SoloSEO

Purchase Links… Is it Moral or Ethical? Is it Legal?

Posted by Aaron R Stewart on January 18th, 2007

I was led to a post by Jordan McCollum on Andy Beal’s Marketing Pilgrim today. It was there I read, to my horror, that V7, Inc, a hosting company (voted best hosting company in 2003, which is interesting) is now going to sell contextual links (links contained in the text of a web page), which they claim will be undetectable by Google. Based on the blog post and the resulting comments, I think a very important the point is being completely overlooked. There is a good discussion of whether buying links is ethical or moral, and whether we should care what Google suggests we do and don’t put on our sites so they will rank well. But the discussion must go a bit deeper than this. I personally believe buying links is illegal, which then makes the ethical and moral discussions moot. Especially in the moment the FTC gives you a call and asks if they can come over for a short visit tomorrow.

In a comment reply I made to my post entitled Fools Gold – The Risk of Buying Links I wrote the following:

“Ads (can be a link, copy or graphic) are bought for placement on another web page, with the intention of using the host site to drive traffic back to your site. Hopefully these ads are clearly marked as paid for by a sponsor, or clearly identifiable as an ad to the consumer. If a link is paid for, and is not clearly marked, and obviously an ad, it is deceptive behavior at best. But I also believe it is illegal, not to mention frowned upon by Google. Let me refer to the Federal Trade Commission’s Truth In Advertising Policy. The FTC clearly states that “an ad is deceptive if it contains a statement – OR OMITS INFORMATION – that is likely to mislead consumers acting reasonably under the circumstances; and is “material” – that is important to a consumer’s decision to buy or use the product.”

And if you paid for it, no matter the format, it is an ad. The reply continues:

“The point is clear, if you are attempting to pass a link off as organic, to drive traffic from a trusted site, it is deceptive. Also, it could be argued that the site hosting the bought link has used their influence or reputation to assist in the effort. I would suggest this site’s influence is material in a consumer’s decision to visit and perhaps buy from the referred site, and the truth-in-adversiting guidelines have been broken.

Some might disagree, and may consider link buying/selling a “gray area,” open for interpretation, but in my experience mucking around in gray areas leads to red numbers in your buisness’ bottom-line eventually.”

So the question on whether buying links is ethical, or moral is a good one, however the answer might simply be, it is legal?

3 comments Visited 11528 times January 18th, 2007 Aaron R Stewart

Related Posts:

Starting your SEO business: 5 Steps to Getting New SEO Clients

Posted by Michael D Jensen on January 18th, 2007

Starting your own SEO business is an exciting new adventure. This is the first of a series of tips, steps, lessons, and tutorials on how to start your own SEO business. One of the many aspects of starting out as an SEO is finding clients. We’ve put together a list of five steps to start getting new clients, both for the near-term and long-term.

1) Get a website or a blog – If you don’t have one already, the fastest and easiest way to start is with a blog. With a blog, not only can you blog, but you can also add pages, such as a “services” page, “contact” page, etc. Buy a domain and get a web host, and host your own WordPress blog. This way all of your blog posts contribute to the content and indexing of your own domain that you can take with you even if you change web hosts. Make sure clients can easily email and call you, show that you are a real person. Don’t plaster your picture all over your site, because it’s not about you. Don’t forget to blog on your new blog. Blogging helps you learn as you think of what to blog about. Sometimes you can just start with an idea you might have from reading another blog post and continue the discussion. Lee Odden suggests starting by blogging about your niche specialty and even submitting to some of the SEO news sites.

2) Keyword List and Content – Create a keyword list (AKA keyword glossary) for reference when you blog, but also build content based on your keyword list. Write an article or web page for each keyword to start. Each of these should be useful, helpful, and interesting, and each creates an entrance page for potential customers to find you through the search engines and through pay per click advertising (use these as landing pages for specific terms). Add an image to your blog posts and pages to make it visually appealing. The more content you have, the more “doors” you have to your website based on different keywords and phrases. You’d be surprised at what terms people use and end up at your site. For example, we now rank in the top 10 of Google for “santa’s favorite cookie” because of a post about using Google to find Santa’s favorite cookie.

3) Local businesses – One of your best bets is going to be local businesses. If you need to get some quick clients you are going to need to find them yourself. Some will have a website, others will not at all. There are lots of approaches to contacting these businesses. I suggest you find a dozen or so businesses that you would like to approach. Set aside an entire day, about 30-45 minutes for each business. Look for their website, and check for a few simple SEO things, such as optimized title and header tags, content needs, backlinks, etc. and write up a few points for each business. Then start a keyword list for each business (SoloSEO has an easy keyword site scan feature) of keywords 2-4 words in length that you would think that most people would use if they were looking for their service. Be sure to include the name of their business and their domain name. Run a keyword ranking report and see how they fare in the rankings, and print out this report. Spend the next day visiting these businesses (dress nice, professional) and talking to owners and managers (be sure to bring business cards). Tell them you specialize in search marketing and whatever your niche is, and have a few tips to help their business. Listen first and see what their needs are and what they are doing about them, if anything. Give them your SEO suggestions for their site and the ranking report, and do it in a no obligation way. Briefly tell them what your services could do to help them out, and ask if they are interested in discussing it further. Be sure to do your homework on local search, and know what things they could do to jump into local search.

If the business does not have a website, suggest how a website could help them. Even if you don’t design websites, you can work with a business or individual that does and offer it as a service along with your SEO services.

4) Pro bono work – Find business associations or charities that wouldn’t ever really consider hiring an SEO, and do pro bono work for them. This gives you an opportunity to explain search marketing and optimization to them, then they in turn are in a position where they would recommend you to others. This also helps create a track record, so after you’ve done some work and helped increase rankings, traffic, and conversions, you can tell others what you did for them and use them as a reference. SoloSEO has a feature that will track site statistics over time (backlinks, pagerank, Alexa Rank) and you can save keyword ranking reports for comparing them over time.

5) Start networking – Plan now on attending SES New York and PubCon. These conferences are well attended by people just like you, some who have been doing it for years, some just as long as you, and others who are gearing up to start. Some SEOs will have so many clients they will be looking for someone reliable to pass on the overflow to. Go to as many sessions as you can and talk to speakers afterwards with real questions (not just hey, just wanted to meet you).

These steps you can start on today to get yourself ahead in the growing field of SEO. Of course there is much more work involved than this, but these steps are certain to get you to the next level in getting new SEO clients.

Subscribe to our blog today and look for upcoming posts on starting your SEO business.

10 comments Visited 21514 times January 18th, 2007 Michael D Jensen

Related Posts:

Using Social Networks like MyBlogLog for Marketing

Posted by Michael D Jensen on January 17th, 2007

Social networks are amazing from a “data mining” perspective. I’ve had a few posts about MyBlogLog recently, uncovering an easily exploitable flaw and announcing the Missing MyBlogLog Tools. As I’ve looked in depth into the MyBlogLog “network” that is accessible by the public, I’ve realized how much potential there is for doing so much more than what most social media companies do with their networks. A recent research paper (actual paper; thanks to here for blogging it) discusses this in detail, how social networks like MyBlogLog and MySpace create an opportunity for network-based marketing. It’s an interesting read for any entrepreneurs and social media marketing lovers out there.

MyBlogLog’s network is made up of specific reader communities, visitors, and member contacts. With the Missing MyBlogLog Tools I was able to determine, almost in real-time, users who are visiting the same blog. I have thought of other ways to use the network, that I don’t dare program or make available, such as tracking how often specific users come back to your blog, or how often they frequent other related blogs. Now combine this with a public profile, though hopefully most people share very little, and you’ve got yourself quite a number of marketing characteristics.

How about showing content based on their MyBlogLog communities and contacts? I think it could be determined, with a bit of programming work, when a new visitor arrives that is logged into MyBlogLog. You could show an article, ads, or whatever based on who they are as defined by their network in MyBlogLog. Cool, maybe scary, maybe both.

It will be interesting how social media operations actually capitalize on their own networks, as they are the ones with the real access to the data. All we get is what we can see, and often even public data is hard to get to reliably.

Your thoughts on mining data from social networks for marketing?

2 comments Visited 5134 times January 17th, 2007 Michael D Jensen

Related Posts:

The Missing MyBlogLog Tools – Get More from MyBlogLog

Posted by Michael D Jensen on January 16th, 2007

The Missing MyBlogLog Tools, created by SoloSEO.com, give you a new way to harness the power of MyBlogLog. These tools let you compare and find contacts and communities in a new and powerful way. Our tools go beyond the basic searching and browsing available at MyBlogLog by relying on the networks created between MyBlogLog users and Blog communities.

These tools will help you to find contacts to add and communities to join, plus compare visitors and community members of your blog with other blogs. The following tools are available for your enjoyment:

Compare Blog Visitors
Ever wondered what other blogs your visitors are reading? With this tool you can compare your visitors with another blog’s visitors. Up to 130 of the last visitors are compared from each blog, and MyBlogLog members in common are displayed. Go »

Compare Your Contacts
See what other contacts your friends, industry leaders, and fellow blog readers have that you share and that you don’t have added yet. Just plug in your screen name and someone else’s. Go »

Compare Community Members
With this tool you can compare your MyBlogLog Community members with another community, and view members common between both blogs as well as members unique to each blog. Go »

Common Communities between Contacts
If you need help finding communities, see what communities your contacts share! This tool lets you choose up to 20 contacts to compare common communities, and gives you a link to quickly join the communities! Go »

Show All Visitors
Most blogs just show 5-10 MyBlogLog visitors, so usually that’s all we look at. This tool lets you see the last 130 visitors to all of your communities, all at once! Go »

Add Missing Contacts
Even with 20 or 30 community members, it is hard to keep track of who you have added as a contact. This tool lets you quickly see who in your community have not been added as a contact yet. A link to add them quickly is included! Go »

We hope you enjoy The Missing MyBlogLog Tools and that you can find some interesting comparisons, new contacts to add, and new communities to join.

If Yahoo/MyBlogLog is reading this, these tools would be great to implement as a part MyBlogLog. All we ask is for 1% of your acquisition price or a free trip to Yahoo headquarters.

If you have suggestions for other “missing tools” for MyBlogLog, please leave a comment or send us an email. We also have a poll to vote for your favorite Missing MyBlogLog Tool. Enjoy!

19 comments Visited 14128 times January 16th, 2007 Michael D Jensen

Related Posts:

Relevancy and Accuracy of Top Search Queries Tool in Google Webmaster Tools

Posted by Michael D Jensen on January 15th, 2007

Google has created a set of tools to help Webmasters see interesting and important Google data about your site (try it here). One of the “statistics” related tools gives you “Top Search Queries” for discovering keywords that you rank for (see image). The queries are more “fun” than interesting, in our case. Several of the keywords we don’t even rank for at all and almost all of the keywords are not even related to the purpose of our site.

I ran a keyword ranking report (feature of SoloSEO) to verify the rankings of these keywords in Google. Below are the results, and I added a column to the report with what Google Webmaster Central says is the rank. Green denotes a match, orange is within 2, yellow is more off, and red is way off (although I didn’t check in the 200-300 range).

80% of the listed keywords’ “average top position” are within 2 of their actual ranking (not bad). The keyword “jensen” is way off, we’re not even in the top 100 for that. The keyword “david ristau” (from the blog tag tree) ranks us way in the “never browse to” range of Google’s results, so I’m not sure why Google even displays that one. (Update: I just ran this again and it said we were ranked #7 for seo (whoa sweet!), but we’re not even in the top 100 (ouch!) for that one…yet.)

I hope you also noticed how “irrelevant” these keywords are to what we actually do (what we do). SoloSEO.com ranks for many more keywords than those in this short list; keywords that are actually relevant to what we do. From our site analytics, I know we get organic traffic from our relevant keywords, as well as from some of these that Google lists.

It seems to me that Google calculates the “Top search queries” based on actual user searches. This list of “top search queries” is always changing, maybe even daily, which leads me to also believe that Google is considering click-through with these results. However, it still boggles me why other relevant keywords don’t show up because they are in our analytics.

What’s your experience, are your “Top search queries” relevant and accurate?

3 comments Visited 4521 times January 15th, 2007 Michael D Jensen

Related Posts:

Fools Gold – The Risk of Buying Links

Posted by Aaron R Stewart on January 13th, 2007

Get away from the edge, just calm down, back away, there is a better way. Just don’t buy a link, work for them. I am not talking about paid ads, I am talking about the sneaky practice of making a paid link appear to be a naturally occurring link. There is some confusion in the industry concerning the practice, but it is clear to me. If you have paid for another site to link to you, then you better consider it an ad, and the ad better be clearly positioned and marked on the page as an ad, then there is no problem. A fine example are the sponsor sections you see in many blog sites, with graphics of a company name or image, or even the Google Ads down the right side and top of a Google results page, these are obviously ads, we all know a sponsor has paid to be there. But if you have paid another site to place a link on a page, and they are attempting to make it appear to be a natural link to the search engines or site visitors, then it is questionable SEO at best, and it should be avoided.

The reason this practice still goes on is simple… it’s fairly simple, and it still works at driving traffic in the short term, but at what cost? The other day I read post by Jim Boykin which brought to mind another post from back in December by Rand Fishkin. Both were discussing the purchasing link process, Jim’s was about the value of links, and Rand’s about purchasing, and his disagreement with Google’s stance on the practice. Both posts are worth the read.

I personally find it odd that in an industry as beleaguered as SEO for questionable ranking tactics, buying/selling links is still considered viable, and is even endorsed by top SEOs. The very concept flies in the face of what search engines are attempting to provide, and hopefully what most of us desire when we search, organic (without manipulation) search results based on relevance. It is also important to note that Google has more or less condemned the practice in a statement here, and whether you like it or not, they have the resources, technology and will to do something about it. So is it really worth the potential harm? When is comes to link buying, I think it is best to just stay away, avoid the confusion, just get the whole so called “opportunity” out of your mind. If we are so desperate for a site traffic spike, we are willing to pay for links to either keep our business afloat or help it become more profitable more quickly, then perhaps the original business plan wasn’t as well conceived as it should have been in the first place. All traffic is not alike, don’t be fooled.

Back in September I decided my perfect 10, former Miss Utah, wife was going to find “other companionship arrangements” if I didn’t do something about my 5′ 11″ (I am 6′0″ with my big shoes on), 235 mound of round physique. What did I do? I started hitting the weights 3 times a week, doing an hour of cardio every other day, and cut out my daily intake of the cheesy french fries (oh the good ole days). The positive results haven’t been overnight, I knew they wouldn’t be, sometimes it is miserable, but the progress has been good, and I am pleased with the slow, steady improvement. That is what we are looking for in SEO practices, steady improvements over time.

On the contrary, I have a couple of just plain lazy acquaintances, who have chosen to not change their lifestyles, but have instead visited the plastic surgeon to have their fat sucked right out of them, via some sort of lipo-suction procedure. Yuck, we now have overnight weight loss options, with the accompanying potential health hazards. Plus, this “bought” weight loss result, just plain sounds unhealthy and wrong? I see buying links in the same vein, a quick fix, with serious potential risks. Add now Google is out to stop this behavior, which would be like the plastic surgeons just deciding to stop performing the fat sucking process anymore? Not good for those who are depending on the fast results. So the question must be… do we want our sites to be fit for the future, or just short-term suckers?

Another point, talk of buying and selling links inevitably includes discussions concerning the chance the search engines discovering the money for link exchange and punishing the participants. This discussion not only confirms the risk is real, but raises questions on the ethics of those accepting of the practice. It is akin to perhaps deciding to take steroids as a player in the NFL… any comments Mr. Merriman? That lapse in judgement cost Merriman the NFL Defensive Player of the Year honor, 4 games of pay, not to mention his reputation. Was it worth it? With buying links… you may not get caught, you might get lots of traffic, but why would you take the risk with your business? The potential harm to your site is real, even if we don’t fully understand the full extent quite yet.

The point is this… if you want good links to your site, then work for them. Create awesome content, think, post cool blog entries, write with passion, and let the creative juices flow. If you don’t have passion for your site topic, why are you involved in the first place? Money? Okay fine, then find something you are passionate about, and build the site the right way, and the money will come if you have what people want. It won’t be tomorrow perhaps, but this isn’t supposed to be the lottery (which is another thing that makes my blood boil). At PubCon we heard panel members who created unique Widgets as link bait; great idea, great concept, essentially giving the public something to be excited about, and the links and traffic will come NATURALLY. It can be widgets, information, insight, whatever, you create the buzz, you take charge, you give the public what they want, and you will grow. With a bit of ingenuity and dash of brilliance, you might even hit the big one and get a link you hadn’t considered possible.

Case in point… Wouldn’t it be nice to have a link from Michael Arrington of TechCrunch.com? TechCrunch is ranked as the 481st most popular website on the web, with some 139,000 subscribers. In fact Rand Fiskin himself ranked Arrington number 2 on his list of the top 10 most influential search marketing experts this week. So in the field of search marketing, TechCrunch would be an excellent link to pick up. Well, my esteemed partner, Michael Jensen, put a little experiment together earlier this week, using MyBlogLog, Opera, and TechCrunch.com he was able to exploit a potential spamming problem within the MyBlogLog system. He ran the test using TechCrunch.com and about 20 other sites, then revealed the experiment results in a post here. The result? Michael Arrington himself wrote about the experiment in his post entitled MyBlogLog Got Spammed (and so did we). Michael Jensen is a person with a real passion for learning, discovering, and sharing things, he values MyBlogLog, and he saw something that caught his eye, so he ran a few tests and logged his findings. His post turned out to be pretty interesting to many, and the traffic, and natural links, have followed throughout the week.

In short, the hocus pocus needs to be out of your SEO strategy; there isn’t an easy way to do it fast and big. Good SEO is something we need to think about, we work at, we improve, then when the higher ranking comes, it is legit. When the SEO industry finally quits attempting to buck the system, the cries of SEOs everywhere to be taken seriously by the mainstream tech world might be heard. Until then SEO will continue to be the target of Diggish disdain.

Ultimately, when SEO finally rids itself of non-natural, banned practices, then search will finally reach its full potential and become a more efficient tool, delivering to visitors the most relevant, best managed sites on a level playing field, no longer manipulated by deep pockets and sleight of hand SEO tactics.

3 comments Visited 7853 times January 13th, 2007 Aaron R Stewart

Related Posts:

Yahoo, the new Spyware?

Posted by Michael D Jensen on January 12th, 2007

Andy Beal and Jarrod Hunt reveal tactics Yahoo is using to get your preferences to switch to Yahoo. If you upgrade to Yahoo Messenger it will also try to download and install IE7 (ewww), and then it switches the browser default from FireFox et al to IE7 and search engine settings to use Yahoo.

Who in the world is running Yahoo? This is NOT good for Yahoo! and there is going to be a backlash if this isn’t confronted today (that’s today, not tomorrow).

Add comment Visited 6693 times January 12th, 2007 Michael D Jensen

Related Posts:

How to Optimize your Search Engine Snippets

Posted by Michael D Jensen on January 11th, 2007

In search engine optimization it can be easy to overlook search engine snippets (you know, the smaller text below the title when you get your search results). All of us care a lot about rankings, conversions, and backlinks, but what about that first opportunity to tell a potential reader something with a search engine snippet? Besides the page title, the snippet is your chance to draw in the reader and convince them the page is worth the click. I found this topic even more interesting when I noticed that even some of the top SEOs weren’t optimizing their own search engine snippets.

One of the best ways to control your search engine snippet is with the description meta tag. The description meta tag is not a waste of time, according to Google’s own Vanessa Fox.

Before we learn from some examples from the top SEO blogs, here are some tips on how to optimize your own meta tag description:

1) Use it.
2) Make it unique. Every page should have its own unique description.
3) Keep it short. You’ll notice that Google cuts off the snippet at about 150 characters.
4) Make it relevant. If the blog post is about ice cream and you run a website about food around the world, make the snippet about ice cream, not just about your website in general.

And if you are using WordPress, there are some handy plugins you can use, or you can just put in your own code:

<meta name=”description” content=”<?php if ( is_single() ) {
echo htmlentities(get_the_excerpt(true));
} else {
bloginfo(‘name’); echo ” – “; bloginfo(‘description’);
}
?>” />

Now for some examples of the description meta tag being used correctly, incorrectly, and not at all. Now just so you know, I’m not trying to point fingers. I just decided to take the list of top SEOs and find a blog post and examine the meta tag description use and the snippet that shows in the search engine results.

Using the Description Meta Tag Properly

Aaron Wall, SEO Book (Page, SERPS)
Description meta tag? YES! Aaron even makes it unique from the content of the page, and the length fits within the length that Google shows. This way, Aaron controls all aspects of the search engine snippet.

Barry Schwartz, Search Engine Roundtable (Page, SERPS)
Description meta tag? YES! Barry’s description meta tag was created by taking a clip of the first part of the content of the page. However, the search engine snippet is actually shorter than his meta tag description, so the rest of his meta tag description explains more, finishing with … “a ton of data about your site plus submit data back to Google. But……”. This works just fine, but if you wanted to be sure you know exactly what’s showing up it’s good to keep it a bit shorter.

Bill Slawski, SEO by the Sea (Page, SERPS)
Description meta tag? YES! Bill takes the “clip from the content” approach which works out just fine. Again, he could summarize the whole post in a sentence or two, and “sell” us on clicking in to read it.

Not Using the Description Meta Tag Properly

There are worse things you can do than not use this tag properly, but you can end up with a snippet that either has breadcrumbs or links that shouldn’t show up or text that is clearly so general it doesn’t help persuade when a reader is viewing the snippet.

Rand Fishkin, SEOmoz (Page, SERPS)
Description tag exists, but nothing in there! Notice how in the snippet there is a link to subscribe to SEOmoz, the title is repeated, and then included is “posted by randfish randfish”. This says nothing more than the title and appears almost haphazard. This would easily be solved by adding a short clip of the content to the content attribute that is just sitting empty on the page. UPDATE: Rand said the new SEOmoz fixes this, and will be up in a few weeks.

Todd Malicoat, StuntDubl.com (Page, SERPS)
Two description meta tags exist! Todd is probably not aware of this yet, but he has two description meta tags on his page. The first one is the one that Google uses for the snippet, but this happens to be the one that is best for the index (home) page, and that page only. The second instance of the description meta tag is a clip of the blog post, and if it was the only one on the page it would work perfectly. UPDATE: Todd has fixed his blog.

No Description Meta Tag At All

Having no description meta tag isn’t as disastrous as it sounds. The description meta tag is not required by any means, but almost all SEOs recommend having one (you might as well is the general idea). Without a description meta tag, the search engines will still take a snippet, but it is either from the beginning of the page (less common) or taken from different parts of the content where the keyword matches (more common). Read below in the examples and see some of the issues that appear, such as Google pulling text from a comment instead of the actual blog post, including the title again, or including unrelated links.

Andy Beal, MarketingPilgrim.com (Page, SERPS)
No description meta tag. Now the snippet from this one (screenshot above) is one of the most interesting of the examples without a meta tag description, as the entire snippet text is actually pulled from a comment to the blog post (see comment 21). Even if you change the keyword term from “lucky myblog to “free microsoft zune” or “zune mybloglog”, the snippet remains the same. But if I search for “mybloglog lucky winner” it shows a snippet of Andy’s content now. The variability is often fixed with the use of a unique description in the description meta tag. UPDATE: Quick acting Andy now has a description meta tag.

Matt Cutts, Google Software Engineer (Page, SERPS)
No description meta tag. Notice in the screenshot above that the title is repeated, the date is included (which may show freshness, but otherwise it tells me nothing), it tells us what category it is filed under, and then finally at the end we see the first sentence. A meta tag description would optimize this quite easily.

Jim Boykin, JimBoykin.com (Page, SERPS)
No description meta tag. The title is repeated again in the snippet, which is a waste of space. Jim could easily add the “meat” of the post in a quick summary, or an enticing preview of what we will learn from your post.

Danny Sullivan, Search Engine Land (Page, SERPS)
No description meta tag. The title is again repeated, taking up almost an entire line of the snippet. Also included is a link (that of course isn’t a link in the snippet) with this anchor text: (Official Google Blog post here). It would look so much nicer to just summarize the post, or at least get rid of the title and the link.

Do I walk the talk?

Michael Jensen and Aaron Stewart, SoloSEO (Page, SERPS)
Description Meta Tag? Yes! To be fair I thought I’d put the spotlight on myself and this blog. Luckily when we built the tool I’ll mention below, it brought to my attention the lack of a description meta tag in the default installation of WordPress. So after just a few minutes I was able to get in a description for each post in an automated way.

What we learned, and What to Do About It

Even from this small sample of blogs, we can see the big differences in using a meta tag description versus not using it. The snippets can include the title in duplicate, breadcrumbs, irrelevant information (post date/time, what category its filed in), or even comments written by someone else!

If you want to optimize your search engine snippets, apply the tips above to the pages of your site by using the tag and making it simple, relevant, and unique. We know it’s not easy to go through your entire site and find pages with problems, and so we created the Search Engine Viewer tool in SoloSEO.

This tool points out pages you don’t have a description meta tag for, as well as identifying descriptions that are not unique or too long to fit into Google’s two lines. This tool is designed to make it tons easier to identify problems with your blog or site and helps you to optimize your search engine snippet.

In Closing
So it looks like some SEOs have a little change to make in their blogs, but luckily its an easy one to implement. If you need any help, you can ask Aaron, Barry, or Bill.

19 comments Visited 14290 times January 11th, 2007 Michael D Jensen

Related Posts:

Your Mom Can Understand SEO Too.

Posted by Aaron R Stewart on January 11th, 2007

I have the opportunity to discuss SEO quite a bit, even my mom wants to understand SEO and our newest venture. However, within seconds of me starting the SEO intro, I get the look I give my dentist when he informs me of my next pending root canal. In these SEO discussions rarely does anyone know the first thing about SEO, or even what S-E-O stands for. Those I usually speak with are typically intelligent, tech savvy, amazingly successful business people, and yet they have had little to no exposure with SEO. As a result they do not understand the importance of the SEO process and do barely anything with their sites to help them in the world of search. They literally rely on driving people to their sites by word of mouth, and more traditional forms of advertising, including cold calling, radio ads, magazine ads, TV commercials, billboards, etc. It is mind-boggling just how wide the chasm is between those who understand SEO and those who do not, those who use SEO, and those who do not. In my view, a business site without any SEO applied is simply a grossly missed growth opportunity. Not taking the time, or expending the effort to drive clients seeking your product to your company, makes no economic/buisness sense, so there must be other forces which would cause one to avoid or ignore SEO. I believe the lack of action is partly based on a simple lack of understanding.

I admit, I was, and would have remained one of the uninformed had the concept not been forced upon me. Our existing businesses were doing very well, utilizing more traditional forms of advertising, and word of mouth proved to be our best method of growth. However, through launches of several technology businesses, with online customers being our target market, we decided we needed to be more “visible” online. We started by researching online, reading a few books, read many blogs here and here, and eventually learned what we needed to do, we needed SEO. We then went out and found SEO tools we hoped would assist us get our sites up to speed. It was during this search for SEO knowledge and SEO tools that Michael and I came to the conclusion there just needed to be a system where most, if not all these SEO tools were available in one place, instead of scattered all over the net, on so many platforms. It was here the concept of SoloSEO was born.

So now we find ourselves in a situation where we have a service we need to sell, but we usually have to first explain the industry and why it should be important to business site owners. As mentioned above, this has been challenging. I eventually developed an analogy to assist me in the discussion. I personally love analogies, and many times analogies have helped me learn complex concepts, which have proven too difficult to grasp when I heard them the first time around. To those who already understand SEO this analogy won’t be helpful, unless you are attempting to explain SEO to a potential client, or to others without SEO knowledge, then it might help out.

I come from a long line of builders/land developers, so the concept of building a home or office building is a process I have been exposed to throughout my life, and became the basis of this SEO analogy.

I first start by asking the person to imagine they have started building a building, from which they wish to sell a product or service, and explain that the building represents their website. Some already have a building, some are better than others, some bigger, taller, fancier, but everyone in this example has a building in various stages of completion. Then we discuss the importance of a good foundation for the building/site, such as the proper use and placement of title, header, and description meta tags, internal and external links, and the use of a sitemap. Next topic is the items required to properly finish the building, such as building walls, putting in cabinets, wiring, flooring, painting, finish work, etc. These building steps are also imperative in the SEOing of a site; finding appropriate keywords, creating fresh, unique content, link building, etc. In this analogy the search engines represent the building inspectors. These inspectors all are looking to insure the building is built to code, and of a measured level of quality. Each inspector might value certain aspects of the building, more than the others due to their opinion, but all of them attempt to take these aspects into consideration when determining the overall “quality” of the building/site. Like building a home, one of the most important SEO truths is it simply takes time to do it right, you can’t rush it, you can’t fake it, you must do it right to rank well (organically). Obviously the analogy can continue, but those are the basics, and it continues to evolve each time it is told. I have had good success using this analogy to help others understand how SEO fits with their site, and hopefully SEO is in their near future. Once they grasp the importance of SEO, then we just need to teach them how to get it all done, and sorry mom, that is a post for another day.

If there are other SEO analogies you use, or have used to enlighten the masses, we would love to hear about them.

2 comments Visited 5966 times January 11th, 2007 Aaron R Stewart

Related Posts:

PageRank Update Goes Live

Posted by Michael D Jensen on January 10th, 2007

Matt’s infrastructure status post today let us know that the PageRank update is live. Not that it matters because the PageRank’s have been in effect for a while now, but at least every time I check I can see our increased PageRank. We started off with a brand new domain, so we have been at PageRank 0 since we started in August. Now we are at 5, and if anything, it just feels better to check and see we actually have a PageRank now. Exciting!

Obviously you can know your PageRank anytime through Google’s Webmaster Central, so we knew what was coming.

You can check what google datacenters are updated by entering in soloseo.com with this tool.

1 comment Visited 10216 times January 10th, 2007 Michael D Jensen

Related Posts: