SEM

You are currently browsing the articles from Link Building and SEO tips from Pixelhead matching the category SEM.

Search Engine Marketing related posts to include posts about SEO(Search Engine Optimization or Search Engine Optimisation), PPC(pay-per-click), email marketing and Web 2.0 related posts.

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Does Twitter have any Google Juice?

I was just doing a post on The Travels of Lizzie Bean, about one of our favorite sandwich shops, Eve’s Lunch from Eves Lunch SignNorristown, PA, which is currently closed and due to reopen at another location sometime this summer.

I had been trying to look up the site by typing in the name of the restaurant, Eve’s Lunch, but was unable to find the site because they use the url of the site in the title tag, and not the actual name of the restaurant. Google Eveslunch.com and it does show up thankfully. I actually tried to get in touch with them to so see if they would trade SEO for Zeps(yes the sandwiches are that good) I tried calling the number listed on the site which directed me to a voice mailbox that was full. Emails resulted in bounced back messages. I have given them two links and a stumble, so maybe they will eventually be found for their name.

Anyway, back to Twitter. So I did a Google search for “Eve’s Lunch” without the quotes, for which there were 2,270,000 pages in the results. The Tweet “On way to Eve’s lunch for meeting” was at 8. I then used quotes and the Tweet was 7. Then what really shocked me was that when I used the phrase “allintitle:Eve’s Lunch”, I expected the Twitter Tweet to be nowhere in the SERP’s, but it was at 6.

It would seem that the home page of Twitter which has a current page rank of 7, is passing the juice on to individual tweets. However, the juice is not able to be passed on to links on a consistent basis because the url is frequently rewritten as a shorter url by the tinyurl.com url rewrite program that is being utilized.

So since it seems that the first twenty or so characters are being used in the title of the the Tweet. What came up in the title tag for this particular Tweet is “Twitter / Adam Donkus: On way to Eve’s lunch for m… ”

So Does Twitter Have Google Juice?

So if you are going to try and use Twitter for the purposes of SEO( I use it for its social aspects only) make sure that you put your keywords at the beginning of the Tweet, and in the first twenty to thirty characters. I counted 50 characters from the fist T in Twitter to last dot.

But in the end, it probably will not help out your individual sites SEO, but if it shows up in the SERP’s, it would be nice if the url of your site followed shortly there after, even if it is rewritten as a tinyurl, so that any Googlers who might click the link, might also then click the link to your site.

The answer to the question is yes, Twitter does have some Google Juice, but the more important question is, does it pass it on for purposes of SEO? I for one don’t think so, but I could be wrong.

What do you think? Do you think Twitter could play a role in your SEO or SEM?

Written by Pixelhead on July 16th, 2007 with 8 comments.
Read more articles on Google and Marketing and SEM and SEO and Twitter and Uncategorized and Web 2.0.

Moguling Update

Please see my first Moguling with Dotventures post for more info.

I came across Frank Gilroy’s Site Flipping post, which served as a reminder about a packet of papers I received at least a week ago from Dotventures and SearchMarketing LLC that require me to sign a “Legal Disclaimer” and a “Purchase and Limited Service Agreement”. I guess once I return these two items, my active services concerning learning to Flip Internet Real Estate or Moguling will begin.

Along with the two forms, I also received the company’s 2007 Prospectus which seems to be nothing more than a bit of advertising to persuade me to buy more Dotventures/SearchMarketing LLC services.

Diy-businessloans.com Certificate

Several days ago, we received a certificate in the mail that states that we are owners of the domain name www.diy-businessloans.com. This was quite surprising, because this name never came up when I talked with my Domain Specialist Robert Earl. At the conclusion of my phone call with Robert, I was under the impression that our domain name that we would receive was going to be Freedomainname-180.com. However, Lizzie had some reservations about this, because she thinks those free domain name sites are skeeve(googled the word Skeeve – Check out Skeeve.com…lol), so I called Robert back, and left a message to see if we could change it. I never received a call back, but apparently the domain did get changed. Lizzie says she is much happier with Diy-Businessloans.com than the freedomainename-180.com, but a phone call would have been the professional thing to do.
So today, I will be signing or having Lizzie sign the Dotventures/SearchMarketing LLC documents and will be placing them in the mail.

Written by Pixelhead on June 13th, 2007 with 8 comments.
Read more articles on Marketing and Moguling and SEM and SEO and Uncategorized.

Link Building (part3)

Please Read Link Building part I and Link Building Part II prior to reading Link Building Part III.

Warning:The information contained in this post is not a template for Search Engine Marketing and practices suggested should be exercised with care and due dilligence.

Link Building III

Directories for Inbound Links

side note

This is the second time writing this post, which I have been working on for the better part of a week. I had about 7 paragraphs done, when it mysteriously went away. The wysiwyg(What you see is what you get) editor was doing some funky things when I was using bullets. Things that I did not want indented were indented too far, and then upon trying to correct the situation, poof it was all gone. Perhaps one day I will learn my lesson and not work from this screen.

Link building is the process of getting inbound links to your site. In this post, I will focus on link building by submitting your site to directories.

Directories

Go to your chosen directory list, I frequently use DirectoryCritic. Click on a Directory. On the home page of the directory, the top level of the categories is visible, usually this is not were you want to submit, but this is were your category search will begin. Your category search can occur in several ways. You can simply navigate to a suitable category depending upon your site. If I were submitting Pixelheadonline.com to another directory, I would navigate to either a Computer, Internet, or Business top level category, then look for a “Directory” titled sub-category. If there is not a Directory sub-category, I will next look for a marketing subcategory. Most directories have either a top level or sub-category for directories. When submitting to multiple directories, I also tend to vary the categories I submit–variety is a good thing.

Choosing a Sub-category

When navigating through the directory, I also keep in mind how far down in the navigation I will go. 5 levels down may be really relevant to my site, but the odds of having this page cached or visited by a search engine spider are slim, unless you are willing to get this page a link on another site, that will force the spiders to visit it. If I am paying for a directory link, I am much more picky about were I am submitting. For paid links, I check to see that the page or category that my site will be listed is cached by the Spiders. If I have the choice of two cached category pages, and one has PR, and is just as relevant, I will go for the higher PR. I rarely pay for a directory link that is not cached. The only exception I would make for this would be for a highly relevant niche directory category page in a really competitive market such as real estate. For this instance, if it is not cached, I would resort to getting a link for this page that I am certain will be visited by the search engine spiders.

Submitting to a Directory

It is advisable to read the submission guidelines to all directories that you are submitting your site to, especially if it is a paid directory or one of the better free directories like DMOZ.

Follow all grammar and spelling rules.

Only use Keyword rich titles(no more than one keyword phrase) if the site allows this. Some sites require the actual title of the site.

Submit Deep Links only when allowed. Deep links may require different category submissions. For example, if I am submitting Pixelheadonline.com/blog/, I would not put this into a directory category, but a blog category.

Descriptions should not include sales hype, code, or excessive keyword repetition. Do include a description of what a visitor to your site will find.

Next Link Building post

Niche Directories and other Link building resources.

Please let me know if you have any other advice about submitting to directories or other areas of Link building advice you would like to be covered.PixelHead

Written by Pixelhead on March 13th, 2007 with 1 comment.
Read more articles on Link Building and Marketing and SEM and SEO and Uncategorized.

Link Building (partII)

What you need to get started with link building. Please read Link Building part I before continuing.

Keyword phrase list

How do you come up with a list of keywords?

I first look at my site and try and think like my potential visitor. In other words, what would a visitor type into the search bar to find your site? This is a good basic place to start. The next step would be to utilize keyword tools such as:

Keyword research is a very important step in determining your sites SEO, so take your time and do it right. Here is a good Keyword Research post from Lisa Barone of Search Engine Guide.com, if you would like more info on the subject of Keyword Research.

Description Text

When I do link building I usually have numerous descriptions that go with each keyword phrase. I make some standard descripitions out ahead of time and place them in a notepad doc along with the keyword phrases and the urls I want to use. Other SEO specialists that I know, don’t use prewritten site descriptions, but prefer to make them up as they go. This does take a bit more time, but will insure you don’t overuse the same description too many times. These descriptions should not be spammy(use of multiple keywords), use html, or use sales hype. Just describe what a visitor will find on the site.

Keyword corresponding Sub-page urls

Each keyword phrase should have a sub url which can be submitted when deep links are allowed. As mentioned before, not all directories allow deep links. Several reasons for submitting deep links include higher relevance of deep link pages than the home page, and it will also help to get the deep linked pages visited by the search engines, which will also result in these pages as well as the home page showing up for the given keyword phrase. It has been proven that sites that appear in the SERP’s with two pages, get more clicks than those with only one result.

Important things to know about directories and link building:

There are similarities and differences with most directories.
• Most directories have a list of Guidelines you need to follow to increase your chances of having your site accepted into the directory.
• Most directories offer the option to submit your site as Featured or Sponsored, Express for a fee; and Regular or Reciprocal – usually free.
• If you have a budget to work with – choose the paid option, as these links tend to be accepted more often and far quicker.
• When choosing a category to submit to – choose the highest level category that the directory will let you submit to – that is still relevant to the site you are submitting. For example, if you’re submitting a site for breast cancer treatment and the categories you have to choose from are health/ conditions & diseases/ cancer/ breast cancer/ breast cancer treatments. It would appear that the breast cancer treatment category would be the best BUT because it is buried so deep within the directory it probably won’t get picked up by the search engine spiders very often. So, I would submit the site to the cancer category.

Link Building part III will focus on submitting to the best directories, the best categories of directories, and the best way to get listed.

Written by Pixelhead on February 27th, 2007 with 5 comments.
Read more articles on Directories and Internet Tools and Link Building and Marketing and SEM and SEO and Uncategorized.

Link Building

Link building is an integral part of my job as an SEO Technician(one of my many jobs), and the ability to do it correctly is a skill that is can be easily learned, but does take quite a lot of time to do correctly. There are many resources readily available on the Internet about this very topic. So any knowledge that I may have is already out there. So in a series of posts, I shall, with the help of Lizzie Bean, give instructions on the proper way to conduct manual link building, as opposed to using an automated link building program that submits your site to numerous other sites, such as directories, blogs, FFA pages, and link farms automatically.

Manual Link building does take time, but it is well worth the effort. Web masters or site owners should be weary of Link building deals which promise 100′s of links for a package deal. Often times these link packages will submit your site to numerous directories, using one or two variations of the link text or anchor text(the words that when clicked on take you to another site, page, or location on the same page)as well as limited site descriptions. Anyway the worst thing that can happen is your site is it gets banned or dropped to oblivion in the SERP’s, so enough with the warnings here is….

Link Building Part 1

by Lizzie Bean,PixelHead

Link building instructions

The purpose of link building (obtaining links that point to a website) is to increase search engine rankings for specific keyword phrases. You should get links in directories that link to yours or your client’s sites using a variety of keyword phrases that the client wants to rank for in Google as the anchor text of the link.

Definitions:

Directories – websites that are organized by categories. Each category has links to websites that are relevant to the subject of the category.

Anchor text – this is the text that is linked. When submitting sites to directories the Title that is submitted is usually the anchor text for the link.

Submitting a site -the process of filling out the form on a directory that allows the editors of the directory to review the site being submitted to the directory. To submit a site you will need to find a “Submit Site”, “Add URL” or a similar link/button.

Page Rank (PR) – this is a rating system that Google uses to determine the link popularity of a website. PR ranges from 1  10. The higher the PR on a site – the better. To see the PR – you must install the Google toolbar. PixelHead recommends downloading Firefox with the Google toolbar, which can be done by clicking on the icon in the left side bar. PixelHead gets 1 dollar for every sign up. If you have never used Firefox, give it a try, many unique features make it a great resource, all while being much less prone to viruses than Explorer.

SERP- search engine results page.

SEO- Search Engine Optimization deals with making a site so that it will rank well in the SERP’s. Broken down into two basic parts- on page optimization and off page optimization(link building)

SEM-Search Engine Marketing deals with a variety of methods to get your site out there using the search engines via natural search and paid search.

Stop Words-Words that the Search Engines(Google) ignores. Read this Search Engine Watch post about Stop Words for more info about them, and here is a nice list of Stop words.

What you will need to get started:

1. a list of keyword phrases that you want your site to rank for(future post)
2. a list of description text that will correspond to each keyword phrase
3. a list of sub-pages of the site that each keyword phrase can link to WHEN sub-pages are allowed for submissions.
4. a list of directories to submit your site(Google “directory list”) or visit these two resources below.

Read Link Building Part 2

Written by Pixelhead on February 21st, 2007 with 15 comments.
Read more articles on Directories and Directory Submissions and Google and Internet Tools and Marketing and Mybloglog.com and SEM and SEO and Uncategorized and Web 2.0.

NoFollow Tag

“No Follow” tags are not necessarily a bad thing. Unless of course you are looking for links to improve your search engine rankings by getting links to your site, either one way or reciprocal, then the links you get are pretty much useless if the “no follow” command is being utilized. Many directories that many webmasters submit their sites to use these no follow tags, not all directories but some. It is something that webmasters or anyone who is trying to build a web presence should be aware of when determining a links value. In a number of directories that I deal with, the “No follow” is used in the free submission, but not the paid submissions. I believe it is a good practice for webmasters of directories to disclose the use of them, and many do, but again, not all.
How do I know if a site is using a “no follow” tag?

Are you familiar with the source code function? If you are, go into the source code, do a Ctrl+f(find comand)and type in “no follow”, and click the find button. If it comes up in the code of your link a link like the one you may potentially get, the site is utilizing the” No follow” command. The links are useless for SEO. Don’t waste your time, unless it happens to be a link on a high traffic page.

What you have never heard of the Source code or have no clue how to view it? In your browser, click the view button at the top, go down in the drop menu and click view source. The resulting page is a view of the inner workings of the page you are viewing. You can also get to the source code by right clicking on a blank space on the page, and then scrolling down to the view source link.

Once in the source code follow the instructions in the preceding paragraph to find out if the page is using “No Follow” tags.

What does a “No Follow” tag do?

The “No follow” tag keeps the search engine spiders from following the link.

Search engine spiders, what the heck is that?

Search engine spiders refers to the programs or algorhtyms that the search engines use to gather information about all the sites out on the Internet. It isn’t really a spider as in the little critters that crawl into your mouth while you sleep.

Why use a “no follow” tag?

  1. There may be a file that is on your site that you may not want spiders or search engines to visit, similar to a robot.txt, it will keep spiders out of secured areas of a site.
  2. Blogs use them in there comments section links to deter spammers. This is a relatively recent standard tool for blog owners.
  3. It has also been implemented by wiki’s including Wikipedia – to prevent the deluge(oh I love that word) of spammers looking to increase their search engine rankings with a highly valuable link.

Thanks to Lizzie Bean whom I consulted with on this post.

Written by Pixelhead on February 14th, 2007 with 9 comments.
Read more articles on Internet Tools and SEM and SEO and Uncategorized.

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