Danny Dover wrote an interesting post at SEOmoz titled, “The Beginner’s Checklist For Small Business SEO.” I agree with a lot of his points, but one thing I’d like to add is that you don’t necessarily need to sign up for Google AdWords, as he suggests, to do your keyword research. Google AdWords has an external keyword tool.

In step 4 of his checklist, this is precisely what he suggests:

Research your chosen keywords - Sign up for Google Adwords and learn how to use the provided “keyword tool” and “ad text ideas” generator. Learn how to use Wordtracker (paid) and/or the Keyword Difficulty tool (free).

While you certainly want to use the best keyword tools possible, and Google AdWords, has an awesome tool, the external tool is just as useful and you don’t have to sign up for an account with Google to use. You’ll eventually want to sign up for Google AdWords, especially if you plan to use pay per click advertising. And even if you don’t go the PPC route you’ll still want to sign up for it so you can use Google Analytics, which requires a Google AdWords account. But the external keyword tool doesn’t require an account at all and for beginning SEOs that matters. You don’t want to give out your personal information before it’s time. Learn to use the tools first then when it becomes necessary you open your account.

PageRank is often maligned as been useless, out of date and not a true reflection of a pages real value. This is in the main quite true. However, there must be some value to PageRank and if there is, can it assist you in your search engine optimization strategies.

My simple response is no, yes and yes. Hang on, I hear you say, there are only two queries in that last sentence? True. PageRank on your site has little value. So the answer is NO, PageRank has no value. However, PageRank on another site is a different matter - so YES, PageRank does matter and YES it can help with your search engine optimization strategies.

Now I have got you totally confused, let me clarify and start by explaining what PageRank does tell you. PageRank whilst out of date, has important historical value. If a page that you are looking at has a PR of say 4, then you know that this page has had some good search engine optimization strategies applied.

A PR of 4 would have some quality links coming in, a good use of keywords and, most importantly, has some value when it comes to search engine recognition. It also says that the page and web site has probably not engaged in any spammy activities that search engines would could penalize a site for. In other words, when PageRanks were calculated, this page had adhered to all search engine optimization strategies appropriately and had some authority.

Okay, you say, we now know that this site has some authority when it comes to search engine recognition. How do I use that in my search engine optimization program? You can probably guess what I am going to say. This site has good PageRank therefore it has some authority. If I am looking for sites to link from (or even link to), then this is one site (or page) that is worth working on.

Obtaining links from a site with an authority PageRank like this could help boost your sites rankings. You could visit and leave regular comments (if enabled) or you could approach the website owner to see if a one way or two link program could be put in place. As knowing someone else’s PageRank could be very handy.

It seems that there’s a new search engine startup every week. Everybody wants in on the search engine game, either to topple the king of search - Google - or just to make some money and capitalize on an ever-growing industry. Whatever the motives, there are some of the new startups that are worth trying, but others leave something to be desired.

The latest trend in search engines seems to be visual search results or video results. One such search engine was SearchMe. Now, a similar concept has come along called Viewzi.

Viewzi is still in beta. I had a chance to take it for a test drive, but I wasn’t impressed. Most of the results seem to come straight out of Google and Yahoo!, but you have to wait for the pages to transfer data in order to get the full benefit. One cool thing about Viewzi you can choose the type of view that your results are shown in, and there are several options offered, including:

• Text View
• Photo View
• Web Screenshot View
• Video View
• Among others

Unfortunately, all the results show on one page so the load time is tremendously slow. In text view, for instance, I got over 150 results for the first search I made and after a couple of minutes the results were still loading. That’s frustrating for a user. While I wait for my browser to interpret the information, I can’t do anything else. Now I know why the major search engines only include 10 results per page.

One view borrows the 3D scrolling screenshot concept of SearchMe. Not a bad idea really, but I don’t find it all that helpful since I have to scroll through every single screenshot just to see which results are available, unlike the text view that at least allows me to see multiple results at one time. In terms of adding visual search results to the SERP, I think that Ask has done the best job in making search more visual with its Ask 3D product. But I really see nothing special about the new search startups attempting to make search more visual.

I hear talk of ‘new’ search engine optimization techniques being better than any of the ‘old’ ones and often wonder what is meant by ‘new’. Search engine optimization techniques are constantly changing, but often it is only in the order of preference, or at the fringes.

The ‘old’ team of content, keywords and links remain at the forefront and always will. They say that social media is taking over and will be the new social optimization strategy in the future. Surely social media still relies on the big three, content, keyword and linking.

In reality, until the search engines change their techniques completely, they will always remain at the top of the list. It is not the ‘what’ that changes, it is the ‘how’ and that is constantly in flux. Blogs have been the flavor of the month for a long time, but now social marketing and social networking activities are taking over as the primary off site search engine optimization tool.

If your running a web site then you still have to undertake ‘old’ search engine optimization strategies to maintain a decent position in the SERPs. Any offsite activities need to be done in such a way that they compliment what is being undertaken on the main site.

We started with web sites and then moved to blogs. We then incorporated RSS to keep our readers up to date. From there we traversed podcasting and now it is video. Where we go next is any one’s guess, what I do know is that the three kings of search engine optimization; content, keywords and links; will stay at the top of all strategies - call them ‘old’ - call them ‘new’ - it hardly matters. They are all primary focus in all search engine optimization programs.

The book is geared to cater towards those who are new to online marketing as well as people who are more seasoned in the field. It is certainly worth having as a reference book and keeping by when looking for SEO guidance. Even SEO experts have claimed that this book is a top read when it comes to search engine marketing books and is worth your time. It written in a way that people can understand and doesn’t speak down to the reader.

Jerri L. Ledford has been a freelance business technology writer for over fifteen years. She has written over 750 news stories, profiles, reports and more. She teaches courses for such large companies like CNET, Hewlett Packard and others and has also authored two books – “Google Powered: Productivity with Online Tools” and “Google Analytics.”

There’s no doubt that Internet marketing is changing. Rapidly. The onset of social media marketing has some SEOs running for cover. They just don’t want to deal with it. In a word, all we need is a little information management.

The truth is, the two really go hand in hand. So says Danny Sullivan - and now, Kalena Jordan. Here’s what she says about an SEO campaign for a client who needs quick backlinks:

What’s the solution? To me, it’s implementing a blog. There’s no faster way I know of to acquire links and get your site indexed.

And the interesting thing about blogging is that it incorporates elements of SEO and social media. Blogging is the perfect fusion between the two.

In 2008, successful Internet marketers are marketers who have learned to use both tools to market themselves and their products. They are not at odds. They are brother and sister, siblings in a grand clan that promises to make the future better for all marketers. In this year and next, it isn’t a matter of whether you should use SEO more or social media marketing; it’s a matter of how well you can blend the two for more effective marketing overall.

So you think you can get into search engine optimization fairly easily. Perhaps you can. The top five skills required to be effective in this field, strangely enough, match the top five search engine optimization strategies to get good rankings.

Content Creation
They say content is king so you need to be a king maker. Being able to produce content on a regular basis is important. Without the right content, nothing else matters. Can you write the kind of content required to satisfy search engine optimization requirements.

Keyword Analysis
If you understand how to create good content then you are half way there. Keyword analysis is probably the hardest requirement. Being able to find keywords that have not been heavily targeted already can be difficult. Being able to think laterally is a big help, for instance, using mis-spellings as keywords in your search engine optimization program.

Link Building
Link building is essential for search engine optimization success. Links now probably count more to search results placement than any other single factor so knowing how and where to gather these links is most important. A good knowledge of internal linking is also ideal

Marketing
You have the content. You have the keywords. Your building your links. A good knowledge of marketing requirements can help you fine tune your search engine optimization program to maximize results.

Analytics
Being able to use analytics tools to measure the success of your search engine optimization programs is necessary. By using these tools effectively you can gauge whether your strategies are working and if not, which ones need to be modified.

A simple list of skills, yet few people can lay claim to be highly proficient in all five. I could go on. Psychology is a big help, understanding people and their habits; social skills and using them to take advantage of social media; finally, to be really successful at search engine optimization, you need to be highly organized and able to think quickly. Now I think that’s more thank five!

These days you have to get creative with your link building. I mean, paid links will get you in trouble. Links from the same web site over and over again will eventually cease to provide you any new benefits. Setting up an off site blog was a great way to build inbound links for a while, and it still is with Yahoo!, but that benefit is fading. Article marketing is still effective, but who knows how long that will last?

When it comes to link building, especially with Google, you have to really work hard to get good links. Well, now there is another tool that you can use to help build some quality inbound links to your website, and possibly even get new traffic. The website is Yedda.

Yedda, like Yahoo! Answers and similar sites, allows you to ask questions or answer questions that others have posed and link back to the source. Think about that. Someone asks a question about something within your niche and you know the answer. You answer the question then link to a page on your website that provides more detail. Instant inbound link.

It’s old news now - well a week old anyway. How are your search engine optimization strategies holding up under Yahoo!’s new Slurp 3.0 web crawler. It seems that while in the test phase the new crawler did cause a few little hiccups in the way it picked up data from web sites.

All is good now and the new crawler is slowly making its way around the net. If your the kind of person that goes looking for crawl evidence as part of your search engine optimization program then perhaps you should check out Yahoo!’s latest blog on the subject.

To quote a small snippet:

[source - Yahoo!]Any reverse DNS checks to identify our crawler will continue to work. Please note that if you’re using IP-based recognition of our crawlers, you might see a drop in crawl/coverage from Yahoo!

Yahoo! is quick to point out that as far a web masters are concerned, nothing has changed and Slurp 3.0 will continue to read Robot files as before. There appears to be no reason to change any search engine optimization strategies. Reactions on the Yahoo! blog site have been mixed with some finding crawl problems with others questioning the sudden jump in search results for some of the social media sites.

The proof will be in the search results over the next month two. Give it a week to settle then see what changes there are. I suspect that social media sites will continue to return higher positions in the search results pages. This can only mean that as webmasters, we will have to work harder on our social marketing and search engine optimization programs.

Both Google and Live Search have added developments to their news Search Engine Optimization and search related tools that marketers can benefit from. First, Google:

To access these new features, first search for a person’s name on Google News. If we have a recent quote, we’ll show it above the search results.

Nice feature. So how can marketers use this feature to help searchers find them more easily? Easy.

Submit a press release with a quote from a top executive of your company to any of several press release distribution websites. Any news agencies that pick up your press release could run it the way it is or call for an interview. Either way, you’re getting your company’s name and your executive’s name in the news. A search for your executive could yield the quote feature noted above with a link that allows searchers to find other news about your executive (and your company).

Now, Live Search:

Live Search is doing some serious revamping all over, but this week they’re talking about the changes they’ve made to their news search feature. There are several ways marketers can take advantage of these developments.

1. Aggregated News - Submit those press releases. If you have relevant news then your news could very well rise to the top.
2. Local News - Be sure to identify your locations in those press releases. People making local searches will find you a lot easier.
3. Multimedia - Include photos and videos in those press releases.

Look for other great developments from Live Search soon. They have plans to include RSS support, which another benefit to marketers, and access to the News search feature from Live Search’s home page.

Don’t count Microsoft out yet. These news improvements can help your business and marketing team perform better public relations and Search Engine Optimization efforts as well.

As companies join the online world they need to decide whether their search engine optimization programs are developed ‘inhouse’ or through external agencies. There are many factors to consider when making a decision such as this particularly as your online experience could be severely affected by a poor decision.

The size of your organization is one of the first considerations along with the amount of online exposure you are looking to achieve. Search engine optimization programs can be more involved if you are setting up an eCommerce site. The factors that need to be considered include:

In House SEO

Depending on the size of the organization and your proposed online presence, one major consideration is whether a dedicated search engine optimization team (or individual) would be fully employed. Small organizations with a limited online exposure may find they are paying big dollars for an individual who spends more time on Facebook than they do on the job.

Inhouse benefits include proximity, that is, the search engine optimization team are close to the action so they are able to pick up corporate and product knowledge quickly. This may give them a closer feel for the needs of the company.

The downside to inhouse search engine optimization teams include effective use of time and value for money issues. Although sounding contrary to the above, being too close to the action and loosing perspective can also be a problem. This last can be a difficult area for management who are not tech savvy; how will you know if your team is being effective?

Outsourced SEO

The most difficult decision when outsourcing your search engine optimization program is knowing who can best meet your needs and who is going to provide value for money. This can only be resolved by researching either online or through business networks and recommendations.

Outsourcing can can often be used successfully to get the ball rolling and to determine its cost effectiveness. Outsourced search engine optimization experts are constantly updating their knowledge; inhouse individuals may feel ’secure’ and not spend too much time in this area.

A downside to using an outsourced expert is the lack of product and corporate knowledge. You are also employing and individual who may have many other projects that they are working on at the same time.

As can be seen, deciding on inhouse or outsourcing for your search engine optimization needs can be a difficult decision. The best solution often is to use an outsourced expert who can undertake all the preliminary work. This work is the most important part of any optimization program as it sets up the future of the web site.

From that point, it really comes down to a value for money decision. Can you afford to employ an inhouse team, or is there more value in outsourcing your search engine optimization needs. The decision is yours.

When you move your website to a new domain and set up a 301 redirect to send your old traffic to that new domain, do yourself a favor and don’t redirect all of your traffic to your new home page. That will definitely create a bad user experience. This is just one of the tips that the Google Webmaster Blog suggests and I rather like the complete list.

Redirecting each page to a like page on your new site, however, is essential for a number of reasons. The first, and probably best, reason is because you will likely lose traffic. Let’s say that your website has 100 pages on it. You have a tiered structure where 10 of your pages extend from your home page and each of those Tier 2 pages have several pages extending from them (call it Tier 3). If you redirect all of your Tier 3 pages to your home page then your users who expected to find detailed information on a specific topic within your niche will be disappointed when they land on your home page and find general information about your niche that isn’t going to help them. Now they have to try to find the information on your website by navigating from page to page.

It is likely that your visitors are finding your through searches at one of the search engines based on a keyword that they entered into a search box. Even if they clicked a link from another website, a social media site, or a blog, they were looking for specific information when they clicked the link. That information won’t be on the first page of your website and your users may not know that they are being redirected to a new site so will just think that your navigation system is broken. If that is the case then you will create a bad experience for them that could cause them to never come back.

Microsites have been around for many years, however they have generally been used for special events such as product releases or for special tasks such as secure checkouts. Microsites are gaining in popularity as the search engine optimization benefits become more apparent.

What is a microsite?
In simple terms, a microsite is a mini site that is an off shoot of the main web site. Blogs attached to web sites can be an example of a microsite.

How do I create a microsite?
This is one area that creates much in the way of discussion in the Search Engine Optimization world. You have three main options. A dedicated domain of its own, microsite.com; a sub-domain under your website, microsite.yourdomain.com; or a subdirectory, yourdomain.com/microsite. Each option has its benefits and the choice will depend on why you are establishing a microsite and what you hope to achieve.

Why create a microsite?
There are many benefits to creating microsites one of which is the ability to help in search engine optimization oucomes. Microsites lend themselves to hub type activity where your main web site sits at the center of a hub. Each microsite then sit, much like moons orbiting a planet. You can define each microsite for individual products or services. This is useful if you sell a variety of products or services that are either not related or only loosely related.

Example: you run a wedding arrangement service. This service also provide catering, flowers and transport. Your main site would be the complete wedding arrangements service. You could then create separate microsites for each of the business units. They would all link back to the parent site (and eventually provide search engine optimization benefits) whilst at the same time either trading individually and/or sending traffic to the parent site.

You can see the benefits that could be gained from such a setup. The type of setup you use would depend on your requirements. Do you want each business unit closely associated with the parent, or loosely? For loose associations, individual domain names would be ideal. For close associations, either a sub-domain or directory could be used.

Microsites can also be built around individual keyword groups with content dedicated to those keywords. Microsites with their own domains can have keywords built into the domain name.

How do microsites help my search engine optimization outcomes?
Microsites can provide strong link building opportunities particularly if the microsite has its own domain (on a separate host may even be better). Microsites that share the same domain help build the ranking of the parent site through increased links, content and tighter keyword usage.

Microsites can provide added momentum to your online business and deliver search engine optimization benefits to your main website. If the idea of using microsites appeals to you but you are not sure how to go about it give us a call at 877-295-0620.

You hear a lot about content. It’s king. Understand?

Well, cliches become cliches because there is an element of truth in them. But what exactly is meant by “content” and how much of it do you need? Do your web pages need to be 250 words or longer? Should they be shorter than 1,000?

In a word, No. There is no limit to the number of words you can have in your content. Search engines don’t count the words and if your site visitors are counting then they need to find something better to do with their time. I’d say that site visitors are probably more interested in the quality of your content.

What it really boils down to is do you speak to your site visitors in a way that they like being spoken to? Does your content talk to them about important subjects? The idea that every web page needs to have 250 words in order to be effective is a myth. There is no lower limit on words per page. You just need good content as part of your Search Engine Optimization.

By the same token, long pages won’t help you either if the content isn’t good. I’d rather have one 150 word page that kills sales records than fifty mediocre pages that do nothing but driving people away from my website. Bottom line: Quality content is much more valuable than quantity, but there is no reason you can’t have both.

Article submission can be a great means of obtaining free advertising and gaining good one way links back into your web site. One way links are considered one of the most important search engine optimization goals for any webmaster.

To get the most mileage out of article submissions, you need to follow a fairly standard set of guidelines. Follow these guidelines and your search engine optimization program will get a boost, your reputation within genre is likely to rise and the amount of traffic may increase over time. Article submission guidelines include:

• Niche Selection: use your web site as the basis for establishing the niche you are going to write in. If your web site is promoting car alarms, use a niche related such as motor vehicle security. You may find that being more specific and using motor vehicle alarms is even more appropriate.
• Submission Site: many sites that offer article submission tips leave this to last, I find it can be important to look at first. Determine where you are going to submit the article, what categories they have and what they allow/forbid within the content. Follow their guidelines. When selecting a site check on whether or not you are going to get a link back from the site itself - search engine optimization relies on inbound links so start with submission sites that may offer link juice.
• Select a Topic: select a topic that you have specific knowledge of, or are familiar with and that you know you can easily research. Selecting a topic makes research difficult as you often don’t know what to actually research. Stick to what your know.
• Research Keywords: do a little research looking for appropriate keywords for your topic and niche. Remember one of the reasons you are undertaking this project is to aid in your search engine optimization program.
• Write a Good Title: actually, make it a great title. You are looking to attract readers and, more importantly, other webmasters to your article. Sell the article using a great title.
• Content: as with all articles, content is highly important. Your content needs to be relevant to the title and niche and must provide value to the reader. It must the kind of article that other webmasters would want to have on their sites.
• Resource Box: create a resource box that has a short bio and that links back to your pages. This is the section that provides the link structure for your search engine optimization program. If you can optimize your links then all the better.
• Submit: submit your article following the article submission sites guidelines.

This is a basic list of steps to follow. Other important areas to note are things like spelling and grammar and using a good paragraph structure. Sometimes it is a good idea to get a third party to review the article. Failing that, leave the article for a day or so then come back and read and edit where required. You are trying to get a near perfect article that other webmasters will want to grab and republish on their sites. This is where the real search engine optimization boost comes from.

Every time your article is used, your resource box should be published with it. This provides the inbound links that you are looking for. If the submission site allows you to customize the link in the resource box, consider rotating through a couple of different resource boxes, each with different link structures. Your search engine optimization program will get a bigger boost if you can use different links with each submission.

Article submission is a smart way to gain extra traffic, extra credibility and of course, a huge boost to your search engine optimization program.