Well lots of stuff. But what have I been thinking about?

Home Improvement SEO

What I have been thinking about are Niches of SEO. We have multiple websites that focus on various niches, such as real estate, travel, food, and home improvement.  Since I have these niche sites, I have decided to focus on these areas from an SEO perspective. So for example our home improvement site, which does have some home improvement articles and home improvement info, I will now focus on doing blog posts that put some SEO type info that include info on how other home improvement webmasters can optimize their sites to improve their results. So maybe some home improvement company owners will find some useful info, and realize how time consuming SEO is, and request a proposal for our Home Improvement SEO services. I have already started out contacting these types of sites via Twitter and Facebook.

Restaurant SEO

For our restaurant review site, I would like to be seen as an authority in the field of resaurant SEO, so I have started adding articles for restaurant owners that will help with their online marketing. Restaurants, much like Home Improvement contractors, should be more concerned with their local search results. Restaurants don’t necessarily need to rank in the natural listings, but do need to show up in the local listings. We can help them with that for sure.

Travel SEO

For our travel site, we will be positioning ourselves as an authority in the travel seo field. We are already getting some traffic for the term Travel SEO. The blog currently has some articles which are aimed at travel agents who would like to increase their marketing. But I believe I can do more than help travel agents. This SEO niche, would seem to be the one that has the most potential.  Travel SEO clients could include hotels, airlines, restaurants at popular vacation destinations, destination travel bureaus, hospitality industry web advertising agencies that do not have in-house SEO staff, resorts, and more.

Update:Check out What is Travel SEO?

Niche SEO Development

First, we have already positioned ourselves as a reputable SEO firm.  Secondly, we have the sites, which we can use to focus on these other SEO niches.  Third we need to spread the word and get more clients in the focus niches.

My efforts as the Social Media Director will be to make contacts with potential clients via Social Media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and Linkedin, by using tactics such as those discussed by our former intern in Using LinkedIN, Twitter and Facebook to to find a Job.

I will be using the rule of 8 touches and tracking my efforts by noting dates and times of contact.

Next, I am in the process of creating landing pages on Baldydog.com for the three SEO Niches, and I will then build some links to the said landing pages, which should help them in the SERPs for these SEO terms which should be far less competitive than SEO terms such as SEO, SEO company, SEO contractor, SEO firm, Search Engine Optimization, Search Engine Optimization Company and the like.

So, what is your seo niche, and how can I help you?

Pixelheadonline blog Tags: niche SEO, SEO Niche,  Restaurant SEO, Travel SEO, Home Improvement SEO

You can check out this TechCrunch article which gives several methods for embedding links. If you decide to use Blackbird Pie, be sure not to use the https version of your tweet links. Also, you must click on the time link below the Tweet which says something like “about 1hr ago” and copy and paste that link into the Blackbird tool to get an embedded tweet like the one on this post.

Other Twitter Stuff

You do know that many of the search engines are using Twitter results for part of their real time search results right? Well tweets do often show up in the SERPs.

Something that makes me go hmm

As you may or may not know,  as part of the Baldydog.com company, we not only do SEO, but I as the Social Media Director, do manage several other blogs.

In addition to all the blogs, as part of the Baldydog network, we have multiple sites to include directories such as Pixelheadonline, Online Legal Directory, Home Improvement Directory, and of course Alltravelsites.com to name just a few. If you want a complete list of our directories, leave a comment, and I will send you an email with the complete list of our directories.

Anyway, while reviewing and publishing travel site submissions on the travel directory, as part of the submission process, I usually send out several tweets about the newly added travel resource. I usually say something like the tweet below.

I also send out a tweet with the individual page for the listing and may include a direct link to the url of the listing if it is a short url.

Link Building Tip

What I have noticed is that links that I tweet, such as individual listing pages, will then be cached in Google. If I don’t Tweet them, they won’t get cached, and as you know, an un-cached page is as good as invisible to Google because it doesn’t know about the web page.
Does this mean you should go and send thousands of spam links to Twitter so they get cached?  I wouldn’t recommend it. I think it is ok occasionally. What I try to do when I do these types of “resource addition” tweets, is to sandwich them between tweets that seek to share, communicate, rt, or be genuinely helpful.

Even these types of tweets, I feel are helpful and not spammy, as I am only tweeting about travel related resources, and most of the 2000+ followers have some sort of travel interest.

So How Can You Use Twitter for Link Buiding

Twitter links as you know are nofollow type links, so they really don’t count for much Google Juice, but they do serve to notify the search engines of your resource, which may otherwise have been uncached.

If you do link building as we do, when you get accepted into a directory, send out a Tweet for the actual listing page of your resource or the category page that your listing appears if it is not too heavily populated with other similar resources.

Try to get as many cached links pointing to your site as possible. Cached with PR is better, but cached at the very least.

So have you noticed similar results using Twitter, or do you think I am erroneous?

**note – to get the box around my tweets, I put the tweets into a table. <table border=”2″><tr><td>Tweet code</table></tr></td>

***For more info on Link Building check out On-Page Optimization Training.

This year, as many believe, including myself, you are going to see a huge increase in the number of smart phones that, much like my iPhone, will be able to access the internet from the palm of your hand. New data plans are becoming available all the time that are well within the budget of many.

You know when you do a search in Google and you put in a location modifyer, and the local listings appear at the top of the page. These are the listings that will appear on the cell phone screen of the user looking for local businesses such as restaurants, shops, Chiropractors, gargages, etc..the idea is, you want to be sure to be on the Google map and as close to the top position on those listings as possible.

Add Your Business to the Google Map

If you have a business and you have done any advertising, your business will probably already be listed on the Google Map. You should however, claim your listing, and submit yourself to be sure that the listing is correct. To do this you will need to have a Google account, and then you will need to log into the Google Local Business Center.

So even if it is already on the map, you should create a new listing and claim your listing. Being sure to to use the correct info to include the use of the five best categories. I would also suggest that you add your biggest keyword and your phone number at the beginning of your add description, so your phone number will appear in the add.

Its a pretty easy process, but just in case you have questions, check out this post for more detailed info on adding your business to the Google Map.

Its already there, how did it get there?

There are several data services(not listing) out there that get their data from both white pages and yellow pages.  Which then add the businesses to the search engines.  So if in the past you had a Yellow Pages add, your business is more than likely listed on the Google Map. The info in your business listing may be old or incorrect, so be sure to check it out, and if it needs to be changed, then log onto the Google Local business center and create your listing.

More and More Local Search

I am going to be doing a series on local search as I really believe that it is going to take off this year, and be even more important. So be sure to check back often, and you can also sign up for the feed.

Pixelheadonline blog Tags: Google Map, local search,Google Local Business Center,

Tag clouds are generally alphabetically ordered lists of tags that make a  visual representation of the overall content on a a website. Words or tags that are represented more often on a site are listed with darker and larger text. Since many of my posts are about SEO, the SEO tag is the biggest and darkest.

When writing posts, each post is “tagged” with representative keywords.  And the more often a tag is used, the bigger and darker that tag will become in the tag cloud.

Yea,  Why Do I care about Tag Clouds?

If you click on the SEO Training tag, you will be brought to a page that contains nothing but posts that have been tagged with the “SEO Training” tag. Each tag will produce a new page. I would also suggest that each tag page should have:

1. A unique title(mine don’t, need to fix that)
2. Contain only post excerpts, not entire posts.

Check out Wayne’s Website Marketing TAG page for an example of a good tag page.

*often times, tag pages show up very high in the SERPs (Search Engine Results Page) because they are usually a good representation of the keyword.

More TAG Do’s and Don’ts

1. Do a bit of keyword research, and tag your blog post with the most relevant keywords which gets the most searches.
2. Don’t use unrelated tags just because they get a lot of searches.
3. If your blog editor does not allow you to put in tags automatically you can use the code like<a rel=”tag” href=”http://www.pixelheadonline.com/blog/tag/seo-tips/”>SEO tips</a>, replacing my info with yours.
4. Use both Tags and categories to organize your blog. Categories can be more general, where tags can be more keyword specific. Using Tags  helps to reduce the number of categories of your blog posts. (I have way to many categories)

Some Tag Cloud Resources

1. WordPress Tag Cloud Pluggins
2. I use the New Tag Cloud Pluggin
3. Got any tag resources to add?

Do you use tag clouds? What is your experience or lack of experience with tag clouds?

tags:  SEO tips,SEO,tag cloud,tag clouds

Thanks to Chris the Video Production intern for filming the video and whose video skills far out way my own. I am sure Chris was not satisfied with the quality of the video, but I have a policy of only doing my home made videos in one take, after all I am only an amatuer.

Cherry Mash Needs SEO

Looking at the CherryMash site, I realize the candy site is a bit dated, but I also noticed that they have a PR5 on the Cherry Mash History page, and they also rank well for a few of their target keywords.

CherryMash.com Stats

• 8.5 years old
• 96 backlinks showing
• canocilization issues – no
  • cached pages with www- 35
  • cached pages without www- 35
• Sample Keywords
  • Cherry Flavored Candy-Google (1) , 18,100 searches/mo …less than 110 searches /mo for this keyword phrase
  • Cherry Candy-Google (1 and 2)…around 18100 searches/mo for this phrase
  • Peanut Brittle- Google (NF +50) …appr. 49,500 searches/mo for this phrase

Why is CherryMash.com a good Candidate for SEO

Cherrymash.com is has a really high PR, and is somewhat of an authority in the candy industry, having somewhat of a cult following. It seems to be a candy that you either love it or hate it. Those who love it, it seems often have a hard time locating the cherry flavored candy. I read online that they often have recipes that involve Cherry Mash as the primary key ingriedent.

Since it does have such a high PR and is over 8 years old, it would respond well in the SERPs if it were to undergo an SEO campaign.

To get a larger portion of Candy market share, they should expand their internet influence to other keyword areas.

Have you heard of CherryMash?

tags: Cherry Mash, cherry candy, chocolate candy