Limewire Shares Music, Not Pizza July 2, 2009
Posted by Daniel in Uncategorized.add a comment
I’ve been a fan of the idea of sharing music among friends every since Napster started bringing people together in 1999. I’ve only ever heard of file sharing companies described as bullies on the news and in the courtrooms – causing me to lean my support toward them as the underdog.
But the recent actions of some Limewire employees have challenged where my loyalties lay. As I was browsing through Tech Crunch I found a disturbing article (The Infamous 2009 LimeWire Pizza Fiasco) chronicling a physical altercation between the employees of a small New York music label, Dovecote Records, and employees from Limewire.
Limewire
Limewire
According to the story, the Dovecote employees mistakenly took some pizza from a tray set out for a Limewire company party. After useless apologies fell on deaf ears, the truth about the employee’s identy as Limewire staff came out, enfuriating the small record label’s employees – who quickly calculated the value of their 2 stolen pieces of pizza as incomparable to the money and music stolen by the file sharing giant.
The Dovecotes grabbed full boxes of pizza and made their heated escape, but not without being showered by pitchers of beer and roucous threats from Limewire staff.
I understand this is a war for freedom of file sharing, but come on – 2 peices of pizza. Limewire, if you’re really about sharing everything royalty free, then lighten up a little – it’s only pizza.
New …ish PageRank Rules Revealed June 23, 2009
Posted by Daniel in Blogging Advice, SEO, Search Engines, WebStuff.add a comment
Last week, Google’s Matt Cutts blogged about a change to PageRank that took place a year ago. The change was drastic enough that the comment list ran on for over 200 responses. However, Cutts made the argument in one of his comment responses – “The fact that no one noticed this change means (to me) even though it feels like a really big shift, in practice the impact of this change isn’t that huge.”
The change is in reference to the Nofollow link command. Previous to 2008 if a page had 20 links on it, with 10 of those links being Nofollowed, the other 10 would carry the PageRank passing power of all 20 links divided up among them (1/10 of the PageRank Power).
Now, since the change last year, on that example page – the 10 followable links would only carry 1/20 of the PageRank passing power. The 10 Nofollow still don’t pass PR but the other 10/20 power to pass PR disappears.
This has people up in arms about all the work they’ve done to direct and steer their PageRank power within their site. The basic feel for what Cutts was saying was that if people haven’t noticed in a year apparently their work to contour PR hasn’t been worth it. He says, “In practical terms this change really doesn’t affect rankings very much at all.”
Personally, I disagree only in that those people who have made PageRank contouring a pillar of their SEO plan will need to re-think their repertoire. Otherwise I don’t really know what all the fuss is about. Continue making pages with great, resourceful content and people will want to visit and link to your site.
What do you think? Vote in my poll and let me know.
SEO Newbie Tools May 13, 2009
Posted by Daniel in Uncategorized.1 comment so far
So I’ll admit it – I’m an SEO noob. Trying to glean any and all knowledge and wisdom about optimizing that I can – reading articles and listing to podcasts. Search Engine Optimization is such a dynamic field that it feels impossible to ever fully wrap my head around all the techniques and tricks. But I’m getting there and I figured I’d share some of the sweet tools I’ve found or people have recommended.
One of the most helpful learning tools I’ve come across (from my buddy Mike) is the SEO Fundamentals Pyramid created by Rand Fishkin of SEOmoz.org. It’s really helped me focus my efforts in a diverse and confusing SEO world. Plus all the podcasts and articles I’ve read back up the Pyramid’s basis that all good SEO stems from having solid, accessible content.
I mentioned podcasts – Webmaster Radio has a great podcast called SEO Rockstars. Most of the show is over my head but there are tips, advice, and tricks scattered throughout the show that I pick up on. Plus Dave Ramsey says if you want to be a millionaire hang out with millionaires. So I keep listening hoping to rise to that level.
I’ve also got a few of Firefox add-on toolbars – SEO Book toolbar, SEOmoz toolbar, SEO Quake bar, WebDev bar, and the Google toolbar.
SEO Quake: has my favorite density feature. And easily toggles on and off.
SEO Book: I very much appreciate the Search Engine Ranking Checker built into the SEO Book toolbar. And I love the SEO X-ray tool, which reveals headers, title, META description, META keywords, external/internal links, and has a keyword density tool.
SEOmoz: is the only one with unique tools and rating systems such as Domain Moz Trust Rank. However you have to have a registered SEOmoz account to log-in to enable the basic tools. If you want to see the ratings for the other tools you’ll need to pay for a pro-account. The toolbar also has quick link access to SEOmoz SEO tools which are awesome if you are willing to pay for a pro-account. They also have an awesome collection of SEO articles to check out.
WebDev: Just helps me strip the site down to its basic text and links – to see what the spiders see.
Google Toolbar: I know what you’re thinking: “The Google toolbar?!?” But I use it
because it provides the most up-to-date and accurate Google Pagerank.
That’s basically it. Those are the main tools I’m using. Feel free to comment if you have any advice or better tools.
Importance of Domain – Free Online Gradebook August 1, 2008
Posted by mikeglanz in Uncategorized.Tags: SEO, SEO Tests
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A couple months ago a friend of mine asked me to look at the SEO for their site TrackMyGrades.com. Its a great web based software that allows teachers to… well track their grades. I did some research on the competition and realized that not only did the competition have vastly inferior products, but that they had almost no SEO marketing whatsoever.
While looking around at the competition I found it interesting that the second most used keyword – “Free Online Gradebook” was completely was available as a .com domain. I purchased it immediately and setup a free wordpress blog there. Mostly for curiosity to see how it would rank. The results?
Astounding – Within a month – with no inbound links, no traffic, no posts, no content (besides what you see up there currently) I was on page 1 for the keywords, and then page 2 for the keywords “online gradebook“.
Take it or leave it – online gradebook and free online gradebook test results may very – but I’m pretty sure google places a lot of importance on domain.
My First Week as an SEO Intern July 8, 2008
Posted by mikeglanz in SEO, Search Engines.add a comment
By Katie Pitman
I am a Search Engine Optimist. Or an Optimizer, or a new search-engine Transformer by the name of Optimus Rhyme (okay, so that doesn’t make sense, I’ve just always liked the pun). I’m also a noob. But in my past week as an SEO intern, I’ve really learned a lot about the basics of search engine optimization. I’m enough of a nerd to find this really interesting, and enough of a thinker to see how big this industry is going to get, which I why I bullied Mike into giving me the internship in the first place.
SEO is a relatively new industry that is growing very quickly. The more internet oriented businesses become, the more important it is to these businesses to show up higher in search engines and get more organic traffic. Most businesses have no idea how to do this: enter the Optimist. I’ve been looking at businesses that are hiring SEOers in San Diego’s Craigslist, and it’s a bit nutty not only how many positions are open and being created, but also how much these people are willing to pay a person with proven results. That’s another reason I convinced Mike to give me this internship, and why I’m willing to work for free: experience in a field where few others have it is really going to pay off. Even if I don’t end up with a career as an SEO analyst/tech/consultant, someone with not only standard MS Office Suite skills, but also fancy SEO skills will definitely have an edge in the job market. And hey- in today’s economy, who doesn’t need an edge?
The fact that there are no degrees available in this field makes it a little bit of a free for all— experience and proven results are all that matter. Because it’s a new industry, everyone in it has the chance to make new discoveries and shape the field. I, for instance, just got my bachelor’s with a double major in Psychology and Communications, with just a bit more computer knowledge than the average joe, and yet I’m helping HireAHelper.com and it’s landing pages rise in the Google ranks. It’s very exciting to see Google’s analytics showing an improvement since I started working here. The future is looking pretty bright! Between Mike’s hands-on training and recommended reading, I’m starting to feel like a real Optimist.
Monetizing Your Blog June 16, 2008
Posted by mikeglanz in Uncategorized.Tags: Advertising, Blogging Advice, Cash Flow, SEO
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I have to admit I laughed when I got the following voicemail from my much distressed aunt.
“… there is no point… I just had my biggest day ever,125 visits, and I just read that you can’t make money advertising until you have 10,000 visits a day and even then your only looking at a couple dollars”
It’s true – monetizing a traditional blog can be difficult. Between writing content, doing research, having a “real job”, and trying to live your life, not much time is left to seek out advertisers and market your real estate to them. Easy solutions like Google Adsense and other drag n’ drop solutions provide easy but hardly sufficient income.
Here is the solution: Don’t compete with traditional advertisers! One of the sites that we advertised on (with very little success, and littler ROI) was Move.com. They built their business on this model. Get page views, sell pageviews. It doesn’t work anymore (don’t believe me, check out their stock).
Spend your time building a network of trusting readers! Give them content for free! Answer their questions and provide them with a resource / entertainment / interaction. Seth Godin said (and I’m paraphrasing because I can’t find the post) – You should be able to build a very profitable and successful business off your 1000 best customers.
That may be a bit much for the internet world – 1000 visits a month is hard to monetize past a certain point. But 10,000? I think that’s doable.
Query: If you have 10,000 subscribers, each of whom read 80% of your blog posts, how could your monetize that trust?
Joel and 37Signals built databases of their readers interested in jobs.
Seth uses his blog as a platform to sell his books, some of which are just collections of his blog posts!
SEOMoz has paid subscriptions to premium content and tools.
If the most innovative idea you have for monetizing your blog is simply signing up for Google AdSense then you probably aren’t delivering the quality content people want to read in the first place.
Search Engine Traffic for Blogs – 10 SEO Tips for Amateur Bloggers January 27, 2008
Posted by mikeglanz in SEO.2 comments
Every day that goes on it seems another friend starts a blog. I usually give the same few pointers to all of them, but now I’m just going to point them towards this post. (This will be review for most of our readers.)
1. Get Links - Write posts on others articles, or find other bloggers that will blog about you. Get on other peoples “blog rolls” or simply ask them to mention an article that they may have liked in a post of theirs. Some will let you post as a guest writer and link back to your own site in the byline.
2. Get a URL – PLEASE! Every blogging engine has made it easy – I think word press is the easiest but seriously, Do it! People go back and forth on whether this is important or not to the search engines – it will take you 10 minutes and $7 a year.
3. Write Posts – Yeah, seriously! If you write once a year, your not going to do as well as someone writing once a day. I usually tell people that 2-5 posts a week is a good place to start.
4. Don’t make up strange titles. I know it goes against everything in you, your an artist and this is your palette – but just avoid it. If you want traffic from the search engines – then title you article relevant to what people are searching for. If are writing an article on making apple pie – then make sure your title includes the words “Making Apple Pie”.
5. Provide Links - When talking about other sources, articles, companies, etc – put the link in there! Its all about providing quality content.
6. Mention Past Articles - When writing about something you have written about before – mention it and link to the article! Your older articles that are popular will continue to bring your traffic for decades to come!
7. Use Guest Writers – Lets other who are knowledgeable write on your blog! SEMSunday has 3 writers – its pretty widely accepted that Google can read bylines and puts more weight on blogs with multiple writers.
8. Spell & Grammar Check – Google can tell… and its embarrassing…
9. Write for what people are searching for – There are a few ways you can go about doing this: Write about current search trends – for instance a blog post on the California wild fires DURING the California wild fires will show up as immediately relevant and may do well with people searching the topic. Another way is to track how people are finding your site currently – if you have a search that is continually drivers traffic to your site, then write more content about that topic! Remember to link back to the original post
10. Use Images – Doesn’t hurt, helps with content (name them appropriately!)
Remember - The search engines’ job is to find quality content with relevant answers to the questions people are asking… Ask yourself: “What are MY target readers asking the search engines?” – Now provide quality content that’s relevant and your good!
Happy Blogging!
Things to Remember when doing Sponsored Reviews December 27, 2007
Posted by mikeglanz in Advertising, Blogging Advice, SEO.add a comment
Mike: Shhh. Don’t tell the boss…. but we used Sponsored Reviews to target a few keywords…
Zach: So, thats a great idea!
Mike: Yeah, that’s what I thought… until XYZblog.com put a large “This review was from Sponsored Reviews.com” at the bottom of the post.
Zach: Thats committing SEO suicide! Bossman will fire you for sure…
For those of you out there that are blogging for money, this is the conversation that usually goes on after a company like mine (www.HireAHelper.com) uses a site like SponsoredReviews.com to build our SEO.
SEO you say? Yes. SEO.
95% percent of companies that are paying for reviews for their products are doing it for the quality links.
Get that through your head. We aren’t going to pay $100-200 for a great review from your piddly little PR3 or PR4 blog about Womens Reusable Menstrual Pads, we are paying for good links in relevant content!
But my readers should know that I am being paid to write the review! Its ethical!
I completely agree. There is a solution though. Here is the text that OpinionMom.com included at the bottom of our review:
“This is a sponsored review purchased by Hire A Helper through SponsoredReviews.com “
Here is it translated into SEO language:
“ATTENTION GOOGLE: ALL LINKS IN THIS ARTICLE ARE SPAM – DEFINITELY DO NOT COUNT THEM FOR YOUR RANKING – AND MAYBE PENALIZE THEM IF MORE REVIEWS LIKE THIS SHOW UP”
SOLUTION: (PAY ATTENTION!)
Here is an IMAGE of the same exact thing:
Notice the Name of the file isn’t “SponsoredReviews.jpg” or anything similar.
Lets take a look at OpinionMoms “Disclosure Policy” -
“This blog accepts forms of cash advertising, sponsorship, paid insertions or other forms of compensation.”
Again, easily fixed with an IMAGE!
SEO Basics October 21, 2007
Posted by Zac in SEO.Tags: , Search Engine Optimization, SEO
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As you can see there is a little bit of a theme on these first few posts as we figure out blogging and the likes, that being getting back to the basics.
Most people would give you volumes about the Basics of SEO but I am just going to outline what I think are some of the most important aspects of the industry and why its important.
The first point which is practically a given but most people don’t think that much about is the importance of search engines. Can anyone even imagine what the internet would be like without them? It sounds painful and frustrating to me so their shear importance to the space is the first point that people need to understand. No matter what search engine you prefer or what you are looking for everyone wants relevant results to help them find what they are looking for. On top of this there are literally billions of websites that could be returned for searches through search engines which simply adds to the complexity. At its core SEO is simply about trying to get search engines to properly index and rank a website. The better the site, the better the ranking for related terms and most of the time people simply don’t understand what makes a “better” site. The fact of the matter is that if you simply optimize for search engines and leave users out in the cold no one will want to use the website, likewise if you forget about search engines it will be extremely hard for people to find the website.
Search engine optimization can really be broken down into two categories:
On Site Factors
These include site structure, internal linking, content, meta tags, page titles etc. On site factors are typically everything a webmaster or site owner has control over, these are usually the first areas to look at when assessing a sites overall search engine value and friendliness.
Off Site Factors
This includes links to your website, link anchor text, etc. Off site factors are usually things that webmasters and site owners can affect but are largely outside their control. The number of links a website has, the anchor text of those links and their value are all things that can not only drive traffic but are used by search engines to rank websites (exp Google Page Rank).
Search engines usually take all of these factors and use them to rank sites accordingly for particular words or phrases people search for. So the goals of an SEO is to use all of these factors to influence the search engines in “good or bad (white hat or black hat)” ways to rank their site highly for related terms. Remember the goal for search engines is to serve the most relevant results, thats how they attain users and make money so they are constantly trying to understand every website as best as possible to complete their mission.
So as I close out the post, a “great” website is all in the eyes of the website creator but a “better” website is something that is useful, valuable, content or resource rich and is easy for both users and search engines to use.
