Toronto Affiliate Marketer & SEO Consultant Lorne Fade

When it comes to getting your website ranked in the SE’s, it comes down to variety of factors that all pertain to your pages overall visibility. Lower visibility on the search engines means less traffic, and less reach, we don’t want that. So how does page ranking actually work you may ask. Behind all the complex algorithms put in place by Google, the actual system for ranking is quite simple. I will go over some of the best ways you can optimize your site to make sure you have the best ranking possible across all SE’s, not just big G.

External Links: Page Rank is frequently amplified by the # and quality of inbound links. The better the sites that link back to yours, the better. You can attain these through massive email campaigns, networking with similar sites, or buying reciprocal links. Stay away from link trades as they are now deemed a negative impact on ranking as well as your SERP.

google pagerank explained

Keywords: SEO, SEM, Meta Tags, various social media advertising platforms (Adwords/YSM/Facebook Ads) all rely on these crucial elements. There are two types of keywords that can be implemented. Firstly there is the primary keyword which is the base for what you are targeting. Then you have a secondary keyword which is less pertinent but still helps to pinpoint what you’re targeting. Try to avoid keyword spam, as you need to place your primary keywords throughout your site strategically (H1, Title Tags, etc.) so that the SE’s can place your site quickly and easily.

Optimizing website content: The driving force that contributes to page ranking is textual content. You need to ensure that your web site has sufficient text on each page to facilitate proper indexing by the SE’s. Also keep in mind that the text on your page will not include images or Flash elements. The body copy of a web page should have the correct and most important keyword phrases.

Page titles: You need to create appropriate page titles for each of the web pages on your website. A page title is the first line of copy that is displayed during search listing. To attract visitors, you need to apply the right keywords and compelling copy in page titles.

Dynamic URLs: If you are using a dynamic URL then search engines will face difficulty in indexing your web pages. Try to avoid using dynamic URL’s.

Edit: Flash/JavaScript content: I was unaware, but apparently the SE’s can now read data from flash files, so feel free to create your menu’s and navigation in flash, however I would shy away from this as im sure not ALL the SE’s can read your swf’s. As for JavaScript, the SE’s also have trouble indexing websites using Java based navigation, so stay away from it.

Aaron Wall over at SEOBook has recently released a great tool that I am just diving into called the SEO Toolbar. So far this thing looks great, its got a bunch of nifty features as well as an SEO X-ray tool and a competitive analysis tool which look like they will be really useful. The competition tool can track data from Compete, Google Trends, Quantcast, Alexa & SEMRush as well as show PPC destination urls.

What would happen if you smooshed together many of the best parts of Rank Checker, SEO for Firefox, the best keyword research tools across the web, a feed reader (pre-populated with many SEO feeds), a ton of competitive research tools, the ability to compare up to 5 competing sites against each other, easy data export, and boatloads of other features into 1 handy Firefox extension? Well, you would have the SEO Toolbar.

Some of the main features listed are:

• Google PR
• Yahoo linkdomain/pagelinks
• DMOZ/Yahoo/BOTW Directories
• Archive.org Site Age
• Compete.com Uniques
• SEMRush.com Traffic Value
• Competition Analysis
• SE Rank Checker
• SEO X-Ray
• Keyword Suggestion

And that’s not even half of it.  There are tips and techniques available for the more advanced SEO’s out there, as well as a generalized section for the total newbs.  All in all I think this will be a great plugin, and might even replace my Google toolbar and SEO for Firefox altogether.

For a full list of features head over to the download and overview page.

Okay, so it’s been awhile since I dropped a knowledge bomb on you fools, and I figure I need to start writing quality content rather than posts on how much alcohol I was able to consume, or how many girls I was able to… well you get the point.  So I am gonna kick off my 2009 with a guide for the seasoned affiliate marketer looking to branch out and add another stream of income to their reservoir.

I have a “bunch” of automated blogs that I just leave on autopilot building themselves 3-4 posts a day using some nifty software (we’ll get to that), and slowly but surely increasing in organic rankings and traffic. One such blog I have done no promotion whatsoever, just some onsite SEO and blast off.  After about 2 months its already getting 150-180 unique’s daily consistently.  While this may be nothing to write home about, it still banks me a dollar a day ya heard. When it comes to online marketing, you should know by now that its a number game, and without the numbers you just wont have the moolah.

Now in terms of monetization I find it best to make sure the blog doesn’t look like a spammy automated blog (duh), so I don’t put ads on the homepage, I just scatter them on the inlay pages and hope that the surfer stays on the site long enough to click. Automated blogs are great for adsense earnings because they do all the work for you once you put the initial effort in. $30/month per blog is not bad either for no promotion. Note: On all of my blogs I make sure to only post 3-4 new posts daily, others have said you can get away with 6-8, but Im not greedy and I want them to look as natural as possible.

Installer Software

WP Mass Installer – One of the best mass installers for WP, just fill out the required fields and your up and running.

BlogSlammer – Recently came across this, purchased it and am loving it. It costs $129 and you can literally setup a blog in 2 minutes FLAT using Blog Creator. Which is great, and really helps when it comes to scaling your blogs. You also get 9000 articles when you buy it which come in handy for your content needs.

Now down to the nitty gritty insides of my wp-content\plugins folder. I’ve compiled a list as well as some of the software I use that make my life pretty easy, and hopefully yours too.

Content Generation / Scraping

Caffeinated Content for WordPress – Instant content. Targeted content. Automatic content. No this one isn’t free boys and girls, but what good things ever are.  $77 for this invaluable plugin that will give your blog a ton of legit content and serve it any way you want it.

WP Drip Feeder – This plugin automatically drips content onto your blog, this one isn’t free either, but more than affordable @ $45. Theorhetically you only really need 1 of these, but I’d opt for both since it makes for a more natural looking site.

WP-o-matic – Takes fresh content from RSS feeds.  This one is free so you pretty much have to grab it.

WP VideoTube – If you drive traffic from youtube, or are in a niche that uses video heavily, then you cant go wrong with WP VideoTube. This one goes for $30 – $60 depending on how many keywords you want to target, I got the lite version for $30 and its fine for me, but you may want more functionality.

Content Spinning

Now you have a few options when it comes to spinning your content.

JetSpinner – I recently found out about JetSpinner which is a totally free article spinner that has worked pretty nice for me so far in testing, and for $37 a month you can use their JetSubmitter service to submit all those articles to 641 directories as well as some bonus features for JetSpinner. Not a bad deal at all.

Must Have WP Plugins

Google Analytics – This is a freebie and a must have to track activity/statistics.

Google XML Sitemap Generator – . This creates a Google friendly sitemap for your blog, in seconds. It can also make a robots file, which is mega useful for WordPress MU blogs.

Global Translator - Just because they speak another language doesn’t mean they can’t click our ads.

Platinum SEO Pack – There are few SEO packs that are available, I have used All-in-One for a long time, recently switching over to Platinum’s and I haven’t looked back since, a really sweet plugin that you must have.

StatPress – Way better than Awstats, WP Stats, Google Stats, hell I think Statpress is even better than Mint, which says a lot. This ones free as well, so you cant go wrong.  Statpress is a must have to make your sites better, and to know where your traffic is coming from, as well as which pages are doing better than others.

Privacy Policy - This free plugin keeps you from getting bitch slapped by Google. 99% of blogs/autoblogs, fail to add this simple yet vital plugin to their blogs, thereby disobeying Adsense’s Terms of Service.

WordPress Automatic Upgrade – A must have free plugin for busy marketers. Just a few clicks and your wordpress install is upgraded to the latest version, kinda makes you feel warm and fuzzy inside.

PingCrawler – A really nifty plugin by Eli over @ Bluehatseo, basically it automatically pings other blogs when you make a post, which is really useful for driving traffic to your blogs. Get Linkcurl for WP2.7 blogs.

WP-Affiliate – Automatically setup affiliate links for insertion into your posts on the fly.

Auto Social Poster – This is the first one on this list that isnt free, but thats for a good reason.  This plugin will allow your posts to be submitted to 18 social bookmarking accounts/sites.  You pay for posts.  5000 is $49 their most basic package, and for the guru there is a million for $299.  It really depends on how much you are pushing, but this one is a must have for building traffic & backlinks.

Adsense Deluxe – Obviously you might need some sort of Adsense ads management, and this does the job, better than Adsense Manager.

WP Database backup – A must incase you lose your database.

Redirection – A neat plugin that simply redirects your 404 pages to the page of your choice. *cough* affiliate link *cough*

WordPress MU – WordPress administration of all your blogs from one admin panel. Pretty freakin sweet.

There are a few others like akismet, and related posts, but those are so common place you should already have them by now.

Make sure that when your setting up your blogs, you make unique ad units for every blog, otherwise it will look odd that you have the same ads on every site. Go for 4-5 posts per day per blog, there is no need to rush your content creation as the crawlers usually index rather slowly anyway.  You risk being de-indexed if you rush, so you will have invested all your time for nothing.Also make sure to use unique class-c ip’s so your blogs are on different ips. Something I didnt touch base on is cloaking, so I’ll save that for another day, but it shouldn’t be too hard for you to lookup on the web now that you have all of this information.

If there is anything I missed or you guys know of other/better (or worse) plugins/software feel free to post them in the comments below.

Today I am going to talk about the steps put forward when taking on a new SEO client or when optimizing my own sites.  I use a 10 step formula which basically covers all aspects of optimization and ranking.

From competitive analysis, keyword research, directories and articles all the way through to social bookmarking. Everything you need to get started optimizing your site today, in a quick and easy to follow manner. So lets get started..

1. Initial Analysis

During the initial analysis of a campaign I will look at what your target niche is and plan around where you would like to take it. Whether that may be a service or product route or if your simply ranking for an aggregate affiliate program, the ground work needs to be laid out so you can decide on which keywords to focus on, which leads into the next stage.

2. Keyword Research and Analysis

Perhaps the most important of all the stages, keyword analysis sets the tone for your entire optimization process and will prove whether or not you are successful marketing with the search engines.  I like to use Keyword Elite for my research as it has a friendly interface and makes your keyword research a breeze.  What you are looking for when researching keywords are niche relevant words that have a decent amount of search traffic, but not so much as to make it too competitive.  Its about finding the right balance, which can sometimes be hard to do.   Thankfully there are other tools available like the Google Keyword Tool which can make this daunting task simple.

3. Competitor Analysis

Once you have your keywords selected you will need to take a look at what the top sites in your niche are doing to have those top rankings.  You can use free online tools like SEO Digger to lookup their info, or you can use a more complete solution like SEO Elite which will automate it all for you (in a very similar way to Keyword Elite).  Once you know what your competition is doing, or not doing, you will have an advantage on where to go next in terms of your optimization campaign.

4. Sitemap/RSS Feed Inclusion

The next step I like to do is generate an xml sitemap for google, so that the spiders can start tracking your pages as fast as possible.  If you are running a wordpress blog, this task is done quickly and easily with the Google Sitemaps plugin. After creating an xml sitemap I make sure I have an RSS feed setup for subscribers, and make sure its easily accessible.

5. Search Engine + Directory Submission

While it is debated that you should allow the spiders to crawl your pages instead of submitting to the SE’s, I myself have never had any issues with this and always find that I can get my pages indexed that much faster simply be submitting to the major engines. (Yahoo, Google, Msn)  Directory submission is a whole other ballgame.  There are services on Wickedfire and DP for directory submission and you can usually get your site submitted to 500+ directories for pretty cheap.  While this doesn’t really boost you THAT much in the rankings, it does help and should not be overlooked.

6. Social Bookmarking

Social bookmarking is submitting your site and your sites content across social networks like digg, reddit, furl, delicious, technorati and the list goes on.  Even now I would consider using twitter as a social bookmarking tool.  I prefer using Bookmarking Demon for my submission as it makes it quick and painless for a task that would otherwise be mundane and time-consuming.  There are other free services out there like Social Marker that do the same thing in essence, so be sure to check them out too.

7. Blogs & Press Release Creation

Its a no brainer that the search engines love wordpress, so creating a blog for rankings should fall hand in hand with any SEO campaign.  At the same time creating a press release for the launch of a new product or service is a great way to build steam aka traffic for your site.  Once you have a press release written up I would recommend using PR Wizard to get it blasted out to over 28,000 media outlets, which in turn create backlinks and much needed publicity, a big plus.

8. Article Submission

Once you have some content on your blog/site, you will undoubtedly have some articles in which to press around the various article sites on the net.  Now while there are a few major ones which gain more precedence than others, I prefer to just submit them to the whole lot using Article Post Robot. This neat little application allows you to select as little or as many article sites from their database of over 500.  You can select sites with the highest PR or you can just choose the ones that don’t require a login (save time), the choice is entirely up to you.

9. Link Popularity

Link popularity is the measure of quality incoming links from other sites.  The more backlinks you have from higher PR sites, the higher your link popularity will be.  There are service sites out there that will check it for you, or you can go the old fashion way and just go to Google and type link:www.sitename.com and get your total number of listed backlinks.

10. SERP Report

Once I have completed all these aforementioned steps I usually do a final report to see where I am ranking and also to see what I can improve upon.  I record my keywords and where they are ranking at the start of my campaign, and then do another lookup at the end of the campaign (usually a month) to see the progress I have made. I prefer to use SEO Elite for my reporting but there are a slew of programs out there that you can use.

I don’t cover link bait development in my SEO campaigns, and I don’t drive tons of backlinks using other social media methodologies not discussed.  But using these basic 10 steps you can build a basis to work from, and will more than anything be a step ahead of the competition.  And as niches and sites get more and more competitive, it definitely doesn’t hurt to get a step ahead.

Yeah so I thought I’d go ahead and flex my e-peen and let you all know that I just copped a Blackberry Bold.  While the haters out there are already telling me I shoulda got the new Blackberry “Storm” that’s coming out, I frankly don’t see you haters, and because my old phone was such a piece of shit, ANY phone would be better.

New Phone:

Old Phone:

You can obviously see the ginormous difference between the two.  Anyways lets hope this builds upon the creativity and networking capabilities that I was so limited to before. With msn/aim/twitterberry all loaded onto my handheld, I think I’ll be able to keep up where ever I am.  All i need now is IRC and id be complete…oh IRC for blackberry, where art thou?

I was also in awe that I could load up a gigaton of e-books in .pdf format and now can read them where ever I please.  This is a huge bonus, because I hardly have time to sit at my computer and read e-books.  I got my music setup on there, custom ringtones so the ladies know im ballin, and the camera actually doesn’t suck, I think its a 2.0 megapixel.  The only downside is that I need to wear a proverbial phone-bra since the phone is really delicate, and i’ve heard some horror stories about it being dropped once and never to return.

Another huge plus is having connectivity to my email accounts, as well as the fact that I can browse the web for only the price of a small car every month.  (okay well its not that bad, but seriously our data plans SUCK in Canada.)

All in all its a great phone, has everything you need, and while it may not have all the apps of the iphone, it still holds its own.  Anyone out there who is looking to upgrade their curve’s or the like should look into the bold. If anyone knows where I can get some bootleg apps for blackberry’s please let me know.

The latest installment in the Zeitgeist movie project explores the dependency we have on money and exposes the monetary system and how it is used to control the masses. A very interesting piece indeed.