In mid March of 2012 Matt Cutts(from Google) announced that Google will be implementing a new algorithm to weed out sites that are “Over Optimized”. The new algorithm will focus more on relevant content then keywords and links. We’re trying to “level the playing field” said Matt.

Is this a huge change for SEO as we know it?

Most algorithm changes only slightly affect websites and their rank on Google’s SERP’s(search engine results page). This upcoming algorithm change will punish sites who have done everything right. Now, while the underdog in me likes the leveling the playing field concept, the SEO is my freaking job guy is wondering how much this will affect me and my clients.

Matt went into more detail, stating that the new algorithm will be a good thing for people making good sites with great content. It will only penalize sites that over do it. i.e. too many keywords on a page or more than the amount of links expected. Too many keywords but, we already know that’s a bad thing. It’s called keyword stuffing.

So the answer to will this change SEO forever is No. While technically any change to the algorithm does change SERP’s forever. This new algorithm won’t hurt you if your site has good content and you don’t blast it with link software every week.

Why did Google implement this SEO Penalty?

All of Google’s updates are developed to better the experience for people searching for information on the search engine. It’s Google’s job to provide relevant and accurate results in their SERP’s. So by weeding out sites that are over optimized but don’t have the content to back it up, Google is simply giving more credit to people that focus on content not just tags and links. Sure links matter but content is what determines factors like bounce rate and time spent on your site. And for this reason I couldn’t be happier about the upcoming update. Why? You may ask.

I focus on content for my web properties as well as my clients. Now this doesn’t mean we don’t also implement link building campaigns for our clients, we certainly do. It means that the content needs to be good enough to have earned those links. The only people that are actually angry about this newest update from Google are Black Hatters or people that use link building software to post spammy comments or submit spun articles.

Protect Yourself from the Google SEO Penalty

Content has and always will be king in the SEO world. As a San Diego SEO Company I teach my clients to keep their content up-to date, in-depth and relevant. If you follow those 3 simple guidelines for content and combine it with a natural link building campaign you can be immune to Google’s updates. Remember Google and other search engines only care about giving relevant and accurate results on their SERP’s. So making your content up-to date, in-depth and relevant has to be a solid foundation for any sustainable SEO strategy.

Some guidelines to get you prepared for the latest SEO penalty from Google

• Keep your content above 1,000 words per page
• Keep your content relevant to your keywords
• Only 1 h1 tag per page
• Focus on High PR one-way links and index them naturally
• Make sure your internal links are appropriate

1. Keep content above 1,000 words

Previously Google only looked for content above 500 words but shortly after the Panda Update they started rewarding pages with 1,000 words of content and up. 1,000 words can seem like large undertaking in today’s busy world. So here are some tips on writing in-depth content.

Try breaking down your topic into sub categories. So if I wanted to be found for Missouri Auto Insurance I’d have sections on Auto Insurance, Unique Missouri Auto Insurance Laws, How to get a quote in St. Louis, Lowest Insurance Deductibles in Missouri, etc.. Now you just have to write four, 250 word segments. This is much less daunting then writing 1,000 words on one topic(heck I’m at 558 words right now and I’m wishing I broke this down into segments). You may have noticed that I did break this post  into segments. I did this right after I wrote the previous sentence.

2. Keep your content relevant

There is nothing Google hates more than a page that is optimized for a certain keyword and then the content doesn’t match. Keeping your content relevant to the keywords you are targeting may sound obvious. Yet, everyday I see numerous sites that have content that doesn’t match the keywords they are targeting. So here are some tips to keeping your content relevant and making your site immune to Google’s SEO Penalty.

The best way to keep your content relevant is by organizing your content marketing strategy. Start with the hardest keyword you want to be found for. For this example we’ll say SEO. Then build a keyword tree using your main keyword has the trunk. Use your mid level keywords has the branches and your long-tail keywords as the leaves. For SEO as the trunk your keyword tree would look something like this.

Trunk=SEO

Branches=SEO Company, On-Page SEO, Off-Page SEO, SEO Strategies, Indexing, Link Building, etc..

Leaves=SEO Software, San Diego SEO Company, Article Marketing, Blog Commenting for SEO, Getting Good Free Links

Now that you have your keyword tree set up you can start using it to structure your content development(writing your articles and posts).

Use your trunk for your homepage, the branches for your menu items and the leaves as your individual articles. Then for each page or article make another keyword tree to create the sections of that page or article as we talked about in keeping your content above 1,000 words.

3. Only 1 h1 tag per page

This is a simple one. I promise I won’t ramble on too much. USE ONE AND ONLY ONE h1 TAG PER PAGE.

4. Focus on High PR one-way links and index them naturally

This one isn’t going to be as easy as the last. Link building is not as easy or as simple as it once once. You have to have links come naturally. Now this doesn’t mean you can’t go out and create links. It just means you can’t take shortcuts(I know not what you want to hear).

What is too many links?

This section is probably the one most related to the newest update other than Content. Google will actually penalize you if your links get created to quickly or if you have too many. What is too many links? You may ask. Well, if you have a website that has 2 likes, 1 google + and 10,000 links you have too many links. If you get 20 visitors a month with a 60% bounce rate, then you have too many links. If the 10 sites on the first page for your targeted keyword have an average of 1,000 links each and you have 10,000 links, then you have too many links.

Do your research there are plenty of descent link research tools out there. Find out how many and what caliber of links each of the top ten sites for your targeted keyword have. Then copy their link structure if at all possible. Just be carefull here. You don’t want to copy their inbound links to the letter. Just the high PR and relevant link sources. Then get links from sources with a higher PR and more relevance. If that doesn’t get you to the first page of Google then focus on content. I usually focus on content until I’m in striking distance of the first page of Google and then implement a link building building strategy. This way your links look more natural as well, because your content and site is worth the links pointed at it.

5. Make sure your internal links are appropriate

Internal links can be just as, if not more powerful than external links. Think about it. If a link is considered a reference or thumbs up from another website, that the page at the end of the link is relevant. Your internal links are your website saying that that external link was right in recommending you and that the page you internally link to with the same keyword as the anchor text of the external link is the exact part of your website that has the most relevancy to your targeted keywor. Another way to look at it is. Say your looking for a classic ford mustang and your friend recommends a good classic car dealer. Think of that as the external link. Then you call the dealer and they say hold on let me transfer you to our classic ford department. Think of that as the external link, telling you more specifically that this classic car dealer is more likely to have the classic ford mustang you’re looking for because they have a department just for classic fords. Now if the classic ford department said let me have you talk with our mustang guy. That would be a deeper internal link.

When designing or re-designing a website. Web Design for SEO is a crucial aspect of making sure your website actually gets found on search engines.

Everybody(including us) is talking about links these days. But getting good links pointed at your website is only half the battle. On-Page SEO or Web Design for SEO is the other half of that battle. If you know anything about professional link building you know that a link to your site is a recommendation from one site to yours. Google and other search engines do not like it when you have hundreds even thousands of links pointed at your site about a topic and then when Google indexes your site, it can’t find that your site is actually worthy of those links.

That’s why every site that wants to be found on the first page of Google needs to have more than just links pointed at it. You need to design your website with search engine optimization in mind. In this article I’m going to cover all major aspects of constructing a website or page so that Google and other search engines can easily find, index and show your site/page in SERP’s.

Content

Content has and will forever be king. Make sure you have a good content to code ratio. I like to keep mine around 50%. Now having a good content ratio is not enough. You’re content needs to be relevant to your keywords. So if I wanted to be found for San Diego SEO. I’d make sure my content had mentions of San Diego, California, Southern California and SEO, search engine optimization, etc.. Don’t over do it with your keywords in your content though, it can get you penalized from Google. They call it “Keyword Stuffing”. So try to incorporate your keywords and relevant words into your content naturally.

Headers

Your headers are usually the titles(not your title tags) of your posts and sections of your posts. Take the words “Headers” in bold. It acts as the title to this subsection on headers. The code I used to make “Headers” larger and bold is <h3>Headers</h3>. This not only tells your web browser to show this text differently, but it also shows search engines like Google that this page and section are about headers. I suggest using only h1-h4, but different SEO structures might call for more.

The h1 tag is the strongest and you should only use one of these per page. Your h1 tag should be the hardest(usually the shortest) keyword you are trying to rank for. Then use the h2-h4 tags to support your h1 tags.

Meta Data

Your Meta Data is literally how you tell Google what your site is about. The meta data doesn’t show up in the design of your website, but it is definitely a crucial part of web design for seo. Your meta data goes in your header, which is dictated by <head></head> tags. Everything between the >< is part of the header. There are 3 main types of meata data(for info on using more meta than these 3 check out The Dublin Core). The 3 main types are title, keywords and description.

• Title Tags-Your title tags are placed between <title> and </title> inside your <head> tags. Simply use the keywords you are targeting, try to keep it under 70 characters.
• Description-Your meta description goes in your header as well and it looks like this <meta name=”description” content=”Put Your Meta Description Here” /> Your meta description should be between 70-160 characters and it should not just support your keywords and title tags. It also needs to make you stand out on SERP’s(search engine results pages).
• Your Title and Description are both typically used on SERP’s for queries.
• Keywords-I only mention the keyword meta tag because everyone else does. I don’t use them because most browsers(i.e. firefox, internet explorer) don’t use them.

Well there you have some basics on Web Design for SEO. If you would like a more detailed report for your website or blog get a free Specialized SEO Report

If you found this information helpful please consider sharing it with the world

Link Building Campaigns + Balance

Making a balanced link building campaign is an art form. Wow, that sounded cheesy. But it’s true.

A solid and sustainable link building campaign is all about variety,quality and quantity. We all know the get rich quick schemes and “SUPER TURBO LINK BUILDING EXPLOSION SOFTWARE”. They all only focus on quantity. Which, to be fair is important, but it’s only part of the formula. What good are 3,000 links if they all come from the same sites as your competition. Or worse yet, all your links come from a banned list associated with the sites that a lot link building software use.(I’ve had that happen)

In this post I’m going to show you the exact methods I use everyday to get my sites to the first page of Google, Yahoo and Bing. I’ll be covering ALL my link building strategies. Including video links, article links, comment links,guest posts, and maybe some more stuff I’m really not sure how much I want to share. Ok let’s get started.

Social Bookmarking

I’m starting with social bookmarking because it effects all the other link building you will do. What you’ll be doing is submitting all the pages with links to your site to social bookmarking sites. This helps get your links indexed so they count towards your SEO rankings. There are a lot of social bookmarking sites and software out there. And you should use almost all of them. Digg, Delicous are 2 of the top players. There are also a lot of “ping” sites that allow you to submit to multiple sites at once. I don’t recommend using these sites because Google and other search engines can find them if you or I can. Try tweeting about your link. Like “Check out our new article on LINK DOMAIN” If your internet marketing or SEO company is not indexing your links you’re not getting professional link building. Find out if your links are getting indexed by getting a free Specialized Link Report.

Blog Commenting

This is my favorite way to get links. And it’s one of the best and easiest ways to get good, sustainable links pointed at your website. The key is to actually write a comment that adds to the conversation taking place on the blog or website you are commenting on. If you don’t add to the conversation even auto-approved blogs will delete your comments after time. Which actually looks worse in Google’s eyes. Think about it, Google or another search engine sees that another web property has linked to and therefore recommended your site. Then 2 months down the road that link or recommendation is gone. It’s worse than having no link in the long run.

This is why you must stay away from auto-commenting software. Trust me I’ve used them all. Let me walk you through what using auto or mass commenting software feels like. At first you are stoked. You’ve got this new “AUTO LINK GENERATOR 2000″ and you’ve finally got it installed and set up correctly. Then you get even more excited when you start using this magical software. Every time you check your link count it’s rising. You’re even climbing pages in the SERP(search engine results page).

How exciting right? And then Google catches on to the fact that your using auto commenting software. You’re now NOWHERE to be found on Google or any other search engine unless ask.com keeps you. So what happened? All those webmasters and blog owners that you SPAMMED(yup you’d be a spammer, worse than the telemarketer that calls you during dinner) Well all those webmasters and blog owners deleted your spammy comments. Which brings me back to writing comments that actually add to the conversation.

Let’s walk through a typical blog commenting session. I’m going to tell you exactly what I do to get found for phrases like “Getting Good Free Links“, “San Diego SEO Company“, “Panda Update”, “San Diego Search Engine Optimization Company” and more.

First you come up with a good search string to use in Google to find the blogs and websites you want to comment on. Let’s say you want to be found for “San Diego Concrete Company” You take that phrase and add something like “leave a comment” Here’s the list I got on the first page when I did it.

As you can see we’ve found some really relevant sites to post comments on. Warning I found a virus on the first listing so do not go to it. And the second one trizzat.com didn’t have any approved comments on it, so those two results are a wash. But the rest of just these first 10 are decent places to comment on and get good quality links pointed back at your site. If you wanted to get found for “San Diego Concrete Company”. (posting comments on sites not relevant to your keywords will not help your SEO but can get you traffic)

With blog commenting there are different schools of thought on whether to post on all the blogs you find or whether to cherry pick and only post on the best websites and blogs you find. I use a middle of the road approach by posting on almost all the blogs and sites I find. The only criteria I use is whether or not the page is relevant to my site and whether or not I can post an intelligent or at least witty comment that adds to the conversation happening on the page I’m commenting on.

Article Writing and Submission

Article writing and submitting is a powerful and dangerous method of getting links. I say dangerous because Mass Submitting Articles is a common practice in SEO and it can literally throw your page into SERP exile. Google and other search engines are smart. They know if you’re cheating. It’s their job to know. Well now that I’ve scared you let’s step back for a second and cover the basics so you can fully grasp the concept and guidelines for article writing and submission.

Article writing is a tedious and detail orientated task. Plain and simple. Whether you write all original content or you spin your articles. Spinning an article is the process of using spin syntax to make multiple articles from one article. Whether you write your own articles or spin them, it’s crucial to pay attention to detail when developing your content.

Writing Original Articles

This is by far the superior way to get links using article writing. When you use all original content, you’re links will hold more weight in the eyes of search engines. Search engines like Google, Yahoo and Bing all actively search for and flag sites and links that use duplicate content. To search engines, duplicate content makes it harder for them to find the sites they show in a SERP  (search engine results page). I’m getting off topic. In order to write lots and lots of great articles you have to be passionate, even love what you are writing about. You have to study your niche. Start by searching for it online. Sign up for newsletters in your industry. Gather all the knowledge you can about your subject constantly. And then just start writing. I like to write while watching tv. I usually write articles after I’m done blog commenting for the day to switch it up.

just start writing

If you’re a little shy about writing or just don’t know where to start, try “recycling” another article into your own. You’re probably thinking plagiarism write now. I am not suggesting you copy or steal someone’s content. Just use a similar topic and structure to get started. This is simply the process of learning. So as long as you just use it as a guideline, you’re ok.

Buying Articles

Don’t be afraid to buy an article once in a while. I love using good freelancers when I’m in a crunch for time. You can use sites like fiverr to get articles written, but a lot of it is gibberish(yeah it’s that bad, we’re not just talking poor grammar here). So you’ll have to weed through the vendors to find quality content. I personally use friends and people I’ve found on craigslist. Don’t be cheap with you’re articles either. You get what you pay for.

Spinning Your Articles

Spinning your articles sounds like a good way to get easy professional link building results. It is and it isn’t. Let me explain.

Earlier I mentioned spin syntax, which is the set of characters that are used to spin one article in to multiple versions. Well, in order to spin an article that has a snowballs a chance in hell of passing  the scrutiny of Google’s prying eye. You have to spin every word, every sentence and every paragraph with multiple  versions of each with in each other like this.

[Show as slideshow]

Now while this looks like an easy and simple way to get a lot of articles for your professional link building campaign. And don’t get me wrong I use a mix of original and spun content for my articles. But the key is to not cut any corners(even though spinning is a shortcut in itself). A lot of spinners out there have a a “Spin” button that will automatically spin your original article using an integrated thesaurus of synonyms. Do NOT under any circumstances use these “Spin” buttons. They will turn your beautiful article into a mangled shell of what it once was. Full of grammatical errors and sentences that just make no sense. And you can kiss your writing style good bye. TSE-here is a common misconception that the spinner software should do most of the work. To that I say sure if you want to make content that makes sense to another piece of spinner software. Here’s what I got when I used the “Spin” button.

Original Sentence:

Never use the spin button.

Spun Versions:

1. Certainly not utilize whirl key.
2. Never ever operate the rotate press button.
3. Under no circumstances use a angle control key.
4. Hardly ever make use of backspin mouse.
5. Do not ever take advantage of the twist tab.

Now imagine your article, mangled like this. And then imagine the association people will have with your site and this crap. Remember, since people use spun articles to submit to article directories with a link to their website to get links. Would you want the link to your site associated with gibberish? Anyone answering yes to that question should please call us at 619-786-4SEO, immediately for an SEO intervention. For those of you that answered no, keep reading. The key to spinning articles right, is using your spinner software only to speed up manually spinning each word, sentence and paragraph(that’s how I got the results in the first spin syntax example). Now it’s true, spinning an article the right way can take hours but, it’s a lot faster than writing 100 different versions of the same article.

Video Links

Did you know that links from Video sites like YouTube are roughly worth twice as much as links from social media sites like facebook and twitter. And when I say worth twice as much I’m talking about the PR(page rank) juice the link transfers over from the origination page. Just with all of the other link building campaign components it important to make the content(video) surrounding the link valuable. Make a video that can actually help people. Whether you help them find your business or you make a How-To Video, make sure it’s quality. Don’t just make videos for links. Make videos for the user and your target audience and then place your links in the description or about section as well as in comments on the video.

Professional Link Building Help

If you need to know if your link building or SEO company is using the right techniques or you just need a quote try our Specialized Link Report or check out our Link Building Packages

Thank You so much to everyone that came out last Saturday to the Fundraiser for Raul Carranza and his brother Pablo, both living with muscular dystrophy.

The fundraiser went off without a hitch. There were performances from local bands and speakers. Our Director of SEO, Oliver James was serving drinks to over 200 people as they bid on blue ray players, local and Mexican wine, gift certificates to local restaurants. We raised over $2,000 for the Carranza family.

[Show as slideshow]

A special Thank You to all the donors:

• Centro Cultural de la Raza
• Stylist, Chrystal Coleman
• Photographer, Tammy Martin
• AMC Cinemas
• Jack in the box
• Swarovsky Crystals
• PB Shoreclub
• Romesco Italian Restaurant
• Roberto´s Hair Salon
• Lourel
• Parklane
• Self Image Media
• 3d Entertainment

Title Tags, Meta Tags, Meta Description, Keywords…………. Where do you begin? Heck where do you end?

Your tags and meta data are a hugely important part of any SEO strategy. They are a series of related information about your website as a whole and individual pages. It’s not only important that you set this data up correctly it is also important that it matches the actual content with in your site. Configuring your tags and meta data let search engines like Google know what your site is about.

Title Tags:

Title tags are not only helpful in getting your website/page found on Google, they are also one of the first things people see/read about your site on a SERP(search engine results page). In order to edit your title tags and make them match your content you will have to edit your source code.

I’ve made a quick video on where to find your title tags, edit them and how they look on search engines.

 

Make sure that what people read sets you apart

As you can see in the video, your title tags and meta description not only help you get found on search engines but they are also the first thing searchers see about your site before they click on it. Your title tags and description are literally your only weapon on a SERP. Also keep in mind that often search engines will pull the description part of the SERP’s from the content on your site that contains the keywords that the searcher entered. So play around a little and do searches for your site and make sure that what people read sets you apart from the other 9 sites on the front page.

Read SEO 1 Read SEO 2


Contrary to popular belief duplicate content is not always a bad thing when it comes to SEO. Getting past the the stigma of duplicate content is the first step to understanding the differences between Syndication and Submission.

Submission

Let’s first get into Submission. Most of you probably are familiar with the process of submitting articles to directory sites like ezine, articlealley and the thousands of other article directory sites out there. For those of you who aren’t. It is a common SEO and Link Building strategy to write articles about the keywords you want to be found for on search engines like Google. For example if you wanted to be found for the phrase “San Diego SEO Company” you would write an article about Search Engine Optimization and submit it to a site like ezinearticles.com. You would include a link in the author bio section of the article and make the link look like this San Diego SEO Company. If ezinearticles.com accepts your article you now have a link from your article on ezine pointed at your site.

Contrary to popular belief duplicate content is not always a bad thing when it comes to SEO

MASS Submission

Article Submission is extremely popular. So popular that now there are countless Automatic Mass Submitters out there. These Mass Submitters take one article you write and spin it into 100′s of different articles using spin syntax which replaces the words in your article with synonyms. And then it auto submits your “spun” articles to 100 or so different article directories. Sounds freakin’ awesome right?

The problem is the spin syntax turns your lovely little article into complete gibberish. If you’ve ever actually seen an over spun article it’s a mess. Nobody’s going to read that and be enticed to click on the link to your site. And Google is certainly smarter than that. Google did some tests and focus groups and launched the Panda/Farmer Updates that essentially make mass submitted and spun article links worthless.

I’ve sort of gone of topic but I can’t stress enough how Auto Mass Submitters do not live up to the hype.

So back to submission. So you’ve submitted your article(not spun) with your link and it’s been accepted. You now have a link pointed at your site from a page with relevant content(your article). The problem here is that these article sites are now so saturated with spun and even poorly written original content that Google has marked many of them as non authority sites. What this means to you is that what was once considered a good link from a relevant page is now a link from an essentially not trusted source of information on your topic. Even though your article is relevant to your keywords or industry because you wrote it that way. The main or root domain of the article site is not. Now don’t get me wrong here it’s still good to post to article sites just do your research on them first. And remember those links just don’t matter AS MUCH anymore.

Syndication

Now for the good no, The Great Stuff. Syndication is similar to submission in the fact that both require you to write articles that are posted on websites other than yours with links pointed to your website. The difference with syndication is that you actually write the article on your site first. And you keep it there. With submission you would never even consider having the same article you post to article sites also on your main site. It’s called duplicate content. However with syndication you don’t post your article on article directories which we know are non-authority sites.

So how do I get my articles syndicated?

With syndication it’s all about writing the best and most informative and readable articles you possibly can. You then spread the word about your content to authority sites in your niche or industry. An authority site is a site that is a site that is recognized as a trusted source of accurate information on a certain topic. If you get your article picked up by an authority site it gets linked to the original article on your site. This is the main difference bewteen submission and syndication. With syndication the process of keeping the original article on your site and pointing the link in the syndicated article to the original tell Google that this authority site who we already know Google trusts found your article so relevant and informative that they risked their reputation by posting it on their site and giving you an author credit link.

If you don’t already get enough exposure to be on an authority sites radar. Most authority sites even accept article submissions.  They do have a strict screening process though because they have a reputation to uphold. Authority sites make their living by being a trusted source of accurate information so they only take the cream of the crop.

Authority sites actively seek out great content so building a relationship with them is key. Don’t just submit your article on the site. Find out more about them. Take note of the layout and writing styles they favor and then emulate those traits in your own article.

For more on Submission Vs. Syndication and how to get your articles syndicated sign up for our newsletter. Subscribe to Our Newsletter

If you found this article helpful or informative please share or like it.

It’s too good to be true right?

What would you spend it on a new car? a new house? would you spend it on yourself?

I’m not going to start handing out two and a half million dollars every month. But what if I told you that starting right now I would give you 2.5 million right now and another 2.5 million 30 days from now and then 2.5 million every month for life. With only one stipulation. You have to spend all 2.5 million within each 30 days. All of it every single penny.

Sounds easy enough right.

In “movie reference” it’s “movie amount” and apparently it’s almost impossible to do. 2.5 million is actually a lot easier than you think. You could just buy a house each month. Or just move to any city in Southern California. You might invest in the stock market or go traveling around the world. Or if you’re into Internet Marketing, like me you might spend it on software and links followed by the best steak dinner money can buy. Think about all the things you would do with that kind of money every month.

Because the offer is extended to everyone and we’re not talking about money or even play money. We’re talking time. Sweet, irreplaceable time. If you break down a month into seconds you get 2.5 million seconds well actually 2,592,000 every 30 days. That’s 2.5 million seconds to change your life or at least live it.

Think about how excited you would be about getting 2.5 millions every 30 days. Now think about why getting 2.5 million moments doesn’t get you excited in the same way. Money comes and goes but time is gone once it’s gone. So what are you spending your time on?

Are you treating your time like the precious commodity that it is?

Every 30 min episode of your favorite TV show is 1,800 seconds/moments that you could be using to better your life, better your financial situation, better yourself.

Now I realize that a lot of you right now are thinking I deserve to be able to relax and enjoy a TV show, a movie maybe even a night out. And you all do deserve it but have you earned it…. Now don’t go getting offended. But the majority of people think that going to your 9-5 and maybe some overtime is enough. It’s not. Working 40 even 50 hours a week is par. It’s kind of like paying your credit card minimums. You pay a lot, make no real headway and it mainly benefits someone else. You have to ask yourself at the end of everyday.

Have I done anything today that will actually make my life better?

We all want a better life and we all want to have fun and relax. However the fact of the matter is you can’t make your life better if your busy having fun or relaxing. You may have 2.5 million seconds every month but it’s what you spend them on that matters. I’m telling you right now that Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, and almost every other successful person you can think of spent more of their 2.5 million on bettering there life than relaxing and having fun. No one’s saying you can’t have fun just make sure you did something that day to really better your life before you relax and call it a day.

Here are some tips to make the most of your time:

• Do something every day to better your life.
• Give yourself small goals to achieve every day. (i.e. write 2 articles today)
• Remember you deserve to relax but you deserve a better life even more
• Spend your time with people who also want to spend their time wisely

For more Realize Real Life and SEO tips and FREE software Subscribe to Our Newsletter

Do likes,shares and tweets actually affect your SERP’s?(ranking on search engines)

The answer is YES and after one of the most recent updates to Google’s algorithm in November they matter even more. The Google team noticed that a lot of people, too many people are turning to Social Sites like facebook and twitter for breaking news. That’s not good for Google. They make millions by providing accurate and up to date results when people search for something. So in an attempt to keep up with Social Sites, Google now places a lot more weight on “Social Signals” like tweets,likes and shares.

Now there are many ways to increase your Social Signals. And it’s not just Facebook and Twitter. These 2 are the biggest hitters though so let’s cover them.

With facebook and twitter the number one thing to remember is consistency. Be Consistent with your message and be Consistent with your frequency. You don’t have to post every 5 minutes . Your frequency will vary depending on your business. Every business should be AT LEAST posting once a day. Remember you’re not just posting to promote your content or opinion you’re posting to let Google, Yahoo and Bing know that you’re site is relevant and a good source for current information in your niche or industry.

It’s equally important to keep your message consistent as well. Keep your posts relevant to your industry and your demographic. Make yourself a relevant source of information for your readers. Keeping your posts relevant and consistent will also help to optimize your fanpage, twitter or linkedin etc. for search engines. Engage your readers by doing polls on recent topics. And make sure to answer and reply to any comments or mentions regarding your posts on your social media pages. This will keep your readers engaged and keep your branding in front of them while helping your SEO.

One aspect of social media especially when it comes to social signals that a lot of people over look is the social media on your website it self. And I’m not talking about like buttons(everyone uses those and they should) I’m talking about the necessity of having a blog on your website. EVERY website should have a blog as a part of it’s online marketing toolbox. This can take some time but it is well worth it. It is the reason I’m writing this post right now. Once I’m done with this post I’m going to post a brief description and a link to this post on all my social media and social bookmarking sites. By doing this I’m not giving a link away to another site that may have relevant information for my readers on it. I’m instead taking the time to write a relevant and informative post on my own blog on my own site to build content and links to.

Well there you have it right from the horses mouth.

1. Be consistent in your frequency of posting
2. Be consistent in your image as an expert in your field
3. USE YOUR OWN BLOG to build content and links

Please share and or like this page if you like it or found it useful

On 12/5/11 Google announced it’s most recent changes to it’s algorithms. the most notable being the new “Parked Domain Classifier” which screens out all those sites that have the same vague content and design but different domains pointing to it. Some internet marketers(IM) get annoyed with updates like the Parked Domain Classifier. On the contrary I think it’s a smart business move on Google’s part. Most parked domain sites have no content of any real value. They are riddled with ads and are never what the Google searcher is looking for. Google needs to deliver consistent, accurate and helpful results. So weeding out a tell tale sign of garbage sites is a good call.

Google’s freshness update, originally announced 11/03/11 now also applies to it’s image results. They also freshened the update for Google’s Blog Search. Seeing that Google took only a month to transition the freshness update to images after implementing it in web results shows that fresh and up to date content is going to be a key factor in getting to the first page. So for anyone not alt and title tagging their images and socially bookmarking them on sites like digg and delicious not just facebook and twitter should seriously consider starting.

My favorite change this time around is the update to “Original Content”. It’s nothing new that a tweak to filtering out duplicate content is included in this update. There usually is something to do with the originality of content. What makes this newest change different is that it focuses on not just finding copies of content but it actually fine tunes the process of finding out which site has the original version of the content. Which is a huge push in the right direction. This type of update virtually shuts down article directory sites. Everything is going to move towards syndication as it already has before this update. Writing content so innovative, provocative or news worthy will continue to be one of the best ways to market yourself online. If you don’t know the difference between article submission and syndication. In on sentence article submission is when you submit your content how ever good it is and the directory hosts it for you with no real promotion while syndication is when you write content so compelling and interesting that authority sites in your industry feature it and give you credit. Big difference.

Google also implemented “More Comprehensive Indexing” which will give long tail urls or Deep Links a better shot at showing up in queries.They also changed some color and layouts on tablet screens. This along with Related Query Results Refinements make this a positive update. Related Query Results are the results you sometimes get that don’t have your search terms in them but something related to them. For more on Related Query Results and all the newest updates sign up for our newsletter.

For more news and tips Subscribe to Our Newsletter

Please share and or like this page if you like it or found it useful

Getting good links can be a tedious process. With all the software and services out there charging a good chunk of cash to get links from unrelated sites I wanted to offer you all some free techniques for getting links pointed at your site from relevant websites.

You know the old adage “fight fire with fire”. If you want to get to the top of Google use Google. You can use certain Search Strings to find sites that allow comments that are relevant to your industry and/or keywords. If you Google {best restaurant San Diego “leave comment”}, use the quotes but not the {brackets}. You’ll get a list of sites that are relevant for best restaurant San Diego and have the exact phrase leave comment in the site. The quotes are what let Google know that you want “leave comment” in that exact order not leave somewhere and comment somewhere else on that site. Here is what I got when I used the search string above.

 You’ll notice that the first 3 results all come from the same website.

Sometimes this can seem like a like a bad thing. On the contrary when I went to the first result I found that that this page had 2 approved comments with follow links in the comment area. It’s a good thing when there are some approved comments. You want to look for certain types of comments. For instance on the first link in the results above. The 2 comments were kind of spammy “trading secrets” yeah that’s spammy. How ever, since there were only 2 of them and and it was the first listing in my results I’d go for it. There is a good chance your comment will be approved and it’s relevant to our search string. I don’t usually waste my time with pages that have a PR of n/a or 0 though.

Now think about the other 2 results from the search page. We now have 3 pages from a site that is actively monitored and approves comments. So it’s up to you to post well written comments with links to your sites and pages with in them. You’ve got to add something to the conversation. Generic comments like “I really like your article, thanks for writing it” just won’t cut it. Webmasters screening comments don’t like these obvious attempts at spamming. Don’t be afraid to engage the author of the page or article you’re commenting on. And be yourself. If you don’t agree with what the author has written then disagree with them. Maybe even spark some debate. If there is already a debate going on in the comment thread use that to get yourself in.

be yourself.

Don’t be afraid to engage

Here’s a quick video run down                       Subscribe to Our Newsletter

Written byOliver Realize

Please share and or like this page if you like it or found it useful