High Rankings Advisor
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The High Rankings Advisor has been in existence for over 5 years! Anything and everything you ever wanted to know about search marketing and SEO has probably been covered at some point. Search or browse through our past SEO articles here.
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We've got an article today from our copywriting friend, Karon Thackston. In addition, we've created a new section of the newsletter called "Twitter Question of the Week."
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Building an eCommerce Site with SEO in Mind - Have you ever noticed that ecommerce sites have their own set of challenges when it comes to search engine optimization (SEO)? If you're a small ecommerce site owner, I'm sure you have. One reason is that copy plays such a vital role in the optimization process.
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| Anti-Reputation Management - Twitter Question of the Week - Recently, an individual asked us to solve a problem for him. A member of his family had dealt with a certain company and, he said, was harmed as a result. This individual wanted to know how he could get high rankings for his blog when someone typed in the company's brand name.
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| | New Optimized Page vs. New Site -Advanced SEO Forum Thread of the Week - Forum member "taterchips" (great name!) is interested in tackling a specific niche within their profession and was looking at the most effective way to play to that niche. Their question has to do with whether they should add a new page or section to their existing website or start a new website for this particular niche.
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| Advisor Wrap-up 259 - Things are winding down schoolwise for 2 of the Whalen clan. Tim finishes 10th grade this week, while Corie graduated from Simmons College a few weeks ago. Unsurprisingly, she already has a number of work opportunities that play into her political and social media marketing skills.
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Hey everyone! I've got an article about the age-old problem of whether text link ads are okay to have on your site, and how the search engines might feel about them.
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Publishing Text Ads - We are being contacted more and more by companies asking if we will add to our websites and/or clients' websites a short paragraph of text that includes a link to one of their clients' sites – i.e., a text advertisement.
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| The Time for SEO Is Before You Need It! - Stuff You Might Like - Thought you might be interested in my TalentZoo column from last week entitled:
"The Time for SEO Is Before You Need It!"
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| | PageRank Evaporation When PR Sculpting - Advanced Forum Thread of the Week - There was big news last week from the SMX Advanced conference, which we've been discussing at the forum, regarding the use of PageRank sculpting.
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| HRA Wrap-up 258 - That's all for today, hope you enjoyed it!
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I've got 6 search marketing questions (with answers, of course) for you today. I was too busy to answer most of these personally during the past few weeks, so this newsletter was a great opportunity catch up.
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Video Elevator Speeches for Websites - Do you think a positioning video has value on a website, or does it interfere with the structure and architecture of the website?
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| Twitter Questions - I have a few Twitter questions in terms of right or wrong ways to tweet, if there even is such a thing.
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| | Blog Post Metadata - Are the Title, Description and Keywords (the metadata) always the same for each blog post?
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| Calendar for Long-tail SEO - We want to put a calendar of events on our website. Google Calendar appears to be a great product but since it is not hosted on our website the long-tail SEO value (which is one of the main reasons we want to do the calendar) is lost.
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| | Redirecting Website to a New Domain - We have a website of which the home page has 5 PageRank. This website has 5,000 pages that are indexed in Google.com and many of the pages have good PageRank.
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| Multiple Keyword-rich Domains - I have a series (15) of keyword domains (3 to 5 years old) that are related to my site. Currently most of them are mirrors with just a slight content differential.
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| | 85 Reasons Why Developers/Designers Keep SEOs in Business - Stuff You Might Like - A few months ago, I was quoted by Google's Matt Cutts as saying that "website developers keep SEOs in business." I honestly do believe that and have for a long time. While I don't mean to say that ALL website designers and developers believe or do all of these things, you'll likely encounter many who have done or believe in some of these.
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| Page Title Question - Advanced Forum Thread of the Week - Forum member "vanzist" asks what the best Title tag for a page would be. While my first response was the usual "it depends," additional comments make for a very interesting forum thread.
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| | HRA Wrap-up 257: All Hail the Hail! - We finally got some nice weather this past holiday weekend, which was a welcome change. I spent most of it outside and away from the keyboard. One interesting weather glitch was the brief hailstorm we encountered on Sunday when we were about to head out for dinner.
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I was in the mood for a good rant this week, as you will see by today's article.
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Setting Up an SEO Shop Overnight! - A couple of weeks ago, I received the following request from an email address in India:
"sir/madam.i want to start SEO(search engine optimization)business.but before
that i want to know about SEO.how to intitate this?can u please help me?"
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| Save $30 on Press Release Distribution - Our friends at 24-7PressRelease are once again offering all High Rankings Advisor subscribers a discounted rate for press release distribution!
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| HRA Wrap-up 256 - Local SEO Speaking - Been busy with some local speaking events the past few weeks. My talk at the IMCNE conference about generating leads through SEO went well.
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I woke up this morning and realized I was dreaming about website reviews all night. What a geek. But it did inspire today's article. Hope you like it!
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Is Your SEO Campaign Out of Focus? - I've spent the last few weeks reviewing scads of websites for our new SEO Website Review clients and have noticed a lot of interesting things in the process.
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| Google Labs Similar Images: Advanced Forum Thread of the Week - Forum moderator Randy has some interesting observations regarding Google Labs' "Similar Images" program.
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| | Advisor Wrap-up 255: Keeping Afloat - Nothing major to report this time around. Just been putting my head down and working hard to keep afloat during this irksome recession. Hope you're all doing well and figuring out your own ways to stay ahead of the game.
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Today we have 2 SEO questions/answers that came in over the past few weeks, including some follow-up questions that I also answered.
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Blogs and SEO - My question is: How does Google know that the blog is part of my website if the address isn't under my website address or hosted by my server?
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| All-Graphical Home Page - I realize that Google picks up Alt text data (aka Alt tags), especially if the graphic acts as a link; however, I am a bit puzzled on how Google ranked a particular site.
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| | Embedded YouTube Video Vs. Self-hosting – SEO benefits? Advanced SEO Forum Thread - Forum member "cswilliams" wonders if hosting your videos on your own server rather than on YouTube would provide any SEO benefits.
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No time for much of an intro today, so let's get straight to it.
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Why Content Is (Still) King When It Comes to B2B Websites - Today's guest article comes to us from Dianna Huff, Principal of DH Communications, Inc. Dianna specializes in B2B marketing communications consulting and copywriting, and is an all-around nice person.
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| No Copy on Home Page - Forum Thread of the Week - I am doing SEO for a website, and I have tried to persuade the owner to include some copy on the home page to sell their services and for ranking, but they prefer just an image and navigation. Is this going to be a big setback in terms of SEO?
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| | HRA Wrap Up 253: Website Marketing Workshops This Week! - I'm really looking forward to our 2 days of website marketing workshops this week at High Rankings headquarters. We've got a good crew coming in to learn all about keyword research, copywriting, Google Analytics, and social media.
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I've got a fairly substantial article about creating a social media marketing campaign that complements your SEO strategy, so let's get straight to it.
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Heard It From the (Social Media) Grapevine - Today I'll show you how to create your own social media monitoring and marketing strategy that complements your SEO campaign. While I'm going to talk mostly about Twitter, you can apply much of this info to other social media as well.
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| Offering a Discount in Exchange for a Link? Advanced SEO Forum Thread of the Week - Forum member "whitespark" is wondering if he could get in trouble for asking his customers to add a link to his website in exchange for a discount on a future purchase.
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| | HRA Wrap-up 252 - I am so busy that my head is spinning lately. Preparing for the upcoming April Website Marketing Workshops is taking up most of my time, but along with that I have a number of side projects going on. I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed, but trying to stay organized.
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Just wanted to let you know that we still have openings for the April Website Marketing Workshops. While I know March has just begun, April will be upon us very quickly and they're filling up fast. Remember, these are different from our usual SEO Training Classes because these are half-day workshops, each focused on a particular aspect of marketing your website. If you've already got a good handle on SEO basics, these workshops are exactly what you need to take your website to the next level. And in this rough economic climate, can you really afford to keep your site at the same old level? | |
Dynamically Generated Pages and Dynamic Titles - I run an apartment search website. The sites search results pages are dynamic and pulled from the database. If these dynamic pages also have dynamic page titles, will they be search engine relevant?
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| Duplicate Content Via Press Releases - I disseminate news releases for clients using online wire services. Additionally, the releases are posted on my clients' websites, usually as PDFs, and on my firm's website, the same PDF. My programmer just told me that unless I make these releases different I am causing search engine apoplexy. Please let me know the facts and, more important, what I should be doing.
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| | Measuring SEO Services - My question is, how should SEO services be evaluated? In other words, what measurable objectives beyond landing above the fold are appropriate?
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| Fixing Duplicate Content - We have a travel website where people can enquire about beautiful small hotels we offer. Even though each hotel has a unique URL with unique content, the categories pages have a duplication problem.
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| | Discontinued Products Showing in Google - I would like to ask a question too, please. Our website is geared to sell GPS equipment. Many of the products have a life of about 6 months to a year. Google indexes these very well, and we rank highly. However, some searches display discontinued products (I guess because they have been around the longest).
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| Combining Subdomains - Advanced SEO Forum Thread of the Week - Forum member Convergent7 has a website that uses a subdomain along with the main domain. He/she wonders if it would be better to combine them into one.
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| | Jill's Excellent February Adventure - 2009 Version - I had a great time during my 2009 version of "Jill's Excellent February Adventure" in Santa Clara, CA, Las Vegas, and London.
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Can you believe this is the 250th issue of the High Rankings Advisor I've sent? That's a lot of newsletters, and it doesn't even count the 89 I previously did as part of the old RankWrite newsletter. How many of you have been with HRA since issue 001? Zip me over an email if so!
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The Difference Between Article Distribution and Guest Blogging - To many people, the idea of guest blogging is fresh and new and very "Web 2.0." Personally, I find the discussion to be a rather déjà vu–like experience. In fact, one participant on my blog responded to a post about articles by asking how I would contrast guest blogging with article marketing. He wanted to know how I chose between placing my articles on directories and writing an exclusive blog post. The short answer is: I don't.
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| Canonical and Base Tags - Forum moderator Jonathan Hochman posted about Google's new method for specifying canonical URLs, which the other major search engines have also agreed to use.
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| | Advisor Wrap-Up 250 - That's all for today! It's a quick issue as I'm in London for the SES conference.
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Today is one of my famous email Q&A bonanza issues. Enjoy! – Jill
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Same Content, Different URLs - I have a new website selling children's eco friendly toys. The site was designed to enable customers to search for toys by age, by type of toy, by brand, and by country of manufacture. A given toy description would be in each of these categories as well as in multiple age categories and multiple toy types (i.e., in puzzles and wooden puzzles).
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| Submitting to Directories and Search Engines - I'm writing now because a colleague and I have some questions on search engine/directory submission and we are hoping to get your expertise on the subject. We currently submit new sites to major SEs once they go live, but are wondering if some of the services are worth pursuing or if you advise against these?
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| | SEO Non-compete - What do you think about a potential SEO client who asks you to agree not to work with any related company for 2 years after the conclusion of the business relationship?
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| Can Lots of Clicks Equal Higher Rankings? - If I hire people through something like crowdsourcing just to Google some keywords from various areas of the globe to click through to my site and stay there for 5 minutes, will it improve my rankings?
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| | Absolute Links or Relative? - I've been researching absolute vs. relative links and there seem to be two camps -- one that advocates absolute as better for SEO purposes and the other that says that absolute links won't improve your rank. My site is set up with relative links, so is it worth the effort to change them to absolute?
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| Effect of Navigational Content on SEO - I'm redesigning my website using CSS for the layout. In the HTML code the navigation information comes before the actual page content. What worries me is how I have my navigation set up. I use CSS and span tags to make neat little information boxes appear when my navigation links are hovered over. These boxes will tell the visitor more about what to expect from that particular link.
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| | Podcast Conversation: Length of Copy for Search Engines- Stuff You Might Like - Karon Thackston and I were discussing copy length the other day (yeah, we're total geeks when it comes to that stuff) and decided to share our conversation via a podcast. You can click to it and listen from Karon's copywriting workshop page.
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| Press Release Distribution Discount Extended - Stuff You Might Like - The response to our 24-7 Press Release discount was so good that our friends over there have graciously added an extension through to the end of February! All High Rankings Advisor subscribers can receive $30 off their $89 press release package using the coupon code of highrankings59.
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| | How Many Keywords Is Too Many? - Advanced SEO Forum Thread - Forum member "anne999" was wondering how many keywords she could target on her website.
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| Advisor Wrap-Up 249 - I'm looking forward to SMX West next week. It should be another good show. Who else is going? (We did give away our free pass already, sorry if it wasn't you!) If you are going, please be sure to say hi to me. I'm speaking on Wednesday and Thursday.
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Since many enjoyed my anecdotal story about the kids who were crying on the plane and how it related to people ignoring the cries of their website, I thought I'd tell you another story of what happened while planning that holiday trip last month. | |
When Google Fails, It's SearchWiki to the Rescue! - It was a few weeks before our annual trip to Pompano, FL to visit my grandmother and get away from the nasty New England weather. We had our plane tickets and hotel reserved, but still needed a rental car. I'd been reserving cars for years through a rental car aggregator website that I found many years ago when searching online for rental cars in Ft. Lauderdale.
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| MarketMotive Live Certification Event - Stuff You Might Like - You are invited to join MarketMotive live as their Internet Marketing Master Certification finalists undergo their final project – a live panel review gauntlet – which reads like a wild fusion between American Idol, a PhD dissertation defense, and a lightning-round news roundtable show.
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| | SEMPO In-House Search Marketing Survey - Stuff You Might Like - Are you an in-house search marketer? If so, please take a few minutes to fill out SEMPO's Second Annual In-House Salary.
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| New High Rankings Forum Section – Best Posts and Articles - Rather than pointing you to any specific forum thread, I want to let you know about our new section of the High Rankings Forum called the "Best Posts and Articles of the Week." Basically it's a forum where our moderators and trusted members can post the great articles or blog posts that they have come across in their online travels.
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| | HRA Wrap-up 248 - So who wants a free pass to SMX West Feb. 10–12 in Santa Clara, CA? I'll be speaking on the SEO content writing bootcamp session, as well as the "Ask the SEOs" panel. One lucky HRA subscriber has a shot at the pass...
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Today's article is a bit of a rant based on my recent flight to Florida, but don't worry, I do tie it into website marketing, so bear with me!
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Are You Ignoring the Cries of Your Website? - While traveling by plane to Florida to visit my grandmother for the holidays, we were sitting next to a couple with 2 small children, probably around 2 and 3 years of age. We expect a lot of children during holiday travel, and typically it's not that big of a deal. With this family, however, it was a different matter.
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| Google AdWords Best Practices - Stuff You Might Like - The Search Engine Marketing New England (SEMNE) organization's next event is on January 27th, 2009, at the Newton Marriott in Newton, MA from 6:30 to 9 p.m. Network with other search marketing enthusiasts and learn about Google AdWords best practices from Malinda Gagnon, an account manager and traditional media specialist at Google, Inc.
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| | Upgrade Your Copywriting Course - Stuff You Might Like - Karon Thackston’s 5th edition of her famous copywriting course is hot off the presses! If you bought your copy of the course more than 30 days ago you can purchase an upgrade to the 5th edition for only $29!
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| Picking Up Where Another SEO Left Off - Advanced Forum Thread of the Week - Forum member "Say Yebo" was putting together an SEO proposal for a potential client who wanted to know if the project would be different because they had already done some SEO stuff.
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| | Advisor Wrap-Up - So did you get any time off during the holidays? We had a really good time in Florida for the 5 days we were there. The weather was half good, half bad, but their "bad" is way better than winter in New England, so it was fine.
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