SEO Blog by James Harrison

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!

Google Could Lose 50% of iPhone Traffic to Bing

James Harrison — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 06:29:47 +0000

A week ago, the cat was let out of the bag: Apple and Microsoft were in talks over replacing Google with Bing, and have been for weeks, as the default search engine on the iPhone. Immediately, there were questions over the implications of this move, both for the companies involved and the users.

Today, online advertising network Chitika has released some numbers that show just how big of a move this could be for all parties involved…

As things stand right now, Google accounts for just over 50% of iPhone traffic and it would like to keep it that way. As Chitika’s blog points out, this is likely a direct result of Google being the default search engine when text is entered in the the iPhone browser’s address bar.

Bing barely registers on the search engine map, as do most others.

Is this a case of the chicken or the egg? Do people use Google because that’s become the standard? Or is it because they’ve become used to it as the default choice? Another graph shows that, while less dominant, Google still remains the leader when we move away from iPhones to all traffic. Here, users have not only a choice of platform, but of browser and default search engine as well.

We think that Apple could have a potential problem on their hands with some angry users if they go through with this switch. According to the data, out of nearly three million impressions, just 2,387 were directed at Bing. That’s compared to 1,464,173 for Google. Either that, or the move will force a whole lot of people to suddenly become Bing converts.

Source: ReadWriteWeb

Wordpress SEO to Be a Top SEO Blog

James Harrison — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 05:36:45 +0000

I decided to go after the term “SEO Blog“. The goal; to be on the 1st page of Google for SEO Blog. I know I could never be #1 for SEO blog, simply because the top guys like SEOMoz, Gray Wolf, 97th Floor, etc. are all legit blogs that produce content consistently and usually about all aspects of SEO. I even recommend them to anyone that loves SEO and could use daily doses of good SEO tips.

With that being said and in combination with one of my recent post “Deep Down You Know Why Your Website Isn’t #1“, I can say I’d be happy to even be on the 1st page for the term SEO blog (Currently #15). On average I produce 5 posts a month while the top guys produce content daily. So I can tell you now I’m going to start blogging more. So, subscribe now and don’t miss a post.

Anyway, for an hour or 2, a day, I’m going to do various Wordpress optimization techniques to this blog until it has a solid ranking on the 1st page of Google. Luckily, for my readers, I will share every strategy and technique with you. Now remember, I’m already on the 2nd page, so I kinda have a head start.

OK, so Day 1..

Theme with Prominent Blog Title Text

I changed my theme so the phrase “SEO Blog” would be the 1st words on my site and in bold text.

Before, all I had was a logo with no Title or Description content, and it came after the pages navigation. The best I was able to do with that was name the image file and folder something with SEO & blog in it, and add the keyword to the title and alt attribute. I could have added text in place or with the logo. But I like this minimalist theme. Plus BIG TEXT is always better. It doesn’t have to be big either. Any text is better than a picture.

Keyword in Footer Text & In Site wide Footer Link

I also made sure my footer had the phrase SEO Blog in regular text, so SEO Blog would be mentioned on every page of my site and made sure SEO Blog was in the site-wide link that points to the homepage. This way every page of this blog says the home page is an ‘SEO Blog’.

Limit Posts Contents for Unique Page Content

I added the Limit Post plugin (<– May not be the best choice), so only part of the post shows on the 1st page. This allows the individual blog post to be ultra unique from the others because it’s the only page with the full post, it makes the homepage unique for combining a variety of posts, it allows visitors to view all my posts quickly, and it forces visitors to visit another page (Good for SEO) of my site in order to get the full read.

Google Webmaster Tools Setup

I added my site to Google Webmaster tools so by tomorrow or so I can see how Google see’s my site.

Sidebar Titles/Headings

I made sure the titles of all my widgets had “SEO” or “blog” within them. By default, they are h2’s, so make the best of them. Later down the line, if needed, we’ll get back to this when optimizing the CSS/styles.

Well, that’s all for today. Stay tuned for tomorrow’s SEO Blog strategies.

A San Diego SEO Freelancer, That’s Me!

James Harrison — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 19:22:05 +0000

First off, 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.

I thought I should re-introduce myself since things have changed since I started this blog and because I haven’t had a chance to update my ‘about James Harrison‘ page. For starters, despite showing up for New York SEO related terms, I do not live nor work in New York. I go to New York 4-5 times a year and it’s usually just to hang out with buddies for a week or so. Occasionally I’ll meet with a client but most of the time its pure pleasure. I just love New York City in fact given the opportunity, I would move there in a heartbeat, that is as long as I could convince my girlfriend, fiancé.

Currently, I live in Pacific Beach, San Diego, California. I’ve been an SEO freelancer for over 5 years now. However, I’ve only been running a professional SEO freelancing business (back by some agency experience from MEA Digital & Engine Ready) for over a year now.

Let me make that clear. I’ve been doing SEO for awhile now, but it wasn’t until working for a couple of the best online marketing agencies that I got the real, effective, professional skills and experience that sets me apart from the ‘rest’.

The freelancing business I run now is SEO by the Hour, a San Diego SEO company, firm, business. I know it says “we”, “firm”, “our”, etc. But it’s still just me, working from home, going after another SEO term. Once SEObytheHour.com is on the 1st page of Google for “SEO Firm“, I’ll revert back to my “Freelance SEO Specialist” feel. SEO by the Hour is still a 1-man shop. Every once in awhile I’ll get programming help from a buddy of mine, Joesph at Get SEO’ Now. Or, I’ll have some writers draw my up some content for bulk articles or a press release. Sometimes, I’ll pay an old co-worker of mine to manually submit a site to a list of websites for me. But for the most part, it’s just me.

Business is good, I can’t complain. I’ve learned a lot about running a SEO business and how to provide even more effective SEO services more efficiently so my clients can get more “bang for their buck”.

However sometimes I can’t help but miss the 9-5..

Sometimes I prefer having a job or being responsible for 1 department as opposed to a whole business.

Being an salesman, receptionist, accountant, service worker, linking expert, bill collector, reporter and client contact can be hard, time consuming and stressful at times.

Deep Down, You Know Why Your Website Isn’t Ranking #1

James Harrison — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 00:58:39 +0000

In my efforts for the “top spot” (#1 on Google), I do various tasks such as link building, PR, social networking, outreaching, etc. But as we all know obtaining the #1 position takes time if the keyword is worth it. It’s no easy task to prove to Google that their trillion dollar algorithm is wrong about who they’ve chosen to be #1 and that they should be picking your site. Even inexperienced SEO’s have a hard time realizing how much work can be involved.

We need to accomplish some things.. We need to help Google feel secure in putting us #1, while still helping them maintain their search relevance integrity.

So, before reading any further you must KNOW that you should be #1 (in the first place). You must honestly feel (DEEP DOWN) that your site deserves better placement than the top 3 guys (combined) on Google’s sophisticated search engine. If you don’t deserve the top spot, you’re better off spending money and time on bettering your website, company and services. Google will give you chances and test you out in a variety of positions and see how well you perform, so the first key to SEO is to already be #1.

Ok, so you feel deep down you should be #1. Now the outreaching for “vouches” takes place… This involves reaching out to other webmasters asking for reviews, links, “citations”, and much more. The strength of your competition and depth of your industry will determine how much work this involves. Although, if you deserve the top spot , you’ll obtain everything you need to be in the #1 position.

But here are a few reasons why the #1 website can be hard to outrank even after you’ve done all you can do to get others to recognize you;

They are an author of a book about your keyword, niche or industry
They’ve been doing monthly press releases via PRWeb for over a year now
They’ve passed the $299 Yahoo! Directory inclusion
They have reviews of household products on hundreds of blogs
They were featured in magazines and on news sites
They’ve been running a commercial in your city for as long as you can remember
They have 10,000+ web pages in their site
They’re a social network with 100,000 users
They sponsor local events in your city
It’s a high PR Wikipedia Page

These may not seem like direct SEO, but these type of things generate massive buzz, help legit websites get recognized and can sometimes be very viral generating tons of natural links.

Like I said, if you deserve the #1 position on Google, you’ll get it. Google isn’t stupid. But there are some experts that can crack algorithms to help you make the most of the tasks mentioned above in a very efficient manner.

If you would like to suggest more reasons why it sometimes seems impossible or waaaaay too expensive to beat out the competition, COMMENT IT.

PRWeb – Tell Your Story to the World.

Investigative Reporter Recognizes San Diego SEO Firm as Top Professional SEO Specialists

James Harrison — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 17:54:40 +0000

The i-Guy (Investigative Reporter, John Mattes) has uncovered the real SEO’s from the fakers who claim they know search engine optimization and charge you a lot of money for nothing. The same guy who helped to break the Iran Contra Scandal has now found the one honest and true SEO Specialist that can and does make a difference.

San Diego, California (PRWEB) December 18, 2009 — Former Fox News reporter John Mattes (investigativeguy.com) who is notorious for exposing corporate scams, getting beat up by insurance salesmen and chased off lots of criminal car dealerships has conducted investigations of various SEO and marketing companies in Southern California and has found a local San Diego company worth a GOOD review.

### FULL SAN DIEGO SEO NEWS STORY HERE ###

WordStream Launches Two Free Niche Marketing Tools for SEO and PPC

James Harrison — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 11:28:50 +0000

WordStream adds to their suite of free search marketing tools, introducing two new products to help search marketers better identify profitable keyword opportunities

BOSTON, MA – December 16, 2009 – WordStream, Inc., a provider of keyword tools for pay-per-click (PPC) and search engine optimization (SEO) efforts involving large numbers of keywords, today launched a pair of tools designed to help businesses identify and optimize highly profitable keyword niches.

WordStream’s new tools, The Keyword Niche Finder and The Free Keyword Grouper, are designed to help businesses and marketers solve specific problems:

The Keyword Niche Finder – Instantly identify and target the most profitable keyword niches
The Keyword Grouper- Group and organize vast lists of keywords into actionable keyword groups to turn into ad groups or website content

Strong keyword organization is the foundation of successful search marketing, and WordStream’s Free Keyword Grouper lets marketers take massive lists of target keywords and instantly group these keywords into tightly-knit, relevant groups. This advanced level of keyword organization is critical for creating effective ad groups for PPC campaign advertising and for informing content creation and site navigation for SEO.

Beta user and independent search marketing consultant Ian Hughes said of the tools: “The great thing is that the two tools really complement each other: The Keyword Niche Finder lets me quickly identify not only single keyword ideas, but the most popular clusters of keywords, and The Keyword Grouper is great for making sense of a lot of data or a long list of keywords you’ve already created.”

With The Keyword Niche Finder, marketers can type in terms related to their business and receive a list of the most popular and relevant keywords for their websites, along with the most interesting keyword niches or clusters. Marketers and website owners can leverage the results from The Keyword Niche Finder to build and structure intelligent website information architectures or create new subsections of their existing sites to drive traffic and collect new business opportunities.

“One of the biggest challenges for business owners is determining where to begin their keyword research and how to continually expand and refine their campaigns to get maximum returns,” says WordStream Founder and Vice President of Product Development Larry Kim. “With our two new free tools, we’ve armed marketers and business owners with the power to instantly receive well-organized, prioritized lists of the most profitable keyword opportunities in their niche.”

WordStream’s subscription-based service also announced a major upgrade recently, including integration with Google Analytics and sophisticated multi-source keyword analytics. It provides users with a tool-set to take those insights to the next level by continually monitoring the performance of their keywords and offering actionable keyword suggestions that helps them grow their campaigns and revenues, all for a very affordable monthly fee.

About WordStream

WordStream is a provider of SEO and PPC solutions for continuously optimizing and expanding search marketing efforts, involving large numbers of search engine keywords. WordStream provides a scalable, private, online keyword workbench—which includes a free keyword tool and an AdWords tool—for conducting keyword discovery, keyword research, keyword grouping, search marketing workflow and for turning research into action.

WordStream believes that an organization’s keywords are a valuable, proprietary asset, and that organizing, prioritizing, coordinating and executing of PPC and SEO efforts around a comprehensive, researched and up-to-date keyword taxonomy is the key to search marketing success. Keyword management improves search marketing productivity and enables greater relevance, which enhances the value of search marketing efforts.

WordStream Press Contact:
Ken Lyons, Marketing Manager
617-963-0563, klyons@wordstream.com

####

6 Call Attempts for Better Lead Conversion

James Harrison — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 01:06:24 +0000

I know this doesn’t have too much to do with SEO. But, I read this very interesting whitepaper about calling your leads (that could be generated through SEO) multiple times to increase conversion rate.

Leads360 recently performed a study that shows six calls equals success when trying to contact a lead. According to Leads360 on the first call attempt there is only a 39% chance of contacting that lead, making just one more attempted call increases the chance of contact to 72%. That’s an increase of 87% simply by making 1 more call attempt. However six is the magic number of call attempts, according to Leads360 if you make 6 call attempts there is a 93% chance of contact which is referred to by Leads360 as nearly the maximum possible contact rate.

Leads360’s studies also showed that 50% of leads are never contacted a second time. Call attempts are very imperative to maximizing contacts and conversions, leads are not inexpensive by any means and valuable leads could be lost by not making the correct number of attempts.

In order to maximize the value of your leads and become a successful sales team, it is highly advised that you track key metrics such as call attempts and implement a sales workflow that enforces six contact attempts.

Plugins I Installed for Wordpress SEO-Blog Optimization

James Harrison — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 11:32:06 +0000

Google Analytics for WordPress – This plugin makes it simple to add Google Analytics with extra search engines and automatic clickout and download tracking to your WordPress blog.

HeadSpace2 – Meta-data manager on steroids, allowing complete control over all SEO needs such as keywords/tags, titles, description, style sheets, and many many other goodies.

Post Teaser – Post Teaser generates a preview or “teaser” of a post for the main, archive and category pages, with a link underneath to go to the full post page. It includes features to generate a word count, image count, and an estimated reading time.

Limit Posts – Limits the displayed text length on the index page entries and generates a link to a page to read the full content if its bigger than the selected maximum length.

Recent Posts – Returns a list of the most recent posts.

Redirection – Manage all your 301 redirects and monitor 404 errors

SEO Title Tag – Search engine optimize your blog’s title tags. Create a customized title tag for any post, static page, category page, UltimateTagWarrior tag page – indeed, any URL! And will auto-insert the tag name into the title on tag pages generated by Ultimate Tag Warrior plugin. Admin allows for mass editing of title tags.

WordPress SEO Pager – An SEO-enhanced pagination control for WordPress.

Advanced Permalinks – Allows multiple permalink structures, migration of permalinks without redirections, permalinks for posts in specific categories, and categories without a base

FeedWordPress - Simple and flexible Atom/RSS syndication for WordPress

SEO Friendly Images – Automatically adds alt and title attributes to all your images. Improves traffic from search results and makes them W3C/xHTML valid as well.

SEO Smart Links -SEO Smart Links provides automatic SEO benefits for your site in addition to custom keyword lists, nofollow and much more.

Other Worpress Plug-ins that Have Nothing to do with SEO

WordPress Database Backup – On-demand backup of your WordPress database. Navigate to Tools → Backup to get started. (You don’t really need this one if you use GoDaddy or BlueHost backup or if you have the latest Wordpress Installation)

Get Recent Comments – Display the most recent comments or trackbacks with your own formatting in the sidebar. Visit Options/Recent Comments after activation of the plugin.

Gravatar – This plugin allows you to generate a gravatar URL complete with rating, size, default, and border options. See the documentation for syntax and usage.

WP Super Cache – Very fast caching plugin for WordPress. WP Super Cache must be configured. Go to the admin page to enable and configure the plugin.

Sociable – Automatically add links on your posts, pages and RSS feed to your favorite social bookmarking sites.

TweetMeme Retweet Button – Adds a button which easily lets you retweet your blog posts.

Cookies for Comments – Sets a cookie that must exist for a comment to be allowed through

Lifestream – Displays your activity from various social networks. (Requires PHP 5 and MySQL 5)

Ping Crawl – Every time you make a post on your blog it grabs similar posts from other blogs that allow pingbacks using the post tags. It then links to them at the bottom of the post as similar posts. It then executes the pingback on all the posts. You can specify how many posts to do per tag and that many will be done for each tag you use in your posts. Typically it has about an 80% success rate with each ping back and they are legit so the ones that fall into moderation tend to get approved. This creates quite a few deep links for each blog post you make and through time really helps with your link building. Especially for new blogs.

40+ Questions to Ask About Your Pay-per-Click Campaign

James Harrison — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 10:09:04 +0000

Before getting started, it is a good idea to learn everything there is to know about your website and service. The more you know, the easier it is to be creative with keyword selection/expansion & ad creative/banner designs. Beside that, knowing what sets your website apart from the competition could be your best advantage if used correctly.

the website

What are the goals of the website? What is being counted as a conversion (acquisition)?
Goal value – What is the cost per acquisitions (CPA) goal?
How will we be tracking these goals?
What does your website have to offer? Why are you promoting these products? Who wants your products? Why would visitors buy your product instead of the other guys on the 1st page? Anything about your website that makes user experience unique?
Visitor Demographic – What is your desired traffic type?
What is the daily budget?
Any historic stats confirming keywords to use? Any keywords client really wants?
Sales, Coupons, Free Shipping, etc.?
Affiliations, member of, Awards?

the account(s)

What engines are you using? PPC Account Login Info
Geo-targeting – Is there a desired Area, Country, City or Language?
Content & Placement network? (Google AdWords)
How is reporting handled?
Are you sending visitors to special landing pages? Can you optimize or create landing pages?

tracking & conversions

How are visitors being tracked? Analytics login info.
Are all conversions an goals setup for automatic tracking?
Are keywords being tracked individually? URL’s Appended?
Goals created in analytics? What goals are being tracked and where are they being tracked and reported?
Tracking codes on webpages?

Ok, now we have the information we need to begin what really counts; optimizing the accounts..

account optimization

Keyword Match Type Optimization?
Individual keyword bids/bidding?
Ad Group Bidding?
Placement Network Optimization?
Content Networking Bidding?
Keyword Status’ and History?
Day/Week part bidding?

Multiple Ads Running at All Times. Setting set to rotate?
Keyword in Title and Ad Text (Q-score)?
Ad creative destination URL (special pages for ads?)
Dynamic Keyword Insertion?

which keywords matter? (sometimes it’s not the keyword)

Keywords with Highest Cost
Keywords with Most impressions
Keywords with most Clicks
Keywords with Most conversions
Keywords with lowest Cost per conversion
Keywords with Highest CPA or No Conversions
Keywords with Highest conversion rates
Keywords with Highest CTR
Keywords with Most Clicks
Keywords with Highest cost per click
Keywords with Lowest cost per click

YouTube “Laundry List” – 20+ Video Promotion Tips

James Harrison — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 22:16:29 +0000

Not too long ago, I published 15 Video Bookmarketing Sites Worth an SEO’s Time. I pretty much explained which video sites to upload your videos to, which in return could add SEO value to your website and traffic sources.

But, let’s get one thing clear now. That list was just a filtered SEO lover’s list from 100’s of video networking sites. Just uploading your videos is far from enough. For some of these sites, doing 1 or 2 specific things is required to get the most of SEO, while others may require full social networking. I could provide you with various tips for all video networking sites, but this post is a laundry list of things you can do with your videos uploaded to YouTube. Because face it, we want not only the SEO benefits of social video bookmarking, we more than anything want these videos to be seen by all our potential customers directing them to our call to actions.

YouTube Marketing, SEO & Promotional Tips

Basic Keyword Video SEO – Make sure you’ve researched your industry and know your target key phrases. If your video is relevant to these phrases, those keywords should be naturally titling & describing your video. Basically, make sure your target keywords are the subject of your titles and descriptions.

Tagging Your Video – Tags should match your target keywords, what your website is relevant to, and which ever are the most suggested or homepage popular tags.

URL in Description – 1st thing in the description should be your landing page URL, for this is the only way to get a link on all formats of your video page. It’s not followed (funny, Google-owned & not followed), so it’s just good for the actual function of a hyperlink.

Annotations – Make sure you add some comments during the video here and there to remind your viewers to click –>that link.

Make Friends – A oldie, but goodie. You have to make friends. Lots of them. But they should be relevant too. Search your keyword topic in YouTube and make friends with every user that posted a video on your topic (for all keywords). Ask other YouTube users with a lot of friends to introduce you or to “favorite” a video of yours on their channel.

Subscribe - Subscribe to relevant users’ channels and comment that your did. (along with some buttering up)

Comment on Channels – Comment something nice on a users channel and leave a link to your latest upload.

Comment on Videos – All videos that show up for your keyword searches in YouTube should have a comment with the link to your related video.

Video Responses – Respond to all related videos with a response. Maybe even comment something nice on user’s profile.

Share Options – Use any you have accounts in. (i.e. Digg, Bebo, Orkut)

Facebook Status – Add new statuses every once in a while to your Facebook saying “uploading video to YouTube now”, “glamorizing my YouTube channel”, “surfing YouTube. We friends?”, etc.

Facebook Buddies – PM all of your best friends and ask them to post your video on their Facebook page and share it with others.

Did you tweet about it? – You can either add your unique YouTube url to you Twitter profile, make Facebook status-like video comments, share each and every video in the “Share” options, and/or ask friends to tweet or Retweet it.

Embed Video on Your Website - Embed the video on the homepage or any other important page of your site. Or, blog about it (assuming your blog has been submitted to all RSS feeds & blog directories).

LinkedIN Connect – You could link Linkedin, YouTube & Facebook together.

Email Link to All Friends - If you have friends, colleagues or anyone that could possibly visit your video or could o send the video to others, USE THEM!

Email Lists & Newsletters – Buy targeted email lists or ask editors of periodic newsletters to feature your site next time around.

Email Relevant Authorities – Compose a list of webmasters’ emails in your industry and utilize the YouTube email video option with a little nice note praising them.

Groups & Forums - Every social network, forum, wiki and resourceful site should contain links to videos that are relevant. Spread the word. Show up where the content of your video is mentioned. Comment a link, post a listing, email the webmaster, and/or embed them in all appropriate places.

Pay for Advertising on YouTube - Done it a couple times. VERY worth it if your video is VERY GOOD.

Video Distributors – TubeMogul.com, TrafficGeyers.com, SEObytheHour.com, RampDigital.com, Blip.tv.

Network of Bloggers & Posters - Try to build a list of websites and bloggers that you can count on to embed any video you produce. This can go a long way, depending on who’s hosting the videos.

WOM -Word-of-Mouth – Still and will always be effective. Tell people, brag about it, whatever. womma.org

Yoube Resources – Why not utilize all the free resources offered by a company that has invested millions (if not billions) into creating them for you?

Tricks for other video networks coming soon. . .

Re-directing User Based on Their Geo-graphical Location in PHP

James Harrison — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 22:27:23 +0000

Ever thought it would be useful to direct users from certain countries or cities to certain geo-specific pages of your website? In this tutorial I’m going to explain how geographical I.P. location works and build a small PHP script with sample code that will direct users to a geo-specific web page based on their IP address.

Post moved to SEObytheHour –> Re-directing User Based on Their Geo-graphical Location in PHP

This is all to lead up to a very strategic local SEO technique, I’m still mastering

30 Minute Backlinks Review by JameSEO.com - 30MinuteBacklinks [Flickr]

I Love New York City — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 23:02:02 PST

I Love New York City posted a photo:

Picture used in Youtube Video to promote 30 Minute Backlinks.

Link Building and Software by Michelle MacPhearson

30 Minute Backlinks - 30 Minute Backlinks and Quintura [Flickr]

I Love New York City — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 23:02:02 PST

I Love New York City posted a photo:

LSI Keywords for thirty minute backlinks. Screenshot used for 30 Minute Backlinks Review. Learn all about this amazing link building technique at JameSEO.com.

Software Creation with 30 Minute Backlinks - SEO Toolbar [Flickr]

I Love New York City — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 23:02:01 PST

I Love New York City posted a photo:

Screenshot of Toolbar I learned how to create through 30 Minute Backlinks to promote my website.

I also learned how to submit it to thousands of software directories.

30 Minute Backlinks Before Shot - 3/5/08 [Flickr]

I Love New York City — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 23:01:53 PST

I Love New York City posted a photo:

This is how BallOutProductions.com looks before 30 minute backlinks. Firefox CSS browser issue and no Page Rank. 12 links total.

I will uplaod a new picture every month to show how 30 minute backlinks can increase your page rank.

Robot - Google Bot Agent 007 [Flickr]

I Love New York City — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 21:26:05 PST

I Love New York City posted a photo:

Picture of Googlebot; Grey Bar from JameSEO's SEO Video Series: Web Bot Agents

Uploaded it because I need a Icon for something.

SEO Blog by James Harrison

Leveraging Your Strongest Pages through Internal Linking

Related Topics from James\\\’ SEO Blog

Wordpress SEO to Be a Top SEO Blog #3

A. Website Grader

B. SEO Workers’ SEO Analyzer

C. Google Webmaster Tools

D. Bing Webmaster Center

Related Topics from James\\\’ SEO Blog

Create Your Own Pixel “Blog Button” Badge

Related Topics from James\\\’ SEO Blog

My 10 Most Popular Blog Posts

Related Topics from James\\\’ SEO Blog

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!

Related Topics from James\\\’ SEO Blog

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

Related Topics from James\\\’ SEO Blog

Create Your Own Awesome Browser Icon (favicon)

Related Topics from James\\\’ SEO Blog

Essential Accounts for Online Marketers

Related Topics from James\\\’ SEO Blog

Google Could Lose 50% of iPhone Traffic to Bing

Related Topics from James\\\’ SEO Blog

Wordpress SEO to Be a Top SEO Blog

Related Topics from James\\\’ SEO Blog

A San Diego SEO Freelancer, That’s Me!

Related Topics from James\\\’ SEO Blog

Deep Down, You Know Why Your Website Isn’t Ranking #1

Related Topics from James\\\’ SEO Blog

Investigative Reporter Recognizes San Diego SEO Firm as Top Professional SEO Specialists

Related Topics from James\\\’ SEO Blog

WordStream Launches Two Free Niche Marketing Tools for SEO and PPC

Related Topics from James\\\’ SEO Blog

6 Call Attempts for Better Lead Conversion

Related Topics from James\\\’ SEO Blog

Plugins I Installed for Wordpress SEO-Blog Optimization

Other Worpress Plug-ins that Have Nothing to do with SEO

Related Topics from James\\\’ SEO Blog

40+ Questions to Ask About Your Pay-per-Click Campaign

the website

the account(s)

tracking & conversions

account optimization

ads

which keywords matter? (sometimes it’s not the keyword)

Related Topics from James\\\’ SEO Blog

YouTube “Laundry List” – 20+ Video Promotion Tips

YouTube Marketing, SEO & Promotional Tips

Related Topics from James\\\’ SEO Blog

Re-directing User Based on Their Geo-graphical Location in PHP

Related Topics from James\\\’ SEO Blog

30 Minute Backlinks Review by JameSEO.com - 30MinuteBacklinks [Flickr]

30 Minute Backlinks - 30 Minute Backlinks and Quintura [Flickr]

Software Creation with 30 Minute Backlinks - SEO Toolbar [Flickr]

30 Minute Backlinks Before Shot - 3/5/08 [Flickr]

Robot - Google Bot Agent 007 [Flickr]