5 Twitter Tools You Should Be Using If You Are A Blogger

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Of all the social networks that currently exist, my favourite is Twitter. Why? Well, because I do not have to spend valuable time adding dozens of glitter buttons (not that there is anything wrong with that) or filling out numerous quizzes or downloading a million billion photos.

I just tweet and go. Love it. It is a tool on the web like no other. Someone described Twitter as “IM on crack”, and I like that.

With that fine introduction to what Twitter is (for the few among you who might not have heard of or used it), following are my top picks for twitter tools you should be using if you are a blogger.

1. Twitter Feed

This is where the RSS feed function of Twitter comes into play. I cannot tell you how many times I have come across a feed tweet from a blogger that led to some interesting or useful information. Feed tweets grab my attention all the time and I have discovered a number of great bloggers who I would not have heard of any other way. Do not miss out on sharing a great post, use Twitter Feed.

2. Twhirl

This is a neat widget download that allows for the use of Twitter like an instant messenger, as opposed to having a web window open. You can send tweets, receive tweets, fave tweets, share pics, share links, and you can re-tweet with Twhirl (my favourite feature). It is free, easy, and fun. A must if you are a blogger.

3. SocialOomph

You can do several things with this great free tool. (There is a professional version as well.) First, you can schedule an upcoming Tweet and have it delivered at a predetermined date and time. Second, you can automatically follow people who follow you. Third, you can automatically send a thank you message to new followers as a DM. and that´s just 3 of a long list of very cool features. NOTE: Personally, I do not like to auto follow or send out automatic DM’s. But I think SocialOomph is a valuable tool for a lot of other reasons.

4. Twitter Search

The name says it all. This site allows you to search in real time for whatever topics you want more information on. You type in a search query and it searches all of Twitter for a result. Very addictive. Be warned!

5. Monitter

I do not use this one very offten, but its worthy of mention. It is like Twitter Search, in that it allows you to search. But it displays three columns worth of tweets, as opposed to one. Great for multi-taskers.

Want/Need More?

Here is a link to a fantastic round up of Twitter tools. It is a really long list, so go grab a cup of coffee before reading this one.

Not On Twitter, Yet?

If you do not have a Twitter account yet and are unsure about how to use it, how to add followers, what to tweet about, etc., you might want to check out Twitter For Dummies and/or Joel Comm´s “Twitter Power 2.0” (both available at Amazon.com).

There are many tools and apps that expand the functionality of Twitter and/or just make it more fun. Subscribe to my blog so you do not miss out on cool Twitter tools, apps and resources.

Good luck!

 

Related article:

How to Add a Retweet Button to Your Blogger Posts

 

 

Technorati-Tags: Twitter,Twitter tools,social networks,backlinks,more traffic

How to Add a Retweet Button to Your Blogger Posts

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Since Twitter is is very popular these days, adding a cool Retweet Button to your Blogger blog posts can easily get you a decent amount of traffic and promote your content/products/business to a large audience in very little time. If you have tons of followers, then you can easily milk it…

How to add an attractive Retweet button to your Blogger blog posts:

There are two versions of the Retweet button: The first is the default one (which looks just like the Digg button), the other one is a Compact version which can fit in small spaces…

The code for the Default version is :

<script type="text/javascript">
tweetmeme_url = '<data:post.url/>';
</script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="http://tweetmeme.com/i/scripts/button.js"> </script>

For the Compact version:

<script type="text/javascript">
tweetmeme_style = "compact";
</script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="http://tweetmeme.com/i/scripts/button.js"></script>

How to add them to your Blogger blog post:

If you want it to appear on the left side of the blog post:

Search for:

<data:post.body/>

And paste the following code BEFORE that line:

<div style="float:left;padding: 6px 10px 6px 0px;">
<script type="text/javascript">
tweetmeme_url = '<data:post.url/>';
</script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="http://tweetmeme.com/i/scripts/button.js"> </script>
</div>

If you would like it to appear on the right side of your post:

Search for:

<data:post.body/>

And paste the following code BEFORE that line:

<div style="float:right;padding: 6px 0px 6px 6px;">
<script type="text/javascript">
tweetmeme_url = '<data:post.url/>';
</script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="http://tweetmeme.com/i/scripts/button.js"> </script>
</div>

Note: In both cases, if you want to use the compact button instead of the default style one, simply replace the default style code with compact one (see Default version/Compact version).

SAVE THE CHANGES!

Good luck!

 

First Month Blogging Traffic

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If you would like to gain more traffic to your new blog and do not have any clue where to start, you may want to consider reading this article. I am going to show you what you need to do to receive a couple of thousand hits in your first month of blogging without spending a dime.

Before I begin I want to tell you that I am incredibly passionate about anything I decide to write about. This motivates me to work hard, yet at the same point, it does not feel like work at all since I am doing what I enjoy. Whatever you blog about, it should be something you cannot wait to speak to people about each and every day because essentially as a blogger you are creating one part of a dialogue, active communication on a topic you believe you can help others with.

The fastest way to build a successful blog

So if you feel comfortable that you have a niche that you are truly passionate about here is how you can get thousands of hits in your first month of blogging:

• Search for the Competition – No matter which niche you are in you aree going to have competition. There will be other bloggers writing similar content as you, but you need to be aware of who is doing this so that you can understand why people read these blogs. Ask yourself what you can do better and how you can provide more value to the readers of these blogs. You win online by providing better, more useful, information. The only thing the competition does not have are your experiences and your unique voice. Use that to your advantage by showing your readers your true self, not just another generic anonymous blog.
• Discover common patterns of the most successful blogs in the niche – I found that most successful film review blogs in my niche wrote at least one post a day and were actively replying to comments and guest posting on other blogs. This helped me decide what actions were best for creating success. What are the top bloggers in your niche doing?
• Write 20 high quality articles – Start writing about the things you enjoy. Write, write, write, edit, edit, edit, and actively seek feedback on your writing. Write at least 20 quality articles to give yourself a base before you go out and introduce yourself to other bloggers.
• Once your site has a base of about 20 articles, go out and market it – By marketing I mean comment, guest post, and email other bloggers. Make everything you do about helping others, not just helping yourself.
• Make friends – Blogging is all about networking. Therefore, treat your competition as friends. It sounds a bit weird, but each niche has groups that collaborate together around a common theme. Email and comment back and forth with these niche bloggers so that you become recognized in the group. If you have powerful friends with high traffic sites, they will most likely link to you in the future which will bring you a ton of high quality, relevant traffic. Remember that it takes the average person about 8 impressions before they will remember you. If you feel like you are over-marketing your site – you are not.
• Keep posting quality content – Post at least once a day and post things that matter to your readers. You readers do not want to hear about your crappy day at work or what you ate for dinner. (That´s what Twitter and Facebook are for!) When you write, address your audience and ask them questions. Provide relevant links in the article and even links to related blogs in your niche so they see the trackbacks and are reminded of you again.
• Guest Post – This will probably be the biggest factor in your early success. Try to guest post on 5 – 10 blogs with Alexa ratings over 500,000 – this is one of the best ways to gain a lot of traffic early on. If you take nothing else away from this article, realize that guest posting is the best way to secure a high ranking backlink and gain a ton of exposure for your blog.
• Repeat – In the end all you really need to know is that writing good content, addressing your readers, marketing it via commenting and guest posting, and being passionate about your subject will pull you through and build you traffic. Keep writing good content, keep commenting, and keep guest posting.

When you are starting do not even think about the money. I am still not making any money from my blog, but that is not the point when you are just getting started. When you are starting you need to build traffic, then after you have traffic you will simply have to decide the best way to make money from that traffic (that is the easy part). Do not get ahead of yourself by barraging your small amount of visitors with a ton of ads. If you do that you will only have a harder time growing trust with your readers and and growing your site.

If you want a successful blog, especially early on, it is going to take a lot of work. However, picking a topic you love to write about will make it seem like you are hardly working at all. Create value for your readers, follow the advice above, and you too can have 1000s of hits in your first full month of blogging.

Good luck!

 

Related articles you may also find helpful:

Get More Traffic with these 10 Important Inbound Links

Tips for Free and Easy Link Building

7 Tricks to Get Toooons of Links

 

 

Technorati-Tags: getting started,successful blogging,more traffic,backlinks

How to Rank Higher in Google´s New Search Results

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The most recent changes to Google make it seem like Google is no longer just one search engine but a combination of 6 or 7 or 8 different search engines all bundled into one. Therefore your search engine optimization (SEO) efforts should now be geared to ranking high in these search engines as well as in traditional organic search.

Google’s whole re-structuring of its search engine results pages (SERPs) interface or landing page caught a lot of people on the wrong foot. I did not expect it either. It really is a whole new Google with not just one search engine but a combination of 6 or 7 or more search engines all competing for your attention.

The new left side column with its new functions and displays opens up new opportunities for webmasters to get their listings within Google on that all-important first page. There are also many new ways to view the results such as view everything, or you can view with more or less shopping links. Plus, you can also view Google results for books, maps, blogs, updates, and discussions – all new ways to get your site or links into Google. Factor in the Wonder Wheel and things are indeed looking very different within the new Google SERPs.

These recent changes within Google have been totally unprecedented. There have been major updates before, some of them very disruptive like the Florida update, but with Google Caffeine, MayDay Update, new layout and the recent shakeup of its algorithm, Google has fundamentally changed how its organic searches are ranked and used.

Before I start sounding too cryptic, these recent changes seem to be a “coming together” of all the different types of searches in Google, which have been around for some time. Now it seems that with the new interface architecture each type of search is given more importance or rather more of an equal billing or footing within Google. There are now a number of ways to get your links viewed and hopefully clicked within the most important search engine on the planet.

First, I always try to start any piece on Google or the search engines with a disclaimer. Please take any of the following information on Google just as one blogger´s observations of what is happening with Google and putting in his two cents worth.

Now, the reason I say “Google’s New Search Engines” is the feeling which has gradually crept into my daily doings – it feels like you are no longer dealing with one organic search engine but a couple of different search engines. Let me explain, for years Google has been presenting results for not just static webpages but also for images, videos, news, blogs and shopping/products – but recent changes have shaken up things significantly.

With the most recent changes, Google seems to be placing more importance than ever on these new ways to search. Videos have taken a big step forward and can now pop up on the first page and stay there. Producing a video is now one of the fastest ways to get on the first page of Google, even for very competitive keywords. While many online marketers are taking advantage of this fact, it is relatively new and you can have a much better chance of ranking for a video instead of an ordinary web page in Google. It can happen almost instantly.

Personally, I like using the YouTube platform since it is also owned by Google and they no doubt can easily tap into all the background stats on a video such as comments, viewer ratings, and so on. In other words, Google has always favored ways to make their SERPs more „democratic” and user generated/rated videos are the perfect fit.

So too are blog posts and entries, these can be easily monitored and (comment spam aside) are more democratic since it is much harder to fake Diggs or Re-tweets. All of these social bookmarking systems and sites provide the search engines, especially Google, with very helpful user-generated rankings and ratings. Blogs now also have two subcategories – Twitter/Facebook Updates and Forum Discussions, which are now being displayed separately.

Google seems to be placing more importance on popular Posts, Diggs, Tweets in their SERPs. Again, I find using a simple Google owned program like Blogger to be a very effective way of ranking high in Google. For instance, my posts in Blogger are indexed in Google within minutes, this recently seems to have been sped up and we are close to seeing search results.

Another instant way to get your content onto the first page of Google is to use a News Release. From the start, Google has listed News Items on the first page but this now seems to play a more important role, especially when you consider all the new features in the left side column. Surfers will probably stay on that first page longer and you have a better chance of getting your news item read.

Within the last couple of months, I have started doing Press Releases, mainly through PRweb - but there are lots of free programs you can use. I also recommend posting articles to American Chronicle because Google News picks up and displays a lot of these items. Again, like videos, getting your News item listed is almost instant, and within seconds you can have traffic flowing to your site.

Images and image search has always been an important feature of Google Search, one that online marketers and webmasters have taken advantage of by creating images to match the main products or keywords of their sites. Now image search, itself, is much more varied and has many more options to re-define your image search, for example you could target a certain color or line drawings. Regardless, images can be an easy way to get traffic from Google.

Within the shopping results is the obvious place to be featured if you have a product to sell. This is the old product listing (Froogle), which Google has renamed to Shopping or Product Search. For those into online marketing, this is probably the most important listing as you are sure to attract specific buyers who are in the right mind-set to purchase. To learn more about submitting your products to Google Product Search go here: http://www.google.com/intl/en_us/products/submit.html

While all of these search options can be somewhat confusing to grasp even for the experienced online marketer, all these options do present different ways to get on that coveted first page in Google search. And while the number one spot in organic search will always be your main goal, ranking for the top spot in the shopping results, video results, news results, blog results, update results, discussion results and image results are all worth aiming for in your SEO efforts. Some of these are temporary or fast moving, but there are certain tactics you can use, which will increase your presence in the most important of all search engines, which delivers the most search traffic on the web.

Make sure you take a holistic approach to both your content and SEO. Create videos and images geared towards the topic and keywords of your site. Make sure you have a blog and a forum on your website to take advantage of these types of listings. Likewise, fully integrate your site with all the social bookmarking sites like Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, Google Buzz and become an active member of said sites. Furthermore, make sure you are creating news related items for your site or keywords, to keep your site in the whole mix of things on the web. And make sure you add a steady flow of fresh content to your site on a regular basis and link this content to the “Q&A” types of sites; there is a growing emphasis being placed on these help-based sites by the search engines.

Finally, I am a firm believer in having all your content/sites/programs interconnected with one another. Something as simple as using a Google Profile to list ALL your online programs and sites is one way of making them ALL reachable by your visitors as well as Google. But go for the overkill, do the same thing for your Facebook page, your MySpace page, your LinkedIn page - and do not forget to interconnect all your different content by referencing your videos in your News Releases, your Twitter profile in your articles, your Facebook page in your posts, well, you get the picture.

Just make sure the search engines, and especially Google, have no trouble finding you and/or your content. Make sure this content is varied and displayed in different media such as videos, images, news, tweets, blog posts, and shopping links. Reaching that first page in Google has become a lot more challenging in many ways, but it also has become a lot more easier to do. Just go for it.

Good luck!

 

Related articles you may also like:

Google: Page Speed to Become a Ranking Factor in 2010

Your SEO Toolkit Part 2: Tools

Your SEO Toolkit Part 3: Ressources

8 Firefox Add-ons to Boost Your Productivity

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Make Your Online Life Faster and Easier

If you use Firefox (like I do most of the time), you are no doubt aware that there are many add-ons that can improve your browsing experience. Many of these can make your online life a whole lot easier and more enjoyable - and save you time. Following are some that I have found particularly useful. Which do you like? Tell me.

1. Add to Search Bar

The Add to Search Bar add-on is unbelievably useful if you do a lot of searching day in, day out. Instead of having only the few default search engines to choose from, you can right click on any search box on the web and add that to the list of search engines in your search bar.

2. Drag & DropZones

The Drag & DropZones add-on makes the previous add-on even more useful. With this, you can highlight any text on a page and simply drag it to bring up a series of windows - one for each search engine from your search bar. This one is also fully customizable. It can be more convenient than going up to the search bar, finding the correct search engine from the pull-down menu, and then searching.

3. Fire Gestures

The Fire Gestures add-on allows you to perform different Firefox operations with a simple gesture of the mouse. For instance, you can open a new tab by holding a right click and moving left and right from anywhere in the window.

You can perform a lot of functions with different gestures, which are completely customizable via the options of this neat add-on. You can choose which gestures you want to perform each operation.

The add-on is very similar to other mouse gestures add-ons, but this one is compatible with Firefox 3.5 and up.

4. IE Tab

The IE tab function allows you to convert the web page you are on to Internet Explorer view. This can be helpful for checking pages to make sure they look alright in both browsers.

Also, when you happen to come across a page with some issues, you can switch over to IE with the click of a button, and see if it works better there.

5. Shareaholic

The Shareaholic button is a cool and convenient add-on for those among you who like to share a lot of content. Basically, it allows you to send any page to any social network of your choosing by right clicking and selecting the one you want to use from the menu. There is also a button that is added to the top of your browser. It is customizable so you can choose your preferred networks.

6. Smart Bookmarks Bar

The Smart Bookmarks Bar is one of my current favorites. It eliminates the text from the bookmarks in your bookmarks bar, and leaves only the favicons. This means it frees up a whole lot of space, and you can fit a lot more bookmarks on that bar.

This way, all of the sites you visit most frequently can always be no more than a single click away. Just make sure you know your favicons.

7. TooManyTabs

The TooManyTabs add-on allows you to create multiple rows of tabs. If you frequently have a lot of tabs open, and would prefer to be able to see what they all are, this add-on will be of particular use to you. You can always send specific tabs to different rows, which can also be useful.

8. Workaround Bug 489729

Ever since I installed version 3.5 of Firefox, I have encountered an extremely annoying issue where something or other I was doing was somehow taking the tab I was in and sending it to a different window. The problem was, I could not figure out what I was doing to cause this.

Eventually, I happened across this Workaround Bug add-on, which took care of the problem. It turned out to be that clicking a tab once and then moving your mouse in a downward motion caused a new window to open - something I seem to do a lot.

This add-on allows you to disable this not so useful function.

Conclusion

There are countless add-ons available to the Firefox user, and I am sure I have barely scratched the surface of ones that can contribute to your productivity. Please read my other articles on Firefox add-ons.

What are your favorite add-ons? Share them here.

 

Related articles you my also like:

Your SEO Toolkit Part 1: Firefox Add-ons

Top 10 Firefox Browser Add-ons

 

 

Technorati-Tags: firefox,browser,add-ons

Top 10 Firefox Browser Add-ons

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About sixteen month ago I fired Internet Explorer as my primary browser. Why? Because it crashed on me constantly and all too often took forever to transition from one site to another. I have found the Firefox browser much more user friendly and convenient, especially given the number of add-ons that have been developed for the browser.

The ability to customize Firefox with these extensions is what makes this most widely used of open-source browsers so special. However, there are so many add-ons available, it is hard to tell what is worth installing and what will be a complete waste of time.

There are numerous lists of Firefox add-ons citing the best extensions for web developers or for a better YouTube experience. However, I wanted to create an everyday list of my best choices for the ordinary online business owner and the (semi)professional blogger.

Without further ado, here are the 10 best Firefox add-ons:

1. Adblock Plus

If you have ever been annoyed by all those ads and banners on a site that seem to take hours to download, install Adblock Plus and get rid of them. Just right-click on a banner and choose “Adblock” from the context menu, and the banner will not be downloaded again.

2. Colorful Tabs

This simple add-on makes a strong colorful appeal. It sets each tab to a different color and makes them easy to distinguish while beautifying the overall appearance of the interface. After a long day of research when you have tons of browser windows open, this makes online page viewing easier on the eyes.

3. ColorZilla

ColorZilla puts an eyedropper icon in your status bar. Click it and you will get a crosshair cursor. As you run this across a web page, the RGB values of the pixel under the crosshair will be displayed in the status bar, both as three separate values and as a hex value (e.g., R:255, G:255, B:255 // #FFFFFF). I use this all the time when I am trying to match colors - a font color to an the primary background on an image, for example.

4. MeasureIt

After installing this cool add-on, you will have a small ruler icon on the left side of your status bar. When you click on it, your browser window will fade out a little, and you will have a crosshair cursor. Drag the cursor over a section of the screen that you want to measure. Next to the box is its height and width, measured in pixels. I use this all the time when trying to measure the size of images. When you are finished, just hit the Escape key to turn it off and return to normal viewing of the page.

5. GMail Manager

This Gmail notifier is great for anyone who has multiple Gmail accounts. It allows you to receive new mail notifications along with viewing account details including unread messages, saved drafts, spam messages, labels with new mail, space used, and new mail snippets.

6. SearchStatus

SearchStatus allows you to see how any web site you visit is performing. When you land on a page, SearchStatus lets you view its Google PageRank, Google Category, Alexa popularity ranking, Compete.com ranking, SEOmoz Linkscape mozRank, Alexa incoming links, Alexa related links and backlinks from Google, Yahoo and MSN. This combined search-related information means you can view not only the link importance of a site (according to Google and Linkscape), but also its traffic importance (according to Alexa and Compete), so providing a balanced view of site effectiveness. I use to determine whether a site has enough traffic to warrant accepting a link or banner exchange.

7. Scrapbook

ScrapBook helps you to save web pages and easily manage your saved collections. Major features are: saving web pages or snippets of a page, saving a web site, organizing the collection in the same way you do bookmarks, full text search and quick filtering search of the collection, and editing of your collected pages.

8. Session Manager

Session Manager helps you manage your Firefox tabs. If you visit the same sites every day, all you need do is open all the sites in separate tabs and/or windows, and then use Session Manager to save the session with a distinct name. Then you simply go to Tools -- > Session Manager, pick your session, and all the windows and tabs open up just as you saved them. And, Session Manager tracks your sessions as you surf, and if Firefox (or your system) crashes, you can recover the selection of tabs you had open when it crashed.

9. Tabs Open Relative

Tabs Open Relative makes all new tabs open to the right of the current tab, rather than at the far right of the tab bar (optionally this only applies to links). This reduced a huge annoyance I had with how the Firefox browser worked.

10. XMarks

XMarks (formerly known Foxmarks) provides seamless bookmark synchronization between your computers and browsers via their synchronization server. Your bookmark (and optionally password) data is securely stored and backed up on their servers and is available online, as well. After you install the add-on, click on the notification to set up Xmarks and start backing up and synchronizing your bookmarks. Install Xmarks on each computer you use, and it seamlessly integrates with your web browser and keeps your bookmarks safely backed up and in sync across all of your computers. Secure Password Sync is an optional Xmarks feature.

Note: To locate these add-ons, search for the plug-in extensions here: addons.mozilla.org

If you do not currently use Firefox as your browser, perhaps this list will convince you to give it a try.

Good luck!

 

Related articles:

Your SEO Toolkit Part 1: Firefox Add-ons

8 Firefox Add-ons to Boost Your Productivity

 

 

Technorati-Tags: Firefox,brwser,add-ons,seo,pagerank

Your SEO Toolkit Part 3: Ressources

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Welcome to the third and final part of my series on SEO tools and resources. In the last two articles we discussed a number of add-ons for Firefox used for SEO as well as an assortment of other free or affordable SEO tools. In today´s article I am going to tell you about some of the resources you will want to access on a regular basis to keep up to date and informed on the goings-on in the realm of search engines and SEO.

I am going to cover a a number of different types of resources below and I promise that I´ll do my bestto keep this article to a reasonable length. Without further ado, let us begin …

1. Media

When there happens to be a breaking story or you want an expert opinion on a subject, a good place to hit first is the media sources in that specific industry. The SEO industry is no different and there are some amazing, albeit often unconventional, media sources. Some of my favorites are:

Webmaster Radio

Webmaster Radio is an Internet-based radio station with some great programing ranging from affiliate marketing to PPC to organic optimization and much more. With shows hosted by experts in their fields from Danny Sullivan (Search news) to Dave Szetela (PPC) you will get a lot of solid information. I refrain from listing my favorite shows because what I need to know may be different from what you need to know. Just look through their programming and either listen through your work day as I often do or download the podcasts for listening at a later time.

WebProNews

WebProNews offers up-to-the-minute information on virtually every event. They have reporters writing constantly and have others scouring SEO blogs and other news sources, compiling the information in one place for easy access. They also have great articles by third-party writers and a very active readership that is proactive in their commenting. Definitely near the top of my go-to list when I am looking for news and current feedback.

Addme

This site is difficult to classify as it fits into a couple categories but I decided to include under media as that what I use it for most often. They include tools, resources, a directory and much more on their site. I use it primarily for the articles and newsletter.

Search Engine Watch

No list of SEO resources would be complete without Search Engine Watch. This site is the one that started it all. Search Engine Watch provides everything from fantastic articles to breaking news to search engine stats and an awesome forum. A definite bookmark.

2. Blogs

As with many industries, blogs are a great way to keep informed on the latest goings-on in the SEO realm. The trick, however, is figuring out which blogs are worth reading and which authors are truly knowledgeable. Over the years I have studied a lot of blogs – and I still do. Below are some of the key blogs I reference on a regular basis.

SEO Book Blog

Aaron Wall over at SEO Book has an excellent blog worth reading on a regular basis. I have yet to visit his blog and not find some tid-bit of information that was worth reading either because of the information itself or because of its entertainment factor. Another one to add to your weekly reading list.

Matt Cutts Blog

It is nice to get it from the horse’s mouth. For those who do not know – Matt Cutts is the head of Google’s Webspam team. He blogs about Google, technology and occasionally his cat. One has to read what he writes knowing that he is an employee of Google and as such cannot really give away the farm BUT he nevertheless gives tons of great advice, insight and tips. The perk being – this time you do not have to ask if following his advice will get you banned.

SEO By The Sea

The author, Bill Slawski, focuses his attentions on the more technical side of things with tales of patents, algorithmic possibilities, statistics and functionalities. For many, his would be a rather dry blog if not for his gift with words and ability to make even the most bland of subjects palatable. There is no need to visit his blog daily but adding it to your bookmarks is highly recommended.

SEOmoz Blog

What blog list would be complete without the inclusion of the SEOmoz blog? Rand Fishkin and crew keep their visitors up-to-date of some great research, news and SEO tips. From opinion pieces to months-long whitepapers you will find tons of useful information. Again – not necessary to visit every day but a weekly pass is always worthwhile.

3. Forums

Forums are a great place to gather information, especially on current events such as ranking updates. That said, reading forums can be a risky thing. Almost anyone can join a forum and post their thoughts. While this format allows you to capture a wide range of information and knowledge, it also results in less qualified or utterly unqualified people giving advice as well. Therefore, while I recommend reading forums I also recommend taking things with a grain of salt – at least until you figure out who’s who.

SEO Chat Forums

The SEO chat forums are easily among the largest and most popular of all the SEO forums. They cover a HUGE array of issues from Google to social media to Alexa rankings to (hold your hats) Ask Jeeves (that’s right – the forum’s been around for THAT long). Users worth noting are rustybrick, fathom, and randfish.

DigitalPoint Forums

DigitalPoint is an ancient forum as well (2000 – ancient by web standards at least). They cover a wide range of topics from SEO to PPC to affiliate programs. Some users worth noting there are shoemoney, daven, and of course digitalpoint. A great place to ask your questions. Heavily visited and they have a ranking system for their users so you can get a decent feel as to whether they are reliable.

SitePoint Forums

There are a variety of reasons I like SitePoint – I even own a bunch of their books. Their forums focus on design and development (not SEO), but every SEO needs resources on the design and development side.

4. Newsletters & Other Resources

Of course there are other resources that every SEO or webmaster needs to be able to get their hands on. Here they are:

Google Webmaster Guidelines

These are the guidelines set out by Google telling you what you can and cannot do and what tactics to look out for. Worth a look over periodically as the do change from time to time. If you are heading into the forums for advice you will definitely want to take a look at the guidelines first to make sure that should you get lead astray you will know what can get you banned or penalized.

Sphinn

A social media site for SEO. Here you will find user-submitted stories on a wide array of topics related to Internet Marketing. Obviously the quality and relevancy of the stories ranges from brilliant to utter crud but the cream usually rises to the top with good stories hitting page one. That said, an occasional peek at specific threads often reveals some hidden gems.

Search Engine Land Newsletter

Perhaps I should have included this in the media section above as it is a fine site unto itself but it is the newsletter component that I find most helpful and so I have decided to place it here. Sign up for their newsletter and you will get daily notification as to when some of the major search engine events happen and some solid advice as to what it means for you.

High Rankings Newsletter

The lady over at High Rankings publishes a solid newsletter where she provides tips and advice including replies to visitor questions. While I may disagree with some of her points from time to time I have never seen her provide bad advice – my advice just might be different at times.

Conclusion

Obviously there are many more tools and resources available. In this series of articles I have tried to include those that apply to the broadest spectrum of people and that are the most helpful. I highly recommend hunting for your own – especially if you have got issues that you cannot find help for here.

 

 

Related articles you may also like:

Your SEO Toolkit Part 1: Firefox Add-ons

Your SEO Toolkit Part 2: Tools

18 Highly Effective SEO Techniques

 

 

Technorati-Tags: seo,search engine optimization,blogs,media player,more traffic,successful website,forums

Your SEO Toolkit Part 2: Tools

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Welcome to part two of my three part series on search engine optimization (SEO) tools and resources. In the last article I told you about the variety of Firefox extensions used for SEO. In this article we will discuss some of the free and affordable tools you can use to better your search engine optimization efforts. By affordable I mean affordable for virtually everyone, therfore I am going to set the bar at $100/yr or ownership. Admittedly, SEO professionals use tools that cost more than this but many of those tools will be out of some people's price range (and too difficult to use).

Here are some of the key tools you need to use to help ensure the successful optimization of your blog or website.

1. Google Keyword Tool

Many of you are already familiar with Google's keyword tool, but it needs to be mentioned. This is a great resource for researching keywords. As with all keyword tools, it has its limitations, and most would agree that it seems to somewhat overestimate search volume but nonetheless it is probably still the best of the keyword tools out there, especially at the price.

2. Keyword Discovery

No individual set of data is perfect and no stage of the SEO process is more important than keyword research and selection. Keyword Discovery is a great tool to compare the Google keyword data with. Where you find commonalities you know that 2 independent sets of data agree. Keyword Discovery is a free tool that may be all the average user needs – it is certainly worth looking into.

3. Keyword Spy

While the paid version of this tool costs than the $100/yr. max I noted above - the free version provides some great data. Simply enter a competitor´s URL and you will be presented with some valuable data about the keywords they rank for both organically and in AdWords. It is a great tool for competitor analysis as well as for finding keywords you might not have thought of.

4. Xenu Link Sleuth

A fantastic free tool that crawls websites and reports back all the broken links. Over time, almost all sites get broken links. Running this tool periodically will help you find them so you can fix them.

5. Google Webmaster Tools

Arguably one of the most important of all SEO tools. Google Webmaster Tools allows webmasters (and everyone performing SEO of course) to see their website the way Google does. With this tool you will get to see what your site is appearing for in the results, what pages on your site are linked to but do not exist, and a wide array of errors and statistics.

With this information you can work on a number of issues. If your site is appearing for phrases that you are not getting traffic from, you can review your titles and descriptions to see if you can improve your click-through-rate (CTR). Xenu, for instance, will not show you the links from other sites that are pointing to pages that do not (or no longer) exist - Google Webmaster Tools will. You will also find good backlink information for your site – an a whole lot more…

6. Page Prowler

Page Prowler is a backlink research tool that allows the user to collect large amounts of potential backlink information, sort that data by site strength, and then proceed to pursue those backlinks. The value of this tool is primarily in the time it saves. It does not offer anything that could not be done manually, but it can compile data quickly and easily that would otherwise take a person hours or days to collect.

7. Advanced Web Ranking

Advanced Web Ranking is probably the most affordable of the better rank checking software programs. It has a ton of great features, including scheduling and auto-report generation. You can set the searches to take place slowly to reduce the impact on the search engines. I highly recommend running it in the evening to further minimize your impact during high-volume search periods.

8. Multiple Keyword Rack-Checking Tool

This is probably one of the most popular tools on the Beanstalk site. One of the pet peeves I always had with online rank checking tools was checking rankings one-at-a-time. This tool allows you to check your rankings on Google ten at a time. Apparently a lot of people agree as it is one of the most widely used keyword checking tools.

136 SEO Tools

While I have tried to include a solid set of free and very affordable tools in this article, you might find value in tools I do not use. The “136 SEO Tools” page is regularly updated and includes some very interesting tools. I highly recommend you visit at least once. I have it bookmarked and check back every couple of months to see what new tools have been added.

Outlook: In part three of this article series we willbe taking a look at a nimber of invaluable SEO resources that you need to visit regularly if you want to keep up-to-date on this ever-changing industry. While there are far too many than can be listed in a single article, I am going to cover my first points of access when I am looking for news or others' opinions on SEO and search engine events.

 

Related articles:

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Your SEO Toolkit Part 3: Ressources

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Technorati-Tags: seo,search engine optimization,backlinks,pagerank,keywords,webmaster tools

Your SEO Toolkit Part 1: Firefox Add-ons

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Everyone trying to optimize his or her blog or website for search engines uses different tools and resources. Some tools are paid, a lot more are free - but we all use them. But what are the tools the average webmaster should use if they are looking to optimize their own sites and what resources should they use to keep up with the latest going's on?

If your budget does not allow for the hiring of a professional SEO company - trying it yourself may be the only option. Therefore, I am going to provide a list of some of the main tools SEO professionals use on virtually every site they work on.

When I initially started writing this article I was going to cram a shitload of various tools and resources into one article, but the article was going to end up running WAY too long to hold your attention (or mine) so I have decided tocut it into three EZ parts (as opposed to three EZ payments which you will be familiar with if you watch a lot of late night TV). But let us get to the meat of this article, shall we? There will be three articles:

• Firefox
• Free and affordable tools
• Resources

Let us begin with Firefox. Let me start out by saying that I do not know if Firefox is officially the browser of choice of SEO companies, but if it is not - it should be. You can download it for free at Mozilla.com. And now let me tell you a little bit about the extensions that make this browser invaluable to SEO's:

1. SEO Quake

If I had to lose all but one of my SEO tools - this would be the one I would keep which is why it gets listed first. This little tool allows me to quickly look at the top 10 results in the SERPs and within seconds see all the important information like PageRank, indexed page numbers, backlinks to that page, domain backlinks, the age of the site and much, much more.

This tool does not provide any revolutionary information in that it is all just data that can be accessed directly. However, it reduces the time this tasks take from minutes to seconds. It then provides easy links to more detailed information. A fantastic, an invaluable tool.

Oh, and it also adds a line through all no-followed links. Very useful when link building.

2. SEO for Firefox

Aaron Wall at SEO Book has added a great tool to the mix that duplicates a lot of functions of SEO Quake but which has enough additional features to be very useful. Basically – neither one is a replacement for the other.

Like most tools, it provides information that can be accessed in other ways, BUT this tool allows users to find tons of relevant site and keyword information quickly and painlessly. From keyword traffic to keyword trends, from backlink counts to social media mentions - this tools gives quick access to tons of information.

I must admit that I prefer the layout of SEO Quake and some of the easier functionality.

3. SEO Link Analysis

A HUGE two thumbs up to Joost de Valk who made all our lives simpler when he launched this tool. What this tool does is display the PageRank and anchor text of every link when you perform a backlink check on one of the major engines. I suppose you could visit every single site and get this information yourself and there is some value in that to be sure, but when you need a quick analysis of a site's backlinks - this tool is invaluable.

Note: It works VERY well in combination with SEO Quake.

4. Web Developer

With this tool we are getting a bit more advanced. For those of you who understand coding or are learning (and you should be), this tool is fantastic. It allows for quick testing and viewing of a site's structure, including image info, table and cell information, W3C compliance, CSS details and MUCH, MUCH more.

It is nearly impossible to list all of the functions this tool offers, and I do not know anyone who uses them all.

5. IE Tab

This is an odd little tool to add, and it is purely a matter of convenience - just like adding a second monitor to your system.

This tool loads Internet Explorer into your Firefox tab with just a simple click of a button so you do not have to go back-and-forth between browsers when testing. I could survive without it, but since you have Firefox...

6. Search Status

This is another tool with many uses. On the surface it simply displays PageRank, Alexa and Compete rank and mozRank data, but with a right-click on the icon you get access to a whole slew of additional information, including fast links to whois, the robots and sitemap files, keyword density information, Archive.org info, and it will even highlight no-follow links.

A lot of these features overlap with those of other tools noted above, but I have it installed - and so should you.

These are the main extensions I have - and you should have - installed for Firefox. This is not to say that is all there are, and I cannot stress enough the benefits of visiting addons.mozilla.org and looking for more useful extensions specific to your needs (RSS, Twitter, coding, etc.) Over time, you will probably install a dozen more than are listed here, but those above are the main Firefox SEO tools you will use all the time.

In my next post, we will be taking a look at free and affordable tools that you can use to help improve your website rankings. Be sure to keep your eyes open as there will be many invaluable tools listed there too.

Good luck!

 

Related articles:

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Your SEO Toolkit Part 3: Ressources

Do-It-Yourself SEO (with a Twist)

18 Highly Effective SEO Techniques

 

 

Technorati-Tags: search engine optimization,seo,backlinks,link building,webmaster tools

7 Tricks to Get Tooooooons of Links

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Search engine optimization (SEO) is a race. And in any race learning from your competitors makes you a better racer. Even when you are leading it is sometimes good to look back and check the runners-up. And if you are not the top dog, you absolutely should examine the leaders: their gear, their training, their strategy. In SEO the most interesting thing about your competition are their links.

Whether you like it or not: SEO is still pretty much about links. A good link profile can make up for almost any lack of optimized content and other onpage flaws. Love or hate, the best thing you can do about it is embrace the fact and run with it.

Therefore, I am going to show you some tricks that will enable you to look deeper into your competition's link profile, granting you access to restricted areas: their locker room, their laundry and even the briefing hall where they plan their link building strategies.

Competitive Link Research

Finding out where your competitors' links come from is not that difficult. You just need to go to Google or Yahoo! and type in:

link:www.your-competitor.com

to get a list of inbound links to the site.

Yahoo is much better in that respect as it tends to provide more extensive and accurate data. The only problem here is that there is a limit of 1,000 links per website which is often not enough as the fattest link sources get left behind the limit fence. Here are a few tips to break through to the other side.

Note: If you are lazy like me you might want to skip to the end of the article where I'll share a tool that does it all a lot quicker.

Trick 1: Search for Links to Particular Web Pages of a Competing Site

Alongside with

link:www.your-competitor.com

search for

link:www.your-competitor.com/products.html     or

link:www.your-competitor.com/services.html

and so on.

Trick 2: Exclude Internal Links

You may want to examine the internal linking structure of your competition if you want to gain some insight on their navigation and marketing steps. But since we want to find more external links, let us exclude the internal ones.

You can do this by adding the

-site:site.com

operator to your search query. Type in:

link:http://www.your-competitor.com -site:your-competitor.com     or

linkdomain:www.your-competitor.com -site:your-competitor.com

and you will get a list of external backlinks only.

There is a dropdown option in Yahoo! site explorer that does just the same.

Trick 3: Exclude Links Coming from Certain Domains

The -site: modifier lets you exclude links coming from specific sites. So, whenever you see a large chunk of links coming from the same domain add the

-site:thisdomain.com

modifier to your query and the links from this site will get replaced with new ones.

You can add -site: multiple times in one query so that you will get something like this:

link:http://www.nfl.com -site:nfl.com -site:en.wikipedia.org

Trick 4: Check Links Coming from Certain TLDs

This is a little known trick. The site: modifier actually lets you get a list of links coming from domains with certain TLDs (Top-Level-Domains): .com, .org, .edu, .co.uk, .gov and so on. Just type in

link:http://www.your-competitor.com site:.org        or

linkdomain:www.your-competitor.com site:.org

and you will be shown a list of .org sites linking to your rival.

Note: Do this in Yahoo! regular search, not site explorer!

Trick 5: Exclude Links Coming from Certain TLDs

This is an even lesser known trick. You can exclude certain TLDs from the results with the -site:.tld modifier. Usually the biggest chunk of links comes from .com's, so add a -site.com modifier and you will get lots of new link data.

Trick 6: Use Different Combinations of the Previous 5 Tricks

Try

link:http://www.your-competitor.com/page.html -site:your-competitor.com -site:.com

or

link:http://www.your-competitor.com site:.org -site:wikipedia.org

If you give it a little thought you will surely come up with lots of ideas. Feel free to share your findings in the comments.

Trick 7: Use the Prvious 6 Tricks in Different Search Engines

Do not limit your searches to Google and Yahoo!, include AltaVista, Alexa, (Bing does not give you link data, so forget about it), and then there are Exalead, Excite and vast numbers of regional search engines. Search them, get rid of the the duplicates and you will have a goooooooooooooooogol of competitor's links to study.

Important note: Some search engines have a different set of operators so you may need to type domain: instead of link:

Getting It Done the Fast Way

This sure seems like a lot of work - and it is. Moreover, getting the links list is only the beginning and the easy part of competitive link research. Once you have the list together you need to analyze each link, weed out poor quality sites and only leave the ones you can get a link from. Now THAT is a lot of work.

As I admitted before, I am too lazy to do this all by hand, besides I value my time too much to waste it on this kind of work. That is why I use SEO SpyGlass, an advanced link analysis tool that makes use of all the tricks described in this article (plus some more advanced ones I do not know the first thing about) to get up to 25,000 links per domain, which is much, much more than any other tool can get.

SEO SpyGlass also finds all the data one needs to analyze the links:

· Google PR of the domain and linking page

· The URL as well as the title of the linking page

· The anchor text and description

· Whether the link is still on the page (sometimes the link gets removed but search engines will think it is still there till they reindex the page).

· Whether the link is no-follow or dofollow

· How many other links are on the specific page

· How much link value the link has

· And a host of other data like TLDs, domain age, country, etc.

If you want to do competitive link research seriously, I'd strongly recommend trying SEO SpyGlass out (there is a free trial version available). And of course you can always use the tricks described in this post whenever you want to run a quick background check on that fantastic new site in your niche.

Good luck!

 

Related articles:

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Using Web Directories to Build Backlinks

 

 

Technorati-Tags: link building,backlinks,seo,more traffic,search engine optimization