SEO Mistakes, funny!

In the world of SEO, mistakes can happen, some more funny and some more detrimental than others. Here is a selection of some of the funniest SEO mistakes, kindly submitted from fellow SEOers.

Jason Bartholme (JasonBartholme)

One mistake I made a while ago was for a client in which I paid for a batch of 1,000 directory submissions.  The problem was that the domain name I gave the service provider was misspelled and didn’t realized it until I got the submission report a few weeks later.  Needless to say, I proof my outgoing work a lot more these days!

John Mcelborough (Ioptimal)

I’ve seen developers forget to remove the robots file to block search engines when redesigning a very busy financial services site before. Cost about £250k if I remember rightly!

Also, an agency I worked for screwed up something on their site a few years ago and a post I wrote about it outranked them for a while, that was pretty funny!

Harvey Kane (RagePank)

There was this one client where I advised that title tags should be increased to 70 characters to get the most value from a Google listing, and meta descriptions should be 156 characters. The client padded out his titles / meta descriptions with exactly the right amount of whitespace, which wasn’t exactly what I had in mind.

Another time I was having problems with my content being scraped and it was affecting my rankings – so I set the site up to serve a noindex meta tag to all user agents except Googlebot, so when the scrapers copied the content it included a noindex tag and their copy of my content wouldn’t get indexed. That was the theory. Googlebot managed to get past the Googlebot-detection script and found the noindex tag… I think you know what happens next :)

Kev Strong (Goosh.co.uk)

When I was starting out in SEO about 6 years ago, I was a PHP web developer launching a personal website based around the idea of an Innuendo Generator. The idea was to create visual representations of innuendo’s ala Carry On/Austin Powers (Big Melons etc).

One of the SEO enhancements I built into the site was to create a simple text replacement module to generate unique Title’s, H1’s and content based on the title of the innuendo. Alongside this, I created a search function on the website that retained the searches in a database.  Unfortunately for me, I had coded the search result to generate a page that resolved on its own URI, but with a 404 (Not Found) response code and with the relevant search-related query in the Title, H1 and content.  I did this incorrectly and it was actually triggering a 200 (OK) response code thus creating a bonafide page that appeared fine.

To add to matters, the fifteen latest innuendo searches were shown on the homepage. This allowed all search engine bots to crawl the pages, return them as bonafide pages and index them. Little had I known I had created an auto-generated content website with some of the crudest and filthiest innuendos known to man!

The downside of this was the ability for people to create a page on my website with a Title, H1 and semi-automated content with their keywords in the website.

The upside of this was I had created a faucet for ideas and innuendos that I was previously unaware of.

Wes McDermott (SEObyhand.co.uk)

I did an SEO proposal for a company I worked with a while ago, they decided to go with another company instead of me. 6 months down the line I got a call from one of the guys at the company, he told me that my proposal was ranking ahead of their site for one of their main keywords, he asked me to take it down. He was basically suggesting I had done something under handed with his site. So I explained to him that it’s just “better” optimised than his site for that keyword. The next day I got another phone call, it was the same guy again offering me the job. Needless to say, they’re now ranking much higher than the proposal!

Jim Westergren (jimwestergren.com)

Not a mistake I had made but I had a client that paid good money for consultancy. He had his website blocked via robots.txt AND meta noindex. No wonder he didn’t rank.

Source: Blueclaw

New SEO techniques Revealed in 2011

So 2010 is ending, & naturally 2011 is not different from 2010. Now what are your expectations from Search Engine Optimization in 2011? A lot has happened historically in the crazy world of internet marketing & I don't expect any changes in 2011. But before they discuss the expectations of SEO in 2011, let's have a glance back at a major speaking point in 2010...
Preview by Google - Recently released Google Instant which gives as immediate results as we type our search query in Google search engine. Since it was released, a lot of people have found it useful in terms of giving super fast results. There are many such new thing started by Google and it is still kept as a secret and only used by top internet marketers.
Now what are the new techniques in SEO?
SEO is the most effective way to fetch free traffic to your website. We need to keep us updated with search engine as they are going to make some changes in 2011. Search engines are always changing their algorithms and they constantly update their data.
As there are many newbie entered into internet marketing world - it is expected to be a busy year for search engines.
What changes are expected - 
1. SEO and SMO (Social Media Optimization) are elected as a king in 2011, As many of you must have noticed that Google and other search engines loves Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn etc. So you must keep up with Social media optimization and Social media marketing.
2. As Yahoo and Bing are Google's major competitors, changes in Google ranking will be the main aim of all search engines.
3. As Facebook has now became number 2 site over the world wide web, a recent news is announced by Facebook that they are going to launch an internet directory like Google and it seems that many Facebook users will switch on to Facebook directory.
4. Still there are lot more things to come in internet marketing world. You need to be alert to get such information.

Read more: http://www.articlesbase.com/seo-articles/new-seo-techniques-revealed-in-2011-4021768.html#ixzz1GUCLPe24 
Under Creative Commons License: Attribution
Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/

What is Your Facebook Welcome Tab Strategy?

If you read information on best practices for Facebook business pages, the creation of a custom welcome tab is usually one of the first things mentioned. A welcome tab is a special tab created to greet new visitors to your page. Welcome tabs are usually set as the default tab for people that have not Liked your page; meaning new visitors are automatically taken to the welcome tab rather than your Wall.

Once someone Likes your page, the next time they visit, they are taken to your Wall. Without a welcome tab new visitors are taken to your Wall, which is generic (all Walls look the same) and not very welcoming. A welcome tab addresses these issues. It gives you a dedicated space to communicate with new visitors. The question then becomes how will you use this space? What will be your Facebook welcome tab strategy? After viewing many welcome tabs for small and medium-sized businesses, I believe an effective welcome tab should do the following:

1. Welcome new visitors to the page
2. Explain what your company does and the value it provides
3. Offer reasons why someone should Like your page
4. Invite visitors to Like your page

How you incorporate these elements is up to you, but the key is to keep it simple. Take theBerry Network welcome tab. We use a combination of text and video to welcome new visitors, explain the value we offer, and encourage them to Like our page. The tone of the writing is relaxed and inviting. We are not trying to sell anything or trying to impress someone with corporate speak or buzz words. We don’t use gimmicks or offer rewards in return for a Like.

Unfortunately, many welcome tabs fail to use this simple approach. Many companies still dump new visitors on their wall. Others use reveal tabs that hide content that is only revealed after a person Likes the page. Why should someone have to Like a page before they can see the content? Since a Like is equal to an endorsement, how can someone endorse something they haven’t seen? You might get a few more likes because of the curiosity factor, but it won’t help with engagement. Still others welcome tabs are cluttered with so much content they leave you scratching your head wondering what they are trying to communicate.

So what is your Facebook welcome tab strategy? How do you use your welcome tab to turn visits into Likes? Please share your comments.

Source: Social Media Today

Original Article 

Link Building!

Link building is an essential and a widely used activity in search engine optimization (SEO). It involves the generation of links, whether through, but not limited to, blog and forum posting and directory submission. SEO services are usually sought by website owners to increase the popularity of their websites on the Internet. The establishment of several inbound links leading to your main website helps your pages rank higher in search engines, depending on the keywords you are optimizing for. One-way links are much more help in boosting your page rank than reciprocal or multi-way links.

A website's targeted traffic is a main consideration before starting link-building activities. It determines where you want to place the links leading to your website to ensure that you will fetch users that are highly interested in your products or services. The more relevant traffic you drive in, the more chances of your profit increasing.

The most effective method of link building is by establishing one-way links directing to your website, as SEO experts say. It is an inbound link pointing only to one direction and it is given the highest recognition by search engine bots in defining the relevance of your pages. One-way links could be built by sending articles related to your site to article directories and content sites, many of which could be found online. Such sites usually have a resource box, where you can type in the link pointing to the resource website.

Another method of link building is through multi-way linking, which entails the creation of several non-reciprocal links among at least three partner websites. The links only go one-way. Other ways of building links include posting videos, images, o RSS feeds on your partner sites.

A website owner could embark on a link campaign with the help of professional SEO services. Such companies offer to do your link building campaign for you at specific rates. Professional link-building services usually offer to increase the relevance of your web pages through planting relevant and permanent inbound links pointing to your website.

Their activities include submission of articles to directory listings, submission to sites with high PR links, distribution of articles to article and blog sites, and social network listing. The main goal of link building is to help you reach your marketing goals by driving your targeted traffic back to your main website and allowing them to convert or take the course of action most profitable to your business.

This means that your inbound links should be placed in sites related to yours, sites that preferably have high PR links. Most link-building services usually promise positive results for your online presence within 90 days at the most.

Website owners should, however, be warned to avoid overlinking, which means having too many hyperlinks. Search engine bots for main search engines such as Google and Yahoo re capable of recognizing whether or not certain links are relevant. They "sense" excessive links on a page and disregard them in determining your page rank.


http://www.isnare.com/?aid=321312&ca=Internet

For more information visit SEO Link Building category


Source: seoseonews

Want to know how Google is about to change your life?

• By Steven Levy  
• February 22, 2010  |  
• 12:00 pm  |  
• Wired March 2010

Want to know how Google is about to change your life? Stop by the Ouagadougou conference room on a Thursday morning. It is here, at the Mountain View, California, headquarters of the world’s most powerful Internet company, that a room filled with three dozen engineers, product managers, and executives figure out how to make their search engine even smarter. This year, Google will introduce 550 or so improvements to its fabled algorithm, and each will be determined at a gathering just like this one. The decisions made at the weekly Search Quality Launch Meeting will wind up affecting the results you get when you use Google’s search engine to look for anything — “Samsung SF-755p printer,” “Ed Hardy MySpace layouts,” or maybe even “capital Burkina Faso,” which just happens to share its name with this conference room. Udi Manber, Google’s head of search since 2006, leads the proceedings. One by one, potential modifications are introduced, along with the results of months of testing in various countries and multiple languages. A screen displays side-by-side results of sample queries before and after the change. Following one example — a search for “guitar center wah-wah” — Manber cries out, “I did that search!”

You might think that after a solid decade of search-market dominance, Google could relax. After all, it holds a commanding 65 percent market share and is still the only company whose name is synonymous with the verb search. But just as Google isn’t ready to rest on its laurels, its competitors aren’t ready to concede defeat. For years, the Silicon Valley monolith has used its mysterious, seemingly omniscient algorithm to, as its mission statement puts it, “organize the world’s information.” But over the past five years, a slew of companies have challenged Google’s central premise: that a single search engine, through technological wizardry and constant refinement, can satisfy any possible query. Facebook launched an early attack with its implication that some people would rather get information from their friends than from an anonymous formula. Twitter’s ability to parse its constant stream of updates introduced the concept of real-time search, a way of tapping into the latest chatter and conversation as it unfolds. Yelp helps people find restaurants, dry cleaners, and babysitters by crowdsourcing the ratings. None of these upstarts individually presents much of a threat, but together they hint at a wide-open, messier future of search — one that isn’t dominated by a single engine but rather incorporates a grab bag of services.

Still, the biggest threat to Google can be found 850 miles to the north: Bing. Microsoft’s revamped and rebranded search engine — with a name that evokes discovery, a famous crooner, or Tony Soprano’s strip joint — launched last June to surprisingly upbeat reviews. (The Wall Street Journal called it “more inviting than Google.”) The new look, along with a $100 million ad campaign, helped boost Microsoft’s share of the US search market from 8 percent to about 11 — a number that will more than double once regulators approve a deal to make Bing the search provider for Yahoo.

Team Bing has been focusing on unique instances where Google’s algorithms don’t always satisfy. For example, while Google does a great job of searching the public Web, it doesn’t have real-time access to the byzantine and constantly changing array of flight schedules and fares. So Microsoft purchased Farecast — a Web site that tracks airline fares over time and uses the data to predict when ticket prices will rise or fall — and incorporated its findings into Bing’s results. Microsoft made similar acquisitions in the health, reference, and shopping sectors, areas where it felt Google’s algorithm fell short.

Even the Bingers confess that, when it comes to the simple task of taking a search term and returning relevant results, Google is still miles ahead. But they also think that if they can come up with a few areas where Bing excels, people will get used to tapping a different search engine for some kinds of queries. “The algorithm is extremely important in search, but it’s not the only thing,” says Brian MacDonald, Microsoft’s VP of core search. “You buy a car for reasons beyond just the engine.”

Google’s response can be summed up in four words: mike siwek lawyer mi.

Amit Singhal types that koan into his company’s search box. Singhal, a gentle man in his forties, is a Google Fellow, an honorific bestowed upon him four years ago to reward his rewrite of the search engine in 2001. He jabs the Enter key. In a time span best measured in a hummingbird’s wing-flaps, a page of links appears. The top result connects to a listing for an attorney named Michael Siwek in Grand Rapids, Michigan. It’s a fairly innocuous search — the kind that Google’s servers handle billions of times a day — but it is deceptively complicated. Type those same words into Bing, for instance, and the first result is a page about the NFL draft that includes safety Lawyer Milloy. Several pages into the results, there’s no direct referral to Siwek.

The comparison demonstrates the power, even intelligence, of Google’s algorithm, honed over countless iterations. It possesses the seemingly magical ability to interpret searchers’ requests — no matter how awkward or misspelled. Google refers to that ability as search quality, and for years the company has closely guarded the process by which it delivers such accurate results. But now I am sitting with Singhal in the search giant’s Building 43, where the core search team works, because Google has offered to give me an unprecedented look at just how it attains search quality. The subtext is clear: You may think the algorithm is little more than an engine, but wait until you get under the hood and see what this baby can really do.

Source: wired.com

Join Kontera, monetize your website!

Reaching more than 100 Million unique users per month, Kontera’s exclusive network features over 15,000 premium and niche publishers, benefiting from our superior contextual technology and our exclusive high paying ad inventory.

Our network is rapidly growing, and we are always looking for more quality publishers like you!

Kontera is pleased to offer our publishers the opportunity to participate in the Kontera Affiliate Program. In addition to your revenue generated as a publisher, you could be seeing additional revenue as commission for publishers that join the network through your referral.

The terms are very simple:

• For every publisher you refer to Kontera that signs up and has Kontera In-Text ads running on their website, you’ll get a referral bonus of 10% of their monthly net revenue.
• You’ll receive the referral bonus for a full year that begins on the publisher’s registration date.
• There’s no limit to how many referrals you can accumulate.
• Affiliate referrals will be tracked through a unique URL we’ll give you. As long as the new publisher joins Kontera within 30 days of clicking on your URL, you’ll be credited with the referral.
• The referral bonus will be deposited monthly into your existing Kontera Publisher account, in the same manner and time frame as other deposits.
• Note that to get approved for the Kontera Network, publishers you refer need to meet our Publisher Guidelines.
• Your Publisher account needs to be in good standing with Kontera.

We’re looking forward to having you aboard!

go to: 

Monetize NOW!

Fun For Today Twitter Profile Widget.

How to get web traffic using Facebook

Having just passed its' 500 millionth user worldwide Facebook is one of the most important platforms you can use to generate additional web traffic to your website or page. If you target marketing and social media networking via Facebook - and it's free - you can get a significant amount of highly targeted traffic.

Within those 500+ million users, there are a significant amount of potential leads for your business, but before you plunge into marketing to everyone there are very important aspects you must take into account before you begin.

First you need to target your market, by doing your own research, and it can take quite a bit of time, but there are already many successful businesses already profiting from their Facebook marketing. Start by adding friends to your page, once added you can view their profile and gain an insight into their background, if they are associated with any groups, and if their interests connect with yours.

Bare in mind though, that Facebook is the 'social' network, when first connecting keeps your posts and updates friendly, non-sales oriented, but do offer valuable content such as tips and techniques on your relevant industry. Also add a fan (like) page and load it with quality content to warm your leads up. Once you have provided this content you can start to add links to your site and special offers to your new friends. The more relevant the content, the more likely your prospects will turn into clients.

Join various groups on Facebook - there are hundreds and hundreds, and some more than likely, will cater to your business or product. The groups can give you access to a huge amount of people who are already interested in what you have to offer. Start posting on discussion boards, post your own ideas and tips and answer other's questions, this way other members of the groups will add you as a friend.

Start off with the mindset of making friends, not clients, and eventually it will evolve into a great marketing campaign naturally.

When posting, include personal anecdotes, useful information without pitching your business - remember, very important - do NOT sell yourself immediately - but do post things that will encourage people to engage back with you. Also include a link to your blog, it's not a direct promotion but a subtle one which should include your website link - just a little way to let your friends know you do have a business too!

If you can gain respect, response and recognition on Facebook, you will soon find yourself with an ever-growing following to your fan page, home page, blog, groups, there's limitless possibilities. And go ahead and create your own group(s), encourage other group members to join yours, soon you will have a huge sphere of influence through which to grow your business and reputation.

Source: 

James Hickey
Master Business Consultant

http://www.SDCCPRO.com http://www.sd-entrepreneur.com

Best way to get traffic (free)

Quite often the best ways to get traffic to your website are the free ways. You can get some serious amounts of traffic for free or very little cost. The real power in generating your own traffic is in the fact that you are in complete control of it quite often allowing you to choose more accurately who to target therefore generating higher conversion rates. People quite often overlook these methods and there are some real gems. Below I will outline the 5 best ways to get traffic to your website for FREE:-

1. People are spending more time watching video's online than doing anything else online. Video marketing is huge it's not all about YouTube although obviously YouTube by itself is massive but there are also loads of site that you can upload your videos to including Google, Myspace, Yahoo, MSN and AOL. It is not that hard to do and you can download some screen capture software for free. Although if you wish to get serious about Video marketing then some investment in software will improve the look and feel of your videos.

2. Searh Engine Optimisation (SEO)' I know its obvious but it's probably the best way of getting more traffic for your website. The three most important things to consider are:-

2.1. Choice of keywords - Most people choose keywords that there is too much competition for and do not give themselves a chance of getting to the top of the rankings.

2.2. Content - You need to have loads of relevant content that you update frequently to make sure that the search engines see your site as a current one.

2.3. Links - Not the quantity but the quality. You need one way links that are relevant and from other sites with high rankings for similar keywords. The best way to look at SEO is to try and look at it from the search engines point of view. When somebody does a search they want the best results to be displayed (if a load of irrelevant sites with no real content ie spam sites are listed then its not a very good search engine)

3. Articles and Press Releases just like the one that you are reading here are great for generating free traffic for several reasons:-

3.1. You will get high quality one way links from the article directories that you submit to right back to your site. So they are great for SEO. Imaging if you write 2 articles per week and get them published on 10 sites you will be adding roughly 80 high quality one way links to your site per month or just under a 1,000 in a year.

3.2. If you do some keyword research then your articles will very likely get good rankings in the search engines and be found that way.

3.3. People just browsing the article directories find your article and read it.

3.4. The best thing that can happen is an Ezine or magazine can choose to publish your article including the resource box with the link back to your website in it. Some magazines and Ezines have hugh readerships and your article can go out to the whole list generating massive traffic for FREE.

4. Harnessing the power of web2.0. Write a review or a short description about a page on your website that you wish to promote and then submit the review to the social sites. There are loads of the including, Digg, Furl, Stumble Upon, Reddit and Propeller to name a few. Using this method you again generate those one way links from high ranking sites so its great for SEO and people can find the link when browsing these social sites and click through on the link to have a look for themselves. The more interesting and intriguing your review is the more people will click through on your Link.

5. These are excellent ways to tap into highly targeted groups of people. You can also learn so much from other people in these groups or forums. Just go out and find a group or forum and start participating in the conversations and answering questions. You will have a signature file attached to each post that you make and this is where you have your link back to your site. Again building those one-way links and if you write a good signature file that is interesting people will click on those links. With this type of marketing it is best only to give responses if you know the Answer rather than just to get your link up there. It is easy to loose credibility and be seen as a spamer if you are not careful.

The most important thing to do now you have some knowledge is to Take Action without it you will not get any Free Traffic. It's best to focus on one way of getting traffic and get good at that before moving on to the next. So good luck and above all enjoy what you are doing.

Mike Goodchild has been Making Money Online for 7 Years and is the author of a 10 Day FREE Email course [http://www.mycashmachine.co.uk/free_traffic_tips.htm] about how to generate Traffic to your Website for Free or very little cost.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Michael_Goodchild

SEO Mistakes most made

Targeting the wrong Keywords

This is a mistake many people make and what is worse – even experienced SEO experts make it. People choose keywords that in their mind are descriptive of their website but the average users just may not search them. For instance, if you have a relationship site, you might discover that “relationship guide” does not work for you, even though it has the “relationship” keyword, while “dating advice” works like a charm. Choosing the right keywords can make or break your SEO campaign. Even if you are very resourceful, you can't think on your own of all the great keywords but a good keyword suggestion tool, for instance, the Website Keyword Suggestion tool will help you find keywords that are good for your site.

Ignoring the Title Tag

Leaving the <title> tag empty is also very common. This is one of the most important places to have a keyword, because not only does it help you in optimization but the text in your <title> tag shows in the search results as your page title.

Flash

Flash might be attractive but not to search engines and users. If you really insist that your site is Flash-based and you want search engines to love it, provide an html version. Here are some more tips for optimizing Flash sites. Search engines don't like Flash sites for a reason – a spider can't read Flash content and therefore can't index it.

Javascripts

Using JavaScript for navigation is not bad as long as you understand that search engines do not read JavaScript and build your web pages accordingly. So if you have JavaScript menus you can't do without, you should consider build a sitemap (or putting the links in a noscript tag) so that all your links will be crawlable.

Lack of consistency and maintenance

Our friend Rob from Blackwood Productions often encounters clients, who believe that once you optimize a site, it is done forever. If you want to be successful, you need to permanently optimize your site, keep an eye on the competition and – changes in the ranking algorithms of search engines.

To much concentration on metatags

A lot of people seem to think SEO is about getting your meta keywords and description correct! In fact, meta tags are becoming (if not already) a thing of the past. You can create your meta keywords and descriptions but don't except to rank well only because of this.

Ignoring  URL’s

Many people underestimate how important a good URL is. Dynamic page names are still very frequent and no keywords in the URL is more a rule than an exception. Yes, it is possible to rank high even without keywords in the URL but all being equal, if you have keywords in the URL (the domain itself, or file names, which are part of the URL), this gives you additional advantage over your competitors. Keywords in URLs are more important for MSN and Yahoo! but even with Google their relative weight is high, so there is no excuse for having keywordless URLs.

Not enough Keywords

Once you focus on your keywords, modify your content and put the keywords wherever it makes sense. It is even better to make them bold or highlight them.

Source: webconfs

Kontera and Chitika

So I already have adsense and clickbank. Both have pretty disappointing  results till now. Adsense does not pay a lot and Clickbank only pays out when people actually buy products. So now I started a new experiment with kontera and Chitika. Both are pay per click systems. Chitika looks a lot like Adsense and pays out by paypall. Problem is, I added it, but I can’t see ads as they should be shown. I’ll just wait a while to see what it does.

Here’s an article I found on Techknowl. It’s about Kontera.

Have you seen those double underlined text inside a blog ?? They are advertising provided by Infolinks , Kontera and other major players in In text advertising .These programs uses JavaScript to match content from a website with available advertisers in their database . Publishers are paid when user clicks on any of the advertising links generated via hover tooltip . The major advantage of in text advertising is that we don’t need any extra real estate for putting them up . They even work with Adsense or any other contextual advertising network and it’s very easy to install on blogspot . Here is my review Kontera

Review : Kontera seems to be the biggest player and current market leader in textadvertising .They provide a JavaScript that can be embedded easily into any website . Unlike the normal JavaScript placements , these tags are to be placed at the bottom portion of a template . So these placements really affects the page load time .

Good:  More number of advertisers and comparatively good targeting .
Widgets and auto installers for all major blogging platforms and CMSs.
Bad: It seems Kontera really sucks when it comes to the payments . They offer support for the user to generate higher revenues but its not that working .
Payments only after 100 $ ( Via Paypal or Check ).
Statics page is not so impressive .

Websites:

Kontera

Chitika