We have read about SEO contests springing up every now and then, usually with big prizes like laptop computers, thousands of dollars, webhosting businesses, and the like. The basic premise is that the organizers would invent a search term or keyword that's non-existent in the search engine databases, such as "V7ndotcom elursrebmem," which actually stands for "v7n.com members rule" ("members rule" is reversed to read as "elursrebmem").
Google Trends results for "elursrebmem". Notice the lack of results prior to the contest in 2006.
The SEO contest would then be a race to the top of the search engine results page (SERP). After a few months, the website (or blog, even) in top position at Google would be declared the winner.
Contests like these would require much work SEO-wise, including on-site tweaking to optimize the page for indexing, and as well gathering much-needed inbound links. Organizers may ...
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SEO Guru in
Google Rank,
SEO Contests |
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Why www.blog-news.com (hyphenated) and not www.blognews.com (non-hyphenated)?
The current main search engine (Google) doesn't recognize the individual words from the above non-hyphenated domain names, so they would not help future optimization plans. The hyphenated domain http://www.blog-news.com is seen by
Google as-
www blog news com since Google treats . (dots) and - (hyphens) as a space. We say "google can parse those keywords out of the domain name".
Note a domain with a single keyword (i.e www.keyword.tld) will have the single keyword recognized since Google sees the two dots (in the example above) as spaces. So when choosing a domain name either go with a single keyword domain or have multiple (or at least one) keyword(s) separated by hyphens. By
Sparky in
Domain Names,
Google Rank,
Keywords,
Tips |
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Facebook. What started as a social network site for College students, has now grown into a big company and force to be reckon with on the Internet. It has slowly encroached on many things and affected and disrupted online industries as it grew. One of these is SEO, a field that as its name suggests, used to concern only with traditional search engines. Currently, people rely heavily on search engines like Google, Yahoo, Ask and Bing to find information on the internet. Google’s success on search -- making information available (fast and accurately) to users has jump-started the whole SEO industry, where companies, organizations and individuals who wanted to be on top of Google search results had to know (or hire people who do) how the search engines work, format and setup their pages, links and contents properly. However, Facebook’s success as the top social network site and ...
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noemi in
Marketing,
Search engine,
Website Promotion |
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Yahoo! launched a new look for their Sports and News search early this month. I am more impressed with the sports search since Google's News search pretty much suffices for my news search needs. A look into Yahoo's Sports search was pretty fun though. Below is a screenshot of what the sports results pages looks like.
As you see at the top when I searched for the braves it showed the Atlanta Brave's logo. It then gives links for the team's page, news, scores and schedules, and photos. Right under that you'll get a snapshot of how they're doing because the stats for the last game is highlighted and then the schedule for the next game is also shown. The main body of the results page then shows a few images of the Braves then you get the various links. ...
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noemi in
Search Engines,
Search engine |
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Bill Slawski, one of the best SEO minds today, recently did a fun post (usually his post are very cerebral) showing the old Digg.com. Facebook.com, Twitter.com, MySpace.com, and Yelp.com, and of course the current versions. Digg.com used to be home to Digg Records, a site on Russian Tourism. Facebook.com used to be home to AboutFace Corporation, an internet directory site. Yelp.com was a directory as well. MySpace was a web design company (makes sense from the name) and Twitter was just up for sale. Twitter's site was the funniest since you'll have no idea what it was used for except that "because of other schedule" they decided to put it up for sale for $4500. Now, that is a pretty good price but if think about how much Twitter is today I bet the previous owner his kicking himself for not asking for a better price.
So what can we ...
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noemi in
Tips,
Website Promotion |
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Cross link between your own posts/pages can be beneficial for your blog but at the same also brings some disadvantages. To maximize its benefits you should know its pitfalls so as to avoid them.
The Good
Cross linking benefits you in two ways: it helps you SEO-wise and helps your readers find related more easily. For the SEO part, cross linking is good because it helps establish relevancy between posts and pages. Pages containing related topics will, of course, be the ones linked to each other. Just make sure the anchor text for the links contain the keywords you need to help search engines know what the pages’ topics are.
When it comes to helping your readers, cross linking to older related posts will not only make access to these posts a whole lot easier for readers but will actually encourage them to stay on your blog longer.
The Bad
There are two things ...
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Sparky in
Basics,
Hyperlinks,
Keywords,
Linking |
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One of the most common advice given to bloggers is to keep things simple. When writing this means using layman's terms and using a straightforward and conversational tone. However, there are times when you really must use technical terms.
Business/industry blogs
If your blog is industry-specific and your target audience are professionals then using technical terms is not only ok but actually advantageous for you. The reason for this is that you want to appear knowledgeable and "dumbing down" your posts might make your readers think that you are not an expert in the field yet. However, being overly technical is still discouraged since you want your blog to be an easy, even pleasurable read. Keep the tone conversational but use proper technical terms when needed. Another advantage to using technical terms will be the effects on SEO. The technical terms will likely be used by search users and using ...
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Sparky in
Keywords |
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Google Social Search launched October last year and since then has been a useful tool for me, both personally and professionally as part of the social media strategy of some clients.
Nowadays, with much attention going to social media marketing it is important for SEO companies to offer related services. Google Social Search is one of the ways you can help in your client's audience analysis and targeting. With social search you can get information on the existing network (customers) of your client. You will be able to find out what really interests these people with their public content (from tweets to blog posts) as well as get leads from the name of the friends in their social circle.
If you haven't been using social search make sure you update your Google profile (and your clients' as well) and activate the social search feature. Things you will see as part ...
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Sparky in
Analysis,
Google,
Search Engines,
Tips |
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It’s my first post of the year and new year resolutions still occupy my mind, hence, a post on recommended SEO new years resolutions.
One of the things I like about SEO is that just like life there’s always room for improvement. Change is the constant thing and there’ll always be something to tweak. This year here are some of the things you can include in your SEO resolution list, but before that remember that each resolution must be actionable, measurable and attainable.
Suggested SEO goals for the year:
Focus on analysis – Get stats and study analyze them. Get to REALLY know what works and what doesn’t. If you haven’t been using a stats tracker then you resolution can be something as simple as finally installing one!
Focus on on-page SEO – Before you even write down your on-page SEO goals you will need to evaluate your site for needed improvements. Some ...
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Sparky in
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Basics,
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We all know that getting people to visit and keeping the attention are two different things. Most often the bigger problem is not the amount of traffic we get to our site but the high bounce rate. After all with high bounce rates the very purpose for doing SEO is defeated. In the long run I would settle for a little less traffic with higher retention rates because that means that your SEO efforts are not going to waste.
So why do people really leave your site? What can you do to lower your bounce rate?
The top reason for immediately leaving a site is lack of relevance of a site’s content in the search user’s eyes. This can simply be because the user entered a very vague/generic term and you rank really well for some generic keywords. Or it can be because you knowingly opt to squeeze your way into ranking ...
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Sparky in
Analysis,
Content,
Tips |
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