Blogging in my opinion is still the best tool for SEO, especially if you have a decent Google Page Rank for your blog.  Some of you maybe aware that Google is starting to give high Page Rank to Twitter pages that are organic and with lots of Tweets.  Be careful not to SPAM people, Twitter and Google are catching on to spammers fast.  My Twitter profile page got a PR of 6, previously my blogs have had only a high of PR 5.  Wow, that is a really good sign for SEO for all on Twitter.  So Twitter is an amazing tool for SEO, and number two overall in my marketing book .  The problem with Twitter is that you cannot use Anchor Text links, as those links have the best and fastest ranking value.  In my last post, I wrote about anchor text links and showed you with links of “Yoga Clothing“, “Om T Shirts“, as my friends company is selling “Yoga T Shirts“.  The proof is in the pudding, my friends site is already ranked #9 on Yahoo for “Om T Shirts“, #49 on Google.  And, in the top 10 in Google for “Om Yoga Clothing“, that my friends is the power of blogging from a high Page Rank site, all within a week. 

Twitter profile pages are increasingly indexed by Google and given a high PR quickly especially as others with many followers Retweet your tweets.  I am quite shocked by this, as the PR value of 6 on my Twitter profile caught me off guard.  But this is not suprising as all of the interlinking that is inherent in the Twitter system.  The profile name is the key as it goes in the Title tag for Twitter, so that is what you will get ranked high for, not necessarily your posts on Twitter.  So be clear that you choose proper and most searched keywords on your profile name and your posts.  As always, if you are not using proper keywords, you are just wasting your time!

faceBook to me is mainly a personal social network, but it still has a significant value to Google for rankings as it’s very hard to be a spammer on fB.  fB is also great for setting up Fan Pages and Group pages to grow your network rapidly for your viral marketing efforts.  So I definitly recommend it for all of your SEO and Social marketing efforts.

This blog is quickly becoming too long, especially if I want to follow my own advice.  Please feel free to read hundreds of great articles on how to write better blogs for SEO.  I don’t spend much time blogging here, as I am mostly interested in Twitter, but I am trying to SEO for a friends “Yoga Clothing” and “Om T Shirts” site.   They are not even launched yet, but are very good friends of mine.  They are trying to make 100% organic Yoga Clothes but with start with Yoga T shirts first with an emphasis on the sacred symbol Om.  Om is a sanskrit word for Universal God and is thought to be similar to the word Amen.  It is also considered to represent the Holyspirit as in the Christian tradition.

how about some SEO swag in the form of web badges.
here are some free SEO Badges from Mytypes.com
download it in Adobe Illustrator format for the pack or individually as .png below enjoy!

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The title attribute vs the alt attribute which is the better choice for SEO? most individuals in the SEO arena know about the importance of the alt attribute for images. It describes what an image is to a search engine and is useful in creating better accessibly for text based browsers by providing information that make contextual sense instead of completely ignoring the image.

The title attribute is used to hold the “tooltip” in a link or image.

Title attribute in a link: <a href=”http://linkurl” TITLE=”LINK TITLE” />
Title & Alt attribute in an image: <img src=”/path /to/image/image.jpg” TITLE=”LINK TITLE” ALT=”ALT TEXT” />

compare the alt attribute to the title attribute you can see that both provide information, but which one is more useful for SEO? Aaron Wall from SEO book has written an article where he relays his experience with alt and title attributes. His assessment is that that alt attribute is weighted more heavily than the Title attribute
read Aaron Walls the full article in context.

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SEO Myth #1 – SEO is about secret tacticspeople that are in the know about SEO can tell you, there are no secret tactics in SEO, but they may not tell you all their methods the reality of doing SEO well is to cover your basics. using the information that your analytics provides you is a nice place to start. Start with your home page and work your way through out your site. Looking for SEO basics also look at Google’s Guidelines.

SEO Myth #2 – SEO means only optimizing for GoogleWhile we all know that google has most of the search traffic on the web, we shouldn’t forget about MSN, Yahoo, and niche/vertical search engines.how would one do that? CONTENT!! optimize your content for the audience you are intending to read it use the phrases key terms and catch phrases that your audience would use. these things are in addition to creating search engine friendly site.

SEO Myth #3 – Submitting your site to thousands of directories will help your rankingsWhile directory submissions can help your site rank better, be picky. Choose directories that are established, and are relevant to your site. doing directory submissions on a large scale can hurt your SEO efforts. here are some guidelines to use:

1) Quantity of inbound links

2) Quality of inbound links

3) Age of domain

4) Topical relevancy to your site

5) Human-edited is better than automated because editorial control tends to lend itself to quality

6) How frequently the directory gets crawled (check the Google cache)

7) The directory itself ranks in the search engines — this can be a sign of authority and can drive click through traffic

8.) Are their links direct, static links or are they redirected to your site?

SEO Myth #4 – SEO is free While SEO is not pay per click there are upfront and on going costs associated with SEO.possible costs include, SEO consultant, programmer, designer, link campaign and Most importantly YOUR TIMEdon’t forget about what your time costs to SEO your site your self. whether you hire out or do it your self SEO does cost. make sure your getting a good ROI by tracking your rankings, traffic, brand awareness, etc.

SEO Myth #5 – Keywords need to appear everywhereIn the past SEO protocol for ranking in a keyword called for the Keywords to be everywhere in the content. This is not true anymore because of relevancy algorithms. Google’s relevancy algorithm now favors more natural writing style. typically it’s not natural to have the same keyword appear in your page content 30 times all linked to your site. but it would be natural to add in modifiers to your keywords for example if you are tying to rank for the term “credit card” you might modify it in the following: “compare credit cards online”, or “apply for a credit card today” and then link these terms in your content in addition to your specific keyword. also try mixing in plural versions of your keywords. This strategy will help your site not to get filtered out and will broaden your reach to be found on multiple search terms.

SEO Myth #6 – SEO is a one-time event for a companyThe nature of SEO is a changing landscape, search algorithms, competitors, the current market “buzzes” are some of the things that you have to contend with. SEO consists of one-time and on-going efforts. Some of your one-time SEO efforts could entail keyword research, website structure and layout. On-going SEO efforts may include analysis of sites effectiveness, link campaign strategy, page editing and optimization. After you’ve set your site up to be search engine friendly make sure you are tracking your SEO efforts and adjusting them to create the best ROI.SEO Myth #7 – SEO will take years to return resultsThis not true, and SEO campaign could return some results within 30-90 days and lets qualify that statement. Results could mean moving up just a few spots in the rankings or even just showing up on page 100 for the intended search term when you were no where to be found. use common sense If someone tells you i’ll take years to get you ranked, get another opinion.

SEO Myth #8 – Page rank is the critical measure of a site’s successpage rank is 1 of 200 indicators that Google uses in search. while it does carry weight, if you are only focusing on page rank you are missing the boat, more importantly focus on your sites tools and content to being relevant to particular search terms you would like to be found for.

SEO Myth #9 – Accessibility doesn’t really mattercreating accessible webpages should be a forethought when creating a site. If googlebot and users cannot access your site because it is too slow or too much multimedia then the best SEO will not help. consider a user browsing from an iphone, can they use your flash navigation? nope. or the business user that is on the go and connects through a low bandwidth to make a purchase. If a site can’t be seen or loaded properly then no actions can take place. some best practices are:

1) make the bulk of your content and navigation text with multimedia dispersed throughout

2) test your page in mobile and a text base browser such as lynx, more details can be found on the google webmasterblog. check out these two links. Best uses of flash and a search engine spiders view of web 2.0

SEO Myth #10 – Google has an adversarial relationship with webmasters and publishersGoogle has done a great job with their webmasters central blog to help webmasters and publishers make the most of their sites. take a look and Webmaster Central, and take advantage of support from google.This was a summary of Michael Estrin‘s article 10 SEO myths debunked from imediaconnection.com**sponsored by Rent Expert.com‘s VRBO system, People Search and background check services by Peoplefinders.com, and website design St. Louis and web design St. Louis.Do something good for the enviroment, Air Purifiers @ greenisbetter.org. If you are interested in learning more about Internet Marketing, SEO, and the power of blogs, don’t be afraid to buy our Marketing book, and definitely create a blog on our free blog platform at MyTypes.com main page.

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…

Do you ever wonder why some sites get ranked #1 and they don’t seem have any content on them? And, than there certain sites that have tons of great content, even good SEO type blog content, and they are not even shown up on the search engines for their keywords?

How can this be? Are Search Engines fair? What is the most important factor in SEO rankings?

We won’t go on and on about how we can help you get ranked #1 on Google with our SEO blogs, or our SEO templates. We can’t, but we can provide the simple answers and some basic SEO Strategies and maybe some SEO Blog templates for your success. Before we start, we do want to mention that Content may not be King for SEO, but great content is important for your readers and long term success. And, great blog content is the #1 ingredient for your SEO rankings, because it controls the key to your #1 SEO ranking strategy.

Ans. #1: Content is not King because, you could have great content and no one could link to your content, and it could be totally devalued by Search Engines. How can this be? Well simple, the search engines such as Google need to have your content be validated by News and blog sites. And if they link to your blog with the proper contextual links, than and only then will your site or blog get ranked in the top search results.

Ans. #2: Search Engines are fair, they need help validating your content, and it’s in this content validation system that makes them fair, the more people link to your content the more fairness is spread through the SEO system.

Ans. #3: The #1 ranking factor in top search engine optimization and ranking factors is contextual links. Especially from great content and the more you get the higher you are ranked. So the #1 SEO ranking factor is the most contextual and highly respected Contextual Links.

For example, if we link “Cross Jewelry” to our site http://mytypes.com/jewelry

Than that has the best SEO valued contextual link, notice how both links go to the same exact spot? But the second Link does not describe the content as well as Cross Jewelry does, does it?

Cross Jewelry, is the proper keyword phrase that will rank high as a result of the above link type. Even experienced SEO consultants make the above mistake. Even plural and singular text keywords make a difference. For Example, Free Blog versus Free Blogs, if your target keyword has both, as most of us do, than you are better off doing plural text keywords, but we will cover the plural keywords link in another blogs post as well as great Link Baiting strategies.

**as always our Free blogs are sponsored by ComfortZone Infrared heaters which are better than Edenpure Heater, and LoveRelic.com by Jill Brahms Cross Jewelry.

I am surprised that most people don’t know about search marketing, but they should. They all know about Google, Yahoo, and MSN, right? That is why. I want to use the word “Secret” to your eSuccess.

The word Secret is over used a little lately, we do love the movie and didn’t want to play on it’s message. But the people in the Search Marketing world and SEO world are too secretive. The hidden secret is simple, but they want you to think it’s too technical, but it’s not, and it should be unveiled. It’s as easy as blogging with the right keywords every day.

Traditional marketing is not dead, but the new media of the Internet is not a pipe dream any more either. The biggest most powerful world of Internet marketing is not email, it’s not the web 2.0 social media marketing. If we were to keep it simple and stupid, it would be the Google effect. But, wait Live Search from Microsoft got a big leg up this week. Live signed deals with Digg.com and Facebook.com two of the top 5 leaders in the Social media giants of the internet.

The world of marketing has changed dramatically due to Google and other search engines.  Search engine optimization or Search Engine Marketing or Internet Marketing in that order are subset of each other. Because Google is the first to give the small business a chance by it’s adwords product. What adwords does is makes it easier for small business to buy keywords to market it’s products. And contextual ads being mapped to search results makes everyone happy.

Why? When a consumer is looking for information, and a search engine provides the info.  Regardless if it is an Ad or not, they help by providing the right information at the right time. People don’t want to be pushed advertisements down their throat. People prefer to look for information, we are all treasure hunters and want to find stuff. And this is where Google made the search results better and created this huge world of Search Marketing. In fact, according to SEMPO.org the industry size is suppose to be a $7.8Billion dollars. We are not a member of Sempo, but we support it’s mission. SEMPO Mission: SEMPO is a global non-profit organization serving the search engine marketing industry and marketing professionals engaged in it.

So how do you have eSuccess in search marketing results?  Search Engines want to provide the best contextual related results to consumers, so should you.  They target news related websites first, and blogs are considered news.  Blogs are considered news because, well you already know this, right? Each blog post has a time stamp on it. So for a blog to be found as a search result, it has to be written with the proper keywords that is searched for. But, how do you write unless you know the targeted keywords. Well, that is easy you have to go back to the Search engines and start with Search Marketing. So it’s a full circle, search engines provide that information in their keyword analysis tools. Which is the most important, but one of the many tools required for your eSuccess via Search marketing. The tool sets as a whole are referred to SEO and SEM tools. This is what the professionals use, and you as a small business can learn these too, especially for free SEO tools site called LinkMint.com

We are a commercial site, and actually built our own SEO Tools last year. I have been studying search marketing and SEO since 2003, and have been blogging since the same time. Why did I continue to blog, even though I had nothing to write.  Because I knew the secret that is easy to get over looked.  Blogging is the best way to SEO and search market for your products and services.  So this makes Blogging the best SEO tool on the market. And to do it right, you have to blog often and with the proper keywords.

That’s search marketing in a nut shell, but we will go a step further.  I will do a series starting next week.  I will cover many of the unknown secrets to SEO, SEM, and search marketing.  You notice, how I took out the word Internet out of it, I am changing the words because the word Internet is so passe.  Search, social, eSuccess, inspiration, empower, human element, and new media is, what it is all about:-). You like the Pic above, I want to pay for it and buy the rights to it for my hard copy book, what do you think?  Is it too unprofessional, too provocative, indicative of uncovering secrets and beautiful for marketing?

I have a confession to make, I don’t do photos as much as I would like. I love photos and blogs, and actually photography has been one of my favorite hobbies. Now with 2 kids, a mortgage, a few high tech ePeople to manage, who has time? I have been coaching and evangelizing blogging for a long time, but until last week I did not add photos to my blogs. That was a mistake, I want to help you avoid.

I think it’s important to write about photo blogging, and everything we can share to help us make our blogs more impactful. The problem, I use to believe was, well, I don’t really have a lot of photos, do you? Most people don’t know how they can use photos for their blogs. The biggest news I can tell you, Yes you can, and it’s easy.

Yes, you can Jazz up your blog with a photo or two. Here are some tips on jazzing up your blogs with Photos. I usually add at least 3 photos per blog now days, but back when I first wrote this blog, I only used one.

1. Do any Google search on “Free Photos” and you will find many small to big photo sites providing amazing photos you will love. My favorite is Sxc.hu, but Flickr is not bad as you have to ask individual permission, but just love the name, what can I say.

2. Every time you blog, spend at least 5-10 minutes looking and finding the best photo for your topic, make it a unique photo and beautiful.

3. Give credit where it’s due. Always give the website and the photographer if you can, credit by mentioning their name. Do it with your name of the photo saved as for example the photo above, has the website name in. I did that for them, they didn’t require it.
4. Be contextual, pick your photo on the blog topic. This will help with the search result and Google search marketing, and SEO. Be as descriptive as you can, but don’t over do it. Yes, that will actually have a positive effect and get your website ranked higher in the search engines too.

5. Use an Alt Tag, on every photo even your blog every time. But, What is it you say? You are right, that could be another post on it’s own. An Alt-tag describes the image for search engines so they can index it. It’s the same for a video blog too. Alt-tags use to be a big craze a few years ago for better search rankings, and SEO. Here is a few don’ts: Don’t stuff keywords, don’t upload huge files, don’t place weird or strange photos. Make them beautiful, as we are professional bloggers here:-0)>

I believe that photo and video blog sharing along with blogging are some of the top reasons for the success of the Internet. The Web 2.0 social networking world is full of blogs with colors, photos, videos, empowering the human network. Go blog your way to the top!

Are you worried about differentiating yourself from the millions of other blogs out there? After all, one could view the blogosphere as a massive haystack with a few valuable, glittering needles hidden inside it – the blogs with valuable content. The search engines help people discover the needles, but it’s up to the individual bloggers to get them to use the needles to sew and make something great (okay, I definitely stretched the limits of that metaphor).

One of the best ways to be sticky is to create a site that is a feast for the senses – an elegant design and bold images for the eyes, interesting videos and podcasts for the ears, and luscious language that paints a picture in your readers’ minds. Be creative with your word selection and try to choose the most precise, accurate terms to express your ideas.

First of all, a thesaurus is your friend, whether you rely on an printed and bound book or you use websites like Thesaurus.com. Thesauri are especially valuable when you notice that you’ve been using the same words too many times and as a result, your writing is flat, boring, and/or redundant. A quick trip to the thesaurus to find alternative options can liven things up in no time, and you might discover new terms that work even better than your go-to phrases.

You don’t have to neglect SEO and your keywords to writing appealing posts, either. First of all, it’s important to integrate a significant variety of keywords into your posts – using only two or three constantly is a dead giveaway that it’s SEO copy and many people will click away (and it doesn’t matter how much traffic SEO sends your way if they leave within a second or two). After all, don’t you want people to stick around, so you get multiple pageviews, interesting comments, and incoming links?

Another way to inspire your writing is to keep a folder or set of bookmarks filled with quality writing by people you admire. You can pull it out when you’re feeling unmotivated to get your creative juices flowing. Personally, I use del.icio.us for this – I have tags for “inspiration” and “writing” and “creativity” and more in my account. Social media is for more than just connecting people – you can use it to organize your ideas, sources, and inspirations.

Last but not least, it’s important to remember that the number one way to become a skilled writer is to practice, practice, practive, and then practice some more. If you’re serious about improving your work, it’s important to write something everyday, even if it’s just a short paragraph or two, and to read the work of other writers – you never know where you’ll pick up a new technique or interesting insight.  Remember no matter how much you SEO, search marketing is still about writing great content.