Developer Shed Weekly SEO News for 2010-01-29

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January 29th, 2010 Welcome to the SEO Chat newsletter. The Internet is so much a part of what we do that serious threats to its functioning, of necessity, make us take notice. We can't just react; we have to anticipate. Hence the item we're highlighting this week from eWeek. It reveals the top 10 Internet access, security, and privacy threats for 2010. Check it out; it helps to be prepared. Preparation comes in many forms, as you'll see when you read this week's articles on SEO Chat. For example, if you take on SEO clients located in a country different from the one you reside in, you may find yourself in surprising disagreements â€" until you realize that when you use their version of Google (i.e. google.co.uk for a UK-based business), it will still show results biased by your physical location. Monday's article shows you how to fix this issue. Trying to get the most out of your WordPress blog? Before you make too many changes, check out Tuesday's article, which looks at the practices of one of the best-known WordPress bloggers in the SEO industry: Matt Cutts. Finally, do you know which ranking factors are most important to Google? Are you sure? Check out the three-part article we kicked off on Wednesday before you start your next SEO campaign. Hypothetical questions can sometimes prepare us for real-life situations, as you'll learn from this week's thread; it gives you a chance to weigh all the arguments before you're confronted with the actual. So, given the choice, would you take a link each from two separate PR 2 sites, or one link from a PR 4 site? Stop by the thread and voice your views. While you're pondering, don't forget to stop by Tutorialized to further your SEO education. With more than 100 tutorials on topics such as choosing keywords, website marketing and more, you're sure to find some words of wisdom you can use to help you in your optimization efforts. Or you can submit your own tutorial and dazzle our worldwide audience! Our Spotlight, just for readers of our newsletter, talks broadly about preparing for the kind of SEO campaign that makes most newcomers to this profession nervous: the job interview. Whether you're the prospective employer or employee, how should you prepare? Scroll down to the Spotlight to find out. As always, thanks for reading. Until next time, SEO Chat Staff

ARTICLES Verifying Google Search Engine Ranking Factors WordPress SEO Tips: Benchmarking Matt Cutts Blog Accurate Rank Checking in Google for Different Geographical Locations SEO on Tutorialized SEO Thread of The Week SEO Chat News Spotlight TOOLS Get Our Content on Your Site with DevText! New Articles, Right To Your E-mail

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It's edgy! It's irreverent! It's all about technology! It's News You Can't Use, and you won't want to miss it! View this week's edition to learn the answers to these burning questions: DevShed Hulk is back and green with envy. And radiation poisoning. Plus Jenny brings us all the news that's weird.. Watch the video!

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Verifying Google Search Engine Ranking Factors by Codex-M 2010-01-27 Google search engine ranking factors are among the most important items to check in any SEO work. This will ensure that the strategies formulated are effective, current and optimal for the best search engine ranking results. Every search engine optimization analysis examines the website's performance against these important ranking factors. This article series will take a closer look at these factors and find evidence for their existence, so you will know that you are on the right track when performing SEO on your website. If deficiencies are found in a site's Google search engine ranking factors, the SEO in charge will attempt to make some changes to the website in such a way that it will now become search engine friendly and compliant with SEO ranking factors. Taken from a broader perspective, these improvements cover three important aspects: Content (using optimal titles, checking content quality, focusing relevance to targeted keywords, etc). Links (how other sites reference the website in terms of quality and quantity). Technical aspects (i.e. crawlability of the website). Read Verifying Google Search Engine Ranking Factors

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WordPress SEO Tips: Benchmarking Matt Cutts Blog by Codex-M 2010-01-26 Matt Cutts writes one of the most successful and widely read blogs in the SEO field. What can we learn from taking a close look at his blog ? What lessons can we apply to making our own blog a success? Keep reading as we take benchmarking to a whole new arena. Benchmarking has been defined as ""The process of identifying the best practice in relation to products and processes, both within an industry and outside it, with the object of using this as a guide and reference point for improving the practice of one's own organization." We can use benchmarking techniques to examine highly successful blogs , such as the one written by Matt Cutts , to gain insights, tips and methods and a better understanding of best practices that pertain to optimizing WordPress blogs for the search engines. Blogging using WordPress is the most popular method of blogging among professionals , and it is fortunate to know that Matt Cutts uses WordPress for his blog. Read WordPress SEO Tips: Benchmarking Matt Cutts Blog

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Accurate Rank Checking in Google for Different Geographical Locations by Codex-M 2010-01-25 If one didn't consider geographical location as a factor, one would think ranking a website accurately is a straightforward task. Say a website ranked at position 15 in Google before it was improved with SEO, but after SEO it ranks at position 5 for the chosen keyword(s). Then we can say it reached the first page, and that the SEO campaign was successful. However, the ranking we check is just the tip of the iceberg with respect to client expectations. For example, say you have a client who is US-based and targeting Google.com US, and you are an SEO specialist living in the UK. Of course, your client's and your geographical locations are different, and so are the ranking results you see; they are not exactly the same. Initially, we've observed this to be different and discussed some useful geo-targeting techniques . Read Accurate Rank Checking in Google for Different Geographical Locations

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Tutorialized is dedicated to programming, designing, and many other tech related tutorials. Submit Your Tutorial Today! Online Branding by way of SEO Brand - a trademark or a unique name to identify your product or a manufacturer. Read the tutorial. Creating Search Engine Friendly URLs Using .htaccess Using .htaccess is simple and easy. Read the tutorial. Secrets Behind Link Building On reading this post you should be able to do link building with simple steps. Read the tutorial. 10 Tips To Improve Traffic Learn these 10 steps to increase traffic to your site. Read the tutorial. Bring Customers and Business Together Through Proper Keywords The title says it all. Easy methods. Read the tutorial. 5 SEO Myths Are you still spending too long on worthless SEO? This can help. Read the tutorial.

How can this SEO Newsletter be better? What do you like or dislike about this issue? Is there a topic you want to learn more about? What issues in search engine news are important to you? We'll consider your suggestions and ideas for improvement, so please email us. Email us.

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If Page Rank really didn't mean anything anymore, this week's thread would not have generated the number of replies it has so far, as members discuss the value of backlinks. Be sure to stop by the thread and join the conversation! markhincks What's best, two PR2 links or one PR4 link? Hi, I have a site which has a PR of 4. I have the option to get a link from either 1 PR4 site or 2 PR2 sites. What would benefit me most? chr1ssy There are a lot of factors, but to answer your question, with everything else being equal, I prefer the 1 PR4. Here's some other information you need to consider: -link from a relevant site. -should be quality and not spammy site. -choose a page on that site that has the least outbound links. -choose a page that has the most relevant text/content. -surround the link with relevant text. -have the anchor text be the keyword you want to improve ranking for. -the more links you can get with the anchor text you are trying to rank for the higher your SERPs will be. -The more links you get from high PR sites (on pages preferrably with few outbound links), the higher your PR will become. -PR is logrithmic..i.e. a PR2 may be about 10 times a PR1, a PR3 10 times a PR2, etc.. So based on that, 1 PR4 will pass more PR than (2) PR2 links--but that's only relevant for PR not SERPs. SERPs are generally by the number of links with that anchor text. -higher PR pages will pass more PR which can help your own PR. Some say PR doesn't matter--and I agree it alone doesn't amtter. However I have found having a high PR (meaning you have Google trust) doesn't alone give your high SERPs, but it enables you to get high SERPs easier and stay on top easier. -a page with tons of outbound links will dilute PR value and I believe some link value. I choose pages that have a combo of relevancy, ability to add surrounding text, high PR and few outbound links. -after being succesful with your main generic keyword phrase continue to add links but use some variations and longer tail anchor text to cover all the possibilities. -If a PR4 link is on a "resources/links page" with tons of other links, no relevant text, no surrounding text and the PR2 site is on a page that has the stuff mentioned above, I'd then choose the PR2 page.... so there are more factors than PR, but all being the same, I'd choose the higher PR. Cheers! channel5 There is a lot less magic to the value of links than some people would claim. Pagerank is exponential, and the general consensus is that it runs to log 6. So a PR2 page has around 6 times as much juice a a PR1, a PR3 around 6 times as much as a PR2 etc. So a PR4 page has around 36 times the juice of a PR2. Now, the juice is distributed evenly amongst all outgoing links on the page (even nofollowed links, they just don't pass their juice on) internal or external. So a PR4 link is going to pass more juice than a PR2 link as long as it has less than 36 times the number of outbound links on the page. That's the basic math (okay there are some additional things but this is the simple version!). Put simply, if I was offered the choice I'd take the PR4 link over two PR2s. Posts from this thread may have been abridged or removed. Forum members are responsible for the content of these posts. Read the full thread.

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Preparing for an SEO Interview Whether you're a relatively novice SEO preparing to get your first job in the field, or a business looking to hire an SEO for the first time (on either a contract or permanent basis), you'll need to face the nerve-wracking interview process. It's not a picnic from either side of the desk. If you're the SEO, you're wondering whether the company will expect the impossible. If you're the interviewer, you're wondering if your candidate really knows what he's talking about. What do you do? To start with, it helps to be clear about what, exactly, you're looking for. As the business, if you're expecting to train someone or have them learn on the job, plan for that up front. What you're looking for is an aptitude for SEO, in which case you can start by asking fairly broad questions â€" such as what their favorite sites on the web are, and why. If you're not planning to hire someone who's completely new to the profession, you'll need to ask some technical questions. Past successes matter here. So does general SEO knowledge. Ask them to explain some of the “buzzwords” in the field, such as SERPs, KEI, keyword density, pagerank, and what they think of them. Ask them how search engines work, and how they'd tackle a new SEO project step by step. But that's just a start. You can find lists of 55 and even more than 80 questions to ask an SEO you're thinking of hiring (and if you're on the other end of that, it helps to know the answers!). You need to get a feel not only for what they know, but how they approach things, where they think the industry (and search in general) is going, how invested they are in the field, and so forth. It takes a special kind of person to make sense of the information overload inherent to SEO, pick out the parts that are really important, and act on them. What if you're the interviewee? Some questions are fair, and some aren't. If a company asks you to analyze their website and come back with a full report, for example, that's a red flag; they may take what you tell them, apply it, and then not hire you. Even so, it helps to examine the company's web site before the interview so you know what you're dealing with. Make sure you know what they expect from you, and from SEO in general â€" and if you think it's unrealistic, find a graceful way to tell them why. Don't try to bluff your way through or say only what you think they want to hear; some interviewers actually ask questions designed to trip someone up and weed out candidates, like “Tell me how you use keyword density in your copy writing.” Most important of all, keep reading about SEO, asking questions, and applying what you learn â€" because the best way to prepare for any job is to learn how to do it well. Good luck! Read the relevant forum thread.

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Developer Shed Weekly SEO News for 2010-01-22

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January 22nd, 2010 Welcome to the SEO Chat newsletter. It's been a rough economy, but a number of businesses are actually doing okay. Take a look at Google, for instance. The article we're highlighting this week from eWeek notes that the company seems to be capitalizing on new ad formats. You can read the article for the full details. If you're hoping to do better as well, you need look no further than this week's articles on SEO Chat. In observance of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday, we didn't publish on Monday. Tuesday's article, however, should be of interest to anyone looking to increase sales. It explains how to increase the conversion rate of your web site. Those who liken doing well to doing good might be interested in Wednesday's piece, about Ecosia. This new search engine hopes to help save the rain forest with your clicks. Is it for real? Keywords always raise questions. How many should you try for? Should you cast a wide net, or focus on only a few? That's the question asked in this week's thread. Be sure to stop by the forums for the answers from our members, and to add your own. You'll also want to stop by Tutorialized. With more than 100 SEO-related tutorials, Tutorialized offers tips and tricks on a wide range of topics, from choosing keywords to website marketing and promotion. If you'd like to reach a wide audience with your knowledge, why not submit your own tutorial? It's a great way to share your expertise! Finally, our Spotlight, just for readers of our newsletter, focuses on a quick solution to a surprisingly common SEO problem. How can you tell what searchers using Google in other countries find when they put in your keywords? Scroll down to the Spotlight to find out. As always, thanks for reading. Until next time, SEO Chat Staff

ARTICLES A Search Engine that Saves the Rain Forest? How to Increase the Conversion Rate of Your Website Holiday SEO on Tutorialized SEO Thread of The Week SEO Chat News Spotlight TOOLS Get Our Content on Your Site with DevText! New Articles, Right To Your E-mail

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It's edgy! It's irreverent! It's all about technology! It's News You Can't Use, and you won't want to miss it! View this week's edition to learn the answers to these burning questions: DevShed Hulk is back and green with envy. And radiation poisoning. Plus Jenny brings us all the news that's weird.. Watch the video!

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A Search Engine that Saves the Rain Forest? by Joe Eitel 2010-01-20 What if you could make the world a greener place merely by using the right search engine ? That's the question posed by Ecosia, a newcomer to a field dominated by Google. Is this just a gimmick? Or can we really make this a greener world simply by clicking? Competing with Google in any capacity is becoming increasingly difficult to do. Whether it's the tech giant's new Android technology gaining ground on the ever-popular iPhone, the company's Fast Flip news service compiling more daily website hits than the actual websites from which the news articles featured originated, or Google Voice giving conventional cell phone service providers a run for their money, it's clear that Google dominates at just about every endeavor. First and foremost, however, Google began as a pretty basic search engine, and this service continues to be at the forefront of it all. How many other search engines can boast 3 million users or 2 billion searches each and every day? Surely not very many, which is why "Googling" something has become part of our lexicon for the twenty-first century. After all, have you ever heard someone say they "Yahooed" a term or "Ask-Jeeved" song lyrics? It's pretty doubtful. Read A Search Engine that Saves the Rain Forest?

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How to Increase the Conversion Rate of Your Website by Codex-M 2010-01-19 The conversion rate is the most important web metric in a commercial website. Conversions lead to sales, and sales leads to profits; this is why a good conversion rate is essential for long term business success. Yet this important web metric is often the hardest to figure out. SEO companies often ignore it, and leave it to the website owner to determine. This is not good, because SEO should not only be about increasing traffic from rankings; instead, a good SEO should also pay attention to the conversion rate. Website owners often lack SEO and web marketing skills, and therefore find it hard to solve conversion-related problems. Even if the website has high traffic because of good rankings in organic search engines, a poor conversion rate alone can turn a good ranking/traffic success into a failure. How many SEO clients complain of failing to achieve a reasonable ROI after an SEO campaign? This tutorial aims to educate any website owners experiencing a problem with a low and unacceptable conversion rate. By following the techniques illustrated in this tutorial, any webmaster or web site owner can increase conversion rates without diving into highly technical details or spending thousands by hiring a consultant. Read How to Increase the Conversion Rate of Your Website

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Tutorialized is dedicated to programming, designing, and many other tech related tutorials. Submit Your Tutorial Today! Online Branding by way of SEO Brand - a trademark or a unique name to identify your product or a manufacturer. Read the tutorial. Creating Search Engine Friendly URLs Using .htaccess Using .htaccess is simple and easy. Read the tutorial. Secrets Behind Link Building On reading this post you should be able to do link building with simple steps. Read the tutorial. 10 Tips To Improve Traffic Learn these 10 steps to increase traffic to your site. Read the tutorial. Bring Customers and Business Together Through Proper Keywords The title says it all. Easy methods. Read the tutorial. 5 SEO Myths Are you still spending too long on worthless SEO? This can help. Read the tutorial.

How can this SEO Newsletter be better? What do you like or dislike about this issue? Is there a topic you want to learn more about? What issues in search engine news are important to you? We'll consider your suggestions and ideas for improvement, so please email us. Email us.

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Should you try to win rankings on just a few keywords, or go after lots of them? The answer depends on what kind of keywords, as our forum members explained in this week's thread. Be sure to check it out and join the conversation. Gordon Akman Does it matter how many keywords you use? I think I can fill my daily budget with just a few keywords. Should I just focus on my best keywords and not even bother trying for the more elaborate variations? EGOL You want to fill your daily budget with the few keywords with the highest conversion rate. So, try to pick them... or just do keyword blasting (if you have the budget for that) and turn off the ones that do not convert. (I have a hard time understanding people who allow a budget to throttle their earnings.... if you are making money, why not let the ads run? Only if I had staff or supply problems would I not do that.) Lb1878 If the shoe fits, wear it. If you can elaborate your keywords (synonyms or long tails) and still keep your focus, then sure, go after it. Support your keywords with compelling content and you'll open more doors to traffic. Just make sure your content doesn't repeat itself when going after additional terms. Posts from this thread may have been abridged or removed. Forum members are responsible for the content of these posts. Read the full thread.

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Seeing Your Site From Other Countries With local search becoming so important, SEOs face a new problem. Say you live in the US, but your site is aimed at people who live in the UK. You're doing all the things that should make it rank better on Google UK. But if someone from the UK actually searches using your keywords, how do you know where your site comes up for them? There are a couple of things you could try. You could use a country-specific version of Google's search engine. That will give you a different set of results. What it won't give you, however, is the same set of results that someone actually living in the country you're trying to reach will see. Respected SEO Chat forum member gazzahk has experienced this firsthand. He lives in Hong Kong, but he travels a lot. From his own testing, he has observed that “if you use the different Google country's search engines” the results you get “are not the same results that a person using that version of the search engine in a country gets.” For example, the results he sees on the Hong Kong version of Google, when he's actually IN Hong Kong, are different from the results he sees on that same version of the search engine when he's in Australia or Europe. Apparently Google accounts for the IP of the searcher when it delivers its results. This is to be expected. After all, the search engine is trying to be as useful to general searchers as it possibly can, not to SEOs. If considering a person's actual physical location as a factor can help them find what they're looking for, why shouldn't Google use it as part of the algorithm? Fortunately, there's a way around this. Beanstalk, a Canada-based SEO Chat forum member with a large US client base, deals with it all the time. The trick is to add a suffix to the address bar after you put in your search to tell Google from where you want it to think you're searching. It's &gl= and the two-letter abbreviation for the country. So in his case, after performing the search, he'd add “us” (without quotes). As you probably figured out, the “gl” stands for “geographical location.” So if you're trying to see how you rank for someone searching from the UK, search on google.co.uk and add an ampersand, the letters gl, an equals sign, and the letters uk in the URL. You might get a URL that looks like http://www.google.co.uk/#q=your+search+terms&gl=uk, and you'll see what your target audience sees when they search...without having to make a trip to London. Good luck! Read the relevant forum thread.

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