While most SEO’s already know the ins and outs of off-site search engine optimization, but what often gets overlooked is the actual on-site SEO which may be a key reason as to why you are not at the top of the SERP’s. I’ve compiled a list of things the beginner SEO can do to make sure his or her site is fully optimized for the search engines.

1. The Title Tag – Single handedly the most crucial element of on-site optimization. Make sure you have your main keywords in here. A useful plug-in for this if your using Wordpress is optimal title.
2. The H1/H2 Text – Are also extremely important because they show the search engine the main subjects and “table of contents” for your sites content. These should be targeted towards the keywords you want to rank for, and should be indicative of your title tag.
3. First sentence of body text – In terms of advanced SEO tactics, the first sentence for the body for every page on your site will be picked up by the SE’s and more importantly are picked up by Google’s LSI algorithm.
4. Meta Keywords, Description and Robots Tag — The site’s meta tags are always used to place your site in the rankings. As well your sitemap.xml will be looked at by Google on a regular basis so keep it updated.
5. The Body Text – Try to keep your focused body text in bold as this will be more emphatic to the search engines.
6. The URL — The subdirectory folder and page of content should be optimized. A useful way to do this with wordpress is through permalinks. (Settings -> Permalinks -> Custom Structure, and then use “/%category%/%postname%/”) So for http://site.com/SEO-optimization-in-toronto.html would rank higher for a page devoted to “SEO optimization in Toronto” simply due to this structure.
7. Same Site Link Texts — Make sure all your pages of your site are inter-linked or have some type of navigation whereas your main pages you are trying to rank for are linked. Make sense? Having your targeted keywords linked to other relevant pages can go a long way for a little higher rankings.
8. Same-Site Link URLs — Don’t just use keywords to describe pages inside your site, those URLs you link to should include SEO URLs as well. (eg: http://site.com/your-keyword.html)
9. Keyword Density — While this topic is generally up for debate, the general consensus is to have anywhere between 5-8% of your total text. So for a 500 word article you should have anywhere between 25-40 of those words as some sort of derivative of the keyword you are trying to rank for. While this isn’t THAT important for rankings, it should still be considered.
10. Image ALT Tags — Lastly you should always make sure to have your images optimized for keywords you wish to rank for. It wouldn’t hurt to go as far as to change the names of the images to be keyword-rich as well.

By using these simple methods, you can get a jump start on your off-site SEO so that you can focus more on getting inbound, authority backlinks from relevant sites. Then all you can do from there is write viral content and link build like a madman. I will be doing a follow up post on off-site SEO methods so stay tuned.

Sort of a continuation of my previous post, Firefox has decided to take it one step further and attempt to set a world record for most software downloads in 24 hours, and if anyone can do it, Firefox 3 can.

They have setup an affiliate page in pretty much every language you can think of with banners like the one below, so if you haven’t already, click below and pledge your allegiance to Firefox 3, and help set a world record. And if you decide to sign up to their affiliate program over at spreadfirefox.com you can earn points for your efforts which can win you t-shirts, if thats your thing.

At the time of writing this they are at roughly 175,000 users who pledged to download on the release day, and firefox itself had been downloaded 562992952 times, finally people are pushing IE under the carpet.

So go ahead and pledge to download Firefox 3 and set a Guinness World Record. I voted but im pretty sure it will come down to what the superdelegates want.

Update:

Download day is today!

This has been a hot topic in the SEO world for the past while now. I want to drop my bit of wisdom and share from experience what I have seen and heard. Many say that site wide links are extremely harmful and that search engines such as Google are now penalizing sites for this. Others say it is very profitable as a simple link exchange across one site can provide you with hundreds or even thousands of good links. So what to think for this?

I personally have many site wide link exchanges and from this I have learned a few things:

• Do not get to many to fast! The age of your site and the age of the linking site is of ultimate importance here. You do not want to exhcange links with every site out there just because you can. Be picky and choose sites that have been in existence longer than 1 year, sites that have good SE rankings, sites with a decent page rank, and sites with like content.
• Think before you act! Research the site(s) you plan to request a site wide link from. See how they stack up against their competition. Make sure your link won’t be #196 on the site. Does the site provide legitimate and helpful content? These are just a few of the factors to research.
• Don’t always seek after site wide link exchanges! Just like you don’t always order the exact same things at a restaurant, don’t ONLY go for site wide links.
• Try to get some links on specific articles pertaining to your site’s content, try to get a single link in a visible area on a high trafficed site, and so on.

I hope this clears up a bit of confusion. Site wide links can be a very good thing when used effectively and in moderation!

So for this april fools, instead of rick rolling you fools into the next millenium I decided to do something different.

One of the best when it comes to April fools, has to be the internet giant Google. This year they decided they would let you search into the future with a neat little box that allows you to search for future sites, and the hilarity ensues.

And if you haven’t had enough Rick Astley for two lifetimes then Youtube made sure of that by forwarding all their featured videos on http://uk.youtube.com/ to the infamous video. Youtube also has the BBC documentary on penguins based off of the TV series “Planet Earth” im guessing.

Another winner has to be thinkgeek, who every year comes up with a selection of farcical products to enlighten their shoppers. Taking a look at their homepage today will show Super Pii Pii Bros, a game for the Wii where you would imitate urination, as well as an onslaught of other hysterical products. (ie. The USB pregnancy test.. lol)

ESPN also decided to join in the fun with a farce to play on the current political campaign, naming it “Election Deathmatch” whereas they poke fun at pretty much all political parties running for office, as well as the boneheads currently residing.

And if you still haven’t had enough April Fools jokes, you can signup with google’s latest venture to mars for sustainable development, coined “Virgle”.

Either way, enjoy the fun this April Fools day, and dont get sidetracked from all the jokes and forget about your real work!

So I was bored, and I happened across a killer domain using one of my elite domaining tools. Hence JamURL.com was born.

Basically a rip off of tinyurl and countless other short url redirection services, JamURL aims to shorten your websites for usage within either mobile applications or social networks.

It can also be used for hiding affiliate links if you are trying to promote something and dont want your surfer to see your affiliate code. Overall a simple service that I thought I would throw out there.

What is the next step up from addiction? Facebook Chat…

Well apparently people want to be able to feed their crackbook addictions in real time, hence Facebook Chat. A program that will be on the bottom of the page, allowing the user to see number of friends online, and allow you to chat with them in separate chat windows.

So if IRC/AIM/Msn/Skype/Gtalk/ICQ/yahoo etc. messengers/clients weren’t enough for you, you can now get your instant messaging fix on facebook as well. The program will boast such features as online/offline status’, similar to various messengers already in use. Users can also clear chat history and their chat status will appear sitewide for your friends to see, with the option to let everyone see, in case you like those creepers

On a scale of 1-10 (1 being mildly useless/10 being totally useless) I would have to give this a 20… but hey im a hater. Check out a demo video of the chat in use below…its kinda blurry.

Obviously you should be using firefox, and if your not, you most likely are a microsoft fanboy, or have simply been living under a rock the past 5 years.

The vast majority of extensions are available at Mozilla’s website but there are many hidden gems among their database, and sifting through it can become a daunting task, hence “The 5 Best Damn Firefox Extensions, Period!”

Yeah, I dont like those long stupid lists…so without further delay

Download Statusbar

Instead of that annoying downloads window that consistantly pops up everytime you begin a new download, the download statusbar will replace it with a neat bar in the statusbar of the browser which shows your downloads conveniently. I’ve been personally using this one since I first learned about firefox extensions, and you should too.

Web Developer

Provides for on the fly dynamic CSS editing, html validation and resizing. A must have for any web developer to work out kinks in your sites.

Google Toolbar

No affiliate link, but if you would like to click the Google for Firefox banner on the right. This is a must have to anyone who is a fan of google. You can easily search from your toolbar menu as well as check the pagerank on the go.

Adsense Notifier

Will display your adsense earnings in the statusbar, useful if you are using google adsense across your network.

Firebug

Useful for showing load times of your website along with session variables and other misc. information.

So there is my top 5 as of right now, but I will most likely come across even more useful extensions, at which point I will refer back to this post.. Enjoy!

So what exactly is winzy.com you ask? Well, it is a search engine with an ingenious twist.. whether or not that twist will help with the longevity of the site remains to be seen.

Basically there are 3 ways you can win prizes, by seasrching and winning instantly, inviting friends, and earning points to enter into monthly draws. If you are a winner you will see a notification on your screen telling you what you need to do to redeem your prize.

	search and win

So the more you use them to search, the higher the chance that you will win something. As to the depth and reach of their search engine… that remains to be seen as well.

TNX.net is a marketplace for webmasters both looking for publishing tools as well as advertising. Webmasters are able to choose their advertisers themselves while placing links that are relevant to pages on their site.   The price of the links is very reasonable and you are given the ability to promote hundreds of keywords with just a few clicks.  TNX pays out on a monthly basis for their publishers network in a very convenient fashion through either paypal, check, wire or bank transfer.

They also have a variety of advertiser tools to make your paid links look natural for Google, with a link generator and a simple cloak script you can accomplish a very easy affiliate link.   They offer an affiliate program for which you can also make a pretty penny off of referrals to their network.

In terms of ease of use, the site is very easy to navigate and the admin panel makes it extremely easy for both advertisers and publishers. You can automatically place tons of non-recip links to your site as well all through their system.  As an advertiser you can get some of the lowest prices on links anywhere.  I think it was around $10 a month for about 10,000 static links to your website, which may or may not be accurate, but even still it is a good deal.

For SEO consultants and specialists, you can apply for their program and get discounts up to 50% off which goes well beyond any other text links marketplace out there.  There are minimum requirements for joining the TNX marketplace, however they arent that stringent and you should be able to meet the standards.

Overall TNX is a great system to assist website owners in attracting visitors and clients from search engines and relevant websites.  It helps to reduce the dependency on search engines, as well as improve quality of the search results for those websites that join the TNX system.

Blogs are quickly becoming one of the best marketing tools that small businesses and even large corporations can use. Whether your business is online or offline you can use a blog to keep your customers up to date on the latest events and generally use a blog as a marketing and advertising tool for extra revenue.

Blogs enable direct interaction with customers and allow them to see what goes on behind the scenes as well as keep up to date with the latest news. Blogs are inexpensive to start and run, enabling you to use thousands of themes to change the look of your site at the click of a button.

Here are a 5 key reasons as to how blogging for your company can be a good thing:

• Direct communication between you and your clientel.
• Blogs are great for SEO, fresh content added daily will bring traffic.
• The more relevant the content the more opporunity for the niche to branch off into other areas which in turn creates more revenue..
• Comments allow direct feedback customers as well as potential clientel.
• Cost effective, low startup cost, high return.

Make sure to give your customers a reason to read your blog as well.  Have them directly interacting with you by using polls, questionnaires, giveaways and contests, and you will see a surge in the growth of your company as well as some added side revenue from your blog.