat. The number one keyword for [funny quotes] is new, as are several of the other top 10 (including what I would call a spam site). Going past the top 10, I start to see a few blogs without comments but many posts.

Going back to the front page, I begin to notice a trend. Fresh content. If they aren't blogs, they still contain user generated content. If they don't contain either, they contain links to other websites, usually unrelated and the unrelated websites have links back.

Hmmm... I thought Google fixed this years ago?

So it's back. Unrelated link trades can generate huge gains in the SERPs, at least at the current moment. This may just be for non-money words. However, it seems to be working quite successfully.

Digg's Unbanning

2011-03-24T22:22:00.000-05:00

If I haven't mentioned in the past, one of my websites, PoemofQuotes was banned from Digg. The website was marked as "spam" by the Digg staff for whatever reason (actually, some of the articles were submitted by someone under wrong categories and sought diggs from other users. It wasn't me, I swear! Why would I submit under the wrong category?)

Now that the previous changes killed Digg and Kevin Rose stepped down, the website is no longer banned. Or perhaps it was unbanned long before and I didn't bother to check. I sent them an email before asking why it was marked as spam--I didn't hear back.

Either way, the webpages from PoemofQuotes can now be submitted, as can pages from other sites which were banned previously.

This has led Squidoo pages to getting back in. Now more links and more visits can be had.

This led to the submission of:
Breaking up is hard to do
and
Funny quotes

The Latest

2010-08-23T11:42:00.000-05:00

Just a quick update on what has been going on.

After becoming a top author, I've been re-writing many of the articles to fit better on the website and hopefully with better SEO and titles.

I've also been adding new quotes, other articles, and developing new code and database structure for the members section.

So far, so good. I haven't noticed the server going down as much, but the database seems to be running slow today after adding another feature. Hopefully it's something I can fix soon.

Other than this, school has started in many places in the United States. This means more traffic, more dollars, and more advertising. Let's all hope that this year is better than the last!

Cheers

Top Authors - I did it!

2010-07-08T13:22:00.000-05:00

It took almost a month (if not longer) to do it, but I did it! I am finally in the top authors category for my keyword. Hopefully this will give my articles more link-juice and in return give my own websites more link-juice and higher search engine rankings.

If you haven't been following along, I've been submitting articles to article directories recently to help bring more links to my websites. I haven't been actively searching links for a while now, so I figured it was time to do so. It's summer after-all.

What's summer got to do with it? Less overall traffic and less money. For the past 6 years I have been researching my own statistics, I have noticed a downturn of around 20-30% during the summer months. This is mostly due to schools being out, but it is also partly due to the nicer weather.

Since most of my traffic comes from the USA, this time of the year means more things to do outside for teens and young adults. Beaches, parties, and all-night movie watching is just about the only thing many of these guys like to do. Who wants to view an education website on their summer vacation anyway? Well, a few people I'm sure... I would. But then again, I'm a nerd.

Accepted, Will Submit More Soon!

2010-07-01T23:03:00.002-05:00

I was accepted and can now submit more articles. I will be doing this a lot in the coming couple weeks to get in the top authors section. Hopefully it won't take too long as I have some other things I need to add. But, it takes what it takes, right?

Waiting and More Waiting for Acceptance

2010-06-29T19:22:00.000-05:00

Now the count down begins! I've reached the limit on the amount of articles I can submit to a certain article directory website. So now I have to wait to see if I will be accepted or thrown to the pigs.

I severely hope that I get accepted; I've been looking forward to this for a long-time now. However, who knows what will come? I've done my best to follow the writer's guidelines; however, I know I've made mistakes in the past. Hopefully, they don't come back to bite me.

What mistakes have I made?
1) Adding strongs inside paragraphs and not simply headlines.
2) Placing links in the articles (they use to allow above the fold--not anymore)
3) Links pointing to a 404 in the about the author section.
4) Having anchor text longer than 3-keywords in the author section.

Yep! I've had all of those mistakes. Of course, this is over a 2 1/2 year period. Nonetheless, I hope they don't come back to bite me.

Wish me luck!

Making Money with Squidoo - Is it Possible?

2010-06-24T16:39:00.000-05:00

Squidoo - What a pain in the ass! Alright, so I've already voiced my opinion on Squidoo many times before, but there are a few positives I have taken away from the site.

1) It's a very loyal community. Scratch their back and they'll scratch yours.
2) Long lenses, no matter what is on them, is a plus. 50 Amazon mods, 1 content mod, a voting mod, and comments is a great way to get stars! Lots of people don't even read what you right, they just look at the length, star and comment so you'll do the same to theirs.
3) It can make you money.

I've talked--more like ranted--in length about the first two. So let's move on to the third.

I have around 50 lenses currently on Squidoo. I haven't updated, starred, commented, or added others as friends in months over there. I bring in around $4.50 a month from it still. When I was active, I made about $8.

That may not sound like much, but let's go into it a bit more in-depth.

1) I'm not a big squid. Being a Giant Squid allows you to boost your rank on a few articles of your choice. Do this to your big money makers or your lenses close to the next level and that's a few more bucks, easily.

2) Being more active in the community would have brought in a few more bucks. I did some commenting, some starring, and some posting in the forums, but not nearly enough as I could have if I strictly wanted to use Squidoo as my income source.

3) Time. Even though I've been a member of Squidoo for several years, I barely used the thing besides during a couple months earlier this year. If I kept doing that for a year or more, I would have increased followers, increased stars, and increased comments and links--which all equals more money.

4) I don't have many articles. 50 may sound like a lot to a newbie, but it truly isn't that many. Since I only used it a few months, that's about 16 2/3 lenses a month. If I kept at it for a year, that's 200 articles. Or 4 times as many lenses as I currently have. Do it for three years and that's 600 articles.

5) I could have cranked out one or more articles a day if I was passionate about it. That's twice as many. Instead of 200 articles, it could have been 400 lenses after a year. 8 times as much money!

6) None of my lenses were commercial. Most of the money people are making over on Squidoo is from affiliates, mostly Amazon. One of the big-time money makers was the Kindle 2 or whatever the hell it was that released earlier this year. If you sold one, you get 6%. That's $12 a pop! Sell one a day and that's $360 off of one article. Niiiiiiiice.

Add in all of the above, and that's how you'll make some nice money. How nice? Well, that is tough to say. I wouldn't be surprised at $300/mo. after a year. But it all depends on how commercial your lenses are. In theory, you could easily get $1000-$2000/mo. after a year with the right lenses and community.

TLDR: Write a ton of lenses. Make the lenses long. Make the lenses commercial. Star, comment, and friend others. Be active in the forums. Become a Giant Squid.

Still Submitting Articles

2010-06-24T15:46:00.000-05:00

I've been quiet again for a little while, so I thought I'd update you (well, more-so keep myself up to date on what is happening).

I discovered something, and I'm running with it. I'm still submitting articles to article directories, but I found that once I break a certain threshold the other articles will receive a huge boost as well any new articles. So, I need to keep chugging along.

The downside is, there isn't as much time for me to work on adding new content. I'm trying to alternate days, but sometimes I want to do one thing and not the other or vice-versa.

I've pretty much given up on Squidoo as of right now. I'm making a little bit of money and figure if I kept pushing out articles it would add up to something substantial within a year, but it is a ton of work. The community absolutely loves long pages and that's something that just takes a bit of time.

Actually, that'll be my next post.

Gaining Links: Article Submissions for Good Pie

2010-06-10T19:07:00.000-05:00

Mmmm... pie. I love it! Well, actually I don't eat much other than peanut butter pie and the once-a-year pumpkin pie. Anyway, this blog post is about article submissions!

Over the past year or so, I haven't worked all that hard on getting links to Poem of Quotes. I've mostly been working on other ventures, that seems to be a bit of a mistake.

Even though the website's traffic has doubled over the past year, the landing pages have shifted away from poetry towards quotes. I can't help but imagine the "what if" if I would have continued to work on the poetry side. Would it have tripled? Quadrupled? No one knows, but I sure as hell regret it... especially since the other ventures failed miserably.

You want to know what is sad, though? Over the past three years the website's traffic has more than quadrupled, but the income is almost exactly the same. That is how bad the economy is.

Anyway, I've started to write articles as the first step in gaining links. I'll probably write around 10 more, submit them, and move onto the next step.

It's Been More Like Sushi Than Bread

2010-05-30T17:28:00.001-05:00

I originally announced the changes to PofQ in April, but a lot has changed since then!

I removed jQuery, which I originally planned to be a staple to the design.
I changed some colors, making it darker and "pop" more.
I removed the t-shirts. They weren't selling anyway. I might put them in a "shop" area someday.

What I've noticed about the new design:

The speed isn't much faster than it was before. Pages are smaller and there are less intense graphics used. Nonetheless, server speed is about the same due to increased usage of PHP for navigation and other areas of the site.
The top navigation isn't used nearly as much as side navigation. A bounce-rate of +5% occurred immediately after the changes.
The navigation has caused some pagerank shift around the site. Yes, pagerank does still exist! It has made different keywords gain more weight and others have less.
The members area is receiving around a 30% click rate on the homepage. Holy crap!

So why is the site like sushi?
PoemofQuotes is continually changing. I've been attempting to upgrade some in-page navigation (by adding links) and more user-friendly and search engine-friendly aspects to the site. This means that I have made around 1298323423 changes over the past few weeks to the site.

So why sushi exactly? Well, sushi is ever changing with the times. You can put whatever you want inside the roll and it will still be sushi.

New PofQDesign

2010-04-15T22:29:00.000-05:00

The past oh 4 or 5 days I was working on a new design for PoemofQuotes. The old one started to look a weeeeee bit outdated. The new design is looks a bit more professional, but is it too much? Perhaps. I received a few comments earlier stating the site looks more businessy. Although that was not my intent, it does come off that way.

There are a few reasons why I thought the design overhaul was needed:
1) To update the look and feel. The site seemed very hm... 2003 or 2004ish. Not much pazzou.

2) Speed. The old design had a few clunks in it. The new design uses jQuery for the few things it does with javascript. Also, no more gradients (except in the header). The page is also much more condensed, so more information is above the fold.

3) Navigation. I felt it was fairly easy to get lost in the old design. With over 2000 pages, I imagine that became a huge problem. Now, there is something which at least resembles breadcrumbs. It has been proven that it is a much more user-friendly style.

4) I wanted to add in the T-Shirts. I'm probably a bit too proud of them. I figured others would want to buy them so... yeah. The number one selling shirt from the old site (which the shirts only showed if you had javascript turned off) is the Ringer-T with "Poe It" on it. I used the same design and put it on a new shirt over at Zazzle along with a few others. We'll see how it goes.

Giant Squid: I Was Right!

2010-04-15T22:06:00.001-05:00

I got to the required 50 lenses just in time to submit my "resumé" to the two people who look over the lenses to make sure everything is in order. Surprise! I didn't get accepted.

Actually, supposedly the lenses are lacking in several areas. I'm assuming they mean length, possibly originality, and lens ranking.

I'm alright with that. The only real reason I wanted to become a squid was for the 4 yellow stars (which boost lens rank on whatever I choose) and the extra tools--which I'm still trying to find out what those tools exactly are.

Length
As for the length, I've talked to a Squids about this. It's ridiculous in my opinion to even consider, but most Squids do. Many times a pages worth isn't related to the quality of content, but the length.

I could list examples, but just head over to the top 100 lists in each genre and see for yourself. Many of the pages are actually simply a paragraph of original text, followed by ads upon ads, Wikipedia articles, many comments, the highlighted lenses, and more ads.

Of course, I'm looking at this as a users perspective and not Squidoo's. Squidoo wants money. They are a business. However, if I'm looking for information on a specific subject and land on a lens similar to what I described above, I'm leaving. I might scroll down the page or check out the "table of contents" but that is about it.

Furthermore, if I'm coming from a search engine and land on a page 10-miles long, I'm not going to stay too long to find my answer.

My point is, many of the top lenses don't meet the needs of the average user. They meet the needs of bored users on Squidoo.

Originality
Many of my lenses aren't "original" to the extent of the subject hasn't been covered before. However, I feel that my pages do offer something the others don't. For example, my poet pages. The others I have seen simply include a long Wikipedia article, ads, comments, more ads. Mine on the other hand at least include some of the author's works and style of writing.

Ranking
My lenses are, for the most part, low ranked. They are new and I didn't bother to promote each one individually.

Conclusion
They are probably right for not including me. I *can* do more. Will I? Well, that depends on how busy I am before the next deadline and if I get bored enough to spend hours upon hours of writing a Squidoo lens which may or may not do any good.

Quest to Big Squid

2010-03-27T21:34:00.002-05:00

A few days ago I read on the Squidu forums how a bunch of people are trying to shoot for Giant Squid by the cut off date of March 31. Honestly, I thought I was too late to the game. I was 20+ articles away and thought there was no way, no how of making that many articles by the end of the month.

Somehow, I have been able to. It probably helps that I created my own template and have followed it religiously. It also probably helps that I've been dedicating between 8-10 hours a day solely on the articles.

Currently, I'm 3 articles away from the magic 50. Once I hit it, I'll go back and edit some of my older articles to make sure they are up to par.

Do I think I'll get Giant Squid? No, I don't. I don't know if my articles are of quality they are looking for, but who knows? I have to give it a try!

So here are some of the articles I wrote recently:

Sonnet Poetry
Sara Teasdale
Wallace Stevens
Walt Whitman
William Blake
E. E. Cummings
Robert Frost
Poetry T-Shirts
The Right of Gay Marriage
Famous January Birthdays
Famous December Birthdays
Emily Dickinson
Oscar Wilde
William Wordsworth
PoemofQuotes
PoemofQuotes: The Community

Squidoo + AdWords = waste, for me anyway

2010-03-20T23:01:00.003-05:00

Google sent me a $100 AdWords bonus to try to get me to use their service once again. In total, I probably spent around $30 there, but received over $150 in return. So I figured, hey, why not? It's "free" money, right?

Right now, I don't have anything to sell. I don't make anything and my last experiment on getting people to sign up for a premium membership didn't work too well, especially since I have a free alternative.

Therefor, I was left with one choice: to spend the money trying to get people to buy products through Amazon. I tried this before and it was fairly successful. It was nothing fantastic, but I thought why not try it again?

Instead of running it straight through my website, I figured to give Squidoo a try. It would do two things: 1) Get more traffic to the Squidoo page and increase the lensrank and 2) Get people to buy through Amazon through Squidoo and give me money.

How much did I spend?
$52.65 over 4 days.

How did it work?
I chose the cheapest keywords I could find for the page and picked to geo-locate the ads to the US. Why just the US? Because Amazon is more friendly to the states.

What were the results?
It increased my lensrank up to 1,180, 62 in Movies & TV. This is up from around 5,800 in the days before I set up the campaign.

The ads helped provide around 5 star ratings and a couple comments. I'm not sure if this is directly related to the ads or indirectly, through increased exposure on Squidoo due to the lensrank. Either way, it has to do with the ads.

Squidoo says I received ~600 visitors through the ads. Google says I paid for 865. I'm guessing people clicked then went ahead and pressed the back button around 265 times before the javascript could load. Not cool.

How much money did I make?
$0.00

Yep, absolutely nothing.

Why did I stop?
At first, I was hoping to receive more traffic through Squidoo as the lens went up through the ranks. Once it started to appear on the top 100 for the category, I noticed the amount of clicks didn't increase substantially. Actually, the page received zero clicks from the top 100 page. It was a huge let down. I wasn't ready to commit another $48 to the page in hopes of it going up another 1000 spots, because I know it wouldn't. The pages within the "real" top 1000 probably receive upwards of 1000 clicks a day, this wouldn't have paid for that.

Was it worth it?
No.

Conclusion
You're better off spending your money elsewhere if you wish to get traffic to your Squidoo lens. Of course, the page in question isn't optimized for sales, but I did expect to see at least one or two buys.

If you don't wish to spend anything, great. Just comment on other Squid lenses and you'll get around the same amount of star ratings in no time. Hey, after 7 days the traffic doesn't count anyway.

I Love Squidoo But...

2010-03-11T22:21:00.003-06:00

I love Squidoo but there are just a few things that bother me about the community over there.

One thing, is the need for incredibly long lenses. Almost every lens in the top 100s within the categories are 10 miles long. That might sound great, right? I mean, that has to mean tons of info... well, not exactly. Most of them simply include an intro and then a starter paragraph followed by 10 modules of ads. Besides, even if the lens did create a ton of info, the longer it is the harder it is to find what you are looking for. For pages which are selling items, that is great, but for information lenses it's not.

Second, is the conformity the community possesses. I'm not talking about the type of lenses (although there is a large amount of lenses selling something), I'm talking about how the lenses are organized and the type of information each lens has. If you have a lens of a recipe, it doesn't just include the recipe. The lens also includes the history (which is OK), pictures of the food (alright), history of the ingredients (what?), a twitter page following the food (why?), and a blog RSS which includes nothing about the page (why?).

Thirdly, the community wants information about the authors. I can see why, in some instances, this is wanted. For example, if read a lens on a specific subject it is nice to know it is coming from a reliable source. However, if the lens is about baking cookies, why do you need to know what gender I am or where I grew up?

Fourth, even though this is related to #3, why must I enable the contact form? I know, if I make a spelling mistake you want to contact me about it, right? That's all fine and dandy, but I already have enough spam in my mailbox (I'm not saying the previous example is spam, just that some people might use the contact form for other means).

Squidoo Lens Update

2010-03-11T00:17:00.002-06:00

I've decided to go ahead and (slightly) change the direction I was going with Squidoo.

At first, I just wanted to create a funnel to every lens and send it back to my websites. Although this has had some limited success, I thought there was something else I could do.

I decided to create a funnel to one direct page and then send that juice to the individual lenses, which in turn send it to the websites. This will serve two purposes:

1) It'll increase the rating of the page, which may increase direct click-throughs.

2) Allow me to better manage the amount of links and link-juice.

Of course, I'll still be trying to get links to the other lenses, just so they'll rank decently. But nonetheless, I will be more focused on the single page. What is the page?

Gary R. Hess lensography

Finally, I've Remembered

2010-03-06T23:07:00.002-06:00

I completely forgot about this site for well a while. Actually, it looks like it has been almost a year and a half. Life has gone a way which I didn't predict over that time. Sadness set in, moving became a big part, and then finally once I resettled (well, temporarily), I started to work more on the websites and didn't bother talking about it.

So here I am, I'm back!

So lets just skip to now. I almost all but given up on the previous blog I tried to do. I'll probably go back and change it once again, but I have no idea when. I have three domains which I'm currently just losing money on. Fantastic, right?

But, in the meantime, I have been working on the major player. I've written articles, worked a bit on another blog (and almost but all gave up on it as well), and started working on more seasonal content for the site. When there aren't holidays, I've been writing articles and working on other areas to improve the site.

The most recent articles I've written have been on Squidoo. Here they are:

Free advice on life (this was really meant more of a way to tell my story and help others. It may also later give some juice but who knows)

and

How to be a proper Atheist (this was suppose to be humor, but I suppose I have a very weird type. I blame my ancestors)

Neither is getting much attention, but that doesn't matter too much. Squidoo has quite a few ways to get link juice and I'll pass it back to the website in question. As of now, Squidoo has made me just a total of $2.81. Not good at all for the amount of work I've put in. Over 20 articles now, most within the past month however. Most of the articles have been written as a way to get authority, so the *plan* may come to fruition sooner or later.

SEO: Think Outside the Box

2008-11-01T15:13:00.002-05:00

I created this blog as a way for testing SEO theories; however, I have found myself doing more seo tidbits than anything else.

Even though I have an internet marketing blog, it has been used to write longer, more though out posts. This blog will be a way for me to write short posts and get my word across quicker and more easily than if it were posted there.

That brings me to this: Think Outside the Box

There are many bloggers and website owners who continue to do the same routine daily. They write a post about the general subject of their blog, they maybe bookmark it and link to it from various sources, then move on. Be creative!

Owning a website (blog) isn't about following the norm. It is about releasing information! Even affiliate marketers and shops are giving out information on the products which they wish to sell. The only difference is they are doing it to gain direct (in case of the shop owner) and 2nd-hand (in case of the affiliate marketer) money; whereas, you are most likely trying to earn money through a 3rd party (like AdSense).

Look at it as an advantage. Shop keepers must only sell the products in their store. Affiliate marketers can only market the products they can find through shop owners. You on the other hand, can market anything you please, even if it doesn't exist.

Because of this, you are able to think outside the box. You don't have to market a product 24/7, but you do have to market yourself and your blog. This gives you the ability to create new and exciting ideas.

If your blog is about pigs. You can write anything about pigs. You aren't limited to selling the pigs like the other guys. You can write something bad about them, something good about them, something fake about them, and give out as much factual information as you please. You don't have to write every page to rank and you don't have to write every page for link bait.

That is your advantage. Use it!

SEO: Not Every Page is Specifically for Ranking

2008-11-01T14:55:00.003-05:00

This annoys me. Not every page I write, you write, or Janitor Fred is or should be for search engine rankings, at least not directly.

If I post a funny picture or release news, I don't necessarily expect to be in the first 3 pages of the SERPs, nor should I.

Pictures and short messages don't have to be for search engine rankings. They just don't. If I write something entertaining that gives value, why should I care about what Google or Live Search thinks about its placement? Besides, those types of posts are more for receiving links and popularity within a community, not for direct rankings in search engines.

It is called link bait for a reason.

This is one of the problems with many web site owners today. They feel each and every page has to go directly towards one single goal and must be one single way. This just isn't the case.

If you've never seen a flow chart, you might want to take a gander. There are many ways to get to the end.

Creativity is key. Of course, don't just write to write. But instead write to give value to someone. If I post a unique photograph, that is giving value to someone. If I announce a new release of a product, that is giving value to someone. If I say what something is, value.

The value doesn't have to rank, but just give information to someone, somewhere.

Think outside the box.

Google Now Pimping Chrome on YouTube

2008-11-01T02:31:00.004-05:00

I thought it would be a bit early, but I was viewing a Michael J. Fox video on YouTube and noticed Google pimping Chrome out on YouTube:

The image says:
"Try YouTube in a new web browser! Download Google Chrome"

I thought it was a bit early for Google to pimp them out since Chrome is only officially at 0.3. But, meh... whatever floats their boat. Hopefully they fix the cookie issues soon.

EzineArticles Technique for Traffic

2008-11-01T00:41:00.004-05:00

While I'm on the topic of EzineArticles, I might as well share a simple technique people are using for the article publishing site.

Although this may seem weird to many, EzineArticles is instead being used as a way to gain direct traffic, instead of as an article publishing service.

This changes ones strategy immensely. Instead of writing articles fast and furious, one would take their time and write a well thought out, keyword driven article.

This is because EzineArticle's articles are now showing up higher than ever in search engines. The amount of ranking rival that of Squidoo and Hubpages.

A very interesting phenomenon, but alas, I will not be participating in EzineArticles for this purpose. Hubpages and Squidoo offer a much easier way to network and gain exposure throughout both their services.

Why waste time on an article distribution service when your goal is to not distribute the articles, but instead gain traffic from the mother site? Gaining links is one thing, but trying to create a hub of pages for direct traffic through keywords would be better served on other article publishing sites.

Maybe that is just me...