Do Follow List Of Lists
August 30, 2008
We just wanted to take a moment to thank our Phoenix SEO friends.
If our friends in Phoenix looking for search engine optimization services have landed here were it is because we have targeted your market with this post. This is an example of SEO in practice. Follow this link to learn more about Tucson SEO.
Also Our Do Follow Lists seems to have out grown what WordPress can handle. We are addressing these issues and changing the layout of these lists. They will be broken down into smaller posts. Please bear with these changes.
Our wholesale review of a large list of new blogs is winding down and we will be updating this soon.
We want to recognize these blogs and forums that have given us and our list a great big shout recently. These trackbacks are really great motivators to keep up the list. It is a labor of love for us. This list has spread so much good will and has created almost 1800 visits over the last 30 days.
We would like to offer a big shout out for Future Bell. They are not a do follow blog but they have written a very good article about the subject on their blog. Do Follow continues to be a hot blogging topic in the internet marketing world whether you live in Phoenix or India.
Thanks also to Aibal.com
Thank you SEO Diva for the shout out about Do Follow and our list. We sure do appreciate it and we invite everyone to this blog. This is what social media is all about my friends… THANKS!
We also want to give a big shout out to Web Traffic ROI.
We also want to thank you Warrior Forum: Someone posted about us on this forum.
Also thanks Webmaster Apex
I especially want to thank Tad at SEO 2.0 for this well thought and written article on leaving comments. Go here to read the article.
WhackedOut Marketing - I really like this blog.
Darren Singleton - This one is still new to me but is well written.
Finally, I want to thank Erum Munir for taking the time to inform me that he made a change to his blog.
If your blog has not been updated in two months it will be dropped. We use three of these list on a on a weekly basis. The other lists are updated every 4 - 6 weeks. If you find any blogs that are no longer Do Follow we would ask that you bring it to our attention. This list works best when every participates and please do leave a comment if you find the lists useful.
We have put in over 390 hours of work on the project and we would like to hear from you. Please consider writing about this effort and linking to our website… Thanks so very much!
This is copy protected material and never should be reproduced.
Denotes CommentLuv being used *
We experienced some difficulties with the size of the lists file so we had to break them down into smaller groups.
Entertainment - Food - Fashion - Family List
25 Blogs
Real Estate - Shopping - Science - Sports - Travel List
25 Blogs
Financial - Gardening - Home Improvement - House Cleaning
32 Blogs
Insurance - Music - Nature - Politics
5 Blopgs
52 Blogs
Blog - Writing Tech - Stuff List
42 Blogs
We invite you to join the conversation and leave a comment. We further invite you to continue the conversation on your blog and use a trackback, perhaps even social bookmark this post, maybe Sphinn it, or Stumble it.
To learn more about our services please check out these links:
Local SEO Solutions Small Business SEO Solutions Geo-targeted SEO Tucson Website Design
Niche SEO Phoenix SEO Tucson Search Engine Optimization Do Follow List
If your business is located in the US, Canada, or through out Arizona and beyond and you would like to learn more about how your website can benefit from a blog please call Tucson SEO at 520-777-6479.
Tucson SEO… Solutions that create probabilities out of possibilities.
Website Stats Reveal Hidden Gems
August 28, 2008
Every few days or so, I get around to checking where our website traffic is coming from and what pages are generating the most traffic. Shortly after we created our “Do Follow List” it became the most frequented page visited. It has stayed that way for three months and doesn’t look like it will be fading anytime soon.
The second most visited page is our blog. This makes a lot of sense, we post often and each new post is submitted to Technorati, Digg, Stumble, Reddit, and Sphinn. We also ping a large number of sites and we also submit each post to Google’s Blog Search.
The third most visited web page is the home page. This traffic is generated by the search engines mostly. This is the group most likely in need of our services.
The #4 and #5 positions are taken up by more recent blog posts. One of those is for our “Do Follow Forum List.” It originally was part of a much larger list but was recently separated to create a series of smaller lists. These two pages have just moved up into the top 5 since I last reviewed my website stats.
I tell you this to point out that there is a lot of very useful information hidden within your statistics. I have determined that posts that create value for the visitors become the most visited pages. This seems like common sense I know, but these insights can be useful.
You can begin to see patterns both positive and negative. If you are one of those inclined to take a closer look at things you might find some real gems here. Let’s say a post generated 500 visits but only 5 comments. This might reveal that you are a great marketer but that your content is weak.
Follow-up - After this post I took another look at what searches people were using to find us and I was surprised by something that I had noticed. We had a new Keyword phrase as the most searched query. We have been targeting Phoenix SEO for sometime. There are many websites working to gain or maintain the first page for this search. So it has been difficult to gain a presence on Google’s first page.
We managed to crack the the #10 position for three days running. Even at the 10th spot we were able to generate a bunch of traffic. This blew me away and encouraged me that I efforts are worth it. I was very surprised by this gem. We will now work to polish it to perfection.
We recommend that your stats be reviewed weekly!
So I ask when is the last time you looked at your website stats?
We invite you to join the conversation and leave a comment. We further invite you to continue the conversation on your blog and use a trackback, perhaps even social bookmark this post, maybe Sphinn it, or Stumble it.
To learn more about our services please check out these links:
Local SEO Tucson Website Designs Phoenix SEO Tucson Search Engine Optimization
Small Business SEO Solutions Geo-Targeted SEO Solutions Niche SEO Solutions Do Follow Blog List
If your business is located in US, Canada, and through out Arizona and beyond and you would like to learn more about how your website can benefit from a blog please call Tucson SEO at 520-777-6479.
Tucson SEO… Solutions that create probabilities out of possibilities.
Beginners SEO - Quality Page Titles Rule
August 27, 2008
Beginners SEO - Quality Page Titles Rule
If you have been around the SEO ballpark a time or two this information is going to be redundant. However, this blog is geared towards the local entrepreneur that requires small business SEO solutions. Before we begin this post, we are assuming that you already have chosen your websites targeted keyword phrases.
After selecting your keyword phrases you will need to know what to do with them. This is where the page title becomes hugely important. First off you need to know that every website should have a page title, most do but some don’t. The page title is similar to a book title and it defines what your web page is all about for the search engines.
Get this wrong and everything else that you do is basically a waste of time and effort. You can locate any websites page title by looking in the uppermost left hand corner of your browser. If your websites url is listed in this area this is a really bad thing. It means that your web page has no title and will never be found in the search results unless you are specifically searching for your domain name.
The second greatest error related to page titles is this. Many websites are created using default settings provided by many website building programs. These default settings often label your pages as Home, About Us, or Contact. These are perfectly good navigation tags to describe your pages to your visitors. However, they are of little use to the search engines. Do a Google search for home and it will produce 7 billion results. Your site has little chance to be found this way. It also does not describe what your web page is about.
The page titles are part of the source code that the search engine reads that do not appear as content on your pages. Essentially each webpage has two titles. One is primarily used for navigating around your website by your visitors. The page title that appears in the source code is used to define your web page for the search engines. Technically, both page titles appear in the source code. It is the web page “title” that we are discussing today.
The page title is the SEO equivalent to location, location, and location used in real estate to describe the most important item in the real estate sale. The same is true for the page title if you want to be positioned high in the search engine rankings. There are a few things that you need to know about creating effective page titles.
You must begin to think of website page titles as book titles. You should also realize that you have two distinctly different audiences that will be reading your titles. They are the search engines and potential customers. You need to also know that Google limits that amount of characters that it presents in its search results to 65 spaces. Your title can go longer but that portion will not appear in the results.
When search engines deliver their search results they include three pieces of information. The first piece of information is the page title and roughly about 45% of searchers use this to decide if they will visit your website. The second or middle piece of information is called the snippet and another 45% of searchers use this information when choosing if they will visit a site. The final 10% will of searchers will use the web pages url as their determining factor. So your page title is your first and best opportunity to make a good impression.
You need to keep in mind that your page title does not need to read like a sentence. It is wise to avoid away words such as how, the, if, and so on. You also should avoid using commas and symbols such as @,$, or /. If you look up at the upper left hand corner of your browser you will see that we have titled this page Beginners SEO Search Engine Optimization Tempe Mesa Chandler.
What we have done here is to tell the search engines this is what this page is about. Now, this is where this all gets very interesting indeed. Any combination of these words may be used by a potential search engine user. If these targeted keyword phrases also appear on the web page, as well, your chances of appearing in the search results increase dramatically.
The above example includes 12 combinations that we might have a reasonable chance of appearing in the search results for. This is based on the number of websites that have these words on their pages. We have no reasonable expectation to place high in the search results for the terms search engine optimization or SEO. SEO alone produces 249 million results in Google and search engine optimization produces 27.6 million results.
The keywords beginners SEO, however produces a mere 1.26 million results. Now, if we wanted to go after this combination of words we would have a reasonably good chance of obtaining first page placement in the Google search results. You will ultimately want to target keyword phrases that do not have a lot of competition, but are words that someone might actually use to find your business.
Are you ready to create effective page titles?
We invite you to join the conversation and leave a comment. We further invite you to continue the conversation on your blog and use a trackback, perhaps even social bookmark this post, maybe Sphinn it, or Stumble it.
To learn more about our services please check out these links:
Local SEO Tucson Website Designs Phoenix SEO Tucson Search Engine Optimization
Small Business SEO Solutions Geo-Targeted SEO Solutions Niche SEO Solutions Do Follow Blog List
If your business is located in US, Canada, and through out Arizona and beyond and you would like to learn more about how your website can benefit from a blog please call Tucson SEO at 520-777-6479.
Tucson SEO… Solutions that create probabilities out of possibilities.
SEO And Word Of Mouth Advertising
August 16, 2008
We attend lots and lots of business mixers here in Tucson to promote our business. At almost every event the conversation will turn to blogging and why you should provide free advice on your website. The usually refrain is “Why would you give away free advice?” Keep in mind that these are business owners that we are talking with about business.
I am still dumbfounded every time I hear that question. For, us it’s all about the golden rule in action. “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” Or perhaps, “What goes around comes around.” Some get it when put in this context, but many don’t. These are what we would call the “what can you do for me crowd.”
They are so blinded by their own wants or needs that they can not believe there is an actual benefit to helping others for free.
They don’t understand that an educated consumer can be your best client or your best word of mouth advertisement. I talked extensively with a business coach at one of these mixers. I had me laptop and gave him a quick SEO 101. We covered simple Page Title and Page Descriptions and the need for him to geo-target for Tucson.
I meet him two months at another large mixer where he joined our table. He explained how he implements what I had told him. He stated that he was now #3 and #4 on Google for the keywords that he had targeted. He then looked around the table of seven stating to each “This guy knows what he is talking about.”
He then turns to me, and he asks “now how do I get to #1 and #2?” I wryly replied “for that, it’s gonna cost ya.” I stated that since I gave so freely to him that it was now his job to go tell others.
I was retelling this story later in the evening when a friend from the table pointed out that that’s exactly what he did after leaving our table. She told us “I’ve been watching him every since we left our table, and he has been telling everyone about you and how you helped him and that he even pointed me out in the crowd.
I was blown away, I only jokingly suggested that we go tell others. Apparently he was so grateful that he felt obligated to tell others about “this guy who knows what he’s talking about.” You simply can’t buy this kind of endorsement.
Are you ready to capture the power of a WordPress Website?
We invite you to join the conversation and leave a comment. We further invite you to continue the conversation on your blog and use a trackback, perhaps even social bookmark this post, maybe Sphinn it, or Stumble it.
To learn more about our services please check out these links:
Local SEO Tucson Website Designs Phoenix SEO Tucson Search Engine Optimization
Small Business SEO Solutions Geo-Targeted SEO Solutions Niche SEO Solutions Do Follow Blog List
If your business is located in US, Canada, and through out Arizona and beyond and you would like to learn more about how your website can benefit from a blog please call Tucson SEO at 520-777-6479.
Tucson SEO… Solutions that create probabilities out of possibilities.
Paid Links Our Point Of View
August 15, 2008
As you most likely know by now, Google finally has begun to enforce its long standing position on the buying and selling of link’s in 2007. It’s official position was first outlined back in 2003 on their webmaster blog. Here is a more recent update: http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2007/12/information-about-buying-and-selling.html
We are very pleased that they have finally taken action. As they say better late then never. We have always thought the ability to buy links gave deep pocketed companies a huge advantage over the small website with limited resources.
Some say Google is the biggest link seller in the world with their AdWords program. We would agree but it’s their service and they can do what they deem most effective for them.
The sad part about this is that a whole lot of websites took huge hits financially over Google’s decision to enforce these rules. Thousands upon thousands of website business models were built on the ability to sell links. This has effectively shut down many of these operations.
Taking four years to enforce a company policy and then forcing businesses to completely alter their business practices doesn’t seem very fair to us. Now, don’t get us wrong we are big fans of Google. We just wish this had been handled a little better.
We invite you to join the conversation and leave a comment. We further invite you to continue the conversation on your blog and use a trackback, perhaps even social bookmark this post, maybe Sphinn it, or Stumble it.
To learn more about our services please check out these links:
Local SEO Tucson Website Designs Phoenix SEO Tucson Search Engine Optimization
Small Business SEO Solutions Geo-Targeted SEO Solutions Niche SEO Solutions Do Follow Blog List
If your business is located in US, Canada or through out Arizona and beyond and you would like to learn more about how your website can benefit from a blog please call Tucson SEO at 520-777-6479.
Tucson SEO… Solutions that create probabilities out of possibilities.
Geo-targeting SEO Is Catching On Slowly
August 13, 2008
Geo- targeting is slow getting the attention that it deserves. We have offered this service since this business opened. Tucson SEO Solutions business model is based on location of the websites market. Like many small business owners their market is local. So they have much less competition than those that play on a national or international stage on the Internet.
Since search engine optimization is a numbers game the website that uses Geo-targeting vastly improves their odds of success. Having less competition offers you the opportunity to reach high search rankings, if you optimize your web site. There is a very good chance that your competition has not optimized their web sites. Almost any web site can be optimized, but usually this is the arena of the larger serious players. When the small business owner optimizes his web site he usually goes to the front the line.
Many web designers only think of GIS software when they here the words Geo-targeting. GIS is the acronym for geographic information software. This software is used on information and on e-commerce sites to assist you in finding information by city.
When we apply Geo-targeting in the optimization process, we are asking the search engines to index your website by a geographic area and by your products or services. So if your website provides carpet cleaning services and you live in Tucson, then we would optimize your website for carpet cleaning in Tucson.
This is a simplest form of optimization available today. It is also the most overlooked aspect of the SEO industry. When you optimize your website by the location that you actually serve you place your business in a winning situation. You can finally use the leverage the Internet to grow your business.
Before you begin any optimization program you need to evaluate your website to make sure that everything works. It doesn’t do much good to bring traffic to a broken website.
We invite you to join the conversation and leave a comment. We further invite you to continue the conversation on your blog and use a trackback, perhaps even social bookmark this post, maybe Sphinn it, or Stumble it.
To learn more about our services please check out these links:
Local SEO Tucson Website Designs Phoenix SEO Tucson Search Engine Optimization
Small Business SEO Solutions Geo-Targeted SEO Solutions Niche SEO Solutions Do Follow Blog List
If your business is located in US, Canada or through out Arizona and beyond and you would like to learn more about how your website can benefit from a blog please call Tucson SEO at 520-777-6479.
Tucson SEO… Solutions that create probabilities out of possibilities.
Slow Loading Pages - Are They Costing You Business?
August 13, 2008
Does your website load quickly? Many a potential customer will never reach your website because of slow loading pages. We have all experienced this. You do your Google search and you see a promising website. You then click onto that link and wait and wait some more. Then you simply give up and try another site.
A slow loading website will drive potential visitors away long before your website ever opens. You have about two seconds to accomplish this. I call it the Google effect. Web surfers are so used to Google providing search results instantly. They then expect this quickness from all websites all the time.
The problem isn’t limited to small business websites that may have been home built. They actually often load very quickly because they don’t have many people visiting at the same time or they are loaded with a lot of graphics. Retail e-commerce sites are notoriously slow loading for a variety of reasons. There are literally Billions of dollars lost annually due to slow loading pages.
A general rule of thumb is that you have about two seconds maybe three for your site to open. If it takes any longer your potential visitors leave quickly to try another option. The more web savvy your visitor the quicker they leave. Imagine if your website is slow loading for a cable connection, and then imagine how slow the process is for DSL, dial-up service, or for someone using a notebook and using a Wi-Fi connection.
The moral of this story is, don’t loose your visitor before they actually see your website. We will discuss slow loading pages in depth another day.
This problem may require a bit of website redesign to resolve.
We invite you to join the conversation and leave a comment. We further invite you to continue the conversation on your blog and use a trackback, perhaps even social bookmark this post, maybe Sphinn it, or Stumble it.
To learn more about our services please check out these links:
Local SEO Tucson Website Designs Phoenix SEO Tucson Search Engine Optimization
Small Business SEO Solutions Geo-Targeted SEO Solutions Niche SEO Solutions Do Follow Blog List
If your business is located in US, Canada or through out Arizona and beyond and you would like to learn more about how your website can benefit from a blog please call Tucson SEO at 520-777-6479.
Tucson SEO… Solutions that create probabilities out of possibilities.
WordPress Developers Needed
August 13, 2008
We are recruiting for dependable WordPress developers to work as sub-contractors on a regular basis. The two main requirements are experience and dependability. We prefer Tucson based vendors.
Experience doesn’t do us much good if you are not dependable. We work on tight schedules and require that you be able to perform as required. We have a no excuses policy. If you are given a project and you can not successfully complete it on time you will not be given a second opportunity.
We currently have more projects in the pipeline than we have available WordPress developers. You can work as much as you can realistically handle. We do not work on an hourly rate and all projects are provided based on an agreed upon bid. You will receive payment two weeks after the work has been placed onto the customer’s web host and they have signed off on the project. The two week wait is to cover any bugs that migght need to be addressed.
We operate on an under promise and over deliver process. That means that we exceed the customer’s expectations. If we tell the client the project will take 8 weeks we will deliver the project in 6 weeks. So we need realistic time estimates from our developers. If you tell us that you can have the work done in 3 weeks and it takes you longer. It will be the last project that you will work on. Our clients are not paying for excuses.
We are about to launch a national campaign going after the cleaning services industry and other services industries. We will be producing very clean and straight forward websites that sell. Our focus is not so much on the look and feel, but making sure that the content sells. We are marketers first and developers second.
We have recently acquired over 20 domain names that we plan on developing. We are currently looking to develop at least one new website per month for the remainder of this year for ourselves. We have begun marketing the Phoenix market.
We have a 5 year growth plan with visions of entering the top 100 markets. We only offer services to local website using Geo-targeting SEO (not GIS). We also offer service for niche product websites. We will consider small E-commerce sites where we can easily use WordPress plugins.
All website will include 6-10 plugins each. The most time consuming aspect of these sites might be the header. We prefer to use horizontial navigation bars with drop down menu’s. For SEO purposes we have the blog excerpts loop onto the corresponding pages.
We have a five year and exit plan. Then it’s early retirement for us. There is a tremendous opportunity for the right highly motivated individuals.
Grad students will be given first consideration, but if you are highly skilled and motivated that will not be a problem.
If you are interested we will need the following.
A resume delivered in the body of an email and not as an attachment. Pay attention to this requirement over 90% of respondents send attachments. We figure that they can not follow basic instructions then you have eliminated yourselves.
If you have done paid work before we will need the links to that work and reference contact information.
If you haven’t done paid work we will need links to what you have done and someway to verify that this is your work.
A real big plus will be if you have developed WordPress websites. Please do not call, if we are interested we will contact you for an appointment.
We are not interested in using any other CMS.
We also will not outsource outside of the US and Canada.
Thanks, for your time and consideration.
We invite you to join the conversation and leave a comment. We further invite you to continue the conversation on your blog and use a trackback, perhaps even social bookmark this post, maybe Sphinn it, or Stumble it.
To learn more about our services please check out these links:
Local SEO Tucson Website Designs Phoenix SEO Tucson Search Engine Optimization
Small Business SEO Solutions Geo-Targeted SEO Solutions Niche SEO Solutions Do Follow Blog List
If your business is located in Flagstaff or through out Arizona and beyond and you would like to learn more about how your website can benefit from a blog please call Tucson SEO at 520-777-6479.
Tucson SEO… Solutions that create probabilities out of possibilities.
Google Fumbles AOL Ball
August 8, 2008
This is from Cnet. Google has recently files papers with the SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission) that it may be taking a charge against its investment in AOL. Back in December of 2005 Google invested 1 Billion for a 5% stake in AOL. It was an attempt to thwart AOL, its biggest ad partner from switching to Microsoft’s MSN unit.
In the SEC filing Google calls its investment in AOL impaired. This basically is an omission that they expect to take a charge on this investment which valued the company at 20 Billion dollars. It is currently believed that AOL is valued at half that amount.
This will allow Google to demand that Time Warner must act to spin off its AOL investment in an IPO or buy back its stake in the business. This would mean a half a Billion dollar loss for Google.
What I find missing from this story is how much money did Google make by preventing AOL from defecting to MSN. While they did loss stock value they benefited greatly from the continued revenue stream from AOL. Perhaps, I can find that answer for an update post later.
We invite you to join the conversation and leave a comment. We further invite you to continue the conversation on your blog and use a trackback, perhaps even social bookmark this post, maybe Sphinn it, or Stumble it.
To learn more about our services please check out these links:
Local SEO Tucson Website Designs Phoenix SEO Tucson Search Engine Optimization
Small Business SEO Solutions Geo-Targeted SEO Solutions Niche SEO Solutions Do Follow Blog List
If your business is located in US, Canada or through out Arizona and beyond and you would like to learn more about how your website can benefit from a blog please call Tucson SEO at 520-777-6479.
Tucson SEO… Solutions that create probabilities out of possibilities.
Winning At Keyword Development
August 2, 2008
Tonight I ran across another forum discussion about keyword tools. Everyone tells what they use. This one swears by Wordtracker. The next one thinks AdWords is the greatest things since slice bread. There are always those that like the tool provided by SEOBook. Then there is the smattering of tools that are still obscure.
I seem to be the lone voice that disdains these automated tools. I believe in doing research, yep, good old fashioned and time consuming research. We usually will start out looking at 20 competing websites. We read these web pages from front to back and we take copious notes. We include websites from various regions of the country. This allows you to discover regional variations in language. This is so hugely important. There is no easy way to the top.
We ask the client to come up with their own lists of keywords. Then we perform focus groups. We ask the group to provide keyword feedback on the website. In other words, we ask them what they would search for to find the targeted products or services.
Yes, it does require time and resources, but success isn’t easy in competitive fields. It’s all about thinking outside the box. We use these methods daily because they work.
Then we combine all the research into a database. We use this information to create keyword phrases using 3 or more words, in most cases. Then we place them onto the website and observe what works and what doesn’t.
There is also a new face of keyword development that may eventually change the whole industry dramatically. This new face is Latent Semantic Indexing or LSI. It scores pages on where the keywords appear on the pages.
We invite you to visit SEOBook and Wikipedia to learn more about the growing importance of this new tool.
Generally, we analyze these keywords after 30, 60, and 90 days. We make adjustment based on the website statistics. This is what we call Keyword Development.
We invite you to join the conversation and leave a comment. We further invite you to continue the conversation on your blog and use a trackback, perhaps even social bookmark this post, maybe Sphinn it, or Stumble it.
To learn more about our services please check out these links:
Local SEO Tucson Website Designs Phoenix SEO Tucson Search Engine Optimization
Small Business SEO Solutions Geo-Targeted SEO Solutions Niche SEO Solutions Do Follow Blog List
If your business is located in Flagstaff or through out Arizona and beyond and you would like to learn more about how your website can benefit from a blog please call Tucson SEO at 520-777-6479.
Tucson SEO… Solutions that create probabilities out of possibilities.
Cuil It!
July 30, 2008
By now just about every blog related to the Internet or Internet marketing has chimed in on Cuil (pronounced cool.) In case you missed this Cuil was a really hyped world beating, Google beating new search engine. It was created by a Group of Googler’s who cashed out and attempted to create the world biggest search engine.
They rolled out the new SE yesterday amidst tremendous fanfare. The problem is that it just doesn’t work very well at all. It was a public relations nightmare. The marketing folks got out way ahead of the development group. So this baby may end up succumbing to SIDS before it every gets out of the cradle and starts walking.
The reviews across the blogosphere have been frigid. I liked the layout out of the website but it is clear that this product is not ready for prime time yet, the worlds biggest search engine needs a lot of work before it becomes a useful tool. While we techies and early adopters may have given it bad marks for its launch the general public has never heard of Cuil, and that’s a good thing.
Cuil has a lot of work to do but they have a good core group that should be able to work out the technical problems. As Google morphs from the 800 lbs. gorilla into a 1600 lbs monster a hunger will grow to replace them. Google is already becoming the company to hate just as happened to Microsoft, and just like Microsoft they will be hard to replace. I wish this company well.
Since our company is # 1 for the search Tucson SEO with Google and can not be found on Cuil I am not overly excited. But it will be worth watching to see if this ever turns into a serious search engine at least for now its ad free.
We invite you to join the conversation and leave a comment. We further invite you to continue the conversation on your blog and use a trackback, perhaps even social bookmark this post, maybe Sphinn it, or Stumble it.
To learn more about our services please check out these links:
Local SEO Tucson Website Designs Phoenix SEO Tucson Search Engine Optimization
Small Business SEO Solutions Geo-Targeted SEO Solutions Niche SEO Solutions Do Follow Blog List
If your business is located in Flagstaff or through out Arizona and beyond and you would like to learn more about how your website can benefit from a blog please call Tucson SEO at 520-777-6479.
Tucson SEO… Solutions that create probabilities out of possibilities.
Button All.COM Worth A Look
July 28, 2008
This is one of those websites that I found using my StumbleUpon toolbar. I must admit in the past I used this toolbar daily, but not so much anymore. Today, I decided on a whim to give it another try and like and old friend it came through. That’s when I discovered www.buttonall.com.
At first blush it seemed like a rather dull website and somewhat plain like Google’s home page. Then just as I was ready to click away to the next site in the Stumble rotation something prompted me to take a closer look. That’s when I realized that this website was worth exploring a little more closely.
It had your basic search box with five columns of buttons with four rows in each column. The first row included the four major US search engines and Mahalo, a mostly useless search engine. The second row included reference material sites that include Wikipedia, a dictionary, a thesaurus, Map Quest, and About.com. The third row they refer to as their people channel it includes MySpace, FaceBook, White Pages, Super Pages, and a site called Socialzr. This last site I not sure what it is about. The fourth row or channel is for shopping sites including Amazon, E-Bay, Craigslist, Buy.com, and Overstock.
While I do not personally use many of these websites I can easily see that this could become a highly used website for me since I regularly use 11 out of these twenty sites. I just gave it a test run and this is what I discovered.
First enter your search query and then you click on a button it takes you to that website. In this case I did a Google search and it delivered Google results below a row of Google AdSense ads. I found that somewhat amusing. It also explained how the website makes its money. The only thing that I found that I didn’t like was that you can not get back by using the back button. I found this flaw annoying but not so much so that I would not recommend using this website. If you are a power searcher you might find this site useful. It is now happily bookmarked.
We invite you to join the conversation and leave a comment. We further invite you to continue the conversation on your blog and use a trackback, perhaps even social bookmark this post, maybe Sphinn it, or Stumble it.
To learn more about our services please check out these links:
Local SEO Tucson Website Designs Phoenix SEO Tucson Search Engine Optimization
Small Business SEO Solutions Geo-Targeted SEO Solutions Niche SEO Solutions Do Follow Blog List
If your business is located in Flagstaff or through out Arizona and beyond and you would like to learn more about how your website can benefit from a blog please call Tucson SEO at 520-777-6479.
Tucson SEO… Solutions that create probabilities out of possibilities.
Welcome To Tucson SEO Solutions
July 16, 2008
Welcome to Tucson SEO Solutions.
This website has been a work in progress for the last year. We have recently re-launched this website after nearly a year of dreaming and planning. Previously, we had used a self built Office Live website.
While the website software left a lot to be desired it was free. Yep, the domain name, the website and hosting were all free. We were able to leverage this website to grow our small business beyond merely providing SEO services.
We noted early on that every website that we looked at had serious design and marketing flaws. With this in mind, we decided, never to SEO a broken website. This posed unique challenges as we (the owners) are marketers and not web designers.
We knew we wanted to build and rebuild broken websites so that they were best able to convert their new website traffic. With this in mind, it has been a nine month journey full of obstacles putting our design team together. Finding honest, ethical, and trustworthy designers and editors has been way harder than we had ever anticipated.
We, now have a solid team in place that shares the same vision. This vision is to develop websites that are affordable, that sell, and create customers out of visitors. We simply apply simple basic Geo-Targeted SEO, basic sales 101, proof reading (not the blog), open source CMS, and marketing training to produce tremendous results.
We fully understand how difficult it is to obtain high search ranking in competitive fields. That is why we focus on the local small business owner and niche national players. We play the numbers game, and we play to win.
We never take on a client that we do not believe has a reasonably good chance to obtain first page results over multiple keyword searches (think long tail here.)
We invite you to do some verifying of what we say. Do a Google search for “Tucson house cleaning service.” This is our first website, www.yourfreshstart.us and it has held the #1 or #2 position for this search since April 2007.
We learned SEO out of necessity to market our own website and now we share our experiences with you. We encourage you to comment and thank you for visiting, and if you really like us we would ask that you link to us. This blog is about empowering the small business owner to leverage the web to grow their business.
We invite you to join the conversation and leave a comment. We further invite you to continue the conversation on your blog and use a trackback, perhaps even social bookmark this post, maybe Sphinn it, or Stumble it.
To learn more about our services please check out these links:
Local SEO Tucson Website Designs Phoenix SEO Tucson Search Engine Optimization
Small Business SEO Solutions Geo-Targeted SEO Solutions Niche SEO Solutions Do Follow Blog List
If your business is located in US, Canada or through out Arizona and beyond and you would like to learn more about how your website can benefit from a blog please call Tucson SEO at 520-777-6479.
Tucson SEO… Solutions that create probabilities out of possibilities.
Is Your Website Too Busy?
July 7, 2008
A good sign that your website is to busy can be found by taking a good look at your Google analytics. If you see that your website has a high bounce rate then your website just might be to busy. Busy website think that everything need to be crammed into the home page or any page for the matter. They seem to not be able to comprehend the concept of KISS. Get It Simple Stupid!
As an internet marketer and SEO provider I visit dozens of website a day. I am amazed by how many websites are so busy that I couldn’t find what I was looking for. These sites cram so much information that it makes using the website very difficult. Try visiting a major retailer and you will see what I mean.
These sites are often put together as if they were a newspaper and use a multi column approach. When I see these pages beginning to load I usually leave. Experience has shown me that these sites are so difficult to use that I seldom find what I am looking for.
Earlier this year we needed to find out where we go to vote for the primary election in our city. We had moved since the last election cycle and didn’t know where our polling place was located. My honey said she heard on theevening news that voting information was available on the TV channels website.
I am sure that it was there but I could not find it so I gave up and called the local Democratic headquarters for the information. That site was trying to do way too much and ended up not being useful.
This is where market research is very useful. Ask your friends, family, business associates, and strangers to visit your website. Ask them for an honest evaluation of their experience. Take the time to make up an evaluation form. Limit it to 5 or 6 open ended questions.
Be prepared to make changes and to except criticism. What you and your web designer consider a great feature may be driving away potential customers. The ultimate goal is to convert the visitor into a customer.
We build business websites with only one or two columns and with a minimum of distractions. Everything is simple, clean, and straight forward. We avoid the cute and creative by simply focusing on selling. We recommend that you do the same.
If your website is failing to convert your visitors into customers you should consider our comprehensive website review by calling us at 520-777-6479.
If you have a thought that you would like to add to the conversation then please do join the conversation. We would also ask that your consider expanding the conversation on your blog and use a trackback, maybe social bookmark this post, or perhaps give it a Sphinn or Stumble.
Tucson SEO Solutions… Creating probabilities out of possibilities.
Free Zip Code Database
July 6, 2008
I recently read a comment about blogging on other websites as a total waste of time. I noted that I consider this activity to be both a part of our social promotion, but that it is also part of our continuing education. The response also noted that there are a lot of great resources that are gained by visiting other sites and participating.
This post began simply enough, while I was checking the SERP’s for the Keyword phrase “niche SEO” I noticed that SEOBook had an article on niche SEO. After landing on Aaron’s site I followed a link that he provided for a free Zip Code database.
Since we provide Geo-targeted SEO we figured this database would be very useful. The site provided 2 options link to Free Zip Code Database in a blog post and get a free version or Pay $25.00.
As you can see we opted for option one. It was such an easy decision. I hadn’t posted to the blog today, so here was fresh content just begging to be used. It also allows us to assist you by providing useful information and tools. This is a basic part of our business and personal styles. When we help others we often find many benefits for ourselves. Helping and assisting others has so many rewards.
I had no idea when looking at the SERP’s would take me and this is why I love what I do so much… Everyday it’s some think new, better, or different.
Did I say “I love my job.”
We invite you to join the conversation and leave a comment. We further invite you to continue the conversation on your blog and use a trackback, perhaps even social bookmark this post, or maybe Sphinn it, or Stumble it.
If you would like to learn more about how your website can benefit from a blog please call Tucson SEO at 520-777-6479.
Tucson SEO… Solutions that create probabilities out of possibilities.
Titling Blog Posts: Fact or Fiction
June 27, 2008
Those of us who blog daily understand all too well, the importance of the posts title. We all exist in a very noisy blogosphere. For many of us our lives often seem to be running at an equally frantic pace. We scurry about our jobs, family, and life in general. It is a busy world.
We are daily bombarded by tens of thousands a messages, images, and noise on an hourly basis. Thus standing out in a crowded may take a linkbait mentality. Linkbait by its very nature is about drawing attention to your website or blog. So that is what we are doing or you would not be reading this
There is also another level of linking that can transform the dynamics of the conversation. This is where linkbait becomes a social exchange of ideas. So we ask, does your blog include a call to action? A call to action simply asks your visitor do to what you want them to do. It is that simple. If you want them to comment why not ask them? Do you want them to sign up for an RSS feed then ask. I mean come on; a blog is a conversation, and when you have completed writing then ask for a response.
This is where the magic begins. When you get individuals to respond to post now take the time to add a follow-up comment and then send them a short personal thank you. We are not talking about an auto responder here. After all a blog is social media in action, right?
You will be amazed by the positive response that you will receive. You also score bonus links if you answer the question that they asked in their blog comment in your reply. Another option is to respond to each compelling worthy comment in detail on the blog as well. If you want to have a conversation you have to be willing to be an active participant.
We have all seen blogs where the writer will post their thoughts, responses come in and the writer is never heard from again. Your readers will appreciate your attention to detail this builds up trust, a rare commodity on the Internet and it shows that you care.
I have on more than occasion developed dozens of links from people who linked to us and social bookmarked our pages simply because we took the time to personally respond.
Yea, I know this requires time.
So my reader was this fact or fiction?
If you would like to join this conversation then please do leave a comment. We would also ask you to consider building upon this post on your blog and use a trackback, and or social bookmark us.
Are you ready to put more fact then fiction into your Internet marketing efforts?
For more information please contact us at 520-777-6479
Use A Blog As A Newsletter Discussions Forum
June 26, 2008
Today we are going to take a look at using a blog on a business website. A blog is simply an online conversation. It is another channel that can be used to communicate with customers or potential customers.
First we want to suggest that if you are going to create a business blog that it be hosted on your website and not somewhere else. You never want to direct traffic away from your website to a blog hosted elsewhere. There is almost no advantage to a blog that is not on your businesses website.
Many websites include a sign-up form for their newsletter, as part of the design process, which they periodically send out in an email form. This is a very common practice used by coaches, trainers and consultants. The newsletter gets sent out and then the responses begin to trickle in one email at a time. If the newsletter is especially good, interesting or provocative it can generate a fair amount of emails.
The end result is that a collection of separate conversations begins to occur on the same topic but they are not connected to each other. The newsletter owner can end up answering the same or similar questions over and over again.
Our advice is to post your newsletter on your blog and then send it out and include a link or links to your blog. Then ask that the conversation be moved to the blog. One of the advantages of having a blog in combination with a newsletter is that it allows you to address the questions generated by the newsletter quickly. It eliminates answering the same question over and over. It can also stimulate an ongoing discussion between those who have read the newsletter. It can create its own little community interacting on your blog.
This format allows you to expand on your original newsletter concept in more detail. Most newsletters cover multiple topics and each can be given its own blog post and conversation. This process can breathe new life into your newsletter and create a much more powerful marketing tool.
Are you ready to transform your newsletter into a powerful marketing tool?
We invite you to join the conversation and leave a comment. We further invite you to continue the conversation on your blog and use a trackback, perhaps even social bookmark this post, or maybe Sphinn it, or Stumble it.
If your business is located in Marana or through out Arizona and beyond and you would like to learn more about how your website can benefit from a blog please call Tucson SEO at 520-777-6479.
Tucson SEO… Solutions that create probabilities out of possibilities.
Creating Effective Page Titles For High Search Ranking and Traffic.
June 14, 2008
We have learned, as many of you have the importance of creating effective Page Titles for your website. When talking to clients, potential clients, or individuals at business mixers this is how we explain Page Titles. We compare Page Titles to the “location, location, location” mantra of real estate. The Page Title is that important.
A lot has been written about the use of effective Keywords in page titles. Since Google allows only 65 spaces for your title you should stay within this parameter. You can go longer and it will be indexed, but it will not appear in the SERP’s. If you’ve ever seen a title in the results that ended like this … then you know that the title went beyond the 65 space limit.
There is a very good reason why you should not go long. Around 45% or so of web searchers use the Page Title when choosing to click on a result. So if your keyword appears beyond the space limit it will be out of view. Out of sight often means that your effort has been wasted. Don’t get greedy and over optimize as it will work against you.
Also don’t include throw away words like; and, or. Eliminate using symbols such as @,$,!, or & and also avoid using commas. We are going to take a look at the home page title from our very our house cleaning website. This site launched an SEO career. It should become apparent why very soon. The Page Title reads:
Tucson House Home Cleaning Janitorial Service Office Business
And these are some of the possible combination of Keywords that include the Geo-targeted keyword Tucson.
Tucson House Cleaning
Tucson House Cleaning Service
Tucson Home Cleaning
Tucson Home Cleaning Service
Tucson Cleaning Service
Tucson Janitorial
Tucson Janitorial Service
Tucson Janitorial Cleaning Service
Tucson Office Cleaning
Tucson Office Cleaning Service
Tucson Business Cleaning
Tucson Business Cleaning Service
So this gives us a total of 12 Keyword phrases in the title.
The real beauty of this is that if you write your content correctly you can create two listings per search on the first page of the results. It is accomplished because we have created individual pages for each specific targeted phrase.
The keyword phrases Tucson House Cleaning and Tucson House Cleaning Service will get indexed for the home page and for the house/home cleaning page.
This is how we ruled the SERP’s in Tucson for cleaning service website as many as 33 times on the first page of Google. Did I say that we closed that business and now exclusively prove web services.
We also targeted these keywords
Commercial
Residential
Building
Local
Garage
Housecleaning
We invite you to join the conversation and leave a comment. We further invite you to continue the conversation on your blog and use a trackback, perhaps even social bookmark this post, or maybe Sphinn it, or Stumble it.
If your business is located in Phoenix or through out Arizona and beyond and you would like to learn more about how your website can benefit from Search Engine Optimization, Marketing or a blog please call Tucson SEO at 520-777-6479.
Tucson SEO… Solutions that create probabilities out of possibilities.
Websites That Work: Part 1
June 2, 2008
Everyone who owns a website wants to increase traffic to their site. They rightly, or wrongly, believe that increased traffic will produce increased leads and business. However, most of these people never consider “is my website ready for prime time.”
All your marketing and optimization efforts may be wasted if your website is dysfunctional. Many of your visitors will abandon your website before they ever arrive if your pages are slow in loading. Slow loading pages are the kiss of death for any website. One of these obstacles is related to your websites content such as too many pictures or graphics. The other obstacle maybe related to the website hosting package that you purchased. You may not have enough bandwidth for your traffic.
Let’s first consider the slow loading page due to content. This is usually a result of a page that is loaded with, animation, graphics, and pictures. All of these dramatically slow down the opening of a web page. Consider replacing them with Keyword rich content. Remember this, search engines can not read graphics and pictures. So you are better off replacing these with text that includes your Keywords presented as Keyword phrases (Two or more keywords combined.)
The other reason your pages are loading slowly is a lack of bandwidth. You might want to think of bandwidth as a road to your website. When too much traffic tries to access your website at once it might not be wide enough to handle the volume. Lack of bandwidth slows down traffic to a crawl. You should consider upgrading your hosting plan. Usually, a few more dollars spent on more bandwidth will resolve this problem.
Remember, not everyone has a cable confection. So If your website is slow loading with cable just imagine how slow it is at slower speeds.
Mountain View SEO.com Announces The “$250.00 Design Our Header Contest”
May 25, 2008
Mountain View SEO.com Announces the “$250.00 Design Our Header Contest”
We are developing a website for the url, http://www.mountainviewseo.com. We will be awarding $250.00 for the best design for our websites header. The header for this new website should reflect the Silicon Valley area.
We will specifically be targeting the cities of Mountain View, Sunnyvale, and San Jose California. This will be an opportunity to showcase your graphic skills to the Center of the internet universe.
The final winner will be chosen based on a combination of factors. The final decision will include input from our staff and input from our website visitors. All entries become the sole prosperity of Tucson SEO Solutions and may be used in part or whole on other projects at our desecration.
The winner will be announced on or about October 1, 2008. The only guidelines are these.
• The work must be your own original work.
• All entries must be delivered to Tucson SEO Solutions on later than September 15th.
• You must start the process by leaving a comment on our blog expressing your interest.
Every Monday we will be emailing everyone who has expressed interest in this contest the specific details about the contest.
We believe this is a great opportunity to highlight your skills to the center of the internet universe.