Past High Rankings Advisor Newsletter Articles: 2007

SEO Software -

I am coming across a lot of offers for software for SEO.  A lot of them are
offering different sorts of analyzers, etc. — which I’m not sure are
helpful.  Is there any sort of software that is real SEO software and
actually does some actual SEO work to your site?

 

SEO Training Class: Learn How To Optimize Your Website - I mentioned last time that we were going to start offering highly personalized SEO training classes (limited to 10 people per class) at our High Rankings headquarters in Framingham, MA.

Search Marketing Training Videos - If you'd rather learn from the comfort of your own home/office, we have an alternative for you -- our video of a past High Rankings seminar (different from the training sessions mentioned above, but just as good!).

Pauline's Poll of the Year - We haven't hit you up for a poll in awhile because we didn't want to wear you out. But now we have a survey for you that's a little bit longer than usual. Don't worry, it's really not that long, only 10 questions, and one of those asks for your email address (if you want a crack at the free gift).

VP Got Rid of PPC -- How Will This Affect Us? - Forum member "NeilPertRocks" tells the other members that the VP in his company completely removed their paid-search program, and is wondering how this will affect their business.

HRA Wrap-up 220 - Is it really Christmas next week? My family and I will be making the usual pilgrimage to Florida to visit with my grandmother. She's 99 years old now -- amazing!

7 Ways Your Page May Be Described in the SERPs - My question is whether there is a way to make sure a certain description comes up? I look forward to your other articles.

Wikipedia and Social Media Event from SEMNE - SEMNE, the search marketing networking organization for New England, is having an event entitled "Wikipedia & Search Marketing" on Jan. 9, 2008 in North Hartford, CT at the Tumblebrook Country Club from 6:30PM-9:30PM.

Google Analytics Online Training Starts Jan. 10 - Our friends at ROI Revolution are starting their next round of Google Analytics online training classes on January 10, 2008. There's still time to sign up, and still time to get a $100 discount using our affiliate discount code of HIGHRANKINGS in the coupon field.

SMX West Conference - The Search Marketing Expo (SMX) West Conference is quickly approaching! It's going to be held on Feb. 26-28 at the Santa Clara Convention Center in Santa Clara, CA. Register before Jan. 11 to save $400. I'll be there speaking at some sessions, and I hope to see you there as well!

SEO Beginner Advice - Forum member "Vini" wonders why his/her website keeps going down in the rankings rather than up.

HRA Wrap-up 219 - Last week's Pubcon in Vegas was a lot of fun. I enjoyed hanging out and chatting with some great people. Shout-outs to Christine Churchill, Michael Stebbins, Craig Paddock, Jessica Bowman, Lee Odden, Lyndsay Walker, John Marshall, Andrea Harris, Stoney deGeyter, Bruce Clay, Joe Dolson, Dan Thies, Alan K'necht, Cindy Turietta, Adam Audette, Derrick Wheeler, and anyone else I chatted with but forgot to mention.

Changing URLs - I am in the process of changing all my URLs from things like news123.html to OurCompany_Announces_New_CEO.html

Market Motive Online Marketing Membership Site - Market Motive is a new, subscription-based website which brings together some of the top minds in the Internet marketing world to teach you SEO, Web analytics, PPC, social media, online publicity, and more.

Changing Homepage URL - For those looking for some advanced SEO info, we have a ton of it in our “Technobabble” area of the forum. There’s tons of great info on dynamic sites, as well as mountains of technical info on redirects, mod_rewrites, etc.

Wrap-up 218 - Next week is WebmasterWorld’s PubCon in Vegas where I’ll be speaking.

PR Popping - Two weeks ago, my Google PR was still at 0/10. We have a 6-month-old site, for which I've been doing many of the "slow growth" SEO tactics as my time allows. This week, I find that my Google PR is now 5/10.

DMOZ Description - It appears the text Google is now showing [for a particular keyword phrase] is from our DMOZ directory listing.

Static-seeming Sites - My company is considering building some new sites where content is loaded from a database. We plan on using static URLs no matter what, but we are wondering if it matters whether the content comes from static, unique HTML files, or if the HTML page is served from a database.

Search Engine Wiki - Search Engine College has launched Search Engine Wiki

ClickTracks, KeywordDiscovery & Campaign Management - Lyris, Inc. is combining the power of keyword research from Trellian’s KeywordDiscovery, PPC campaign management functionality, and ClickTracks into one powerful bid-management tool called “BidHero.”

Seo Expert Rant, Arrrghhh! Forum Post of the Week - Forum Member “Deverill” is ticked off at the SEO guy in his office due to some strange advice he is giving.

Wrap-up 217 - We’ve been hard at work on the completely updated and redesigned High Rankings website. It’s taken a lot longer than expected, but we’re starting to see an end in sight and hope to have things up and running sometime over the next few weeks.

Charging for SEO Services - One of my biggest headaches is working out how to charge and how much to charge my clients for my services.

How To Write Successful PPC Ads - Karon Thackston has just finished her new ebook on how to write successful PPC ads. It’s so new, in fact, that it hasn’t even been announced to the general public!

Increasing PageRank - Forum Post of the Week - Forum member “Reflections” is looking for a quick way to increase PageRank because the usual routes take too long.

Advisor Wrap-up 216 - Social Media Marketing - In case you missed it, I wanted to point you to my article at Search Engine Land from last week called “Social Media Marketing: The New SEO?”

Google’s Paid-link Smack in the Face - The SEO world is abuzz today with Google’s smack in the face to a number of websites that are selling obviously paid-for, keyword-rich text links.

PubCon Vegas - Well, it’s official! I’ll be speaking at PubCon Vegas on Dec. 4-7.

Anchor-text and Nofollow Links - I noticed something interesting the other day that made me wonder whether links that have the nofollow attribute on them can/do still pass anchor-text “juice” in Google.

It Sure Beats Working - I’m heading out soon to the book party of my friend and fellow newsletter publisher Michael Katz.

In-house vs. Agency SEM/SEO - Danny Sullivan Interview - Pauline Kerbici has put on her interview hat once again, this time to speak with Danny Sullivan, Editor-in-Chief of Search Engine Land, about in-house SEM/SEO vs. agency SEM/SEO. Take it away, Pauline! - Jill

Market Motive - Have you heard of Market Motive yet?

Marketing Resources - Forum Post of the Week - Forum member “scouseflip” wants some good reading material on marketing. See others’ suggestions or share your own at the forum.

Advisor Wrap-up 214 - I had an interesting trip to Bochum, Germany last week. For the most part, all went well, and the company I was training seemed to really get a lot out of it.

Adding New Content to an Existing Site - I have a question: I created a site (read a book on HTML, a book on SEO, and a book on globalization of websites). After about 10 months, the site is doing very well and I am pleased with its rankings.

Unoptimized Site Ranks #1 - I am currently looking at doing SEO work for a [generic type of alcohol for drinking] industry-related website. I have come across one problem though.

Multiple Informational Sites - I have a plastic surgeon client who specializes in many procedures and has spent a fortune on developing a very nice site that has been done in Flash. In efforts to get him some traffic, we are doing a double campaign, one with pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, and one using SEO tactics.

Where Your Site Is Hosted - I wonder if you can help me. We have a website in New Zealand and it is hosted here too. We are expanding our business to Australia and building a new website for this. My web company has said that the new site should be hosted in Australia as we would get a good start with Google.com.au. Do you agree with this? Does Google take into account where your site is hosted for rankings?

Article Submission Services - We have an information site which sells nothing. Our site consists of about 140 articles. I have authored several, and I'm wondering about submitting a couple of my articles to certain type of sites which claim to boost links to your site.

Follow-up: Paying for Ongoing SEO Services - To gain credibility, I often send my clients to sign up for your newsletter to show that I am not the only one telling them whatever it is I am telling them at the time. With that, the answer to a question from your last newsletter could severely hurt my (our) business.

Avoiding Clueless-is as Clueless-does SEO - I hope you will take the time to read my latest column at Search Engine Land, where I wonder whether SEOs have lost the plot. It's all about making sure that when you make changes to a site for SEO purposes, you truly understand the reasoning behind why you're making those changes. Unfortunately, many people don't.

$100 Discount on Google Analytics Online Training Oct. 4 - The Google Analytics Online Training Course from ROI Revolution that we mentioned last week is starting this Thursday, Oct. 4. You can still apply the $100 High Rankings discount by simply typing "highrankings" into the discount code field when you register. I believe that even if you miss the first live class you could watch it online, so don't be shy about signing up late.

Cross-linking 40 Relevant Websites - High Rankings Forum Thread of the Week

Off to Germany - Advisor Wrap-up 213

Is a FrontPage Website Search Engine Unfriendly? -

I am a small business owner with a circa 2003 website that needs an overhaul both in terms of SEO optimization and visual appeal. I have no time or talent to do this and want to hire a company.

 

I have received a reply from one company that said the problem with my website is that it was written in FrontPage. They implied that that was a problem both from a design perspective and for SEO. Do you agree? And if so, does my website need to be recreated in HTML?

Submitting to Google or a Sitemap? - I submitted our website sitemap to Google a while back, but I was reading a forum this morning where somebody was saying you have to submit every page to Google. What is the real procedure and are sitemaps important?

Will Site Drop Out of Engines if Not Paying for SEO? - I have a really quick question I hope you can help with. There is a small business in town that is paying $200 a month to have another company make sure it stays at the top of the ranking lists in search engines. Now if there is no new competition, except maybe a new office every few years, is it necessary to pay them, or could they do it themselves with the guidance you offer on your website?

Is SEO an Extra Skill or a Prerequisite When Designing a Website? - Forum member "rolf" told the community of a website design company that created a brand-new site completely in Flash for a client, even though the client expressed an interest in having the website found in the search engines.

Search Engines and PDFs - I came across your site on Google while trying to find some information and found it very helpful. However, I did have a question that was not covered. Will the search engines be able to find text in a PDF document, or am I better where possible to include the information in a web page?

It’s What You Say AND How You Say It, Part 2 of 2 - In Part 1 of this series, I introduced you to Announce It!, an online candy-bar-wrapper manufacturer that was seeking professional help with their search engine copywriting.

Are You Budgeting for Search Marketing Conference / Seminar Travel in 2008? - Pauline is on vacation this week, but before she left she put together a quick poll to find out how many of you have a budget for traveling to and attending any search marketing conferences/seminars in 2008.

Free Pass to SMX Local & Mobile in Denver - I’ve scored a free 2-day pass for a lucky High Rankings Advisor reader for the SMX Local & Mobile in Denver on Oct. 1-2.

Does Graceful Degradation Really Work - At the place where I work as an e-commerce copywriter, we are about to take a pretty successful, basic, unpretentious e-commerce website and guck it up – er, I mean, enhance it — with fancy Flash animation on virtually every page.

Advisor Wrap-up 211 - Next week, watch for a review of ROI Revolution’s Google Analytics Training Series. High Rankings SEO Associate recently finished the 6-week deluxe class and was very impressed. W

It’s What You Say AND How You Say It, Part 1 of 2 - The old cliché is wrong. All our lives we’ve heard, “It’s not what you say, but how you say it.” That may occasionally be true, but for the most part it’s what you say AND how you say it.

Overusing Google Match Types - This is the first time that Erin has encountered every keyword in every campaign and ad group having a broad match, phrase match and exact match version.

Advisor Wrap-up 210 - The kids are back in school, but it’s a bit weird for me. This is my first September driving into the office, so I’m missing my usual “first week of school/quiet house all to myself” feeling that I normally have this time of year!

Revisited: The Art of SEO - Hey everyone! I’m back from vacation and the conference and raring to go. Today’s article is an updated version of one I wrote back in 2004 on the art of SEO. I recently reviewed it and was surprised at how accurate it still is today. I figured there are many of you on the list who never read it the first time around, and for those who did, you’ve probably forgotten it by now.

Same Title Tag for Every Page - Forum member “SEMMatt” wonders if it’s good or bad that the Title tags on his website are all the same.

Should You Include Plurals? - Forum member “malhyp” asks if there’s a benefit to using both the singular and plural forms of his/her keyword phrases when optimizing.

Advisor Wrap-up 209 - On the personal front, we had a good time in both Hawaii and San Jose. We got Jamie safely settled in Hawaii, although it was pretty stressful there for awhile.

A Look at What It Takes To Run an SES Conference - Since there’s a Search Engine Strategies conference creeping up on us in San Jose, we thought it would be interesting to get the low-down on what it takes to actually manage an SES conference.

Learn About Yahoo's New Search Marketing Platform - We've got 2 free copies of the new report Andrew mentioned: Mona Elesseily’s "Mastering Panama: A Special Report on Yahoo!’s New Search Marketing Platform"

Advisor Wrap-up 208 - For those who were worried about me due to Hurricane Flossie, you can put your mind at ease. We're not on the Big Island but on Oahu where things are pretty calm.

Why Do Sphinners Love SEO Nerds but Hate Pregnancy? - Jill takes a look at Danny Sullivan's Digg-like community for the Search Marketing Industry and is surprised to actually like it!

Advisor Wrap-up 207 - As mentioned last time, I’m off to Hawaii next week and San Jose the week after. I have very mixed emotions about this trip in general. On the one hand, things are somewhat slow this time of year, so it’s certainly a good time to be out of the office. On the other hand, I love my work and my colleagues, and I am going to miss them for two weeks!

Seth Godin Interview About Squidoo - Back in June, Jill and I were front and center at SES Toronto listening to Seth Godin, entrepreneur, best-selling author, and marketing guru. He is as excellent a speaker as he is a writer! Seth delivered a thought-provoking as well as motivational keynote speech, and if you ever get a chance to hear him speak, it is a truly remarkable experience!

Supplemental Results? What Supplemental Results? - Google has decided to stop labeling pages in their Supplemental Results Index as such, and some webmasters are up in arms over it. Personally, I think it’s smart of them not to differentiate the results anymore, as all it served to do was cause unnecessary grief for people.

High Rankings Forum Turns 4-years Old! - We’re also running a poll in conjunction with the birthday announcement...

Wrap-up 206 - Family Update - It’s been pretty dead online the last few weeks as it seems most of the world is on vacation. But that’s been great for those of us still working, and we’ve been able to finally catch up on everything! I’ll take this quiet time to catch you up on the latest family news…

Matt Cutts Giving Out Clues via Google Webmaster Central? - Forum moderator Jonathan Hochman (jehochman) noticed a post on Matt Cutts’ blog asking people to vote for what features they’d most want added to Google’s Webmaster Tools. Jonathan thought it was curious that one of the proposed features would tell webmasters which pages on their sites don’t validate. He wondered why Google would do that if they don’t care about pages that validate.

10 Blogger Types: The Good, the Bad, and the Sleazy - Breaking an SEO news story certainly creates a stir in the blogosphere. But are all blog mentions good ones?

Mentor-Me-Meg Social Media Experiment - To go along with our blogging theme today, I wanted to point out something that my sister Beth, CEO of Nobscot Corporation, is doing that I think is pretty cool. On her blog, she has told the world that she is on a mission to convince Meg Whitman, CEO of eBay, to mentor her!

Wrap-up 205 - That’s all for today. I hope you enjoyed it! I should be back in 2 weeks with the next issue, and after that I’m mixing a little business with pleasure for the last 2 weeks of August.

Getting Into Google - New Unavailable_after Tag and More! - Last night was our third SEMNE event (Search Engine Marketing New England), and we were humbled to have Dan Crow, director of crawl systems at Google, spilling the beans about how to get your site into Google. He talked for a half hour or so, and then proceeded to answer audience questions for at least another hour. As I sat there listening to him (yes, I actually listened to this one!), I was struck by what an awesome opportunity it was for everyone in that room to be provided with such important information — straight from Google. It was clear that the 100 or so people in the room agreed. In fact, at 7:30 on the dot, everyone spontaneously stopped their networking activities and simply took their seats without being asked to. These folks definitely came to hear Google!

That's it! - That's all for today.

Help and Advice Starting a Business -

Forum member "siringo" says:

 

"I'm thinking of starting a blog hosting business. Not web site hosting, blog hosting. People will come to the site, select a blog template they like, I set it up and away they go."

You Can't Fake Real Content - We had a very interesting discussion regarding my last Search Engine Land article, "You Can't Fake Real Content."

What is the Yardstick to Measure SEO Success? -

Forum member "DIGITALLYDEFINED" says:

 

"I see the total number of visitors have increased by approximately 20-30% month by month.  These sites are generating decent sales, but direct users from search engines referrals are really very low.

 

Article Dos and Don'ts - Forum member "1dmf" asks the High Rankings gang: "If you wrote an article/blog, how do you do the links?

Purchase Orders - Accept or Not? - " I just received my first Purchase Order from a school today ... total surprise, no contact, no note, just a PO for a $60 order. I did a little lookup online and they're legit, I'm sure they pay their bills, I'm sure I'd be ok accepting the PO, but ... errr, not sure I want to set a precedent."

Need to See Google Ads in the US, but Live in Canada - This was an old, revived thread from January, but has some worthwhile info, so I'm putting it in as a thread of the week.

Interview with Jennifer Laycock - Viral Marketing & Social Media - Pauline caught up with Jennifer Laycock, editor-in-chief of Search Engine Guide, in order to find out her thoughts on viral marketing and social media.

Wrap-up 202 - That's all for today!

What’s the Best Use of Keyphrases? - There has been a debate about the use of keywords for years. Many SEO copywriters will tell you that using keyphrases in their entirety is the best practice for getting high rankings. Others insist it really doesn’t matter — that as long as all the individual words within the phrase are used, your copy will do its job. Before we get into whether keyphrases are best used in their entirety or as individual words, let’s sidestep for just a minute to talk about the inner workings of information-retrieval systems (aka search engines).

“Wide-net” Keyword Research for PPC (Part 2 of 2) - In Part 1 of my article, I said that we need to have an entirely different mindset when researching keywords for PPC vs. SEO. When compiling keywords for SEO, you’re looking for phrases that get a good bit of traffic. But for PPC, you can use all those longer queries that are impossible to work into your page copy. Plus, you’re trying to get a feel for all the different ways people have of phrasing their queries.

ROI Tracking Between Lead and Sale - Forum Thread - Forum member “ARothman” is looking for suggestions on how to determine which website leads actually become sales.

Travel, Travel and More Travel! - I had a good time in Seattle for SMX, even though I spent most of the time catching up on work. The “Give It Up” panel that I was on with 9 other long-time SEO experts was really fun!

Do Women View the Web Differently Than Men? - Randy (and some others) have some great advice on how women and men view the Web differently. You don't want to miss this thread!

What Do You Call Yourselves? - Forum member "kurzo" asks, "If you do SEO, SEM, optimisation, etc., do you call yourself a Search Engine Marketer? Web Marketer?"

Cache Dates on Pages Getting Old - Forum member "DannyAFC" tells us that he ranks well on the competitive keywords in his industry, but he's getting concerned because his cache dates are starting to get quite old.

Does a Site Redesign Spell Trouble for Rankings? - In another post, "DannyAFC" says he feels that his site needs a redesign but isn't sure what elements he can safely change without hurting his search engine rankings.

Avoiding Duplicate Content on eCommerce Site - Forum member "Brandon C" asks, "I want to be able to offer a true breadcrumb for customers in an ecommerce store, but I am afraid that the product page will get penalized for duplicate content if I'm not careful."

Why Have We Gone From <br> to <br />? - Forum member "Doogie" wonders why we've gone from <br> to <br />?

Advisor Wrap-up 200 - That's all for now, folks!

Meta Keywords and Descriptions - My understanding is, if you have Meta tags with keywords and descriptions, this should also be reflected in your actual page content. But what if you have an ecommerce site and a homepage that displays mostly products and very short descriptions, and a menu with category names, etc.?

High Rankings Search Marketing Seminar in Denver! - Want to learn SEO and SEM from the ground up in an easy-to-understand manner by experts in the business, plus have some fun along the way?

File Names and SEO - Does what you name a page (not the “Title” but the file name) matter to search engines when they crawl a site?

Best Place for a Blog - Our site has a blog which is www.blog.domain.com — should it really be www.domain.com/blog ?

Keyword Competition - When I am searching on terms that apply to our website or our specific products I’m finding that the perfect phrases or keywords have tons of competition. And the more obscure phrases that don’t have a lot of competition are not searched on much.

Display: None - I have to create some pages for a client. They are full of images and little to no content and have no title tags…however, they still want SEO services…*groan*

Free Pass for SES Toronto - Do you live in the Toronto area and want to come to the Search Engine Strategies Conference next month?

Advisor Wrap-up 199 - If you’re in the New England area on July 10th, we’ve managed to convince the product manager of Google’s crawl systems, Dan Crow, to come speak at our next SEMNE event! He’s going to be speaking on “Getting Into Google” and will be taking loads of audience questions.

Anchor Text Question - Forum member "Nystul" remarks: "Due to the long name of my website (keyword), a couple of my backlinks are anchor text as 'thisisme,' instead of 'this is me.'

How Do You Find Out Where Your Prospects Usually Hang Out At - Forum member "Kai2810" is wondering how one can find where their target market hangs out online.

Do Forum Links and Signatures Help SEO? - Forum member "vertigo" has been busy posting in online forums and says, "For about 20 of these forums I have replied to existing posts with original info, and have put a keyword-rich hyperlink to my website in my signature.

Is This SEO Email Correct? - Forum member "Angelina" wonders about an unsolicited email she received from a so-called SEO company saying that her optimized site was actually unoptimized.

Google AdWords When You Already Rank Well - Forum member "bims" asks whether it's necessary to keep his/her Google AdWords campaigns running for keywords in which he/she already has decent organic rankings.

Google Analytics -- Check Out the New Interface - Google Analytics has a completely new interface, which I for one really like! It's cleaner and seems a lot faster as well.

Pauline's Poll: Name 3 other newsletters you subscribe to -

Name 3 other newsletters you subscribe to.

 

Please post your answers here for a chance at a great High Rankings thank-you gift.

Wrap-up 198: Don't Sweat the Small Stuff - In case you missed it, my column at Search Engine Land this month called "Don't Sweat the Small SEO Stuff" caused a bit of a stir online (which was my intent!).

Best Practices for 50 Micro-sites -

I wanted to discuss the possibility of developing a best practice/checklist
guide for our company to follow.  Our new  initiative will be to launch 50
or so micro-sites focused on our key product categories.  These sites will
need to be rolled  out quickly.

“Wide-net” Keyword Research for PPC & SEO (Part 1 of 2) - Today’s guest article is written by my long-time friend and colleague, Lorelle Smith, “The Keywordsmith.” Lorelle is the reason why you’ll rarely spot a typo or grammar mistake in this newsletter, as she’s been proofreading it for me since its inception in 2002. She’s also my go-to person for keyword research when we don’t have the time or inclination to do it in-house. Simply put, Lorelle knows words better than anyone else I know.

Pauline’s Poll Question of the Week - Do you listen to podcasts? If so, please list 3 that you like.

HTML vs. Joomla - What if you have 2 identical websites with the same Meta tags and same content, but one is “100% HTML web design (clean code, CSS design)” and the other is “100% Joomla, fully loaded with SEO options”?

SEMNE Event a Success! - Last week’s SEMNE blogging event in Connecticut was a rousing success!

Pauline's Poll - How often do you visit the High Rankings Forum?

Any Good SEO Tools To Promote My Site? - Forum member "rachellee" wonders if there are any good SEO software programs around.

I Need Expert Opinions! - Forum member "fromtherooftops" has an ecommerce site and has a bunch of SEO-related questions for the crew.

Need Some Diagnostics - Forum member "sleidia" wonders why his or her website isn't performing well, even though it has a high ranking for a specific keyword phrase.

How Long Before Spammer Relisted? - Forum member "stacykan" tells the group that she filled out a recent spam report on one of her competitors, which apparently resulted in the site being penalized/banned.

Strange Google Phenomenon - Any Guesses? - Forum member "chorn" sees his or her rankings constantly fluctuating, gets freaked out by it, and wonders why it's happening.

Sitemap Protocol Updated - Forum moderator "qwerty" informs members of the new search engine site map protocol, which allows you to direct search engines to your site map page, via your robots.txt file.

Translation of PPC Campaigns from English to Russian - Forum member "Sarah" tells the group how one of her clients wants them to set up a new PPC campaign for them in English, Russian, and French, and she's looking for some direction with it.

Advisor Wrap-up 196 - That's all for today's mini-newsletter!

Lost Rankings Due to Site Redesign or Spam? - I started answering this question with the usual answer, but as I looked at the site in question, I realized there was more going on than meets the eye. Please read through the entire question and my response to see what I mean!

Copywriting Makeover: Value vs. Vision - Part 2 of 2 - In Part 1 of this series, we discovered that explaining the value your products offer is only one part of the copywriting process. Creating a visual image is another. While Wholesalers USA knew their target customers better than most companies do, they needed help with two areas: optimizing their copy for the search engines and incorporating visual imagery.

Pauline’s Poll of the Week - What is more important to you and the other major stakeholders within your organization?

Advertisers’ Opposition to Forums - I believe that user-generated content — in the form of a forum — is going to play a large role in a current client’s growth strategy.

Matt Cutts and Paid Links - Forum moderator Michael Motherwell (aka “ProjectPHP”) wondered what all the hubbub is regarding a post Matt Cutts made at his blog asking for people to report paid links to him/Google.

Advisor Wrap-up 195 - Just wanted to mention that the NYC SES conference was a lot of fun last week.

6 Newbie SEO Questions - Someone emailed me with a list of quick questions about some SEO terminology they didn’t understand. I figured if one person was looking for these answers, many of you would be, too.

Copywriting Makeover: Value vs. Vision - Part 1 of 2 - There’s no doubt. Wholesalers USA knows their customers. They’ve spent the time digging through log files to analyze site stats. They’ve spoken with customers on the phone and emailed with them. They’ve used client feedback to develop new products that have taken off like a rocket.

Pauline’s Poll of the Week - What type of articles or subject matter would you like to see more of in the HRA newsletter?

Creating a New Site Based on One Product - We have a website with tips and advice about health products. The competition is quite tough in this field, but we have one product that is doing extremely well in search engines and other websites are starting to link to it as well.

Jill’s SEO Tele-clinics Update - Speaking of polls and surveys, we’ve also been surveying the folks who’ve taken me up on my introductory 15-minute tele-clinic offer. Since first announced, I’ve done 31 of these.

Fun with SEMNE and NYC - Last night’s informal SEMNE meeting at John Harvard’s in Framingham, MA was a lot of fun! Lots of fresh-brewed beer and good company.

What’s Important to Search Engines and What’s Not - I recently had an inquiry from someone who was looking for some possible SEO consulting with me. He was in the process of a redesign and wanted to be sure not to make any mistakes along the way, which is super-smart! The time to be looking at SEO is definitely in the beginning stage of any design or redesign project.

Pauline’s Poll of the Week - Here at High Rankings headquarters, we’re on a marketing kick to learn more about our loyal audience. What are your wants and needs, and what do you think of the High Rankings brand in general?

CSS Better than Tables? - Are Sites Created with CSS Better than Those Created with Tables?

Advisor Wrap-up 193 - I’m certainly looking forward to some spring weather…I wonder if it will ever get here? It certainly seems spring-like with the extra sunlight in the evening. And even the car is pretty warm from the sun in the afternoons. Today I even opened my sunroof for a bit when I had my Wed. carpool duty. But generally, it’s still feeling darn cool around here.

Hiding Links Behind a Flash Menu - Forum member "joeeee" asks if it's okay to hide a link behind a Flash menu.

Posting in Forums To Gain Inbound Links - Forum member "Jon H" is looking for ways to build links and has started a few different threads on the topic:

Using Valuable but Non-related Content To Bring Links

Paying Bloggers for Links - "Ryan2" is also looking to build links and was wondering if it's okay to pay bloggers to link to your site.

Wikipedia: Is a Paid Alternative Really Better? - Forum moderator "ProjectPHP" heard the "SEO Rockstars" radio show dissing Wikipedia and talking about how a paid online encyclopedia would be better.

Advisor Wrap-up 192 - That's all for today!

Expanding Services and SEO - Your email newsletter is one of my favorites, and I get a bunch of them from SEO “experts” and others.

Adding a List of Keywords - Great newsletter. My business partner is developing our site and wants to put a list of keywords at the bottom of some of our shop pages (i.e. below the text) in the hopes that this will get the search engines to notice us slightly more.

Working on Conversions - My SEO’s Good. Now Should I Work On Conversions?

SEMNE Offering Free Month of KeywordDiscovery - In an effort to support SEMNE and our upcoming networking event at the Newton Marriott next Tuesday night on March 6, our friends at KeywordDiscovery are offering a free one-month subscription to everyone who attends the event!

Optimizing All Pages or Few? - Forum member “seo_bright” has a couple of SEO questions for the High Rankings Forum members this week.

Alternate Domain Names - A client of “Bobmeetin” was given some advice about registering a bunch of alternate domain names. Bob knows it’s not good advice, but decided to come to the Forum for a little back-up.

Wrap-up 191 - For those keeping track of the new office saga, we still don’t have our phones, but we’re getting closer. In fact, by the time I come in tomorrow, I may actually have a usable phone line in my space!

Client Training Once Website Is Finished - "Kalew" asks website developers how much time they spend training their clients to upload new content to the server.

Promoting Our List via "Free Stuff" Sites - "Rolf" says, "We've been discussing ways to increase subscribers to our mailing list, and one of the ideas that has come up is those 'free stuff' sites you can find all over the place."

Anyone Know of a Good PHP Calendar? - "Johking" is looking for a PHP calendar he can add to his website.

Free Web Hosting To Test SEO - "Christelle" wonders if it would be useful to get some free hosting accounts in order to test out some SEO techniques.

MSN Listings Different in Different Locations - "Heather" wonders what to tell her clients when the rankings she sees for their site at MSN are different from the ones they see.

Question About Cross-linking Websites - "Jammin' Jake" tells the forum, "My employers would like to start three new websites for these three aspects of our consulting services to focus on each individual consulting service."

Talking SEO/SEM on the "Duct Tape Marketing" Podcast - Recently I had the pleasure of speaking with John Jantsch of Duct Tape Marketing about search marketing for small businesses.

Advisor Wrap-up 190 - That's it for today -- check back next week for a full newsletter!

All About Title Tags - The title tag has been — and probably will always be — one of the most important factors in achieving high search engine rankings. In fact, fixing just the title tags of your pages can often generate quick and appreciable differences to your rankings. And because the words in the title tag are what appear in the clickable link on the search engine results page (SERP), changing them may result in more clickthroughs.

Online Shoppers Ask for More Detailed Copywriting - I found out quite by chance. I noticed a research brief in my inbox entitled, “Bad Web Experience Impacts Brick and Mortar Shopping.” Being primarily focused on Internet business, I really didn’t pay it much attention. But then I noticed it made reference to a customer’s online experience, too, so I read on.

Let Jill Kick-start Your SEO - In a conversation with my Director of Marketing the other day (yes, I really do have one!), we were lamenting the fact that we have to turn down so many leads because they are small businesses who can’t afford our services. I’ve been lucky enough to be able to work with larger companies for many years, and of course I charge accordingly.

Penalty for Linking to Unrelated Sites? - Forum member “LarryB713″ was told by an SEO “expert” that linking to unrelated sites could get his site penalized by the search engines and was wondering if it was true.

Advisor Wrap-up 189 - Quick update on what’s been going on with me and High Rankings lately.

Landing-page Dilemma - I work for a nonprofit retreat center for which our main offerings are (you guessed it) retreat programs. Until recently, whenever we sent out email flyers about our programs, we had the link go directly to the program’s unique page on our website. Our marketing director has been trying to make a case for sending the clicker to the landing page that would then direct the clicker to a list of programs, including the one on which he or she clicked.

Redirecting Non-www to www Version - I am surprised to see that your own website still has both the www and non-www version in place — no redirect to get the “link juice” from the non-www version. Do you consider this a not so important issue? Both versions have good PR.

Meta Tag Includes - I have a question relating to Meta tags and the head document.

High Rankings Seminar - March 15-16, 2007 in Minneapolis, MN - The High Rankings Search Marketing Seminar is right around the corner on March 15-16 in Minneapolis, MN. If you haven’t signed up yet, here are my top 10 reasons why you should register NOW:

Confused About Nofollow? So Is Google! - Did you know that Google supposedly doesn’t crawl nofollows? My understanding was that they are to be used for untrusted links, not to keep Google’s spider out of places. (There are already tags/attributes for that.) However, Google seems to keep changing what they want to use the nofollow attribute for.

Wrap-up 187 - It’s sure been a busy few weeks around High Rankings headquarters. That’s because we actually finally *have* a headquarters! We just signed the lease for some great office space in Framingham, MA and are slowly moving in this week. It’s very exciting! If anyone would like to send us an office-warming gift [cough…chocolate], the new address is:

Why Use Keyword Research Tools? - Keywords. I have been designing web sites for 5 +/- yrs, so I am aware of what they are and how they are being used / can be used. I’m not saying I am an expert, just that I’m not a novice.

3 Simple Rules for Creating an Effective USP - You have one, whether you know it or not. Everybody does. There is something unique about your business; you just have to discover what it is. And therein lies the problem. Most business owners and managers don’t understand how to create a truly unique selling proposition (USP). There are specific criteria to consider in order to get your message across clearly and succinctly.

302- vs. 301-redirects for Domain Changes - Not quite 2 years ago, Scottie Claiborne wrote a brilliant article here in HRA on how to switch to a new domain while avoiding the nasty effects of the aging delay.

Anything Unusual Happening with Google? - If your rankings have slipped in Google recently, you’re not alone. Check out this thread regarding a recent Google update that killed a few sites’ rankings.

Advisor Wrap-up 186 - I’m heading out early for a networking event in Boston. Gotta do some competitive intelligence for good ‘ole SEMNE!

New CMS Changing File Extensions - Our web site has been around for many years and we are switching over to a content management system coded in JSP, but with extensions ending in .do as opposed to what we currently have, .asp.

London Seminar? - I notice you also hold a lot of seminars which would be incredibly beneficial to someone in my position. I also notice that all your seminars are held in America.

Optimizing Flash Sites - I am working for a Flash site that is brand-new. How can that be indexed and come up in the SERPs?

Wordtracker or KeywordDiscovery? - I notice you always promote both KeywordDiscovery and WordTracker. I am trying to decide which one to subscribe to.

Search Engines Indexing Dynamic Sites - I don’t understand how search engines list dynamic sites. For example, this site has a whole bunch of products. Every single product page calls up the same url: www.example.com/products.php.

Wrong Code - I recently met with a company that provides SEO as one of their services and I was told point-blank that our site is written with the “wrong code,” and therefore the search engines can’t read it. I use FrontPage and have nothing more fancy than text, tables, pictures, and some links to other industry sites. Should I be suspicious?

Now You See It, Now You Don’t - I recently SEO-ed my site. Yahoo started re-indexing my website: they already showed 37 of the new links (internal URLs) within my site. This morning I had another look at these links within Yahoo and got an unpleasant surprise: they showed the links from the previous version of my site. I’m wondering if you have an explanation of why this happened.

Links in New Window - I am continually frustrated with web sites that provide a link, but when I click on it, it takes me OFF their site and onto another.

Trade-off Between Company and Search Term in Title - I really would prefer having company name come first, but I feel, looking at competition that the best search term leading off (3-5) words at beginning and the company after…

Advisor Wrap-up 185 - So how were your holidays? Mine were very low-key, which is exactly as I like it. We did get a chance to head down to Florida to visit my 98-year-old grandmother, who’s still doing great!