Archive for the ‘SEO & Writing’ Category

4 SEO Tips the Experts Will Not Tell You

November 2nd, 2010 64 Comments

web content providerSo you have a blog, you have awesome content and still no one is coming. What’s up with that? In this update I’m going to give away 4 of the best SEO tips that you won’t find at any of the expert SEO sites.

The reason you won’t find these on most expert SEO sites is because they work. While that may sound strange, it’s really the nature of Search Engine Optimization that you have to beat out the competition in whatever niche you’re focusing on. Most SEO sites give you the basics, but not the beef. Well, here’s the beef.

1. Destroy Those Broken Links

The nature of the Internet is changing rapidly. Half a decade ago, webmasters could get by just putting together a well-optimized website consisting of a few interesting pages, and it would actually perform pretty well in the search engines and in terms of overall traffic, even over the long term.

However, these days it’s all about being current, timely and updated. People don’t want to read about information that was written back in the 1990s. The Internet is fast becoming a place where information is constantly updated, and it’s updated fast.
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Posted in SEO & Writing Tags: , , ,

The Most Important Tip in Page Rank Improvement

September 30th, 2010 1 Comment

page rank improvementIf you have a website that you’ve just started and you’re struggling with battling your way up the search engine rankings, I’m going to share probably the single most important tip that will lead to significant page rank improvement for your site.

I have a secret that I’m going to share with you today that you can use to throw everything else you’ve heard about SEO optimizing out the window. It all sounds pretty convoluted and a lot of work anyway, doesn’t it.

While keyword optimizing, keyword analysis, page layout and visitor analysis all certainly plays an important part in boosting your traffic - there is one thing that any website owner can do right now that will result in nearly immediate page rank improvement, and definitely a dramatic improvement over the long term.

Don’t Stay Buried in Search Results

Here’s what happens to most website owners. They have a website that makes up a part of a particular market. Maybe you’ve found a niche and maybe you haven’t - but regardless, you’re going to have to deal with the competition. There’s always going to be competition for the top spot in search results.

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Posted in SEO & Writing Tags: , , ,

Free ABC Writing Worksheets

September 24th, 2010 No Comments

abc worksheetsIt’s an exciting time for children when they learn their ABC’s. Worksheets help them practice their new skills. Educators and parents alike can find an endless number of these ABC worksheets on the internet.

They include pictures, capital and lowercase letters, games and puzzles. There are worksheets available for the entire alphabet or one sheet for each letter.

To make the task of finding such ABC worksheets easier, check-out the following recommended links:

  • first-school: coloring sheets, alphabet word-search, alphabet flashcards, bible-themed alphabet, alphabet mini-books and more.
  • abcteach: abc booklets, dot-to-dots, and abc posters.
  • tlsbooks : abc coloring pages, abc mazes, Halloween letter match, and letter concepts worksheets.
  • beginning reading: worksheets of alphabet sets and abc flashcards.
  • abcschoolhelp: alphabet worksheets 1-6.

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Posted in SEO & Writing, Writing for Income

How to Get a Blog Review

September 23rd, 2010 1 Comment

how to get a blog reviewA big part of writing on the web is not so much getting your writing published, but getting it noticed. That’s why so many people want to find out how to get a blog review. Your blog is your showcase - it’s where people can see samples of your writing skill and it’s one of the best ways to get your work noticed…but only if you can get your writing in front of the eyes of the right people.

Sitting at the bottom of the Google results won’t get you anywhere. I’ve covered proper keyword analysis and keyword optimization on my previous FreeWritingCenter articles, but there are so many other elements that go into your site traffic and results ranking. Second to proper keyword optimizing is incoming links. Actually, come to think of it, incoming links are probably the most important item that should be on your to-do list for your blog.

3 Ways How to Get a Blog Review

In the early days of the web, you could find Internet directories where you could simply type your own website URL into a field and get it listed in the directory almost immediately. As search engines advanced and “link juice” became so critical to your search engine rank, those directories started to change how they operated.
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Posted in Free Writing Resources, SEO & Writing Tags: , ,

How Google Instant May Affect SEO

September 21st, 2010 No Comments

google instantOne of the primary elements of Internet behavior that drive search engine optimization efforts is search patterns, but is Google Instant going to change search patterns? The bottom line is that when a majority of people search for a specific keyword phrase, that is a phrase that’s at the top of the list for most SEO experts. Obviously, that’s only the starting point.

Some phrases are difficult to compete for - because everyone else is trying to rank highly on those terms as well. So, ultimately you have some winners and some losers - depending on who has better information as to how the search engines choose the sites to list first, and who is better positioned (already popular sites) to compete more effectively.

Search Patterns Have Held Constant

Up until now, search patterns have held pretty constant. Other than the hot news stories or events that crop up from time to time, there are certain phrases that are just always heavy hitters. These are keywords that don’t really change much from year to year - but instead reflect large-scale, general interests of the overall Internet population.
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Posted in SEO & Writing Tags: , , ,

Economical Search Engine Optimization

August 31st, 2010 No Comments

economical search engine optimizationAre you looking for economical search engine optimization services that won’t break the bank or eat up all of your profits? Most small businesses can’t afford the ridiculous rates that many so-called SEO “experts” charge. To be honest, most businesses can’t afford the damage that these services do to your website either.

The Pandemic of SEO “Experts”

When I first got involved with Information Systems in the early 1990s, computers were a novelty. The Internet was unheard of. By 2000, a majority of families throughout the Western world had at least one computer, and Internet usage was commonplace. As new websites flooded the information superhighway - the inevitable happened. Competition among websites to get in front of the eyes of readers grew more and more fierce.

The Mystery of Google is a Recipe for SEO Scams

Without question, Google quickly became the gateway for the Internet. Getting listed at the top of Google’s listings for certain keyword searches has fast become a cottage industry. Just like everyone and their mother claims to “know computers” - almost everyone claims to “know SEO.”

Even worse, the secrecy of the Google algorithm fosters an environment where people create SEO businesses, and promise business and website owners lots of traffic. They claim to have the skills and the knowledge to get your website listed at the top. These are SEO scams.

Well, today I’m going to lay those claims to rest by telling you what they are actually doing, and how you can really obtain high-quality, economical search engine optimization services.
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Posted in SEO & Writing Tags: , , , ,

Overwhelm Your Competition With Aggressive SEO Techniques

January 18th, 2010 1 Comment

Once you learn most of the more powerful techniques involved in effective Search Engine Optimization, you quickly realize the tremendous power that comes along with that knowledge. The ability to take a web page, and within days to weeks manipulate it so that it rises to the top of Google’s rankings for the most valuable keywords, provides amazing opportunities to the SEO expert.

All of us have “competitors” if you’re in the field of producing online content. Maybe you own a forum or a blog, and you’re competing for organic Google traffic. There may come a point when, during your keyword research, you recognize that a significant number of people are searching for information about your competition.

aggressive seo techniques

Or, another situation may be that a specific newsworthy event is taking place involving your competitor. There are a few techniques that you can use to harness those search keywords and use them to your own advantage.

Flanking The Enemy With Aggressive SEO Techniques

Whenever you recognize a newsworthy event, or a large influx of search requests for the web domain of your competition - the best way to handle that information is to turn it around to your advantage.

In warfare, the larger the enemy is, the easier it is to covertly slip behind enemy lines and plant weapons of sabotage. The same is true here - you can take the popularity and size of your competition and turn it around to your own advantage.

Identify the Weak Points of Your Competition

The first step in accomplishing this “aggressive SEO” strategy is by crossing enemy lines. This means using all of the keyword SEO tools at your disposal to uncover keyword phrases that involve your competitor’s website, are very popular (highly searched for in the search engines) and low competition (hardly anyone else is writing about it).

You can see these sort of opportunities with the large online retailers. They have very popular online stores, and many people can’t remember the URL, so they use Google to search for the site. Most other websites and bloggers wouldn’t think about focusing on that keyword phrase, because it’s obvious the person typing it in is looking for the store front.

However, the savvy blogger would take that popularity and do something like write a review about the retailer’s storefront, or otherwise capture the high popularity of that phrase, and take advantage of the low competition.

Exploit the Weak Spots

Once you’ve identified those keyword phrases that are normally “owned” by your competition, then it’s time to produce content on your own domain that focuses on those particular keyword phrases. There is no law that says you can’t write about, or review, your competitor’s products or website - so you don’t have to worry about copyright or infringing on the trademark name.

It’s a free country - and you are allowed to write about anything you like, so long as you don’t claim the products and services are yours. Write a high-quality and very useful review or overview of your competitor’s product or service (or newsworthy event), and then make sure to use the SEO techniques I’ve described on this blog to draw in those search engine queries that are normally aimed toward your competitor.

By using this approach, even small-time bloggers can reroute high-volume traffic of the much larger and more powerful competition.

This should not be your own focus of content - because you want to differentiate yourself from your competition, but by funneling keyword traffic away from your competition, you may be able to show people who were originally looking for your competitor’s site why your site is so much better.

Posted in SEO & Writing Tags: , , , ,

SEO Fools and Idiotic Content Just For Search Engine Traffic

December 28th, 2009 No Comments

In the process of doing some search engine research tonight to come up with some new interesting topics for my blogs and clients, I decided that tonight I’m going to finally expose a level of idiocy that I’m constantly coming across on the Internet. Unfortunately, it’s one of the most annoying and irritating symptoms of how search engines work today. I call the phenomenon, “Promising Roses and Delivering Stink Bombs.”

trash content online

The first thing I’d like to say is that this particular post is not SEO optimized. I couldn’t be bothered because this behavior is just too urgent and needs to be exposed this very moment - no need to SEO optimize my vent, it will speak for itself.

SEO Fools Writing Useless Web Content Just for Search Engine Traffic

This is how it works. There are countless guys and girls out there who recognize that once you can identify certain keywords and them use them in a particular pattern, a particular number of times and using very particular rules - you can place your website and your article on the very first page of Google results. That’s the approach of the SEO expert and that’s how the system works, and it works well. But you know what else?

That’s pretty much where 90% of the SEO experts out there finish their efforts. When you arrive at their website, guess what you discover? Half the time it’s one paragraph jam-packed with gibberish - a collection of keyword phrases and a few lines or two of semi-coherent writing. The page is nothing more than an absolute, one-hundred percent, useless and idiotic waste of space. Therefore, I’ve decided in this particular post to run through a few high value SEO keywords to point out some of these brainless twits out there that take part in this kind of behavior.

Keyword Phrase: World Wide Web History

This is a huge, highly-searched keyword phrase. So, let’s take a look at the top Google results.


seo1

Now, listings one and two make perfect sense. Obviously Wikipedia and W3.org are excellent resources on the history of the world wide web, but let’s take a look at the third major listing on the first page of google - IdealFinder.com (no, I’m not going to link to it and make matters even worse.)

seo2

Aside from the page format and coloring that’s horrid enough to make your eyes bleed, take a look at the first paragraph:

World Wide Web (WWW), system of resources that enable computer users to view and interact with a variety of information, including magazine archives, public- and university-library resources, current world and business news, and software programs. The WWW can be accessed by a computer connected to an internet, an interconnection of computer networks or through the public Internet, the global consortium of interconnected computer networks.

Has this guy ever heard of grammar? How about writing a sentence that at least makes sense? “system of resources that enable computer users to view and interact with a variety of information” - what the hell does that even mean? I’ll bet this guy went out and paid a team of foreign guys sitting in a cube in some third-world countries a dollar an article for this garbage. And every day that passes, more and more of this horrendous excuse for content continues to pollute the Internet. Okay then, let’s continue on to the next site that follows this one on Google’s top 10 listing for this search term - Elsop.com. Let’s take a look.


seo3

Okay, this appears like a legit site that provides links covering the history of the world wide web, right? Good enough. The page itself doesn’t contain an article, but at least you can click on each link to read the information that you came looking for, right? Right??? “CLICK”….

seo4

Well that’s odd - broken link. Let’s go back and try another. “CLICK”…

seo5

No, it’s not a fluke. Almost all the links are broken, and there’s no decent content whatsoever to make a visit to this site at all worthwhile - yet there it sits as the 4th item on the first page of Google as though it has any value. As an SEO guy myself, I know the reasons why - but it’s unfortunate. Because, by making search listings so completely automated as Google has, it encourages the proliferation of complete trash on the Internet which exists only for the sole purpose of drawing in traffic, not to provide valuable and useful content for visitors.

Have you come across the many “traffic traps” that exist on the web, just like these? Share your own experiences and opinions in the comments section below.

Posted in SEO & Writing Tags: , , ,

Increase Your Website Ad Revenue with the Google Heat Map

December 16th, 2009 No Comments

If you’re running a free website (one that doesn’t require a reader subscription), then the odds are pretty good that you’re probably depending on ad revenue to support your operating costs (and hopefully some form of profit). In addition to using effective SEO techniques to attract as many visitors to your website as possible, another element of increasing your website’s ad revenue is by getting your visitors “converted” into revenue.

How do you convert visitors? As I mentioned recently in the 4 A’s of Marketing - you convert them into profit by driving them to take action that’s profitable for both the reader, and for you. It’s profitable for the reader because you’ve chosen products and services to advertise that you know are high quality and valuable, and it’s profitable to you because those companies pay you based on referred sales.

website ad revenue

Google Adsense is one of the best ways for new bloggers to learn what ad placement techniques work on a website and which methods don’t work. On one of my blogs, for the longest time I couldn’t manage to generate any clickthroughs to my Google ads. On the one hand, I don’t like introducing large and obtrusive ads into my articles or on my website, but on the other hand I could tell that my visitors weren’t recognizing the value of those ads and taking advantage of those links.

After doing a little bit of research about website “heat maps,” I figured out what I was doing wrong, fixed it, and increased my ad revenue by over 600 percent. In this article I’ll quickly review what I learned so that you can put it to use on your own blog or website.

The Website Advertising Heat Map

As I mentioned, Google Adsense is one of the best learning tools for a new blogger that’s looking to get into earning decent revenue through advertising. Google is extremely helpful in that effort, because they actually provide a very valuable ad heat map on their Adsense help pages that shows you exactly where you should place ads on your website for the highest clickthrough percentages.


website ad revenue

As you can see from the heat map, according to Google that most effective areas for advertising on a website are first and foremost at the very top of your content area. Now, there’s a tradeoff here. Personally I feel that placing a huge Google ad at the top of your content is very tacky and a major turnoff - it doesn’t look very professional. On the other hand, I’ve seen plenty of websites that do it, and they retain their readership - so proceed carefully.

The areas of any blog that I recommend concentrating on (if your template design allows for it) is the menu bar on the left and the menu at the top. These aren’t in the reddish-orange area, but they are still in the hot spots that generate the most action from visitors. The website where I tested this heat map concept was TopSecretWriters. I decided to place a large Google ad at the top of the left menu bar.


website ad revenue

I did have to slide some of my favorite graphical content down below this ad, and it did involve tweaking some of the template code itself, but in the end it was a smart move because it transformed the almost non-existent ad revenue on TopSecretWriters into a very healthy stream of clickthroughs and profit.

The moral of the story is this - the Google Adsense heat map is accurate, and I would highly recommend taking the time to become familiar with it and then redesigning how you structure the ads on your blog or website so that you are taking advantage of those hot spots.

Posted in SEO & Writing Tags: , , , ,

Search Spy Unfiltered Search Engines

December 10th, 2009 1 Comment

Search spy unfiltered search engines can offer you a competitive advantage in the world of search engine optimization. The SEO industry is very much an industry controlled by information. The more information and insight that you have over your competition, the better you’ll succeed. While this is try in most industries, it’s even more true in SEO, because the fewer people who are capturing the most lucrative search terms, the more successful you’ll be as you capture your SEO niche opportunities.

I’ve covered a number of SEO tools in a few of my earlier posts, such as the 3 tips for optimization and the need to be flexible when you choose your topics, but in this post I’d like to touch on yet another effective tool in gauging the online attitudes and interests of Internet travelers - that tool is search spy unfiltered search engines.

search spy unfiltered search engines

In this article, I’m going to share 8 online tools that you can use to closely monitor what people are searching the Internet for every single second. That’s right - a real-time “spy” peak into exactly what people are typing into the search engines. This insight could tip you off to the hottest upcoming online buzz, which can be a very powerful way to capture the online “Buzz” wave long before other bloggers even catch on.

Top 3 Search Spy Unfiltered Search Engines

The following online tools are considered “search spy” online apps because they simply update a list that shows you an unfiltered list of what people are searching for on search engines right this moment. Sure, you could use tools like Yahoo Buzz or Google Zeitgeist to learn about the hottest trends, but with those tools the moment you find out, just about every other blogger in the world finds out as well. On the other hand, using search spy tools - you can jump on the hot trends before anyone else even knows about them.

The first Search Spy tool that I’d like to mention is also the most popular because it’s DogPile, the most-used metasearch engine on the Internet. Any search engine that’s popular will provide you with a great sampling of what people are interested in. Dogpile’s realtime tool is simply called Dogpile SearchSpy.


dogpile search spy

When you visit the page, you’ll see a scrolling list of interesting search terms. These terms are what people are actively searching for this very moment. You can either choose to “Omit adult terms or not.” If you don’t, then you can expect an unfiltered list from the search engines that can be somewhat eye-opening at times.

IceSpy is a useful tool provided by the social network search engine known as IceRocket. IceRocket is a valuable and popular search tool that provides search results from networks like MySpace, Twitter, blogs and more.


dogpile search spy

IceSpy gives you some insight into what IceRocket users are typing into the search engine. As IceRocket continues to grow in popularity, the IceSpy search terms that scroll up the screen will become more and more a reflection of what bloggers and social network users are interested in. This is a great way to figure out what terms are more likely to race up the “DIGG” list.

The next search spy tool is also one of the coolest. Twitter is obviously one of the most popular social networks on the Internet right now, and getting insight into what’s going on throughout the huge Twitter community is a important key to unlocking current trends. One of the coolest tools for monitoring the pulse of Twitter is Twitspy.


search spy unfiltered search engines

So what’s so cool about Twitspy? Well first of all it displays the latest Twitter updates in a graphical way that shows you the profile image of the Twitter user who posted the update overlaid onto a world map, with a pop-up bubble that displays the update. It’s like watching a virtual worldwide discussion going on - and it’s very addictive!

5 More Useful Search Spy Tools

While the first three tools listed above have the greatest user base, so are the most useful and the most accurate samples of general online interest, the following lesser-known tools are also worthwhile. Even though they don’t have quite the user base as the big sites above, they still offer a select snapshot of a segment of the online population. As I mentioned earlier, in the SEO field information is power - so every source of information you can find is important.

  • Infotiger.com - Get a snapshot list of what people are typing into the InfoTiger search engine. Refresh the screen for an updated realtime list.
  • Ilectric Logs - Provides you with a list of the 20 most recent search terms typed into the Ilectric metasearch engine. Press refresh for an updated list.
  • Yahoo Buzz Updates - While Yahoo Buzz itself isn’t updated every second, this list of what Yahoo Users are “buzzing up” or “buzzing down” gets updated immediately - and provides you with an instant update into what Yahoo Buzz users are interested in.
  • Search Hippo Logs - Check out a list of the 15 most recent search terms typed into the Search Hippo search engine. Press refresh for an updated list.
  • Meta Eureka Logs - This page provides an unfiltered list of search terms for this metasearch engine known as Meta Eureka.

The list of search spy tools above comes from my personal private SEO research toolbox, and by keeping a close eye on the trends at each of these sites - you could easily capture the next big “thing” that could drive your blog or website into the stratosphere.

Posted in SEO & Writing Tags: , , , ,
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