Milwaukee SEO & Internet Marketing

Yellow Pages List

Mert — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 04:33:17 +0000

There are quite a few national yellow pages out there. I just thought it might be useful to make a list of them.

Beyond the national ones there are also local yellow listings (in this case, Chicago).

Let me know if you know of any other yellow pages that are not affiliated links.

Tracking URL Parameter & Duplicate Content

Mert — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 19:47:24 +0000

While creating URL parameters for any tracking programs to measure any referrals you measure; there is only one solid method to prevent duplicate content issues. For many, the issue of placing tracking parameters in the URL string is critical to one process or another, be it external traffic or internal referrals. There’s one solid methodology on this that always works and never creates a duplicate content issue - simply use the hash (#) as your delimiter. Unlike ? or / , usage of the hash (#) symbol as a delimiter does not get referenced by the engines as producing different URLs that are indexed by the search engines. Any other symbols/letters/numbers, etc. after the hash (#) symbol in the URL get ignored by the search engines. Thus, a URL like:

example: http://www.metroseo.com/internetmarketing#sdfsdf121w

would be treated the same as the URL

http://www.metroseo.com/internetmarketing#dfger234234

and the URL

http://www.metroseo.com/internetmarketing
without any duplicate indexing issues.

Further reading on duplicate content & URL Cannonicalization:

Best commercial of 2008

Mert — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 04:53:53 +0000

Allan Gray Investments grabs the cake in the best commercial spot of 2008. The ad named “Beautiful” was made by Keith Rose of Velocity Films (a director with a global reputation).

Here are two other great commercials by Allan Grey. I don’t know how well the company fared this year in the middle of a global financial market collapse but their marketing guys have taste.

This ad was named “Pretty Percy”

This ad was named “Rainbow”

Simply Brilliant. Oh did I say; have a very happy, healthy and bountiful 2009.

President Bush shoe advertising.

Mert — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 01:49:22 +0000

Source: Hurriyet.com

You know I could watch the shoe thrown at Bush forever but this post is about using every event including as an attempt to a great press release.

As a native Turkish speaker, I get the joy of being able to read the Eurasian look at the world through Turkish newspapers which come up with some of the greatest link baits.
Below picture is a headline picture from Hurriyet.com (A Turkish newspaper).

Anyhow, here are the fun facts. The news story happened because of a press release by a Turkish company named, Baydan Shoes (sadly I could not locate a site). Baydan claimed to export that particular brown shoe model to Iraq (over 15K pairs). Every shoe is 600 grams (around 1.35 pounds) which probably would leave a bruise and the export price is 27 dollars. What great advertising to take advantage of an event with an immediate press release and being at the front page of the most read Turkish newspapers in the country for free. In press release just like SEO it is all about attention to details and being at the right place at the right time.

Since we are talking about attentiong grabbers here are all different versions of tactics that was used around the web to grab a piece of attention around the web;

a game that has already been a viral hit
a video with over 5 million views.
a new term in the English language, shoecidal bomber

Creativity never ends when it comes to taking advantage of current events. What other ways can you think to take advantage of a current event?

National Unemployment’s affects on SEO agencies.

Mert — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 15:29:59 +0000

Image by Warhammer-historical.com

When I first started the internet marketing business in 2000; there were very few of us in this business. When I switched from marketing to SEO; there were still very few. I remember SEOs saying; the internet is large we can teach every one and there will be space for more.

Now a herd of unemployed are like the Barbarian herd waiting outside the walls of Roman Empire waiting to invade. “Make Money Online” is the slogan. Professional SEO agencies just like the many factions in the Roman empire at the time are fighting each other through price wars and “outings”. The end is near for any agency who becomes afraid and loses the discipline and the professionalism that is required to succeed. The name of the game is “Building Processes”. Without creating preset systems, innovation and a hunger to train staff; you will never survive.

The truth about the private SEO forums/tips

Mert — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 14:18:58 +0000

I do not believe in private SEO forum/tips etc. anymore as a professional SEO. There are no tips that can be kept private for long. Knowing something first does not mean you are ahead of the others. There are hundreds, even thousands of people in these forums paying the same fees, and these people are more than likely your competitors; the value is nothing in the long run. Especially if you are the one contributing to the private sections of the sites in any shape or form than your precious info is precious no more. And just the fact that you are hidden behind the money/password barrier of a private forum does not mean that tip is hidden from the search engines. The beautiful tips about getting a link from a weakness is not worth anything any more when search engines hear about it. If you know something; keep it to yourself; because no one is a God that needs to be praised and shared information with. Most of the SEOs out there (including myself) scream from the rooftops that SEO is marketing and marketing is SEO but at the end of the day, all SEOs know that SEO is also about an algorithm with strengths and weaknesses that we probe to discover every single day. Marketers have always talked and bragged about accomplishments and tricks (even in the pre-internet days) but they never had a morality police AKA Google watching every single day to kill the beauty of marketing other than the one done its own way.

Google Halloween Joke

Mert — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 21:59:04 +0000

Happy Halloween everyone. Google decided to pull a Halloween Joke by adding the below code to its robots.txt for a day.

Google Halloween Robots.txt

I am glad there are some funny people in Google. That was a nice touch.

Palinocchio

Mert — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 15:24:30 +0000

There are certain things in the media that can kill a political campaign.

With Howard Dean, there was the scream

With Michael Dukakis there was the tank

Michael Dukakis on a Tank

And now it is the Republican’s turn.

How can you really beat Palinocchio poster?
P.S. That is a picture from the ethics investigation protests against her in Anchorage.

Palinocchio - Sarah Palin (AP Photo/Al Grillo)

What makes a Great SEO?

Mert — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 22:24:55 +0000

There are many people out there claiming to be SEOs. There is only one distinction that seperates a great SEO from the others

A great SEO is the one that can see through what is propoganda and what is real. Thank you Mike showing us through the Google fog that most do not see.

Political web mobilization kills first amendment

Mert — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 19:29:20 +0000

I am a social democrat libertarian. When I wrote that in my senior thesis for my goverment minor. I can’t imagine the expression on my professor’s face at the time. My point is that I am an independent. I supported Ron Paul because I am very disillusioned by both parties. A news on Chicago Tribune on the power of online propoganda scared me more than anything else

Chicago Tribune/WGN faced its first challenge on a web mobilization assault by Barack Obama. I donot doubt a second that Republicans are liars about the “lipstick on a pig” issue. They have lied over and over again on the offense in almost every presidential campaign playing with people’s emotions. Obama has only one weapon to fight this in defense: His massive email database is in his disposal to quiet any “lies”. The problem comes at that point. His weapon is used to quiet any dissenting opinions through emailing his supporters to tell his side of story to ~~overrun~~ lobby the TV channels and radio stations about having “controversial” guests who are “liars” with phone calls and emails. The noise created by both the Republicans and Democrats in a political campaign are overwhelming. At last the internet became the last fighting ground of this background noise. I am afraid, in the long run, the power of these online databases will create an oppression of the big government (especially in less democratic countries) through its supporters to create consistent localized peer pressure on the part of the population that does not agree with its policies. Again the name of the party behind such a government is truly not important. Internet is truly becoming a scary weapon against our future. I truly fear for our first amendment and the constitution.