I remember a day when the term search engine optimization did not exist in the webmaster lexicon or at least a day when it was not so popular a term. I remember having a list of about 50 domains related to the seo niche and actually letting go of a few gems like seoace.com because I never through the niche would become so powerful as it has.

Search engine optimization and search engine marketing are now two seperate things with their own teams in many cases. The world of internet marketing and specifically search engines has seen an incredible rise in the variety of options you have to consider now for your online advertising and marketing campaigns.

When you consider the challenges with search engine optimization it is easy to understand how so many businesses are outsourcing their SEO services to a local search engine optimization specialist who can target their specific geographic regions for the targeted keyword sets. The days of do it yourself seo and website optimization are gone and today a website owner must have a varied selection of experts in keyword research, content development, on-page optimization, link building and content syndication jsut to name a few.

None of this even touches on things like social media management, email newsletters and list building or online branding campaigns. All of these and many other options and opportunities in internet marketing make it so that the best choice a business owner can make is to hire the right professional for their search engine optimization and marketing needs.

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I have been building WordPress blogs for about 5 years now and I have set them up in many different configurations. Most of my blogs are single author websites with one topic and some of my blogs are used more like a true CMS with a variety of content types and themes to write on. Some of my blogs have more than one author but almost all of them are used for the specific use of generating leads for new business clients.

I think Wordress is the ultimate platform for lead generation when you consider how fast and easy you can build a robust website on any topic. The SEO features of a WordPress blog make it a marketing machine that can automate the content syndication and marketing campaigns so many leads sites need.

A WordPress Blog can scale up to a huge website so a simple 3 page website can one day become a huge multi-user environment with 1000′s of subscribers. WordPress makes a great squeeze page with a direct link to your call to action and the ease of integrating a number of communication tools such as Contact forms, CRM systems and social media make it the ultimate communication platform for your business.

Do you use WordPress blogs for leads websites?

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Squidoo us a pretty cool Web 2.0 website that used to be a lot more popular but which still can be used to drive qualified traffic, inbound links and authority status for your website project.

Squidoo offers content writers a great platform for creating unique articles and destination pages on any topic you can imagine. A Squidoo lense is a wonderful way to tell people about any product or service you can imagine and they hold value as a stand alone marketing platform but they also serve an SEO purpose as an authority on any keyword you can build a page for.

AS an example we created a page for Pigeon Forge Attractions to use as a promotional deceive for a discount vacations website we are promoting. the Pigeon Forge Squidoo page offers information in events, activities and attractions in Pigeon Forge and serves as a great doorway page to your website.

A Squidoo page is a great pre-sell page that can be used to prep users for the sales pitch on any squeeze page. The domain Squidoo.com is well trusted and can sustain a huge link building campaign without fear of devalued ranking on Google because of too many links to a new website.

Do you Squidoo?

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Use Blocks for Content Distribution and Drupal SEO

So in my last article I talked about my new favorite open source software application for web development and I posted my review of Drupal CMS. Now I have to admit I love Drupal but it is weak in just about everything and SEO is definitely non existent in a generic fresh install but that may be a good thing in the end when you consider what you can accomplish with a little hard work and determination. Having a full and complete understanding o Drupal and al lit’s many features is certainly important for everything but even more so with SEO and search engine marketing in general. Knowing the difference between Blog posts, Book pages and Aggregator content can make or break your SEO on a Drupal site.

Drupal is raw and you need to do a lot of work to get up and running but once you get it going it is a sweet piece of free software and a great tool for building SEO ready websites. Understanding what kind of site you are building and your content sources really helps in getting started on your Drupal SEO and knowing what the site goals are and who the end users are are of great benefit. The first thing you want to do when you SEO a Drupal site is to sort out your Content Types, Vocabulary and desired Taxonomy which will lead to Meta Tag formats and URL Alias for the base layout of a site optimized for search engines. Because you have to set all details for your Drupal site such as Url Alias and Taxonomy Breadcrumb for search engine optimization you need first to understand your content layout and whether how you use Vocabulary tools and Tags or you could end up with a complete mess.

drupal pathauto settings

SEO with Drupal requires a number of modules such as PathAuto and Token for creating proper URL format as well as FeedAPI and News Page if you intend on syndicating content from other sites without paying a duplicate content penalty with Google. You will need to install Nodewords Module and Page Title Module for proper Meta Tags, Global Redirect for formatted URL alias and 301 redirects and you will need to enable Core features such as Path, Taxonomy and Menu for those to work.

On my site i use FeedAPI and News Page modules to import RSS feed content from other sites. I import the content as Story with proper reference to the original site on the News Page. I then link to it with a teaser in blockquotes on my Blog with additional fresh content from commentary that my bloggers create which spins the original article into unique website content. My next step is the use of Nodewords Module and Page Title Module for unique in page meta tags while using custom PathAuto settings to output the correct URL for SEO keyword inclusion. Here is where understanding your content payout helps because formatting URL’s based on Vocabulary and taxonomy can be a hassle.

Your PathAuto Rules will determine your final URL layout and you may find that you need to play around with your settings for the best results. I do totally suggest you settle the format or your URL’s immediately and before you import a lot of content that will be indexed by search engines. Although you can use the URL redirect to create new alias and 301 redirects it makes little sense to cause any type of change in the content format or any chances for confusion on resource location. The quickest and easiest way to end up in the Google Sandbox is to have too much duplicate content when you get started.

What theme your site uses makes a difference and you’ll want to make sure it makes proper use of H1, H2 and H3 tags. Be sure to include at least one header tag on every page by surrounding the title in H1 and if possible try using H3 or H4 around descriptive keywords or content teasers. Of courser site navigation and proper breadcrumb help end users move around your content as they do the same for search engines so make sure to check out the Custom Breadcrumbs Module for better layout and drill down SEO for your Drupal website.

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Ever wonder just how valuable user data is? What is the information gather from users of mobile dev ices such as iPhone or Sony PSP worth? Well we now know that Apple might rather build their own search engine than allow Google access to the user data from iPhone users. Building a search engine is no easy task and the idea they will invest in their own search engine just to keep the rights to this data is impressive.

I assume they will consider buying an existing search engine technolgy or maybe try a partnership with someone like Bing who might actually allow them to retain their data in exchange for the bragging rights and added traffic iPhone users are worth. How much is the iPhone user data worth and what would Google gain from it that they don’t alreay know or have? I mean does the largest search engine actually need user data from iPhone owners? Can’t they just use Android data for the same research?

Apple May Build a Search Engine to Shield iPhone Data from Google – Search Engines from eWeek

Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster said there is a 70 percent chance Apple will roll out a mobile search engine tailored for its iPhone within the next five years. As the search provider for the iPhone, Google sees what iPhone users are searching for, which can help it tailor software and services for its own mobile smartphones. This competitive advantage has not gone unnoticed by Apple. Building its own iPhone-centric search engine would help Apple shield Google from its App Store data, Munster said in a March 30 research note.

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I’ve been building a lot of blogs lately with great success on most of my sites. I’ve been able to use them to kick start a number of new websites and boost traffic to what used to be some parked domains.

I started to work with some musicians here in Jamaica that were in need of more than a website. I’m hoping to use the blog as a communication platform for a group of Jamaican musicians who want to post their music, videos as well as sell music online. The music selling is going to be a trick I think but I’ll get to it over the next few weeks.

The first three sites are still in early content stages and I am hoping to have the artists and their fans help us with the content development because I simply cannot do it myself. My first blog was for my bredren Ras Slick who turned out to be a much better performer than I expected. His live shows are great and he has a way with the crowd that seems to set him above so many other musicians around here.

I’m looking for the best solution to allow music downloads from these blogs. Anyone got a tip on the ebst way to sell mp3 files in a wordpress blog?

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I need a big idea like Youtube or Plaxo so I can sell off one of my web properties for $100+ million and retire! Anyone working on a future hit in need of a marketing professional to assit you then please contact me

Comcast To Become Plaxo’s Owner

Comcast announced Wednesday that it will acquire social network site pioneer Plaxo. The deal is valued somewhere around $135million to $175 million, and is intended to make the social portal part of Comcast Interactive Media. Plaxo will remain located in Silicon Valley and one of the things it could do is work with Comcast’s Fancast Internet to facilitate users’ access to the internet service provider’s movies and TV shows database.

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I have long considered it a hassle submitting websites to swearch engines and online directories but I begrudgingly keep up with it because over time I have found there to be some benefit to it if you know how to do it right. The first thing you should know is that automated directory submissions will not work work as well as you want them to but they can provide some benefit to you if your site stands out. Having a top notch site is the key to converting all those directory submissions into inbound links for your websites.

Having just another WordPress blog or any other run of the mill website is a surefire way to have a directory owner deny your request for inclusion and building your site well is as important as how you submit the site. One must consider why the directory owner would bother to list your site if you’re using a generic keyword string instead of a tastefully written title or description of your site. What directory owner wants to list another of the same websites with the same hype and noise as all the rest when they can list a unique and quality project like yours?

For best results on directory submission you have to take your time and do it by hand. Blasting 3000 directories with the same listing is not going to get you anything but lots of email spam and little in the way of SEO benefits. The spiders don’t like it if you add too many links at one time anyway. It’s better to target niche directories and submit your site to a dozen or so directories each week than 100′s per day like some folks advertise. Changing the title and description for each directory is best but not feasible with the 1000′s of directories to choose from so using tools like Firefox and InFormEnter plugin makes it go by quicker. I use at least 5 different title and description options for every 100 sites and I rotate between them.

Submitting to directories is painstaking slow work but worth the effort if you have time. If not hire someone you can trust to do it for you and move on to something else but don’t stop submitting to directories. The free links are worth it if you’re site is good enough to get some.

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When I started blogging it was because I could easily write an article on just about any subject. I began to realize I could build a blog for just about anything and soon enough my army of blogs was up to 20 or more sites requiring fresh content each and every week. I soon found myself burned out on writing and many of my articles were starting to sound the same or even worse I just quit updating a few blogs. I had about a half a dozen old blogs that needed some new content and I had ideas for at least another halfdozen sites. How could I keepup with this?

My first effort was to try to find guest bloggers for some of my sites and this worked to a certain extent. People are only willing to write bu so much for a site without some soliod dollars behind it though and the traffic and link trade ideas only allowed for so many blog posts. I decided I needed to hire some new content writers that could produce quality work but still keep my cost per article down under $10 each. Updating a blog every 3 days would require 10 articles per month or $100 at that rate. It’s tough to put so much into a site if it’s not making any money and even harder for a dozen sites in different niche categories.

My goal was to find one person who like me could write on just about any subject with a little research and effort. I searched high and low for advice on information on content for blogs and I came up with some interesting articles from places like Icontact but no real sources for what I wanted. In the end I turned to the Forums at Digital Point where I hired just that perfect content writer who now blogs with me on 15 or so different blogs in a wide variety of subjects. She can produce 350 word articles for under $10 each and she writes for the search engines with some nice keyword research and more in each article. With her working steady my content production has tripled and all of my blogs have fresh nerw articles posted to them on a very regualr schedule.

I have been purchasing articles in packs of 100 or 200 and this allows me to post the articles to my WordPress blogs using the timestamp feature so I can post into the future as far ahead as I wish. Right now 85% of my blogs have unique posts created until March or April of next year. The blogs will automagically make the post and ping the top 50 servers to announce each one to search engines. All I need to focus on now is proper link development and the sites are on cruise control for the next 90 days or so. Many of these are new blogs or old blogs with few recent updates. The 90 days of fresh content should make a marked difference in the sites traffic. I’ll post a review some time later with performance updates on the content.

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Google is growing up and has just announced a new home page redesign and plans to mature from a basic internet search engine to a new universal search engine whihc displays more than just 10 websites in the top results. Search engine results pages will now include relevant videos, images, news, books and websites. From a search marketers view this is a very bad thing because we will now be sharing the front page results with unrelated items such as pics and videos that are more difficult if not impossible to optimize for.  What used to be 10 spots for websites may now only be 5 websites with 2 videos, 1 pic and a book. When you add all the competition from big sites like Wikipedia and eBay then it really gets tough to achieve first page results for competitive search terms such as products or services.

It looks to me like Google has found a way to deal with spammers and it’s by duiluting the results on their own. This also has the added benefits of increasing clicks to Ads on the page because of the number of non relevant results per page. Think about it. For competitive keywords you may end up with the results above and only 5 pages in the organic serp’s nbut there will always be 10 paid spots on the sidebar that are more targeted. IN effect the Ads on Google will become the most relevant results. If someone is willing to spend the big bucks for top spots and front page results they must be relevant right?

Google Press Center: Press Release

Google Introduces New Search Features and Unveils New Homepage Design

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. (May 16, 2007) – Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) today announced its critical first steps toward a universal search model that will offer users a more integrated and comprehensive way to search for and view information online. The company also introduced an updated homepage design and several new navigation features that make it faster and easier for users to find the information they are looking for.

“Our focus has always been making our users’ search experience as simple and straightforward as possible,” said Marissa Mayer, vice president of search products and user experience at Google. “The ultimate goal of universal search is to break down the silos of information that exist on the web and provide the very best answer every time a user enters a query. While we still have a long way to go, today’s announcements are a big step in that direction.”

Google’s vision for universal search is to ultimately search across all its content sources, compare and rank all the information in real time, and deliver a single, integrated set of search results that offers users precisely what they are looking for. Beginning today, the company will incorporate information from a variety of previously separate sources – including videos, images, news, maps, books, and websites – into a single set of results. At first, universal search results may be subtle. Over time users will recognize additional types of content integrated into their search results as the company advances toward delivering a truly comprehensive search experience.

For example, a user searching for information on the Star Wars character Darth Vader is likely interested in all the information related to the character and the actor – not just web pages that mention the movie. Google will now deliver a single set of blended search results that include a humorous parody of the movie, images of the Darth Vader character, news reports on the latest Lucas film, as well as websites focused on the actor James Earl Jones – all ranked in order of relevance to the query. Users no longer have to visit several different Google search properties to find such a wide array of information on the topic.

The Power of Google Technology

Google is also in the process of deploying a new technical infrastructure that will enable the search engine to handle the computationally intensive tasks required to produce universal search results. The company is also releasing the first stage of an upgraded ranking mechanism that automatically and objectively compares different types of information. As always, Google™ search results are ranked automatically by algorithms to deliver the best results to users anywhere in the world.

“Google has continued to concentrate on improving the quality of search,” said Udi Manber, vice president of engineering at Google. “The level and speed of search innovation at Google has increased. Most of this innovation addresses basic ranking algorithms and is often not obvious to users. Users just see more accurate results, more often, in more languages, which is our primary goal.”

New Navigation Features

New dynamically generated navigation links have been added above the search results to suggest additional information that is relevant to a user’s query. For example, a search for “python” will now generate links to Google Blog Search™, Google Book Search™, Google Groups™, and Google Code™, to let the user know there is additional information on his or her query in each of those areas. As a result, users can find a wider array of information on their topic, including data types they might not have initially considered.

Google’s homepage and a number of applications have also been updated with a new navigation bar to provide easier access to popular Google products. Now, instead of having links above the Google.com homepage search box, users will see a navigation bar on the top left side of the page with various Google search properties and popular products including Gmail™, Google Calendar™, Google Docs & Spreadsheets™, and Picasa Web Albums™.

Experience the Experiments

Google also announced today a new experimental version of its popular search service called Google Experimental™, available on Google Labs™. This new test site provides users an opportunity to try out some of the latest search experiments and innovations and provide Google with feedback. One of the first experiments to be featured on the site enables users to view their search results on a map or timeline. For instance, when someone searches for “Albert Einstein” on Google Experimental, they can choose to view the search results on a map that shows locations mentioned within web pages about Albert Einstein or on a timeline that illustrates the history of Albert Einstein’s life. More information on Google Experimental search is available at Google Labs at http://labs.google.com.

About Google Inc.

Google’s innovative search technologies connect millions of people around the world with information every day. Founded in 1998 by Stanford Ph.D. students Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Google today is a top web property in all major global markets. Google’s targeted advertising program provides businesses of all sizes with measurable results, while enhancing the overall web experience for users. Google is headquartered in Silicon Valley with offices throughout the Americas, Europe and Asia. For more information, visit www.google.com.

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