Archive for July, 2006

Last week I spoke at Hostingcon in Vegas on "What it takes to rank high in Google". I was pretty happy that I had a 45 minute slot to speak….at most conferences you get between 9 and 12 minutes to give your chat, which isn’t much time to get past your topic overview and 101 info, so I was excited about getting a full 45 minutes here.

I arrived the night before I was speaking, and walked around the strip some….and ya know, Vegas just doesn’t appeal to me….throwing money into machines where you know you’ll loose just doesn’t excite me. In fact….I hate Vegas. I’m actually a hippy nature lover and would rather they held conferences in National Parks as opposed to places like Vegas…but oh well.

I was scheduled for the last spot on the last day and I ended up giving this presentation (here’s a pdf version). When I finished I realized I had gone an hour and apologized and asked if anyone had questions…to my suprise almost everyone raised their hand, so we went another hour and 15 minutes answering questions…so my 45 minute slot turned into 2 hours and 15 minutes.  (luckily this was the last sesson of the day so no one was waiting for the room!)

I thought it was really cool to be solo (esp since I didn’t have to "compete" with other speakers in answering questions). The people were great, the questions were great, and I had a great time.

I actually wasn’t trying to pick up any clients, but it looks like I’ve got 2 new clients from the chat.

So after my chat I rented a mustang convertible and headed to see my aunt in Arizona…now driving in a mustang convertible with the top down accross the desert and exploring places I’ve never seen before is my idea of a good time – and a great time I had.

Here’s some pics if you’re interested.

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Speaking of Conferences….San Jose SES is coming up soon. I won’t be speaking….my usual speaking panel isn’t scheduled for San Jose (SEM Tools Panel). Not sure why…and it’s too bad I’m not speaking, but I guess that just means that all my days are free now.  I’ll be touring during the days and partying….opps, I mean networking, at night. 

I’ll be sure to be at the Google Plex Dance Party, and the Webmasterradio.fm bash….I’m hoping Yahoo will step up and offer a party as well….

Past SES San Jose trips I’ve done these extra curricular driving excursions including:
2 trips to Yosomite National Park, 1 trip to Sequoia National Park, 1 trip to Kings Canyon National Park, 1 trip Lake Tahoe (worked there in 97), 1 real long drive to Death Valley National Park (worked there 95 and 97), and a RT 1 trip down to Big Sur. Last year Todd (stuntdubl), Bill Hartzer and I also did a helecoptor ride over San Fran….oh yea, and 3-4 trips into San Fran.

I love California – this is my favorite trip as California is one of my favorite states and there’s so much to do (if you don’t mind driving). This is the one trip that I actually consider my vacation for the year.

Are you going to San Jose 2006 SES?

Anyone out there interested in a SEO Pow Wow at the Grand Canyon next year?

Popularity: 2% [?]

OK - let me clarify my post title. Google doesn’t really offer an Adwords Unconditional Money-Back Guarantee…..but they should since they say that SEO’s should do this….practice what you preach….or change what you preach Google.

The page that ranks #4 in Google for "SEO" is the old "Google Information for Webmasters" – since renamed "What’s an SEO? Does Google recommend working with companies that offer to make my site Google-friendly?"

Yea, I know I’ve ripped into more Google’s webmaster recommendations before, but the last bullet point called "Make sure you’re protected legally." really gets my goat (makes me mad) where it states:

For your own safety, you should insist on a full and unconditional money-back guarantee. Don’t be afraid to request a refund if you’re unsatisfied for any reason, or if your SEO’s actions cause your domain to be removed from a search engine’s index. Make sure you have a contract in writing that includes pricing. The contract should also require the SEO to stay within the guidelines recommended by each search engine for site inclusion.

I don’t offer any unconditional guarantee…..do you? Does Google with Adwords (shouldn’t they practice what they preach?) Is it smart to offer an unconditional money-back guarantee for SEO Services? Why would Google say this??

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PS – tomorrow I’ll chat about my experience at hostingcon where I spoke on "How Google Ranks Websites".

Popularity: 1% [?]

I’m leaving tomorrow to head to hostingcon 2006 in Las Vegas.

On Wed I’m speaking on "What it takes to Rank High in Google".

I’ve got my powerpoint all set…but I thought I could at least share my "HTML Notes" with everyone here if you want to see some of what I’ll be discussing…though realize that this is just an outline of what I’ll be talking about (and my powerpoint is much prettier).

Brett from Webmasterworld is also at the conference (he just called me..we’ll be hooking up tomorrow) – any readers from Vegas? (email me your cell – I’ll be there tomorrow (tues) afternoon).

I’ll be out the rest of this week, We’ll see ya all on Monday again!

Jimbo

Popularity: 6% [?]

I was just reading another great article by Michael Martinez on seomoz.org’s blog called "SEO Strategies: Organizing Your Project Team" which of course perked my interest.

That set me to thinking on "Ponytails", "propeller-heads", and "rain makers" …I used to have an old bookmark that explained these more in detail, but looks like that domain expired so the content is gone….but I did find a thread over here, where Joomlasticman explains this pretty good:

1. The propeller-head: This trait is symbolized by a beanie hat with a propeller on top. you wear your propeller hat when you are working with the code and scripts of a web site.

2. The Ponytail: This is the costume of the creative artist working with the graphics and layout of a Web site.

3. The Rainmaker: You put on this costume when you need to stir up a storm of costumers.

4. The Green Visor Cap: Sharpen your pencil, and calculate how to turn your flood of customers into "Mucho Dinero!"

5. The Suit: This allows you to become the wise businessperson who makes the tough decisions to guide your business to meet your goals.

 Which are you?

Popularity: 1% [?]

I’ve been amazed at my recent poll that shows that 46% of my readers that voted said that they never buy text links.  Now keep in mind, my blog is about 80% dedicated to "link building" topics….and yea, I do buy some under the radar quality links…so it really suprised me that almost half of you Never buy text link ads.

My latest poll asks "Do you buy text ads?"

46%   Never
20%   A couple
19%   A handful
8%     A big handful
7%     All I can find.

If you’re not buying advertising, and you’re happy with your rankings, I’ve got a lot of respect for you. I’m guessing that most of you have a great resource, and that you’re pumping out quality content, and this is producing quality backlinks on a regular basis.

I think in a perfect world we’d never have to buy link advertising, one can debate on if we live in a perfect search result world or not…..I personally vote having something that attracts natural backlinks, as well as buying when I feel it makes sense (for things like controlling link text).

But if you’re not going to buy, then I’d recommend aiming for working on things that can have a great impact on gaining natural backlinks. I found these 5 that give great tips and ideas on things that you can do to attract natural backlinks (yes, linkbait, if I may).  If you’re seeking ideas, these 5 articles give good ideas on creating webpages that obtain lots of natural backlinks.

• Matt Cutts – linkbait and linkbaiting
• Bill Hartzer – Use Link Bait to Catch Better Rankings
• Nick Wilson – The Art of Link Baiting
  
• Jim Westergren -  Lnk Bait
  
• Rand Fishkin – Building a Traffic-Worthy Site
  

What’s your Secrets (for those of you who say that you "Never"buy link ads)? 

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Technorati Tags: link bait, linkbait, link building, link popularity, backlinks, seo, sem, internet marketing, search engine optimization, search engine marketing, google,

Popularity: 2% [?]

Many of you might not know Abhilash, but he’s a great SEO and also happens to be a Link Ninja.

Abhilash just wrote a great post on "Predictions on the Future of Text Link Building" that’s definitely worth the entire read. Abhilash says:

Link building has changed dramatically over the past couple of years, and the sophistication level of quality link building has definitely gone up. Where are we going now?

He then talks about 5 main points including:

• Article Distribution is going to remain useful.
• Relative Placement on a webpage will be more important.
• Relevancy is no longer king, but gets crowned emperor.
• The age & amount of unique content on your site will affect the “leniency” that your site is given.
• Blog Links may get discounted, but Editorial Blog Links will be MONEY.

All of Abhilash’s points and reasons are spot on in my eyes. If you’re a link builder, it’s well worth the read.

…FYI, Abhilash will also be speaking at SES San Jose on "The Vice Presidents of Search Marketing”

Popularity: 1% [?]

Through search engine watch I found a thread on highrankings forum where wowdezign starts by asking:

I always here people say, “don’t link to bad neighborhoods”. I agree with that thinking. Is the reverse true?

If I link to several authoritative sites, and/or sites that naturally relate to my topic, can that add to my credibilty as far as search engines go? For example, when you write a research paper, doesn’t your choice of references add weight to your work?

There’s some good comments and then Michael Martinez makes some good points, and then some people jump all over Michael for not backing up his ideas with “facts” ….kinda silly the whole thing…in fact, the thread is closed now…even sillier.

Does linking out to trusted related sites help? Hell Yea – most of the time doing this will give you a boost. I’m not even going to bother to back this up with specific examples. If you don’t want to believe this, that fine. Many people don’t believe a lot of what I say like “link pages are dead” or “the sandbox is real” or that “pagerank is dead”. People are fee to believe whatever they want.

Showing examples of “proof” or “Matt said this” is often just not possible (BTW, in Mike’s interview Matt did allude to linking out being a factor), but anyways…..”proof”…in SEO there’s so many variables that showing “proof” is near impossible (who only changes one thing (either a clients site, backlinks, or google) which is the only way to show “proof”…often it’s impossible…..trust in what you’re head tells you…think like you think that they (google) think….(If were them, I’d look at …..).

So in conclusion – I highly believe linking out to trusted related sites helps you. I believe good resources often link out to other good trusted related resources….I also believe Google is trying to rank “resources” highly….so in trying to be a good resource, I link out to trusted related sites.

There’s more good info on the closed thread on Highrankings forum where people debate on if they should link out to trusted related sites. (does it really need to be debated?)

Popularity: 1% [?]