Archive for April, 2008

The Backlash of Hosted Site Solutions

Laura -

Several kinds of sites fall into this category, including many kinds of site builders, shopping carts, and some other specialty niche business sites. Niche business sites include Real Estate, Insurance, Kitchen Designer, and other business sites hosted by a company that “specializes” in “easy” sites for that kind of business.
Not only are such sites deadly [...]

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No Follows and Google

Laura -

Another “dictated by Google” topic. Nofollow was originally designed to keep search engines from indexing links that you did not want them to index.
It seems though, that search engines pay attention to it when they want, and ignore it otherwise. So as a protection, which it was originally intended as, it is practically useless. [...]

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Building Backlinks - More Confusing than Ever

Laura -

Apparently, backlinks are bad. Except when they are good. And nobody seems to know just what that means anymore, including Google. The rules for backlinks are so convoluted now, that not even Google knows just what is, and is not, an acceptable link.
Now, don’t misunderstand me. I have never been in favor of manipulative tactics, [...]

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Article Marketing and SEO

Laura -

A month or so ago I wrote a scathing post about bad article marketing. So I guess it is only fair that we say something about GOOD article marketing - which isn’t that different from blogging, in fact.
The most important aspect is value. The article must have value to the reader first of all. Value [...]

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Branching Out with SEO and a Second Website

Laura -

So your website is functioning, optimized to the teeth, and you are still having a hard time competing. The logical temptation is to build another website as a traffic funnel. It is often recommended by SEO gurus - but how they recommend it varies widely! Just for the record, to get it out of the [...]

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Limitations of PPC

Laura -

I’ve written many other times about PPC, but it bears writing about here as well. You should know at the outset, that I have no use for it - but that is primarily because it has never been something that would have worked for one of my clients! I’ll explain why:

They all had very low [...]

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SEO, and SEM

Laura -

Do you need SEO, or do you need SEM?
The line between the two can be somewhat blurry, but the terms mean:
Search Engine Optimization
and
Search Engine Marketing
The best definition I’ve heard was that Search Engine Optimization are tactics you use to optimize the search engine indexing of your site - that means tags, content optimization, clean code, [...]

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To Dash, or Not to Dash - The Unspeakable Truth About Domain Names

Laura -

“Internet Marketing” books often recommend using dashes in your domain names to break up words for higher search engine impact. Consequently, I have clients all the time who have been sucked in by this advice, who cannot understand why I tell them to forget it.
Those internet marketers don’t know diddly about running a real business. [...]

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Unstuff Those URLs!

Laura -

Keyword stuffing is often visible in URLs for the tackier websites. There is a fine line between keyword stuffing, and legit keyword use in URLs, but it’s pretty obvious when someone crosses it!
You often see long strings of words with dashes between them for filenames. This happens primarily with blog or CMS type software where [...]

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Bottom of the Page Considerations

Laura -

The bottom of the page contains some valuable SEO real estate, but not, perhaps, in the manner that you think. Extremes about bottom text run the gamut from ignoring it, to abusing it. Proper use is again, in the middle.
The bottom of the page is the standard location for design credits, disclaimers, and copyright notices. [...]

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