Big blogs and there no follow tags

Today Dave Naylor announced he has removed the no follow tags from his blog and replaced them with strict moderation. His blog is one of my favorite sources for SEO news and updates and this is a big deal because so many "authority" blogs wrap their links up tight and keep all their juice to themselves. If this becomes a trend across the board, you may begin to see more quality discussions on these blogs. By his statement alone he should at least triple his traffic from curious SEOs. www.davidnaylor.co.uk is a great source for information, but the best parts of some blogs are the discussions that follow the posts, blogs are meant to be interactive, and I believe he is simply encouraging more user participation.

They say that Web 3.0 will be completely user generated content, and by current blogs encouraging such interaction and participation, this maybe the perfect segway into the next development of the internet. Blogs with only a few pages could soon become giant sites with hundreds of pages of user generated content and quality discussion.

Strict moderation is the key, I have never been one for spammy comments. I much rather participate in the discussion and try to learn something while I gather my links. If you are serious about SEO and link building you should try to become a regular contributer on quality blogs. Genuine, intelligent comments could lead to so much more than just a link from a page that has 50 outbound links.

Thanks Dave.

SEO Quake plugin for Firefox

I am a Safari/Opera kind a guy, I guess I spend so much time making sure my HTML and CSS are valid that I only want browsers that read strict/valid code, but I came across this great Firefox plugin called SEO Quake that gives you a head start on competitive analysis. SEO Quake installs a tool bar in your SERPs that shows the # of pages in the directory for a site, the # of pages indexed on the site, the Google PR, the Alexa rank, the # of inbound links, and so on. Firefox may be slow, but this is a great tome saving tool for SEOs. SEO Quake even shows you the who is for the SEO guys that like to contact the owners for links. Check it out here

Tool: PR Checker

I really hate when people worry about PR, but I need to start posting some tools on this blog, so here you go. Honestly, page rank has nothing to do with SERPs and comes naturally when SEO is done "right", so don't get all tied up in the "My PR goes up to 11" thing. I believe the only good thing PR is good for is it gives you a good pricing scale when you are selling links(don't tell Google I said that).

Check Page Rank of any web site pages instantly:

This free page rank checking tool is powered by Page Rank Checker service

Keyword Density, Spamming and Stuffing

When optimizing a website for the search engines you have to weigh your keyword density and how it effects the quality of your content. The most important thing is providing quality content your readers can use and content that gives them a reason to either come back or link to your website or blog. If your keyword density percentage is too high, it could interfere with the delivery and readability of the content. As a general rule, your keyword density should be between 3-5%, that is just enough to say what you have to say without suspiciously over emphasizing, or repeating the same words over and over again.

Having your keyword density too high, say 10-12%, will interfere your message and could be seen as keyword stuffing to the search engines. Keyword Stuffing is simply that, when your keyword density is so high that no reader can get any use out of the content containing the content.

Good SEO copy:
Goatsmilktavern Studios is a New Orleans based SEO company, we have provided Search Engine Optimization for many clients, whilst keeping up to date on the latest search engine changes. gmtS can design your website in a search engine friendly way and optimize it with the latest SEO strategies.

As you can see this copy delivers a clear statement that is not hindered by the terms SEO and search engine optimization.

Pushing the SEO copy (might not get you banned):
SEO Goatsmilktavern Studios is a New Orleans based SEO, Goatsmilktavern SEO has only Done Search Engine Optimization for many SEO Clients, whilst keeping up to date on the latest SEO and search engine changes, This SEO found designing the sites for SEO Clients, that we could control on their SEO needs. For more on SEO, contact Goatsmilktavern Studios a New Orleans SEO.

That example might not get you banned, but can you see how it is harder to read.

Almost or good chance of being banned by the almighty google:
SEO Goatsmilktavern is a New Orleans based SEO, this SEO has only Done Search Engine Optimisation for large SEO our clients, whilst keeping up to date on the latest SEO and search engine changes, This SEO found designing websites for SEO Clients, we could concentrate on their SEO needs. For more on SEO, contact Goatsmilktavern a New Orleans SEO.

Tags : Seo, Search Engine Optimisation,Search Engine Optimization, New Orleans SEO, SEO in New Orleans, not Cheap SEO

Bad SEO Copy and keyword stuffing (will get you banned)

I stole that pic from Dave Naylor's weblog because there is no way in hell I'm gonna type it on my site.

Keyword spamming is using keywords that are not relevant to your website. For instance if you are selling shoelaces, don't put plasma screen TVs in on your website, it is not relevant and will interfere with you selling shoelaces. The coolest example of this can be found at Matt Cutt's blog.

The website in the example is selling the secret to eternal youth and says that being banned by Google is a conspiracy to cover the truth, and has nothing to do with the invisible text field at the bottom left hand side of the screen.

Here is the text field:

As you can see keyword spamming can look quite sill, and yes, you may get away with it for a while, but you will be "covered-up" by the almighty Google eventually.

My point is, say what you need to say and give your visitors good information and the search engine gods will reward you for helping make the internet a better place. I'm not saying don't do keyword research and don't tailor you content to your KEI, just don't make your copy sound like crap.

Using Google Alerts for SEO

The rel=nofollow experiment has been put on hold for the time being, the 4 weekly publications I make have been taking all my time due to a shortage of manpower. I would like to talk about an important part of my strategy for the experiment, Google Alerts.

Google Alerts is a service provided by Google to tell readers when links have been indexed by their spiders containing keywords set by the user. If you are interested in "internet marketing", you could set an alert to be notified when Google indexes a page containing "internet marketing". You can set the frequency of these notifications so your inbox doesn't fill up with junk from Google.

I am using the service to tell me when a page is indexed with words like "goatsmilktavern" or "new orleans web design". This takes some time out of the pains of discovering which pages with links to gmtS have been indexed.

There are a lot of tools available to you that can be used for SEO, just get creative. Anything to save time and help you with your analytic reports for your clients is a good tool to keep handy.

murrydan, Goatsmilktavern Studios, a New Orleans based web design and internet marketing company.