http://searchconcepts.com
On May 9, 2010, In SEO, by Nick Stamoulis
If you have been an internet marketing specialist for some time now you will know that there is a great deal of constant learning required to get the job done right. You have to be willing to learn almost every day because the search game is consistently changing. Reading daily industry sources and blogs will [...]
If you have been an internet marketing specialist for some time now you will know that there is a great deal of constant learning required to get the job done right. You have to be willing to learn almost every day because the search game is consistently changing. Reading daily industry sources and blogs will be vital for any online success.
Let’s take a look at some ways SEO efforts are cut short and slow down overall progress:
1. Lack of Knowledge:
As an internet marketer I am reading blogs almost every single day. Keep yourself up to date with all the newest methods of marketing and online exposure is important. Applying new marketing efforts online is the only way you are going to either stay in front of your competition or beat them in the search marketing game.
2. Old-fashioned Techniques:
If you are still relying on techniques done from 2005 you’re not going to last very long in the search industry. Things have changed quite a bit and they continue to change drastically year after year. The search engines have evolved and it is even more important to utilize all the newest trends and techniques to market a website in today’s business space.
3. Messing Up Step 1:
Website optimization should be the very first marketing effort any website should be doing before they venture out and start marketing their business online. This doesn’t mean just optimizing it for certain keywords. This means optimizing it for the right keywords along with changing or tweaking any conversion metrics on the website. If your conversion metrics are not in place then what do you think is going to happen to your visitors when they land on your website? Not much.
As an internet marketer you have to always be sharpening your skills when it comes to SEO. Search engine marketing requires varying up the approach and customizing things for every client. Keeping your skills sharp and up to date is a must to make the serious marketing impacts that many people are looking for. As soon as you step back and feel like you don’t have to learn anything anymore is when things start to slow down and really become sour on your online visibility. Your websites and your client’s website will begin to feel the effects of this slow down so it is important to keep your knowledge tight and your techniques even tighter.
http://www.searchengineoptimizationjournal.com
On April 8, 2010, In SEO, by Nick Stamoulis
Search engine optimization is all about creating targeted streams of inbound traffic coming to your website on a daily basis. A dull SEO campaign really doesn’t help anybody. The user who might bump into that piece of marketing won’t find it useful and the search engines just get cluttered with more material that just gets [...]
Search engine optimization is all about creating targeted streams of inbound traffic coming to your website on a daily basis. A dull SEO campaign really doesn’t help anybody. The user who might bump into that piece of marketing won’t find it useful and the search engines just get cluttered with more material that just gets in the way of things. With the search engines evolving and changing it is important for your efforts to really have some sort of personality applied to them.
Let’s take a look at some of the areas you can give your online marketing efforts a kick start to get people wanting to click on your website:
Online PR: Instead of just sending out a press release to get more links why not trying to send it out to get great links and fantastic press. If you send out dull pr you might notice that there are some blogs that pick up anything just to build content. That is not going to help you or your business. If you want a major online publication to pick up your pr topic you will have to give that pr topic a bit more flavor. Try announcing a new client that might be larger than normal if they allow for their name to be used. Maybe you have formed some sort of partnership that is worthy of a headline. This is more likely to get picked up and receive better links than just announcing a new section of a website launching. Put some personality into the pr and it will go much further.
Social Media: Instead of just launching a Twitter or Facebook page and dropping links to your blog posts take a different approach. If you can get your community conversing with you your social efforts will go much further just helping your SEO efforts in the process. SEO is much more than just creating rankings, it is about building your business online so it requires more than just placing links here and there. Ask questions in your community. If you have followers in your Twitter account people will respond you just need to give them a reason to do so. Ask relevant industry questions to get some conversations started.
Video Marketing: Video marketing is a great way to really spread your presence online but you have to do it the right way. If you have the budget buy a decent camera, a tripod and some editing software. Take the time and make some good solid promotional videos to help you spread the word online. If you make it right people will pick up your video and blog about it. This action will give you nice strong links pointing to your website. Always shoot for making your video viral.
Putting some personality into your marketing will allow things to go much further online for your business than if you didn’t. People don’t respond to just links, they respond to marketing so go and brand yourself as a real business online.
http://www.searchengineoptimizationjournal.com
On March 18, 2010, In SEO, by Nick Stamoulis
Link building is that dreaded phrase that still to this day confuses the heck out of many people trying to figure out how to proactively market themselves online in the search engines. They hear from one source how they need thousands of links to start ranking and from another source they hear just quality links [...]
Link building is that dreaded phrase that still to this day confuses the heck out of many people trying to figure out how to proactively market themselves online in the search engines. They hear from one source how they need thousands of links to start ranking and from another source they hear just quality links gets the job done. So what is the right answer? In a perfect world you would have an abundance of good quality links pointing from only a variety of targeted authority industry websites.
Just building links for the sake of building links is not going to benefit you or the search engines. Links that sit on irrelevant websites can actually hurt you a great deal over time. A link sitting a website that is part of a blog farm is not going to benefit you in any possible way. If you are not sure what a blog farm it is a farm of blogs that a company will use to place links for clients or other websites in order to increase rankings. These blog farms usually have absolutely no strength or power in the search engines but appear to do so. Don’t assume that spending more money is going to get you more quality links. It is not about how much you spend but more so about how good your marketing message is. A promotion that gets your audience talking and bloggers writing will get you much farther than just purchasing a link on a website. Many different businesses take a variety of different approaches in the search engine marketing industry but purchasing links is very frowned upon. Buying a service that generates thousands of links for you is only going to create a mess of your online marketing approach and hurt you in the long run. How good do you really think those thousand links are going to be? Do you think they generate any value to your business?
Link building should always be done with a quality approach. A blog post on an industry related blog that is an authority in your industry is an example of a great link. A major business publication doing a write up on you for their online division is a great link. A “directory blaster” is a horrible way to generate links and should be avoided at all costs. Link building should be conducted using a strategy and a schedule and not with a number goal. A combination of a variety of monthly efforts is an approach that will help you climb in the search results over time.
http://www.searchengineoptimizationjournal.com
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)
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:
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.
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.
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.
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
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.http://www.seomoz.org/blog
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 [...]
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 the survey, which was completed in December 2009.
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
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 [...]
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
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. [...]
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
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