This is a short note to clarify the current preferred Domain Name Registrar, DNS Server services and Web Hosting for SEO Chiangmai. This may change at any point, as service providers generally go from good to bad to worse, for whatever reason.

Registrar

We are having some good luck with Netfirms. Decent prices for domain name registration. Only a few problems with some AUTH codes but our hunch is it is not their fault. They don't register certain international domains but can transfer them once registered elsewhere. Good value.

DNS Server Services

Editdns.net remains an excellent DNS service for $5/mo. Love them.

Web Hosting

There are really no great options out there. At one point we thought that trusting a well-known SEO who endorsed and used a particular service was a good idea. Boy what a mistake that was. Currently we use Hostmonster, which is bearable and good price. Another option folks may want to look into is Tigertech.

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Content Management System

The three most common, popular, and easy-to-manage content management systems are WordPress, Joomla and Mediawiki. WordPress has its roots in blogging, Joomla in content management and Mediawiki in wikis. WordPress is the preferred choice in terms of ease of use and a vibrant development community. This means it is easy to extend, enhance and manage the WordPress-based website because most of what is needed has already been developed and made available by other users. WordPress is Free and Open Source (as are Joomla and Mediawiki).

SEO and WordPress

WordPress is an extensible CMS which has a great number of plugins which extend the functionality, especially supporting on-page SEO as well as content and social media strategies: integration of Twitter, RSS/email subscription to the RSS feed (using feeds.feedburner.com), dynamic sitemap.xml generation and rcpinging of the top four search engines (Google, Bing, Yahoo, Ask), ease of integration of header meta tags, control of Title, Description, H1/H2 tags, Image metadata (alt, title), Link metadata (anchor, title, nofollow where needed), Google Analytics.

Content Management/Editing in WordPress

WordPress supports extensions which makes using links, titles, images, video, etc. very simple using shortcodes. In addition, there is extensive version control and administrative management of users, date/time content publishing, etc. It is straightforward to create widgets which display pages/directory as well as individual/special content. This means the widget is edited once and can appear on all or any given set of pages across the site.

WordPress Themes

WordPress supports a theme templating system which makes it straightforward to configure the look and feel of the site. There are two theme frameworks which make configuration and customization of themes easier to create and to manage. Both are popular and work well, and depending on the basic look/feel of the site will be the choice to implement: Thesis and Thematic.

• Thesis ($164 but now compliant with GPL, see your favorite bittorrent site for a copy)
• Thematic (free), including the Thematic Power Blog child theme - current favorite
• Hybrid which used to have the awesome Options child theme (but no longer supported)
• Note, there is a question whether the Genesis theme framework is open source, it certainly isn't free.

Guides for customizing child themes for each framework

• http://themeshaper.com/wordpress-child-theme-basics/
• http://themeshaper.com/thematic/guide/
• http://themeshaper.com/forums/
• http://diythemes.com/answers/
• http://diythemes.com/thesis/rtfm/
• http://diythemes.com/forums/
• http://themehybrid.com/themes/hybrid

A long list of themes beyond these particular templates shows the tremendous design flexibility of themes in WordPress.

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A recent study showing the power-law effect on Google search ranking traffic is enough to underscore what we already know: the Zipfian distribution (aka Power-Law, Pareto Principle, or 80-20 Rule) of the information economics, nicely formulated in the book Information Rules. (Disclaimer: Hal Varian was the dean of the UC Berkeley Information School when I attended for my Masters degree.)

We at SEO Chiangmai agree with the general advice to largely ignore the Google algorithm factors for specific targeting based on the fact that Google makes more than one change per day to the search algorithm. However, as has been recently announced, some algorithm changes will make an impact on search traffic. Therefore for business, it is important to understand and to have a strategy to deal with such a dynamic system.

The Concept of Relevance for SEO

Back in my I-School days, we learned that relevance is a human, not a computer concept. That is, what is relevant is measured by humans. In particular, Information Science early days and even now in the various TREC competitions, measures relevance with use of retired Information professionals, that is: retired CIA officers. What is relevant is what experts agree upon as relevant (there is heavy use of inter-rater reliability statistics in the social sciences). Google has merely produced a computer-based system for returning relevant results based on 200+ clues of human behavior with computers, the same clues that are accessible to computers and can be used to approximate human judgement of relevance.

For SEO -- from a strategic perspective -- this means creating one's own dynamical system based on relevance to perform against that of the Google juggernaut. This does not mean re-inventing PageRank, but rather designing a checklist that can be used effectively.

SEO Chiangmai Internet Marketing Factors

We at SEO Chiangmai are the leading SEO and SEM, Internet Marketing and Ecommerce consultant in Thailand and serving Mainland Southeast Asia, the Greater Mekong Subregion. Our set of factors are part and parcel of our content+social media consulting services offering which provides excellent, measurable and affordable business results. We will present a significant number of our factors in upcoming articles on SEO Chiangmai and elsewhere on the web.

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Wrodpress and the Trailing Slash

As WordPress users, SEO Chiangmai is very interested in such suggestions as WordPress automatically adds trailing slashes to pages. Nicely, WordPress also adds the 301 (permanent redirect) and the 200 (success) codes when a page without a trailing slash is used.

PageRank and 301 Redirect Boundaries

We have witnessed cases where 301 Redirects -- at both the domain and the page level -- effectively block or somehow mitigate the flow of PageRank. This means that it is vital to include trailing slashes in link-building activities, as well as to have well-thought-out page-naming and url development in site plans.

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As from April 12th 2010, all links placed at Wikitravel.org are marked as no follow.

This action has been taken after a long debate in the community, and is designed to lessen the volume of links placed at the site purely for the purpose of search engine optimisation. Dealing with the volume of edits driven by placement of such links, has caused strain on the volunteer team who keep Wikitravel in order. This left us with little choice other than to make the site far less attractive for SEO purposes.
Wikitravel.org has always embraced the business community and will continue to do so. We welcome hotel, restaurant and other travel related listings (see: http://wikitravel.org/en/Welcome,_business_owners ), that are added for the benefit of travellers. There is no change to this policy, other than the action taken to discourage SEO-driven placements.

We would be very grateful if you circulated the news of this development throughout your organisation, and amongst your clients if appropriate.

Best regards

The Wikitravel Administration Team
http://www.wikitravel.org

Well, there you have it. The great unwashed SEO masses have ruined yet another wonderful source of SEO due to the basic tragedy of the commons problem. Although this pales next to things like Global Warming, it is yet another reminder of how the humans are likely doomed.

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It's been over 3 months since the last (December 31, 2009) PageRank update. This time, there were changes in slightly over 25% of our tracked domains.

Sensible Changes to PageRank

The changes mostly made sense. Two domains lost a page rank (both went from 4 to 3), but with obvious causes as one has been blocking traffic from three countries and another effectively lost all of its content. Another 9 domains increased by 1 PageRank, some from 3 to 4 and some from 2 to 3.

Another successful quarter for our clients and internal sites. Most of the sites which increased in PageRank had been growing content and developing links. A few had not, which always makes one wonder how much random noise there is in PageRank to try and keep it, um, sub-optimized.

Success for SEO Chiangmai and its Clients

With these PageRank increases, our current set of tactics and the underlying strategy has been vindicated again.

Content and Linkbuilding - Good

Still, it is a bit disconcerting to deal with clients who simply want to procrastinate on content and link-building, our two-part strategy.

Traffic Shaping - Bad

Another item which bothers us is playing games with content, blocking Internet traffic based on some criteria. This usually hurts the customers and therefore the business itself a lot more than it ever would help withhold information from a rival. It is best to simply be up front. Much simpler and less confusing that way.

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International SEO Offerings and Experience

SEO Chiangmai is an SEO/SEM/Internet Marketing/Ecommerce consulting company. We've taught marketing, innovation and entrepreneurship, public relations, and organizational communication at the university level for 7 years. We've done IT consulting for 10 years and Internet marketing consulting for 5 years. The point is that this experience and expertise is brought to bear specifically in Internet Marketing where we do SEM (paid search/advertising) and SEO (site optimization and link-building).

Seven-Part Strategy

We have found a seven-part strategy works best:

• Keyword research, including competitor and market research
• Modern, open-source content management system and search engine integration (WordPress + SEO plugins)
• Content, content, content - updated, relevant, on-page SEO-ed content
• Social media integration, including Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, YouTube
• Linkbuilding
• Advertising (paid search and banner ads)
• Analytics, to provide feedback and progress measurements

Case Study - 4 Months

Our most recent success story we engaged with a client for 140 hours over 4 months and achieved a 300% increase in traffic and keyword ranking. One thing that is an advantage is our cost structure, being located in Chiang Mai, Thailand. This client also conducted an ongoing Google Adwords campaign of approximately 1,000 USD/mo. This campaign is one crucial element of the overall SEO/SEM efforts.

SEO Scalability

As far as our scalability, we are a small shop but could take on new select clients. We are a little picky because it is important that the client believe in and adopt appropriate content creation activities, and be willing to conduct an ongoing Google Adwords campaign.

Copy Writing and Content Strategy Requirement

We can do copywriting if the client so desires, but the point is that someone has to create regular content. The effectiveness of our strategy requires regular (if only weekly) content creation according to specific SEO guidelines. We have had clients who simply do not take this step and therefore see only small, incremental improvement in their rankings, organic and paid traffic. This as you can imagine is quite frustrating, and so we generally "out-counsel" them.

White Label

If SEO/SEM firms have clients who are willing to engage with us on all seven elements of our strategy, then we are interested in discussing further. We can do all work white label.

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Cost of Web Content and Pay for Freelance Writers

How much should we pay for content? There is quite a range out there. How much should writers get paid? In-house, outsource or partnerships? These are strategic as well as tactical questions.

For those of us who want or need to buy content, it is paid for up front, either under exclusive or non-exclusive agreements. It is also possible to find articles to purchase which are ready to go, or propose new articles and wait for writers to bid or submit writing which is then paid for.

Going Rates

The excellent Freelance Writing Gigs blog is a good resource on paid writing (from the freelance writer side) and has a recently updated (2010-01) overview of the market demand and pricing for Freelance writing. See also the Paid2Write blog which provides brief reviews of freelance writing sites.

Associated Content

Associated Content is the freelance writing opportunity most people start with. They along with Demand Studios are two of the largest freelance writing companies

Freelance Writing at Associated Content

Associated content has a few options for writers in terms of pay. One can retain the copyright and earn less, but have flexibility in republishing. Or one can assign full rights to AC and get some up-front pay as well.

One great thing about AC is that people are paid to write articles about AC. A quick search using the terms "Associate Content Paid" on AC reveals quite a few articles of interest.

Content Buying at Associated Content

AC provides a form to fill out and an email came back within 2 days with prices averaging $65 for original articles, as well as a long-term agreement with some level of volume. Simply too expensive, though apparently they do have some editorial quality control, and a large stable of freelance writers as well as the option of buying existing content.

Constant Content

Constant Content offers a writing opportunities directly and through buyer requests.

Freelance Writing at Constant Content

Writers can submit to Constant Content. In addition they have image, video, and illustrations. However, perusing some of the items is a bit disappointing as there are inflated prices and low quality.

Content Buying at Constant Content

Prices for content depend upon rights (use, unique or full rights), and article requests can have price ranges in them (along with length and content requirements).

One nice feature is the ability to see the author profiles, writing and sales volume and contact them directly. Also one can make offers to bid on content which authors have enabled for bidding as opposed to fixed prices.

Demand Media and Demand Studios

Demand Media is the parent company of Demand Studios, which is the writer-facing part of the organization.

Freelance Writing at Demand Studios

Through Demand Studios, writers can apply for and secure writing assignments and get paid directly and/or over time for content. They pay twice a week and they appear to be hiring writers, copy editors and filmmakers. Demand owns the copyright on the material paid for.

Content Buying at Demand Studios

Sadly, the only information on buying content is an online email address which we have yet to hear a reply from. We sent an email a few weeks ago.

Elance

Elance is not a content provider per se, but does have a large number of freelance writers. $10 USD / hr is a popular minimum rate and they have individuals and teams for hire.

Helium

Helium unfortunately was down at the time of publication, but they'll likely be back soon. I have some old links so those will go in the description below.

Freelance Writing at Helium

Helium has some advantages and disadvantages when compared with Associated Content. There may be more freedom with Helium in terms of editorial review.

Content Buying at Helium

Helium has a marketplace that makes it easy to post writing opportunities. However, it did look a little sparse in the market, though prices were not bad (for the content buyer) in terms of writing offers.

HubPages and Bright Hub

HubPages and Bright Hub have many similarities beyond the "Hub" component in their names. Both provide tools to create pages and groups of pages, add images, social bookmarks, etc.

Freelance Writing at HubPages and Bright Hub

HubPages allows for affiliate access to Amazon, Adsense, etc. and gets a percentage of views for their own Amazon, Adsense links, etc.

Bright Hub also pays directly for content, as well as supporting own-content creation under a community or as an individual.

• Bright Hub writing opportunities
• Hub Pages freelance writing overview

Content Buying at HubPages and Bright Hub

There does not appear to be any content buying opportunities at HubPages or Bright Hub at the present time. They are both destination sites, but it is possible they would put content up for sale or give access to writers in the future.

Travelfish Travel Writing

TravelFish is an up-and-coming Southeast Asia independent travel guide which focuses on ebooks and now has an iPhone application.

Freelance Writing at Travelfish

Travelfish Jobs actually pay well for writing, but the research time and costs can be considerable. As with most things, success lies in organization.

Content Buying at Travelfish

There does not appear to be any content buying opportunities at TravelFish at the present time.

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Markdown WordPress Plugin

Markdown is a fantastic tool for providing document markup that is then transformed into HTML. Storage space is reduced from storing HTML, therefore queries to retrieve are reduced, and most importantly readability is increased.

The Markdown WordPress plugin (v.1.2.2 in any case) works great though in our current template we have trouble with it executing from within certain blocks such as inside of tables, widgets and in shortcode-supported footers.

As stated, Markdown does require learning (and remembering), that is recognition vs. recall. However, once learned the use of Markdown in offline documents (such as email) can be an even better markup than either something made up, or the requirement to use a rich text editor. WordPerfect 5.1 still beats MS Word, in our humble, old-school opinion.

Flickr Gallery WordPress Plugin

The use of shortcodes in general, such as those produced by Flickr Gallery require some initial configuration and there is a learning curve, however they dramatically simplify text editing.

Lightbox 2 WordPress Plugin

Flickr Gallery supports various lightbox plugins. Currently we prefer the excellent Lightbox2.

Smart YouTube WordPress Plugin

Smart YouTube by Vladimir Prevolac is another goodie which has some great advantages over copying-and-pasting embed code.

SlideShare WordPress Plugin

Yoast's Slideshare plugin (one of the few of his that works on a symlinked /plugins/ installation) allows for setting an override width and use the wordpress.com SlideShare shortcode. Worthwhile to use.

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