http://www.seobook.com/seo-spring-clean
Aaron Wall of SEOBook.com discusses a Spring Clean for SEO, even though it’s winter where he reviews 8 items that you should review as you do an SEO audit.

http://www.copyscape.com
One of Aaron’s 8 tips discusses Duplicate Content. I have made it regular practice to check for duplicate content on every site continuously by either searching an exact long phrase with Google directly or using the Copyscape service.

http://www.majesticseo.com/search.php
This tool was recommended by Aaron Wall in the previous blog post. It is an interesting tool to check for backlink patterns of anchor text, deep links, and unique ip addresses.  You initially only get basic information, but you receive a full report once you verify your site.

http://www.SEMRush.com
A new competitive research tool by the same guys that did SEO Digger.  It seems to compete directly against SpyFU and Compete.com.  I will check it out in more detail later this week as I don’t like the SpyFu.com interface and Compete.com is a little expensive for my tastes.

http://www.ViralConverstions.com
Micheal Gray – Graywolf has launched a new website that connects business owners with bloggers who want to do product reviews. The difference is that bloggers are not paid for links but might possibly get free products like a free book or other interesting offers. Interesting concept as it is definitely a way around ‘paid links’; will ‘bartered links’ be next on the horizon for the big G?

http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/seomoz/~3/445594376/whiteboard-friday-whats-pagerank-got-to-do-with-it
SEOMoz Whiteboard Friday covers Page Rank and What It Has To Do With SEO.

http://www.seomoz.org/ugc/onetime-or-ongoing-seo-is-it-a-yes-or-no-question
An interesting SEO Strategy post by IgniteMedia about whether One Time or Ongoing SEO Is Best? User contribution from http://www.ignite-media.com/

http://wiep.net/talk/link-building/smx-london/
Powerpoint presentation from “Blow Your Mind Link Building Techniques at SMX London.

http://weblogs.hitwise.com/bill-tancer/2008/11/sizing_up_the_long_tail_of_sea.html
Dustin Woodard does a guest post at the Hitwise blog which shows that the Long Tail of Search could actually be 90+ % of natural search traffic–meaning the tail could be without much of a head or body.

Since SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is fairly complex and has many different facets, it’s not surprising to find that misconceptions about SEO are somewhat common. Controversy over certain aspects of SEO has helped to spread them.

One of the relatively common misconceptions is that search engine optimization is all about manipulating search engines, or that the engines are opposed to SEO. Although it is true that a few SEO firms use manipulative “black hat” techniques, most SEO actually benefits both the engines and individual web sites. Many engines, including Google and Yahoo, have instructions on how sites can better optimize themselves. The Yahoo! page includes common SEO suggestions like focusing on search keywords and using ALT text with images. It is in each engine’s interest to index as many useful sites as possible; if a web site hasn’t been search engine optimized, search “spiders” (a.k.a. “robots”, “crawlers”) might not be able to access or index it. Basically, it is only manipulative techniques like “cloaking” and “Google bombing” that degrade search result quality and are rejected by the engines. However, some people generalize or lack in-depth understanding of the issue and fail to see the distinction.

Another of the fairly common misconceptions about SEO is that optimization can be achieved through some sort of “quick fix” or by “just writing good content”. Search engines are typically designed to resist any simple, quick technique that would drastically improve an individual site’s ranking in the results. Some of these techniques can even harm rankings. As for quality content, it makes optimization easier and should always be considered important, but it cannot replace SEO as some misconceptions suggest. An online article might have excellent information about a specific topic, but not include any of the keywords or phrases people use to search for that subject. It may also lack optimized META tags, be located on a page that is inaccessible to “spiders”, have no keywords in its URL, or be presented in a way that ruins its keyword density. Thus its lack of optimization could cause it to receive few or no visitors, despite offering good content material.

Other less common SEO misconceptions exist; some are the result of changing search engine policies and outdated information, while others are spread by individuals and companies trying to sell services which benefit from misconceptions of this type.

Search Engine Optimization, or SEO, offers great potential for targeted lead generation. Unlike some of the other promotional methods, it is easy to independently target several different types of customers with SEO. Read on to learn more about how to use SEO for lead generation.

A single web site selling one product or service can attract customers with varying needs, by emphasizing certain aspects on different pages. For example, perhaps there is a web site which sells a fast, high-capacity battery charger. On one page, it might emphasize how many batteries the unit can simultaneously charge, while stressing how quickly it charges them on another page. Each page should include details on all of the product’s advantages, but focus upon one and begin by describing it. Both pages could have a form for requesting more information, which provides lead generation for the product being advertised and prevents the customer from having to make an immediate decision.

So how is SEO involved? The web site will not receive much search engine traffic if it emphasizes the wrong keywords on the lead generation page. The same holds true if it overuses them or applies words that too many other web sites have emphasized. For example, hardly anyone uses the words “rapid” or “high-speed” when searching for information about charging batteries quickly, whereas some do use “fast” or “quick” in these searches. In some cases, it may be best to repeatedly use two alternative (but correct) spellings of the same SEO keyword. Remember that the pages shouldn’t be too similar to each other; this can be detrimental to SEO, as search engines may see them as duplicates.

The title tag and META description tag are also part of SEO; they must use phrases which attract potential customers who have the interests emphasized on a specific page. Using the right keywords in the URL is important as well. A page emphasizing the quality of a product should use several related keywords in its URL, alongside words indicating the product type. An example would be www.example.com/cell-phone/very-durable-rugged.html; notice that highly competitive words which have been overused by other web sites, like “best” and “quality”, have been left out.

Basically, a web site can use SEO to enhance lead generation by emphasizing different search keywords on each page, creating attractive title/description tags, and using hyphen-separated keywords in the page URLs. This should make possible lead generation on many types of customers.

“Insight for Search” is a new tool Google has recently introduced in to add to the current Google Trends and AdWords tools. Google claims Insights for Search will help you “see what the world is searching for.”

Basically, the tool should help people better understand what is being searched for on Google as well as to see the details for certain keywords across various geographic regions, verticals and time periods for more insight.

Internet marketers or bloggers that what to determine what kind of content is engaging to more people should consider looking into the tool. One of the most powerful uses it offers is that you can actually narrow your search by categories to figure out which keywords are more popular in certain categories.

Additionally you can simply click the “search” button without entering any words in the search field to find the most popular rising terms for all categories and regions. And, by narrowing your empty search to a specific category you can see the most popular search terms for the category for its history.

This has the potential to be quite a powerful tool for anyone in the online marketing arena because essentially now you know which article topic will be more popular or which keyword is searched for more often in certain areas.

SEO copywriting is the practice of writing promotional material (or “copy”) in a way that optimizes it for search engines. Ideally, effective SEO copywriting should help the web page achieve a high search result ranking, while convincing potential customers to buy a product or service. Here are some more details on what SEO copywriting is and how to best apply it.

Some characteristics of SEO copywriting include appropriate keyword density, the use of keywords (or phrases) that people search for, and search engine (SE) optimized formatting. Attractive and SE-friendly META tags should be used. The copywriting must be in text format; it will not be indexed in results if it is inside an image or animation.

Good SEO copywriting doesn’t compromise clarity for the sake of optimization; it is best to avoid redundant or awkward phrases. Even if it is well optimized, poorly-worded copy has some drawbacks with regard to sales. Customers may question the quality of a company’s services or suspect that the words were translated from a foreign language.

Using bold text and/or H1 (large font) tags for important keywords in SEO copy will help search engines identify the web page’s topic, potentially producing higher rankings. These tags shouldn’t be used excessively and only ought to be applied to words directly related to what the page is about. They also must be words or phrases that people actually search for.

What about using links in SEO copywriting? This is acceptable, but they should open in a new window so that readers are less likely to leave the current page. When the link points to a competitor’s web site (perhaps to compare prices or features), consider utilizing the “nofollow” tag/attribute to prevent the link from giving SEO benefits to the other site.

Any images accompanying the copy/text should include relevant ALT tags. Some SE “spiders” take these into account; people with images turned off or text-only web browsers can also see these tags. It is best if the page containing the SEO copywriting is still fully usable and provides all of the necessary information without images.

To sum it up, SEO copywriting emphasizes relevant search keywords and uses search engine optimized formatting to enhance its ranking in non-paid SE results. At the same time, the copy must be persuasive and hold the reader’s interest, which can often be achieved using the same techniques as effective email or print copywriting.

Online videos has steadily become a more and more important part of marketing. Reasons for this range from more broadband connections to the rise of sites like YouTube which make video hosting and sharing a relatively simple thing.

If you are a company, creating a video to host either on your own site or a site like YouTube is a great marketing idea. However, you still need to optimize that video for the search engines. Here are a few tips on making that happen.

First and foremost, you should always offer your content in as many formats as you can. Doing this helps your video be accepted by more search engines. Plus, human users will be able to choose the format that works best with their computer and Internet connection.

Also, make sure that your title, description and keyword tags are complementary to your site. Examine them the same way you would the meta data with your site. Be sure to use appropriate keywords in the video filename and URL as well as in the link text for the file.

Don’t forget to optimize the page the video is on for the search engines. And offer a textual transcript of all of the content – audio and video.

Finally, host your video or a link to it everywhere you can think of. You’ve got to get the word out that it exists. Keep in mind you can help publicize your video with an RSS feed. However, make sure you’re logo is displayed on the video for proprietary reasons.

Videos are indeed popular, but you still have to make them appealing to both people and search engine robots in order for them to be successful.

Some websites use countless pages of poor quality content to attract hits via search engines. Such content is sometimes generated by computer software or created using a template that leaves little difference from one page to the next. Even if these pages are optimized using SEO, they have a number of disadvantages for the website operator, not to mention users. These are some ways of how poor content damages SEO.

1. Links: Other websites are unlikely to add links to poor quality material. No one will comment about the pages on their blogs or post them to social bookmarking systems either. Gaining inbound links is a very important part of SEO, as most search engines give sites and pages better rankings when more links to them exist. Also relevant to SEO is their ability to boost a site’s ranking under keywords used in the link anchor text.

2. Redundancy: This is frequently a problem with poor quality web content. When a site has many pages with almost the same material (aside from a few brief pieces of different information on each page), search engines will detect the redundancy and give preference to more unique/original results from different sites. This consequence worsens if the material has already appeared on other websites.

3. Updating: Many examples of poor website content are never updated. This damages SEO efforts because search engines tend to favor more recently updated material. It can also be a problem for sites with quality content, when they either cannot find new details about a subject or don’t have time to. Allowing users to post comments is one way of enabling a page to “update” without adding new information.

4. Recognition: Regardless of how well a site might rank in search results, more and more people will eventually recognize that it provides poor content, when they see it in search results. This will cause the amount of traffic it receives to decrease over time, and make it harder to recover even if higher quality content is added.

Overall, poor content primarily damages SEO campaigns by having redundancy, being unable to generate inbound links, and/or becoming outdated. Even when SEO efforts successfully attract users to poor quality material, they are liable to find it unsatisfying and become less likely to click ads, make purchases, or return to the same site in the future. It is better to focus upon quality than quantity when creating new content.

Not only should a blog optimize its home page for search engines, but the individual posts as well. This will enable it to keep receiving traffic to each entry long after they are added. Here are some tips on how to optimize individual blog posts.

1. Put one or more keywords in the title which people are likely to query. Give each of the posts their own description and title tags; don’t just use the name of the blog for this. Each of the individual entries should have its own page as well, rather than appearing on a single long page.

2. Use these keywords regularly throughout the blog entries, but not excessively. A keyword density analysis tool can be useful for determining if the density is excessive (over four percent) or too low. Try to optimize the density without including awkward-sounding sentences.

3. Keep the content of each  individual entry on a single topic; create separate posts if you want to write about two or more distinct subjects. For example, if you post recipes on your blog, don’t put two individual recipes in the same entry, even if they are both breakfasts or types of soup.

4. If you allow comments at the end of your blog posts, be sure to check them and delete messages which are irrelevant to the topic. These comments could harm the keyword density or link to sites which cause the page to be penalized by search engines. While comments make individual blog posts harder to optimize, they do help attract repeat visitors.

5. Try to gain links on other blogs and web sites which point to your individual posts. In addition to the direct traffic they provide, these links will help optimize the search engine ranking of the blog. It is best if the links use words related to the individual entries in their anchor text.

6. If posts are about a current pre-arranged, date-specific event (such as a holiday or anniversary), attempt to enter them as early in the day as possible, or late the previous night. This will give the search engines a better chance of indexing these entries before they are no longer relevant.

Following the above-listed tips should help you more effectively optimize each of your individual blog posts, so that they will show up higher in search results and appear there more quickly.

Both internal and external factors affect SEO (Search Engine Optimization) of a web site. External factors are not directly under the control of the web site’s operator. Read on to learn more about the external factors of SEO and how to best manage them.

Inbound Links: Web site owners or promoters can encourage these in various ways, but don’t have control over links from web sites they do not operate. External links can increase search rankings and affect which keywords a site shows up under. In a few situations they can be detrimental for SEO, such as when a web site which has used “banned” promotional techniques links to your site.

Search Algorithms: These determine how search engines rank or list individual web sites. Although SEO experts understand how these algorithms work in many ways, they are not released to the public and can change at any time. Even the best-optimized sites occasionally need adaptations to keep up with changing search engine policies. Reading blogs and forums on SEO can help keep you up-to-date on these factors.

Popular Keywords: Different words become more fashionable as the months and years pass, increasing the number of searches for them, to the benefit of web sites which have been SEO targeted for those keywords. For example, in the early- and mid 1990s there were probably more searches for the phrase “computer peripherals”, whereas “computer accessories” is now the more popular wording.

Duplication: There is always the possibility that external web sites will duplicate a site’s content or add new content which supplies the same information. This increases competition for an SEO keyword the site may have previously dominated. Adding copyright notices, looking for directly-copied material, and requesting its removal can help alleviate this problem to some extent.

Engine Popularity: A variety of search engines have been most popular at different times in the past. Engines like AltaVista, America Online, and AllTheWeb once played a major role in providing search results, but are now “powered by” Google or Yahoo. External changes of this type mean that SEO marketers must focus on optimizing websites for different search engines which have become more popular in recent years.

Make sure the internal SEO factors of your web site are well-addressed before becoming concerned with external factors. These factors include META tags, site maps, navigation, keyword density, and page titles created with SEO in mind.

In some ways, copywriting advertisements for the web is different than creating them for printed materials or email, including the fact that the way they are written impacts whether or not they will appear in search results and if people are likely to click these results. What techniques or practices should be considered do’s or don’ts in SEO (Search Engine Optimization) based copywriting?

Do’s

1. If it is your responsibility, make sure the web page where the copywriting will appear has an appealing description tag which will make people want to click on the link in their search results. Use a related word for the page’s file name (name.htm) as well.

2. Try to use a particular word or short phrase related to your product, service, or other offering in each paragraph of an article. It should be a word people regularly enter in search engines.

3. Do pay attention to choosing a title which is attractive to click on in search results. Remember that people won’t read the rest of your text if they aren’t attracted by the title.

4. Aim to use some SEO keywords that competitors have not utilized in their copywriting. This may allow you to gain a high-ranking position in search results without having to surpass them.

Don’ts

1. When copywriting, don’t write a promotional article that is many pages long, as some web sites have done. This makes it more difficult to attain a good SEO keyword density, and will overwhelm readers who have limited time.

2. Don’t put an SEO keyword in every sentence, or so much that it is obnoxiously repetitive or obviously manipulated. Search engines dislike excessively high keyword density, and so do readers.

3. Don’t place the copywriting text inside an image or animation; this is harmful for SEO because search engine spiders/robots cannot read this type of text and will have little indication of the page’s content.

4. Do not sacrifice the quality of your SEO copywriting for keyword density by insisting upon a specific percentage. It’s better to have easily readable copy and a three percent density than awkward-sounding, redundant text at four percent.

Basically, SEO copywriting should use META tags, file names, and popular search keywords to its advantage, but not at the expense of readability or sufficient detail. Otherwise, SEO copywriting ought to apply the same techniques which make good print or email copywriting effective.