Archive for May, 2009

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SEO: Week In Review

Friday, May 29th, 2009

I haven’t had much time this week to check my normal sites for fresh articles and stories in SEO, so I thought I’d do a recap and share what I found in the thirty four minutes I had to write this post. Below are some of the top stories and fresh content out there on the web. Feel free to add your own to the list! 

Google’s Matt Cutts wrote this week on his blog, and his post got to the first page of Digg (not a first, surprise surprise). GreyHat SEO’s Michael Gray wrote in his post "Did Matt Cutts Expose a Hole in Digg?" about Cutts actions. I think Gray is right, this must be a test for Google in some way or another…..note to self.7-days-of-the-week
 
Check out Rand Fishkin’s "Rewriting the Beginner’s Guide Part X: Measuring and Tracking Success". He answers a lot of beginner’s questions in this article, a very good resource to pass on. He also wrote this week about what he’d tell his 2007 self. One of those posts that makes you go hmmmm.
 
This piece gave me a little laugh. Check out LaLaWag.com’s fall lineup on Twitter; my favorite is "Neil Patel in SEO CSI".
 
Many questions answered this week:
Can BuzzStream help your link building campaign?
What is Google Wave? And the Twitter extension Twave? Get a complete guide from Mashable.
Heard of MSN’s new search engine Bing? And how it affects Google, Yahoo, and others.
What did Todd Malicoat from Stuntdubl.com say on WebmasterRadio this week? Btw: another great resource!
How can you move beyond just getting more links?
How can you secure your WordPress blog? Check out SearchRank’s 7 easy steps.
 
Again, feel free to add to our list. Just leave a comment below!

 

Kaila Strong

Kaila is a Sr. Account Manager at Vertical Measures. She works directly with clients to evaluate and analyze their overall Internet Marketing needs, creates sales proposals and recommendations. In addition she regularly reports on client rankings, gives SEO advice to brands in a variety of industries and manages client expectations.

Kaila has a background in social media marketing, link building, SEO and content marketing. She’s an active blogger on SearchEngineWatch.com, and an avid social media user (@cliquekaila on Twitter). She brings her experience to the table with new clients and enjoys writing about her experiences as well here on the VM blog and throughout the web.

Website – Twitter – More Posts

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Posted in Search Engine Optimization | 6 Comments »

Link Builders Etiquette?

Friday, May 22nd, 2009

In link building we’re always looking to get ahead of our competition, or our clients competition. Isn’t that the whole point? But at what lengths are you willing to go to get ahead?

We all know that checking your competitor’s backlinks is standard practice, and is a great way to find new linking opportunities. There are several tools and backlink checkers available that can prove to be extremely valuable. But here’s a hypothetical situation for you: say you are checking out your competitors backlinks and you notice some "blackhat" practices. What do you do with this information?
 
ps-and-qs1Google encourages us to report any "spammy" type of practices; they make it pretty darn easy even. I discussed this question with some of the people in our office, and got a general consensus: "what goes around comes around", and "don’t be a tattle tale". This topic is one that does not have a clear answer.
 
Others have weighed in on the topic, Stuntdubl.com stays it’s never ever okay to report websites to Google. He goes on to say it’s never ever EVER okay to out a site, which I tend to agree with. Whereas, AskDaveTaylor.com suggests that he personally would and advises you should too. Here’s my take on it: if you want to out a site, first look at your own backlinks. Be prepared to defend your own site if you want to start pointing fingers. What is the saying? "People who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones".
 
This subject has been on my mind, largely due to commercials in the auto industry I’ve been seeing. These commercials, like the one below, basically ‘call out’ the competition. While this is a standard practice, and has been for quite sometime, I started thinking about it in regards to link building best practices. When is it acceptable or unacceptable to, in essence, ‘call out’ your competition? Is there really etiquette for link builders?

Kaila Strong

Kaila is a Sr. Account Manager at Vertical Measures. She works directly with clients to evaluate and analyze their overall Internet Marketing needs, creates sales proposals and recommendations. In addition she regularly reports on client rankings, gives SEO advice to brands in a variety of industries and manages client expectations.

Kaila has a background in social media marketing, link building, SEO and content marketing. She’s an active blogger on SearchEngineWatch.com, and an avid social media user (@cliquekaila on Twitter). She brings her experience to the table with new clients and enjoys writing about her experiences as well here on the VM blog and throughout the web.

Website – Twitter – More Posts

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Posted in Link Building | 2 Comments »

Allegiance To The Social Pledge

Tuesday, May 19th, 2009

plege-allegianceThe way we use the internet is changing before our very eyes. Since the first day each of us got on the information superhighway it has changed. My first session online proved to be extremely resourceful, and since that day over ten years ago I have integrated most of my daily activities to have some sort of online influence. In the past few years, however, I have integrated almost everything I do into social media applications. My daily allegiance to the social pledge is a bit of an obsession actually—and I’m not the only one. It’s estimated that Facebook has over 200 million active users, Twitter has around 12 million, and sites like Digg attract over 200 million visitors a year.

The trend of utilizing social media more and more has transcended into marketing and advertising as well. Where else can you have the potential to expose your brand to 200 million people practically for free? 88% of marketers are said to be using social media, and a staggering 72% have only been doing so for a few months, states the Social Media Marketing Industry Report. Nearly all marketers who’ve been using social media state that it generates some exposure for their business. And yet another study, by the Society For New Communications Research, reports that 78% of businesses use blogs, 63% use online video, and over half use social media.
 
At this point you should be ‘ooo-ing’ and ‘awe-ing’ over these numbers, and should be convinced that social media ought to play some role in your link building and marketing efforts. If not, then chew on this a bit.
 
google1Google is implementing changes to improve their search functions. Those changes include: more sort options for results, keyword wonder wheel tool, social profiles in SERPs (a topic I discussed not long ago), and more and more changes to integrate real time search—key influencer: Twitter.  
 
twitterTwitter is a better real time search engine than Google, and they want to stay that way. Twitter has said it is going to start crawling links in tweets to provide more information to searchers. This little tid bit, as a link builder utilizing Twitter, made me do a bit of a happy dance. Profiles and individual tweets are starting to show up in SERPs, and profiles have actual page ranks too. My own Twitter profile (@cliquekaila) has a page rank 1/10, but I shouldn’t ‘tweet’ my own horn—-Ashton Kutcher’s profile (@aplusk) is a page rank 7/10!
 
I can’t even fathom what the world of search will look like years from now, heck even months from now. I can tell you one thing, however. Society’s allegiance to the social pledge will have more impact on search; can you afford to miss out on this opportunity? I think not. 

Kaila Strong

Kaila is a Sr. Account Manager at Vertical Measures. She works directly with clients to evaluate and analyze their overall Internet Marketing needs, creates sales proposals and recommendations. In addition she regularly reports on client rankings, gives SEO advice to brands in a variety of industries and manages client expectations.

Kaila has a background in social media marketing, link building, SEO and content marketing. She’s an active blogger on SearchEngineWatch.com, and an avid social media user (@cliquekaila on Twitter). She brings her experience to the table with new clients and enjoys writing about her experiences as well here on the VM blog and throughout the web.

Website – Twitter – More Posts

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Posted in Social Media | 2 Comments »

Meet The Newbies!

Friday, May 15th, 2009

geek_waving_lg_whtVertical Measures is happy to announce two new employee hires. Help us in welcoming Ralph Miller and Michael Schwartz to the Vertical Measures Team!

Ralph comes to us with a background in Arizona web design, blogging, and link building. He’s a self starter who taught himself web design, and enjoys working with link building and site design. As a freelance web designer he was able to work with a wide array of clients, and will be a great addition to our staff. Ralph’s primary responsibilities include: reports, video marketing, custom links, and more!  
 
Michael’s background includes journalism and blogging, mostly in the sports industry. He’s a U of A alum, with a passion for sports journalism. As a reporter and editor for the Arizona Daily Wildcat he gained experience editing and writing, which will be a great addition to the Vertical Measures team. He also maintains the ESPN affiliated Phoenix Suns blog, ValleyoftheSuns.com. Michael’s responsibilities will include: article and blog marketing, and commenting assistance.
 
With the addition of two employees comes some shifting with job responsibilities for other employees as well. I’ll be able to focus more on social media, and will take over press release marketing. Elise will transition to a position as Sales & Marketing support, Liz will manage all writer assignments, and Chris now has a chance to perform QC reviews and manage reporting. These changes will allow all of us to provide some of the best link building out there!
 
We’re so glad to add to our wonderful staff, and are happy for the opportunities 2009 has brought. Tell us about the opportunities you’ve had so far this year.

Kaila Strong

Kaila is a Sr. Account Manager at Vertical Measures. She works directly with clients to evaluate and analyze their overall Internet Marketing needs, creates sales proposals and recommendations. In addition she regularly reports on client rankings, gives SEO advice to brands in a variety of industries and manages client expectations.

Kaila has a background in social media marketing, link building, SEO and content marketing. She’s an active blogger on SearchEngineWatch.com, and an avid social media user (@cliquekaila on Twitter). She brings her experience to the table with new clients and enjoys writing about her experiences as well here on the VM blog and throughout the web.

Website – Twitter – More Posts

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Posted in Miscellaneous | 2 Comments »

I’m An Internet Celebrity Because Google Says So!

Friday, May 8th, 2009

If you’ve Googled your name in the past few weeks then you’ve likely seen the changes to the SERPs. Profiles with corresponding images are now shown at the bottom of search results; up to four profiles are shown. The search result includes your Google profile listing, and gives you a one-click search option to find the person in question on MySpace, Facebook, Classmates, and LinkedIn.

"When searching for yourself to see what others would find, results can be varied and aren’t always what you want people to see — whether it’s someone else with your name, or the finishing time from that 5K you ran back in 2002. We want to make that better and give you more of a voice," says Google’s Brian Stoler.
 
Branding yourself, not only your business, has been made easier with Google’s recent change. Over night celebrities, like this fall’s Joe the Plumber, could have likely benefited from Google’s change. When curiosity seekers tried to find more about Joe the Plumber, they’d likely Google his name, and they would have probably come across his social networking pages. The voyeuristic tendencies we all have would have led us to peruse his social profiles, friend him, and maybe leave a joking remark on one of his pages. Overnight, Joe the Plumber could have feasibly had insta-celebrity status on Facebook, MySpace, Classmates, and LinkedIn. Before the change, he would have had to plan a full fledge social media marketing campaign to provide the same results.
 
Wouldn’t you rather be prepared in advance for your one in a million chance at overnight internet stardom? Well, for some of you that is. Check out Barry Schwartz’s listing below. His profile only comes up when searching for "Barry Swartz", a misspelling of his name. This is because his name, spelled correctly, is shared with several others. So if you have a very common name, be forewarned that your insta-celebrity status might be compromised.
 
The constant shift in Google’s algorithms to allow for weighting of social media pages, like I wrote about a few weeks ago, is proof positive that social media is where it’s at. It also tells me I should be a little more cautious with those comments and surveys I do on Facebook and MySpace!
 
Google your name, what results did you find? Our friends David Wallace, Chris Hooley, and Barry Schwartz are listed below, along with Arnie and my smiling face.
 
search result photos

Kaila Strong

Kaila is a Sr. Account Manager at Vertical Measures. She works directly with clients to evaluate and analyze their overall Internet Marketing needs, creates sales proposals and recommendations. In addition she regularly reports on client rankings, gives SEO advice to brands in a variety of industries and manages client expectations.

Kaila has a background in social media marketing, link building, SEO and content marketing. She’s an active blogger on SearchEngineWatch.com, and an avid social media user (@cliquekaila on Twitter). She brings her experience to the table with new clients and enjoys writing about her experiences as well here on the VM blog and throughout the web.

Website – Twitter – More Posts

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Posted in Social Media | 15 Comments »

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