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10 Professional Development Tips to Boost Your SEO Career

On January 17, 2010, In SEO, by Tom_C

Posted by Tom_C

So it’s a new year (doesn’t 2010 feel like the future?!) and it’s a new you. As Pete blogged last week plenty of new year’s resolutions are being set. For many this may involve getting a better or job or getting paid more money. This post is for you. Hopefully by the time you’ve read this post you’ll have some ideas to turbocharge your career.

First, I present you with a brief personal history. There was some interest in reading this on twitter so hopefully it’s useful to you.

How I Became Head of Search at Distilled

I started out a few years ago stuck in a pretty mundane job working as a project manager. Actually, I wasn’t even a project manager I was a project assistant. My alternative job title may as well have been project manager’s tea-boy. It was reasonably well paid but mentally about as stimulating as being punched in the eye.

About this time Will & Duncan were just setting up the company that would eventually become Distilled and obviously Will was raving to me about this thing called the internet. Believing this to be the future, I decided to get a job working for the internet.

Account Executive is a good entry level job for those wanting to get into SEO.

At this time, I didn’t really have any internet skills except hanging out in forums and playing poker online. Thankfully that seemed to be enough for me to get a job as a Digital Account Executive at a digital agency. This role involved doing account management for both web build projects but also SEO and PPC projects. Although I wasn’t actually doing any SEO, speaking to clients every day about their SEO and PPC campaigns quickly got me interested in what SEO was and how one did it. As I’m sure a lot of you can relate to, once bitten by the SEO bug there was no turning back. I started reading SEOmoz and other blogs and, if I’m honest, got a little bit obsessed.

This was a good thing for the company I was working for however as I started actively becoming involved in running the SEO projects for some quite big name clients. This was fun but ultimately I was still doing a fair amount of account management and my aim was to concentrate on doing SEO so I started looking around. By this time Distilled had taken shape, Will and Duncan had hired their first employee and had even got themselves some nice offices so it was (with hindsight) quite a natural time for them to start think about offering SEO. I jumped ship from my old agency and came to work for Distilled. Tally ho!

Now, technically, at this point I became Head of Search for Distilled, but with only 4 employees and a handful of small clients this wasn’t really too much to brag about. Still, I was able to immerse myself in SEO which was what I wanted and I was enjoying myself.

There was still much to learn at this stage – and although my job title hasn’t changed over the years my job role has changed quite dramatically and I feel like I’ve actually had several different jobs at Distilled as my role has evolved.

As Distilled grew up we hired Rob and Lucy to be SEOs alongside myself. Along with a little bit of hands-on work from Will and Duncan we functioned well as a close-knit team and we all managed our own SEO projects within Distilled, working together but as a pretty flat team. At this point, my

Although my job title hasn’t changed my role has changed several times since I’ve been working at Distilled.

role as "Head of SEO" didn’t involve doing anything much different from Rob and Lucy. That said, the whole company was growing and we started to get on board bigger clients and do more consulting rather than just hands-on SEO for small businesses. This naturally involved more formal reporting, delivering client-side training sessions and putting together high-level reports that our clients could take to their board to influence decisions regarding their online strategy. Good times. Around this time I started to attend a few industry conferences and shortly after I started speaking at industry conferences.

So already my role has changed from managing small-time SEO projects to doing consulting for large companies. Recently, my role has changed again within Distilled – we’ve hired some more staff for our SEO team and I’ve started spending more time on managing a team as well as doing hands-on SEO and consulting.

Anyway, that’s my (far too long) personal story. Hopefully it’s helpful to get a glimpse at how to make the progression within this industry. Although I’ve been lucky that Distilled has provided a new role for me at every step of my career I could easily have taken those 3 separate roles within different companies.

10 Tips To Boost Your SEO Career

And now, without further ado, I present my 10 tips for professional development within the SEO industry. Note that I’m assuming you’re already working in SEO at some level. If you’re not, then I suggest you read Danny’s posts on learning SEO.

While you’re reading through this list you might want to motivate yourself by reminding yourself what you can earn at different job levels within the SEO indsutry.

1) Get Qualified

Although I’m not a huge fan of qualifications generally and certainly in the SEO industry they’re few and far between, but nevertheless – getting either GAIQ or Adwords qualified will look good on a CV and give you some valuable skills. Not to mention they’re pretty easy and cheap so totally learnable in your spare time!

2) Learn Some Secondary Skills

SEO, or more broadly internet marketing, covers such a wide range of topics, skills and industries that it never hurts to have more strings to your bow than just linkbuilding. Try teaching yourself some PHP or CSS. I recently learned a few CSS bits and pieces and they come in handy for styling blog posts (Rob gives a good intro to learning CSS for styling blog posts here).

A side project is a great way of polishing up all your secondary skills, in fact a side project looks great on a CV too as Judith demonstrates here: if your SEO is not moonlighting, fire them.

3) Craft a Kick-Ass CV

When thinking about applying for a job it’s crucial to create an astounding CV, but SEO doesn’t offer too many transferable skills does it? Think again. Instead of putting things like "linkbuilding" on your CV, take a look at Rand’s post on skills that have served him well. All those skills would stand out on a CV. Also worth taking a look at is Rand’s whiteboard friday on how to get an SEO job.

4) Do Some Agency Time

If you’re working in-house then that’s great and I’m in no way trying to suggest that SEOs who work at agencies are better at SEO. But, it has to be said that working agency side you get to work on many more industries than you would otherwise. You can work on news websites, ecommerce websites, lead gen websites and a whole lot more! Getting experience working on a broad range of sites can really help make sure you’re up to speed on all the different niches of SEO – whether it’s local, image search, video search or product search.

On the flip-side, if you’re working agency side then consider working in-house for a bit. You’ll get experience in reporting to a board as well as having to experience first-hand the challenges of getting buy-in from other departments. All useful experience.

5) Immerse Yourself in Excel

I’ve raved about Excel a lot in the past so I won’t do so again here. That said, there are two crucial skills that will help you get a better job and Excel can help both of them. They are reporting and data analysis. Reporting is essential whether you’re working at an agency and need to report to clients or are working in-house and need to report to a board or your boss. Data analysis is essential to ensure that your report is always positive (I’m only half joking here…!).

In summary, if you don’t know how to put graphs and charts into your reports then you won’t get very far, as this chart shows:

6) Present At A Conference

Presenting at conferences is good for so many different reasons. Networking, making friends, having fun, experience in public speaking etc etc. I really love speaking at conferences and you should too. Having it on your CV can really make you look like an expert. And actually speaking is easy – just watch out for the speaker submission forms at SES, SMX, Adtech and all the rest of the conferences and come up with an appealing pitch.

If that’s too daunting, then consider speaking at a smaller conference. I spoke at the first ThinkVisibility in the UK last year and it was only small but lots of fun. This year I’m speaking again and it’s going to be a fair size bigger! How did I get to speak? Simple, I saw Dom twitter about wanting speakers for his conference and sent him a DM. If you apply yourself it’s that simple.

Once you’ve been accepted to speak you’ll want to take a look at these presentation skills for SEO.

7) Make Friends (aka Networking)

If you want to network slightly more officially then check out LinkedIn – you’ll be able to see upcoming job opportunities as well as raising your personal profile. Which brings me neatly to:

Build A Personal Brand

Building a personal brand is essential to getting a decent job, especially in the SEO industry. This xkcd sums it perfectly. There’s some great blog posts on this topic:

WBF – building a personal brand
The Layman’s Personal Branding Platform
SEO Tips for Building Your Personal Brand
The Ever-Snarky Rebecca Kelly’s Personal Branding + Networking = Job

In summary, get twittering and blogging with a username that’s recognisable and consistent.

9) Get Some Management Experience

Here’s where you might want to take your career to the next level. If you’re looking at trying to transition from an SEO consultant to someone who manages a team you’ll need to get some management experience. If there’s no opportunity for managing a team where you are right now then a great way to get a bit of experience is to get an intern. It’s an easy sell to your boss since you don’t need to pay them and it can look great on your CV.

For anyone who’s looking to try and up their game as an SEO manager then these two posts from Rich Baxter are essential reading:

10) Add More ROI To Every Project You Work On

As the internet grows and as the industry evolves we’re all moving towards becoming "online marketers" rather than just "SEO"s. Many of the skills that we know and love from SEO are applicable to other areas that can bring a client ROI. Two classic examples are email marketing and conversion rate optimisation. Get proficient at both of these and you’ll make yourself an all-round expert and hard to turn down for any kind of online marketing position. Here’s a few primers:

Learning a little about email marketing
WBF email marketing and SEO
Google Website Optimizer 101 (the best page on CRO I know)

Conclusion

In conclusion I just thought I’d mention two things. Firstly, I’m not looking for a job so please hold the recruitment calls – I love working at Distilled and am extremely grateful to Will and Duncan for giving me the opportunity to make it through several iterations of "head of search", here’s to the next iteration! Secondly, everyone’s different but I strongly believe that it’s not all about the money. If you’re applying for a new job then please please try and work for a fun company and make sure that you’ll enjoy it. Your own enjoyment is far more important than just the $$/££ you’ll get paid. Seriously.

Do you like this post? Yes No

Posted by Tom_C

So it's a new year (doesn't 2010 feel like the future?!) and it's a new you. As Pete blogged last week plenty of new year's resolutions are being set. For many this may involve getting a better or job or getting paid more money. This post is for you. Hopefully by the time you've read this post you'll have some ideas to turbocharge your career.

First, I present you with a brief personal history. There was some interest in reading this on twitter so hopefully it's useful to you.

How I Became Head of Search at Distilled

I started out a few years ago stuck in a pretty mundane job working as a project manager. Actually, I wasn't even a project manager I was a project assistant. My alternative job title may as well have been project manager's tea-boy. It was reasonably well paid but mentally about as stimulating as being punched in the eye.

About this time Will & Duncan were just setting up the company that would eventually become Distilled and obviously Will was raving to me about this thing called the internet. Believing this to be the future, I decided to get a job working for the internet.

Account Executive is a good entry level job for those wanting to get into SEO.

At this time, I didn't really have any internet skills except hanging out in forums and playing poker online. Thankfully that seemed to be enough for me to get a job as a Digital Account Executive at a digital agency. This role involved doing account management for both web build projects but also SEO and PPC projects. Although I wasn't actually doing any SEO, speaking to clients every day about their SEO and PPC campaigns quickly got me interested in what SEO was and how one did it. As I'm sure a lot of you can relate to, once bitten by the SEO bug there was no turning back. I started reading SEOmoz and other blogs and, if I'm honest, got a little bit obsessed.

This was a good thing for the company I was working for however as I started actively becoming involved in running the SEO projects for some quite big name clients. This was fun but ultimately I was still doing a fair amount of account management and my aim was to concentrate on doing SEO so I started looking around. By this time Distilled had taken shape, Will and Duncan had hired their first employee and had even got themselves some nice offices so it was (with hindsight) quite a natural time for them to start think about offering SEO. I jumped ship from my old agency and came to work for Distilled. Tally ho!

Now, technically, at this point I became Head of Search for Distilled, but with only 4 employees and a handful of small clients this wasn't really too much to brag about. Still, I was able to immerse myself in SEO which was what I wanted and I was enjoying myself.

There was still much to learn at this stage - and although my job title hasn't changed over the years my job role has changed quite dramatically and I feel like I've actually had several different jobs at Distilled as my role has evolved.

As Distilled grew up we hired Rob and Lucy to be SEOs alongside myself. Along with a little bit of hands-on work from Will and Duncan we functioned well as a close-knit team and we all managed our own SEO projects within Distilled, working together but as a pretty flat team. At this point, my

Although my job title hasn't changed my role has changed several times since I've been working at Distilled.

role as "Head of SEO" didn't involve doing anything much different from Rob and Lucy. That said, the whole company was growing and we started to get on board bigger clients and do more consulting rather than just hands-on SEO for small businesses. This naturally involved more formal reporting, delivering client-side training sessions and putting together high-level reports that our clients could take to their board to influence decisions regarding their online strategy. Good times. Around this time I started to attend a few industry conferences and shortly after I started speaking at industry conferences.

So already my role has changed from managing small-time SEO projects to doing consulting for large companies. Recently, my role has changed again within Distilled - we've hired some more staff for our SEO team and I've started spending more time on managing a team as well as doing hands-on SEO and consulting.

Anyway, that's my (far too long) personal story. Hopefully it's helpful to get a glimpse at how to make the progression within this industry. Although I've been lucky that Distilled has provided a new role for me at every step of my career I could easily have taken those 3 separate roles within different companies.

10 Tips To Boost Your SEO Career

And now, without further ado, I present my 10 tips for professional development within the SEO industry. Note that I'm assuming you're already working in SEO at some level. If you're not, then I suggest you read Danny's posts on learning SEO.

While you're reading through this list you might want to motivate yourself by reminding yourself what you can earn at different job levels within the SEO indsutry.

1) Get Qualified

Although I'm not a huge fan of qualifications generally and certainly in the SEO industry they're few and far between, but nevertheless - getting either GAIQ or Adwords qualified will look good on a CV and give you some valuable skills. Not to mention they're pretty easy and cheap so totally learnable in your spare time!

2) Learn Some Secondary Skills

SEO, or more broadly internet marketing, covers such a wide range of topics, skills and industries that it never hurts to have more strings to your bow than just linkbuilding. Try teaching yourself some PHP or CSS. I recently learned a few CSS bits and pieces and they come in handy for styling blog posts (Rob gives a good intro to learning CSS for styling blog posts here).

A side project is a great way of polishing up all your secondary skills, in fact a side project looks great on a CV too as Judith demonstrates here: if your SEO is not moonlighting, fire them.

3) Craft a Kick-Ass CV

When thinking about applying for a job it's crucial to create an astounding CV, but SEO doesn't offer too many transferable skills does it? Think again. Instead of putting things like "linkbuilding" on your CV, take a look at Rand's post on skills that have served him well. All those skills would stand out on a CV. Also worth taking a look at is Rand's whiteboard friday on how to get an SEO job.

4) Do Some Agency Time

If you're working in-house then that's great and I'm in no way trying to suggest that SEOs who work at agencies are better at SEO. But, it has to be said that working agency side you get to work on many more industries than you would otherwise. You can work on news websites, ecommerce websites, lead gen websites and a whole lot more! Getting experience working on a broad range of sites can really help make sure you're up to speed on all the different niches of SEO - whether it's local, image search, video search or product search.

On the flip-side, if you're working agency side then consider working in-house for a bit. You'll get experience in reporting to a board as well as having to experience first-hand the challenges of getting buy-in from other departments. All useful experience.

5) Immerse Yourself in Excel

I've raved about Excel a lot in the past so I won't do so again here. That said, there are two crucial skills that will help you get a better job and Excel can help both of them. They are reporting and data analysis. Reporting is essential whether you're working at an agency and need to report to clients or are working in-house and need to report to a board or your boss. Data analysis is essential to ensure that your report is always positive (I'm only half joking here...!).

In summary, if you don't know how to put graphs and charts into your reports then you won't get very far, as this chart shows:

6) Present At A Conference

Presenting at conferences is good for so many different reasons. Networking, making friends, having fun, experience in public speaking etc etc. I really love speaking at conferences and you should too. Having it on your CV can really make you look like an expert. And actually speaking is easy - just watch out for the speaker submission forms at SES, SMX, Adtech and all the rest of the conferences and come up with an appealing pitch.

If that's too daunting, then consider speaking at a smaller conference. I spoke at the first ThinkVisibility in the UK last year and it was only small but lots of fun. This year I'm speaking again and it's going to be a fair size bigger! How did I get to speak? Simple, I saw Dom twitter about wanting speakers for his conference and sent him a DM. If you apply yourself it's that simple.

Once you've been accepted to speak you'll want to take a look at these presentation skills for SEO.

7) Make Friends (aka Networking)

Networking used to be something I hated doing. The idea of making small talk with others in your industry filled me with dread. Then I realised what an awesome bunch of people the SEO industry is and decided that actually it was fun to hang around them, swap emails, twitter etc etc and before I knew it I was networking. So get involved in the local SEO scene wherever you are. In London, that means getting yourself down to LondonSEO. By networking you'll get to know who's hiring, and more importantly whether they're worth working for!

If you want to network slightly more officially then check out LinkedIn - you'll be able to see upcoming job opportunities as well as raising your personal profile. Which brings me neatly to:

8) Build A Personal Brand

Building a personal brand is essential to getting a decent job, especially in the SEO industry. This xkcd sums it perfectly. There's some great blog posts on this topic:

WBF - building a personal brand
The Layman's Personal Branding Platform
SEO Tips for Building Your Personal Brand
The Ever-Snarky Rebecca Kelly's Personal Branding + Networking = Job

In summary, get twittering and blogging with a username that's recognisable and consistent.

9) Get Some Management Experience

Here's where you might want to take your career to the next level. If you're looking at trying to transition from an SEO consultant to someone who manages a team you'll need to get some management experience. If there's no opportunity for managing a team where you are right now then a great way to get a bit of experience is to get an intern. It's an easy sell to your boss since you don't need to pay them and it can look great on your CV.

For anyone who's looking to try and up their game as an SEO manager then these two posts from Rich Baxter are essential reading:

10) Add More ROI To Every Project You Work On

As the internet grows and as the industry evolves we're all moving towards becoming "online marketers" rather than just "SEO"s. Many of the skills that we know and love from SEO are applicable to other areas that can bring a client ROI. Two classic examples are email marketing and conversion rate optimisation. Get proficient at both of these and you'll make yourself an all-round expert and hard to turn down for any kind of online marketing position. Here's a few primers:

Learning a little about email marketing
WBF email marketing and SEO
Google Website Optimizer 101 (the best page on CRO I know)

Conclusion

In conclusion I just thought I'd mention two things. Firstly, I'm not looking for a job so please hold the recruitment calls - I love working at Distilled and am extremely grateful to Will and Duncan for giving me the opportunity to make it through several iterations of "head of search", here's to the next iteration! Secondly, everyone's different but I strongly believe that it's not all about the money. If you're applying for a new job then please please try and work for a fun company and make sure that you'll enjoy it. Your own enjoyment is far more important than just the $$/££ you'll get paid. Seriously.

Do you like this post? Yes No

http://www.seomoz.org/blog

50% of Employers Use Social Networking Sites to Research Job Candidates

On January 17, 2010, In SEO, Social Media Marketing, by Social Guy

As social networking grows increasingly pervasive, more employers are utilising these sites to screen potential employees. More than half (53%) of employers reported in a recent CareerBuilder survey that they use social networking sites to research job candidates. Another 12% plan to start using social networking sites for screening. More than 450 employers participated in [...]

Of those who conduct online searches/background checks of job candidates, 43% use search engines, 12% use Facebook and 12% use LinkedIn. Three per cent search blogs, while an additional 4% follow candidates on Twitter.

Why Employers Disregarded Candidates After Screening Online

As job seekers gear up their search for employment in the new year, they are cautioned to be mindful of the information they post online and how they communicate directly with employers. Forty-three per cent of employers reported they have found content on social networking sites that caused them not to hire the candidate. The top examples cited include:

Candidate lied about qualifications – 38%
Candidate showed poor communication skills – 31%
Candidate made discriminatory comments – 13%
Candidate posted content about them drinking or using drugs – 10%
Candidate posted provocative or inappropriate photographs or information – 9%
Candidate bad-mouthed their previous employer, co-workers or clients – 9%
Candidate shared confidential information from previous employer – 8%

Why Employers Hired Candidates After Screening Online

Job seekers are also encouraged to leverage social media in advertising their skills and experience. Half of employers reported they have found content on social networking sites that caused them to hire the candidate. The top examples include:

Profile supported candidate’s professional qualifications – 61%
Candidate showed solid communication skills – 41%
Candidate was well-rounded – 37%
Profile provided a good feel for the candidate’s personality and fit – 28%
Candidate seemed creative –24%
Candidate conveyed a professional image – 22%
Candidate received awards and accolades – 15%
Other people posted good references about the candidate – 15%

“Social networking is a great way to make connections with potential job opportunities in 2010 and promote your personal brand across the Internet,” said Farhan Yasin, president of CareerBuilder EMEA.

In addition, once job seekers land a position, they need to mindful of their online usage. 48% of employers monitor employees’ use of e-mail and the Internet. 28% of employers reported that they have fired an employee for information found on his/her social networking profile. The most common reasons for termination were due to negative posts about the company or another employee, because they shared confidential information or because they represented themselves in an unprofessional manner (38% each).

Yasin recommends the following DOs and DON’Ts to keep a positive image online this year:

1) DO clean up digital dirt BEFORE you begin your job search. Remove any photos, content and links that can work against you in an employer’s eyes.

2) DO consider creating your own professional group on sites like Facebook or BrightFuse.com to establish relationships with thought leaders, recruiters and potential referrals.

3) DO keep gripes offline. Keep the content focused on the positive, whether that relates to professional or personal information. Makes sure to highlight specific accomplishments inside and outside of work.

4) DON’T forget others can see your friends, so be selective about who you accept as friends. Monitor comments made by others. Consider using the “block comments” feature or setting your profile to “private” so only designated friends can view it.

5) DON’T mention your job search if you’re still employed.

http://www.sociableblog.com

Tagged with: arizona search engine optimization • arizona SEO • Background Checks • Blogs • Co Workers • Confidential Information • Content Networking • Drugs • Facebook • Job Networking • Job Search • Job Seekers • Linkedin • Media Advertising • New Year • phoe • phoenix search enging optimization • phoenix SEO • phoenix web design • Photographs • Poor Communication Skills • Professional Qualifications • professional search engine optimization • Research Job • scottsdale search engine optimization • search engine optimization • search engines • seo consultant • seo expert • social media promotion • Social Networking Sites • twitter • wordpress magazine design

Top Ten Google SEO Ranking Factors

On January 14, 2010, In SEO, by Nick Stamoulis

People don’t really understand that there are many different factors that fall into place when determining where a website ranks in the Google search engine results. Some things to keep in mind when you are wondering why your site doesn’t rank well. It is not always just the obvious reasons that are holding it back.

Over the past years by reading Google’s Webmaster Guidelines, Google SEO Starter Guide, many other industry blogs and by actually doing professional SEO and internet marketing since the late 1990’s, I have gathered data and come to a boiled down short list of the most important Google search engine ranking factors.

Here is the list of my top 10 of important Google SEO ranking factors to consider:

1. Age of Domain: Age of URL is very important. If you just bought your domain a few weeks or even months ago you have a long road ahead of you. The reality is the age of your website helps build trust. If your website has been online for several years, chances are you have an established business.

2. Domain Hosting: Where is your site hosted? Find out through your hosting company what continent or country your site is hosted in. This can often times play a large role in search rankings. Always use a reputable hosting company. If your company is US based then use a hosting company in the United States. Also, I always recommend a dedicated IP when you can. There are virtual dedicated and cloud hosting solutions that are more affordable. Never use the cheapest hosting. The reality is, if you cannot afford hosting you should re-consider the business…I know this is harsh but very true.

3. Your Neighbors: If you have a virtual server, which sites like Godaddy usually are have been known to house hundreds of websites on one server. Make sure that your neighbors on your server are not classified as spam.

4. URL Structure: Make sure your URL structures are very clean. There should not be any random strings of characters at the end of your URL’s. This is part of the onsite search engine optimization process as well.

5. Content: Content is very important. To start make sure you have text on all your important pages, then make sure it is good text consisting of your targeted keywords spread throughout naturally. Simply put, ALWAYS write your content for humans, your website visitors first and NEVER write content for the solo purpose to achieve Google search engine rankings. Chances are the content will not be user focused or provide value to your visitors.

6. Internal Link Structure: Make sure your inner pages are linked correctly. Visitors should have easy made pathways connecting to your other pages from every page of your website. Make sure the code of your website is verified and keep flash and JavaScript to a minimum, if you can. Essentially make sure the site is clean, easy to use and interlinked to help the user experience.

7. Trust: Do you at least have a mailing address listed on your website? You should if you don’t. Google likes to see trust factors on websites so anything you can add that could help build trust for your audience will benefit your rankings. I always recommend having a phone number on each page of your website. Make it easy for people to do business with you, it all starts with establishing trust and that starts with contact information on your website.

8. Keywords: Make sure your website is optimized using your keywords. This means any alt tags for images, meta page information and existing content at the very least of things. Remember to naturally optimize your website based on the content of each page of your website.

9. Bounce Rate: Although bounce rate might not seem important if Google sees that nobody hangs out on your website for more than a few seconds before they leave this could be a ranking problem over time. Make changes to get visitors engaged with your website. Simple things, like video, newsletter sign up, call to actions, etc will help improve your bounce rate over time. Make sure you have proper tracking on your website, such as Google analytics.

10. Outbound links: Make sure the websites that you link to are 100% relevant to your business and industry. If you sell animals toys but you are linking to a site that sells shoes that is not very relevant and over time could really impact your rankings. Bottom line is if it makes sense to link to another site, then do so, but remember you could be sending your visitors away from your site.

11. Inbound Links: I know this was a list of my top 10, but I felt I had to mention inbound links. The key here (speaking as a white hat SEO person), don’t buy or exchange links. Market and promote your business online to build visitors to your website over time. If you do, then the relevant links will follow!

**Note: As the Google (and yes there are 2 other major search engines!) algorithm changes there are always new ranking factors that come into play, such as the page load time and many others. I am sure when I re-do this list a year from now, there may be another one or two additional factors.

There are many extensive factors that Google uses when determining website rankings. Very important to get these factors correct otherwise you could find yourself just spinning your wheels. The bottom line is it is all about relevancy and earning your visitors (and yes Google’s) search engine trust over time.

http://www.searchengineoptimizationjournal.com

Tagged with: affordable search engine optimization • arizona search engine optimization • arizona SEO • Blogs • Continent • Godaddy • google • Google Engine • Google Search Engine • Hosting Company • Hosting Solutions • Internet Marketing • Internet Marketing • Ip • Neighbors • phoenix SEO • Professional Marketing • professional search engine optimization • Random Strings • Ranking People • search engine optimization • Search Engine Results • Search Rankings • seo consultant • seo expert • Starter Guide • Url Structure • Virtual Server • Web 3.0 • Website Ranks

Don’t Forget to Market Your Blog

On January 7, 2010, In SEO, by Nick Stamoulis

People blog for different reasons. Some people have an idea for a blog and they want to turn that idea into a real moneymaker. There have been real successful bloggers who have done this, but most attempts that I have encountered have failed. They had an idea and turned their blog into a business model. Nothing at all wrong with that. How you can tell if a blog has failed is if you see it ranking well in the search engines and have not seen any new posts for months. I can’t tell you how many blogs I have seen, really great ones that get abandoned due to lack of advertisers or poor monetization strategy…that is another blog post topic all together. Others have taken a blog and used it as a marketing tool for a business. Is there a different strategy involved?

Yes. A blog as a business model is different than a blog as a marketing-tool model. But, in reality, both types of blogs require a marketing strategy all to themselves. The key is to drive targeted visitors to your blog from many different sources and which ever type of blog you have – business or marketing tool – you’ll need to market the blog. People often forget that a blog (especially a stand alone one) is a website that needs to be marketed.

There are a variety of ways to market a blog, but it all starts with the blog itself. The most basic form on online marketing is search engine optimization. This is the beginning. By optimizing your blog for search engine traffic you are giving your blog the basic building blocks to act as a business on its own or be used as a marketing tool for your existing business. In some cases, you can even do both. Without a solid SEO strategy for your blog, however, success as either will inevitably allude you. Don’t forget to SEO your blog.

Search engine optimziation is one really good source for targeted visitors however there are many other great ways to drive targeted visitors to your blog, they include:

1. Search Engine Optimization – Make sure your blog has excellent content and is naturally optimized.
2. Online Publicity – Publish newsworthy press releases online to drive relevant visitors and good inbound links.
3. Social Networking – Become active in the top social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter and talk about your blog.
4. Social Bookmarking – Submit your blog posts to good social bookmarking sites such as Digg and StumbleUpon.
5. Guest Blog Writing (on other blogs) - Over time develop your credibility in your niche and write for other related blogs.
6. Opt-In Email Marketing – Build a list through your blog and send out newsletters that drive people back to your blog.

The bottom line is blogging is a useful and long term approach that really works. If you are launching a business as a blog or using your blog to market your business, either way take the time to develop a long term marketing strategy. Believe me, it will be worth your time!

http://www.searchengineoptimizationjournal.com

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Avatars, Spaminators And Ms. Smarty Pants

On January 5, 2010, In SEO, by Nick

If you know who Ann Smarty is then you’re probably going to punch me in the gut for calling her “Ms. Smarty Pants.” Sorry, Ann, for using you for title fodder.
But I wanted to mention this new spam technique. It seems that someone thought it would be cool to use Ann Smarty’s name and avatar [...]

If you know who Ann Smarty is then you’re probably going to punch me in the gut for calling her “Ms. Smarty Pants.” Sorry, Ann, for using you for title fodder.

But I wanted to mention this new spam technique. It seems that someone thought it would be cool to use Ann Smarty’s name and avatar to leave a spam comment on Mike Blumenthal’s blog (I guess you could call that a virtual head fake).

So is this the future of spam? Will spammers now start scraping avatar images and using them to leave the impression that well known personalities like Ann Smarty are spamming blogs? Who’s next? Matt Cutts? Biz Stone? Me?

OK, so maybe I’m not so famous, but it could happen to anyone. Couldn’t it? Do you think this is going to pose a problem for webmasters in 2010? Will spammers now use fake avatars that resemble others? Do we need to devise a new reputation management tool to prevent this from happening? What are your thoughts?

http://www.searchengineoptimizationjournal.com

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Blogging Helps SEO Efforts – Big Surprise!

On December 28, 2009, In SEO, by Nick Stamoulis

For starters, every time you [...]

Over the past year or so, I have started to see more businesses and marketers and search engine optimization professionals suggest that blogging is the best kept SEO secret online. I’d have to agree. But I’ve been saying that for several years now. Why is blogging such a great SEO tool?

For starters, every time you update your blog with excellent user focused content you invite the search engines back to crawl it. The major search engines really do love fresh content and every blog post is great search bot food. But, and this is even more important, each blog post is a separate web page, which means every time you publish a new blog post you are giving yourself one more opportunity to be found in the search engines.

SEO Through Blogs & Feeds

(12/07/2009)

3:19

Barry Schwartz:

Been having internet issues, I hope this works… If not, I’ll post everything when I get a live connection.

Monday December 7, 2009 3:19 Barry Schwartz

3:24

Barry Schwartz:

The internet is horrible, both the SES wireless and broadband mobile wireless devices don’t work well in the basement of the Hilton. So I am taking manual notes for now.

SEO Through Blogs & Feeds
Not yet running a blog? Not syndicating your content through web feeds? Then you’re missing out on an important area that can help your overall SEO efforts. Learn more about the unique advantages blogs and feeds offer to search engine optimization.

Moderator:
Rebecca Lieb, VP, U.S. Operations, Econsultancy
Speakers:
Mark Jackson, SEW Expert & President/CEO, VIZION Interactive
Lee Odden, SES Advisory Board & CEO, TopRank Online Marketing
Sally Falkow, President, PRESSfeed
Daron Babin, CEO, Webmaster Radio

First up is Sally Falkow from Press-Feed.com. She explain the web is no longer about static pages anymore. It is about streams, feeds and syndication.

Feeds is what it is all about now, she explains. You need to give a way for syndicate your content. Make your content available in feeds. Make it easy to share and post to social sites.

Google’s definition of a blog is a page with a feed. IT doesn’t have to be in a blog format. You can have all types of content going out in feeds, it doesn’t have to be a blog.

Link Building in 2010: The best way to get links now is in editorial content out there on the web today.

She shows an example of the Marriott doing it for travel articles on destinations. Skin MD does educational articles. Holland America does it also.

How do you do this? When you create a piece of content, also put it in a feed at the same time. If your feed is done correctly, the search engines will come more often. It will also be found by aggregators. All of these aggregators have their own audiences. Most of them are involved in the social web. These links are helpful and you get more links from that.

Monday December 7, 2009 3:24 Barry Schwartz