SEO-Browser allows visitors to view their website the way search engines do. The results show you the metadata, page load time, number of links and the description and keywords the search engines see. It also allows you to view the page in HTTP script, check links and view the source code. This handy little tool can provide a lot of useful information about how search engines see your site, which, in turn, can help you improve search engine rankings.
Give it a try you may discover some things you did not see before.
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I found an intense SEO Knowledge Quiz and I thought I would post the URL here in my blog in case anyone would like to test their SEO Knowledge. It takes about 30 minutes so grab a cup of coffee and sit back and put your brain to work! If you think you may need some additional study time first then sign up for our FREE SEO Tips of the Day. I will be addressing many of the questions in my daily tips over the next month or so.
Here is the Quiz if you are ready to take it now.
http://www.seomoz.org/seo-expert-quiz
I was pretty happy with my score of 88%.
Are you eager to learn more but don’t know where to start? How about starting with one of our FREE Worksops or one of our Special Events. Check out our Special Events page for dates and locatins of our next mini workshopsAre you eager to learn more but don’t know where to start? How about starting with one of our FREE Workshops or one of our Special Events. Check out our Special Events page for dates and locations of our next mini workshops.
http://www.searchengineacademysc.com/special-events.htm
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Squiddo Queen V2.1
I just came across this great e-book I had to share with you all. It gives you a great deal of information on how to make Squidoo work for you.
How fed up are you of reading those over hyped sales pages from those so called Guru’s. You know the ones, they promise you the earth and deliver you nothing more than their old re-hashed material.
I bet you are even more fed up with not making a single dollar online.
That’s what most of the emails I receive daily are about. The ‘Average Joe’ who wants to make some money online for the first time. Normally they are close to throwing in the towel and calling it a day. They just want to earn something.
Have you realised yet that internet marketing is changing? Do you already see the signs? Been looking for that niche that everyone is banging on about? Does everything you look at seem saturated? Are you finding that just about the world and their wife already has a monopoly on the market?
Just starting out and want to make sense of everything?
Have you tried and failed at eBay?
Gone on to try and conquer Adwords?
Tried to build a website to earn through Adsense?
No wonder you are fed up!
I have some good new for you today check it out!
Squidoo Meets Bum Marketing
If you have not checked out Squidoo yet look at our page at:
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In my weekly reads the other day I came across an interesting post from Ash Nallawalla’s Blog that caught my eye and I just had to read it. SEO Certification - What Is Your View?
There has been a long debate on just how valuable SEO Certification is throughout the industry and many varying opinions have been voiced on the topic for years.
Many don’t realize it yet but the value of SEO Certification will become more valuable in the years to come. Companies are starting to realize that it takes more then putting up a pretty Web site to be successful online. Those that are counting on on-line sales or on-line visibility are learning fast that the Internet is a big marketing venue that has to be taken seriously.
Companies are now looking to hire in-house SEO’s to address the immediate need to market on-line. Ash made an interesting point in his blog post; “I don’t think employers are silly enough to look only at a certification. Last place I worked in (hiring SEOs) placed no significance on the presence or absence of a degree. It all went on the way they answered the questions and their experience. And there will be some employers - perhaps government agencies who will look for the piece of paper before making a shortlist.”
In interviews much of the time a degree does not always hold all the value but it is that degree that gives them the information needed to answer the questions properly during the hiring process.
Search Engine Optimization and Internet Marketing changes landscape everyday. Most companies that offer SEO Certification Workshops spend countless hours in research and testing before adding anything to their curriculum. These companies most times have educators that are Industry leaders and have been offering SEO Services to their clients for years.
Being a true SEO is more than a 3 or 5 day certification workshop it comes from many years of experience dealing with the search engine and building a portfolio to fully understand what it takes to be successful online. However SEO Certification is a good beginning baseline. SEO Workshops sort out the good information from the bad and provides the student a better understanding of the Industry.
For anyone that is thinking about becoming SEO Certified here are 5 tips to finding value in Certification.
1. Education – Laying the foundation to a career as a Professional SEO is the same as any other job skill. Finding an institution or training facility that holds true credibility in the industry is half the battle. There are many different organizations that offer training in search engine optimization and the job is to find a program that is backed by a good solid reputation of industry standards.
a. Is the program backed by any education institutions?
b. Are the instructors experts themselves?
c. Is the material updated consistently with industry changes?
2. Job Opportunities – At the time of this article there where over 12 pages of companies looking to hire SEO Consultants and Internet Marketers on CareerBuilder.com. Most of these companies where looking for individuals who understood search engine optimization and marketing and could implement the latest techniques and strategies into an existing web site.
3. Understand the Art & Science of SEO – There is definitely a difference between the art and science of SEO. Anyone can logically teach the science (title tags, body text, link text etc.) but very few SEO Workshops are teaching the art. Find a SEO Class that is addressing both sides and become well versed in all aspects of Internet Marketing.
4. Results over Certification – Even though a certificate that hangs on a wall will give someone the knowledge and confidence they need to perform internet marketing services it is in no comparison to the actual result they can share with someone. Customers like to see proof. They want to see true ranking results. Build a solid portfolio.
5. Re-Certification – The Internet world changes on a daily bases. What may have worked this year may not be the same techniques that will work next year. There are strategies that some SEO’s may have put in place that are now considered spam so it is vital that a certificate be kept current. Check training providers and be certain that they keep advised on any changes that may take place during the year. Ask if they offer re-certification or additional training modules to keep skills up to date. Nothing looks worse and is detrimental to an image then advertising an out of date certificate.
In conclusion only the student can find the true value of a SEO Certification. It all depends on how much time and energy one would want to put into becoming a successful SEO or how much time they give to gaining confidence in their skills as an optimizer.
The Industry is changing and there will come a point where the value of a SEO Certification will mean something. In the mean time it is imperative that those seeking a professional standard for search engine optimization and internet marketing do their research first.
Would you like to receive a FREE SEO Tip everyday? If so sign up today and start receiving your FREE SEO Tips tomorrow!
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I have been getting a lot of questions lately about how I process keyword research using Wordtracker. So I thought I would take a few minutes this morning and detail out step by step exactly how I work through a session of keyword research.
As many of you already know the success of any good optimization plan starts with the research of keywords. Normally you want to find words or word clusters that will open additional windows into your site while giving your potential visitors exactly what they’re looking for.
Many Web site owners have the mind set that they should only optimize their Web site for the most popular keywords. Unfortunately this means that they are competing with millions of other sites competing for the same keywords. Those most common keywords are not the phrases that will bring qualified visitors to your site. Most times these popular keywords are to general and the competition is way too high.
Let me walk you through the steps of how I approach research when it comes to finding those valuable keywords.
First I think of the most common root word that I know for a fact is going to have a very high number of competing pages.
My session of choice in WT is Keyword Researcher I would much rather know what keywords people are searching on rather than using Keyword Universe where it shows me how keywords are being used on the top 200 Web sites.
For example purposes lets’ work on a Web site about “bass fishing.”
The most common and popular root keywords I would start with would be “bass fishing.” Normally I like to start with just one root word but in this case the 2 word phrase bass fishing is more detailed then just fishing so I am starting there.
I only want my responses to be related to that type of fishing “bass.” In this step I am just looking for a keyword cluster that would have something to do with the overall purpose of my site. Also at this point I am not concerned with KEI or competing pages I am only looking for a keyword phrase that pertains to my site.
Just so I know what I am up against I make a note of the competition for the most common keywords “bass fishing.”
|
bass fishing |
253 |
446 |
0.01 |
Just as I suspected those are pretty high numbers to work with and even the most seasoned Professional SEO would not try to compete with that. Competing pages of 6,530,000 and a KEI of only 0.01.
As I look through my responses I see these ones:
|
flw bass fishing tournament |
8 |
14 |
0.07 |
|
|
handmade bass fishing jigs |
11 |
19 |
40.33 |
I found a couple to work through not great numbers but I know our site lists the top bass fishing tournaments around the country including the FLW Series and we also review fishing lures so I write these two phrases down so I can work through them.
Next I would search separately on each of the words above: flw - bass – fishing –handmade – jigs and tournament to see what I come up with.
The first word “flw” did not come up with anything I could use so I moved on to the next.
I try really hard to not get side tracked, you can spend hours in WT and not get anything accomplished so stick to one 3 or 4 keyword phrase at a time and pick that one apart before going on to the next.
As I predicted the words bass and fishing both are too general and are not giving me anything I can use but I don’t give up I still move on and explore each word of the phrase clusters I came up with in the beginning.
My next word was “handmade” which I know from experience I should try both “handmade” as one word and then separate it into two words “hand made.” It usually gives us completely different results and it did as well this time.
|
hand made fish hooks |
23 |
40 |
5.81 |
Not wonderful numbers but with 23 people searching on it I know I can optimize a page on our site for hand made fish hooks and actually give our visitors some resources for companies that produce hand made fishing hooks.
Lets’ keep going with our next word which is “jigs.” Just as before I want to try the word as “jigs” and “jig” it will always give us different results.
Now we are getting somewhere the word “jig” gave us this great result:
|
bass jig trailers |
40 |
70 |
177.80 |
I know I can work this type of bass fishing lures into a separate optimized page of our site. But we are not finished yet lets’ look at our last word “tournament” and the plural form “tournaments.”
|
Fishing Report tournaments |
24 |
42 |
12.52 |
|
|
bass tournaments |
12 |
21 |
144.00 |
|
|
|
9 |
15 |
16.20 |
As you can see above I found a couple different phrases I can work in our site. I see by my research people are looking for information on tournaments by state. This could open multiple windows into our site by posting tournament information individually on each state and optimizing each page for that states bass tournaments. Interesting …something I would not have normally thought of came about by doing a little keyword research.
Remember don’t get side tracked work on one 3 or 4 word cluster at a time and research each word separately remembering to try variations of the word singular and plural or as one word such as handmade was or separate them into two hand made.
This is how I work through each session of keyword research. The whole process should not take you more than an hour and most times you come up with some great possibilities.
To recap:
1. Start with your most common root word
2. Find a couple 3 or 4 words clusters you can pick apart that pertain to your site even if they do not have great numbers
3. Research each word separately trying both singular and plurals
4. Remember not to get side tracked stick to one phrase at a time
5. Be open to discovering new windows into your site
6. And lastly go optimize the new phrase on your site
If you enjoyed these tips on how to work through a keyword research project you may also enjoy our FREE SEO Tips of the day. Everyday bright and early in the morning you will receive a tip in your email. Most of the tips are ones you can apply to your Web site the same day.
Don’t miss out sign up today and start receiving your FREE SEO Tips tomorrow!
http://www.searchengineacademysc.com/seo-tip.htm
If you are not already a subscriber to the Wordtracker program, check it out you may find it is one of the most important tools in your SEO tool box. WORDTRACKER
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Finding affordable business optimization solutions for your Web site can some times be a challenge. Many of the Web site owners I talk to on a daily basis are small business owners that have a limited budget when it comes to advertising and even smaller when they talk about their Web site.
One general consensus is that they all know they need to beef up their Internet presence, but they all believe the only way to do that is by hiring a company who specializes in Internet Marketing or Search Engine Optimization. What many do not realize is that with a little time and effort they can apply some basic optimization solutions to their site themselves and usually for free if they are dedicated to making their Web site succeed.Being a small business owner myself, I know how hard it is to juggle advertising dollars and get the most advertising for my money. I am going to share with you a few tips on how you can have a successful on-line presence by just putting a little time and effort into your site.
Click here to read the complete article on 7 Easy Business Optimization Solutions
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You have often heard the importance of opening as many windows into your site as possible and submitting articles to article marketing Web sites is an easy and free way to do so. The search engines like to see that your Web site is linked in many places throughout the Internet and finding your links on industry related documents is a sure fire way to increase the opening of those windows into your site.
I have compiled a list of my most favorite article marketing sites. All of these sites has a PR of 5 or better and are leaders in their industry. Give them a try and make it part of the process of adding a new article to your site. At the same time you add them to your site take a few extra minutes and add them to the list below. You will be surprised by watching your server logs how additional traffic comes in from articles that have been submitted to article marketing sites.
- www.BusinessKnowHow.com
- www.ArticleDashboard.com
- www.Buzzle.com
- www.ArticleBiz.com
- www.EzineArticles.com
- www.ArticleCity.com
- www.ArticleAlley.com
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I just had to share with you all the new video that I had made for our Web site.
As many of you know it is so important to start adding different Web 2.0 strategies to your Web site and this is a fun way I have found to include some You Tube videos to our site and still get my message out.
I am pretty sure I talked about this on a blog post last year but Google and the other search engines started to use Universal or Blended search to their search results. With this is mind it is imperative that you try to include different elements to your site other than straight html text. The major search engines are now pulling information from all different aspects of the Internet to give their visitors the most relevant results for their searches.
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Google has a produced a nice run down of some common questions about Google Sitemaps. It’s a very lengthy post but an important one and as such I’ve done a redux of the key points to understand.
- Sitemaps help Google discover all pages on your site, but does not guarantee crawling or indexing
- Sitemaps help Google discover information about your pages; when they were updated and their relative importance
- Sitemaps do not influence rankings, but can increase Google’s awareness of pages which can lead to increased presence and visibility in the index.
- Setting the “priority” of all pages to “1.0″ does not impact the ranking of pages, nor does the placement of URLs in a sitemap
- Penalties occuring after a sitemap submission are purely coincidental
- Sitemaps can be located anywhere as long as the site where the sitemap is located and the site whose URL are referenced are verifed in Webmaster Central
- Sitemaps need to be developed in the supported formats (syndication feeds, e.g. RSS or Atom, and Text files using the Sitemap protocol) and not in HTML. Google recommends the XML sitemap protocol
- Sitemaps can be used to indicate preferred URL for pages which contain the same content.
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Let’s say you have done your keyword research…you have written the content for your new page…you have even gone as far as making sure it is optimized and ready for the search engines to find and index your page and now you are just waiting for results.
After you have completed the few things we listed above here are your next steps for success with that new content.
Try to keep this formula in mind every time you write new content for your site and soon the search engines will enjoy coming to your site.
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