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  • SEO Factor Blog

    October 9, 2006 Sometimes I get so caught up in describing some of the complexities of SEO, I neglect the simple things. So today I think I will discuss internal links. Internal links are any links on a page that lead to another page of the same site. The idea of internal linking in reference to SEO, is to write the anchor text so that it shows a search term, and leads to a page dedicated to that specific term. Did that sound tricky? Let’s give an example So I have a car sales website. Omitting the amount of other SEO work involved in actually ranking in such an industry, let’s just say I wanted to be found using terms like ‘car sales’ or ‘used cars’ or specific models like ‘used chevy.’ I would obviously use these terms in the content of my site, and I would probably have pages dedicated specifically to each of these terms. Well, in the text, close to the beginning if at all possible, I would want to use the desired term as a link to the page that deals with that term. Ex:

    “Blah blah body text…Used Cars…blah rest of text”

    Where “Used Cars” would be a link to the used cars page. This will show the search engines a little more weight to that term, as your site must be relevant to it because there is a whole page in dedication. Now, You don’t want to overdo it. Personally, unless I have more than 500 words on a site, I really don’t like to use this method more than one time. If you have a bunch of links all over your content, not only will it look a little funny to a visitor, it will also likely smell spammy to a search engine. Also, the weight given to these links is getting lighter, but it’s still there and still a very valid and worthy SEO tactic.

    I’m going to post today (maybe tomorrow if my lunch goes wrong) about how internal links come into play with regard to link popularity. This is really fun to explain. Good luck out that.

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  • SEO Factor Blog

    October 9, 2006 I have posted a couple of times on articles/press releases and their seemingly unknown importance. Now I want to discuss optimizing your article/press release, and give you a great deal of resources for submitting your them. Optimization. First, we want to make sure our articles are indeed optimized. By this I mean, make sure they discuss the appropriate subject matter at hand. Make good use of your target search terms, without stuffing or spamming. Most distributor sites will allow you to place links in the article. Make use of that if at all possible. Some won’t allow that, but give you a section that you can. Use that as well. And make the article worthy. If you want to spread the word on your business, and can offer something good, write an article or press release. If you want rankings or hits, look elsewhere. the online community isn’t as naive as it used to be. They are cunning and educated. Don’t make use of this marketing solely for search engines. Writing a good article or press release will bring links and traffic inadvertently if done correctly. Submission. So, now you have an article written. Where to put it. Well, here is a nice list that should help you out a bit.

    Article Science

    Articles.pn
    Article City
    Isnare
    The Web Llama
    Buzzle
    Article Dashboard
    Easy Articles
    Free Sticky
    Go Articles
    Article99
    Alumbo
    Article Alley
    Article Sphere
    Article Fusion
    Articles Submit
    Articles Base
    Super Archives
    eArticles Online
    Articles Exchange
    Article Finders
    Author Connection
    Article Point
    Publish 101
    Article Home So that should get you a little more than started.

    Don’t want to write your own articles? Don’t feel like submitting to all of these? There are plenty of services out there that will do either and/or both for you. Or you can e-mail me, I know a guy. Everyone have a good weekend.

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  • SEO Factor Blog

    October 7, 2006 SEO is a sticky subject sometimes. Many people have been burned by people claiming to be SEO Specialists, and are aprehensive to give another one a shot. There are plenty of resources out there on what a “shady SEO” is, even Google has a bit to say about it here, so I’m not going to go over that right now. Today I am going to try to give some advise on overcoming some of these walls so that we can all work together and be a happy online family. First and foremost, don’t be a shady SEO. No hidden text, no doorway pages, no spamware, no fake hits. None of these things are helping the stigma of an SEO and you will only hurt yourself and your client, and recently can get into a lot of trouble with the FTC. The ‘F’ in ‘FTC’ stands for Federal. That’s a whole new kind of trouble. Anyway, be honest. If you don’t wanna be honest, get into the spam business or hacking business, there are plenty of ‘Pen Pal’ services for inmates. You won’t be too lonely. Be Honest. Let your client know exactly what you intend to do for them and what processes you will take. Don’t be scared that someone will get this knowledge and do it themselves. SEO is far easier said than done. You know this. If your potential client does indeed try to take it on themselves, wish them luck, give a pointer or two, and let them know there are no hard feelings and that you will help in any way you can. They will be calling in about a month or so. Also, be honest about what your client should expect. We know how long it can take to rank, get traffic, and so on. Don’t set expectations that you can meet. You will end up working double time for less money. Be Diplomatic: Many people already have a designer and want help with traffic. Often times you will have to work with their designer. As stated above, most designers don’t know the SE’s like you do. Be patient. It’s not a bad thing. Their whole job is to make a site that looks and functions well. Besides, they had to deal with the same customer you are now dealing with. Let’s step to the side. There is a lot of animosity between designers and SEO guys. There really isn’t a need for this, and it usually fades as soon as you start to see eye to eye. It’s just the way of things as often times sites are designed with very little text or in frames or Flash. SEO Specialists understand the need for simplicity and content. Don’t smack them or anything. Try to find a common ground and hopefully you, the designer, and most importantly the client, can all come up with something that will be beneficial to everyone. Be Patient. SEO as an idea is growing, but there are still those that really don’t understand what it is. Don’t let it get to you. Try your best to educate and be clear on what can and can not be done in a certain timeframe. Sometimes people will come to you thinking the world will suddenly turn on their clock. There are times when you have to give your best advice, and let that customer go. But it’s OK, there will be more.

    Man. I love this stuff.

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  • SEO Factor Blog

    October 9, 2006 I’m really not sure where this information is coming from, but I’m getting a lot of clients asking me about poison words. This is an excellent example of a Google Myth. There are no such things as poison words. There are ‘stop’ words, but these don’t even have anything to do with your ranking as much as it does making good use of the space you have. I want to debunk this myth right now. There are tools and “experts” that say certain words in your title, description, or meta tags would get your site penalized by Google. These words include “lingerie,” “adult,” “sex,” “free,” and various school yard no no words. I’m not really sure where or why this myth started. Actually I think I do know why. Google is known for their lack of regard for porn and spammy sites. It’s not really that far-fetched to think that there would be trigger words that would mark a site as such material and ban it.

    There is indeed a service provided by Google called SafeSearch, but it doesn’t really work in the fashion described above. This is a manual filter that can be used in an attempt to omit certain types of sites from appearing on a Google search result.

    So, let’s get to the matter at hand. Google would not want to ban a site that contains the word(s) “lingerie,” “sexy,” or any variation as such. Think about the massive industry as lingerie sales in retail form. ‘Victoria’s Secret’ comes to mind. “Sex” is not exactly fair to target either, what with the ever-growing campaign for sex education and disease awareness that various organizations and government agencies that have been pushing for the last 30 years or so. “Adult,” well that’s just stupid. I could understand “free” as that is a word often used by spammers, but think of all the legitimate applications. Just too many to ban a word entirely. If you wanna test this yourself, do a search for “free lingerie” in Google. Check on the meta of all the sites on page one. I guess this post is coming to an end as I soon will be resting my case. I did mention “stop words.” Unlike poison words, these are words that a search engine like Google will ignore. Words like “and,” “for,” “the,” and words of the like. There is no penalty for including these in your meta. There is however a length to which your meta can exceed for less than satisfactory on-page optimization efforts. So it makes sense to be mindful of these words in order to conserve the space you are given for your meta.

    In closing, everything written or told about SEO should not be believed. The search engines are often a mystery, and naturally, we as humans will think of fantastic reasons and subjects for this mystery.

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  • SEO Factor Blog

    October 7, 2006 In the creation of a site, many people make use of frames. Frames are a way of making one page that will stay static, but a chunk of which will be used to call information from other pages. The use of frames is often because it is a person’s first site, or their relative made it after graduating a website design program or just picked up a book. This isn’t really a bad thing because most website design/HTML books don’t even go into SEO, and the use of frames is one of the very first subjects covered. It can be a neat little method of keeping a common look throughout the site before learning CSS. More on creating frames can be found here at my favorite online tutorial, Tizag.

    The problem with frames is that some browsers don’t play well with them, and the information on the page is often within a frame that can not be seen. Here is a way to get around this problem, posted on Search Engine Watch, while still making use of the frames method. Keep in mind that most methods of using frames and making them SEO friendly, will only help so much. And it’s not really that much.

    But maybe you have talking to someone that doesn’t want to give up the frames no matter what you say. One good method is the creation of landing pages. (note: not doorway pages or anything that is a “trick.”) You can create a few pages that have the same look and feel as the framed pages, and place the bulk of relevant text on those pages. They will be the first set of pages on the site, (that means replacing the homepage) and will link to the framed pages. Then these pages can be submitted to the search engines. I also think that this is a cheap and ‘shortcutty’ method. It leaves a void when a surfer is moving from framed to unframed pages, and decreases the amount of acceptable information that the search engines can see.

    In my opinion it’s probably best to make good use of CSS if you want a common feel on the pages of your site. This will give the desired effects, and work very well with a surfer and search engine alike. Keep in mind my opinion on design should be taken lightly. I’m very analytical, so “pretty” is not a word I implement often. I am very lucky to be involved with people that have an incredible eye for design and a comparable understanding of SEO. The make the site, I make the site work. Now that’s a partnership.

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  • SEO Factor Blog

    October 9, 2006 So you have an optimized site, have started and continue a good link building campaign, your site is on your business cards, and you tell all your friends about it, but for some reason, it just feels like your site needs a little…push. What ever will you do? One of the best next steps is a press release. Basically, an article will be written on your site/business/product or whatever, and distributed to many online press sources. This will provide your story to many eyes, which can lead to other article written by other syndications like newspapers, radio shows, and, the really big one, some sort of mention on television.

    There are many services out there that provide a written article, promote the article, or both. One that comes to mind the most is PRWeb. They allow you to write the article and do the promoting, or write and promote it for you.

    My next post will touch more on the specifics of writing and promoting an article, but for now just know that it is a really good way to promote your business.

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  • SEO Factor Blog

    October 9, 2006 The online community is a fast one. So marketing online requires that you make use of new and creative avenues on a very mobile basis. One of the coolest thing I like about blogs is that you open your information up to anyone and everyone, giving a good opportunity for visibility. Because of our access to so much information conveniently, we want everything we want and we want it now. And that’s not an unacceptable request. This being the way of the Internet, there are easily hundreds of blog, forums, and newsgroups on which one can post in order to be heard and answered.

    One of the coolest of these avenues is Digg.com. Here is a community that allows for a member to read submissions from other members, and decide on whether the submission is spread worthy. These submissions are not necessarily provided by the member, but said member is more or less referring to a story, post, or some form of information from somewhere else on the Internet. That was confusing. Let’s say it like this.

    I go to my favorite news site. I read a story that I really liked and felt that it should be shared by all. I go to Digg, (because I’m a member) and I write a blurb like: “This is a really cool post about some guy who won a million dollars and spent the entire earnings on hot-air balloons and slingshots.” I would then link to the original story, and publish it on the Digg site in an appropriate category. Being that the story in our example deals with hot air, it would obviously be in a politics category (lol…seriously though. It would). This will give other members of Digg to check out the story, and decide on whether or not others should read it. They can ignore it, letting the story slip further into the abyss of nothingness, or they can click on a link that says “Digg.” The more “Diggs” a story gets, the more visibility it will receive. Now, this is obviously a great way to get exposure online from a large amount of people from many different areas of interests. In essence, you could post something on your blog or site, and write a blurb yourself for Digg in an attempt to drive traffic. I don’t necessarily disagree with this method of marketing, in fact I sometimes make use of it, but I really don’t like shameless posts for the sole reason of traffic building. I firmly believe there is plenty of useless stuff on the Internet already, and we don’t need anymore. If you choose this method, please be mindful of your fellow surfers. Like your site, any posts you make on forums or whatever other method you use, should be done so in an attempt to educate or share. Putting a link to your site is fine, but please don’t just run around yelling “Click On ME!!!” So check out Digg. When I post something that I believe should really be shared by all, I will post it there. Suffice to say, that’s not too often as I like to be respectful.

    Ya know, I think I’m gonna post this one on Digg with a blurb saying that this is a good post on telling others why they shouldn’t shamelessly post on Digg for self gratification…lol. Yeah. I’m gonna do that.

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  • SEO Factor Blog

    October 9, 2006 A press release is an article written on or about your company, site, product, or whatever. In respect to marketing, this will accommodate the exposure of your writing when promoted to many avenues of online press release viewers and publications . This is a good thing that can lead to a better thing. If someone reads your press release, and then writes an article for a local paper or some other medium, you get that much more exposure. There are press release services ranging from writers to promoters, to both. And depending on the release and amount of work that goes into it, it can be one of the easiest and most inexpensive ways of marketing online. But a good press release is important. Obviously, a press release will bring reader attention to your site. But there are far more benefits to them as well. There are a large number of sites that allow you to search for a press release or related news. That being said, you will want to take the same on-page optimization considerations when compiling your press release. This means good use (not stuffing) of your desired search terms, “internal” linking to pages or services on your site, and a link to your homepage on the press release. The links are especially important because, once distributed, these can, and most often do, provide a one way link to your site. We all know how important that is. You will also want to make sure that the press release grabs the attention. Nobody wants to read boring stories or sales pitches about things they don’t want to hear about. Make it compelling enough to make people want to go to your site. One press release is not enough. It’s a good idea to release one every 30, 60, and 90 days, at a maximum of three or four in total. This will show follow ups on your product, etc. The idea is to make the first press release an introduction to your business and site. The second one should be some sort of show of success or exceptional service offered, perhaps with testimonials. The third should show how well the site is doing, and maybe promote a different service or product following a touch on the previous press release topics. This will show a continuity, and increase the likelihood that someone will not only read and go to your site, but spread the word a little bit more.

    In conclusion, a good press release is a very neglected, but extremely rewarding marketing plan that should get as much attention as the “optimization” of your site.

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  • SEO Factor Blog

    October 9, 2006 There seems to be a lot of talk on various blogs and forums (check SEO Book) that Yahoo! is giving more consideration to inbound links than before. This would be interesting, as that is also the thing that, in my opinion, is ruining the validity of a Google search. All to often the high ranked sites on Google are those that have more money and time to dedicate to getting links that show them in a better light than they are. Let’s explain a smidgen. Let’s say I’m a website that sells life insurance. Obviously, I want as many clicks to my site as possible from anyone looking for insurance or anything remotely related in hopes of making a sale. Now, let’s say I’m a college student. I have to come up with a great deal of insurance information on my thesis about “how-to’s of insurance.” (please excuse this example. It’s nothing personal, I’m just not very creative.) Now I type “insurance information” in a Google search. Well what pops up other than the insurance company before. I search and search the site and all to no avail as I can not find an ounce on insurance “information.” OK. So maybe I should have looked up something a little more specific. How about “life insurance how to.” CRAP! Same company pops up.

    You see, in reference to my post on Link Popularity, said insurance company could dedicate a great deal of time and money getting “relevant” links and seeing the anchor tag as a great deal of other topics. Even if it doesn’t really have any “information” but only sells insurance. And insurance is a very big industry. There are many other industries; website design. iPod, computers. SEO. All topics that have a great deal of competition and overly saturated environments filled with professionals, and professional con artist the like. The idea is to get as many links as one can. You may even get some that you and I would consider relevant. But then Google looks and says “hey, look at all those links. They must be something good.” And thus the ranking. And such is the reason we search on Google and get BLAH, when (and I never thought I would be advocating anything Microsoft) a search on MSN pulls a higher likelihood of what I want. In my opinion, Yahoo! was not far behind MSN when searching for something I want or need. And unlike most of the SEO community, I do believe that Google just got stuck, and will eventually clean up the algo that decides ranking, but with this recent development, there may be some problems.

    All to often, when ranking in Yahoo!, we concentrate on proper placement of keywords and the Title tag. If less is given to that, and more to link popularity, who is to say that they won’t become more like Google? There is talk that they are going to try to make the link criteria a little better, meaning that the link would indeed have to be relevant, but I don’t think the crawlers and algorithms are to the point that they will decide that an insurance company with 10,000 links from everywhere will not show when I do my search, when the former professor of a college has a site with exactly what I’m looking for, but no website friends. I want to say, I am not anti-Google. As a matter of fact, for the most of my adolescent and adult life I was anti-Microsoft. (Microsoft. You can’t call the largest software company in the world “micro.” And soft is not the sentiment shared when something is rammed into our computers and overall computing experience, regardless of what I want.) But you have to give credit where it is do, and constructively criticize when it is needed. MSN pulls way more relevant results for me as of late. And I believe it is because they put more weight on the content of a page and site overall.

    Google has done, and continues to do, some great things for the online community. Not too long ago, they bought a company that offered some CAD software. This company charged a nice fee for the software. Google bought them, worked with them, and made the software better, and free. We all know of Blogger, right? I hope so. Cus if not you may want to take a small look around this page. Before Google it was “Blogger? What the heck is a Blogger?” You can see the ever increasing number of new developments from Google at their Labs page. Most of this stuff is just really cool, and a good portion of it is something that we would use everyday. So, I love Google. And I likely always will. I just think they need to rethink ranking.

    OK. I’m done.

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  • SEO Factor Blog

    October 6, 2006 Well. I’m chillin’ out and wanting to make something useful. So, I will use this time to educate others on a piece of SEO. I think first we are going to talk about the Meta tags. No no, let’s start a little bit before that. How the search engines “work.” Nobody knows for sure. I would also like to point out the idea of SEO. Search Engine Optimization. There is a very fine line between legit and Too Legit to Quit. Crap….nevermind…that was the 90’s wasn’t it? There is a fine line between legit and shady SEO. The term itself is a little misleading. The search engines are trying ever so diligently to bring relevant results to their customers, and Google is very concerned about making the Internet “better” all around. One of the first things I tell a client is that you should make a concise and well thought out site for your customers, not the search engines. When you start to look like you are doing things solely for the benefit of the search engines, you don’t do as well and may loose a potential customer because your site looks like someone took a poo poo on the screen. So, make a site for your customers, not the search engines, and the search engines will love you for it. “Real SEO” is taking the site made for customers, and modifying it so that it is easier for the search engines to read, and proving it’s relevance and benefit to specific term(s). See the difference? Now let’s discuss Meta tags. (I really hate discussing these because most people leave the conversation at that and assume that there is nothing more. If SEO were a car, Meta tags wouldn’t even be your lighter. There is so much more to it, and many more things that should be a priority. But, we must get through this, so hold my hand, and let’s frolic together, shall we?) Keywords: They don’t matter. No no no…stop talking….they don’t matter. If you want to argue this then make a website, put it on the Internet, and I will make a website of the exact same subject minus keywords, and we will see who wins. I will. You know why? Cus’ keywords don’t matter. Description: This can matter. Some things have been changing lately with regard to description. Google is acting kinda funny so you may hear that they aren’t showing the correct description. Without going into too much detail, we will say that Google is sometimes using the description from DMOZ. If you’re not in DMOZ, they are likely using the text beginning your site. It is important to have some/all of your major search terms in your description. MSN still relies heavily on it and Yahoo! puts a little weight there. Title: Arguably the most important tag. Yahoo! puts the most weight on this tag and the other probably give it the most priority than the other tags. So it’s pretty important that you use you major search terms in your title tag. It’s also important to make sure the words in your title tag are used liberally throughout your text. Making use of bold and header tags is also a good idea for the words in your title. Also, it is commonly said around here that your title should be copied and pasted onto your homepage. This is not so. It is important to use these terms as close to the beginning of your text as possible, and again giving weight to them is a good idea, but some titles just can’t be copied exactly on your content. So, if keywords weren’t important, why would one even list them? I feel it’s a good idea to make a good keyword list and keep the tag just for my train of thought. Search engines still crawl all of your code, and the idea for content is to show a crawler how many times a term is used. For all that is SEO please do NOT repeat terms all over your keywords to try to “trick” the search engine into thinking you make use of a term a lot. They will see this and not like it at all. Again, just use it as your train of thought and keep track of what terms you are concentrating on.

    Ok, this does it for Meta tags. We will continue our SEO conversation more as time goes on. And by conversation, I mean I will talk and you will listen. Just kidding. SEO is information and information should be free. Some of you know who I am, and should feel more than comfortable to ask me anything. We all start somewhere, and I will be more than obliged to help in any way. If you don’t know me, please feel free to email me. I think my email is on here somewhere.

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