SEO Dance

Ask.com has been tracking football-related searches for the two weeks prior to the Super Bowl. It’s no surprise that New England as well as keywords surrounding the Patriots(Tom Brady) were more popular searches than keywords having to do with the New York Giants.
With the Giants win, I’m sure this week there will be a little more interest in the team and their quarterback Eli Manning. Here is an article on more of the search results.

Software giant Microsoft is once again vying to buy Yahoo! Friday Microsoft offered Yahoo! 44.6-billion-U.S.-dollar merger offer, or 31 dollars per share. If the sales goes through, could the combined forces of Microsoft and Yahoo! dethrone the king of search engines Google?

The La Times has an interesting story where it puts the search engines to the test for the search word coffee.

It’s hard to imagine that even the dominant Microsoft teaming up with Yahoo! could take down Google and become king of searches. The search results for Yahoo! might be just as good, or even better for some keywords, than Google, but it will take a huge campaign to convince Google die hards to turn their browsers away their favorite search engine.

For more details on the Microsoft/Yahoo! merger, check this news story.

How often do you update your blog sidebar? I have to admit that I don’t update mine that often. Usually it has the same boring content on it each day. Why let this piece of prime real estate just stay stagnant when it can be a great spot to really showcase what your site is about.

First things, let’s clear anything off the sidebar that could be put somewhere else.

- Make a page for your archives.
- Trim that blogroll or move it to its own page.
- Meta information can be removed altogether. Bookmark your admin login page if you can’t remember how to get it to and delete it from your sidebar.

Here are some suggestions sidebar content:

- Use tag clouds for your categories as it is visually more appealing.
- List most popular blog posts.
- Show a list of the last comments received. This will help spotlight those posts that are worth discussion.

Take a few minute to look at your sidebar and see just what should stay and what should go. A few minutes of web housekeeping can make a huge difference in the appearance of your sidebar.

Have you noticed the Google logo today? It’s made of Legos, which had me curious as to what exactly was going on today.
It’s the fiftieth anniversary of Legos, so Google is celebrating with a special logo for the day. We are use to various Google logos for holidays. Apparently today’s special Lego logo was created by fans. Google liked it so much that the decided to use it.

My husband gets a lot of his news from Slashdot. It seems that every story he tells begins with, “This story on Slashdot..”

He was telling me about the tags on Slashdot. Apparently registered users can tag stories with their own tags. Registration is free. What was interesting was some of his favorite tags.

He really likes the “whatcouldpossiblygowrong” and the “goodluckwiththat” tag. After checking it out myself, there are keyword tags of stories, too. These longer tags are almost user categories. These longer tags that are practically(or could be) sentences really pique the reader’s interest. I am curious to know which stories earned a user tag of “goodluckwiththat” as it does sound like it could be a good story or at least thought provoking.

Such long tags are really more part of a particular community and not necessarily something that would work randomly on other tagging-enabled websites. Still, I’ll be on the lookout for those more inventive tags from now on. It might lead to something very interesting.

While I was searching for more information on a particular topic, I was surprised that Mahalo turned up in the first page of search results since this was a very specific search, and I was looking for up-to-date information. I decided to click on the link just to see exactly what Mahalo had in the way of information.

Mahalo touts itself as a search engine but it’s more accurate to save it’s a search directory. What makes it special is that all entries are done by people. Each search page is maintained by someone who updates it with new information.

The Mahalo results for my particular search were pretty accurate and up-to-date, something I hadn’t expected from the website. I feared that since it was manually updated then that would mean delays in current content being added to search pages. Now that I see this is not necessarily the case, Mahalo might become an alternative to other search engines for me.

When Mahalo first launched back in the summer I have to admit that I was underwhelmed with it. It seems like a good idea to have someone edit each entry so that links and information are relevant and useful. But just from the sheer amount of information on the web seems like an impossible task. Besides web surfers have grown accustomed to search results that might not fit their criteria, so they adapt and try different wording on their new search.

After seeing that pages are kept very current with Mahalo and since relevant information is presented on one page, it will be easier next time to trust their search results.

Technorati Authority is a number ranking given to blogs. It is determined by links to your blog. From looking at my authority, I would wager that a ‘vote’ from a higher authority blog carries more weight in determining your blog authority.

So, links are key to getting a higher authority. There are plenty of ways to get links from blogs. Take part in link exchanges, hold a contest, or take part in contests to get incoming links to your blog.

I took part in a blog project with my new, un-publicized photo blog. Everyone was given the results of the contest to share, if they so wished, on their blog. Several people did. This generated a lot of backlinks to my little photo blog that now has an authority of 11. While 11 is still very low, this blog project has been my only real contest I have done using this blog. Imagine taking part in something weekly just how that authority could grow over time.

Getting links is paramount to a good Technorati authority. Using contests or other social-type postings can make it easy to receive many links fast.

Writing for others is a good way to make a little extra money. If you’ve been practicing writing with keywords in mind, why not take that new found talent and turn it into some cash?

There are plenty of SEO companies that hire writers to write articles on various subjects for their clients. Pay varies but probably won’t be enough to ‘quit your day job’ but should provide some nice spending money.

The best way to find reputable jobs is through a referral. Check with your network(message boards, bloggers, etc) to see if there is anyone who is doing this type of writing. They can provide some valuable information for anyone just beginning to do this type of work.

One company that I worked for that I enjoyed was Articles and Content. They changed their policy and started charging writers to find work through them. The first rule of working from home is to never pay someone for an opportunity. Even though I would have easily made the nominal ‘fee’, I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. Once I started blogging, I just haven’t had much time to find any new SEO companies to work for so sadly I’m out of the loop when it comes to writing SEO articles. I do know that there are still plenty of companies who offer this service and are always looking for writers.

Using keywords in copy can not only be good for your own website but can earn you a little extra cash.

Apparently the word on the Web is that a Google PageRank update took place last week. Some have reported a jump in their websites PageRank. No change here but it is exciting to hear that another PageRank has happened in a shorter amount of time than the last one.

I’m glad to hear that the PageRank update is happening but sad to see no movement on any of my blogs. Of course with the Google dance it usually lasts a few weeks, so if you haven’t seen any change yet there may still be hope.

Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales launches the much anticipated search engine, Wikia. Wikia search is an alpha stage but with its simple design could gain popularity in the search engine world.

Wikia is a long way from dethroning Google and still needs a lot of work admits the folks at Wikia. It’s fun to play with new search engines. I like to search my name and was sad to not see anything related to me or the two words I typed in the first page of results.

So for now I will not be getting rid of Google, Yahoo! or even MSN as search tools. Still Wikia will be one to keep an eye on in the future.

The weekends have always been my “catch up” time. No matter if it’s laundry, cleaning, reading, or something else, my weekends are usually full of small tasks.

I do quite a bit of writing on the weekends, too. I try to catch up on blogging and other on-going projects. Not only do I like to do extra posting on the weekends, I like to use the time to do a little web housekeeping. My blog New Year resolution is to try to comment on all comments. The weekend will serve as a great time to carry out this.

It’s also fun to play with new themes but can be time consuming since I’ve added widgets and other code to my current templates. It takes time to copy and paste, making sure the new template has all the modifications.

Doing small tasks on the weekend can help keep your website streamlined and up to date. It just seems easier to do some of those tasks on the weekend. This weekend I plan to catch up on writing since Tuesday was a holiday, and I didn’t get much accomplished on Monday.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! May all of your keywords be top search engine results in 2008.

Do you ever just search for words to see what is listed at the top of the search result? Some days when I feel there is nothing new to see on the Internet, this is what I do. Today I decided to see just what is at the top of the search results for the word ‘Christmas.’

For Google, it wasn’t really a surprise to see the first link to be the Wikipedia page. Google must love Wikipedia because their search results are usually number one or close to it. The second spot on Google belongs to Northpole.com. The third result is a like from History.com on the history of Christmas.

Let’s move on to Ask.com. The top search result at Ask is Northpole.com followed by Merry-Christmas.com and How Stuff Works.com’s answer to Christmas questions.

Yahoo must be in a love triangle with Google for Wikipedia’s affection since the Wikipedia page is at the top of the search results. Kaboose.com’s subdomain on holidays and Christmas comes in second followed by How Stuff Works.

It’s interesting to see some of the same results on search engines and wonder why one site takes top result. It’s a fun game to put off all of those holiday tasks I should be tackling instead.

I take more pictures with my digital camera in a month that I ever did with a film camera. That might be a slight exaggeration since I have piles of pictures taken throughout the years with a film camera. I average about 200-300 pictures a month. Most are not that spectacular but a few I am proud of. Those that I want to share, I load onto my Flickr account.

Users can share your Flickr photos through Digg, delicious, or countless other social bookmarking websites. With each photo, you can write a little something about it. You can also tag your photos, add friends and join groups. Flickr is a fun way to connect with others. SEO is only part of the battle when it comes to Internet traffic. While you can’t directly put in your website address into your profile, pick a username that if searched will help curious folks find you. Networking with people can help with long-term success.

Besides, it’s a lot of fun to share my favorite photos with the world.

Google may not be the only search engine in town but there is no doubt that they are very powerful. Millions use their search engine to find the information they are looking for while webmasters try their best to optimize their website to get noticed in the search results. But what happens when your search ratings fall because of lost PageRank or even worse, de-indexed by Google?

It is hard to overcome a loss of traffic but with time and a plan, that traffic will come back. Here are some suggestions for marketing your website should you find a sudden loss in traffic.

For blogs:

Taking part in a MEME is a nice traffic booster even if it might only be for a day. When taking part in a MEME, choose one closely related to your blog and then comment on other participant’s blog. Over time, MEMEs can help build your community of readers.

Blog carnivals are a collection of articles that all cover a common theme. Blog carnivals are advertised as magazines with some being published as often as monthly. Blogcarnival.com will list the blog carnivals and their next publishing date, how to submit, etc.

Comment on other blogs. It’s amazing how many people do click on URLs through comments. Say something insightful, thought provoking as a comment. Help add to the conversation, and you will certainly pique the interest of at least a few readers.

For websites:

Link exchanges are a way to find new visitors. It does take time and patience, i.e, not a quick fix solution. Sadly, other than paying for visitors, it will take time to once again have traffic flowing to your website.

Have a contest or write an in-depth article. Then write your own press release then submit to press release distribution websites that will help to get the word out about your news.

Submit to directories. Even if some are paid, if they are well recognized then it could possibly be worth it.

For blogs or websites:

Submit articles to social networks like Digg, delicious, and Stumble Upon. Be sure to take part in the social network communities by commenting and voting for other articles. Build your friends and network with Send out bulletins of your best article to your friends on My Space.

Being penalized by Google can really hurt traffic and search results. It might take time to bounce back but using web resources can help you gain exposure and win some of that traffic and hopefully more within time.