If you were to pick two important SEO factors that will make your site get noticed by Google they would be:

1. Internal links (on page SEO)
2. Titles (also (on page SEO)

It is super important when creating a page to keep both your theme and keywords in focus while constructing it.

How to write content around Titles and Links?

When you are writing content try to vary the content around your links and titles in order to reinforce your optimization (but not over-optimize). For example often a Title with only the keywords themselves are less effective than the Title with a slight variation.

For example a page about SEO Optimization might use this title:

<Title>SEO Optimization – a great way to get traffic</Title>

but consider experimenting using this alternative:

<Title>SEO Factors | Proper Optimization Strategies</Title>

Note how we have not only split the keyword phrase but w’;ve added some supporting keywords and useful info as well. With on page links its just like your titles but at a much larger scale. Place the primary focus on the page with a handful of themed keywords which in turn backup the primary keyword you wish to rank for.

Confused or need a some help with this? A great way to construct your titles page is to first look at what your competitors are doing.

With the news of Steve Jobs passing I thought I would comment one a couple of things that have troubled me about Apple and Steve Jobs.

There’s no doubt that Steve Jobs importance in the computer world is like no other. One thing he was really good at was coming up with new innovation that Apple’s competitors didn’t even seem to care about.

I switched to Apple a while back and since I have never regretted it. So I am grateful for his innovations and insight. But I also have mixed feelings. With all the power Steve Jobs had within Apple, maybe he could have impacted the way we create products here in America.

30 years ago Steve Wozniak and Jobs built their first Apple 1. Boy have things evolved since them.

Many agree, without Steve Jobs the computers just wouldn’t be what they are today.

I must admit though I do have some gripes about Apple. The biggest one is all their computers are made in China.

And the other is, the people making these machines are in horrible working conditions. There are even some reports of students being forced to work at Foxcon, a large plant responsible for making many Apple computers.

What if Steve Jobs would have insisted from the beginning that all Apple products be  manufactured and built right here in the US of A?  I really wonder how different things would be in this economically troubled world.

Need to rank in your local search result? Be sure to check out Google Places. It identifies your business not only in the local SERPS but also though Google Maps.

To add to your SEO efforts, ranking well for local phrases is usually much less competitive. Instead of competing with phrases web-wide you can focus results for the city or state where your business.


Jody from marketing-jive.com writes :

According to ComScore’s The State of Local Search study, January 2011 saw 77.1 million mobile subscribers accessed local content on a mobile device—up 34% from the previous year. If that’s not enough for you, consider this Internet Yellow Pages and local search sites exhibited strong growth with 5.6 billion local searches in 2010, a 15% increase over 2009.

Local search optimization may just be one of the top overlooked items when trying to increase quality traffic to your site.

Whats the easiest way to convert more customers? Create a Sales Squeeze Page, sometimes called a Sales Funnel or simply a Landing Page.

What makes a good Landing Page?

A clean, page with one maybe two links that allow the visitor to find out more about a product or service. These links may go to a page to purchase or signup for a newsletter for example.

How to I create a Sales Squeeze Page?

Start by using a predefined template in your site. You’ll want to remove top navigation, sidebars and footers if they contain any links. The goal here is to create a simple easy to read page.Using a nice clear easy to read font also helps. The content is very important as well. This pages sole purpose is to drive the visitor to click or take action.

Save your template and experiment with different conversion techniques. Congratulations. You now have a custom sales squeeze and landing page for your site.

Oh by the way that’s Gil Goldstein in the picture above. Awesome accordion player.

Many believe that duplicating content penalizes websites. This just isn’t the case at all. If it were true, it would be pure chaos out there. If you think about it, much of the web is comprised of tons of duplicate content. It’s a big monster feeding on itself most of the time.

Delivering the Search Engine Results (called SERPs for short) is what Google does best. Instead of listing 5 or 10 pages with the same content, Google uses its algorithm to find the most relevant content from various authority sites discussing the same subject matter.

Google simply filters the results and proving you with the best possible mix for relevant search terms. Google is really smart about who’s got the original content and who is reusing it. For those reusing or copying content, Google simply shuffles these pages lower it it’s search results.

So word to the wise …. if you are re-using RSS feeds or grabbing content you may be feeding the monster! Instead spend your time offering your visitors something useful or interesting to read. Or better yet, spin a different opinion about the same discussion.

Recently Google added the Google+1 button. This seems to be Google’s most direct attempt to compete with the Facebook “Like” button, which allows your blog to be easily rated. In addition the +1 activity also will show up in Google’s search results. The button also provides a current count of how many times your story has been liked on Google Search Engine.

A plugin for WordPress was also released to make this button a breeze to install. The WordPress plugin – Google +1 Button works well with New Facebook Share Plugin and TweetMeMe button. All three plugins works great together. You can see 2 of these plugins currently installed on Rankbydesign.

For non-Wordpress sites the +1 button can be installed on Google Webmaster Central.

In this post I’ll wanted to introduce FoxyCart E-commerce and then explaining how you can convert a regular WordPress post into a real E-commerce product page. There is no limit to the amount of products you can have with this store setup and many payment gateways are available as well.

Create a store in WordPress in less than 30 minutes

The really cool thing too is that Foxycart completely integrates with WordPress and can be setup in little time. Another big advantage is both your product and WordPress post remain intact. There is no separate store or database to maintain – everything is together. You products are all managed directly through your post. This integration makes creating products a breeze!

• Control the Price and Product using Custom Fields
• Construct products utilizing forms within your templates
• Keep everything specified within your WordPress Post
• Post and purchase link are on the same page
• Insert simple cart code into your WP header

Here’s an example of a WordPress store I did with Foxycart. There are over 50 products hosted here so check it out!

Foxycart is a totally configurable e-commerce program

Setup is very straight forward. Anyone with basic html skills can setup and use the system.

You will need to first define a couple of custom fields, such as price and shipping rate. Then update your post template with a small piece of html code which is essentially a form with a submit or buy button.

• Cart is dynamically cached and is very quick
• Downloadables such as Ebooks can be setup
• Even handles monthly subscriptions
• Choose many merchant gateways & Paypal.
• Extremly affordable at only $19 per month, no setup fees
• Automatic shipping rates through usps and more

You’ll have complete control over cart, check out and email receipts. You can also login to the back-end of Foxycart to create coupons or export sales to Excel for example. Foxycart also provides a free trial for testing.

So you’ve created a new site and now you need to get indexed. Not to worry there are plenty of ways to get Google to notice you. If you have good content to offer, you will be rewarded!

The great news is search engine bots are constantly on the lookout for new web sites and web pages every day. In this article we’ll suggest seven ways to get your site indexed by Google quickly.

1. Get a friend or partner to post a link - Using a simple anchor text and Html code then ask them to insert it on a primary page in the sidebar or footer and have them point it to your site. This is usually the quickest and most direct way to get indexed.

2. Submit your RSS feed – Use a directory service such as Feedage or Feedcat for example.

3. Submit an XML sitemap - Webmaster Tools is a great way to submit an xml sitemap. This consists of links to every page within your web site .  A sitemap automatically notifies the various search engines every time you create new content. If you are using WordPress you can install a plugin to create a sitemap for you.

4. Produce a clear website theme - Another term for organizing themes is siloing. This is not only good for search engines but can can help your visitors navigate as well.

5. Create articles -Submit to a article directory and insert your website address in the Authors resource box. After publishing your articles to a couple popular article directories your site will get noticed

6. Create a social networking post – Sites like Twitter and Facebook for example are indexed frequently by search engines. So by placing your website Url in tweets or profiles, search engines and spiders can discover your site quickly.

7. Submit your site to a directory - Publish your website Url to a list of SEO-friendly sites. DMOZ or paid Yahoo Listing are important sites to be listed in. Two downsides here, Yahoo is fee based and optional and DMOZ takes some time and can take many months. As soon as your site is complete you will definitly want to submit it to DMOZ!

One of the more highly effective methods a SEO can use when setting up or updating and existing website is siloing. So what’s siloing anyways?

Siloing is basically organizing your web-site into larger categories, applying internal linking to manage the overall page rank and theme. The term soloing comes from the silos you see on a typical farm. You may have wheat in one and rice in another. Together they represent the farm as a whole.

The same page rank and theme technique can be applied to a website, Initially you will have to determine your top keyword terms. These should consist of category terms using 2-3 keywords.

Our Siloing Example

To explain this we’ll create a fictitious site and use Bend Oregon Vacations as our overall topic. Primary keywords would consist of Hotels, Places, Restaurants and Info for example.

Let’s step back and look at our topic keywords. The word hotels is too specific. For us to rank with Hotels nay be a bit unrealistic. We may reconsider a less competitive keyword phrase such as lodging reviews instead. So after some research we decide on: Bend Lodging Reviews, Bend Places To See, Bend Restaurants, Bend Calendar.

How we place these keywords or top solos in our site is important as well. Your header or top navigation bar is the best location for them. The resulting pages for these solos may consist of relevant articles you may have written for each of these phrases .

When using this kind of technique you are essentially telling the search engines you have 4 primary topics on your site and then pointing them to all your posts. In a sense its creating a usable sitemap. By theming them in to distinctive sections you empower your navigation to both the search engines and your visitors.

What Are The Steps To Siloing Again?

• Decide in the overall topic for your site
• From your topic create primary silos try using 2-3 keywords
• Refine keywords if too competitive
• Locate the silos in your header (prominent on the page at top!)

Cross-linking to other Silos

Try to minimize cross-linking, or linking from one of your articles or post to another in a different category. If you can need to crosslink, try linking to the top level silo instead. For example, if your post is about “where to stay” and you want to include a link about the “where to eat” to the top page listing all your restaurants.

Linking more to a specific post in your site than linking to a top silo dilutes the importance of the structure. The more you link to them the more higher ranking you will receive to these top level categories.

I’ve been peeking into the new course called Link Liberation. The course is set to launch in the next few days. Is it too good to be true? Link Liberation a new method to generate thousands of high quality backlinks in a very short period of time.

So What is Link Liberation?

The Link Liberation Course is a is being offered by two well known SEO’s, Dan Thies and Leslie Rohde from Braintrust. I have to admit after watching their video today, I was a little intrigued by what I saw. More videos will be out shortly explaining in detail exactly what the Link Liberation system is all about. The overall consensus is that instead of using traditional back-linking methods, Link Liberation will provide you with a new way to leverage the web to work for you.

Here’s what I know about it: (sofar)

Link Liberation will:

• Use the leverage of the web to help create massive back links
• Provides you with a SEO course on obtaining thousands of backinks
• Teach you a brand new way to use the web to your advantage
• Course will abide with White Hat SEO techniques

Other notes about the course:

• According to video – google won’t mind a bit if links build themselves overnight
• A software application is included in course to automate the process
• Several erase studies were presented in the video with 90 day results with top ranking (www.ohmydogsupplies.com was used)
• This is Dan & Leslie’s biggest and most comprehensive product to date
• You don’t need to build you own coliseum (your site) and the fact that Rome has already been built (the Web)
• Will use a “Market Mutiplier” technique to do the work
• Cost of course is unknown

Three things that grabbed my attention

• I was captured by the link building video they did
• I really like the fact that the course is straight White Hat
• I was reminded how hard it is to obtain backlinks

Related

Free SEO Book by Dan Thies