SEO Challenge

SEO, Make-Money, Instructional or Related Links

noreply@blogger.com (Samsara) — Sun, 01 Apr 2007 22:50:00 +0000

LikeMinded Link Exchange / Link Traffic

While this site is new and hasn't much to offer I would be willing to stick your link up on this site. I'll leave a message to this post when this offer is no longer good. My apologies in advance but there are specific terms I'll need for your website to emphasize in order for it to benefit this website.

If you'd be willing to add my link to your site I'll put your link in the upper left position under related links.
If you'd rather not add my link back to your site - that's no problem but I'll add those links in a place further down on the page and because there would be no reciprocal consideration, these links would be the first to go away should I redesign or need to make things tighter.

Matt Cutt's Blog Hacked

noreply@blogger.com (Samsara) — Sun, 01 Apr 2007 05:29:00 +0000

Famous Google software engineer and Google SEO informational guru, Matt Cutts blog looks as if it's been hacked!

But, it's April Fool's Day and I pulled a hack prank in 2001 on one of my sites. Search Engine Land reports it as if it is a hack and they even offer background of the apparent dissension between Matt and the apparent Dark SEO Team hackers.

The Dark SEO Team has had a bit of a beef with Google's Matt Cutts from back in 2005 over URL hijacking. Looks like they've pulled a prank on him today. Matt's blog is down, hacked -- and archives wiped out as well. Matt has posted previously to this about the site being slow (post gone, but you can see his Twitter comment here) and heading offline through Monday, so you might be seeing the screen above for awhile.

I hope it's Matt pulling the prank. He set it up beautifully if he did. First, his last blog post - from a feed - said he was receiving a lot of GET commands and things were acting strange...then I went to his blog and saw the image. Here was Matt's last post and you can use your imagination to decide!

My site has been acting a little slow and weird today. I checked my logs, and I’m seeing a lot of GET requests causing strange errors. Most of the requests have escaped Unicode characters, but they don’t appear valid. Sorry that the site is kinda slow; I’m going to be away from the computer until around late Monday, so I don’t have time to check it now, but I’ll try to track it down when I get back.

Either way. Happy April Fools and I hope Matt's back up and running soon.

Working the Networking

noreply@blogger.com (Samsara) — Thu, 29 Mar 2007 21:11:00 +0000

Today is the day I began networking.

Claimed SEO Challenge on Technorati
Decided it would be in my best interest to participate in likeminded Link Exchanges
Slapped up an advert to my Blogshares profile page. (I heart Blog$hares)
Submitted this URL to Google.
Submitted this URL and feed to Yahoo.
Submitted URL to MSN. [That was an extreme annoyance.]
Thumbed it up on Stumble.

Special love & thanks to my friend Becky for adding me to her Blogroll unsolicitedly.
Go read her Just a Girl in Short Shorts cause she's brilliant and funny.

Latent Semantic Indexing

noreply@blogger.com (Samsara) — Thu, 29 Mar 2007 05:32:00 +0000

Latent Semantic Indexing is the process Google uses to determine what your is page about based on your keyword terms. Determined ultimately by the words of your site, their connectivity to other words on your site, relational context and synonyms.

Paris France versus Paris Hilton for example. If you concentrated on promoting the keyword Paris, how would Google know to return your site for a search of Paris Hilton? You probably wouldn't be up top for that keyword term. However, taken in context with terms like Hilton which alone probably wouldn't do it lest Google thinks your looking to stay at the Hilton in Paris France , model, Paris Hilton, Nicole Ritchie, Hollywood and so forth, Google would have a better chance of putting it together. Which means, when someone Googles "Paris Hilton" resorts and hotels for Paris France probably won't be appearing in your search results.

Let's seeth what Google sayeth on the meaning of the term Paris Hilton
I couldn't overlook the Adwords advertisement for the Hilton in Paris.
If I were them I'd redo their search phrase. Que Sera.

I screwed up once a long time ago with a website. I promoted one word mainly. Back then I was #1 in results with this particular site. Oh yeah. Money was coming in, I was cashing checks in excess of $1000 per week completely passive based solely on my tremendous website abilities and naturally my ability to SEO. [Sure. Read that again. I'll wait.] But this was in 1999 and lasted probably until 2004.

I began designing websites for corporate clients again because the bread and butter became not enough for the lifestyle to which I was growing accustomed. As I was then doing that, a few problems emerged and eventually the site I was so proud of, dropped almost out of site. At this point I didn't care. When I began caring again; about a year ago - the rules had changed. LSI was one of the rules.

Lesson? Keyword TERM your site. Emphasize the terms and synonyms so Google [and others] can artificially intelligently decide what your website is about. Like this: Search Engine Optimization, SEO, PageRank, Google, and SERPS. NOT SEO, SEO, SEO.

Do this by mixing up your anchor text, adding synonyms and specifics

No Good: I have strong spiritual beliefs and try to help people by sharing about my own spiritual growth journey as well as the issues of codependency. My Highly Sensitive Personality has me sharing with great empathy, these issues with my website visitors. I have written a series on how Words can Harm and Words can Heal, and even share my paranormal dream sequences at my website. Lately, however, my life's been about trying to rectify the karma of my past misdeeds and as I journey I hope you would embrace Samsara too. Click here!
Awesomest: I have strong spiritual beliefs and try to help people by sharing about my own spiritual growth journey as well as the issues of codependency. My Highly Sensitive Personality has me sharing with great empathy, these issues with my website visitors. I have written a series on how Words can Harm and Words can Heal, and even share my paranormal dream sequences at my website. Lately, however, my life's been about trying to rectify the karma of my past misdeeds and as I journey I hope you would embrace Samsara too.

The second one is just an example; No way could anybody get away with that many links in a paragraph but I hope what I am saying is conveyed correctly. If not, ask me for clarification. Or if someone could say it better, say it better.

Think about what your audience would enter in a search engine if what your website offers could benefit that person. I've seen my Living Within Samsara keyword search results and some people are quite particular when it comes to searching for a thing. As technology increases and more websites emerge I know that I have grown increasingly comfortable with entering in very specific phrases.

Remember: Synonyms, Descriptive Anchor Text for Links, and Specifics

SEO from the Ground Up

noreply@blogger.com (Samsara) — Tue, 27 Mar 2007 17:45:00 +0000

I just read this guy talking about how SEO Companies don't always practice what they preach - or in the least - let their own pages lack in SEO friendly. Now I have never been one to need to make someone else look bad in order to feel like I am looking good. It's a subtle trick based in ego but an astute audience will know. Not that I'm insulting this guy but his points were obvious and I could expand the list - but I won't today.

Suffice it to say that my opinion as to why SEO Experts don't pay that much attention to the design of their site is due to the working on other peoples' sites. I've been there. I used to joke with my Mom, "Yeah if my site looks like crap it's because someone's paying me."

I guess that would depend on one major influence: Is it an SEO Firm or an SEO Person.

SEO Firm or SEO Company

I expect a corporate presence to have a well-designed site and SEO Optimized to the nines at that. I expect every trick to be employed and for the design to be smashing at that. BUT. This can backfire. If a particular company continually ranks #1 in all the Search Engines and you're trying to get your site Optimized for #1 status let's say because you, too, are an SEO Company, wouldn't you rip it's source apart looking for the tricks? Wouldn't you check the ststus of their backlinks and start stalking their progress with every gadget that's available? I would!

On the other hand if an SEO Company has a plain site, is not SEO Optimized very well and doesn't rank very well why would you trust them with your baby? Oh no. And you wouldn't stalk their site's progress either because you would be trying to surpass absolutely that kind of sandboxing right?

SEO Dude or SEO Dudette

It might be just me but I love one on one better than companies - perhaps because I'm the Dudette. If there's an SEO Dudette who's got a winner on her hands by way of top ranks and awesome design we wouldn't help but to want her to do for us what she did for herself. We would find it endearing that she took the time to make her ALT tags count. Or I would. I would want to duplicate what it is she did.

On the other hand, if I have a pal who tells me he specializes in SEO and I visit one of his sites [yeah because never does an SEO/Designer Dude or Dudette just have a few websites...they always seem to have a FEW websites. Yeah I know. Weird.] and it looks like plain jane was there, I might have to ask "What's Up?" Then he'll explain this was his newest one and he has an awesome idea for widgets but let me check this other one out: THEN I am blown away. "You designed that?"

Then he tells me yeah but the ranks aren't that great yet. Invariably I get to the Big Kahuna. His baby. The one he's the most proficient with but not so proud because it's been around forever. It ranks #2 on Google for a particular term and he's not really stoked he's like "Yeah." By this time you know this is your guy. This is your guy.

What to Look for in Choosing/Following Someone to Design/SEO

Whether I plan on following them or if I planned on hiring them there will always be a checklist of things I would look for in a person to design and SEO my site. Since I have done this for ten years I have learned a little...

Design holds hands with SEO Always - What good to get the best designer in the world who Flashes up and Images superbly and lays it out spectacularly and it's so cutting edge you need a band aid...but then splat. Realizing a year later you're still not breaking past the PR of 1 you start to look at your error. YOU begin to pick out the SEO flaws. You mistakenly call up the Design Company. "We're sorry sir. We don't do Search Engine Optimization. We strictly concentrate on Design. If you like I can get a phone number for you." So they do.
SEO standing alone is Design UNFriendly - Now at this point if the SEO Company takes over your case you are probably going to have a sacrifice a lot of the same things you spent insane money for. That would suck. However, if you chose a person - a Dude or Dudette, they may have to break some bad news to you too but I bet they'd be willing to go the extra mile to simulate whatever it was that was on your site originally. [Yes. I said simulate.]
Choose and follow no one who makes it sound like SEO is some complicated secret language - The only thing secret is Google's algorithm for determing PageRank but thanks to Google and Matt Cutt's and other people who have taken the time to research and reveal the specifics, it's not so secret anymore - Not the important things.
Anyone who tells you Content is King is a Liar - Sorry Virginia. It's true. Content *should* be king but marketing rules on the internet. Now. When you get so popular that Google comes asking YOU if they can spend money for YOU to push THEM then you are allowed to get back to thinking "Content is King" but until then...YOU are in a game and that game is popularity.
You have to be your biggest fan - BEFORE you start following or thinking about someone to design your site or make it awesome for the Search Engines you need to know who you're dealing with. If the person or company you're following or asking to help you clearly thinks more of themselves than YOU, then you need to puch yourself in their face and make it clear YOU are the one you are paying for. YOU. You. YOU. If you cannot reach an understanding and they're just looking to add you into their portfolio [for design OR SEO] and you have made it clear you need both, fire them.
Spam is worse than ever - Google's cracking down on manipulation and that's no joke. I call all of it spam. Spam is devious employment of any method designed to let the spammer get ahead at no regard for anyone else. This can take the form of UCE/UBE [ Unsolicited Commercial Email/Unsolicited Bulk Email ] or websites. I was at a website the other day who claimed to be a design firm. No kidding when I checked the source as I was wondering how this small page with no links had a PR of 5. [Boy! I learned another spamming technique that seems relatively new and I'm not telling. Google must not know it yet either.] Suffice it to say I'd stay away from them and not trust them at all with anything! If one cannot offer complete transparency as to their marketability then I'm sorry. But no way!

These are just a few things off the top of my head that I would look for in someone I would choose to mentor me or someone I would hire. I read the SEO journals and the websites and the books. I am an avid enthusiast when it comes to SEO but my heart belongs in Design.

SEO Challenge Beginning

noreply@blogger.com (Samsara) — Tue, 27 Mar 2007 06:06:00 +0000

I finished up the template tonight and scraped some superfluous code. At this point though two articles have been posted I have not done one thing as far as marketability. I have not pinged. I have not submitted to search engines. Nothing.

I put Google ads up tonight because what's the point of a marketing blog if my contextualization fails me? I want to absolutely market off my own endeavor because this is why people crave higher SEO ranks. I think Adbrite dived out on me but we'll see if I have to do that again or not. Oh. And any thing I mention in these posts repeatedly can usually be found in the side columns. So if something ends up working and you want to know "How'd she do that" you'll have the option available. Just now I registered this site with MyBlogLog so a few people may sprinkle by before "Total Live" starts.

Here's what I have done as far as setting the site up.

I did not use Blogger's New Template
Doc Type Declaration as Transitional XHTML [Probably won't validate right now]
META tags Title, Description, and Keywords [Keywords Out? Humbug]
Threw up some ads
Got my feed ready by way of the awesome Feedburner
Got my RSS buttons going on to point to my Feed
Made an awesome graphic and dividing star for the posts
Add social bookmarking units at the bottom of the posts

Have I missed anything yet? I'll be back tomorrow to check. Right now I'm off to look for a PageRank button I can stick on the site to watch. And I'm still debating about the whole Technorati tags idea. I'm just not sure about it yet.

About this SEO Challenge

noreply@blogger.com (Samsara) — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 18:45:00 +0000

When New Blogger and their Ajax enabled templates made it onto the scene I appreciated the fact I could label posts and have them show up in the sidebar. A small thing for some people I know but having a blog on blogger and after 30 posts or so... the rest of your posts not on the main page seem to be reserved only for those people who may happen to Google upon the correct term, click and have your article from last year show up.

This might get Technical - Warning for the non Technical

So when labels were introduced I was stoked. I upgraded my template to New Blogger widget-enabled templates and I was happy. Until. I checked out the source and saw that the code was a LOT. The text to code ratio was over 16%! Bullocks!

So in an experiment I got another blogspot address and reproduced the widget template as a standard template. I made it look the same. In fact, truth be told, I was happier with this template as the weird widget code wasn't bugging me. The text to code ratio had improved to over 30%.

Text to Code ratio is one measure of ranking web pages

So I was bummed. I looked at my PageRank of 3 on my original Blogger website and wondered that, without disrupting the widget enabled code if I had a chance at all of ever breaking PageRank 3. I had become convinced that the widget-code would be the downfall of me. But not wanting to clean my Blogger site and scrape it of all past content I decided to start this website. This challenge. I decided to start it without Widget enabled code to see if it's possible to get any Blogger blog past a PageRank of 3 starting fresh. Here are the qualities I will be looking at.

How long to move it up to a PageRank of 4 at least.
What will I have to do to get it to that PageRank.
Qualify the things I do to attempt to get it up.
Record it here.
Share SEO ideas
Share SEO Articles and Opinions

Hopefully, as I progress I can keep it navigational enough so that other people can follow along and I can offer good content and tips as I move along. I know there are enough SEO websites out there. I know I am already at a disadvantage with www dot SEO dot coms but...I am a sucker for an almost lost cause. So let's see.

Wish me SEO!

SEO Successful Websites: Top 5 Factors in 2007

noreply@blogger.com (Samsara) — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 01:29:00 +0000

Everyone wants to have a successful web site. However, most people do the wrong things to promote their web sites.

If you want to have a successful web site and if you want to get high rankings on search engines then your web site must have the right factors. Here are the top 5 factors for successful web sites in 2007:

Success factor #1: Accessibility

Search engines must be able to access your web pages. If search engines cannot parse your web pages then they will ignore your site and you won't get good rankings. Make sure that your web server doesn't return an error code when search engine spiders visit your web pages. If your server returns an error code, search engines won't index your site.

The correct code should be "200 OK". You can check the status code that your web server returns to search engines with IBP's search engine spider simulator (free). In addition, make sure that the HTML code of your web pages doesn't contain errors that prevent search engines from indexing your site.

The content of your web pages must make sense to search engines. Don't use images or Flash to present the main content of your web pages. Use IBP's Top 10 Web Page Optimizer to find out if your web pages present the right information to search engines.

Success factor #2: Site and information architecture

Your web site should have a good site architecture to make sure that it is not just a collection of random web pages. The pages of your web site should be related and they should show search engines that your web site is relevant to a special topic. This is very important because most major search engines seem to use latent semantic indexing in their ranking algorithms. Your site should also have a good information architecture so that search engines and web surfers know where they are within your site on any page of your site.

Success factor #3: The right keywords

Choosing the right keywords is one of the most important steps that determines whether your SEO campaign is a success or not. It's best to focus on 2 or 3 word keywords for search engine optimization. One word keywords are less likely to convert to a sale and they are also much more competitive. Use IBP's powerful keyword tools to find the keywords that will work best with your site.

Success factor #4: Content

Web sites that only offer articles and affiliate links that can be found on dozens of other web sites will have a hard time to get good search engine rankings. Try to create unique and trustworthy content that separates your web site from the others. Write about things you know. If you're an expert in a special field, write as much as possible about that field to make sure that your web site becomes the best resource for that topic.

Success factor #5: Inbound links

Without good inbound links, it is impossible to get high rankings on major search engines. You should get as many links as possible from related web sites. The more targeted the link, the more it will help your search engine rankings. Search engine optimization can be tricky because a small error in one factor can destroy all of your other efforts. Take a look at the checklists in our free search engine optimization eBook to find out how your web site can get top rankings on Google, Yahoo and other major search engines.

Copyright by Axandra.com. Web site promotion software.

Samsara's SEO Challenge Information

noreply@blogger.com (Samsara) — Tue, 20 Mar 2007 19:00:00 +0000

My name is Samsara. I design and market websites and engage in the graphical arts. My technological abilities extend to about nil except when it comes to hacking code. I used to program as a teenager when I discovered that a world in literature, philosophy, writing and art was where I longed to be - although I still feel the need to immerse myself into internet development in order to further these pursuits.

This SEO Challenge was an idea that developed around the beginning of March 2007.

I had upgraded my original Samsara Shakti blog to the new Blogger Template. I did not like it right away. You can read about the Blogger Widget Experiment if you want to but the long and short of it is that there was too much code. Too much code versus text on a webpage is not a good thing as far as Search Engine ranks go. Not that I promote Shakti...it's just a little blog; But I still started wondering.

So this idea was born. With Shakti ranking at a 3 because I neglected it for so long, because it's not focusing on any one particular topic [read: keywords], because I don't market it, etc.

I wondered if it was possible for me to apply everything I had ever learned about Search Engine Optimization Techniques to a brand new blogspot blog and have it become a formidable presence. So while writing on SEO and simultaneously keeping a log of what I've done, hopefully it can turn into a learning tool for other SEO-ers. Particularly beginners.

Main Site Topics

SEO : Articles on SEO

SEO Challenge : Progress on what I have done to increase SEO for this website