First things first - go watch this video of Amanda Camp explaining her job at Google’s Webmaster Central. There’s a critical lesson in her 90 seconds on tape that’s incredibly revealing. If you listen carefully, what Amanda’s saying is, “yes, we read your comments, we read your questions, we look at all your spam reports, but we don’t try to help you - at least not you,the individual. We try to take all that data and create a product, a tool, an algorithm, a system that can help everyone who has that problem.” I’d urge you to think about this paradigm inside Google next time you’re wondering why no one there is banning your competitor for the spammy links you reported.
Tips on How to Use Google Indexing Date FiltersThe Google advanced search page allows you to search for pages that were recently indexed, letting you filter through days, weeks, months, and years. Here are pages from SeoBook.com indexed in the last week.
The Evolution of Natural LinkingWhen the web was younger is was less spammy. When the web was less commercial a larger percentage of sites were created out of passion, and those who spammed generally were not link spammers. Most new websites are spam.
How Domain Names Play a Role in SEO & SEMMany marketing and advertising costs are recurring. Re-registering domain names is a minimal cost, but many domains (especially .com names) get type in traffic worth thousands of dollars a year. Some get type in traffic worth thousands per day. And this traffic stream is defensible from search engine algorithmic swings.
Hey are you guys going to update your plugins? Custom Query String - UTW Edition and SEO Title Tag 2.0 aren’t wordpress 2.3 compatible? Now that wordpress 2.3 has entered nag mode with the 2.3.1 release, I’m reminded I still haven’t migrated 80% of the blogs I manage/run.Puuuuuhhhhleeeeeze (more…)
Tips to Optimize Meta DescriptionsMeta description tags may appear in the search results below your page title. Descriptions should be formatted in compete sentences so they read well to humans. Google displays about 150 to 160 characters from meta description tags in their search results. If your description runs past 160 characters they will cut it short and add … at the end of their listing.
This week, along with the Whiteboard Friday video, I’ve also included a pair of informative and hopefully, entertaining, charts. The video discusses why some companies in more conservative sectors or with more traditional ideas about marketing and PR shy away from social media and blog engagement, despite the many benefits those arenas can bring. It’s a critique we hear not only from clients, but also at conferences and over the web, as SEO firms offering SMM find themselves pitching to un-receptive ears.
Seth Godin referenced a Steven Berlin Johnson post analyzing the word usage of various authors. Writers using short words and short sentences tend to sell more.
It is easy to think that if you just do more and add more value that you will make more money, but sometimes doing more just means simplifying and clarifying your words, or publishing in a more friendly format. If you want people to take action, to believe they can afford it, making them feel confident and comfortable works. More does not always mean better.
Tips on Page TitlesGoogle shows the first 65 characters in the search results. Make sure your important keywords occur early in the page title for scan-ability.
Yesterday I created 9 SEO videos and posted them to YouTube, but so far I only have about 5 YouTube subscribers, including my wife, mom, dog, and self. Can you give a few videos a look, and subscribe if you like them to help me increase that number? If you think they could use some improvements please offer those tips too.
