February 29, 2008 on 5:08 pm
Filed Under:SEO, Web
Raindrops on kittens and plucking some chickens… or something like that.
The time is long overdue that I actually shoot some props out to those that have, quite honestly, made me better at what I do. Search Engine Optimisation, not the singing of the songs part.
In no particular order, simply by how I found them:
Online Marketing Blog - Lee Odden’s a bit of a stud, and throws around a bit of weight in the SEO World. Weight that he got from clout and such, not cheeseburgers.
Matt Cutts: Gadgets, Google, and SEO - Think the name pretty much speaks for itself. I like it because occasionally he lets out Google secrets and paints his face like a cat.
SEOmoz Blog | Search Engine Marketing News & Tips - Rand Fishkin is somebody that I think I could have a serious drink with and talk all night about bidness and fun and how to mix the two.
He has help on the blog, of course, by too many talented folks for me to list. Heck, I’ve even contributed on the YouMoz part.
Graywolf’s SEO Blog - A quality blog from another respected name in the industry.
SEO Theory - SEO Theory and Analysis Blog - Michael Martinez gives me the in-depth and techie information with great insights.
Ramblings about SEO - I have to confess that I originally kept coming back to their site, and their blog, because their name is so damn cool. It’s like that great grunge band, but different. Eric Enge is a quality dude, and I’m always excited to see him either writing or posting elsewhere.
Internet Marketing News | Marketing Pilgrim - Ah, Marketing Pilgrim. So much to offer, so little time. Though I may usually scan through most of the articles and tend to focus on anything by my buddy, Andy Beal, I dig all their writers and will frequently click on something that interests me in my Google Alerts only to find out it’s from Marketing Pilgrim.
Plus, they gave me $500 in a contest and gave my kids a better Christmas. That’s the kind of thing that’ll make me love somebody for Life.
SEO Consulting that doesn’t suck - Stuntdubl - “Gettin’ hit by traffic…not cars.” - Affiliated with Marketing Ninjas, I do believe, and quite ninjatastic. To be blatantly honest though, doesn’t update enough. UPDATE MORE.
SEO by the SEA - Bill Slawski is a name that I kept seeing on various forums before I realised that it’s the same guy that writes here.
He gives more information than I can possibly comprehend on the techier side of Search Engines and their algorithms, crawling, and ranking systems.
Livin’ the dream — Tropical SEO - This guy is awesome because he call ‘em like he sees ‘em. Couldn’t have it any other way. Except the way where he UPDATES MORE.
Brian Chappell - Search / Social Marketer and Link Specialist - Has plenty of links to great tools and sites and such.
Web Analytics Blog | Occam’s Razor by Avinash Kaushik - I LOVE this guy. Avinash not only has a highly unique and entertaining insight into everything from basic web design to business advice, but also works at Google and sometimes tells secrets about it.
Okay, he actually doesn’t tell any secrets, but it’s still really cool that he works at Google.
Vox Fortis Communications - One of my absolute favourites as far as an all-around business-minded, SEO-centric, witty and real writer. Susan is awesome, and I only wish that this blog got more readers simply so that I could share her with more folks.
Official Google Webmaster Central Blog - This one’s kind of a gimme, but there’s useful stuff on there every couple of weeks and worth keeping an eye on.
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Thanks to all those above. You’re not all of everybody I’d credit for my knowledge, because that’s mostly me, but you’ve had a part in it, so thanks for that.
That’s it for now. I’ve got a whole ‘nother folder in my bookmarks though, that I’ll be sending the linky goodness out to sometime in the near future, so keep an eye out.
Blogging for Search Engine Optimisation
February 26, 2008 on 10:07 am
Filed Under:SEO
Mike Grehan has written yet another article over at ClickZ that I feel I must follow up on, appropriately titled, “Blogging for Search Engine Optimization“. Not necessarily the most unique title for my post, but it fit, and I swapped the “z” for “s” accordingly.
Back in the earlier days of SEO I learned some of my first real and lasting lessons simply by following my blog statistics. I’d been writing it for a very short time, on it’s free-hosted site, before I got a link from an insanely popular other blog. A guy who eventually became a very good friend of mine actually wrote one of those cultural icons, one of those emails that you get forwarded from a friend that just says “FUNNY!” which, in this case, is a profound understatement as this is the kind of thing that makes you laugh so hard you blow coffee out your nose.
I’d emailed him, he’d linked me, and I watched my statistics explode. Not just from visitors from his site, but now people landing on my site for terms that weren’t even necessarily on my site. Odd things, random things, phrases that had nothing to do with my site, yet Google seemed to like me for anyway. I’ll refrain from the exact wordings here, but most were not terribly appropriate to be searching on.
What it taught me though, was that the more I updated, the more the Googlebot came back, and the more I used certain terms on the site, the more likely I was to get hits from Google for them… sometimes within hours. My blog wasn’t written for Search Engine Optimisation, but I was watching it in action anyway.
As you do, I started experimenting, and then starting implementing things I’d learned on my company’s website. My fear of getting Dooced kept me from telling my superiors where I’d learned these tricks and tactics, but they were effective enough to keep anyone from asking.
By the time that I’d started my own company starting a blog was a no-brainer, but being a a professional SEO expert by this point meant that I would actually have to tone down my writing back to a human level. This is the hurdle that I imagine Mike Grehan is speaking to most, as it is typical in this fast-paced world for people to see something that brings positive results quickly and leap all over it.
The key, as it always seems to be, is to write for your users first, Search Engine’s second. Unless you want lots of hits for nerf dart guns or peanut butter parties, that is. Freaks.
Research the Client, Research their Market, Research their Keywords
February 18, 2008 on 2:59 pm
Filed Under:SEO, Web
Being an SEO is great because on any given day I can be involved in several different, and pretty cool, industries. When I’ve got my research hat on and I’m working on any number of clients’ sites during the day, I may be hiring a camper van bound for Broome or I may be sizing myself for a 13th Century metal breastplate that can withstand a direct hit from a knight’s lance.
It definitely keeps things interesting, especially when conducting research.
I’ll be the first to admit that the idea of research of almost any kind doesn’t exactly excite me. My eyelids instantly and involuntarily start to droop the minute my thoughts go anywhere near data collection and the like.
And yet, it’s a fairly big part of what I do. And I’m good at it. And, once I get going on it, I secretly really enjoy it. I suppose research really isn’t that boring then is it? Someday I’ll train that part of my brain on that as well.
The opportunity to work with a client that is already reasonably familiar with Search Engine Optimisation and Search Marketing is nice, because I don’t have to explain as much and also because I can get even more of a feel for my competition and how they’ve been handled before.
This is how I found that one of the major discrepancies I’ve found between myself and many other SEOs out there is the sheer amount of research I do. Some just take client-suggested keywords, plant them strategically on their site, and gather up some relatively useless links, giving the client only what they appear to have asked for… and nothing more.
Our focus is on more than just getting you optimised and getting you out the door with your keywords and a smile. We’re about getting your site to be all that it can be (just like those ads for the U.S. Army) and part of that is making sure that we’re not accepting your money for an incomplete job. Doesn’t matter who you are or what you are on the web, you’re looking for success.
Who are you to the Web World?
Our research is what sets us apart from our competition. We make sure we know you, the client, what you’re about, what you’re trying to sell and how. We get a solid idea of the ins-and-outs of your business before we go anywhere. Then, of our own accord, we research YOU. Nothing involving fingerprints or e-stalking, of course, but we see where your site is mentioned and in what context.
Where do you stand in it?
Next, we research the marketplace in your industry. If you sell Blue Shoes, we go out and see what kind of folks also sell Blue Shoes. We want to know how they sell them, for how much, and where. If they’re doing more with what they’ve got, and they’ve got about the same as you, then we figure you’d like to know where they’re experiencing success, and therefore where you can too.
How can they find you?
Part of the research into your web presence is more than just who’s talking about you, it’s about where you are showing up for searches that lead users to your competition. Where are you in the race? Even if it’s for a search term that you don’t even want to target, we think it’s important for you to know what’s out there and where certain possibilities lie.
Your keywords are basically the last step in our research. Once we know who you are, who your clients are, we can start to figure out how we’re going to help them find you. We can compile data on 75 keywords, but if we already know that 90% of them are going to be searching on the American spelling of a certain word, then we can effectively eliminate the need to further research certain other terms.
Research, Research, Research
Though I may initially be bored with the idea, nothing excites me more than delving headfirst into a whole pool’s worth of new information through research. I love finding out new things about places that I have never been and things that I have never experienced before. I love having a diverse array of clients that offer a chance to break away from some of the tedium.
I even love the tedium, though I rarely admit it.