Archive for the ‘Google’ Category

Blog Launch Check List

Monday, May 18th, 2009

Posted by Lucy Langdon

Blog Launch Check List

Although a lot of a blog’s success comes from the ongoing effort you put into growing and nurturing it, there are a few things you can do to give it the best possible chance from day one. The checklist below varies from very simple actions through to big decisions and longer term strategies.
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Popularity: unranked [?]

Headsmacking Tip #13: Don’t Accidentally Block Link Juice with Robots.txt

Monday, May 18th, 2009

Posted by randfish

A very simple return to the headsmacking series this week (as it’s late here in London and I’ve been up my usual 40+ hours traveling).

We’ve been noticing that a number of websites seeking to block bot access to pages on their domain have been employing robots.txt to do so. While this is certainly a fine practice, the questions we’ve been getting show that there’s a few misunderstandings about what blocking Google/Yahoo!/MSN/other search bots with robots.txt does. Here’s a quick breakdown:

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Weekend Roundup for the Week of 5/10/09

Monday, May 18th, 2009

Posted by rebecca

Stories, news, and other notable items from the past week:

Weekend Roundup for the Week of 5/10/09

Google crashed between 8:40 and 9:55 ET yesterday, preventing people from Googling to find out why Google wasn’t working. Oh noes! Speaking of Google, they recently overhauled Google News as well as updated their blog search algorithm, and they’re allowing trademarks to be used in US Adwords copy. Geez, no wonder there was downtime. Methinks Google needs a little R&R.Congratulations to Barry Schwartz–he and his wife just had a baby girl. Mazel tov!Now I know what I should work on the next time Rand’s out of town at a conference (wait, that’s next week…*evil laugh*).R.I.P. 3D Realms. Your perpetual release date for Duke Nukem Forever made for a lot of Internet lulz.Ladies and gentlemen, Frankenfrog! It’s alive! It’s ALIIIIIIIIIVE!!!

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Google Webmaster Central Guide

Friday, May 15th, 2009

Google Webmaster Central have just updated their toolset, so now might be a good time to review it.

For those new to Webmaster Central, Google offer a set of very useful tools that provide an insight into how Google handles your site. You can find out how your site is crawled, what keywords you rank for, and if there are any problems.

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Upcoming Spring 2009 Search Conferences

Wednesday, May 13th, 2009

Posted by rebecca

The weather’s getting nicer, the days are getting longer and Rand’s barely in the office. You know what that means: it’s conference season! Since there are so many conferences right around the corner, I thought I’d list some upcoming events in case you’re thinking of attending a show but aren’t sure which one to book.
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But Whose Opinion Matters?

Wednesday, May 13th, 2009

One of my biggest business flaws was perhaps starting off with a fairly low self-esteem. Because of that, I catered toward people who were whiny, wanted free stuff, and never had any intent of buying anything. Being naive, and wanting to be liked too much, I catered to such worthless people, and probably cut my income short over the years by millions of dollars. Over the course of the last year I decided that I was going to change directions on that front, and I have never had a problem with being blunt.

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Small Business SEO: Starting with the Right Success Metrics

Friday, May 8th, 2009

Posted by rishil

It’s been a while since I put together a Small Business SEO post. I thought it’s high time I tackled another key issue facing small businesses – deciding whether their SEO activity is progressing or not.  SEO, and indeed SEM, is a unique marketing channel. It is quantifiable, responsive and flexible to an extent which I would argue other channels aren’t. However, that is my personal opinion. And the way in which I rate SEM successes is different, not unique certainly, but definitely different.

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Roundup Thursday for the Week of 5/3/09

Friday, May 8th, 2009

Posted by rebecca

Stories, news, and other notable items from the past week:

Roundup Thursday for the Week of 5/3/09

Compete has rolled out a bunch of changes, adding user generated tags, a new interface, dynamic graphs, and more. Pete Meyers has hired a new intern, Yoozer, and he’s here to answer your toughest questions about usability. Are you a small business and scratching your head about this newfangled Twitter thing? Check out this Twitter guide for small businesses and hop on the 140 character bandwagon. Man, Twitter is all over the place lately. Is it bad for journalism? Marc Gunther seems to think so… Last Twitter link (for now): Brent Payne is all…well, atwitter (sorry) over the fact that Alyssa Milano responded to his tweets. [insert lame Who’s the Boss joke here]  Tony Adam counters Darren Slatten’s theme winning post about reputation management with a post saying online reputation management does matter. I smell a feud! 10e20 offers up some basic tips for online and offline social networking. PROTIP: Befriend Chris Winfield. He and his hair are among the most powerful social media marketers in the biz.
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Is Social Media Marketing Illegal?

Friday, May 8th, 2009

Posted by randfish

The FTC (Federal Trade Commission) has some rules about online marketing that may surprise you - they certainly surprised me.

Recently, SEOmoz’s own Sarah Bird was interviewed by Eric Enge on a wide variety of contract and legal topics. As I was proudly browsing through the piece, I was especially curious about what Sarah had to say around marketing on social media networks:

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Popularity: unranked [?]

Link Building from A to Z

Thursday, May 7th, 2009

Posted by wiep.net

Although you can easily find lists with 21, 66, 69, 75, 101 or even 131 link building strategies, numbered (link building) tip lists remain very popular. Not because these articles provide shocking new insights - most of the aforementioned mentioned lists mention pretty much the same tactics - but because they remind people of how work intensive the ongoing process of link building can be, and because they make people think due to their in-depth nature. “How can I use these tactics for our website?” “Which of the listed tactics are relevant for our company?” Or, even better, “What strategies would I have added to this list?”

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