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Wednesday, April 20, 2005

""If an RSS feed is the Yahoo backdoor, is a Blog Google’s?""

AlphaOne Technology Web Hosting & Design has found this great article by Tinu AbayomiPaul to be useful. You can find this article, as well as over 700 other articles helpful to webmasters in our free webmaster resources area.



"If an RSS feed is the Yahoo backdoor, is a Blog Google’s?"


Copyright © 2005 Tinu AbayomiPaul



Though the answer is in a book I wrote this July, the question is still asked of me repeatedly. Why does it work for some sites and not others? And how come some blogs get indexed in a day and then are dropped, and others stay in Google indefinitely?



Well, let’s take one question at a time. The answer to whether you can blog your way into Google search results is yes, sometimes in six weeks, often in 24 hours.



Yes, you read right, in less than 24 hours. Under certain conditions, the search engines actually want you to succeed at this.



I’m aware that these statements may cause some controversy, but that won’t make them any less factual. Since September, Google has been set up to show you proof of this, which we’ll go over in part two. My new blog has been spidered and indexed daily since it was created.



Not only is this possible with your blog, the way that blogs are set up make them one of the most conducive web site mediums to attract more traffic from multiple sources quickly. The trick to getting this to work for you, is in understanding which conditions have to be met first.



And we’ll come back to that shortly. First let’s talk about what’s typically wrong with the process most people take to get their sites listed.



Most people submit their sites to Google and wait six to eight weeks to see if they were included. Other people know that the fastest way to be spidered is to leave your link at a site that is already getting spidered.



But even among those people, when they don’t see their site in Google exactly the way they’d like, they give up, and say it didn’t work.



So what went wrong?



The place that the majority of people go wrong is in trying to trick the Googlebot into thinking their site matches its standards for inclusion for their desired high traffic keyword, instead of aligning themselves with the purpose that the search engine fills.



You may think that if you study all the search engine tricks, you’ll have the traffic from the search engines and it will then follow that yours will be the site people come to for the keyword they want, which in turn, will get 1% of those people to buy what’s at your site.



If you think that, I’m not here to tell you that you’re wrong - sometimes that works. I’m just saying that there are other easier, faster, less expensive ways. Some of them only have subtle differences from the way you know.



The truth is, even if we could somehow reverse engineer the secret Google algorithm, it periodically changes. So mastering that system would be temporary, even if you could do it.



Did you know that you don’t even need the traffic for your most desired keyword to be successful? You just need some targeted traffic that converts well. Some of the most financially successful sites generate amazing profits in the tens or hundreds of thousands with a few hundred or thousand visitors every month.



The method I most suggest to get the kind of search engine results that can power those kinds of sales, is aligning your site with the purpose the search engine seeks to fill. It is faster, more effective and involves far less effort.



You should still make sure your blog meets all the basic search engine optimization guidelines. However, the very nature of a blog makes it easier to meet more of these requirements with less continual struggle.



Let’s look at the facts, and see how blogs align themselves more closely with one of Google’s purposes as a search engine.

Here's what you need to keep in mind:



1- if you get your site’s link in the path of the search engine spider or robot of your choice, in this case Googlebot, if may follow it.



2- the way to get it to follow the link is to make sure it can “see” your link



3- if your content fills a need that the search engine’s database of links has, it will include your link, and,



4- if your link fills a deficit better than any other site, in accordance with Google’s secret formula or algorithm, it will rank your page well.



So now, the only missing component necessary to our success is now finding out how to be the best site Google finds for a category that has a deficit.



One of the strengths of Google, as perceived by people who like it, is the vast amount of fresh content it contains that is relevant to almost any topic, or keyword, typed into it, no matter how narrow or broad.



It follows then, that one purpose of this database of links is to provide fresh, relevant content on topics its users desire. The freshest, most relevant, most topical information found on the web today are in blogs, as well as their corresponding RSS or Atom feeds.



A blog’s very function is to contain constantly updated focused content, on one topic or field.



When blogs first started, the topic was often a person’s life. Business blogs, instead, are updated records of a certain kind of information relevant to an industry, a company or a topic, aligned with the interests of their visitors.



So you need to know the following things in order to get your blog included on Google’s search engine results pages.



• Where to leave your link so that it will get spidered

• How to make sure Googlebot sees your link

• How to set up your blog so its content fills a deficit

• The best way to make sure your blog does this better than other sites.



There’s a specific formula of success for this, one of many that will work not just one time, but repeatedly.



We’ve run out of space for the moment, but part two picks up with the specifics of how your blog needs to be set up and how to determine exactly where Googlebot can find your link.









Read part two of this article at http://www.freetraffictip.com/goblog or to find out how you can learn exactly where to leave your blog link down to the time of day.

How to Pick an SEO Firm By Michael Murray

AlphaOne Tech Web Hosting & Design has hundreds of great articles like this in our FREE Webmaster Resources area

If you're looking for an SEO firm, we recommend that you weigh 10 factors that can save you trouble down the road.

1. Check out their experience. You shouldn't have to try hard to find samples of their clients or their SEO performance on individual websites. How competitive are their search terms that are ranking well on Google? Are the search terms that are ranking well difficult terms to position--one, two and three word phrases, or are they easy terms to position because no one else is using them at all--six, seven and eight word terms?

2. Ask for testimonial letters. Insist on letterheads from the clients that feature real names, not Fred from Cleveland or J.T. from New York. Call these references and ask them questions about the SEO performance of the company you are considering.

3. Ask them to document their process. What policies and procedures do they follow? Are they consistent? Do they stay away from unethical procedures that could put your site in jeopardy with the search engines?

4. Get staff credentials. Find out who is doing the work.
You really need a team of people - no one person can be proficient in every area of server administration, programming, marketing, writing, link building and more. Get to know the team a bit.

5. Be suspicious of money back guarantees. Unless it's super-clear, you have to wonder about the details of the guarantee. If a firm offers one, including Top 10 placement, ask them to elaborate. Which key words are included? Just one Top 10? Do they plan to achieve Top 10 rankings among natural results or pay-per-click? Are the Top 10 listings associated with your web site or a supplemental web site the SEO firm controls?

6. Get pricing information. Is the SEO contract for hourly, monthly or annual services? Get prices from a few other firms as well, but be aware that the scope of services may vary greatly from firm to firm. Insist that the firm you're interested in explain why it charges more for services, if that's the case.

7. Ask about reporting. How many keywords will the firm handle? How many pages? Find out whether you'll be able to access the latest data about your project. How often is it provided? What's included? Some firms just send a ranking report. What other details can you expect in terms of the overall strategy, next steps, web site traffic and conversions?

8. Determine the firm's ethical standards. What are the firm's practices when it comes to ethical standards and practices? How far will they go? How do they view doorway pages, cloaking and keyword stuffing?

9. Know your objectives. You need to have some idea of what you want to accomplish when selecting an SEO firm. Do you simply want to promote your brand? Do you want to increase visitors and push traffic to retailers? Do you want to improve online sales? Which categories of products will matter the most in your campaign?

10. Come up with a budget. You can submit your web site pages (not optimized) for free or through services that cost well below $100. Optimizing is another matter--It's going to cost money. Have some flexibility--the level of service and the firm's expertise will determine whether you pay hundreds of dollars or well over a $1,000 a month.

About the author:
Michael Murray is vice president of Fathom SEO, a Cleveland, Ohio-based search engine marketing (SEM) firm. A member of Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization (SEMPO), he also authored the white paper, "Search Engine Marketing: Get in the Game."