Archive for the 'SEO Questions.' Category

Hi, I’m not Jim. I’d like to introduce myself. You can call me QualityGal.

Oh sure, that’s not what’s written on my birth certificate or marriage license, but it’s so much more fun than my “real name.” I almost feel like I should wear a cape and have a nemesis, but I have a feeling that my co-workers, the link ninjas, would look at me funny if I did.

This is my first week here at We Build Pages, so I’m still learning the ropes. To give you a little background, I just got out of an independent contractor relationship with a large company that must-not-be-named. Because of my iron-clad NDA, I can’t tell you anything about it.

None of what I do for Jim even remotely violates my NDA – though I did fret about it for about five minutes before we ironed out the details – but the super secret super spy work I did has gotten me into the right mindset for what I’m doing now. Even seemingly unrelated jobs I’ve done in the past seem to have come together to give me the perfect storm of experience I need to join the world of SEO and content building.

My Mission, Should I Choose to Accept It

Jim has given me a plethora of SEO blog links to read up on, since I’m new to the SEO world. In the process of wading through it all, from SEO Chicks to Vanessa Fox Nude to Sphinn, I feel like I’m in over my head!

Your Mission, Should You Choose to Accept It

I’m reading a lot. But even if I read all day long, there’s bound to be some really good stuff that I miss.

So I need your help! (Parents, try not to hear Dora the Explorer’s voice saying that phrase. That’s all I can hear in my head now that I’ve typed it.)

Let’s pretend I can only read three blog posts to help get my feet wet in SEOland. Which three blog posts should I read?

Leave me a comment with your picks for the top three SEO blog posts out there. Yes, even if you’ve written them. I’ll post my favorites sometime next week.

For now, I’m out of here. QualityGal needs to spend some quality time with her family over the long weekend. Happy Fourth of July!

- QualityGal

Popularity: unranked [?]

I’m still going through the questions asked by people in my "Ask Jim" post. Here’s a bunch thrown together.

Mikko asks,

“Want to know what I think about link buying?”

Yes I do!

Mikko, the best links bought are ones that are under the radar (read this post).

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Sohaib ask about 301 redirects and why none of his pages are indexed.

Sohaib, I’m not sure if I’ll have an answer, but I’d need to see the URL first – feel free to email me the url.

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Nick asks:

To sort out a long debate over at the sitepoint forums, does it help your SERPs by linking out to authority sites on a page-by-page basis or even a site basis?

Well….I’ve talked about my views on linking out on this post.

Do I have "proof"…no…do I believe it…yes! I believe that at the least, a site should have some quality, related, links going out to authority sites….last year we added an "Expert Resources" page to most of our clients sites. On that page we linked out to "expert sites". For example….if you sell "shoes" and we were creating this expert resource page for you, I’d start by searching Google for site:.edu shoes to find quality pages…hum…#3 looks good "History of Shoes" at www.otal.umd.edu/~vg/amst205.F97/vj08/introduction.html that’s one I’d add…prob with the anchor text of "History of Shoes Page"…then I’d find a few more nice .edu’s…then I’d maybe grab some .gov’s by searching for site:.gov shoes and I’d grab some of those….(and give them good anchor text…yes, linking out to related site with "shoes" in the anchor text I belive is good….hum..and here’s some very nice .org’s. Then I’d search for some good, non-competing, but highly relevant other sites to link to by simply doing this search.

Now at least having 1 good page linking out is better than nothing….but yea, if you can do this on a page by page basis even better…that’s what I believe.

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Next, Chris asks:

what are your top couple of tips for marketing a site to a local metro area or state?

Well Chris, one thing I’d recommend is LocalLaunch’s Register Local Service (I’m not even including my affiliate link) for $129.

Something else we’ve done for websites targeting local areas is to add a section on the bottom of all their webpages like this:

We Build Pages offers internet marketing to the 518 area code in New York including Saratoga, Washington, and Albany County. Some of the major cities we services are: Saratoga NY, Troy NY, Clifton Park New York, Schenectady, Warrensburg, Glens Falls, and Lake George, etc.

If you can get testamonials from people you could create pages like "Bob’s Shoes of Saratoga New York loves local marketing by We Build Pages.", etc.

Also get listed in as many local sites as possible..your chamber of commerce, try your local .gov..maybe even a job fair at the local .edu….getting links from other local sites can also be a big help (trade, buy, advertise, etc).

Last year stuntdubl also added some resources to our local internet marketing page on webuildpages.com as well that can help you.

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Next, Peter Asks:

favorite NFL or College Football team?

hum….in the past 10 years I don’t think I ever watched a full sports game (except high school basketball – a few local games)….I’m a computer nerd…not a sports nerd…but if I had to choose a team, I grew up liking the Dallas Cowboys, and to be honest, I don’t know any college football teams at all (I can’t name 1 offhand).

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Next, Eric asks:

How do you become an authority in your niche? I have many new and proven ideas, but what are yours?

guess I’ll just give a short answer to something that should be a long answer…to become an authority in your niche you’ve got to write about your niche and get everyone in that niche to link to you…bit of a cop out answer, I know. How about writing a guest article on jimboykin.com Eric on your new and proven ideas?

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Next, gzlatin asks:

How do you make a good struedel?

hum….now I know I’ve written on cooking omelets and SEO recipes…but I don’t have any ideas on making struedel – anyone else know?

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Ken asks:

When starting a new website what are the first things to do linkbuilding wise to start increasing traffic and jump into the serps?

I’d submit to Yahoo and to DMOZ to start with. Starting a blog on the site, and linking out to other blogs in your industry will help to get links back as well…maybe even a press release or 2….you could also get some links by building pages from Rand’s list here and Graywolf’s list (these list were written for other purposes, but they can help you to get links and traffic as well). 

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Glen (wheel) asks:

How do you feel about working in (effectively) the middle of nowhere? Does it affect your business? Would you be better off moving someplace more central – easier access to employees and clients?

Glen was at our link ninjas training so he been to our offices….well….we’re just north of Albany NY (15 minutes from the airport)….we rarely have visitors here (most clients I’ve never met in person)…I love "nearby" and my family and Mary‘s family is both nearby…so moving isn’t really something I want to do….my employees are all "localish" and Troy is about in the middle of where our employees are from…and I’ve got 3 more years on my lease here…so this is where I am….I’m happy where we’re at.

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Dave (Hawaii SEO) asks:

Black Hat Spammers – Friend or Foe?

Friends….unless they’re spamming me

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Dave asks a second question:

Any advice for getting Toddlers to bed, Potty training, Tooth brushing or Tantrums?

Ya know….I’d say ask my wife (if she thought someone was reading her blog she might blog more…and she’d shit if someone commented on her blog.)

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97th Floor asks:

Outsource or In house? Kind of to go along with Rands question as well.

The only thing I’d outsource is custom programming (and I’m trying to hire an in-house for that). I also outsourced the building of this blog (Harvey at Design Delineations)…but as far as linkbuilding – all in house. I’m a huge fan of in house for everything.

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Ok..that’s eneough for a post…I’m still working on getting those other questions answered….more to come.

Popularity: 1% [?]

Last night I received an email from one of my clients….he shows me 2 links to other websites who have stolen his content. (one just changed the location of the business to their state and locality on the pages, and the company name). To say my client was angry was an understatement. There were lots of $%*& in his email, and he wanted to know what to do.

To be honest, my first thought was….yea, it happens all the time…is there really someting you can do that’s effective? I’ve kinda given up on fighting that battle personally with webuildpages.com…but hey, he sounds like he wants to fight, so I gave him this advice.

I found a few nice artilces from KEYT Law, written by Richard Keyt.

One is called 
Internet Copyright Law: 
A Rat Pilfered My Web Site Cheese – What Do I Do?
Remedies for Web Site Copyright Infringement

In the artilce, Richard says that for better future legal standings, he recommends copyrighting your site. He has an article about the benefits of copyrighting your website (and throws in his plug at the end ($300)).

Richard has has an awesome resource page called "How to Obtain Web Site Copyright Protection" that’s quite detailed (detailed enough that I’d pay him to do it.).

Then he talks about what you’d want to include in your Cease and Desist Letter (about 1/2 down this page).

I wanted to find an example of a Cease and desist letter and I found a nice pdf on here - page 6-7 of this pdf. I also found this cool web page that gives a nice template for a cease and desist letter.

….but I’m not sure if you can really stop people who are stealing your content…

I have some version of www.copyscape.com that emails me each week with copies of part of my paragraphs on other websites.  I see it weekly…and I’ve kinda grown numb..and thankful that google was doing a good job of tossing others.

I see tons of scrapers…most with adsense on the top….some take sentences….some take paragraphs…some take whole pages….some take whole site….95% are done with computer scraping programs. A few will go in by hand and change the name of "We Build Pages" to "whatever SEO company" and replace the "Jim’s" with "whoever’s"….

I guess it’d be impossible to go after the scrapers (and 90% of scrapers are on subdomains of older domains….with adsense on top…and left…and bottom)….pray that the engines know which content they found first, and hope they supplemental the others…(and don’t get me going on how this will effect the current Supplemental issued going on for when they do come back).

The ones I take any action on are the ones where whole page were scraped….a few are people even have the balls to actually go in by hand and just replace the name of "We Build Pages" to "whatever SEO company" and replace the "Jim’s" with "Whoever’s". (My new wording on our homepage should make this harder for them (comments anyone?)).

It’s those people that I think I’ve got a shot at, and that I’d go after. To be honest I’ve only had to send them emails requesting the content be down in 24 hours or I’d involve my attorney and I’d be seeking damages. I’ve never had to grab my lawyer, and there’s no one burning in my mind who’s stole my content and still has it published….maybe I’ve been lucky so far.

At what point to you take steps if someone stole your content, and what steps would you take?

Popularity: 33% [?]

I have a client who sells 1 pdf on his site (it’s his only product).

He has an affiliate program where we’re also an affiliate (and there’s only a few affiliates).

His affiliate program is through clickbank, but we’re not happy with the reporting that clickbank gives.

What affiliate program would you recommend for being able to track good stats from your affiliate effort if you were only selling a pdf?

FYI, our commission is set at 50% of the sale of the pdf.

Popularity: 25% [?]

Tonight I got an email from a fellow SEO asking me if I knew anything about this Secret SEO Forum. You can’t see, or do anything unless you’re a member, and you can only become a member with an invite from an existing member.  (one of these members I know reads my blog )

I’ve seen this site a few times from looking at my log referals, but since I’m not a member, I can’t see what’s being said. Things like this seem "cool" in that there’s not many "publicly known" yet "private" SEO groups out there.

I know of another private group called "Webmasters in the Sun" that holds some pretty wild meetings from what I’ve heard, and again, the only way to get invited to their gatherings is to be invited by an existing member.

Are there other clubs you know of? Are you a member of a secret or private SEO club? Do you wish you were?

Popularity: 32% [?]

Results of what I found when I asked you to tell me your favorite website hosting companies.

Wow, 51 posts in 25 hours – (even if 15 were my own comments – it’s still a lot).

I had to ask that the other thread be closed to comments – I don’t have time to keep calling hosting companies and asking thier tech support staff questions. That was fun, time to move on for now. We can play that game another time again.

This is what I found  – 7 Website Hosting Companies (see how I choose them from all these comments)

My first test has been “Will someone answer the phone if I call them”.

Those’s who’s passed are:
http://www.rackspace.com (due to your comments)
http://www.natnet.com/hosting/
http://www.wedohosting.com
http://www.swiftco.net
http://www.alentus.com
http://www.cyberwurx.com
http://www.liquidweb.com (maybe)

Let me ask you, what do you look for in a hosting company?

What questions would you ask yourself in selecting a hosting company?

What questions would you ask the hosting company?

Technorati Tags: website hosting, web hosting, web host

Popularity: 26% [?]

I said what I felt had to be said. It was said – it was read. time to move on.

Popularity: 22% [?]