A friend of  mine, Johnny Smoes, has just launched his new website for SEO Experts Australia. Johnny’s company is well known in Australia for website development, design, and internet marketing. His company is now spinning off a new website that help them focus their efforts on search engine optimization and search engine page ranking for their clients in Australia.

I know I have several followers from down under, so I wanted to share a little about his company. If you are involved in the build, design, and support of website branding and presence in Australia, you might want to give Johnny’s company a call, and see what they can do for you. SEO Experts Austrlia is live.

The do’s and don’ts of links in articles is beginning to evolve again. Those of us that follow the world of search engine optimization techniques have begun to see signs that our search engines are really beginning to put a value on quality links again. Just when you think you have it all figured out.

For the longest time, the whole Internet was run like a big science experiment, because most of the people using it were sharing academic research across the Internet.  But it did not take long for smart internet marketers to figure out that you could also use links for sales.  Instead of just giving people a link to research, being used like a footnote in a term paper, they would send you to a landing page to buy something.  Soon afterwards, the trick also started being used to take you to a website just to get your email address, address, phone etc.

Links to your own website are still OK, and when used well, they can provide needed traffic to your website. Now though, the search engines also like quality information links.  So, when you are writing articles, add one or two links to your article that helps to substantiate your facts. My trick here is to use big, popular research sites. Don’t use just Wiki references.

Put quality links in your articles, as well as links to your website, and watch the SEO build. That’s my little tid bit today.

Raymond C. Province, M.A., ACMPE

Celtic Ozark Solutions

Naming your pictures is important. It is another way to add quality SEO content to your site. And no, they don’t get named after the real items very often.

To start the name of the picture, add your website name then the pic name. For example, a pix could be celticozarksolutionstwitterlogo. I would name a picture of a Twitter logo on my site this way. Simple and effective.

Naming your pictures with keywords for your site is also good. Bots can pick this up. Again this is simple and effective.

Pay attention to naming your pictures, and it will help people find your site.

Raymond C. Province, M.A.
Celtic Ozark Solutions

Location:Carnat,Columbia,United States

Link building can be a real  pain in the backside.  It can take a lot of thought and effort to not only figure out what links to add to a websie, but it also takes time to get it done.  So, do I really want to do link building?

For many these days, the answer is “NO.”  It may simply be too labor intensive.  Long gone are the days that you can just join a link building service, and have those links come rolling in.  Once you did that, you could just get yourself a few quality links, and the website traffic could come rolling in.  It was a true “set it and forget it” time in the history of search engine optimization and website marketing.

To make matter worse, Google starting dinging everyone for this type of behavior.  More links suddenly became a red flag, and people started losing PageRank.  So, the only one’s left in the “link building business” were the scammers, who just wanted your money, and could not be bothered with your Page Ranking.  So, I really can’t blame people for getting discouraged about link building of any king.

People then moved to trading links one for one with other folks.  “Do Follow” networks developed.  And this did provide some good links for a while.  In today’s time, though, too many one to one links can also get you in trouble.

So much for the nay sayers.  Now I want you to consider that links are still worth the effort.  Here are some of my reasons for still doing link building:

• Links help others find your website, even if Google doesn’t give you much credit. This is especially true on social media platforms. If your part of a “tribe” on a social website, I suspect your trading links for all kinds of good stuff.
• Good quality outbound links to sites like yours, with a PageRank of 3 or better, still count in your overall PageRank score.  Plus, it lets people know the kind of sites you feel are important.  I still think it is good to have some of these on your website. Just look at my website here, and you’ll know I still practice this.
• Good quality links in from comments on your site are also good. But they must be relevant.  I have an essential “do follow’ website here, but I still monitor the comments.  More importantly, I monitor the links added. So, don’t even think about adding a Viagra link to this site!  (Though Askimet will probably get you first!)
• I still think the best links are those that are created by people bookmarking your quality information. I don’t believe you have to be a genius either.  Just provide people with solid information. Discuss what works and what does not, etc.  These links are definitely worth the effort.

That’s my take on it,

Raymond Province

I have decided to start the Great Comment Experiment on my website.  I have a fairly open policy with comments on my blogs, but there are extremes. I don’t like people linking their website to mine with irrelevant links. 

If you are just spamming websites with comments, you are obviously not keeping up with the current conventionality on what really helps your website get noticed. I had a comment added today to this site, for running criminal background checks.  What’s up with that? Link it to a website that makes sense. Oh, the comment was nice enough. So, that part I don’t mind keeping.

So now, I am going into the comment via the edit comment functionality in WordPress, and changing the link to something relevant. That way, when you click on the person’s name in the comment, you get something worth looking at. If you have a site related to mine, let me know, and I’ll link some back to you!

If you want to just spam websites, be warned. My comments links will be put to good use.  Join the campaign to see what this does for your SEO ratings.

Raymond Province, M.A.

Folks, get ready for the eMagazine boom.  As products like Kindle and the iPad start to generate more interest in the portable PC/Reading device, there will be more interest than ever in having eMagazines available for all those wonderful devices. Not only will the eMagazine boom effect the way we read, and what we read, it is going to effect our search engine results.

The publishers of magazines online will be working harder than ever to have their content indexed by the search engines. We will be seeing bits of the text, often called “snippets” in the industry, that will be designed to tempt us to get the article. The little morsels will be designed to help you quicklly figure out if the information is useful. Content will be kind in the first 100 words.

Once you get hooked on the summary you are given, the publishers will attempt to get you to buy the article content.  There should be a modest price for the articles. Better yet, they will want to sell you a subscription to the magaine. That will be where the big money will be.  Once you have a subscription, you’ll be subject to the advertising that will be presented. Right now, all the new ebook and eMagazine readers to set to handle advertising, and video, with the exception of the Kindle. The technology of the Kindle is still very simple, and does not lend itself well to advertising and moving graphics.

The search engine crawls will be limited to the summary material. We’ll have to see if any0ne wants to break that rule.  Google can already run with such a senario. Just take a look at Google Books.  Google Books has a large database of print publications, which also includes eMagazines. Once they have the propriatary rights to index content from the major publishers, they will be off and running. Although Bing/Yahoo! have no similar publication search database, they will probably also be able to find ways of indexing “hidden content”, in an effort to keep up with the Giant Google.

Flash based ads will only be the beginning. New technologies will be developed to exploit this new media market. Publishers will be glad to hop on board, as this new media will offer new sources of income from advertising, interactive programs, and the like. They will also have faster access to data about how the campaign is going. Real time results will be possible, versus surveys, focus groups, and the like. So, get ready for the eMagazine boom. Coming in  an eReader near you.

Ray Province, M.A., ACMPE

Celtic Ozark Solutions

I  wanted to talk a little today about SEO Design: humans versus spiders.  To put it another way, I want to address some tactics you can use to help both of these site visitors get what they want. Here is what I mean.

Let’s talk about website page crawlers or spiders for a moment. The nice thing about them is that they could care less about fancy graphics, stunning pictures, and viral video. They would also have no plugins, no banners, no ads, etc.   The easiest page in the world to crawl is one that has no graphics, no javascript, and no tables. It would be pure text. This is what search engine crawlers and spiders dream of (if they could dream that is.)

From a human perspective, such a website would be guaranteed a place in antiquity forever.  Our graphics and video heavy society would find the page extremely boring, and move on at lightening speed. We want fancy logos, streaming video, and pictures. In fact, those type of attractions will often get an article read.  Don’t even get me started on video. The number 2 website in the world is Youtube. We love our video.

 So, can we meet in the middle, somehow, over the SEO design issue. The answer is yes. Here are some things that you can do to keep both parties happy.

1. Put your keywords in normal type at the very top of your website page, then start your picture of videos. Make the type small, but clearly visible. Say, a 9 or 10 pt type.
2. You can put keywords in the ALT-tags of your pictures. You don’t always have to have the URL there. Both can have a benefit of making it easier for the search engines to find your site.
3. Have around 750- 1000 words on your front page, that can be well crafted. The page should also have your keywords used at a 1-3% keyword density rate.  More importantly, don’t hire some GURU expert for $10 to write the content, and just stuff it full of keywords. Don’t insult the intelligence of your audience.
4. Reduce the number of images and elements before the main body text. I typically try to keep that to just one.
5. Try to get your video in the middle of the road section on your page, but visible on the landing page. My rule of thumb is: if I can’t see the video on my monitor, then it may be too far down. I’ll be depending upon the good will of folks to scroll downward.
6. One simple way to test the design is to look at how long people are staying on your landing pages, and how low you can get your bounce back rate (the measure of how many people leave your website from the very first page they hit, without looking at anything else). Google Analytics can help you measure this type of data, and the account is free.

 You can win the battle of SEO design, and make the humans versus spiders issue work.  It just takes a little planning. It is well worth, though, to have a landing page that really lets the public know what your website is all about.

Ray Province

Keyword fit is a very important issue in article writing. Does every word need to be followed exactly though? Can there be some wiggle room? That is our question for today.

From my personal experience, you can add some extra words to a long tail phrase or keyword phrase, in order to make for a better English sentence. Here is an example: eye doctor Los Angeles. You wouldn’t believe how many times I have seen this used verbatim in articles. Take the time to make a proper English sentence out of the phrase.

My logic for this is based upon the intelligent design of new search engine algorithims. Quality English syntax can be handled. Your human readers will also appreciate your attempt to write well.

Leave the keyword fit garbage to the $1 an hour people on Guru.com. Well crafted articles will not hurt your SEO. Get your words in the title, in the first 50 words, and in the last paragraph. You will then be well on your way.

We’ll talk again soon,

Raymond C. Province, M.A.
Celtic Ozark Solutions

Wow, I have been hit like a freight train this week on questions about writing articles that get noticed on the internet. Folks, there is a lot of information about this topic on the internet. Never the less, here is my attempt at explaining what I do when I write a good blog article. Hope you enjoy this instructional video on the subject: http://youtube.com/CIMhkwG-h1Y

Hey,

I found another video from my friend Scott Willoughby that I wanted to share with everyone. Hope you enjoy the video.

SEOmoz Whiteboard Friday – Getting Indented Listings from Scott Willoughby on Vimeo.