SSE to the Top of the SERPs

I have been actively monitoring how well my Windows Store app page was doing for searches of Software Schedule Estimator. Yesterday I was sad to see my page fall off from page 1 of the Google search results. Today I was elated to find that I climbed to the top of the SERPS. Yes, I am organic search result position number one. The only items ahead of me are paid search.

Not sure what catapalted me up to the top. But who cares? I must be doing something right. Got to keep up the good work. I am tracking the daily work I do on this job. Hopefully that will motivate me to great deeds.

If you want to know what my Software Schedule Estimator app does, check out my product page. Sure it needs a little work in the content department. However I think I have a good start. Shout out to mom, where you may be.

Penalized

Be careful implemting your SEO techniques. Google is on the lookout to punish those that try to game the system. Sometimes the best advice is just to create content that users want to see. Then you will probably not get any beat downs from Google.

Some businesses are learning this lesson the hard way. Pay some black hats to move you up in the SERPs. Then Google changes the rules and your site is nowhere to be found. Better test the waters with a throwaway site first.

Goodbye SEOMoz?

Just heard that SEOMoz is rebranding itself as just plain Moz. WTF? Seems like taking a risk. Also doesn't Moz feel like a nickname for Mozilla? Sure I get that you don't want to be lumped in with other lackey companies that foolishly put SEO in their title and domain. But SEOMoz should be considered an exception.

Impact of Links

Seems like it used to be that you could increase the number of inbound links to your site and get some juice. Well Google has become more and more wise about that. These days some links will not count toward your site's authority. And extra links might even count against you. So webmasters beware.

Link exchanging used to be a cool trend. It did not seem to black hat. However now reciprocal links just cancel each other out. That is, unless you can get a swap from a site with more authority. I think that might just benefit you a little.

The more important thing to look out for is links from a scammy source. You can't just buy up a domain and point a bunch of links to you. You have to consider the history of that new domain. Was it a link farm before? Don't get associated with it. It may just bring you down.

Heheh. I can think of some black hat tricks to help you out. You could get ahold of a lot of these scammy sites. Then you could bulk link from them to your competitors. When they get penalized, you could rise up. Sounds pretty evil. I like it.

Links and Keywords

I checked out an SEO guide and heard more of the same I always knew. But there were a few tricks I had not thought about. Sure you need links to your page. You should not have too many links out of your page. The links to you should be static text ones. The real light was shed on the use of keywords.

Put your keyword in your header. Check. Also put keywords in your H1 tag. Okay. You sould also have your keywords appear in the body of your text three times. Bamm. Keyword should be bold. Oh snap. Had not thought much about that.

Final new idea I read was that your titles should not be too long.

SEO Tuneup

SEO is an ongoing process. You need to keep up with your site to remain on top of the search results. One of the main jobs is to find the pages on your site that return errors. Find those pages with broken links and correct them.

You should also get rid of duplicate info on your site. That means duplicated across your site, and duplicated by others. Make sure your pages are relevant to your site's keywords. A quick way to do that is to put tag clouds on all your pages. Then you can see if they are relevant.

Good luck.

Blogging Tips

I just finished skimming a book about Google Blogger. Much of the book focused on how to get your blog read. These were good old fashioned SEO practices I will share with you now.

Note that text link ads might actually drop your Google page rank. Ouch. I got to make that money. But I did not know it would push me lower in the SERPS.

You should put keywords in your title. Add keywords to the first couple sentences of your blog post. Keywords should be part of your URLs and image names. Tags should contain your keywords.

Use keywords in your links, as well as around your links. Links within your blog help a little bit. Frequent posting is required. Comment on other blogs to get people to come to your own.

We're Number One

Some guys from my old team needed a little help with some Oracle database programming. They were confused by the syntax of some C coding. Luckily I had dealt with this issue before, and could point them in the correct direction.

I did a Google search for the phrase EXEC SQL AT. Wouldn't you know it? A blog post I had written a year and a half ago is sitting on Page 1 of the SERP. In fact, I am in position number 2. Woo hoo.

Now here comes the good stuff. If you enclose EXEC SQL AT in quotes, then a Google search puts me at number 1 on Page 1. Yes. Perhaps this is a niche search query. But I love that I am on top. It just so happens that my page explains the background needed by a developer to get busy with understanding the concept. I am glad Google has rewarded me with the honor of being at the top.

Site Silos

When you set up the link structure for your site, you want to maximize the flow of page rank flowed between your pages. One way is to set up a number of site silos. A silo is a bunch of pages that are related by content. The key is arranging the links between the pages.

You have one main home page. However each silo should have its own main page. Point links from your main home page to each of the silo main pages. Every page in your silo should link back to the silo main page.

The goal is to funnel the link authority to your silo main pages. Try not to link to other pages. This allows the silo main page link to contain all the juice. Personally I only link out to other pages when a great page warrants it. Otherwise I try to link to my own pages on my site. A silo strategy is a way to organize the links to maximize the result.

Getting Links

There is always work to get additional links to your website. So how do you do this? You can issue a press release. That might get you noticed by other sites. Classified ads are a cheaper alternative. This can be online using Craigslist, or older media like local papers. Online videos are the primary way to go viral really quickly.

You need to produce some worthwhile information to start. Then you can submit it to article directories such as EzineArticles. If you can get your info into Google Knol, there will be a big advantage since the links from Knol are follow.

No follow links don’t pass any page rank to you. They are therefore of little use. In the past I heard you should try to get the same anchor text in all the links that point to you. However you should also try to mix the anchor text up a bit to make it seem more natural. Be sure to get links from a variety of IP addresses.

Top Social Networking Sites

I like to see the rankings of various web sites. My data normally comes from Website magazine. Some of the top rankings surprised me.

The top spot is taken by Facebook. I have an account on Facebook. But I really don’t use it or update it. Nobody knows I am on Facebook either.

The number two position is held by Youtube. This is a site owned by Google. I used to watch Youtube videos every day. However a web site redesign made me go elsewhere.

Myspace comes in at number three. I also have an account on Myspace. But I don’t use it at all. It was just a test to see what Myspace was all about.

Twitter is number four. Just like the others, I got a Twitter account. But I don’t use it. I do hear a lot of buzz about famous people tweeting.

If you want to improve you SEO ranking, you are going to want to use these social networking winners to your advantage.

Web Site Hackage

I just read a blog post about a guy's web site being hacked. No. It is not what you think. The hackers added subtle changes to the pages on the web site. They put invisible (hidden) links in the text of each page. I guess these hackers thought they would try to boost their page rank the old fashioned way.

The joke might be on the hackers. That's because Google probably takes into account that the links were hidden, and either ignores them, or penalizes them. There are no short cuts here people. Do your due diligence. Don't try the easy way with some weak hacks. You have been warned.

According to Matt Cutts

I have Matt Cutt's blog in my Google reader. He is not an official spokesman for Google. But I think of him that way. He recently went over how to do SEO for blogs there. I ate the stuff up. Here is a summary.

You should name the directory on your server which hosts blog information "blog". Make sure you place your keywords in the URLs you use. Dashes in the URLs are the best way to separate words.

Make sure you have alt tags for images. You should also make it easy for the post creation dates to be seen. Creativity in the content is important. You might also consider stirring up some controversy. And as always, you can't lose if you make lists. I should take Matt up on some of this advice.

Massive Link Back

Here is an idea to get a lot of good links back to your site. Create blogs yourself that link to your main site. This will not cost you much. Thee are free blogs all over the place. You should mix it up. Don't just use blogger to do the dirty work.

The goal is to slowly generate many links over a long period of time. This will be a massive investment in your time. It is even more difficult than keeping up your daily blog posts. You could create a new blog per day.

This is sometimes difficult as you need to figure out how to sign up to free blogs, which each do things differently. Watch out for blogging that make you post a bunch before you can link out. Not a good use of your time.

Page Rank for People

I just read about a bold new idea. It is Page Rank for People. Instead of assigning a rank to web pages like Google does already, somebody could assign and track ranking of individuals. This is a type of reputation ranking. The best part of this idea was all the comments people wrote on the topic.

Many thought this would be very hard to implement. Others thought you could mimic a lot that is already being done for web page rank. Obviously you need some type of secure ID to prevent impersonators. A technology called Calais already parses web pages to find people on them. This might be an extension of that idea.

There are a number of issues involved. Consider the fact that many people have the exact same name. The goal of this technology would be to bridge web pages with actual people. For all we know, Google may already be working on this technology in stealth mode.

You would need to detect false networks to get this to work correctly. Nobody wants to trust a score that can be easily gamed. Another issue might be the use of ghostwriters. You may have to alter your people rank accordingly for them. However this is probably no different than somebody else writing your web pages for you.

All in all, it is a very interesting idea. I await the first implementation. Perhaps it will be done by Google. Or it might be the event that marks the decline of Google as we know it.

Rebecca Has Left The Building

Rebecca Kelly has left the SEOmoz staff. She is off to some undetermined new job. Her new blog is Fresh Edge Media.

And now I have a confession to make. Seeing Rebecca on SEOmoz made me coming back to the sight for more. Now she is gone. Bamm. SEOmoz gets dropped from my reader.

Good luck you you Rebecca. We all know success will follow you. Peace out.

Article Distribution

The information for this post comes from an article I read in Website magazine. It talks about the history and details of Article Distribution. In the past zines got put online and became ezines. These ezines in turn morphed into Article Distribution (AD). AD is like a supermarket. You upload your article. It is made available to other web sites. The article is free for use. You then get exposure. In other words, you get an audience.

Guest authors on blogs are normally experts. Therefore to be successful with AD, you should produce quality articles. It is best to have a very specific topic. You could share unknown information, or explain a difficult topic. Part of getting you material read is to generate great headlines. This means you should use numbers, be specific, and use power words. This all goes for writing normal blog posts as well.

Some well known article sites are ArticleDashboard and SearchWarp. Some such AD sites have you post a link on them which points to an article hosted on your own site. An example of this is Digg. That is, Digg has huge lists of links to articles located on the web. Other sites which deal with links like this are Sphinn and Mixx.

Your articles normally will have a bio section at the end. This is where you share a little bit about yourself. More importantly you include an anchor link in the bio section directing the reader back to your site. The goal is for other sites to link back to you. This sounds like an interesting way to get readers and back links. I have not tried it yet. However I am willing to attempt other technique to grow my blogging business and page rank.

Weird Ads

Recently I have been seeing a lot of ads on the Internet for teeth whitening. This subject by itself is not unusual. However the placement of the ads on sites seems very much out of place. What does teeth whitening have to do with Software Development for example?

Things started to make sense when I read a blog entry on this very subject. Apparently it is not just teeth whitening ads that are on the uptick. There are also an influx of flat stomach ads, as well as government grant ads.

Here is how this scam works. The ads have pictures. When you click on the ads, you get to a web site with testimonials. You are supposed to be able to order the product for free. However you must give a credit card number to receive the free product.

What this actually does is start a free trial. Then you get billed monthly for more of the product. Guess what? It is almost impossible to cancel the subscription. How in the world can this scam continue? Obviously some people must be getting duped, because I keep seeing the ads being displayed. I have a good mind to block these ads from my own sites. Although I like to make money, I don't like to do it at some poor schmuck's expense.

Here is the industry behind these ads. Vendors of the product have affiliate programs. The affiliates create landing pages for the product. They throw up some bogus testimonials. It is very easy to do this. You can even copy other sites. The affiliates then buy advertising to get suckers to click through. Ad networks such as Google AdSense think the landing pages look good. These networks say that they depend on users to report abuse.

Everybody except the end user seems to make money on this scheme. The vendors get new people to bill. The affiliates get their cut, as well as the ad networks. Who is going to crack down on these scams when everybody is making out like a bandit? This feels like the dark side of Internet advertising.

Good Place to Start

There are many myths about what SEO can do for your web site. One thing is for sure. It will not immediately get your site ranked first in the search results. But some small changes can go a long way in rising your site up in the SERPs. Here are some things I have heard over and over about good SEO practices.

The most common sentiment is to make sure readers of your site are happy and want to come back for more. That will take you further than any SEO hack. Now with that being said, there are some other small SEO changes which can help you out. You should have a unique title on each web page. The title should also be short and concise.

When you do generate URLs, put meaningful words in them that relate to your subject. Lower case URLs are preferable. The text you write should be easy to read, and have top notch content. Yes I know that is a tall order to fill. But you must strive for it. It is best if the content is 100% unique. That will get you extra points.
I have heard people caution you against using too many images. I err on the side of too many images myself. There should be an ALT attribute for images. You never know when somebody is going to read your site with a text browser. The search engines like this as well.

You can link out to other sites. But you should add a rel value of nofollow. This is usually not a problem on my pages. I link mostly to my own sites. However when I do link out, it is for good cause. So I don’t mind losing a little link juice for a worthy cause. Finally you should list your URL on your business cards. I know my cards prominently display my web site URL.

Paid Link Spam

I received what seemed to be an unsolicited e-mail this week. It was a reminder that I had submitted my link to their directory recently. They stated that there were 57,000 other people who submitted free links as well. They do not have the resources to get to all these submissions. Tell me something I don’t know already.

Here is where the e-mail got a little sloppy. It stated that their directory had sent “2.000.276” visitors to sites like mine. Yes I understand what they meant to say. They had 2 million people click their links. But this is a sales pitch. At least get your grammar correct.

The more I read, the more I felt like I was receiving a sleazy sale pitch. They stated that they were slashing prices 30% this week. I live in the USA. However the costs were listed in Euros. In addition, I only have 7 days to take advantage of the discount.

Apparently they are discontinuing free links. Here is the kicker. The e-mail stated they “would be sorry to loose [sic] me”. One again, you should really nail your English grammar before sending out the sales pitch. Know the difference between lose and loose. Otherwise I will assume you are lost.

The bottom line is that I have good content on my site. That should be enough for you to want to link to me. It is ok if you don’t have the time or bandwidth to add me to your directory. Just don’t try to sign me up to pay for a link on your site. That is not going to buy me anything. If I really wanted to pay, I would be going to a site with a higher page rank than yours buddy.