Why all web developers should learn SEO

Who this is for
If you build web sites Sees That the public, then this is for you. If you build stuff that's hidden behind firewalls and forms, or for Target Stores, this probably will not help you a bit.

Learn SEO Because:
It will make you a better developer
Truly future-proof not is about SEO spamming search engines. It's about:
* Clean canonicalization practices;
* Accessibility-ensuring 100% visibility of Appropriate content to web users and search engines;
* Building sites fast;
* RESTful URLs;
* Smart information architecture, supported by Equally smart database design;
* Security-not letting the casual browsers and search engines find stuff They Should not.
Huh.
A lot of That sounds like good development, too.
I know you're not Causing any SEO problems. But I still see lots of sites:
* Linking back to the home page at 'default.aspx';
* Loading pages in over 10 seconds;
* Using AJAX search engine as repellent;
* Presenting information Structures That look like steel wool after 2 hours in a microwave.
Clearly it's not you, but someone's up to no good. Read the rest of this article and then check the guy you share a PC with.

It will help you understand why SEOs are dry and the pain
SEO is a huge list of things That are simple, but not easy. It's an endless list of to-do items. Every One Of Them is a no-brainer if you're a decent developer, and if you do Them ahead of time.

Once the site launches, or That new feature goes live, SEO fixing problems Gets Tougher. You will not have time. Your manager, who thinks SEOs are idiots, will run around like headless Them chickens. Or something else. I know from painful personal experience That, post-launch, there are always 10 Reasons That a change is one line of code has to wait for at least six weeks.
On the other hand, 85% of your site's search-driven clicks will come from organic search results. And a huge chunk of your site's traffic will come from search. SEO screw up, screw over the Entire Business.

That's why we're dry and the pain. This stuff is really important. And it's easy for you, but really hard for everyone else.

It will teach you marketing, without giving you the marketing Cooties
That do not suck SEOs are very Similar Likely to you. We're geeky, creative and cool stuff like building. We like to win. And we want to buy expensive cars Eventually and sailboats.

Also we're marketers. We learn stuff like personas, competitive analysis, That kind of thing.

If you want to talk to a marketer who will not infect you with some horrific virus That makes you use terms like 'engagement' and 'roll rate' and (God forbid) 'ROI', talk to an SEO.

It'll save you a lot of time. And misery.
At some point, your CEO is going to use Google to search for the products you sell. Then, she's going to storm into the VP of Marketing's office and say:
"Why the f-k do not we rank for 'briefcases'?"
The VP of Marketing last week just started and knows his last three predecessors had a tenure of one year. Total. So he sas the only logical thing:
"The development team screwed up the site!"
Then the CEO will storm over to the VP of Development. But he has a ready answer:
"It was not in the specification."

That will lead the CEO back to the VP of Marketing, who will then hire an SEO consultant in hopes of saving his job.

The SEO consultant will draw up a huge list. Means Huge 50-100 fundamental changes to your site.

That will lead to a meeting Where You, the VP of Development, the VP of Marketing and the CEO Confront the SEO all the while trying to Blame Each Other for the utter crap sack of SEO your site has become.

And, finally, you'll have to work nights and weekends. Because the VP of Marketing's job is in jeopardy. He's kicking as much blame as Possible to the VP of Development. That would not matter, an except the VP of Marketing, did some of this kicking in the last board meeting. So now the VP of Development's job is in jeopardy. That really pisses him off. He's made it clear, your life will be a living hell.

Or, you can learn SEO basics, Develop Them for from the start, and make everyone happy. Your nights and weekends are saved!

Works for Me, Either Way
Regardless I'm happy. If you continue to treat SEO like a fungal infection, I'll continue to get hired for lots of money to point out why the web site is a failure. If you build sites with at least a little SEO in mind, though, I get to concentrate on moving up in the rankings, moving into an INSTEAD OF Them.

Google Instant Now On New Google Toolbar7

Instant Google continues to spread. The company just announced that one of several new features on Google Toolbar for Internet Explorer 7 and 8 Instant 9.

Google be enabled through the Options menu, and once on, instant works the same way Google. com. The Esc key on your keyboard allows you to return to the page before you start searching.

Another novelty is the customization of the toolbar - the tools you use most often remain visible, while others will be moved to a "More" button.

Finally, Google has already collected his privacy settings on a new menu with options tab. It seems that users who "advanced"option to enable / disable individual Basis

the on a new toolbar is now available for download in English, and will be ready in other languages ​​supported in the coming week.

Linking Google Analytics to Webmaster Tools

If you use Google Analytics to track site data, you can now link your Webmaster Tools verified site to an Analytics profile when they use the same Google Account.

Not only will your Analytics profiles be accessible within Webmaster Tools, but you'll also be able to more easily access a few Google Analytics features:

• View your Google Analytics Referring Pages report directly from the Links to your site page in Webmaster Tools. This report helps you understand the overall trends in traffic volume from referrals, as well as the sites driving those trends.

• Access the Google Analytics Dashboard directly from the Analytics link in the top left bar when you’re on a site-related page.


To link a verified site in Webmaster Tools to a Google Analytics profile:

1. On the Webmaster Tools home page, click Manage next to the site you want, then click Google Analytics profile.


Select the profile you want to associate with the site, then click Save.


Note: If your site has multiple owners, each owner will need to link their own account to a Google Analytics profile.

Excel Tools for SEO

Search Engine Optimization is an activity that calls for a lot of tools. There is so much data, so many variables, and so much change, that if you tried to do everything manually over the long term then you would soon get overwhelmed.

Thankfully there are a lot of free and commercial tools out there that can help a lot. What they don’t offer though is a way to keep track of all your own vital SEO information in a centralized manner, and you have very little customization or control available.

With this in mind we have been turning our Excel talents towards building some small tools that you can customize easily and completely, and taken together give you a great deal of SEO insight.


The Excel SEO Tools

These tools should be looked at as a suite of utilities but also as a guide to the main tasks that you should be performing in your SEO work. We start with getting an idea for where you are now. What do you already rank for, and how much work will be involved in getting further ahead?


Track Your Search Positions

Over time you will need to monitor your search positions, take note of what helps you creep nearer to that coveted number 1 spot, and what impacts you negatively, driving you down the rankings? The more terms you want to rank for, the more you need to automate this monitoring work!

Generate Keyword Variations
As just mentioned, it is not likely that you will only want to target one search phrase. Generating new phrases that you want to rank for is also important. One way we generate additional phrases is to create small variations on our existing keyword choices, especially when looking at PPC and the long tail. This Excel spreadsheet helps you do this.

Monitor Backlinks
Do you know how many of your link building results are sticking and which links are getting broken or pulled? You need to monitor your links and this spreadsheet will help you automate the process. It will also tell you if the link is passing Google juice or if it has been “no-followed”.

Check Your Redirects
Redirects can have a profound impact on your search results. Ideally when a page is moved, or when you want to send a visitor to a new URL, the redirect should be a permanent one so that the search engines know what to do with it. This tool will check a link and tell you what redirect type is returned and if it is working correctly.

Predict Organic Keyword Traffic
Do you know if that keyword phrase is worth the effort? Use this tool to predict the kind of travel levels you can expect for various rankings.

SEO Competitor Research
SEO is not just you versus the search engines, as you have no doubt realized. Yup, all your competitors are going after the same search results that you are. You need to watch what they are up to and react accordingly. Step one is finding out where your direct competitors are performing.

Internet marketing insanity, and it's only Tuesday

Oh. God.

It's been one of those weeks that shakes my faith in marketing.
And it's Tuesday.
So, second day of the week, and second ranty post.

First off, if Google is so damned smart, how is this butthead exploiting negative feedback for fun and profit? This is a guy who's calling people 'bitch', threatening them, getting panned by dozens of furious customers and then using that to pillage the rankings. I've decided to call every person I've ever pissed off and have them write negative reviews about me. I'll start with pre-school and work my way up. #1 ranking baybeee!!!

Twitter will temporarily shut you down if you break wind from the same IP address more than three times in succession. But they catapult Ashley Kerekes to internet fame when tens of thousands of people follow her by accident, thinking she's a cricket match.

Google's SERPs now resemble the subject of a Clients From Hell design story:

Did Microsoft secretly take over? Come on. Can anyone out there tell me where I can go to buy a bike? Especially since I'm not IN SYRACUSE NY?!!!
Then I find some fascist dirtbag whose web site tries to tell me I'm part of a vast Zionist conspiracy that secretly runs the world. Luckily, you all responded fantastically to that, restoring my faith and getting me past Tuesday. For which you have my thanks.

Petits fours in your search results

Recently we made a change to show more results from a domain for certain types of queries -- this helped searchers get to their desired result even faster. Today we’re expanding the feature so that, when appropriate, more queries show additional results from a domain. As a webmaster, you’ll appreciate the fact that these results may bring targeted visitors directly to the pages they’re interested in.Here’s an example: in the past, the query [moma] (the Museum of Modern Art), might have triggered two results from the official site:

With this iteration, our search results may show:
Up to four web results from each domain (i.e., several domains may have multiple results)
Single-line snippets for the additional results, to keep them compact
As before, we still provide links to results from a variety of domains to ensure people find a diverse set of sources relevant to their searches. However, when our algorithms predict pages from a particular site are likely to be most relevant, it makes sense to provide additional direct links in our search results.

Like all the hundreds of changes we make a year, we’re trying to help users quickly reach their desired result. Even though we’re constantly improving our algorithms, our general advice still holds true: create compelling, search-engine friendly sites in order to attract users, buzz, and often targeted traffic!

Beyond Good and Evil in SEO

The National Association of Realtors is "real estate merely goes up." This financial fallacy fosters the belief in prospect price increases and the restricted risk of purchasing real estate. In 2006, prices in a lot of markets began to fall. By 2008, the rate of price refuse had greatly accelerated. This is staged proof so as to real estate does not forever go up. Despite this clear fact, the National friendship of Realtors still tries to entice greedy buyers with fantasies of limitless wealth in housing real estate.Buyers are by now prone to consider the fallacies of limitless riches in real estate, also these fallacious attitude lead to housing froth. Realtors should be banned from making representation about the investment possible of real estate. Since the narrow framework for this kind of rule and oversight is by now in place beneath the auspices of the Securities also Exchange charge, Congress would merely need to create Realtors subject to these system in order to solve the difficulty.

I recently heard a story about a local SEO shop whose customers, overnight, almost ALL lost ranking in Google. Apparently, the shop had been engaging in “black hat” techniques. I’m pretty sure the teller of the tale made a “tsk tsk” sound at the end to help emphasize this as another instance where people who do evil get their just desserts.

But I think there is a fundamental disjoint in even using the phrase “black hat” – as it does infer a big gap in morality. And ‘black hats’ aren’t going around stealing the life savings of pensioners, killing kittens, or committing other dastardly deeds. What they are doing is gaming the system.

In Italy, there is a word for when someone uses audacity to gain advantage: “Furbo”. And it is, in a way, considered a virtue. In many cultures, it isn’t a bad thing at all to be a “player”. So how is it, in my own circle of SEO experts, black hat is spoken of with such disdain? Mind you, I’m not advocating black hat seo tactics – as I’ll explain in more detail in a bit. But by framing the black/white hat discussion in terms of morality, we might be distorting the real meaning behind the concepts.

What IS happening in Black Hat

What IS happening in black hat is the gaming, or the attempt at gaming the system. And in this case, the system is usually Google. Now, Google, we hope, wants to present the best search results to its users. I’m not always sure about that, and not at all sure that the reality isn’t that Google wants to present the best results to its users that helps Google make the most money. If we’re going to discuss ethics, there is a whole topic for discussion in that.

In a way, as a professional SEO, what we want to do is get Google to see our page as being more relevant to a topic than our competitor’s page. And who is to say it isn’t? Google, as we know, has an algorithm, albeit a SECRET algorithm – and we can all find countless examples of where Google does not provide the best results. So, we’re asking, is Google a better arbiter of best results?

Let’s consider a black hat tactic I recently heard discussed at SMX East, the acquisition of an old well-indexed website, and then peppering it with back links to our web page. Those link’s were NOT part of the original content of the site – and perhaps not even relevant to the content of that old well-indexed site – so in essence, the black hat is using Google’s system to sort of cheat a little.

By the way; there are some interesting studies (http://blog.ted.com/2009/03/13/dan_ariely_offe/ ) that show that MOST people WILL cheat in small incremental ways if they believe that can go undetected. It’s just a little cheat. In game theory, this is an aspect of the “Tragedy of the Commons” – people will take a little bit from the group if their actions benefit themselves a lot, but only hurt the group a little. The problem is, of course, that all those little hurts to the group add up.

Now, isn’t it true that emphasizing a key phrase in meta tags, H1’s, links, etc, is ALSO gaming the system? Maybe it is gaming the system but in a lesser way than acquiring a mothballed site. But if we’re talking about ethics, can we really talk degrees of ethics, and where do we score the little measures?

Mrs. Google

Imagine a classroom where the teacher up front is Mrs. Google, and all of the students are us SEO’s. Mrs. Google asks a question, “who is the most relevant student here to answer this question”? And we all raise our hands – each one of us wants her to notice ME, we want to her to pick ME! And sometimes, to get noticed, maybe we sort of bounce up and down in our seats, to help influence her choosing. But should the student doing the most bouncing up and down in their seat be chosen? Are they really the most relevant? Now, maybe one student not only bobs up and down in his seat, but emits a small chirping sound! Is the chirper a black hat? Isn’t he using a method of getting called-on that has nothing to do with the fairness of his being chosen?

So; what I’m suggesting is that black hats are simply taking their methods of being noticed FURTHER than white hats – and in comparison to most SEO professionals, is only doing what is done by everyone, just in greater degrees.

Beyond Good and Evil
As an SEO, I discourage the use of so-called black hat techniques. Simply put, they can result in a web site’s being perceived as deserving a Google purgatory. It would be irresponsible to put a website at risk in that way. It’s a risk management issue, not a moral issue.
The SERP has been dying a long and painful death. Every so often, a new Google enhancement causes SERP to be less relevant – instant search, local results, etc. In other words, DYNAMIC results based on the searcher’s demographics or behavior. Cool. And by focusing more on creating content that is rich in relevant clouds of words and phrases, we’re not simply trying to be perceived as being more relevant, we’re focusing on BEING more relevant. It takes the entire discussion outside of the black hat/white hat.