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 Search Engines, SEO.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!
