I`m doing an experiment. Thanks!
Monday, April 5, 2010
Please Take My Poll
Hi World...! Or should I say the few of you kind people who may stumble across this post.... Can you do me a favor and take my poll... right over there:
I`m doing an experiment. Thanks!
I`m doing an experiment. Thanks!
Monday, March 29, 2010
SEO Definition of the Day: KEI
Since someone asked me "What is a KEI?" today, I thought I`d share the answer with all of you:
Depending on who you ask, KEI stands for Keyword Effectiveness Indicator or Keyword Efficiency Index
According to a popular tool used for keyword research - Trellion:
"KEI is designed to measure the effectiveness, or the value of a given search term. KEI is a value between 0 and 10.
The value of each keyword is calculated by correlating a number of factors including the popularity of the keyword and the number of pages on which it occurs. The most effective keywords will be those with a high KEI value. Such terms are typically searched for often, but appear on a small number of pages, and are therefore less competitive."
My 2 cents:
Although I use several tools to determine target keyword terms, whether you are referencing KEI, allintitle/allinanchor, difficulty or the competitiveness of any particular key phrase - less is always more! The higher the level of difficulty/KEI, generally speaking, the harder it will be to rank for that specific keyword term. However, don`t ever rely on one number to give you the data you need when selecting your key phrases - especially if you are actually investing into a link building campaign! Remember, it`s not just how MUCH competition you have but WHAT the competition is doing. KEI should help you narrow down a large list of possibilities, but the ultimate decision should be based off of taking a look at who is already ranking for the desired keyword. When looking at the competition, ask yourself if the efforts you are about to put forth can realistically outdo these guys.
If the KEI is low, but the "other guys" have a large amount of indexed backlinks and pages, it may be best to look for similar term that the competition hasn`t already worked so hard on - unless, of course, you have a large amount of money to invest and a lot of patience.
Anyone else have a question?
Depending on who you ask, KEI stands for Keyword Effectiveness Indicator or Keyword Efficiency Index
According to a popular tool used for keyword research - Trellion:
"KEI is designed to measure the effectiveness, or the value of a given search term. KEI is a value between 0 and 10.
The value of each keyword is calculated by correlating a number of factors including the popularity of the keyword and the number of pages on which it occurs. The most effective keywords will be those with a high KEI value. Such terms are typically searched for often, but appear on a small number of pages, and are therefore less competitive."
My 2 cents:
Although I use several tools to determine target keyword terms, whether you are referencing KEI, allintitle/allinanchor, difficulty or the competitiveness of any particular key phrase - less is always more! The higher the level of difficulty/KEI, generally speaking, the harder it will be to rank for that specific keyword term. However, don`t ever rely on one number to give you the data you need when selecting your key phrases - especially if you are actually investing into a link building campaign! Remember, it`s not just how MUCH competition you have but WHAT the competition is doing. KEI should help you narrow down a large list of possibilities, but the ultimate decision should be based off of taking a look at who is already ranking for the desired keyword. When looking at the competition, ask yourself if the efforts you are about to put forth can realistically outdo these guys.
If the KEI is low, but the "other guys" have a large amount of indexed backlinks and pages, it may be best to look for similar term that the competition hasn`t already worked so hard on - unless, of course, you have a large amount of money to invest and a lot of patience.
Anyone else have a question?
Friday, February 26, 2010
Conan O'Brien - The New Face of Social Media?
So, I just ran across this article: Social Media and Conan O'Brien on sitepronews.com... Since I`m a huge fan of Conan and have closely followed the controversy around the whole Late Night fiasco between Conan, Jay Leno and of course NBC, the title caught my eye and I couldn`t help but read the whole piece...
So, what does Conan have to do with Social Media and viral marketing? The article says:
"I sincerely believe that Conan knew exactly what was going to happen, and used the internet to his advantage. Many of his writers and publicity team are very young, having grown up on the internet. They knew that if they needed good publicity they would only have to turn to the internet in order to get the point across.
They used social media to secretly create "I'm with CoCo" groups while at the same time constantly making sure there was new "buzz" to pass around on twitter. From posts on Craigslist of Conan selling himself to the highest bidder for favors to late night tweets from the writing staff to their fan base, they knew that they could always win the war with an audience - that frankly is a lot more internet savvy than the Leno fan base.
Anyone engaged in social media marketing, needs to look closely at how Conan did this, how he made it seem to be organic and natural and then allowed it to seemingly take its own course. He knew how to create buzz, but more importantly content for internet buzz fodder. He knew that the one-liners that could be posted on Twitter were a thousand times more powerful than any ten minute monologue that could be spoken by ...urhmm... that other guy."
This definitely got me thinking... When it comes to viral marketing and link bait, let us all take a note from CoCo....
Controversy creates buzz... buzz generates traffic, increased followers and even free links... I`m not saying you should get yourself into a mess for some free links, but if your subject is, shall we say, not that exciting, you might want to think about putting a unique spin on it. Funny, controversial, risky, taboo, outlandish and over the top videos, articles, blog posts and websites get a lot more traffic and free links than "the other stuff".
Just look at the Conan bandwagon results:
Type "I`m with CoCo" in your Google search bar, 27,400,000 results! (That`s almost double the results you`ll return if you just search his name, "Conan O'Brien")
Check out his new Twitter account: http://twitter.com/conanobrien created just 2 days ago, and only 2 tweets later, 374,482 followers!
I can`t login to Twitter, Facebook, Tublr and now even the popular SEM sites without seeing something about Coco.
Maybe you should think twice about going viral and what social media really means to your brand....
Nutshell: If you aren`t participating in social media and using humor, controversy or unique concepts in your marketing efforts, you`re missing out on a bigger audience!
P.S. Go team Coco!
So, what does Conan have to do with Social Media and viral marketing? The article says:
"I sincerely believe that Conan knew exactly what was going to happen, and used the internet to his advantage. Many of his writers and publicity team are very young, having grown up on the internet. They knew that if they needed good publicity they would only have to turn to the internet in order to get the point across.
They used social media to secretly create "I'm with CoCo" groups while at the same time constantly making sure there was new "buzz" to pass around on twitter. From posts on Craigslist of Conan selling himself to the highest bidder for favors to late night tweets from the writing staff to their fan base, they knew that they could always win the war with an audience - that frankly is a lot more internet savvy than the Leno fan base.
Anyone engaged in social media marketing, needs to look closely at how Conan did this, how he made it seem to be organic and natural and then allowed it to seemingly take its own course. He knew how to create buzz, but more importantly content for internet buzz fodder. He knew that the one-liners that could be posted on Twitter were a thousand times more powerful than any ten minute monologue that could be spoken by ...urhmm... that other guy."
This definitely got me thinking... When it comes to viral marketing and link bait, let us all take a note from CoCo....
Controversy creates buzz... buzz generates traffic, increased followers and even free links... I`m not saying you should get yourself into a mess for some free links, but if your subject is, shall we say, not that exciting, you might want to think about putting a unique spin on it. Funny, controversial, risky, taboo, outlandish and over the top videos, articles, blog posts and websites get a lot more traffic and free links than "the other stuff".
Just look at the Conan bandwagon results:
Type "I`m with CoCo" in your Google search bar, 27,400,000 results! (That`s almost double the results you`ll return if you just search his name, "Conan O'Brien")
Check out his new Twitter account: http://twitter.com/conanobrien created just 2 days ago, and only 2 tweets later, 374,482 followers!
I can`t login to Twitter, Facebook, Tublr and now even the popular SEM sites without seeing something about Coco.
Maybe you should think twice about going viral and what social media really means to your brand....
Nutshell: If you aren`t participating in social media and using humor, controversy or unique concepts in your marketing efforts, you`re missing out on a bigger audience!
P.S. Go team Coco!
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
How to Check Indexed Backlinks
So, earlier today I ran across a blog where the blogger told his readers he was unsure how to check indexed backlinks. He said he "Googled it" and found http://backlinkwatch.com. I used to use that tool as well, but now they spammed it out (I HATE pop up ads) and they don`t give you the option of exporting the results! What`s up with that?
So, for you newbie’s who need a few shortcuts, here they are:
If you haven`t downloaded the Google Toolbar, go do it! Be sure to check the box that displays PageRank (PR). Once you have this installed, click on the PageRank button, it should give you options:
Google Links
Google Cache
By selecting "Google Links" you are giving Google a command to display all indexed link to that page ONLY. So, if you are on the homepage (HP) then you are only going to see the indexed link to the HP, not the entire site!
This same command can be manually done by simply going to Google.com and typing in the following:
links:_____________________(Domain URL here)
No spaces.
Let`s try it together using Nike.com:
Ask Google:
links:http://www.nike.com
I get: Results 1 - 10 of about 3,830,000 for links:http://www.nike.com
That tells me 3,830,000 links are indexed to the HP - http://www.nike.com
WOW! That is a lot! But how do you know how many the entire site has? Good question. By installing and using the Google webmaster tools, for your own site, you can see quite a bit more.... but for the public, short of literally doing that link command on each page of the site, there is no way to ask Google for a list of all indexed backlinks.
So, now what? Why not try Yahoo! They allow the same commands, but it`s easier to follow these instructions:
Go to Yahoo.com
Type in site:_____________________(Domain URL here)
Again, no spaces.
You have now asked Yahoo to explore that domain. Google allows a site command as well, so if you are curious how many pages are indexed in a site URL with Google, simply use the site: command in Google instead of Yahoo (this works for Bing too)... but, the Yahoo site explorer functionality is going to make this task a LOT easier...
So, let`s do it together again:
Ask Yahoo:
site:http://www.nike.com
You should land on the default page that shows you a number of indexed pages:
http://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com/search?p=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.nike.com&bwm=p&bwms=p&fr=fptb-&fr2=seo-rd-se
I see 22,114 indexed pages. Next to the pages button you should see InLinks, click on it. I see 698,853 indexed links.... but wait! These numbers include ALL links, which means I`m getting the internal links, and, if you look to the right, we are only looking at THIS URL. So, again, we haven`t asked Yahoo to give us the indexed links to the entire site, but only to this specific page. However, Yahoo, unlike Google, gives us the option to select all pages! YAY! Be careful though, if you are looking for unique links only, you should also select "except from this domain" in the next drop down, otherwise you will be getting all of the internal links as well.
So, let`s try this again. We are already on http://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com/search?p=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.nike.com&bwm=p&bwms=p&fr=fptb-&fr2=seo-rd-se
No, to the right of the InLinks button, you`ll see two drop down options, for the first one:
Show Inlinks: select "except from this domain"
For the second one:
to: select "entire site"
Now what do you see? I see:
http://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com/search?p=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.nike.com&bwm=i&bwmo=&bwmf=s
1,409,131 other pages are linking to Nike.com according to Yahoo! WOW!
If you want to know if a particular link is indexed in Google, find out what page it points to and give Google a link command to that specific page. Concerned you don`t see your link? Worried this means your links aren`t "working".... well, before you get too worked up, a couple of things to know:
Google NEVER displays 100% of any sites indexed backlinks (they can`t give away all their secrets!)
It takes Google 3-6 months and often times much, much longer to fully index a link, so check for the frequency of the cache instead (cache:_____________________(Domain URL here)). If the page is caching, your link is getting seen!
If you really want to get a particular link seen, link to the page that is linking to you! This ensures the spider will crawl the page and boosts the authority of the site hosting your link as well!
The Nutshell:
If you want to know something, ask the engine! Just remember these commands:
site:_____________________(Domain URL here)
links:_____________________(Domain URL here)
cache:_____________________(Domain URL here)
Questions? Need help? Ask me!
So, for you newbie’s who need a few shortcuts, here they are:
If you haven`t downloaded the Google Toolbar, go do it! Be sure to check the box that displays PageRank (PR). Once you have this installed, click on the PageRank button, it should give you options:
Google Links
Google Cache
By selecting "Google Links" you are giving Google a command to display all indexed link to that page ONLY. So, if you are on the homepage (HP) then you are only going to see the indexed link to the HP, not the entire site!
This same command can be manually done by simply going to Google.com and typing in the following:
links:_____________________(Domain URL here)
No spaces.
Let`s try it together using Nike.com:
Ask Google:
links:http://www.nike.com
I get: Results 1 - 10 of about 3,830,000 for links:http://www.nike.com
That tells me 3,830,000 links are indexed to the HP - http://www.nike.com
WOW! That is a lot! But how do you know how many the entire site has? Good question. By installing and using the Google webmaster tools, for your own site, you can see quite a bit more.... but for the public, short of literally doing that link command on each page of the site, there is no way to ask Google for a list of all indexed backlinks.
So, now what? Why not try Yahoo! They allow the same commands, but it`s easier to follow these instructions:
Go to Yahoo.com
Type in site:_____________________(Domain URL here)
Again, no spaces.
You have now asked Yahoo to explore that domain. Google allows a site command as well, so if you are curious how many pages are indexed in a site URL with Google, simply use the site: command in Google instead of Yahoo (this works for Bing too)... but, the Yahoo site explorer functionality is going to make this task a LOT easier...
So, let`s do it together again:
Ask Yahoo:
site:http://www.nike.com
You should land on the default page that shows you a number of indexed pages:
http://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com/search?p=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.nike.com&bwm=p&bwms=p&fr=fptb-&fr2=seo-rd-se
I see 22,114 indexed pages. Next to the pages button you should see InLinks, click on it. I see 698,853 indexed links.... but wait! These numbers include ALL links, which means I`m getting the internal links, and, if you look to the right, we are only looking at THIS URL. So, again, we haven`t asked Yahoo to give us the indexed links to the entire site, but only to this specific page. However, Yahoo, unlike Google, gives us the option to select all pages! YAY! Be careful though, if you are looking for unique links only, you should also select "except from this domain" in the next drop down, otherwise you will be getting all of the internal links as well.
So, let`s try this again. We are already on http://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com/search?p=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.nike.com&bwm=p&bwms=p&fr=fptb-&fr2=seo-rd-se
No, to the right of the InLinks button, you`ll see two drop down options, for the first one:
Show Inlinks: select "except from this domain"
For the second one:
to: select "entire site"
Now what do you see? I see:
http://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com/search?p=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.nike.com&bwm=i&bwmo=&bwmf=s
1,409,131 other pages are linking to Nike.com according to Yahoo! WOW!
If you want to know if a particular link is indexed in Google, find out what page it points to and give Google a link command to that specific page. Concerned you don`t see your link? Worried this means your links aren`t "working".... well, before you get too worked up, a couple of things to know:
Google NEVER displays 100% of any sites indexed backlinks (they can`t give away all their secrets!)
It takes Google 3-6 months and often times much, much longer to fully index a link, so check for the frequency of the cache instead (cache:_____________________(Domain URL here)). If the page is caching, your link is getting seen!
If you really want to get a particular link seen, link to the page that is linking to you! This ensures the spider will crawl the page and boosts the authority of the site hosting your link as well!
The Nutshell:
If you want to know something, ask the engine! Just remember these commands:
site:_____________________(Domain URL here)
links:_____________________(Domain URL here)
cache:_____________________(Domain URL here)
Questions? Need help? Ask me!
Thursday, January 28, 2010
Top Video Sites for Businesses
If you have a video, what are you doing with it??
Get yourself into as many of the top 50 video sites as you can:
According to: http://www.fridaytrafficreport.com/list-of-29-free-video-sharing-sites/
Here`s a few you should check out:
I personally recommend:
Do yourself a favor and think about your Title, Description and Tags. Each one is an opportunity to not only capture an audience, but drop keywords and links! Simply write about your favorite keywords, the ones you want to come up in Google for! This is a free and easy way to optimize your videos and ensure that you get the kind of traffic that converts! Always include a call to action....
Promote! Yes, you can build links to a video! Yes you can get your friends and family to comment, review, view, subscribe! I`m just sayin...
The more activity on your video, the more of an authority it becomes to Google.
In a Nutshell:
My Business SEO tip of the day:
Get a video, submit it to every video site you can, optimize it and help make it popular! Think about your audience and base your video from that!
Get yourself into as many of the top 50 video sites as you can:
According to: http://www.fridaytrafficreport.com/list-of-29-free-video-sharing-sites/
Here`s a few you should check out:
| Video Sharing Site | Page Rank |
| Google Video | 9 |
| BrightCove | 8 |
| PhotoBucket | 8 |
| YouTube | 8 |
| DailyMotion | 7 |
| iFilm | 7 |
| Myspace | 7 |
| Vimeo | 7 |
| BuzzNet | 6 |
| Flixya | 6 |
| GoFish | 6 |
| Kwego | 6 |
| Lulu | 6 |
| MyHeavy | 6 |
| PutFile | 6 |
| StupidVideos | 6 |
| Vmix | 6 |
| ZippyVideos | 6 |
| CastPost | 5 |
| Dotv | 5 |
| Famster | 5 |
| MeraVideo | 5 |
| Porkolt | 5 |
| VideoWebTown | 5 |
| Vidmax | 4 |
I personally recommend:
YouTube
Google Video
Yahoo Video
MSN Video
MySpace Videos
MetaCafe
Break.com
AOL Media
Daily Motion
Veoh
i2tv.tv
Blip.tv
Revver.com
Blinkx
Imeem
PutFile
Heavy.com
Eyespot
MotionBox
JumpCut
Do yourself a favor and think about your Title, Description and Tags. Each one is an opportunity to not only capture an audience, but drop keywords and links! Simply write about your favorite keywords, the ones you want to come up in Google for! This is a free and easy way to optimize your videos and ensure that you get the kind of traffic that converts! Always include a call to action....
Promote! Yes, you can build links to a video! Yes you can get your friends and family to comment, review, view, subscribe! I`m just sayin...
The more activity on your video, the more of an authority it becomes to Google.
In a Nutshell:
My Business SEO tip of the day:
Get a video, submit it to every video site you can, optimize it and help make it popular! Think about your audience and base your video from that!
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
Spammers
So some terrible Chinese spammers left a comment on my blog - all in Chinese. So, Google placed Chinese Ads in my GoogleAds on my HP, here.... I guess they think the Chinese that my spam commenter garbled into at lest 20 different hyperlinks, was more relevant to my users than the subjects in my actual blog content! Haha.... Oh Google, you don`t know me or my user at all! Who is trying to make money here?
Would you pay someone to place comment links on blogs for you, knowing that they are probably 95% not relevant and so spammy looking that they would likely get deleted?
Would the owner of the site the paid Google ads are linking to (in Chinese) really want their "paid clicks" to end up on a page where the only person who would even click on them is probably just a Chinese link spammer?
I mean, really! Who is managing this stuff?
Or is the web just going to hell?
Would you pay someone to place comment links on blogs for you, knowing that they are probably 95% not relevant and so spammy looking that they would likely get deleted?
Would the owner of the site the paid Google ads are linking to (in Chinese) really want their "paid clicks" to end up on a page where the only person who would even click on them is probably just a Chinese link spammer?
I mean, really! Who is managing this stuff?
Or is the web just going to hell?
Saturday, January 2, 2010
SEO 101:
- Pick your keywords (if you don`t know how to do this, hire a pro - trust me, it`s worth it).
- Make your top keyword your first Title Tag, Meta tags, Content and even your URL where possible.
- Make your site ALL ABOUT your keywords - this is all Google knows about you.
- Content is KING! Write, write, write!
- Don`t over stuff.... that is so 1990... now only spammers do that!
- Update your site frequently. If your site becomes stagnate, what reason do you give Google - or your readers/customers - to keep coming back? GIVE THEM A REASON AND THEY WILL!
- Focus on what sets you part from your competition! Why should I buy from you instead of the other 1 billion results Google, Yahoo and Bing returned?
- Consider descriptions your 2 sec. opportunity to catch your next client... Quick, you have 2 sec. what makes you so special? (Price, timely deliver, 100% money back guarantee, custom solutions, specialized counseling, insider info, legitimacy - think BBB, certifications, etc.)
Now, go get some links! You need lots of links, from different places. You need relevant links, quality, volume, variety.. but you need links! If you have a site and it`s not ranking, it`s because your competition has more links than you! It`s really is simple as that!
Nutshell: GOOGLE want 2 things: Content and (you guessed it) LINKS!
P.S. If you have no idea what I`m talking about - hire a professional! Be good at your business, let us be good at ours :-)
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