SEO Advice - The Horse Pill

The other night I had a lady ask me how to solve a tricky SEO problem she was having with a competitor and she asked me because a friend of mine told her I am an SEO Consultant.

She told me her SEO problems and I gave her a solution that was a bit outside of the box and she didn't understand that it was the solution to her SEO problem. She kept on saying here is the problem, here it is and I told her just to remove it. Sometimes you have to let go. But above all, sometimes you have to listen, then you understand.

When you know your competitor is your superior at SEO or worse yet is a SEO Consultant with far superior SEO knowledge, SEO Experience and link energy than you possess. It is time for you to get your own SEO Consultant and then LISTEN to him. Sometimes the answer is going to be a horse pill you aren't willing to swallow, but like a rip tide, if you fight it the wrong way you are always going to lose. So if your way clearly isn't working and you have wasted two years doing it your way. Listen to good SEO advice when you ask for it and try it another way for six months. What do you have to lose when you have already lost? Nothing, right?

SEO Advice – The Horse Pill

Legend of the SEO Champion

Last Thursday I was at the August Presentation Style South Florida SEO Social Meetup and I got to hear about the SEO Champion at SES, basically a crazy guy that showed up at SES, crashed a private Microsoft event and caused all sorts of mayhem.

The SEO Champion's legend (infamy?) is spreading like wild fire around the blogosphere and some people even think the SEO Champion is legit.

I have some tips for The SEO Champion's next event:

1. Don't go drunk
2. If you are on meds, take them
3. Don't start any fights
4. Don't wear a chicken suit
5. Don't try to sell SEO Services at SES to legitimate SEO Consultants. (that is just like selling snow, ice and a refrigerator to an Eskimo)
   

Anyways this guy is sort of smart because he is being linked and talked about quite a bit. Maybe all the crazy clients will find him.

Legend of the SEO Champion

User Experience Design and SEO

What does user experience design (UX) have to do with SEO? EVERYTHING!!

Usability and user experience design can help improve your conversion rates, but this takes time and effort. Bad design can lead to a poor user experience. Tweaking your website's UX can have big time payoffs for your SEO efforts, leading to more conversions and an increase in your bottom line.

A good UX design incorporating business and marketing goals while catering to your end user's Experience isn't easy and it doesn't happen over night. The template and graphic tweaks can take a week to do and roll out. Then you have to wait a month to see test the results of your new UX design tweaking. One of three things will most likely happen: nothing will improve; your stats and conversions will remain steady (+/-3% on your conversions); you will have a modest gain in conversions (maybe 3-9% more conversions, which is a pretty good gain in conversions) or you will have a substantial gain in conversions (over 10%, up to 30% increase in conversions)

The key is patience and being able to afford tweaks and changes on your website. Who does User Experience Design and SEO tweaks on their website(s)? How about Google for starters. I recently listened to one of their podcasts and they had a 30% gain on conversions for one of their products, Picasa. Want to know why Google does so damned good? They spend time and money on good UX. And if Google doesn't get the UX tweaks right the first time, they do UX tweaks again until they get the bump that they need.

Don't just think you are going to make a website and get the user experience design right the first time. This is never the case. Every website is always in Beta, it just might not say it on the logo. If you care about keeping a healthy defensible competitive edge on your competition keep user experience design in your mind and your budget. Defending and improving your Defensible competitive edge like this can be dangerously awesome for your bottom line.

User Experience Design and SEO

Cost of Winning A Macbook Air - The Whuffie Factor

I was talking to a designer friend of mine at Superstarch yesterday and Marcus asked me, "How much effort did you put into winning the Macbook Air?" I thought that was a really good question, so it needs a really good answer. How much is a $1800 Macbook Air worth? How much was the Whuffie Factor?

The answer to his question is simple, yet very complex. First I took a look at what the contest was and decided to throw my hat over the wall, join the site and invited some friends. Very quickly I put myself in the a position to get in the running for it by having the most referrals on the site, having the Most Followers, and being the Most Commented. I also had a ton of content from the services that Second|Brain supported.

Once Second|Brain choose me as one of the Six it was all downhill from there.

I took a look at the other competitors none of them had the network or Social Media empire that I have. I was very thankful that someone like Scoble wasn't in on the Contest and later when they turned it into a vote I knew the Macbook Air was mine, unless all the people on Second|Brain voted against me, I just had more Social Capital then everyone else.

What is social capital? My 474 friends on Myspace, my 320 friends on Multiply, my 309 followers on Twitter, my 146 Followers Plurk, my 538 friends Iconbuffet and my 234 friends Facebook. This is the Whuffie Factor I had in my favor. 1547 or so people (some are dupes), that is about a dollar a person. All my years of social spelunking paid off in the form of Whuffie.

The cost of time was about five extra hours a day between my misc tasks over the course of six days. One of the days I even took off and helped a friend fix up his new house. The real cost was social momentum; one year on Iconbuffet, four years on Myspace, four years on Multiply, one year on Twitter, one month on Plurk and two years on Facebook. All that time spent on these social networks was what won me the contest. I just had more social capital then anyone else in the running. Who knew having a giant SEO Social Media network could pay off so well?

The Whuffie Factor = $1,749.95
The mere fact that I won the Macbook Air in the Second|Brain Contest - Priceless.



Cost of Winning A Macbook Air – The Whuffie Factor

Second Brain - Vote for Me!

I am in the running for a Macbook Air on Second Brain, join up, follow me and vote Dude FTW! Contest Ends on the Third!
http://secondbrain.com/contest
http://digg.com/apple/Vote_for_the_Top_SecondBrainer
Contest ends on the 3rd

Joomla Growing Pains

Wow what a month for Joomla! Joomla is going through some Growing Pains. The long awaited Joomla 1.5 was release last month, along with three other updates (Joomla 1.5.1, Joomla 1.14, Joomla 1.15) all in one months time! These updates address security vulnerabilities and a few bugs fixes.

The last two updates were six months apart. Joomla! 1.0.13 hit July 07 and Joomla! 1.0.12 was Dec 06. So its a bit refreshing to see all these updates and fixes all in one month.

Joomla 1.5 (which has been in beta since Oct 06) seemed like it was never going to come out! I am glad its out of beta. I am going to start using more of the beta software in test domains to stay ahead of the curve from now on.

Joomla Growing Pains

Google update - Jan 08

Google just updated last week. For most web sites nothing special happened but for others Google took away some of their precious page rank on their web site or blogs. I am not talking about one or two point page rank reductions, this Google Update took (and the last one as well) took away 3 points or more. And in some cases a few sites lost all their Page Rank.

Some of the harder hit web sites were Renkoo, Del.icio.us and Ma.gnolia where I saw some users that are in my network loose all their Pageranks. Renkoo lost two points on its main page (dropping from a PR7 to a PR5) and most of the users I know lost at least one point on their blogs. The worst was on Delicio.us where a CEO's linking blog went from a page rank five to zero, this reduction also happened to a few other people on other networks as well. The best for me was one of my local competitors lost out as well, dropping from a PR 7 to a PR 4, on his main web page.

What happened? Google made things tougher in most cases (except Renkoo who did it to themselves). Having a web site or a social network without a strong sense of what SEO is all about is like saying I want to have zero defensible competitive edge. Having an Strong sense of SEO could have preserved Renkoo's former Page Rank at seven or improved it upwards. For a few bloggers the reductions came because they (like Renkoo) were asleep at the wheel.

Maintaining a strong position in Google (and thus your defensible competitive edge) requires constant work, vigilance, and a keen eye for detail. Think of working on your web page like just like doing work on a race car, sometimes you have to go into the pit for either gas or tires. A lot of people's web sites just ran out of gas while on the track. So just like racing, make sure you stay on track, don't fall asleep at the wheel and keep a good SEO guy on your team.

Google update – Jan 08

Colbert Once Again The Greatest Living American

After having his site taken off Google for the term, "The Greatest Living American" for being Google bombed to the number one spot. Stephen Colbert is back with a vengeance. The Cobertnation is now winning for the term "The Greatest Living American" both with and without quotes. I guess Google's work around for Google Bombing isn't working again.



Update 10.01.07 Looks like this was very short lived. Google updated the day after I posted this blog. I also fixed the typos. Sorry to all who were offended over two typos.

"The Greatest Living American"

Colbert Once Again The Greatest Living American

Mystery Meat Navigation

Mystery Meat Navigation (MMN) is something that is one of my major pet peeves. I run into at least one new site a day that has Mystery Meat Navigation. Lets take a look at a really bad old site that has Mystery Meat Navigation and once you see how bad this method can be. You will be more wary of using Mystery Meat Navigation in your next web design.

Reggaereport

Look at the left Menu on this site. What do you see? Mystery Meat Navigation!! Now quickly! What do this icons do? Do they help you find useful information on the site? Or do they confuse you? Now if you were able to tell those links are: Irie 'Tings, World a'Reggae News, New Releases, CD Reviews, Crucial Cuts, Photo Album, Fan Mail, About Us, Advertise; without looking at the source code. Thats great. Granted the old designer put alt tags in his Mystery Meat Navigation, but they aren't working in Firefox. Avoid doing your next cool menu with Mystery Meat Navigation if you can.

Mystery Meat Navigation

The Difference Between SEO and SEM

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Search Engine Marketing (SEM) are Two different things altogether. The two things go hand in hand but are often thought of as one thing. Search Engine Optimization is what is done to your site to ensure that the end users have a friendly easy to use web site with SEF Menus and SEF URLS that Google, Yahoo, MSN and Ask.com crawl through and find your content. Search Engine Marketing is doing the advertising and marketing of your site. Ironical this is all done "offsite" whereas SEO is mostly done "onsite". SEO is a more technical process than SEM and involves a deeper understanding of search engine algorithms.

Search Engine Marketing (SEM) involves advertising and target marketing in order to draw traffic to websites. This includes:

Pay-for-inclusion - Many SEM companies guarantee your site will be indexed by the search engines within a short period of time, and if you really want to you can directly submit your site to the engines. DO NOT DO THIS until your site is done. Also do not go around your SEO/SEM advertiser's back and do this multiple times, this is a form of spam which you are penalized for. Patience is the key. Submission fees are required for submissions to search engines and directories.

Email Marketing (aka "Email Blasts" and "Spamming") - I firmly do not believe in Email Marketing. Unless you already have your own list of clients that read your emails, don't Email Market. I never open spam and everyone I know hates being spammed. So why pay to piss off 10,000 people or more every week? Conversely the Email Marketer will tell you not to SEO or SEM your web site in more cost effective ways. They want you to keep paying for Email Blasts. I think spending your time and money on natural position on Google, Yahoo, MSN and Ask.com is a much better business model then sending out 10,000 emails where 90% of them are not even read.

Traditional Ads (PPC - Pay Per Click) - Ads are displayed on the SERP (Search Engine Results Page) generally these are text based ads, where the copy is written by the SEO/SEM advertiser. Ads are based on the Keyword entered in the search and fees are triggered by impressions. You pay for the ad even if it's not clicked through. You want to work with your SEO/SEM advertiser so that your ads Click Through Rate has a high percentage. You can easily spend hundreds a day for very little ROI.

Link Exchanging - The SEO/SEM advertiser trades for one way, reciprocal and three way link exchanges while making sure they are of the same niche as you web site is and not spammy web sites. Its the hardest part of getting your web site going.

ROI tracking - The SEO/SEM advertiser tracks your Web Site's stats

SEM and SEO are both a necessary evil if you want a successful web site. Make sure that you work with your SEO/SEM advertiser to Market your web site very strongly both before and after you enjoy organic listings in Google, Yahoo, MSN and Ask.com. Remember if you website is brand new and has no content its going to go no where fast. Content is King. Listen to your SEO/SEM advertiser.

The Difference Between SEO And SEM

HBO: Too Hot Not to Handle

Heat waves. Melting glaciers. Rising sea levels. Catastrophic storms. Migrating viruses. Population displacement. Over the past 100 years, the mass consumption of fossil fuels, especially in America, has contributed to a dangerous warming of the earth that has adversely impacted the way we live.

read more | digg story

Search Engine Friendly Web Design

A search engine friendly design can greatly decrease other search engine marketing and advertising costs. Search engine friendly web design is often an after thought when someone has the idea for a flash web site. People rarely start out thinking about search engine friendly web design in the early stages of their web development. Search engine friendly Web design, Good content and usability should the corner stones of your web site. Flash should be an afterthought or used in small doses.

What is search engine friendly web design? Your web site should have: Search Engine Friendly URLs (SEF URLS), Search Engine Friendly Menus (SEF Menus), dynamic titles, and dynamic headers. Never use Flash or JS scripts in your web site's menus if you want your web site spidered by any of the search engines. A menu that looks just as good if not better than flash can be done with CSS, XHTML or DHTML. A lot of web sites have the same header on every page, a bad header or a non matching header.

If your site is brand new, it will take three to six months to get listed on the major search engines. Have us use our Search Engine Friendly Web design methods to help your web site have a strong foundation so you can get into the search engines. Search engine friendly web design should never be an after thought.

Search Engine Friendly Web Design

Facebook is Selling YOUR Information - Repost

Apparently Facebook has started SELLING user information (surprise, surprise!) to third parties. They call it the "Facebook Development Platform."

To restrict use of your information, do the following:
Click "Privacy" on top right.
Under the "Facebook Platform" section click"Edit Settings".
Scroll down to the bottom and UNCHECK ALL of the items under facebook platform.

Most creepy is the inclusion of photographs!
(Do your friends a favor and repost this as your own note.)

Does what happen in the Facebook stay in the Facebook?

facebook

Is Stephen Colbert the Greatest Living American?

It seems that Google bombing isn't going away. The internet nerds are all doing the dance to make Stephen Colbert the Greatest Living American. In less than two weeks the position for the term "the greatest living American" in Google has gone up to the number one spot in Google for the www.colbertnation.com. Now I am sure Stephen is a great guy, but is he really the greatest living American?

The cool people over at Digg seem to be getting behind this Google bomb of "greatest living American" so they can win the top spot for the term in Google for Stephen Colbert's The Colbert Nation - www.colbertnation.com. As of today The Colbert Nation only has spot six in yahoo, spot two in MSN and its not listed in Ask.com on page one at all. However the number one spot in Ask seems to be the Google bomber:


SEOmoz | Help Make Stephen Colbert the "Greatest Living American"
Help Make Stephen Colbert the "Greatest Living American" ... Use the anchor text "Greatest Living American" ...
www.seomoz.org/blog/stephen-colbert-the-greatest-living-American-... www.seomoz.org/blog/stephen-colbert-the-greatest-living-American-a-Googlebombing-campaign

Notice that the SEOMOZ.ORG site has a good Header with the title of "Greatest Living American", keywording of the term "greatest living American" and it has "greatest living American" in the URL as well.

This proves to me that Google's removal of older Google bombings were a limited manual process to appease President Bush, not in anyway an improvement in their Search Engine. It also shows the power of one way linking. Google needs to start working on their code to keep up with Ask.com now. I think they are getting away from being a leader in good search and trying so much to be a profit machine. Maybe we should Google bomb Google as "talentless hacks"(the first Google bomb) and see how quickly they fix the Google bombing issue.

I bet Stephen Colbert loves being the greatest living American on the internet. Stephen Colbert might be the best fake Neocon Demagogue but he is not the greatest living American. Why can't I be the greatest living American instead? I like to think Eddie Van Halen is the greatest living American. Or maybe Micheal Moore is the greatest living American.

But who knows? One thing is for sure, The greatest living American isn't President Bush.

"The Greatest Living American"

Advanced Search Options for Google

Here is a short list of useful Advanced Search options for Google:

cache:www .example.com Google's cache of example.com
link:www .example.com List of websites that link to example.com
related:www.example.com List web pages similar to www.example.com
info:www.example.com Show information that Google has about www.example.com
site:www.example.com List all web pages hosted at www.example.com
allintitle:query Restrict the results to those with all of the query words in the title.
intitle:query Restrict the results to documents containing that word in the title.
allinurl:query Restrict the results to those with all of the query words in the URL.
inurl:query Restrict the results to documents containing that word in the URL.
apple * sauce the words apple and sauce separated by exactly one word
Nokia phone $100...300 Search within a range of numbers for a Nokia phone between $100...300
safesearch: sex education Search for sex education material without returning adult sites

Frappr Map

Tivo 30 sec Skip Remote Hack

Watch a recorded show on your Tivo.

On your Tivo Remote press the following combo: select, play, select. 3. 0. and select.

You will hear three happy thumbs up beeps

Now to use it see the key above the "3" ->|

Every time you use that key you skip 30 secs. Hit it 4-6 times and you are all good.

This hack will have to be redone anytime you lose power on your Tivo or on reboots.

Heiko is a Douche that doesn't know what RSS is.

Heiko is a Douche that doen't know what RSS is.


http://muds.multiply.com/journal/item/239?mark_read=muds:journal:239&replies_read=1

Content Management System

I am part of a cutting-edge graphic design firm located in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. I help businesses throughout South Florida create innovative, eye-catching Websites with Content Management Systems. A Content Management System (CMS) makes it a breeze to update your web site's content. With an open source Content Management System Adding web pages is a breeze.

We don't just install a Content Management System and call it a day. We make the Content Management System look like your own personal website and not just another template site. We also make sure that the Content Management System is Search Engine Optimized, with the meta tags in the right place and SEF URLS. We design a custom look for your site and make sure that the CMS doesn't look default.

We also train you to use your Content Management System, so you can login and make your own content. We maintain your Content Management System after we design your website, and will do software updates as needed. Why would you want a five page site without a Content Management System? I have met with clients that spent $5000 on a basic seven page site that wasn't search engine optimized and it did NOT have a Content Management System.

Here's just a few things that you get from a Content Management System

* You can add your own images to your website without a webmaster
* You can make unlimited updates to your website without the need for a webmaster
* You can add unlimited pages to your websites anytime you want without a webmaster
* You can add all the links you want without a webmaster
* You can add music with a simple add-on
* You can add streaming video with a simple add-on
* You can gather email addresses from your customers
* You can have email enabled contact forms on your sites
* Manage Banners and Ads easily
* Have a completely searchable website
* You can conduct polls
* Detailed Page and Hit statistics
* and much much more!

Become your own Web Master today!

George Bush No Longer a Miserable Failure

At least thats what Google not says. Google removed the link to the white house page of GW Bush recently as the number one hit for the search "Miserable Failure" They have also undone a few other Google bombs such as the one that was making the site for the movie "Super Size Me" win for the term "McDonald's" This looks like a crack down on Google bombing in general.

Also the White House has changed the URL for the target link from:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/president/gwbbio.html
The old link redirects here:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/president/

I used to think that the people at Google have a sense of humor. This change seems to have a human hand to it. It was good while it lasted. However they still keep the term "leave" results as Disney.com Most porno sites link their "Leave" button on their splash page to Disney.com. So it looks like they don't have this feature fully fleshed out just yet.


In case you don't know what all this Google bombing stuff is about, I have it explained here