Up in the rankings? More like up in thin air

I sneaked away this afternoon and managed to go flying this afternoon - the first time since May last year.... a great feeling hoiking the aircraft off the ground and zooming around the skies over Banbury in Oxfordshire... the guys (and gal) at Fly CB were informative, helpful and fun to be around... my plan now is to proceed with getting a microlight licence before the end of the summer... it will make a change from gliding after almost 20 years..

I also had a "fun" drive up the A420 to the airport, and found to delight that my Passat's got fantastic mid range fopr overtaking... perhaps not as much "fun" as this guy caught on the A420 recently at... wait for it... 172mph!

http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2-2007040778,00.html

Irresponsible I know but what with all the rules society places on us its nice to see one lad stick two fingers up at the "system"...

Bet he does time in nick though... :(

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Is Overtures/Yahop's Keyword Tool now gone for good?

I hear on the grapevine that the External Keyword Tool provided by Overture is now defunct - is this true?

If it is then it would have been nice for Yahoo to have put a message on the site saying it was no longer available.... rather than let me sit there trying to reload the page - which does not load any longer.

Not exactly my idea of good service (even if I was not a paying customer!)

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Zombie SEO leaves me terrified

I attempted to watch "Dawn of the Dead" last night on terrestial TV channel 4... I managed about 10 minutes before switching channels... I have to admit I'm a wimp when it comes to zombie flicks... I just about managed "Shaun of the Dead" (a UK zombie comedy) but it took me quite a few days to work my way through "28 Days Later" (a tense UK "zombie flick")... I'd bought it for Xmas for the wife... lets say it wasn't her ideal Xmas gift that year!

Anyway after a sleepless night, mostly awakening - almost continually - from a recurring horror nightmare that I was being chased by fast moving zombies I awoke exhausted but somehow thinking about the term "Zombie SEO"...

I suppose the best definition of Zombie SEO is where talented SEO'ers are forced into the equivalent of an online mall (ok an online forum then) to fight off packs of algorithm hungry SEO zombies looking for a quick fix to satisfy their desperation for sorting out their decidedly spammy SEO techniques...

You know this could be just as terrifying as a real Zombie flick, watching the zombie SEO'ers rip everything ethical in SEO to shreds, following each other in hordes and re-animating dead websites into horrifying visions... now all I need is a bigtime Hollywood producer...

Sleep well.....


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Friday, 10:10pm GMT and I've just finished

Its late and with my eyes burning up I'm calling it a day (or is that night?) to a very long week - at times with 4am starts... being self employed is way, way fun but don't kid yourself you'll be working less hours if things go your way!

Have a good weekend all.

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Softly, softly, catchy monkey....!

I've never done hard sell in the SEO industry to prospective clients... my results on google do well enough to impress them (for my own All Things Web site AND my list of web optimized clients)...

... but I thought I would share this invaluable advice with you....

SOFT SELL. If you're good with an extensive proven portfolio you don't need to sell. Your results can do that yourself.

Also be as helpful and knowledgable as possible. I find this technique works later on down the road if the client has taken a while to make a decision to go ahead.

Who will they remember the person who tried to sign them up to some deal or the person who was calmly professional and offered serious advice when asked (don't offer it up without them asking first).

I had a meeting with a lovely lady today who I met in August. I was helpful then. And I was helpful today - that was enough to secure an order for a substantial amount of money to help promote her business online.

I built TRUST and INTEGRITY and showed I put her interests first over mine. This technique is a natural one and always works well (as long as your efforts are honestly sincere!)

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Linkbait.... but if we're all doing it.... what then?

I see a lot of the popular blogs are mentioning linkbait agggaaain and how powerful it can be in generating huge amounts of links and traffic to a website from the likes of Dugg and Del.icio.us - thats great that info is being shared like this, but there's something that bugs me....

Its too easy to game Dugg... I could get 10 mates to all dig linkbait I create - might not make the 1st page but in time it could... isn't it likely that Dugg will just start examining Diggs a little too closely?

And its all very well say creating Linkbait around something exciting but what if you're into pensions (and sorry but I just don't find them exciting...), what then?

Based on the demographics of a Dugg user I cannot see them being highly enthralled with the latest pension crisis, can you? I understand its a case of knowing your market but a lot of the blogs (in my mind) are making out that linkbait is the be - all and end all for EVERYONE... I kinda get the feeling if you're NOT linkbaiting then your on the loser road to hell....

Finally if we all linkbait then surely as we get better the experts at linkbaiting are gonna have to significantly raise their game... maybe its a way of significantly raising their prices to clients too?

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Monday Night Football!

The wife's away in Belfast on work duties and I'm home alone... I got a beer - I know I know its Monday! No smokes though as I am supposed to be quitting!

So is it a night of football, ps 2 or seo work...? Anyone care to hazard a guess?? LOL

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Trashing the big guns of SEO

I found this via Graywolf's blog...

The reason why I blogged this is I too bought Aaron Wall's SEO book.... maybe to make sure I wasn't missing anything. It was an interesting read and though I didn't perhaps learn anything new I did find it an interesting read and helped me think through certain processes.

Aaron Wall (we've never met) offers a money back guarantee and stands by that from what I read and hear.... some guy/asshole comes along who not only flames his blog http://www.seobook.com/archives/001992.shtml but also lifts copy from his website... I mean how low can you go?

He's only served to show himself as a wannabe by stealing Aaron's copy... I think he did it to you Aaron to get you to "bite"... giving him a profile... negative or not... it gets his name out there...

What I really don't get is that the guy claims he is an Ex Airborne Ranger on his blog... I thought the first thing the Army taught one was respect, self respect AND HONOUR....?

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Overture's Keyword Tool quits!

Quits? Not really... well kind of... more of a "it keeps quitting on me!"

I know its a free tool (and heh I pay for a yearly subscription to Wordtracker too!) but I keep getting:

"The server at inventory.overture.com is taking too long to respond"

And quite frankly its becoming a pain in the arse!

I haven't got time to sit around and keep entering in research keywords to get no response. It's 7.52am so I doubt the American market is giving it a hammering... so whats up with Overture's keyword tool?

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CSS Advisor released by Adobe

At long last Adobe have recognised there is a need for a one stop website resource for all things CSS.

Having sat here pulling my hair out when using CSS - especially in the laying out of websites - I am looking forward to seeing CSS Advisor help me solve CSS problems and issues simply and quickly.

The only problem is that the Adobe newsletter with the link to the article then failed to link to CSS Advisor... hmmmm not off to a good start there...

I'll post the link I found:

http://www.adobe.com/cfusion/communityengine/index.cfm?event=homepage&productId=1

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Gimme, gimme, gimme Free website Listings

How many times do I have to say that free website listings only get you one thing:

Lots of junk mail!

But for those of you who really, really want your free web directory listings here's some to wet your appetite:

http://www.webconfs.com/backlink-builder.php
http://www.vretoolbar.com/articles/directories.php
http://www.strongestlinks.com/directories.php
http://www.seocompany.ca/directory/top-web-directories.html
http://www.123promotion.co.uk/directorymanager/


If you're looking for backlinks to your site then you can start. Word of warning though - theres always a catch when something is free...

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Getting your Head tags down and dirty

I regularly see members on forums seeming to get confused with the H1 tags (and the other heading tags too).

Are heading tags important?

Yes, but only if used correctly. I've heard putting the keywords you're wishing to target in the H1 heading tag is worth 20 times as much as putting the keywords in the text alone. I have no evidence to say this value is fixed (I mean who comes up with these figures... some SEO says this and everyone latches on as they need a quantitive value just to hold onto and bring up at parties?)

From my own experience I believe you can use heading tags safely in the following way:

Ensure each heading is unique to each page.

I try to use different sentences for the H1 tag and the Title tag but BOTH will share the same keyword phrase being targeted.

Ensure the H1 heading tag uses the keywords you are targeting or at least is close to your targeted keyword phrase as possible (this is so your visitors can quickly identify the search term they used to find you is on your page... this helps keep them there as the result they got quickly appears far more relevant.)

I tend to only apply the H1 tag to text rather than on images or navigation bars. Keeps it simple for search engines.

Ensure you use sub headings every few paragraphs. It breaks up the page and increases white space if seperated correctly (use CSS to style this). For examples of how sub headings work, go buy a newspaper and study how the journalists use them to keep their readership reading the article).

For structuring heading tags in a HTML document I tend to favour this very simple method:

H1 tag - bold, slightly larger text using the main keyword phrase in context with your content not just plonked on the page. Your heading might be a short sentence based on the AIDA marketing communication model

No more than one H1 tag per page.

The MAIN keyword is in your H1 tag, sub headings can make use of lesser keywords, stemming and synonyms.

In essence the content structure of my page would then look like:

H1

Content

H2

Content

H3

Content

H4

Content

H5

Content

H6

Content

However that might be viewed as rather simplistic by some so you could use this method to help categorise and sub categorise your content (though I think it could be easy to get wrong and mix up the incorrect Hx tags):

H1

Content

H2

Content

H3
Content
H3
Content

H2

Content

H4
Content
H4
Content

and so on down to H6.

Some might dispute the content of this blog on headings so let me know if you do, it can only provoke a positive discussion on heading tags to the benefit of visitor and readers of this blog.

My style seems to work though I carefully examine code on others site to check what they do. What I will say is that a simply structured page can help with rankings - in some cases taking my clients from very poor rankings to higher rankings, however it was not just a case of tweaking heading tags, rather this was just part of the SEO process.

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Cheap and quality cannot go hand in hand

Am I stupid?

DO I really believe that "cheap" and "quality" go together - do people selling their services really believe so many people can be so gullible???

I submitted a site to a directory earlier on behalf of a client - childrens designer clothing store Rhubarb and Custard and received an email back thanking me for the submission.

I thought it was a professional enough response and then scrolled down to see:

In need of cheap quality ad space? Check: Domain name excluded by me here

Now how can you honestly believe "cheap" and "quality" go together to get my interest... it patronises me and annoys me that these words have been used together. I try to avoid the word "cheap" on sites I run though I am aware I may well miss out on a certain section of the market but I am content with that.

If the term had been:

High traffic AFFORDABLE ad space for small online businesses: Check it out

I would have been more positive about having a look but not when the seller honestly thinks selling something I beleive to be "quality" on the "cheap"...

I'd be interested to hear other peoples views on this....

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Daz

Eyetrack III

Identifying user behaviour is important in SEO and SEM and I found a link to this site:

http://poynterextra.org/eyetrack2004/main.htm

On Kim Krause Berg's site (so many thanks to her).

The article gives a real in depth research carried out in San Francisco (oooh my favourite city too!) and is useful to see how users interact with websites.

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On the road jack....

Having been mega busy these past few days I've neglected my blog a bit... I have also lost my internet connection which i am desperately trying to get fixed... bear with me... :)

Thanks

Daz

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Blogging from the comfort of my armchair

Oh life is good..... I got me a new laptop in the Xmas sales and it came fitted up with wireless networking as standard... and with xmas sales still on I got it at a bargain price!

So.... right now I find myself sat on the sofa with the missus watching the TV (Just the 2 of us on BBC 1) and me blogging in comfort (and occasionally popping my head over to see whats happening on the box!)

So if you've not yet experienced of blogging from your armchair may I suggest you do so!

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New Year, new blog resolutions

I hope you had a great Xmas and a good time on New Year's Eve. I had a wonderful time though the wife says I was grouchy for some of it (have to admit I didn't notice!)

I didn't make any personal New Year resolutions for 2007 - why bother I'll only break them. I spent quite a few days working out over Xmas and watching what I ate... I'll carry that on into this year as I want to lose a stone and start running 3 miles a day again 5 days a week.

Semi back into work... I don't think I'll get started properly until the 8th January... though right now I am carrying out some keyword research and finding Overtures keyword tool to either be way, way out or I'm not listing high enough (in most cases I'm in the top 10 but not seeing traffic from Yahoo or Google... strange...).

I'll dig around and let you know what I find (the keyword I am concentrating on is to do with internet marketing services)

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