A fews weeks ago, I wrote a blog about why I don’t know as much about SEO, as I thought I did. This was just after I learned about the Matt Cutts video about White Hat SEO tips. At that point, I did this in a tounge and cheek sort of a way, as that day I thought about writing an occasional SEO tip blog and making that a regular column of this site. I have been humbled once again, and this time by my friend Mark, who is a SEM guru, and knows a ton about about Internet Marketing, Marketing and sales. Thank god he does not know about SEO as much as I do, but no matter how much you know, you can always learn more. This is what he helped me learn yesterday, yes on a Sunday, we met tod discuss why it is so difficult to measure the return on investment for SEO, especially when SEM or Pay per click ads work so well so quickly. No matter what you do, you have to SEO for the proper keywords with high enough traffic, otherwise you are just wasting your time. This leads us to our SEO tip #4, which is to use the Google Adwords Tool, keyword Estimator to see the size of the traffic. I have used this tool before yesterday for our SEM campaigns, but not as our SEO Keyword Tool, and I think everyone should use it to figure out the right keywords to SEO for.

So what exactly is the difference? We all know that we need to SEO our websites or blogs for the best and highest traffic keywords that target our customers. In the past to get accurate keyword numbers on a monthly basis, we use to recommend Overture/Yahoo’s Search Marketing tool. We stopped recommending it last year, as it was inaccurate and did not seem to provide consistent data. Most Keyword Search tools are still using it and are therefore inaccurate. So SEO Tips #4 is that you need to use the Google Adwords account, and go to the Tools section, and use the Keyword Estimator to see how many clicks you will get for your keywords. For our purposes of building the business social networking site for b2b lead generation for ITEX, we are contemplating targeting the keywords business versus marketing. We just saw some major differences in traffic, as the keyword Business could get a whopping 30,000 clicks in a day, while marketing can get about 6,000. These are still huge numbers compared to even keywords such as SEO and blogging, which we focus on quite a bit. Which get about 100 to 500 clicks a day, so which one’s should we target? Go ahead and comment let us know, I will tell you out bias, at the bottom of the post.

Not that I want to beat this keyword thing to death, it is important to discuss the far reaching effects of this SEO tip of targeting high traffic keywords. Folks you have to drive enough traffic for your business, that is the bottom line, and we all have to focus on driving sales for our companies. And, that usually means our SEO efforts have to lead to higher targeted traffic leads. This world of lead generation and business marketing usually has to do with b2b and b2c companies. We as SEO experts are dealing with the ultimate goal of any website, to get any many leads as possible for the business. Which ultimately leads to more sales. Some times and often sales are conducted on the website without having to lead to leads, sales are the ultimate goal, leads don’t matter as much, and that is usually the case with b2c sites. So other than the world of b2b business products for businesses buying and selling things to each other, things usually fall in to b2c, which deals with business to consumers, rather than b2b which is business to business. You have undoubtedly seen that SEO is discussed in many SEO blogs for both segments and makes a difference for both types of websites.

For our personal Internet Marketing business, we are trying to decide which keyword to target, both marketing and business related keywords are being discussed internally. As they are probably the top 5 most related keywords to grab business related traffic. So who is searching for this kind of traffic and why should we care? First of all, SEO which stands for Search Engine Optimization is part of SEM, which stands for Search Engine Marketing, which is part of Internet Marketing, which is part of Marketing, which is one of the biggest components of Business. All of this makes sense if you are an SEO company which we are, so we belong in the world of business, but isn’t it important that we target the world of marketing first? Yes, it seems like I am thinking out loud, isn’t that the purpose of blogs, to make our journaling part of the interactive conversation with our self and our readers:-)?

So for marketing to be effective, it has to promote the business to sell products and services. And, for SEO to be effective it has to look at keywords from Google Adwords Traffic Estimator tool, and the bigger the targeted traffic the bigger your sales. I did need to confirm this SEO Tip and hammer it home, you need to target high enough traffic keywords.

So don’t get ranked high for the wrong keywords, as you won’t get the traffic, the leads or the sales. This is what will happen to you even if you did a great job as an SEO. I hope all of this makes sense, this is what I was trying to do to provide a wholistic view of SEO in the grand scheme of business and marketing. If you found this topic boring or too confusing drop me a line, I will go back and read and edit this article again, it was difficult for me to write.

I was going to write about this topic on one of our others blogs, but I wanted more users to see it and and especially SEO consultants or marketing types, who also want a link to their site. So can you please recommend some business blogs for me? i needed exposure for this article…I really want your answers!

I seriously can’t find even a few best business blogs, How am I going to find the top 10 best business blogs. I friggin can’t believe, it, I have been searching for different websites and blogs blogging about the best business blogs, and there aren’t any except for TWO (at the moment I start this blog), I can recommend. Two does not make a list folks, two is like, well 2. That does not make a list of any thing, not even best business blogs. I will recommend at least one, so stay tuned, and other one of them is not even a business blog, it’s a marketing blog. So how do I find a business blog and why should I care? I don’t want to read about technology that is covered enough, I want insights in to the business world, maybe I am just thinking it’s too broad? Got an idea recommend it for me? I can just hear my kid at home “DAD WANTS a Business Blog for Christmas, Mom did you hear me< Dad wants a business blog“. This dad wants to know, because he wants to pass help business resources and blog about business news. And he wants to actually create a b2b and business social networking site, to help continue the entrepreneurial spirit of America!

Well your kids are probably more technical than me, as mine are. Did I mention that my kids are only 2 1/2 and 6 1/4? That quarter sure matters when you are six, it’s like a huge percentage of the total, so it’s important. Boy they change so fast, and are so much brighter every day. Liam the two year old goes on the computer and wants to watch his DVD. He is 2 years old, I thought kids didn’t talk at the age of like 6, they know how to text already at 2 now days. Do your kids text at the age of 2 1/2? Why am I going on and on about my kids, filler man, filler. Blogging is about entertaining as it is as much about business blogs? Just kidding.. We are trying (coming soon, like days away), to create a b2b and business social networking site, and if we don’t entertain you, you won’t come back right:-).

Ok, I think I am going to continue to rant about why I can’t find a good list of business blogs. While I do that, I do have to send you to my favorite marketing blog at the least, it’s called SethGodin.TypePad.com. It’s by, you guessed it, Seth Godin, the marketing guru of all marketing gurus. If you type in blog on Google, you should see MyTypes.com the Blogging platform, we are top 10 in Free Blogs, Free Blog, #1 Create a blog, on and on, but No! Who do you see, at the top 10 Seth’s blog, that is what I am talking about, his blog is not just one of the best marketing blogs, it’s one of the top 10 blogs Period. That is amazing, Seth, he is so creative, who wouldn’t recommend him.

Without further ado, here is a list of top 5 business blogs, suggest yours and I will add them to the bottom of the list and give you credit and a link.

1. SethGodin.TypePad.com (the best business blog focused on marketing)

2. http://fakesteve.blogspot.com/ (The most entertaining business, devices and technology blog)

3. http://www.allbusiness.com/2984958-1.html (By AllBusiness.com, list of Business Blogs by experts in specific subject areas).

4. TechCrunch.com (Heck, why not mention a technology business blog, they are the best at the moment).

5. http://www.ducttapemarketing.com/blog/ (It’s too busy of a website and sales oriented, too many ads, but it’s a great resource from what I hear, he has 174k readers by FeedBurner).

**So I am going to be lazy here and stop at the list at 5, I want the rest to be of others, and or any other one’s I find business blogs worthy. So check back on this list, and see if your blog is listed. Or recommend one for me.

7 SEO Techniques made Defunct by Google in 2007 | DolphinPromotions: SEO, Web design and Technology Blog UK

I usually don’t write two blogs in a day, but when I read a story that is a must for our SEO Blogs, I have to pass it on.  As mentioned before, Content is king, develop great content and don’t try to trick anyone, but some of these strategies mentioned in this blog, I didn’t even know not to do.  Not that we did them any way!

SEO Tip #3, Don’t do reciprocal links, Google penalizes your site if you do this.

There are many other tips within this article so do read it by following the link above.

What goes on in a Finale? A celebration of completion, a summary, and what now brow cow? This is it my friend, so here it is, a summary of SEO for bloggers from our previous blogging coach:

June 27th, 2007 at 10:29 pm by Bc in SEO for Bloggers

Blogging is uniquely suited for search engine optimization, because the search engines definitely favor websites that have lots of relevant, easily updated content. However, there are ways you can maximize your blog’s promotional abilities – SEO techniques you can use to “blogcast your brand”.

Here’s a rundown of my SEO for Bloggers series:

Part 1: Getting Started with SEO. Start here to learn exactly what SEO is and the basics of how to use it to promote your message, including choosing your keywords properly. If you only read one of these posts, read this one (but you really should bookmark them all!).

Part 2: Link Building and Link Popularity. This post covers a key component of any blogger’s SEO strategy: getting tons of incoming links. Search engines love websites that lots of people are linking too – after all, popular blogs are popular for a reason, and that reason is simple: people like ‘em.

Part 3: Link Baiting for Fun and Profit. Link baiting is the art of getting other bloggers and webmasters to link to your site by creating interesting posts that benefit your readers in some way, shape, or form. After all, people link to content they find compelling.

Part 4: Building Your Cornerstone. Strong flagship posts are the pillars of blog – they are your most compelling content, they bring in the links, and they naturally have an ultra high keyword density.

Part 5: Off-Site SEO and the Social Media. This post describes how to use the social media networks and the user-driven aspects of Web 2.0 to enhance and promote your blog. There are a whole lot of amazing tools and communities out there, so use them to your advantage.

There’s one more point to remember about SEO, and that point is that the results generally don’t happen over night. Yes, content can go viral, but building a popular blog with lots of readers takes time – you have to develop your keyword-dense cornerstone content, to build link popularity and generate incoming traffic, and to make a name for yourself in your niche.

**Since we are all in the Internet marketing business, and the job of marketing is to either sell products, generate leads, and/or to promote businesses.  Next steps in the process when you have customers and clients is how do you manage them, and communicate with them on a regular basis.  Blogs are great for one to many, but what about one on one communication.   This is where CRM comes in, which stands for Customer Relationship Management:

What is CRM?

A friend of mine recently became the Director of Product marketing at a local CRM Software provider in Seattle. I had a meeting with him and his Director of Marketing on Friday, and it went well enough that I decided to write this blog on the latest CRM trends, directions, and analysis. Before, we start I want to mention that this is probably my most knowledgeable area of expertise. I invested in Clarify one of the original CRM Software companies, which got sold to Nortel back in 1999. I also have had investors and friends who co-founded large CRM software companies that went public with stock prices over $100/share. I have also wanted to start my own CRM software as a services, Internet company, and actually had someone develop the software for us, needless to say it did not work out. And, we never fully developed the business plan, though we had a great URL called RealClients.com, which I don’t even know if we still own. We have given up so many URL’s in the last year, just due to budgetary concerns. Believe me, there are still good one’s to have. So getting back to the world of CRM software and CRM with Internet and mass emailing functions is what I wanted to create.

It seems as my friends company had created probably the best system in the world. They are super well funded, and we might do some work for the, from an SEO and lead generation perspective. So I thought I would start this blog on CRM. Before we get further, I wanted to define in simple terms what is CRM? Not just the acronym definition, but what it really helps businesses accomplish, and how it’s coming down stream to contact management and email functionality. CRM stands for Customer Relationship Management, and it is the software that helps to manage interactions with customers, it came from the customer service perspective in large companies, but is now focused towards sales force automation.

Large companies needed CRM software to help them manage their contacts with existing customers and keep track of customer services issues, and client records. On the other end sales people needed account information on companies and clients. In the middle were product and inventory management systems, that really didn’t have anything to do with CRM, but if integrated with customer databases would be a great tool. Well focus that is where CRM software has come today, any information about a customer, the companies interactions with prospects and clients, even which products were shipped to them, and when. To be able to access this information from a login account on the internet from any where any computer or cell phone, that is where CRM software is going today, and is already.

So you can imagine, as technology sales executive as my first career, an SEO Consultant now days, and a marketing expert with over 16+ years of technology experience I have learned a few things about sales and marketing management. I am excited to see an amazing CRM software company in Seattle, until we sign a contract with them, I am going to keep the name elusive to you all, but i do love the company offices and people that I met there on Friday. So stay tuned for great CRM advice, Information and insights to help you make a great CRM software decision.

Before I get in to the SEO for bloggers article, which is below, I wanted to mention a few things about Business Social Networking. What’s so interesting is that i’s at the intersection of B2B and social networking. So I was doing some research on the keyword Business Social Networking, and out pops this article below from 2005.  The year of the start of Social Networking, with the screaming entrance of MySpace and Facebook making headlines, but most importantly YouTube.com. The article below talks about a site 43things.com, which I had known for a while, but had no Idea that it was heavily invested or owned by Amazon.com. Read the article if you need to but, business social networking is finally making a big leap towards businesses from the hype only social media aspect.

The Seattle Times: Business & Technology: Social networking: A link to like minds

I can’t wait to finish the series on SEO for bloggers, it’s keeping me from writing original content. So below is the article from our previous blogging coach. Yes, we are still working on our b2b and business social networking site, it’s getting closer, but running in to some design issues at the moment. The best part is that the business social networking technical features are all done, it’s just about the design at the moment enjoy the article below:

SEO for Bloggers: Off-Site SEO and the Social Media (Part 5 of 6)

June 27th, 2007 at 10:01 pm by Bc in Social Media Networks, Link Building, SEO for Bloggers, Blogging Techniques

So we’ve established the search engines love sites with tons of incoming links, and we’ve talked about a few different ways to earn them.   However, I have yet to mention a major source of traffic – the social media sites. Granted, using the social media networks as a source of links isn’t typically considered part of SEO, but they can be very useful when used properly.

How to Play the Social Media Game:

Social media can be defined as the online technologies and practices people use to share opinions, insights, experiences, and perspectives (thanks wikipedia!). Although social media is generally used as an umbrella term that encompasses everything from YouTube to Second Life, bloggers can utilize content-sharing sites like Digg, Del.icio.us, Reddit, and Stumble Upon and social networking sites such as Facebook, Myspace, and Linked In.*   Here is a  preview of our Business Social Network below:

First of all, syndicate your blog content on all the social media networks that you have profiles on, as well as any directories that index content related to your niche. You don’t have to reprint entire posts, rather, just copy the first few sentences – use it like a teaser or preview, and then be sure to link to it with “read more” or “continue”. After all, if someone is comes across your profile on any social media site, they’d probably be interested in your blog too. Be sure to get some of your keywords in the in the “teaser” part, however, so you’re playing to the search engines as well as the readers.

Second, become an active participant in social content sites like Digg, along with popular forums in your niche. You have to give some to get some, after all, and by reading and interacting on these, you’ll learn what kind of content is well received. Over all, however, it pays to be bold, to show off your passions, and to create content that has value for your users. This is where link baiting (in the altruistic “creating compelling content” sense) can really pay off.

Note: when you’re submitting posts to the social media networks, aim for “scannable” content – easily digestible article with bulleted or numbered lists, headings and subheadings, and charts and graphs. Reading on the web is not the same as reading a book – most people tend to just scan over things and pick up the main ideas.

Viral Ideas and Blogging

Viral marketing and viral content are major buzzwords these days, and for good reason. An idea, a post, a website, or an application can go viral and get thousands of links and millions of hits in a matter of hours. Of course, these can be shallow hits and non-targeted traffic, but the viral marketers do have a point – people spread ideas and share content that’s easily understandable, benefits the user in some way (even if it’s only to make them smile – look at how quickly things like lolcats get around), and neatly packaged (perhaps in the form of a concise, well-written blog post).

*This is by no means an exhaustive list, and it may take some research and trial and error to figure what communities are best suited to your purposes.

Posted by Bc in Social Media Networks, Link Building, SEO for Bloggers, Blogging Techniques

**As always, I want to be clear that we get our photos at a free stock photo place called www.Sxc.hu, these photos are allowed for free usage for blogging sites and free blogs.   We also have bought photos from their StockExpert.com their pay for photo site.  Please do support them, and know that 99% of our photos come from there, if you are wondering where to find them.  We always recommend adding photos to your blogs, we even wrote a blog about it.

Again another great SEO for bloggers resource from our previous blogging coach.  As mentioned previously, we are working on our B2b and business Social Networking site, so not a lot of original posts this week. 

SEO for Bloggers: Building Your Cornerstone (Part 4 of 6)

June 26th, 2007 at 10:35 pm by Bc in SEO for Bloggers, Blogging Techniques, Getting Started

Cornerstone Content is Essential

A good blog rests on a solid foundation of cornerstone, or flagship content. This is the content you build your blog around – it is indispensable, it is essential, it is what people absolutely must know in order to understand your brand and do business with you.  It should also be some of your most compelling content – it’s the ace up your sleeve, it’s what readers come to your blog for, and it’s your best stuff.

Flagship Content and SEO

Flagship content is naturally keyword rich.  As a central component of your blog, it should focus on your main message and therefore contain tons of your keywords. When writing your cornerstone content, you should focus on creating value for your readers – after all, compiling a useful resource is one of the ways to generate incoming links. One of the things that your flagship posts should accomplish is to answer the most relevant questions that people searching for your content are asking. Ask yourself “what kind of content would ensure that my readers get the most out of my blog?”

When you place flagship content with a high keyword density in a prominent position on your blog and reference it in future posts, it helps to promote the post in search engines and makes it more liked to be linked to by others. Amazing flagship content has the potential to go viral, because a useful flagship post or series of posts gives people something to link to, recommend, and remember.

How to Create Cornerstone Content

Okay, so you know that you need to write some compelling flagship posts that benefit and hook readers.  Now what do you write about? Here’s a few ideas:

1.  A glossary of terms related to your business.  This is a especially useful if your in an industry with lots of specialized jargon that can be intimidating to outsiders (note: coming soon on Create Compelling Content: a “Blogger’s Glossary”).  It’s also beneficial in the SEO sense, because you can use tons of keywords in this post.

2.  A series of tips for newcomers to your industry or niche; for instance, “Ten Things I Wish I Knew Before I Started….”. Fill in the blank with your expertise.

3.  How-tos.  A clearly-written how-to post or series is an excellent way to provide value for your readers, and it lets you show off your chops at the same time.  Bonus points if you can make it uplifting and inspirational, i.e. “anyone can attain this goal if they put their mind to it, here’s how”.  Inspire someone and they will not only remember you, they’ll recommend you and link to your blog.

4.  A powerful vision.  Do you have a particular vision or amazing, innovative idea for your niche?  Can you write about it in an eloquent way? Go for it.

5. Organized databases of product reviews or other resources for your niche. You can even include outside links as long as they add value and support your overall brand somehow (just be sure that these outgoing links don’t directly contradict your message).

6. FAQs about your business and industry are simple but very useful, and they are very easy to create and fill with keywords.

7. All of the above – videos and podcasts of any of the previous options are another great flagship, and they allow for your readers to access your content in their preferred format (some people like to read information, others learn best by watching or listening).  Use the many different methods of web-publishing to your advantage and create a video or podcast of your cornerstone content.  This is by no means an exhaustive list, but it’s a good jumping off point.  Feel free to share your own cornerstone content in the comments!

If you read yesterdays’s SEO Tips blog, and how we came up with the concept yesterday to do a daily or regular SEO Tips, you know what we are talking about with the building your cornerstone.

Matt Cutts’ Lecture – Whitehat SEO tips for Bloggers – One Mans Blog

I just checked Google Adwords to see how much traffic the keyword “SEO Tips” was getting. It was quite a bit, much more than I thought. I changed the Title Tags of this blog a few days ago to include “SEO Tips“, I felt that we really were passing on little tidbits all the time, and they really should be called SEO Tips. I knew not that it’s actually a keyword that people are searching for. Let alone, and long behold, there is actually a video (Whitehat SEO Tips) out there some where, well now you can access it here too, from the link above.  If it’s coming from our main man Matt Cutts and and his SEO Tips, you better know them, inside out.

And, I have to thank this nice man who’s blog’s titled “One Man’s Blog.com“, his name is John P. and I think you should visit his blog to watch the video. He is probably pretty happy that I am giving him a very powerful link. Why? It’s because he also helped me realize “I don’t know much” and gave us cool resources.

I also had no idea that there is such a thing as WordCamp, I guess he is speaking there. Way to go John, i wish I could come and visit Dallas, and see this WordPress Conference of sorts called WordCamp. We are huge fans of WordPress as you all know. I have to try to make it to Mexico before I get to Dallas, budgets have been tight around here, since the housing crash. More about budgets later, Yes I am going to take a vacation soon. But this SEO Tips idea came to us today,what a great series to keep on going forever?  We got the idea Well before the John P. and Matt Cutt’s video thing, so I can’t give them credit.  But I do have to say, that we found them while searching for the keywords.

Stay tuned for the near future, you will soon see us and join us to do something special. Hint, hint, it will be within the b2b, business social networking, and SEO Consultants, and search marketing professionals space. It’s apparent today that this blogging fool (moi), doesn’t know as much as he thought.  But thank God he has the Barter folks helping him blog and set up a professional b2b business social networking site.  Yes, it will probably promote barter to businesses, but you expected that as that is our core business focus for our partners at ITEX.   The project is going to be a great resource to promote your online businesses and especially in the professional b2b and small business environment.

So do watch the Video above at John P’s OneMansBlog.com with the link above, as in my Opinion it has the best SEO insights and SEO Tips by Matt Cutts.  Also check back soon, as I will start out with SEO Tips #2 probably tomorrow?

As mentioned before, this week we are featuring old articles from our previous blogging coach, as we prepare for the launch of our Business Social Networking site, coming soon. Enjoy:

SEO For Bloggers: Link Baiting For Fun and Profit (Part 3 of 6)

Link baiting is a term that comes up a lot in SEO discussions, and it can be a very powerful component of your SEO strategy. Link bait is used to describe any sort of linkable content – a blog post, an image, a special feature – within a site that’s meant to catch attention and invite others to link to it. At the most basic level, link bait is something bloggers and webmasters deem interesting enough to share with their own readers. Successful link baiting can be an extremely potent form of viral marketing.

Despite the fact that link baiting is sometimes referred to in a negative manner (i.e. you’re “tricking” people into linking to you and coming to your site), it’s really about establishing yourself in your niche, creating useful and compelling content, and getting your ideas out there by reaching people who might be able to use them.

There are six basic types of link bait, or hooks

1. Breaking News – Be the first to break a major story or to share a unique piece of news, or just write up it in the clearest, most compelling manner.

2. Humor - People like to laugh, plain and simple. If you can make them smile, they’ll reward you in the form of links and clicks.

3. Inspiration – Uplifting quotes, stories, and personal triumphs can all inspire people to link to your site.

4. Controversy and Attacks – Stand out from the crowd by being contrary or negative, by being the only one in your niche to dislike something, or by straight up slamming someone or something. This is difficult to do well without reflecting poorly upon you and your brand, so it’s probably best left to the non-business or anonymous bloggers.

5. Flattery – Will get you everywhere. Write positive and genuine posts praising other bloggers, new products, and services, and anything else you really like. Be sure to link to whatever it is you are writing about, and they’ll probably return the favor. You can also create a comprehensive list of websites, blogs, and other online resources for your niche (this technique combines #5 and #6).

6. Resources and How-tos – Teach your readers how to do something, give them something valuable, make your blog benefit them in some way, shape, or form. This is probably the best form of link bait for a business blog to employ – you’ll get to show off your expertise to a whole bunch of potential new clients and customers.

Remember, the more incoming links you have, the higher your blog will rank in the search engine listings, so be sure to include a little link baiting in your overall SEO plan.

Posted by Bc in Link Building, SEO for Bloggers, Blogging Techniques

**Below is a blog highlight from our business blog section, rarely will I post one from our business blogs here, but you should go read it, here is an excerpt:

The blog covers an article from the Wall Street Journal on the topic of “Attention Bloggers: For small businesses that can’t afford a lot of marketing the blogsphere offers a cheaper alternative.  
What Shelly (The author) is saying is that you should try to get professional bloggers in your target business community or topic to blog about your product. This is not easy, but by giving stuff away free stuff to them, by visiting their blogging site and commenting on their blogs, you can get their attention. And, their exposure is very valuable as these blogging communities are very active and can help spread the news about your products. The goal here is to be a participative member of the community where your potential customers are spending time online.

This to me is why business social networking makes sense, which truly is a B2b exchange is not? Not just a whole, but has to be for each niche industry. So imagine a business social network for each industry such as Dentists social networking, Lawyers social networking, massage therapists social networking? I think people in each professional industry do want to connect with each other, and usually do, especially as they have something big in common? 

This can be done by commenting on major blogs, blogging about your businesses on a regular basis, on your separate domain, but we recommend doing it on MyTypes.com, Blogger.com, and on WordPress.com. I actually just mentioned our website on the author of this article’s blog at WSJ, I actually posted a link to MyTypes.com too, by simply writing http://Mytypes.com just like it’s done here. If you comment on a news site or a major blogging community site, they will probably let you link back to your site, but you have to do the link back properly. The easiest way to add a link is by adding the URL such as http://www.ITEX.com, as in this case I did it for ITEX.com. Some times, you can also do links with hyper text to just the keywords without the www or http, this is preferred by most blogging sites don’t allow this with the html code. Link back from these sites are not only great for mention and a link back to your company, but they are the most important factor in Google’s view of the value of your site. We talk a lot about this in our SEO blogs site and I am sure you have read about this, if not just read any of our articles on SEO & blogging coach from our main page. 

This article is interesting because matching businesses with other businesses (b2b) is what we are all about because of our relationship with the Barter company ITEX. We are actually in the process of building a b2b marketing and b2b business social networking site for them. We are in the final design and coding phases. The business social networking concept is nothing new, but it’s still not being full leveraged, we hope take our expertise with MyTypes.com blogging Social Network in to the business segment. We will see how this works, so do stay tuned…

We have been stuck at #13 for the keyword B2b now for about 2-3 weeks.  This is after steadily gowing down from over 100 to 91 to 51 and so on.   Every week we expect to inch closer, to be specific we have been inching closer.  What makes us stuck at #13, actually feels like an eternity, but it’s only been a few weeks.  When you are competing for major keywords such as B2b, the thing that seperates you from the top is the number of top quality links versus your competitors.

Therefore after most SEO basics such as site structure, content, and many other non-trivial things for Search Engine Optimization (SEO), what you need to rank #1 is lots of Links and LinkBuilding is the key.  Even when you have top links, some one else may have more than you, as is the case with our b2b SEO rankings.  We also found this to be the case with being stuck at #4 for the keyword Barter.  Though we have found this to be imperative, content is still key to get smart and powerful links from blogs and news sites.   B2b or Barter we expected the keyword SEO to be tougher, and we found out that it is, but we did crack #10 for it:-(.   I am only saying that SEO rankings for very competitive keywords can be very, very tough, and it changes all the time.   Here is the great article from our previous blogging coach, part 2 in our series.  

SEO For Bloggers: Link Building and Link Popularity (Part 2 of 6)

June 26th, 2007 at 12:46 am by Bc in Link Building, SEO for Bloggers, Getting Started

Search engine optimization is not all about keywords and optimized site design, although those are certainly essential. However, the number of incoming links your site has also matters. I’ve touched on the matter of incoming links before, but I didn’t mention how important they were to your blog’s rank.

Link Building and Link Popularity

Link Popularity is a score based on the number of incoming links pointed at your blog. Clearly, the more incoming links you have the better, but link reputation and page importance play a role as well.

You’re nobody until somebody links to you – link building is the single most important part of achieving a high ranking website in modern search algorithms. I repeat, link building is the single most important part of achieving a high ranking website in modern search algorithms.

So how do you get other bloggers and webmasters to link to your blog? First of all, create compelling content that others will be interesting in linking to – content is still king.  Secondly, participate in the blogging community. Be active in relevant discussions, leave substantive comments on other blogs, post on related forums (as always, be sure to place a link to your blog in your signature), and trade links with topical hubs and related sites.

Third, link to other blogs in your niche – you can trade links, or just reward other bloggers with links and it’s likely they’ll return the favor.  Fourth, write glowing testimonials and reviews of services and products related to your blogging topics – chances are they will link back to you when they post them on their own sites.

The Role of Keywords in Link Building

Think of each post and page on your blog as a building block – each is its own unit and has it’s own ranking potential and relevant keywords. Use some of your keywords in each post’s title (search engines index posts by title) and resist the urge to write cutesy or attention grabbing headlines that have little to do with the actual content. You may be successful at gaining some traffic, but it might not be the valuable kind that’s targeted to your blog.

Writing keyword rich titles and headings that are also crisp and concise can do wonders for your blog’s rankings.  Not only will descriptive titles let search engine readers know they’re in the right place – they’ve found what they’ve been searching for – it will also help you out when others link to your site, even if they use the whole URL to cite your blog. Basically, you want people to know what they are clicking on, so you want your keywords to be part of the links that point at your blog.

The next post in my SEO For Bloggers series will cover link baiting and how to use your content as bait to lure in the linkers and readers.

Our previous blogging coach wrote this series of articles back in June of last year.  This series may have been her best work.  It’s quite lengthy so I won’t do much of an introduction, but I am curious if any one has feedback on our new look of promoting premium blog templates and SEO tools on the front page?  Do let us know what you think of the buttons on the top bar, and or any other comments on this SEO Blog Templates sites design as a whole.  Enjoy this great series, I am going to republish the series all week, as I am spending most of my time doing design work for our B2b, Business Social Networking site.  

SEO for Bloggers: Getting Started with SEO (Part 1 of 6)

June 25th, 2007 at 07:35 pm by Bc in SEO for Bloggers, Blogging Techniques, Getting Started, Stickiness

You’ve probably heard the term search engine optimization , or SEO, being used before, but you might not have realized how simple it is to apply some of the techniques to your blog. By choosing the right platform, much of the nitty-gritty design work will be done for you, but it’s up to you, the blogger, to create quality content that uses SEO to target new readers and promote your brand.

Search Engine Optimization is the process of improving the volume and quality of traffic to a web site via search engines and search results. The goal is to achieve a high ranking, or to show up early (ideally in the top five) in the listings for relevant search terms, or keywords. Many SEO techniques can integrated in your blogging to ensure that your blog ranks highly in the search engine results for the keywords that are most important to you and your business.

Although SEO isn’t the only thing to consider when setting up your blog, it’s important to keep it in mind from the very beginning. First of all, you need to make a comprehensive list of all the potential search terms, or keywords that people could use when searching for your business, product, or service. Pay particular attention to synonyms, alternative phrases, and even misspellings (www.thesaurus.com is your friend here).

Next, you want to place your most important keywords in title and tagline. For instance, if you’re a real estate agent based in Chicago, use those words in your title – a possible title and tagline would be “A Chicago Real Estate Blog: From Lake shore Drive to Wicker Park”. Not only is the title the first thing your visitors notice when they come to your blog, it’s what the search engines display in their results listings. Be sure to place your text before your logo or any other images in order to maximize your site’s findability.

Once you’ve started actually blogging, be sure to use your chosen keywords liberally in your posts, categories, and tags. A high keyword density is key to search engine optimization. To continue with the Chicago real estate agent example, some obvious keywords for that blogger would be Chicago Real Estate, Chicago Condos, Wicker Park Real Estate, South Loop Condominiums, and other related terms.

If you’re blogging about your business, it’s fairly easy to place keywords within the content naturally, because you’d probably use the phrases while discussing those topics anyways. Aim for organic, natural usage instead of just repeating keywords for the sake of placing keywords amongst other keywords in your content (see how annoying that is to read?). You don’t want to counteract your SEO skills with unhelpful content.

Combining SEO techniques with compelling content will make your blog a powerful component of your brand. The simplest way to do this is to put yourself in your readers’ place – you want to make your blog easy to find (the SEO aspect) and beneficial for your readers (the compelling content). Quality content will also inspire other bloggers and site owners to link to you, and link building – getting others to links to your site – is absolutely vital for SEO success.

Organic keyword use in the context of interesting, informative posts is especially important in regard to link building, the next aspect of search engine optimization that I’ll be covering as part of my SEO for bloggers series, so be sure to check back soon!

Posted by Bc in SEO for Bloggers, Blogging Techniques, Getting Started, Stickiness