OVBlogger: Blogging and SEO

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I saw a rumor in Facebook that says Google is dancing.

(For the non-SEO folks, that means they’re brewing up a new algorithm.)

Hmm…

That could be good.

That could be bad.

It may have something to do with the social aspects of the web these days, which I think is pretty smart. I’ve said it here before (and elsewhere) that it will one day become more about what the people think is good and want more of than what the spiders think.

Maybe Google will become like a Nielsen’s rating kind of company. You know, it’s a staid marketing tactic, right?

FIGURE OUT WHAT THE PEOPLE WANT AND THEN, GIVE IT TO THEM.

Interesting to speculate on what will happen, but of course, it’s all just speculation. We’ll have to see what Google’s change will bring.

I’m hoping it’s something that leans toward sites that are legitimately involved with social marketing. That would be cool. I love that end of things, and have been working in that milieu for about three years now.

‘course I was late to the game. Web 2.0 was really coined in 2004 by Tim O’Reilly of O’Reilly Media. But I remember having a Del.icio.us account wow… about three years ago, I guess.

Anyway, as I’ve been saying, social marketing is going to play a huge roll in search. I can’t wait to see how it all plays out.

Popularity: 4% [?]

So, I get all kinds of interesting SEO stuff in my inbox every day, and read all of it with great interest. But one of my favorite digests is the one I get from the people at Axandra.com, the people who make IBP (IBusinessPromoter)

Today, they had an article about Cuil (pronounced “cool,” BTW), a new search engine that just opened its doors… yesterday! You can see it at http://cuil.com

It’s run by people with some pretty impressive credentials. Tom Costello, its CEO and founder, who was an important figure at IBM; Anna Patterson, President and founder, formerly in charge of GoogleBase; and a host of other IBM, Alta Vista and Google folks. Just go over and check out their About Us, Management page. You’ll be impressed.

They’re claiming that their engine is better than Google, according to Axandra. Well, time will tell, but I totally like what I see from a searcher standpoint. From a marketing standpoint, I’m not sure.  Where I managed to get a #1 listing that has kept on keepin’ on for more than a year so far in Google, the site doesn’t even show up on page 1 at Cuil. In fact, I went through a couple of pages and nada.

To me, that says they have a totally different algorithm and the same things we do to rank with Google will hold no weight with Cuil. Should we worry? Hmm… Not yet. I think it will take any search engine to bump Google off the map—not that it can’t be done, but it will take a while, if that happens. We’ll have time to figure things out.

But the coolest thing about Cuil is how it returns your results. Rather than the listings that we’re so used to seeing in Google and Live Search, Cuil gives you a thumbnail and a description, followed by the URL. It’s cool looking, and makes images much more important. And beside the results, you get categories, like Yahoo, but in brief. Neato.

Since this just came out yesterday, I can’t give you an opinion of whether it’s better or not. I have no idea. I don’t know if it will take the Internet by storm or whether it will be just another good search engine that nobody uses. I hope that’s not the case. I think it’s pretty sweet.

Now, it will be my job to figure out how it works and whether it’s worth optimizing for. Time will tell. Keep ya posted.

Popularity: 30% [?]

So, I was at jvAlert last weekend, as you know, and Simon Leung was telling us how Google prefers short copy and that they see long copy as spam. Hmm… That’s total crap. Not that Simon is telling us fairy tales, but that Google AdWords wants advertisers but they aren’t supposed to sell things? What?

Well…

I proved that what Simon said was right.

I started an AdWords campaign on Friday for a social marketing product, right? All of the keywords I used were rated “Great,” and I just knew it wouldn’t last. They probably do that for all new keywords, until human eyes evaluate your campaign.

But, here’s the thing: This particular campaign was based on a long copy sales letter, which I had doubts about, but thought I’d try it anyway because creating landing pages for each ad group (though Simon says you need to create them for each keyword… argh) is a bit of a logistical issue (won’t go into that, but it’s not a simple upload to a hosting account for various reasons) and we just wanted to get something up there.

Sure enough, Saturday morning when I buzzed in to check the campaigns, every keyword was turned off and Google wanted $10 a click!

Well… Hmm… Proof.

I didn’t really need that proof, but there it is. I mean, $10 for words that should cost about 33 cents? Argh. What better way for Google to say they hate you?

I created those new landing pages today, issues or no issues, and our tech department is working on getting them up. I’ll let you know what happens when they hit and I can alter the campaign. This is totally interesting to me.

I can be such a geek.

I want to go even further and create pages for each keyword to see how well that works for at least one ad group. If it works, guess what Pat will be doing all week? And into infinity?

Popularity: 23% [?]

I was over at Blogosphere News today and see that we’re getting yet another upgrade to WordPress–version 2.6, which is due out in August. The changes are interesting, but not sure how awesome. They’re integrating with Google Gears and making it harder to lose posts if your browser crashes and such. I mean, those things are interesting, but…  it may be a developer dream. Since I’m not one of those, I’ll withhold judgment until I see the results.

You can check out the post at BlogHerald.com

I also watched a video today that was pretty interesting from Michael Gray of GrayWolf’s SEO Blog

He says that it’s best to make your blog super simple for the GoogleBot. Well, we knew that, but here’s something I never thought of. (And Duh… shame on me.) Michael says that when you’re choosing a category for your post, it’s best to keep it in ONE category, not two or three or the “very bright for a 5-year-old” GoogleBot may think that you have dupe content on your blog.

Well…

We all know that’s bad.

I’m going back and changing the posts that I just had to add categories to for my readers’ sake.

But, then, who needs readers?

I mean, I want to be a good SEO person and do all the right SEO stuff and make the Google ghods love me, but hey…

The audience is really what matters, eh?

From here on, I may try to keep my categories singular.

And then again, maybe not.

Popularity: 26% [?]

I’ve been living under a bushel basket for the past few months due to the ListBuilding.com launch.  And as I do when I”m busy, I’ll see a piece of mail that I have to read, but… I have no time. So, I flag that puppy in Outlook and wait until I have a down day to go through the messages. I had built up more than 100.

Gawd!

But there’s a message that I always read, and that’s the one that comes in on Fridays or Mondays from Jack Humphrey’s Friday Traffic Report. You know I’m a huge fan and that I’ve mentioned Jack before here, but whoa. He comes across with some of the coolest and most exciting information that (like I’ve said before)… If you aren’t subscribed, what the hell are you waiting for?

Today, work’s a little light for the first time in a while, so I’m going through my stuff and came across a message from Jack from waaaaayyyy back in January. Oh, sure. Tons of people have already seen it and put this great information to task already, but well, I’ve been painfully slow to get things done for myself. I’m running a membership site and a teleseminar series at Blogging4Boomers.com, too, remember. Right?

OK, no excuse.

Here’s the deal: HubPages. Do you know what they are?

HubPages is a Web 2.0 site where you can build “hubs,” which are sort of like Squidoo lenses. You add text modules, video modules, Amazon modules, etc. And just generally build a hub around a topic. It’s totally fun. I have one over there about cats. In fact, I’m a cat junkie and have several Web 2.0 sites about cats and a couple of blogs and whatever.

So, back to my story.

I find this message in my Inbox from Jack that says “Get More Traffic to Your HubPages.”  I’m all for that! And whoa. Very cool. I find not one but 7 Hubs all about getting traffic to your hub. Pretty neat. I’m certainly going to take some of that advice. Instinctively, I think I already have some of that going from my SEO background, but I don’t care what stage Hub Meister you are, you’ll find some information to turn you on.

The first Hub by Mark Knowles–”How I Got My Hub to Be on Google’s First Page“– is really great.  Mark gives you a virtual recipe of making it happen. We’ll be adding that cool advice to our own Hubs (and Tellman’s).

But all of the Hubs in that blog post are totally cool, and you should definitely check Jack’s post and every single one of those Hubs out…

Popularity: 37% [?]

On my call with SEO, Paul Easton, the other night, someone asked that I send out my personal WordPress plugins list for you. Well, heck, that seemed like a pretty good idea. So… If you’re wondering what plugins I use for my blog and why, here they are:

• Akismet: It’s a spam blocker that comes with all WordPress blogs. You need a WordPress API key to validate it, but that’s free and easy to get. Just follow the instructions. Then, you train Akismet. I mean, it knows most spam right off, but when you’re approving comments (and I encourage you to set your blog so you can do so) you train Akismet for some of the less obvious stuff. There are other spam blockers. Akismet just works fine for most purposes.

• All-in-One SEO Pack: This is a must have for search engine optimization purposes. Because spiders find the title tag and description tag so important to any web page, and since each post you make is considered a page, each post should also have its own title and description. Use your keywords, and this will help your posts to rank in the results pages.

• Blog Metrics: I got this one because Shoemoney thought so highly of it, but it’s not really that important to me. It shows how many posts you’ve made, how many trackbacks you’ve gotten, how many words in your posts, etc. I like Popularity Contest better, and I’ll tell you why in a minute. (See below.)

• Daiko’s Text Widget: This allows you to use PHP code in your sidebar. The normal text widgets don’t often work well for that.

• DoFollow: If you’re approving comments anyway, DoFollow makes sense. It’s a link back to the person’s blog who’s doing the commenting. It’s like a reward for making observations, you know? If you want to encourage commenting, this is great. The default for WordPress is “NoFollow,” which means that the spiders stop at your page and don’t follow it to the commenter’s URL. Spammers might think this is very cool, but with Akismet or another spam blocker working, they don’t get any benefit at all.

• FAQ-Tastic: This allows people to ask questions at your blog. You create question categories, insert a snippet of code, and you have an ASK campaign running for whatever topics you choose. Pretty sweet. Just be sure to add a strong message for spammers or you will get spam questions. Mine says: “Unfortunately your question was not accepted because you didn’t provide enough information. Please try again. But… If you’re a spammer, don’t waste your time or mine. Your “questions” will be deleted without being read. Go away and never come back.” Strong enough, you think? I really hate spammer jerks.

• Google Analyticator: You just plug in your Google Analytics ID and the plugin takes care of putting the Analytics code into your blog for you. Just be sure to set up the campaign at Google so you can check stats on your visitors.

• Google Sitemaps: The easiest way for Google to see every page (post) in your blog.

• Max Blog Press: I have four plugins from there. If you look at the top of my blog, you’ll see a “Stripe Ad,” that you can customize any way you see fit. You can rotate three different text ads, and even weight them so come are shown more than others, if you choose.You can also color them to fit in with the theme of your blog.

The second Max Blog Press plugin is “Unblockable Popup.” If you’re new to my blog, this popup darkens the page and an optin box will slide in. That only happens the first three times someone visits, but you can customize it to work any way you like.

The next plugin from Max Blog Press is “Ping Optimizer.” WordPress blogs automatically ping Ping-o-Matic each time you make a blog post, and that’s from the minute you install it. You don’t have to do anything else. But… if you edit a post, add a picture, or change your post in any way, it will keep pinging the service. If you do it too much, it could be construed as ping spamming and you don’t want that. Ping Optimizer only allows your blog to ping once.

The last Max Blog Press plugin is “Psychic Search.” It gives you some pretty cool information about how people searched to find your blog and other stuff that’s quite useful when planning posts and using the right keywords.

• My Blog Log Widget: You have to be a member of My Blog Log! It gives you some sweet stats, and it’s a pretty cool community of other bloggers. Check it out. And notice the widget on my blog. It shows who’s reading. You can get yours from clicking “Grab This!” on my widget.

• Popularity Contest: Of all the stats plugins, this is my fave. It ranks your posts in order of popularity. It shows you how many trackbacks, pingbacks, and comments your posts have plus a whole bunch of other cool information. See what posts people enjoy, figure out why, and do more of that posting. Know how people are taking in what you write. Pretty awesome.

• Text Link Ads Widget: Hmm… I won’t recommend this for anyone who’s working to get Page Rank. You see, Google hates paid linking. I think it’s a bunch of crap, and won’t take my widget down, even though Google bounced me from a PR5 to a PR2, just for having it. I get paid a little bit for each link, and it’s not the money… it’s the principle. I don’t like it that Google wants to tell me what I can and can’t have on a blog that I own. So, don’t expect to see me with a high PR blog. PR doesn’t mean doodly squat anyway. What matters the most to me are my readers. Plus, I feel pretty loyal to an advertiser who’s been on my blog for more than a year.

• What Would Seth Godin Do?: This plugin tells new visitors to subscribe to your feed, right at the top of your feed and your regular blog posting. It appears as many or as few times as you’d like it to.

• WordPress Database Backup: Uber important. I found that out when some jerk highjacked my blog last year and wiped out EVERY single post I’d made over a 2 year period. It hurt, but not much. I’m on a totally different path now than I was way back then, so my posts are now reflecting that. But… I won’t be caught unawares again because this plugin sends me a backup file once a week. Pffft!!! Take that hacking jerk. I should have been doing this all along, but it’s one of those things you think about and then, never seem to get around to doing. Don’t learn the hard way like I did.

• WP Plug IM: This is the little widget you see at the top of every post in my blog. Plug IM is a social bookmarking site just for Internet marketers. I really like it when it’s working properly, which is sketchy. I have to say that the widget wasn’t developed by PlugIM, and that’s undoubtedly part of the problem, but like, PlugIM dudes… I hope you’re working on this.

That’s it! Whew! I hope this has been helpful. With the exception of MaxBlogPress plugins, you can get the others at http://WordPress.org/extend

The other thing I was asked to provide from the call the other night were URLs that Paul had given out. If you’re a member of Blogging4Boomers (you only need to optin to the calls in this case, not become a member of the site, though I wish you would. I think there’s way more value than the price there, and if you’re into Internet marketing, I’m cutting many of the corners for you.), you get a page with the replays of ALL the calls I’ve done with the teleseminar participants and also the Q&A sessions I do with my members twice a month.

Tons and tons of value–no charge.

So, if you haven’t opted in and want to hear these calls… go to http://Blogging4Boomers.com . I know you probably don’t want to give your name & email address to ONE MORE PERSON, but hey… you will see that this time, it’s worth it.

But here are those URLs we talked about on the call, too:

http://xml-sitemaps.com for building sitemaps for your website.

http://domainsbot.com for looking up domains and getting cooler suggestions.

GTrends.com for learning about marketing trends. (This is a plugin to be used with WordTracker, the paid keyword discovery tool.)

And we talked about surveys. Pauls’ had just gone offline, but here are a couple I use:

Survey Gizmo at http://surveygizmo.com

Survey Monkey at http://surveymonkey.com

ASK Database at http://askdatabase.com

The first two are free, the third is a paid service, but all are great for knowing what your customers what.

Hope this is helpful. If you have comments, suggestions for other plugins not listed here… GREAT! Tell me what they are and why. I’m listening!

Popularity: 56% [?]

Duplicate content has been the bane of search engines for quite some time. Why? Because search engines simply don’t want to return 10 results and have it all be the same article, video, etc. Spiders love fresh meat, and if they think yours is slightly overdone, you will have issues.

Don’t get me wrong…

You won’t pay a penalty in most cases, unless the dupe content is on your own site. Then, the heavy hands of the Google ghod will pound you into SERP (search engine results page) oblivion.

I have concrete proof of this.

I have a client with a big membership site. It’s in constant need of content, and I was providing it for the blog. The person in charge of the site decided that he could use the same content on the front page, and WHAM! The site dropped from #3 to #602 the moment the spiders found it.

Here’s the proof that dupe content was the problem: When I removed the duplicate items, we shot right back to #3 within a day or two.

However, most often marketers use dupe content in article directories, or they use the same content on their blogs as is on their website. Though this won’t raise a penalty, it won’t help you, either. Only ONE site will get credit for that content (at least at Google) and it may not be yours, even though you originated it.

Fresh content is best.

If you can’t write two articles, write one and then, rewrite it completely, making it fresh and new again. It’s a lot of work, but hey… If you’re in this to win, you don’t want to waste time sending out content that won’t win you any laurel leaves, either, right? Take the time to create quality content, put it out there, and watch to see what happens. You’ll should be happily surprised.

Popularity: 32% [?]

I really enjoy working with search engines and all that it entails, and I’ve come to learn lots of little tricks and tons and tons of interesting information that’s been helpful both to me and to my clients.

But there are other things about SEO that people sometimes put blinders on about. First, they think that SEO is mysterious and too complicated, so rather than study it themselves, they hire people, like me, to help them with it. That’s cool. It’s what I do. What I love, and it pays well.

But over the past couple of years, I’ve learned that before taking on any client, I need to be upfront with them about some things…

Caveats of SEO

The first thing I tell people is that SEO is fluid. What works today may get you penalized tomorrow. For example, people were buying and selling links for a long time. It was great for the buyers because it helped them to get more traction with the search engines, and it helped the sellers earn some income.

But a few months ago, the Google hammer came down and smacked just about everyone doing so, including yours truly. I had a PR4 blog for eons, until Google saw my one, tiny little link that earns very little, and I could easily abandon it. But I’m a loyal person and I just won’t boot my advertiser because he/she has been on board here for many moons. It must be a link that works for them, so I won’t take that away.

The next thing I tell clients is that just because you spend time and money on SEO, that doesn’t guarantee that the strategy will work. I mean, I never provide a plan for someone, unless I’ve had experience with the system and know that it’s worked for other people. But… niches are quirky. What works in one niche, might not work in another. I mean, chances are very good that it will, but SEO doesn’t come with guarantees.

Case in point: I had a fitness client, and I did quite a bit of work for him. I set him up with a links page and did a lot of stuff that was working well two years ago. Then, boom! Google changes its algorithm and life as we knew it in the SEO world changed with it. My client was furious! His site like plummeted, and he couldn’t understand why. Owie. That was bad, and why I always go out of my way to explain that these things could happen before they pay me a dime.

Page Rank Doesn’t Matter

The third thing I explain is that page rank doesn’t really matter. Just because you see a PR5 on your Google toolbar, it doesn’t necessarily mean that your page is a PR5. Google changes their rankings all the time, but they only update the toolbar once per quarter.

That one almost cost me a job a while back. I had worked on a site for months, trying to build it to where it would show PR to appease the client, but the toolbar just kept showing a PR0. Then, after about 6 months, BINGO! PR5, first time out of the gate.

What really matters is where your page is appearing in the SERPs (search engine results pages). That’s all. You can have a PR10 and still won’t get traffic to your website, if you’re on page 8 of the results, right? That’s what matters — positioning. Where will your site fall on the results pages for the keywords appropriate to your niche? That’s all that matters. You don’t get any gold stars for having a PR anything. It looks cool on the toolbar, maybe, but that’s about it.

And finally, I explain the Brad Fallon rule that “SEO isn’t a sprint; it’s a marathon.” And that’s what it is.

A good SEO system takes hours and hours of effort, and it takes consistency. You have to write in your blog every day. You have to write articles every week. You have to collect links back from top-notch directories and websites — one-way links whenever possible. You have to comment on blogs for that reason, and post in forums.

YOU HAVE TO BE A STRONG PRESENCE ON THE WEB.

Period.

You have to use every tool available, and you have use them on a regular schedule. I mean, just grab your Oulook calendar or even a paper desk calendar, like I use, and write the things in that you need to do. Monday, post in my blog. Tuesday, submit and article and post in my blog, Wednesday, make a video and post in my blog, and so on.

And then, when Google decides to change an algorithm, it won’t hurt so bad. You’ll have tons of resources shoring up your listing and you can make the needed adjustments and keep cranking!

Just don’t think that you can write an article here, write in a blog once every three months, and get tons of crappy directory links. That won’t help you.

SEO is a system. Set it up and just keep working it. It will pay off… in time.

Great Free Teleseminar Series on Blogging Still Running Strong

Popularity: 41% [?]

If you’re not a subscriber of McAfee, you probably don’t see the little green, grey, and red icons that appear next to your website in Google’s search results pages.

Green means you’re a good site.

Grey means they haven’t a clue about your site.

Red means you are a bad site or connected to a bad site.

Well…

We were getting about 1,000 unique organic hits per week for one of the Overcome Everything sites, and like a stone, it plummeted on the page and in hits. When I checked the site out on Google, I saw the BLASTED red X. It really threw me.

I mean, the site is an ADD site, and it’s a PR5. Quality site. No nastiness.

So, I clicked on the X, and found that we’re being penalized because we use HyperTracker.com for tracking links. Well…

That’s just crap.

We had to remove all the links from HyperTracker and are waiting to get our green X back.

If I were HyperTracker, I think I’d sue. McAfee is losing customers for HyperTracker, and their service isn’t 100% but it’s pretty good. Now, we fear to use it at all for the bad connotation. Will Google eventually see that red X, too, and say that our site is in a “bad neighborhood” and lower our page rank and lose our first page position, as well? Better not happen.

As an SEO, I think it totally sucks. McAfee is targeting the wrong sites and I plan to write them a long letter explaining how they’re mucking things up. I’ve been a customer since I’ve been online, and that’s 12 years now, and I’m thinking of switching services.

I hear the free virus scans are good.

Popularity: 29% [?]