Blogging: walking the line between sharing information and giving away trade secrets
By murph | July 14, 2008
I’ve had a couple of conversations in the past few weeks about blogging and what to share on a blog. Yes, it’s true that you want to overload search engines with USEFUL information, but not to the point where you’re posting your business plan and trade secrets online.
An example: If I were to start a cell phone repair business, you would think that posting a video on how to fix the speakerphone in an iPhone or replacing a cracked Blackberry screen would be great for SEO, but it may be bad for business. How many people are going to find this video and try to do it themselves (and, most of them will fail miserably, trust me)?
The point is, it’s okay to share information, but be careful what you blog about. Some may think that me sharing the 28 social bookmarking sites that use dofollow links would be like giving away a very valuable piece of information in regards to my business. But, trust me, if I started doing SEO based solely on building links by flooding social bookmarking sites with links, I wouldn’t be around for very long. And this is something that is out there on probably 10,000 SEO sites already anyways. It’s knowing what to do with the information that is important.
Share information on your blog that is informative and useful, something about your business or trade that the general public doesn’t already know (here’s an example, I did these three blog entries, which shared information, allowed the site to still maintain a level of transparency, and still allows possible clients to still want to maintain this site’s services).
People love when you share personal information as well. Pictures of family getaways, pictures of your office and/or staff, pets whatever you can share to make people relate to you and your blog.
Don’t always just think of your blog as a source of fresh content that search engine spiders can crawl or a source for linkbait articles and news stories. Think of it as a grassroots marketing campaign, where you’re asking every single potential viewer to share in your experiences as well as share information.
Topics: SEO Tips | No Comments »
20 dofollow Social Bookmarking Sites
By murph | July 14, 2008
Here are 28 20 social bookmarking sites with that don’t use nofollow links, along with their Pageranks. You’re welcome 
Blinklist - 7/10 Are now doing nofollow
Furl - 7/10
ClipClip - 6/10 They don’t nofollow the bookmark but they do nofollow the actual link
Backflip - 6/10
Bibsonomy - 6/10
LinkaGoGo - 6/10 They also now appear to be doing nofollow
Mister-Wong - 6/10
Raw Sugar - 6/10 Very hard to navigate and add bookmarks
Spurl - 6/10 Still nofollow (for now). You have to install a button in your toolbar, and this is a message posted on the site:
We are currently forced to offer reduced functionality due to heavy spam attacks. The lists with New and Hot spurls are therefore disabled until further notice.
Our apologies for the inconvenience.
Buddy Marks - 5/10
Jumptags - 5/10 Noooofolllloooooooooowwww
MyJeeves / Ask - 5/10
MyLinkVault - 5/10
Xilnus - 5/10
A1 Webmarks - 4/10
Bookmark Tracker - 4/10
Connectedy - 4/10 Can anyone even sign up for this site? The captacha never seems to appear
Diigo - 4/10 Womp Womp
OYAX - 4/10 The captchas are really annoying and you have to seperate the tags by “/”
UpChuckr - 4/10 Always get an error upon submission, but they end up in My Bookmarks afterall
MyVmarks - 4/10
TeDigo - 4/10
info4it - 3/10
ez4u - 3/10 403 Forbidden error for days
Space-Ed - 3/10
MyPIP - 3/10
SyncOne - 3/10
Yattle - 2/10
Topics: SEO Tips | No Comments »
Bin Laden family in bid for Newcastle?
By murph | July 8, 2008
This has nothing to do with SEO or anything business related, but with the most boring time in sports (with all due respect to Roger Fedrerer and Nadal, when A-Rod’s divorce makes the top story after a weekend, I’m sorry, it’s boring) right now, this is an interesting story for all of us fans of the beautiful game.
With all of the transfer talk heating up (looks like Freddy Adu AND Michael Bradley may be heading to Monaco, and as a Manchester United fan I would love to see Berbatov in a red shirt next season, Ronaldo is staying, unfortunately) this may be the most controversial story thus far.
ThisisLondon.co.uk is reporting that a construction company headed by the Bin Laden family is planning a bid for Newcastle United.
Newcastle have since denied the claims , and everyone knows not to trust english newspapers sometimes, but what if there is truth to this? Will all of those bandwagon American Newcastle supporters that started buying black and white strips since the movie Goal came out continue to support this side? Their best player, Obafemi Martins, is reportedly headed to Arsenal to replace Adebayor, and Newcastle aren’t exactly making a move for the top four.
With what will likely be the near collapse of Manchester City after their owner’s funds are frozen once and for all after trial(right, like Ronaldinho would want to play for Man City), what kind of negative publicity will this add to football (soccer) ownership (along with Gillette and Hicks at Liverpool feuding).
Let’s hope Jim Rome doesn’t hear about this and talk about it on his show, the 10 people who actually watch might tell their Nascar buddies.
I’ll hope to get back on topic later this week and post something useful.
Topics: Random Soccer Rants | No Comments »
Blog Spam can be rediculous sometimes
By murph | July 1, 2008
And I’m not talking about the 20 comments about Cialis, auto insurance, or online gambling that I have to reject every time I write a new post. I’m talking about blog posts like this:
http://weildxilppo.blogspot.com/2008/07/save-energy-in-your-kitchen.html
http://rowiekzho.blogspot.com/2008/07/how-led-light-bulbs-can-save-you-money.html
If you’re going to create a blog post for linkbait, at least make it relevant to the links you are baiting for. The links posted on these blogs will likely carry NO link juice and can really hurt the site’s SERP.
Topics: SEO Tips | No Comments »
Use answer service sites to your advantage
By murph | June 30, 2008
When doing SEO for your site, be sure to somehow utilize the following websites:
Yahoo Answers(links posted as nofollow but good for traffic)
I won’t post specifics on the best ways to utilize these sites, but as a starting point, search for questions that are relative to your site and what it does and get your link in there somehow. Make sure to make it a relevant comment and not spam, and make sure you offer something useful to the conversation. I’ve had answers chosen as Best Answer on Yahoo just because the comment I left was meaningful to who asked it, which means that question is indexed and around for a whole. Google and other search engines seem to put a higher priority on answer services, go type a question in a Google search like “why does my dog stink” and see if something from Fluther or Yahoo Answers doesn’t come up on the first page.
Topics: SEO Tips | No Comments »
Happy Take Your Dog to Work Day!
By murph | June 20, 2008
You know what I absolutely love about doing SEO full time from home? The flexibility. Yes, you’re jealous. Why? Well today is National Take Your Dog to Work Day. But every day here at Baltimore SEO By Murph is Take Your Dog to Work Day.
So without further ado, the vice president of eating, sleeping, and bugging me to take him for walks to the park every 2 hours, Jackson:
(PETA don’t email me yet; I’m not choking him, he needed some help looking at the camera). And he looks very similar to Link from Bizpro, what a coincidence.
I haven’t posted an SEO tip in a while, so here’s one. Word of the day:
Cherrypicking.
See what sites are in the top two pages for your keywords. Then see what sites link to them (either type “link:competitorsiteaddress.com” or if you have the Google toolbar with Pagerank enabled installed, click the Pagerank and click check backlinks). And then, get the same backlinks for all of them along with whatever links you are building, and you’ll be well on your way. Just make sure your on-page stuff is done first!
Link cherrypicking. Maybe not completely original, but very effective.
Topics: SEO Tips | No Comments »
A lifetime supply of beer: free; keeping your country in EURO 2008: priceless
By murph | June 13, 2008
Okay so those of you that know me well know my passion for football (soccer in this country). I just got back from New Jersey this weekend after covering the USA versus Argentina Match and have been floating in the sky since half of my summer will be spent watching EURO 2008s, World Cup qualifiers, Olympic matches and world transfer rumors. But the story of the summer so far for me isn’t Mourinho to Inter, Scolari to Chelsea, Modric to Tottenham or stories that the National BS Association is actually fixed.
The story of the summer for me came yesterday in the Austria vs Poland match. The match was an absolute snoozer. Poland went up 1-0 on a controversial goal in which the Polish player appeared offsides. The rest of the game was a bore and Austria didn’t seem to have it in them to win the game. But, in the 92nd minute, English referee Howard Webb (who had his doubters after his fellow English referees, Graham Poll, gave a player three yellow cards in the 2006 World Cup) awarded a controversial penalty to the Austrians after some shirt tugging in the box.
Up steps the oldest player in the tournament, Ivica Vastic, who smashes home the penalty kick for the host country Austria. He saved whatever chance the host country had of remaining in the tournament, but guess what else he won?
A lifetime supply of beer from Austrian brewery Ottakringer (check out their website and tell me they don’t have the coolest beer song in the background, it just makes me thirsty!). Ottakringer promised to supply anyone from the Austrian National team who scored a goal in the tournament with a lifetime supply of beer, which was later revoked today after tournament officials decided that it was in conflict with tournament sponsors like Carlsberg (who sponsor Liverpool so who gives a F what they think!) but Vastic will still get his booze.
So what does this have to do with SEO or marketing? It’s pretty genius if you ask me. Even if Vastic goes from world-class athlete to obese over-drinker and has a bottle of Austrian brew hooked up to him as an IV for the next 30 years, they will definitely see a return on investment from this move. It made front-page international headlines for two days straight, and since someone actually scored and they have to make right on the promise, it will continue to be until tomorrow. Not to mention the countless number of blogs and message boards that are writing about the story.
Their sales in Austria alone will likely triple after the beer-maker showed such great patriotism in giving their national team motivation to do whatever they can to help their team move on, and I’m not sure where in Baltimore they sell Ottakringer but I’m going to be sure to check around. Google trends didn’t show anything in the past few days for Ottakringer , but I’m sure in football-friendly countries all over the world it’s different.
To their marketing department: well in my son!
Topics: SEO Tips | No Comments »
Well done Verizon you cheeky bastards…
By murph | June 2, 2008
It’s been a while since I’ve posted because I’ve been busy with SEM/SEO work but I wanted to share this thought…
To say that mass mail marketing campaigns are hit or miss would probably be an understatement. With the ridiculous amount of junk mail that the average resident receives can be overwhelming. And I’m sure all of you fellow homeowners are sick of the endless refinance, insurance, and other junk mail that can be deceitful at times in regards to it’s appearance. I’ve seen a few letters come with what was supposed to be handwritten name and address on the envelope but it’s obvious that it has been printed.
And it looks like Verizon is paying to take their mass mailing campaign to a whole ‘nother level. Check out this envelope I received this weekend (sorry for the crappy pic quality I took it with my PPC-6800 phone):
Look a little similar to a USPS Priority envelope?
Yes, you can see it has been opened. I wouldn’t say that I fell for it but I was more curious to see what was so important inside that Verizon paid so much more extra for these larger and custom envelopes. It was an offer for their FiOS service.
So I’m curious to hear from everyone to see if you would consider this unethical? The similarity between this and a USPS envelope is obvious, and the word “PRIORITY” is printed on the front. It is obvious that Verizon sent this out to deceive recipients to thinking it is something more important.
Topics: SEO Tips | 1 Comment »
Comcast becomming radically transparent?
By murph | May 9, 2008
A few posts ago I mentioned that I was reading the PR book Radically Transparent and how the book manages to make the connection to SEO and online public relations and reputation management. What position you come up on for Google searches isn’t all about generating revenue, so much as your overall online reputation. Like I mentioned a while back, it’s always best to Google your company name to see what kind of reviews and feedback are out there. It’s much easier to be heard online these days now that anyone can start a blog in 20 minutes or post something on a messageboard.
Well I was reading an article in the Baltimore Sun a few weeks ago (the article isn’t available online, but the same basic information can be found on numerous sites) about how Comcast has recently implemented a Comcast Cares online reputation management team after numerous service complaints and the launch of ComcastMustDie.com.
Comcast launched it’s own Twitter Pagewhich allows concerned customers to post problems with service or customer service, in which they are responded to in a timely fashion, usually same day. I decided to E-mail Frank Eliason who is in charge of the project and ask if he’d be willing to answer a few questions about online reputation management in regards to SEO. He returned my e-mail within 2 hours and was happy to help.
Frank mentioned that, with all of the recent (positive) publicity about his department, they have been extremely busy lately. He said he joined Comcast in September to start reviewing and monitoring blogs, which naturally led to assisting customers and helping them with resolutions.
The Comcastcares team is still being assembled, but he said seven people have recently jumped on board to help with different initiatives. Frank said that among some of the techniques that they use to proactively monitor blogs and other Comcast PR issues are Technorati, Google Alerts, Google Blogsearch, and Blogscope .
Comcast is a company that provides an important service to a large community, so naturally there will be quite a few complaints out there. What has been the biggest obstacle so far
The anonymous nature of much of the Internet, especially since the blogosphere makes it difficult to ensure resolution, unless the customer actually responds
Frank also mentioned that Comcast seems happy with the progress of ComcastCares. He was obviously tied down with other issues so I was happy with his brief and to-the-point answers.
A lot of large companies who are facing customer service and reputation issues (Sprint, Home Depot, and whoever else is outsourcing their customer level service efforts) can learn from larger companies like Dell and Comcast who are launching these programs. But it’s not just about repairing your reputation after sites like Ihatedell.com and Comcastsucks.org launch, and it’s not just the large companies who can hire their own team to handle these issues that need to look into monitoring their reputations. Basic SEO and SEM techniques can help determine what kind of image you are portraying online, which is becoming more and more important now that everyone can be heard.
Topics: SEO Tips | 2 Comments »
Catchy Titles like this one are key!
By murph | April 23, 2008
The title of your page is one of the most important on-page factors that spiders look at when crawling your web page because it is basically a summary of what information the page should include. Don’t believe me? Check out this awesome post by a bunch of SEO consultants over at SEOMoz which ranks on-page and off-page factors and how important they are. See title at number one?
Lots of small businesses and other local companies have a hard time coming up with a title that utilizes their keywords but also keeps the company name and theme involved at the same time. When the page is first published and all of the cosmetic features are finished, most of the time the web designers will title every page on the site with the company name. Business owners think this is best for the site because it portrays a professional image of the company, but there are a couple of ways to have the keyword(s) you want to optimize in the title along with your company name.
One of them: “By”
This is one word that can help. QualityAir, a local HVAC company, wants to promote their new ductless air conditioning system. The current title of every page on their site is “QualityAir, LLC Baltimore Maryland” which is really only promoting the company name and location. Each page on their website ( plumbing, heating, repair. etc) should have a unique title to help optimize every service they offer. So instead of “QualityAir, LLC Baltimore Maryland” we can change is to something like “Ductless Air Conditioning Systems by QualityAir of Baltimore”. This optimizes both the service that they offer, as well as the company name and location, all very key aspects when improving SERP.
What if they have an Adword landing page that promotes two unrelated services, like bathroom plumbing and Eco-friendly heating? Two symbols come in handy in this case, “-” and “|”. Instead of using “and”, which works but doesn’t really help tie two services that are completely unrelated together, try something like “Energy Saving Heating - Same Day Plumbing - QualityAir Baltimore” or “Affordable Bathroom Plumbing | Heating Systems | QualityAir” This helps the reader (yes, they do look at the title) understand that the company offers these services, and infers that this is only a few of the services they offer.
I always recommend that the title is less than 8 or 9 words because you can actually hurt your chances by being too descriptive. When search engines see that you have too many words in the title they will thing you are stuffing it with irrelevant keywords and throw you on the back burner.
The title page is very important for your web site, make sure you are using strategic titles on EACH PAGE with it’s own unique keyword(s) to help optimize your entire site.
Topics: SEO Tips | No Comments »
