Because if I wasn't working, I'd be going to Webmasters Internet Marketing and Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) Networking Conference in Marbella Spain September 24 to 25. Not that we can't share all our SEO tips and tricks online...
One debate that I've seen numerous times on numerous forums is whether you should write copy for search engines or humans. One side says do your SEO through linking and wwrite copy for humans. The other side says get your keywords in there as many times as you can because higher rankings will justify the not as attractive copy. Jill Whalen says:
Clients (and even some SEOs) often justify the use of doorways and gateways by claiming that there’s a difference between good copy for search engines and good copy for their site visitors. That is simply not true. Good marketing copy can be written that sounds great, stresses the benefits to the user and also utilizes keyword phrases. There’s definitely an art to it, and you have to be a good copywriter to begin with, but it most definitely can be done. The key is to use a professional copywriter, not an SEO, for that aspect of the job.
Considering the evidence that Google doesn't like keyword stuffing, I would say write copy for customers, not search engines.
Here's a press release about a new product called keyword tumbler. The ideas is to take your keywords and come up with lots of variations you could market:
Most successful online businesses use keyword marketing to drive high-quality targeted traffic to their site via pay-per-click advertising like Google's AdWords program.....If you had to manually create keyword lists using all the variations of your keyword phrases it would take hours, if not days. But with Keyword Tumbler you can create these lists in minutes!
They're not all free, but this is a pretty good list - http://www.strongestlinks.com/directories.php. Actually many SEO experts suggest submitting your site to all directories that provide static links, fee or no fee. Anyway, you can see the fee for each directory on the right. You can also search for directories in DMOZ to find specialized ones. Or do a Google search for your key word + directory. For example "ESL directory".
Submitting to free directories is a great way to get 10-20 incoming links. Of course you can use paid directories to get even more links, but only if you have more money than me. Anyway, I spent the last couple of hours subitting to free directories. I have many more hours in front of me, but free links are free links...
Please check out my new site, buy-links.com in which I try to provide information about online advertising, especially text link advertising. For example, there's an entry about buying text links from irrelevant sites which notes an argument that links from non-related sites don't help link popularity. Now that's probably wrong. I mean there must be a reason why adult and casino sites are always spamming blog comments. But still, there are some good reasons to buy related links.
Remember how I bragged about cracking the top ten for "nfl giants" with content alone? Well I'm still not in the top 100 for "New York Giants football" and Google seems to be doing an especially poor job with this search term as there are duplicate sites and even a site about the Jets in the top ten. An allinachor search shows me at #12. Besides my site the allinanchor search is very close to the normal results. Even the New york Jets site is in the top ten for allinanchor.
This blog is written by a self-professed cool guy. I'm not one for passing judgement on matters of coolness so I'll let you decide as you read about different blogs and check out a few space pictures.
This DVD software blog has some good information on topics like ripping DVDs and how to speed up DVD Backups and shrinking. There are some other tech-related articles on G-mail, Windows, and SEO. But perhaps most interesting (at least for me since my third anniversary just passed) is a recent entry on a romance novel with a customized picture (presumabmy of you and your spouse) on the cover.
It started with a request for bloggers to exchange reviews of each others' blogs. Now there's a forum for people who want to participate. Here we go:
The bling blog is mostly about Amazon.com, SEO, and other related topics. There's more emphasis on page rank than I'd like to see, but overall this blog is worth a read.
A Google search for "travel plan idea" shows two pages about my site (in blog directories) first and second. I clicked on dissatisfied with search results and wrote Google about how they're making people click twice by listing pages about the site instead of the site itself. Besides, who wants to see a page about the site? Most people search for the information the site contains.
I also did about 30 reciprocal links yesterday, so we'll see if that helps. I sort of doubt it though as i already have a few backlinks for this site, more links that I have for other sites that are doing better in the SERPs...
I've been writing about www.nfl-giants.com and the search term "nfl giants". Well today I see myself in the #9 slot. I still have very few links from other sites, but I must have about 150 blog entries now. Pretty soon I'll have to start the serious SEO...
update 10-16-2004: It seems that patience, continued linking, and a little fresh content are having some effect in getting my site off Google's blacklist.
I wrote a while ago about how google hates my travel blog. Well I've been getting a few more links and a google search for link:http://www.travel-plan-idea.com shows 30 links, about half from external sites. Still not in the top 100 for "travel plan" or "travel idea".
My site's entry on blogwise is ranked #8. How is a page about my site ranked better than my actual site? The blogwise page is PR 5 but so is my site. And my site is #1 for a Google search allinanchor:travel idea. There's something going on here...
I wrote a couple weeks ago about how my New York Giants web site had gone from #40 to #19 in the search engine rankings. With no new links I've moved up a few more spots to #15. I think that adding blog entries (each one links to the main page with nice anchor text) is responsible.
Sponsored by Ottowa divorce lawyers.
http://www.seo-search-engine-ranking.com/ad_network_222.php