SEO Blog by James Harrison

Another One of My Favorite Link Building Videos

James Harrison — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 19:01:08 +0000

I seen this video over 4 years ago on WebProNews. One of my favorite quotes found in this video has been engraved into my head since…

“Without Links, nobody finds you. Regardless if the engines are helping you, or not. If Google vanishes tomorrow, you still better have links.”

Eric Ward

Check out the video.

I really only like hearing Eric talk. He’s a real, real linking expert. (I prefer to call him a master link baiting publicist) He’s definitely one of my favorite SEO’s of all time. He’s been the man since before I was getting into SEO in ‘05. Everything that guy says is worth hearing.

Because of him, I too am a link building expert. (<–Experiment link since I’m already linking to him above.) Second behind him on Google.

Look out E-Dub. Much respect, but I gotta try :) Maybe I should look into taking EW’s advice..

Writing this Post from Windows Live Writer

James Harrison — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 18:45:35 +0000

Long ago I mentioned how I was practicing a bulk blog posting strategy utilizing the features of Posterous. But I wasn’t a big fan of the signature link they placed on every post, everywhere and that they don’t past the SEO love in return. (profiles)

Now I’m exploring…

I’m writing this post in Windows Live Writer. So far it looks like I can write a post offline through Windows Live software and post it to any blogs I’ve entered in my account. I also added ScribeFire to my FireFox Addons. It looks it that does the same. We’ll just playing around for now. If this test works, you should be able to find this blog post at my

Windows Live Writer is a Desktop Blog Posting Application. Just make sure your don’t download all that extra software you don’t need.

Windows Live Writer is great, because you can attach documents to posts, add plugins, sync it with Windows Live Social, set publishing for later & much, much more. And since its a software with a WSYWIG editor for multiple blogs, it has hidden options that usually pertain to other blogs, that you could apply to the one you are using.

Here is a full list of blog platforms that work with Windows Live Writer. (As of 9/2/2010)

WordPress.com
Blogger
Atom Publishing Protocol
TypePad
LiveJournal
Movable Types
WordPress
WordPress 2.2+
Community Server
dasBlog
Radio Userland
Metaweblog API
Movable Type API

No Tumblr, Vox, or MySpace Blog :(

As soon as I know the most SEO effective way to bulk post, I’ll let you in on it.

16 SEO Tips – My Onpage SEO Checklist

James Harrison — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 23:19:17 +0000

Here’s a list of onpage SEO factors I look at when analyzing a website. Enjoy!

NOTE: Not in order of importance. They all need to be done, and done right.

Proper Meta Data – Relevant, Organized Title, Description, KW’s, & Robots
H1 Heading – relevance & h2-h5 support
In-Content Keyword Placement – Density, Prominence, 1st Sentence
Onpage Keyword Placement – 1st Part of Body, ID’s, Last 10 Words, Site-wide – Refer to above.
Image Optimization – Img Folder, Img Name, Alt Attribute
URL Structuring/ Page Names – Site Structure, URL Names, Folder Locations
Internal Linking & Navigation – nofollow, javascript, navigation, Anchor text, title Attribute, sitewide
Google Webmaster Tools Suggestions – Verify, HTML Suggestions, Crawl Errors, Broken Links
301 Redirecting & Canonicalization – Server Type, www/non-www, Old Pages
404 Header Check Optimization
Code to Text Ratio Excessive Coding
HTML Validation & CSS Optimization
Add Blog/RSS Feed
HTML Site-mapping – Sitemap Links, Structure, Pages
XML Site-mapping & Submissions – XML Blog Feed, Sitemaps, Submit to Google & Yahoo!
Robots.txt – Follow/NoFollow, Reference XML

Check off each of these as you examine a site to determine what needs to be fixed.

Subscribe to my blog if you want to learn these in detail. I will cover each factor, post by post.

The 1st Page of Google for “SEO Blog” Pt.2

James Harrison — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 17:44:08 +0000

Hey guys, in my last post about the 1st page of Google for SEO blog, I took a snapshot of the 1st page of Google for the term SEO blog and pointed out a couple things I noticed about the competition. One thing I mentioned was how dynamic the 1st page of Google was/is. Well, here’s proof; snapshots of Google’s 1st page for the keyword “SEO blog” over the past 4 days.

SEO Blog – SATURDAY (4/10/2010)

SEO Blog – SUNDAY (4/11/2010)

SEO Blog – MONDAY (4/12/2010)

SEO Blog – TUESDAY (TODAY)

Every single day the results change. In fact, according to my SERP tracker, my site has seen the 1st page a couple times in the last few weeks. I’ll catch it one day and snapshot it.

Remember how aggressive I was saying the competition was being when they only had “SEO blog” in their title tags..? It looks like it’s working, no? Sometimes it pays to be aggressive in the SEO world. But doesn’t it seem like the title tags should be used to distinguish your site from the rest and to allure clicks?

The 1st Page of Google for “SEO Blog”

James Harrison — Fri, 09 Apr 2010 06:48:44 +0000

Google’s 1st SERP (search engine results page) for the term “SEO blog” is insane. It’s one of the most dynamic first pages of Google I’ve seen in a while. Every day, the positions change, title tags change ,and the competitors get more aggressive. Lovely…, this playing field is much more fun than the ones that normally take weeks to months to even see a change.

As many of my readers know, I’m trying to get on that crazy 1st page for the key phrase “seo blog”. And as most SEO’s know, examining the competition is a MUST. A couple things I’ve noticed that I wanted to point out is the importance of the title tag, and how the 1st page of Google for the term “SEO blog” is a bumpin’ dance floor.

As mentioned in past posts (Title Tags, SEO & Samples & Title Tags Change Search Engine Rankings), the title tags are everything. Well, not everything. But they can determine a huge portion of the value of your efforts. In other words, if you work them right, the title tags could be one of your best weapons.

Here is a snapshot of the 1st page of Google for “SEO Blog”.

First and foremost, notice how EVERY website has “SEO blog” in their title tags.

Now, notice how 4 of the top 10 websites have aggressively made their title tags ONLY “SEO Blog”. There are many reasons behind why those blogs chose to do that. But the main one is because; the only real term those particular pages are targeting is “SEO Blog”. Now for me, I can’t do that. My blog is more than just an “SEO blog”, it’s an SEO blog by James Harrison, a San Diego SEO consultant.

1/2 of the pages saying only SEO blog are actually internal blog sections of their SEO site. So theoretically, if that’s what it is, then that’s what it is. BUT, even Google has acknowledged that that is not the way to write your title tags by running themselves through their own SEO analysis/report card. Look on pages 4-7, Google has decided that they should make more use of their own title tags.

“Give the search user important clues about the page”

Google Report Card

Are my SEO Blog competitors being too aggressive?

But anyway, I just wanted to point out how aggressive some of the sites are getting in hopes for the term “SEO blog”. Well, that’s enough for today. I’ll provide a full post on the dynamics of the 1st page of Google for SEO blog this weekend.

Remember, I’m a 1-man show competing with agencies of bloggers. (I am open to guest posts, by the way.)

San Diego SEO Group at LinkedIn – JOIN!

James Harrison — Mon, 05 Apr 2010 04:54:33 +0000

I’ve just come to find out that I am a manager of a somewhat used-to-be dead LinkedIn group called San Diego SEO. Up until recently, there hasn’t been much action. Originally the group was dead because we had strict rules for who could join. (You pretty much had to be a San Diego SEO). But that didn’t work. So as suggested by other members in the group, we decided to expand..

If you at all want to talk SEO, join the San Diego SEO group today. I’ll post my share of findings and spread the word, and I hope my fellow member do too.

Now that I know that I’m one of the managers, I figured I’d pay my part. All questions asked in the San Diego SEO LinkedIn Group will automatically be sent to my email. As soon as I get a chance, I’ll be sure give my 2 cents.

I hope to make more friends with some of you. You can connect with me on LinkedIn Here.

*If any of the original members stumble across this post, let me know. I have a few questions for you..

10 Handy iPhone Apps for Webmasters

James Harrison — Thu, 01 Apr 2010 16:07:50 +0000

Apple’s iPhone is the most popular mobile communications platform ever. With millions of users and millions of uses, iPhones can be used to do just about anything. With all that power in your hand, have you ever thought to use your iPhone to administer your Web sites? iPhone apps for webmasters allow increased flexibility for everyone who needs to manage a Web site while on the go. Now you never have to be away from your stats, databases, and code. The following are 10 iPhone apps for webmasters that make life on the go a whole lot easier.

#1 Mocha VNC – This is a VNC client that allows you to take complete control over any remote computer running as a VNC host. This handy app gives you incredible power at your fingertips no matter how far away your Web server is.

#2 Chart Beat – Get up to the minute information about visitor activity on a Web site with Chart Beat. This app packs the power to send you alerts concerning visitor levels and activity as well as to alert you when pages are slow or the Web site is down. This program runs in real time and keeps webmasters in touch with their projects everywhere they go.

#3 Network Ping – This handy network tool works just like the tools you keep on your computer at the office, only you can use it to perform valuable tests right from the your iPhone. Network Ping even has a Telnet program that gives you remote access to routers and servers so you don’t have to interrupt your dinner to run to the office.

#4 Domain Scout – If you need to begin development of a new Web site or even move one to a new domain; you need to find an available domain name to use. That’s where Domain Scout comes in. Not only will this app tell you what’s available, it can return DNS and WHOIS information of registered domains.

#5 WordPress – WordPress admins and bloggers alike can use this iPhone app to create and edit pages, handle comments and a variety of other features. It’s practically like having the WordPress admin interface right there on your phone.

#6 Ego – For the webmaster who needs to stay in touch with the stats, Ego is the perfect solution. This iPhone app collects stats from Feedburner, Ember, Twitter, Google Analytics and other statistics in one easy-to-view interface so you can see all you know at one glance.

#7 FTP on the Go – This essential application for webmasters brings the power of FTP to your iPhone. Create bookmarks for all your servers and then you can easily and quickly download, edit, and upload files to your Web sites. Used to be you had to be at the office or near a hot spot to do this, but now you can use FTP wherever and whenever it’s needed.

#8 pTerm – All the terminal applications you need are included in this great app. TCP, SSH, Telnet are all in this emulator that works remarkably similar to Putty. This app includes CTRL and ESC and uses its own on-screen keyboard to help webmasters get their job done.

#9 Database Viewer Plus – Whoever thought admin power like this would be available on a phone? When you need to change, update or view your Web database, this is the application you need. Oracle, SQL, DB2, dBase, FileMaker Pro, Excel, and MySQL databases are all accessed through this one interface. A multi-lingual interface and 128 bit encryption make this a secure and versatile way for webmasters to administer databases. An incredible synchronization function makes sure that you always have the latest database version available regardless of whether you are working from your iPhone or from your desk.

#10 Cheat Sheets – No matter how experienced a webmaster is, there’s always a critical moment when important code is forgotten. PHP, CSS, jQuery and HTML cheat sheets take care of that by making code references available on the spot so you can get your pages up and running in a hurry. The HTML version even lets you try your code from within the program so you know that you are posting solid code.

This guest post is from Tom Walker who blogs for an online store offering a range of cartridges next day. You can read more of his posts about design and advertising on their blog where he is an active contributor and editor.

SEO Tracking Tools by EasySEOTracking.com

James Harrison — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 17:44:32 +0000

Today I would like to review the tools that will help you to answer the questions that SEO specialists ask during their everyday work:

Does my site appear in Google search results?
Did my site appear in search results previously?
How does my latest changes affect the overall SEO project?
Why do my competitors appear in the first positions on Google’s search results?

Does my site appear in Google search results?

You can check it by going to Google SERPs Checker, enter the keywords and your site URL:

As a result – the information on a position in Google search results will appear.

Did my site appear in search results previously?

To get more information on your current and previous position you need to Create an Account and enter the keywords and URL from the example above:

As the keywords and URL are entered the application checks the position of the URL in Google search results and creates a graphic with current any previous data.

How does my latest changes affect overall SEO project?

Let’s say you have a page named ‘big red car’. It appears in Google search result when users enter ‘big red car’ keywords. It also appears in the results when users enter ‘big car’.

So far so good. Let’s say you create a new page named ‘big blue car’. The ‘big red car’ no longer appears when users enter ‘big red car’ because the page ‘big blue car’ appears now. This effect is also called ‘keyword cannibalization’ (“Oh my god! Red car is eaten by blue car!”).

Google SERPs Checker allows you to monitor such side effects by providing the following parameters for each set of the keywords:

Average Keyword Position:
Let’s say ‘big blue car’ keywords are at the first position in Google and ‘big red car’ are at the second. The average keyword position in this case is 1.5
Count:
Number of keywords that make your site appears in top 50 Google search results.
First Page Keywords:
Keywords that cause your site appear at the first page in Google search results (most important keywords).

Now let’s go back to our example with cars. The SEO specialist can monitor the parameters above to find out such effects (it is also called ‘keyword cannibalization’).

For example if today ‘Average Keyword Position’ is 200 and yesterday it was 5, it is safe to say that something goes wrong and it is time to make some changes.

Why my competitors appear at the first positions in Google search results?

Google SEO Recommendation will provide an answer for this question. Enter the required parameters – and this service will be happy to assist.

Let’s say we want to beat our competitor seomoz.org. We start with the following:

We enter the keyword ‘SEO’, because we want to found out who is better optimized for this keyword.
We enter our URL.
We enter URL of our competitor.

The application provides us with the following recommendations:

So, today we have reviewed 2 services that allows you to enhance you site by providing information on your current SEO status. There are other cool applications that can be found at Easy SEO Tracking site.

Let me know if it helps for you!

OrangeSoda Offers SEO through American Express

James Harrison — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 17:10:26 +0000

American Express the popular credit card provider is now providing SEO services (serivce page) for businesses looking to get their site seen at the top of popular search engines (Google, Yahoo!, Big, etc.).

Now you may wonder how and why is American Express offering SEO services? How is a credit card company going to help improve my rankings? Well the answer to that is..

American Express isn’t really the company offering the SEO services, OrangeSoda is. It seems as if American Express has partnered or affiliated with OrangeSoda, and is just acting as a middle man.

Quotes from Page..

Flexible, Affordable and Backed by Expert Support

American Express’ consulting team will help you interpret your customer analysis and turn that information into a focused marketing plan

We then connect you to OrangeSoda to demystify the process of setting up a Search campaign to enhance your placement in the Sponsored Links, Maps section and/or Standard Search area

You get a customized Search campaign based on your goals and budget, and receive ongoing consultation from OrangeSoda

You can track your results 24/7 on your personal dashboard from Orange Soda

So, to me it seems like you might as well go straight through OrangeSoda and avoid middle man fees. But I don’t know what type of deal they’ve worked, so maybe going through American Express has it’s advantages, either financially or based on great company merits like reputation, age of company, size of organization, support, etc. Maybe going through American Express get’s you double the SEO..??

Whatever the case may be. I thought it was pretty interesting (and admirable) that OrangeSoda was able to workout a partnership with American Express, who I’m sure can generate valuable leads fast!

16 Free Link Building Tools & Tips for Strategic Linking

James Harrison — Sun, 21 Feb 2010 23:05:29 +0000

This is a guest post provided by AAA Linking, a link building service company & linking resource.

Here is a list of great link building tools & tips to help you discover and obtain relevant backlinks.

#1 Backlink Watch - One of my favorite link building tools. It’s a very simple way to check a website’s backlink URL’s, anchor text and total OBL’s (outbound links) on the same page as that link.

Quick Tip – If a website is ranking for a particular keyword, you can punch that site into backlink watch, and skim the outputs for all anchor text links saying that particular keyword to get a good idea of what type of sites and which sites are giving them links saying their/your desired terms.

#2 Analyze Backlinks - Another gold mine for exploring a competitor’s backlinks. This one provides more valuable options that allow you to filter out same domain URL’s and to search for factors such as target keyword mentions surrounding the links.

Quick Tip – Same as the tip for Backlink Watch, but add the factor of looking for that keyword on the page as well. Because surrounding content of links can sometimes be just a valuable as the link itself.

#3 Bad Neighborhood Text Link Tool – Great way to see what type of links a website accumulates, whether it be yours or a potential link partner.

Quick Tip – If a potential partner wants to exchange links with you, check and see if all their backlinks are legit. Because, yes, guilty by association is a search engine ranking factor.

#4 SoloSEO Link Search Tool – Quite possibly the easiest way online to find relevant backlinks that are fairly easy to obtain.

Quick Tips – My favorites are “list * keyword * sites”, “recommended links” keyword”, “favorite links” keyword”, “favorite sites” keyword”, intitle:post keyword, keyword guest writer, keyword guest blog post writer, keyword submit content, keyword submit article, keyword submit post, keyword add article, keyword “suggest * url”, keyword “suggest * site”

#5 Link Appeal Tool - Is a link from your website really worth it? Find out with this tool how valuable your website is based on several factors.

Quick Tip – Aim to get links from sites with higher value than yours.

#6 Yahoo Site Explorer – Not really a link building tool, but you could quickly check a site’s backlink count and it’s top 10-1000 backlinks. Although this tool isn’t much more better than the previous 2, it does show the title of the linking pages and allows you to track you own websites if signed in and verified ownership of site.

type link:yoursite.com

Quick Tip – Export top 1,000 results to CSV/TSV. Open it in a spreadsheet and filter based on keywords in Titles and URL’s.

#7 Google Search (link:yoursite.com) – No different than the one above except for the fact that the number of backlinks according to Google’s search engine is ALWAYS considerably lower than Yahoo!’s results. But the links that made it to Google’s results are assumingly affecting the search rankings.

Web Confs Backlink Tools – Webconfs has over 20 SEO tools to offer. But these are my favorite of their link building tools.

#8 Backlink Anchor Text Analysis – Compare the top ranking site’s text links to yours. Is there a difference?
#9 Backlink Builder – Enter a keyword. Copy whole list(s), paste into excel. Filter.. ;) or get to work.
#10 Backlink Summary – A quick summary similar to the results delivered by Analyze Backlinks & Backlink Watch.

#11 SEO for FireFox Plugin – Besides being able to provide you with on-demand access to data of the top ranking site’s instantly, the SEO for Firefox tool also provides a great feature that highlights nofollow links (in red), so it’s easy to identify which links count and which don’t.

Quick Tip - Keep it on at all times. You may see the net differently when all nofollow links are highlighted red.

#12 Google Webmaster Tools – Besides getting the best perspective of your website through the eyes of Google, the Google Webmaster Tools also tells you the links they’ve found, and their anchor text.

Quick Tips – Make sure all your top linked pages are live and optimized.

#13 Alexa Backlink Checker – You can see total domains linking to a website and which domains they are.

Quick Tip – Alexa offers tremendous data far beyond which domains link to you.

#14 Link Harvester – I put this one toward the end of the list because it provides the type of data far beyond what the basic link builder needs. Nonetheless, it’s a oldie, but goodie.

Quick Tip – Record all the edu & gov links and make an effort to actually get a link from them.

#15 Search Combination Tool – Not a link building too at all. But with the tips provided below, you can make it another SoloSEO Link Search Tool (above).

Quick Tip – Instead of just your keywords, use your keywords in combination with words like resources, “favorite sites”, link partners, directory, etc.

#16 Recip Links – A tool that spiders a site (or list of sites) and checks to see if there are links to a specified domain.

Quick Tip – Export all your external links (like we did in WordPress SEO to Be a Top SEO #3), copy and paste them into the recip tool and see which sites don’t link back to you.

So there you have it, 16 link building tools and tips for better linking. If you can recommend another free link building tool and a quick tip, please contact me or comment it below.

100 Niche Search Engines Every College Student Needs

James Harrison — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 03:53:35 +0000

Online Universities recently published a list of search engines for students searching for up to date facts, data, evidence, historical pieces, science, formulas, etc. If you are a college (or high school) student looking for the ultimate database of educational resources, look no further.

While the big names like Google & Yahoo will likely always rule the search engine market, sometimes you want something a little more focused when it comes to finding what you need on the web. That’s where these niche search engines come in handy. Using these tools you’ll be able to search through everything from academic research articles to deals on video games, making your life at college easier in a myriad of ways.

View full list here -> 100 Niche Search Engines Every College Student Needs

Leveraging Your Strongest Pages through Internal Linking

James Harrison — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 22:54:12 +0000

Like with a backlink building campaign where we aim to get as many relevant and popular links to boost or rankings, we’ll utilize the strongest pages we have within our site to boost our homepage’s rankings.

In a strategic link building campaign the goal is to get as many links that will vouch for our keywords from as many popular and relevant sites possible. So we must try to get links from sites that are ultra relevant to ours based on their theme and keywords, as well as sites that are popular in our community based on buzz and backlinks. Because afterall, search engine rankings are based on relevance AND popularity.

Just like we would with an off page link building campaign, we’ll have to discover our most relevant and popular pages within our site and add links containing our target keywords (pointing to the homepage) to each of them.

Let’s get started.

First, let’s find my top 10 (SEO Blog-relevant) pages according to Google.

site:jameseo.com “seo blog”

This searches my site jameseo.com for my top 10 pages for “SEO Blog”. Googles rankings are based on time, backlinks, trust, relevancy and many other factors, so the mix of sites could change. But currently my top pages are;

jameseo.com/wordpress-seo-to-be-a-top-seo-blog/
jameseo.com/plugins-i-installed-for-wordpress-seo-blog-optimization/
jameseo.com/wordpress-seo-to-be-a-top-seo-blog-2
jameseo.com/blog/san-diego/
jameseo.com/wordpress-seo-to-be-a-top-seo-blog-3/
jameseo.com/onpage-seo-title-tags-change-search-engine-rankings/
jameseo.com/my-10-most-popular-blog-posts/
jameseo.com/blog/james-harrison/
jameseo.com/posterous-fw-seo-analyst-job-in-new-york-ny/

I could just do a site:jameseo.com search to find my top 10 pages overall. But for this scenario, I’m targeted the keyword “SEO Blog”.

Pages with Most Inlinks According to Google

If you sign into your Google Webmaster tools and look at your dashboard, you can see your top pages with the most inlinks. Record those URL’s as well.

seo-resources/
wordpress-seo-to-be-a-top-seo-blog/
back-link-building-checklist-cheatsheet-guide-07-08/
6-call-attempts-for-better-lead-conversion/
plugins-i-installed-for-wordpress-seo-blog-optimization/
13-search-operators-ultimate-link-building/
flickr-seo-optimizing-your-flickr-account-photos/
blog-commenting-search-list/
re-directing-user-based-on-their-geo-graphical-location/

By now, you should have two lists, with some pages listed in both.

The 3^rd place we’ll fetch for our best pages to leverage is in our Bing Webmaster Center.

Once you are in you website’s section, click the ‘Keywords’ tab and type in your target keyword. (In my case; seo blog.) Bing will deliver your 10 most keyword relevant pages (to your target keyword) according to their algorithm.

http://jameseo.com/tag/seo-blog/
http://jameseo.com/contact/
http://jameseo.com/plugins-i-installed-for-wordpress-seo-blog-optimization/
http://jameseo.com/blog/seo/
http://jameseo.com/microsoft-seo-from-them-themselves/
http://jameseo.com/title-tags-seo-samples/
http://jameseo.com/blog-commenting-search-list/
http://jameseo.com/6-call-attempts-for-better-lead-conversion/
http://jameseo.com/link-building-expert-tips-backlink-reporting/

Execution

Now that I have a list of my top “SEO blog” pages, I will paste the following quote to the bottom of each post/page.

I would like to thank you for taking the time to read my SEO blog. I really do appreciate it. You can read another related post (found below) or subscribe here. Once again, thank you for visiting James’ SEO blog.

If you visit any of these pages, they will now have a “SEO Blog” link within each post pointing back to the homepage.

Now the majority of all the juice and SEO blog relevance my site carriers is channeled to my homepage.

Wordpress SEO to Be a Top SEO Blog #3

James Harrison — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 14:44:34 +0000

The previous post in this series was regarding running my blog through the SEO Workers’ Analyzer Tool and the Website Grader Tool and discovering what points my site fell sort on. I also analyzed my blog’s theme based on keyword density. In this post just as the top sites in this industry have already done, I’ll focus on completing (most of ) the on-page WordPress SEO.

However, before I get started and continue on with this series I wanted to publish my site’s data to date since I KNOW it’s going to change..

Alexa Ranking - 247,900
Compete – 1,094,293
Delicious - 12
Yahoo! Links – 2,232
Google Links - 10
Google PageRank – 2
Twitter Followers - 177
“seo blog” Google Ranking – 20
“seo blog“ Bing Ranking – 69
“seo blog” Yahoo Ranking – 80
jameseo.com Google Mentions - 187,000

Ok, let’s get started. We’ll cover..

A. Website Grader Fixes
B. SEO Workers Analyzer Fixes
C. Google Webmaster Findings
D. Bing Webmaster Center Findings

A. Website Grader

In order to improve my grade on Website Grader I had to complete the following tasks;

1. Condense Title Tag of Homepage to 70 Characters or Less

Not something I’m willing to fix. Therefore may never obtain 100%. I’ll talk more about title tags another time.

2. Add Alt. Attributes to Images on Homepage of Blog

I added alt tags to all images except for my rotating banners below, because they run through my ads manager which doesn’t allow me to add alternative text. But we’ll still work on that in another post.

3. Add Meta Descriptions to Pages

My pages (services, contact, about) didn’t have meta tags (descriptions/keywords). So I added them using Headspace plugin by Urban Giraffe.

4. Get Bookmarked in Delicious

I created a Delicious account specifically for this blog and bookmarked a few of my favorite posts.

5. Retweet(ed) Last 3 Posts

B. SEO Workers’ SEO Analyzer

1. Description Relevancy

My description relevancy to webpage content was off. The meta description could help your site out big time if used correctly. It’s important that your description is almost a ‘verbatim summary’ of that webpage composed into 160 characters; which should also be ultra relevant to the top 10 keywords of your website. Here’s my top 10 phrases according to SEO Workers (Prior to Fixes).

seo – 4
web design – 4
blog seo – 3
link building – 3
james harrison – 3
internet marketing – 3
seo blog – 3
resources – 2
internet news – 2
san diego – 2

If I can’t create keyword-targeted title tags and descriptions based on the page’s top terms, then I need to re-examine my content(top terms), metas &/or keywords; because they should all match.

2. Add Keyword Meta Tags

Added keyword meta tags, even though Matt Cutts says they’re useless. (There are situations where meta keywords do come in handy though.) But for the sake of my Website Grader. score, I added keywords really similar to my footer keywords to the meta keywords global setting in HeadSpace. That way the metas still match every page’s content.

3. “SEO Blog” Onpage/Domain Keyword Density

Tried to make “SEO blog” more prominent and dense by adding the sentence; “Thank you for reading my SEO blog :)” near the top of the side bar.

4. Make Homepage Have Most Site-wide Internal Links

I added a little sentence at the end of the comment sections of each blog post, utilizing a little option in Intense Debate’s comments settings.

Sentence: “Thanks for commenting on my internet marketing and SEO blog“. Now every page but the home page (because of the read more function) has one more (SEO’d) link pointing to my homepage.

5. Cut Back on the Phrase “comments http jameseo com”

I figured the reason ‘comments http jameseo com’ was the most dense was because the word “Comments” was above each post (10 times).

I used some options in Intense Debate, so instead of saying “comments #”, it says things like “blog comment here”, “talk seo with me”, “like my seo blog?” We’ll see if this works.

C. Google Webmaster Tools

1. Verify Domain in Google Webmaster Tools

Make sure you verify both (the www & non-www) versions of your website in Google Webmaster Tools so you can tell Google your preferred domain.

2. Submit XML Sitemap to Google Webmaster Tools

The easiest way to submit your XML sitemap is to tell Google to use your blog’s feed as your xml source.

3. Fix Crawl Errors

I had 3 crawl errors.

One error was an old page I took down – But as you may notice, I brought back my resources page simply because 52 pages are linking to it. Thinking of how to make the best of that page now..
One of my errors was an old page that picked up some links when it was under the old permanlink structure. I redirected it with the redirection plug-in.
The last error had no business being indexed (wp-admin). So I disallowed the robots from the wp-admin in the robots.txt file.

D. Bing Webmaster Center

1. Make Sure Robots.txt File Doesn’t Have Any Problems

I ran my robots.txt text through Bing’s Robots.txt File Checker Tool and everything looks good; no problems found.

2. Check Site’s Outbound Links

I exported all my external links to an excel spreadsheet and scanned for any sites I shouldn’t be linking to. I ended up deleting about 10 links and nofollowing 5 or 6.

Don’t Link to Spam Sites
Don’t Link to Inactive Sites
Don’t Link to the Competition

That’s pretty much the basics besides what’s to come.. My next posts will cover leveraging my best pages, and optimizing my ‘read more’ text links, and as you can tell by my rankings much, much more ( to do).

Stay Tuned!

Create Your Own Pixel “Blog Button” Badge

James Harrison — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 15:47:16 +0000

Creating a blog badge can be fun. You see them on every blog and every major social network offers one to add to your site. Why not create your own custom badge for others to place on their site? Luca Zappa provides a brilliant button maker that any webmaster would enjoy. http://www.lucazappa.com/brilliantMaker/buttonImage.php

My 10 Most Popular Blog Posts

James Harrison — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 01:53:03 +0000

While dissecting my blog, analyzing the stats of individual posts and prioritizing my pages, I was able to come up with my most popular posts based on a variety of factors ranging from total inlinks, comments, retweets, search engine rankings, PR and more.

So for my new followers who don’t know my SEO blog, here is a list of my 10 most popular blog posts.

There you have it. Thanks for reading! Subscribe.

My Favorite Link Building Video EVER! [Motivation vs. Inspiration]

James Harrison — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 08:07:29 +0000

This link building video reminds me of the time when the definitions of inspiration and motivation were clearly defined to me. This is how they differ..

Motivation is what moves you, requires actions/movement. While inspiration is a feeling, and feelings come and go. Motivation stays with you because it’s a decision just as much as it is a feeling. We cannot achieve anything with inspiration alone. Inspiration is nothing if it doesn’t spark motivation. Motivated people set out to achieve their goals by taking action.

Motivation/Movement/Motive/Motion/:

Desire so strong that you actually act on it
Sense that we have to do something and therefore we do it
Feeling of energy channeled into the pursuit of a goal

“Life is what happens when you are making other plans” -John Lennon

Anyway, watch this video and you’ll see what I’m leading up to..

Link Building Experts in 2009 – F*ck inspiration – Get Links!

YouTube Video Description

http://www.cemper.com
|
http://www.marketingfan.com/
|
Live recording from Extreme SEO Panel at A4Uexpo Europe 2009 in Amsterdam on 28/29.4.2009

Quote on a tough link building question by famous SEOs Joost De Valk, Bob Rains, Marcus Tandler aka Mediadonis, Dixon Jones and Dave Naylor:

Joost de Valk: “we could talk about SEO ALL day and it comes down to one thing…”

Delegate: “how do you get inspiration?”

Marcus: “F*CK Inspiration – Get Links!”

Definitions of inspiration on the Web:

arousal of the mind to special unusual activity or creativity
a product of your creative thinking and work; “he had little respect for the inspirations of other artists”; “after years of work his brainchild was a tangible reality”
a sudden intuition as part of solving a problem
divine guidance: (theology) a special influence of a divinity on the minds of human beings; “they believe that the books of Scripture were written under divine guidance”
arousing to a particular emotion or action
inhalation: the act of inhaling; the drawing in of air (or other gases) as in breathing

Sounds like inspiration is a bunch of thoughts, talk and ideas.

Definitions of motivation on the Web:

the psychological feature that arouses an organism to action toward a desired goal; the reason for the action; that which gives purpose and …
the condition of being motivated; “his motivation was at a high level”
the act of motivating; providing incentive
Motivation is the internal condition that activates behavior and gives it direction; and energizes and directs goal-oriented behavior.

Again, F*ck Inspiration, Get Links!

Disclaimer: this video gets 100% of my support even though I don’t encourage bad language.

Wordpress SEO to Be a Top SEO Blog #2

James Harrison — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 04:32:15 +0000

I was thinking about this series, its’ goal, and what I had in mind when examining its’ title; “Wordpress SEO to be a Top SEO Blog“. From how it sounds, this series is going to be about SEO tricks and Wordpress optimization techniques that will boost my rankings for the term “SEO blog”, AND IT IS/WAS. But thinking back to my post like “Deep Down, You Know Why You’re Not Ranking #1” led me to believe that I have to do much more than just optimize this blog.

So the good news for the followers of this series is not only will I share tips I’ve done within this blog, I’ll also be sharing other things I’ll have to do in order to compete in this saturated SEO blogsphere; which most likely will have nothing to do with WordPress at all.

Just keep that in mind.

So for my 2nd couple of hours..

Earlier I wrote a post on 2 free tools you can use to analyze your website. So I figured while I’m at it, I’d run my blog through these tools and make all the necessary adjustments to improve my scores and search engine friendliness.

First I ran the tool through the infamous websitegrader. You can view my report here. But my scores (prior to this post) are below.

Section	jameseo.com
Website Grade	97.7
Moz Rank	4
Google Indexed Pages	240
Traffic Rank	248,714
Blog Grade	68
Inbound Links	1,581
del.icio.us Bookmarks	11

Here are the points I missed;

3 most recent articles weren’t retweeted..
2 images without alt tags were found
page title of the homepage is too long – 73, 70 is recommendation
no meta descriptions in my 3 pages; about, contact & services.

Next I ran my blog through the SEO Workers analyzer tool.

I pretty much passed on all the basic and techy stuff. But here were some factors I wanted to address/keep in mind..

The phrase “SEO Blog”;

Domain Keyword Density
Homepage Keyword Density
Site Keyword Prominence
Main Keyword Theme of Site

In one of the sections of the analyzer tool results, it points out your top single keywords, 2-word keyphrases, and 3-word keyphrases.

I know I’m going old school here, but ceteris paribus..

Single Keywords: ["SEO" & "Blog" should be #1 & #2, if "SEO Blog" is my target term]

seo – 35 – 3.02%
blog – 14 – 1.21%
2008 – 11 – 0.95%
http – 10 – 0.86%
san – 10 – 0.86%
james+harrison – 10 – 0.86%
jameseo.com – 10 – 0.86%
diego – 10 – 0.86%
comments – 9 – 0.78%
google – 9 – 0.78%
2009 – 9 – 0.78%

Check

Two Word Keyphrases: ["SEO Blog" should be 1st on the list]

san diego – 10 – 0.86% <— My Hometown
http jameseo.com – 10 – 0.86%
comments http – 9 – 0.78%
seo blog – 7 – 0.60%
diego seo – 6 – 0.52%
jan 10 – 6 – 0.52% -
search engine – 5 – 0.43%
dec 09 – 4 – 0.34%
engine optimization – 4 – 0.34%
internet marketing – 4 – 0.34%

Looks like I’m going to have to write the phrase “SEO blog” everywhere I see “San Diego” or match the amount in other places witin the site. I pretty much just have to say “SEO Blog” 4 more times. I’ll also have to cut back on whatever it is I’m doing to show “comments http” 9 times. Same with “http jameseo com”.

Three Word Keyphrases: ["SEO" & "Blog" should be in the 1st one or within the 1st 2 combined

comments http jameseo.com - 9 - 0.78%
san diego seo - 6 - 0.52%
search engine optimization - 3 - 0.26%
diego seo freelancer - 3 - 0.26%
recognizes san diego - 2 - 0.17%
website isn’t ranking - 2 - 0.17%
awesome browser icon - 2 - 0.17%
professional seo specialists - 2 - 0.17%
reporter recognizes san - 2 - 0.17%
james+harrison 30 jan - 2 - 0.17%

Obviously, I have some work to do. But maybe as I filter out "comments http" and "http jameseo com", and switch "search engine optimization" with "SEO", the phrase "SEO blog" will show up on the list.

URLs found in the page

This section lists the URLs found within the page, and the number of times each was found.

Found 78 urls of which 62 are unique.

Ideally, if your homepage is you main page going after your main keyword, then that page should have the most internal links pointing back to it. Always point more links saying your desired keywords to the most important pages within your site/blog.

The pages listed below should be listed in the same order as your 'page importance order'. So, I either have to add another site-wide link pointing to the JameSEO.com homepage or get rid of one of the sets of pages links (either in the top nav or sidebar).

This post will be continued tomorrow, when I will discuss my fixes and optimization techniques based on my Google Webmaster Tools & Bing’s Webmaster Center finding. Stay Tuned!

Perform a Quick SEO Analysis Utilizing 2 Free SEO Tools

James Harrison — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 21:15:12 +0000

If you ever find yourself at the point where you just aren’t sure what basic SEO needs to be done for a website, consider using these two free SEO tools that will scan your website for ranking barriers and influencers. Within 10 minutes you can damn-near know everything your website needs to be fully optimized.

SEO Workers – Analyzer Tool

This tool is great for users looking for onpage SEO adjustments that need to be impemented throughtout the whole domain.

It doesn’t only analyze the Meta Tags of your pages, rather it tries to use the same spider technology as the search engines spiders them self.

Here are some of the results you can expect;

General status
Meta tags listing
Meta tags analysis
General web page analysis
The page displayed within search engine results
Keywords found in the anchor tags
Keywords found in the image ‘alt’ attribute text
Keywords found on the page
URLs found in the page
Headers returned from the server

Website Grader

This tool is a very popular analyzer tool. And it’s easy to understand why once you use it. It makes it really simple to understand where your website is passing and failing. Red marks for the wrong ones, just like our teachers growing up :)

The algorithm uses a proprietary blend of over 50 different variables, including search engine data , website structure, approximate traffic, site performance, and others.

You can see the results for my SEO blog here.

This tool also allows you to add your competitors, so you can see how they are performing as well.

Take notes on all of the points you missed/got wrong or would like to personally improve on. That should give you a nice list of things to do with your website in order to improve its’ rankings. If you passed all those test sand you’re still not #1, then maybe you should consider reading “Deep Down You Know Why Your Website Isn’t Ranking #1“.

Good Luck!

Create Your Own Awesome Browser Icon (favicon)

James Harrison — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 14:35:03 +0000

A favicon is that little icon you see next to a site’s URL in your internet browser or bookmarks. It’s not needed, but it’s good for branding. This picture is here to demonstrate how favicons can imprint an image in your head and reinforce branding.

Favicon.CC is my favorite favicon creator. You can create one from scratch, upload your own picture or find ones users have already created and edit them to your liking. Using this site is definitely a fun way to learn 16 x 16 pixel design and animation.

Genfavicon is a another good and simple one too. You upload your picture, crop it and save. It is extremely simple for the ones that already have a picture or logo.

I added this Dynamic Drive link because if you are ever starting from scratch, starting with a gradient background is another way to add flavor to the design.

Essential Accounts for Online Marketers

James Harrison — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 08:03:09 +0000

I was in my Google Reader catching up on some blogs I follow and as one link led to another, the next thing I knew I was surfing a handful of internet marketing blogs I’ve never heard of, or seen before. So many good blogs and so many junk ones. From internet marketing and business to personal development and finance. Topics ranging from the iPad & the stock market to how to make money online and how to do SEO.

But this post is about a particular post I found written (and taped recorded) by an Australian internet marketer named James Schramko. Before I found this particular post I was already interested in this guy’s blog, hence me looking around and stumbling across “Essential Accounts for Internet Marketers“. Here is a video from the post. But the full read can be found at his blog.

I like the ocean waving to me in the background of his video. The same waves I see from my balcony in San Diego (just from the other side of the pond). Anyway, check out the video below. I personally prefer a few other brands for some of the accounts. But, nevertheless, a great checklist for all!

SEO Blog by James Harrison

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The 1st Page of Google for “SEO Blog” Pt.2

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10 Handy iPhone Apps for Webmasters

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Did my site appear in search results previously?

How does my latest changes affect overall SEO project?

Why my competitors appear at the first positions in Google search results?

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A. Website Grader

B. SEO Workers’ SEO Analyzer

C. Google Webmaster Tools

D. Bing Webmaster Center

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Create Your Own Pixel “Blog Button” Badge

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My 10 Most Popular Blog Posts

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My Favorite Link Building Video EVER! [Motivation vs. Inspiration]

Link Building Experts in 2009 – F*ck inspiration – Get Links!

YouTube Video Description

Again, F*ck Inspiration, Get Links!

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Wordpress SEO to Be a Top SEO Blog #2

URLs found in the page

Related Topics from James\\\’ SEO Blog

Perform a Quick SEO Analysis Utilizing 2 Free SEO Tools

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Create Your Own Awesome Browser Icon (favicon)

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Essential Accounts for Online Marketers

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