Not all extensions are equal, half the domain extensions are worthless when it comes to SEO. If you are registering domain names then you ought to be aiming for any of the following in the order that they appear:

1. dot com
2. dot net
3. dot org

I prefer to run a dot info in preference to a sub domain. Dot info sites are great for hosting blogs or support forums. Nothing looks worse than a crumby /blog or blog.domainname.com. Putting in the parent directory of a .info that is linked to from your main site seems to have a little bit more class. .info is worthless as a commercial domain extension on its own, but in conjunction with any of the big three is very good.

The dot us and dot biz extensions are not worth your efforts unless you can manage something clever like del.icio.us. When it comes time to register domain names, Go Daddy offers some of the best registration deals on the Internet and handles multiple domain registrations better than any other registry I have come across.

In SEO a surprising number of people get a little too caught up in what they are doing. It is astonishing just how many SEO writers actually forget that they are writing for people. People do read SEO content and if you get too focused on the robots, then you are likely to lose out on leads. There is nothing worse than reading an article that is written entirely for robots. It is obvious and it reads terribly, it is a very quick way to turn people away from your site.

While your site does have to be geared towards robots, it is possible to do so without turning away human customers. A smattering of keywords is all that is required. Seriously, once or twice per paragraph is enough. I have seen some sites that come closer to once or twice per sentence.

Do not spend too much time worrying about keyword density, it is not the be all and end all as some would claim. As long as your keywords appear throughout your content, robots will index it. Getting too scientific about keyword density makes content production take longer than is necessary. Keep it simple, replace unnecessary pronouns with keywords if you feel that you need to boost the density a little bit, play it by ear.

If you are concerned about the robot / human balance of your material, you can always contact us at Brick Marketing. We have a great deal of experience at producing high quality SEO content.

When it comes to producing large amounts of content we know just how hard it can be. I have probably produced thousands of articles in my time about topics ranging from legal advice to swimming pool cleaning products. Over time I have developed a systematic approach to web content writing that has made the job simpler for me and I am sure can do the same for you.

1. Link your themes - Chances are that you will be producing articles on a range of similar themes. It might be boring, but I have always found it much faster to deal with similar topics and keywords in quick succession. Jumping around keeps things fresh, but it does not make things faster.
2. Original material, repetitive themes - Your material should be entirely original, but the theme of your material does not need to be. You can write the same article as many times as you want as long as you do not repeat the material. You can give each article a different spin if you want to, but it does not particularly matter.
3. As much as you can bear and not a keystroke more - Content writers suffer inordinate amounts of burnout. Don’t worry, it will happen. The good thing is that if you deal with it properly you will bounce back quickly. If the workload gets too much, take a break. It can be difficult to take a break when you have a pressing case load, but managers do often understand and might be able to pass the caseload off to give you a couple of days break.

Building your web content development skills does not take a terribly long time. As you build your experience you will get better and faster and more tolerant of heavy workloads. You can make a living from web content development, plenty of people do, but you need to be build up your skill base first. Start slow and work your way up. If you are producing web content for your own site you can always outsource what you can’t handle.

Social marketing is huge and to give you an idea of how huge take a look at the following passage from Web Pro News:

When it comes to advertising revenues, eMarketer estimates that global online social network ad spending will grow from $1.2 billion in 2007 to $2.2 billion in 2008. Worldwide spending will hit $4 billion in 2011.

In the U.S., spending is projected to rise to $1.6 million in 2008, from $920 million in 2007. “MySpace and Facebook together receive more than 70% of all US social network ad spending,” says Ms. Williamson. “And they are hard at work to convince marketers to allot more of their budgets to social network advertising.”

MySpace and Facebook are obviously the big players in the social advertising market, but don’t discount the other options. What is to say that the next MySpace or Facebook cannot come out of any of the new social networking sites that are on their way up at this point in time. The benefits of Facebook and MySpace is that they provide a large “captive” audience and targeted advertising. If you are looking for a social market, these are perhaps the best markets at this time. With social networking options coming from both Yahoo and Google, there should be a range of similarly attractive options on the way. With social marketing it never hurts to play the field.

Let’s face facts, not all sites need analytics. If you have a five page simple website then analytics are not for you. There is little that can be gleaned from analytics on a simple website that cannot be gleaned from a web counter on a small site.

On big sites, however, analytics come into their own. A website does not have to be a whole lot bigger than five pages for analytics to make sense. Once you start fleshing out your page with content, it is time for analytics, why? Because you want to know what works.

Analytics allows you, the webmaster to monitor which parts of your site are getting hits and which parts are not. Alexa does not cut it in this regard. The sort of information that constitutes real business intelligence is generally provided on a subscription basis. It is affordable, so it is relatively easy to bring it into your site as you begin to build it.

If you are interested in the potential that analytics can offer your site, please do not hesitate to contact us at Brick Marketing.

Customizing your error pages is a great way to ensure that your customers know that your website is still around and is merely offline for one reason or another. The fact is that the Internet is a here today gone tomorrow world and when a site is offline, people more often than not, expect the worse.

Customize your error pages…they should be short and informative. You don’t need much in your error page other than your company name and a vague reason why your site is offline. The best error pages are a little ambiguous as to the reason for the site being offline, thus allowing them to be used in as many situations as possible.

If you are unsure of how to customize your error pages, or would like professional advice as to what to put in your customized error page, please contact us at Brick Marketing. We are happy to provide our professional advice and can give you a range of options for a good error page.

Domain names are one of the most important parts of your brand. If you don’t think that is true, just think about the last time that you looked for a product that you were interested in last time. Did you search for it, or did you just enter the company name in the location bar and hit enter?

When it comes to computer peripherals, I have a favorite company. The company’s name is Razer and they produce a range of performance keyboards and mice. They are generally geared towards gaming and or professional applications. The trouble is that the company is remarkably difficult to find. Type in: “www.razer.com” and you will get an error page. The domain is not owned by the company. The odd thing is that Razer is a pretty big company, so you would think that they would have taken some steps to protect their brand. Razer can be found at “www.razerzone.com” which is close enough to the company name, but still not the same.

Acquiring domain names that are relevant to your business should be one of your primary goals. Pick up keywords and key phrases that you think would make good domains. The best domain names are short and catchy. Many good two words combinations have been taken now, so you might have to go for three word combinations. If you have the resources, you can always look to purchase domain names that are already in use. Boost your brand and you will boost your sales.

If you are looking for an easy way to register up to 500 domain names in one hit, go to Go Daddy. At Brick Marketing, we use Go Daddy for a lot of our domain name registrations and are happy to recommend them to all of our customers. You get great rates, excellent discounts for bulk registrations and they are remarkably simple to use.

While website copywriting and print copywriting share a few similarities, there are just as many differences. The biggest and most obvious difference is in the writing style. Print copy is read primarily by human eyes. As such, print copy is written for people. The style tends to be active, lively and simply written.

Website copywriting is different in that it needs to be written for both humans and search robots. Search robots are programs that scour the web for new pages, index their keywords and return the data to their respective search engines. In order to make website copywriting better adhere to search engine optimization guidelines, the following steps are recommended:

As you can see, website copywriting and print copywriting share a lot of similarities. The primary difference is the optimization. Following the above steps will help you to produce better website copywriting. If you do need to outsource your work to writers that are experienced in the latest techniques, please contact us at Website customer management.

We all know that blogging generates traffic, but how can it be used to promote a website? A great way to pitch your products is by blogging to enthusiasts. This is not always easy as if you do not know what you are talking about; the fact will soon become apparent. If you are aiming to build traffic in this way, then you should ensure that it is strictly a soft sell approach. Hard selling on a blog looks spammy and people do not like that. There are other places for the hard sell.

It is not essential to sell your products and services in every single blog article. If the blog is interesting enough, it will keep people coming back and it will have people checking your archives. Think placement, put those sales articles in there, but buffer them with articles targeted at enthusiasts.

HTML links can help you to push your services. You do not need to hard sell on your blog. You can always link to a landing page if you want to accomplish that end. A couple of well placed links per article is all that it takes. Link to other blogs as well. The trackbacks are likely to have their site owners check your blogs. It is a quick way boost awareness, if only in the professional community. If your blogging is good enough, they may link to you sometime.

If you are interested in incorporating a blog into your website or would like professional advice on writing and publishing your blog, do not hesitate to contact us.

If you want to have photos on your website then make sure you read these quick tips about photo optimization. They are simple tips, but many people do not consider the benefits of photo optimization. There are a ton of indexed articles out there, most people skimp on image optimization, so it is possible to pick up image search traffic. Optimize your photos, you might be sorry if you don’t.

It’s all in the tags – An untagged photo is a waste of space. Search engines see text not images. Make sure that the ALT text is there and give it a decent description. Use lots of keywords in the description, but be sparing in the title.

Don’t forget the pixel size - If you parameters are not in the tags then you might as well not bother. The size is just as important as the title.

Keep the files small – No one wants to see the high definition shots that you took with your 10 Megapixel Nikon D200. Do not bring high definition pictures to a low definition media. Make sure that the images are compressed so that they can load quickly.

Bigger can be better – tiny pictures are a dime a dozen. If your shots are a little bigger, they might attract a little more attention. You do not need to destroy the aesthetics of your site to this end. Pick the biggest size that makes a good fit.

Link to page not to file – If you are earning ad revenue this is very important. If you have a ton of thumbnails that people can view, make sure that they link to page. This will keep your ads showing.

Photo optimization is relatively simple but can take a long time to incorporate if your site has been made without optimization. If you have any questions relating to this or any other SEO topic, please contact us.

Landing pages are a great way to drive traffic to products that you wish to promote. They are marketing tools and to the vast majority of us they look ugly, maybe even a little spammy, but they move products like there is no tomorrow. A quick landing page optimization checklist is below:

• Did you work from a style sheet?
• Is the content entirely original?
• Are the images optimized?
• Is the material sales oriented?
• Is it longer than 250 words but to the point?
• Did you make an effort to highlight keywords and key phrases that you want your visitors to read?
• Does it flow logically from one section to another?
• Does it include a purchase button?

If you answered yes to all of those questions then you have at least come close to making a good landing page. There are a few things that you need to remember. Keep the content simple, don’t overwrite it and do not try to make it seem too sophisticated, it is a landing page and most people will see it for what it is. Make use of different headings and text effects. A popular landing page optimization technique is highlighting key words and passages in yellow. It looks like you ran a highlighter over the text. It makes some sections really stand out.

If you are interested in more tips and techniques for landing page optimization, then please contact us at Brick Marketing. We are happy to offer you our professional advice.

You have to admit that Google is a little information hungry. Some might even say Google is too information hungry, that is why a new search engine from Ask.com looks like it has some real potential. Ask is a big search engine. It might be ranking a distant fourth in the search engine lineup, but fourth is still an enormous amount of search engine traffic.

AskEraser will instantly erase any record of your searches from the company’s servers. Their normal data retention policy calls for eighteen months of retention.

The following passage is from Web Pro News:

Search activity data includes information about the pages you visit on Ask.com, including the terms you search for, the links you click, your IP address, and any user or session identifier.

When AskEraser is enabled, Ask.com will delete from our servers all references containing any single element of search activity data; query (what you searched for, clicked on, etc.), IP address (where you searched from), and user/sessions IDs (who you are in relation to previous searches).

Considering the fact that Google likes to keep their data, this might just have a few benefits when it comes to the security conscious, slightly paranoid crowd and those who just value their privacy. We have seen how personal data can be put to the wrong use in Facebook. Google have been a little more restrained, but it makes some people uncomfortable knowing that there is a record of their search activity out there.

Saturday I posted about Matt Cutts commenting on subdomains. I wasn’t the only one, but it appeared to me that he was saying sudomains were going to be effected in a big way. As it turns out, it was really subtle change and it had already taken place. Nobody noticed. Including me.

Cutts explained himself a little more in detail today on his blog. It makes more sense now.

The real gist of the change has to do with making certain searches more relevant. In his own words:

This change doesn’t apply across the board; if a particular domain is really relevant, we may still return several results from that domain. For example, with a search query like [ibm] the user probably likes/wants to see several results from ibm.com. Note that this is a pretty subtle change, and it doesn’t affect a majority of our queries.

What it appears like Google is trying to do with this change is to prevent several results from the same domain appearing in SERPs when those results are similar in nature. In other words, it might not be duplicate content but the content is close enough in nature that one or more of the results really doesn’t add any value for the searcher. If I’m understanding this change correctly, then that’s how I’d interpret it.

(Blue Hat) I’m curious with all their previous backlinks and such why did those exact domains take longer than the others to get reindexed. Any ideas of why that was?

I still don’t know. I don’t have the attention span long enough to buy some control domains and wait a year to expire them out and hope I manage to get them back in order to do any tests and figure it out. Anyone else experienced this by chance?

Either way I see buying expired domains for SEO reasons as having the following benefits.
1. Established inbound links
2. Aged inbound links

Other than that your still starting from scratch. So my philosophy is, unless the domain is a gem, such as either a good name or it having phenomenal unique backlinks (ie lots of links or saturation like you mentioned) than its easier and more predictable to just work with new domains.

First, a warning: Blut Hat SEO provides some questionable SEO tactics from the search engine perspective. Of course, the old argument that a webmaster has a right to do whatever he wants on his own website is hard to argue against. But then, that also applies to Google, and if you don’t mind running afoul of search engine policies then go ahead and try these things. But I didn’t want to talk about questionable SEO tactics today.

The purpose of this discussion is to shed some light on expired domain names. I don’t see any reason to invest in them for the purpose of getting the benefits they used to have. Whatever they were before you bought them, you’ll have to start building them from scratch. Aaron Wall has talked about a similar experience himself. It didn’t fare too well for him.

If you buy an expired domain name expecting to get the same benefits that the business that owned it before had then you are in for a bid disappointment. It’s a lot like buying an empty building that used to be the home of a thriving business in the brick and mortar world. You wouldn’t expect to get any of the benefits of that previous business, would you? It’s just an empty building. That’s what an expired domain is - an empty building.

Buying an existing Web business, domain name and all, is different. In that case, you are taking an existing business and growing it from the point it is at when you buy it. It could go up or it could go down in value, depending on how well you manage it. But it has built in value. There is no reason to expect that expired domain names have built in value. If you get one that does then consider it a gift, but there is no reason to expect that one will. If you invest in expired domain names expecting built in SEO benefit then you are taking a huge risk. You’re free to do that, of course, but you should know the risk before you get in.

Typically, when you hear marketers talking about SEO and branding, they’re not connected. Sure, you can brand yourself online. You also need to SEO your website. But did you know that you can use your SEO as a branding tool?

It’s true. The most effective elements for using SEO as a branding tool include:

• Your domain name
• Anchor text
• Alt tags
• H2 and H3 tags
• Trademarked keyword terms

I’ve talked about each one of these before, except for the last one. Just to review, a keyword-rich domain name can brand you. It also gives you a tiny edge over the competition. Of course, anchor text is always useful for SEO, but for branding? If your brand is keyword-rich to begin with, yes. H2 and H3 tags with keyword terms in them make your content stand out more. Add a color that becomes a part of every tag and you’ve got instant branding. Alt tags - same deal. Use your keywords.

Consider Google’s PageRank algorithm. It’s trademarked. Any idea why? Because it’s a branding term. Now, page rank isn’t trademarked because it represents an idea behind the PageRank trademark. That’s what makes the trademark such a powerful branding item for Google. It’s based on a popular keyword.

Of course, you can’t trademark a keyword. But you can trademark a branding version of a keyword. Let’s say, for instance, that you are a salad chef. Your most popular keyword phrase is salad chef. You can’t trademark the keyword, but you can trademark SaladChef as a variant of the keyword and use it as a branding item. Doing this prevents anyone else from taking the same variation and using it to capitalize on. It’s a powerful branding technique. Try it!