Digsby Combines Instant Messenger, Twitter, Facebook and Myspace All in One Place!

Ok I admit it. I am a little resistant to change. Which is not a great trait for someone in the SEO / Web 2.0 business. So in an effort to break myself of old habits, I have been using Digsby for the last two weeks. I must say I'm impressed. Not only was it easy to combine my AOL, Yahoo and Gmail chat clients into one interface, but now my life streams from Twitter, MySpace and Facebook are a click away from my task bar. I wasn't sure if I would really use the Facebook, Twitter and Myspace feeds that Digsby offers but to my surprise, not only have I used them, but they have allowed me to be more connected to those communities and I find that I interact with those communities much more now on a daily basis. It also allows me to respond more quickly to messages that I get from those communities.

The thing that has made the biggest impression on me is how much I really do interact with those life streams. And because of that, I have realized the importance of updating your status (which appears in your friends life streams) consistently and always including a live link when applicable. I recommend adding the Twitter app to Facebook and allowing your tweets to update your Facebook status. Then make sure that your blog posts are automatically imported into your Twitter account and Shazam! Every time you post a new blog, it gets updated in your status which then gets updated to your friends life streams. Thus providing you an additional viral opportunity for your blog posts.

That's just one of the cool things I have discovered using Digsby. I am sure there are more to follow. So if you don't already have it, give a whirl. It's free and it's useful. And that's a pretty good combination.

Track AJAX and Flash Actions with Google Analytics Event Tracking

Get more detailed actions with Google Analytics Event Tracking

Released as beta a version to testers, Google Analytics can now tag certain events that happen on a page that are normally not tracked by default on many other analytics platforms. This is common on websites that use AJAX and Flash, which are two technologies based on the current trends will just see more and more of these technologies used. Thus there is a great demand for tracking the events on sites like these.

Often web analytics platforms track many server and browser variables once an HTML rendered page loads. Problem today is many page elements powered by AJAX and Flash does not reload a new page. Thus an AJAX or Flash heavy site may be having a lot of user activity but are not effectively tracked as common web analytics software are not being able to track these events without a page loading.

Google Analytics new feature released to beta testers now has Event Tracking. This allows you to tag Objects on your site. Picture an object as selected elements of your page you with to track its activity. This can be ideal on AJAX and Flash elements; you can place this on an AJAX step by step process, a file download, streaming webcast video, tutorial videos, etc. With these objects you assign Actions that are done on you defined objects. These can be: play, pause, stop in videos and you can even set video playing percent timelines. This can give analytics a whole new insight into user behavior data that can be translated into improvement of a better user experience, better site conversion.

The Limitations of Web Analytics

A common limitation with many free analytics packages is they can only track all numbers as the page loads, either reading server logs or using page tagging often with JavaScript but can also be done with small pixel images.

Each tracking technique has their own advantages and limitations, server logs have the limitations of recording various people using the same IP address like in a corporate network. Several people may be visiting a site but it may appear on the server logs to be one person. JavaScript tagging can take advantage of browser cookies thus being able to determine if a visit is unique based on the unique browser cookie even if the IP addresses are all the same. Although many anti-spyware, anti-adware software have also cookie cleaners that can clean out cookies and skew other analytics reports. This is unavoidable but can be minimized as much as possible. Many modern day analytics platforms use a combination of all tracking techniques.

Hits to a website give you limited knowledge of other activities, with the new Event Tracking, this will bring a new light into the interpretation of data.

Other Advanced Analytics Platforms

I still remember HitBox that became HBX that was then purchased by Visual Sciences and became one of the biggest competitors of Omniture. Then, Omniture bought Visual Sciences and that acquisition was finalized earlier this year. So far Omniture is known to be one of the most advanced analytics platforms being able to track almost anything on a page.

But as Google’s free Analytics platform that had its beginnings from starting with the purchase of Urchin, and just kept getting better might be able to put Omniture out of business don't you think? Maybe some people might think of that. But personally, for a big company like Omniture, I doubt Google Analytics will kill Omniture, it might kill their platform, but the business can still exist as many website owners cannot understand the numbers right away and may need from help from a specialist to digest the information into usable data for important business decisions.

Yahoo Bought IndexTools and Microsoft Bought Gatineau

And of course if Google is improving, Yahoo and Microsoft are also improving. Yahoo has purchased IndexTools which is not only a web analytics platform, but also a bid management tool as well. Currently their site looks is closed for new customers right after Yahoo announced the purchase and you cannot signup anywhere so we really don't know if this will be a paid service or dive into the free analytics world like what Google does. I do envision this to be rebranded with Yahoo colors and probably implement the unified Yahoo account login just like all other Yahoo properties. And Microsoft has purchased Gatineau and is now called Microsoft AdCenter Analytics. This is accessible through Microsoft's AdCenter thus you just have to sign up an account with them and you're good to go.

5 Tips for Defining Your Own SEO Process

Having a consistent SEO process is critical for any SEO company as well as any SEO professional. By taking the time to write out a training manual for your employees (even if you haven't hired any yet) you accomplish a couple different things. First, defining your SEO process allows you to be more consistent in your own work, and it allows SEO teams to be more consistent in the work they deliver. Especially in cases where multiple SEO team members are working on the same project. So for example, writing out step by step instructions on how to create a page title tag ensures that every page title tag, whether its your work or another team members, adheres to whatever best practices have made you successful. There are of course many different opinions on what the best approach for any aspect of SEO is. But whatever your approach, it should be consistent. And defining the approach is the first time to ensuring that consistency as well as providing a standard of accountability.

Secondly, defining your SEO process makes you really dissect what you do and why. And that leads to a better overall process. Defining your process makes you start asking questions about why you do, what you do, and why you don't do other things. And in SEO, you always have to adapt to emerging trends and having your process well defined allows you to quickly integrate new activities into your process without a lot of confusion. Their are a lot of small details to doing an SEO campaign, and without a well defined check list for your process, especially when there is more than one person involved, its easy for things to fall by the way side.

So here are some suggestions that you might think about for defining your process:

1) Create an Outline - a step by step, high level approach to your process from the point where a contract is signed until the last deliverable has been executed.

An oversimplified version for SEO might be:

Keyword Research
Site Diagnostic (what needs to be fixed)
Fix Technical Issues (we call those site wide issues)
On Page Optimization (lets make some Meta tags!)
Off Page Optimization (internal and external link development)

Now obviously there is a lot more to the whole process but you get the idea. This will serve as your master outline and that document allows you to understand how incorporating new ideas into your process will affect everything else. Additionally it really helps for training purposes.

2) Get Granular - Once you have the SEO process outline, make sure your define each step in the process with instructions that are clear enough that someone who is totally new to SEO could follow. And be as detailed as possible. So for example, you should have clear instructions written on how to create Meta Tags as per your own philosophy (and by the way, its good to re read those on a periodic basis once you write them to make sure you are following you own best practices). Having those instructions written out makes your process clearer in your own mind, keeps you consistent with yourself, and allows your team to be consistent in their approach as well. Which also helps ensure a successful project since your rules are based on what is working for you. It's also good to create a repository of related links for each subject that can be referenced for both training purposes as well as client education.

3) Make a Checklist - Write down all the things from a technical point of view that you need to check for on each site. Things like redirects, potential duplicate content issues like tracking codes or canonical issues, or technology like Flash or Java script, should all be defined along with the options for resolution. Having your check list ensures that you never forget any important detail to look at. And when your list is over 50 items long like ours is, it's easy to forget something if you just rely on your memory. Especially those of us who have been playing rock music for 17 years...lol.

4) Communicate the Process - A wiki is a great tool when you have a collaboration environment like we do at BOL where different people are responsible for staying on top of different aspects of SEO. Obviously for a smaller enviornment a collection of word documents on a shared location works fine. But whatever the medium, the information should be freely accessible to all members of the SEO team and integrated into their workflow.

5) Research and Develop - Make sure that you put time aside every month to revisit your process, try new things, text old things and listen to the market. Your process should always be evolving. For example, if you recommend a blog strategy for link and content development to clients as part of your SEO solution, a Twitter account recommendation may be something you incorporate into your process. Not because it has any direct SEO value, but because of your ability to promote your blog posts and network with other bloggers which then allows you to be more productive in your link acquisition campaign. The recent adoption curve of Twitter among bloggers is an example of the kinds of new technologies that can have an affect on your SEO process and require you to change. And since the Internet changes so rapidly, its important to devote time to research and development of your process on a monthly basis.

Hopefully this post inspires some folks to really define their own SEO process. The rewards far out weigh the cost of doing it, although you might not feel that way about it until your done...lol. Have a great week.

How I Got Started In An SEO Career

**Welcome to the How I Got Started in SEO Blog Tag. I decided after creating this post that I would turn it into a tag. This is pretty simple to do. Simply make a blog post with the following:

1. How you got Started in SEO
2. List down 5 people and link to them who you want to blog tag and request them to tell their story how they got started in SEO. Although if you are not listed in my 5 people, feel free to still participate here if you want.
3. Link to where you read this story.

I think it would be cool to see how each one of us got into this business :)

So, having said that, here is my story:

We have a few new interns starting this week and it got me a little nostalgic for my own beginning in the world of SEO. Back in 1999, I hadn't touched a computer since 1992 when I was trying unsuccessfully to focus on my computer science major at San Diego State (which I didn't get because I chose to spend 7 years playing guitar in my band and working in guitar stores). But in 1999 I had grown weary of guitar stores (or it might have been my manager) and I wanted to try something new. So I got a job at an Internet service provider called Simply Internet. They were a little bit bigger of an operation back then as dial up was still in its prime and Web design was something that people were just starting to hear about. I thought it was a cool job cause I got to hang out on a computer all day and I just had to call people and ask them how their service was. If anything was wrong, I just transferred them to customer service. Pretty easy job really. And since it took me all of about 5 minutes to master, I had a lot of time on my hands between calls.

So that's when I decided to do a Web site for my band and bought my first domain (with the help of Digital Point owner Shawn Hogan, who also got his start is a way at Simply Internet but that's a different story) called www.heavymusic.com which is still my band's site to this day. I taught myself HTML thanks to htmlgoodies.com (which used to look a lot cooler by the way) and made a site for myself using Dreamweaver (seriously... it really was a legal copy).

At the time, I was just interested in getting more people to hear my music. So once the site was built and I was only getting 2 people a day (me and my office friend) to the site, I started to wonder how to attract more visitors. And it didn't take me long to look to the search engines. That's when I discovered a program called Web Position that showed me where my site was ranked in Altavista which was the number one search engine of that time (times sure do change..lol). And from there I started reading everything I could about SEO including this article that really changed the way I thought about search.

So after a lot of long hours of trial and error that included uploading homepage files with a 33K modem I started to get traffic to the site. And after hundreds of hours over the course of about 6 months, I was able to get my site positioned #1 in Altavista for the word MP3. Wanna see what it looked like? LOL. Here it is. As you can see, we I was also experimenting with affiliate marketing. But I did end up making about $40,000 when it was all said and done from all this stuff which was enough money at the time to help me move to the beach and start my career in SEO.

From there I went to baby products (#1 in Google for Baby Cribs while I was at that company) and then into the travel business which is when I really started to get into Google and Page Rank and a lot more of what is now modern SEO. I was able to position that company #1 for "New York Hotels" and #3 for "Las Vegas Hotels" while I was there in addition to thousands more top 10 listings (we had over 50 sites).

And from there, I came here to BusinessOnLine, where I now get to work with some of the biggest brands in the world. It's been quite a journey, and the coolest part is, that it's really only just beginning. The changes in this industry are amazing and are measured in months rather than years. And I think that's what I like most about it. It never gets boring cause there is always something new and the people who work in search are crazy just like me...lol. Plus I really get to use some of the computer skills I learned in college, which I know would make my late grandfather happy and proud.

And here I the SEO Legends I am tagging:

Bruce Clay - One of the first Guru's I ever met.

Greg Boser - The coolest guy in search and a lot of fun to have a beer with. Thank God he changed his domain to something I could spell!

Lora Lufark (SexySEO) - The name says it all.

Joost - One of the smartest dudes in search and able to leap tall buildings with a single snippet of code (optimized for performance of course).

Rand Fishkin - Often mistaken for the guy in the beer commercial: "the most interesting man in the world".

Build Links Fast! There Is No Penalty In Getting Many Links Quickly

Now just before I said that, I am already wearing my bulletproof vest armor and mask with my forcefield on just in case people slam me right away without reading.

Links help in ranking

Here are a few SEO fundamentals that are considered SEO facts already my a majority number of people in the SEO industry.

1. Incoming links to your website increase ranking. They are like votes of authority, trust, credibility.


2. Google and many of the other search engines are against artificial link building. This is trying to influence search engines by creating so many links yourself trying to pretend many people like your site, thus linking to you.

Thus any form or kind of way you are trying to influence ranking artificially, like buying links only for the purpose of having a link for search engine ranking, or participating in various types of automated link exchanging and farming are frowned upon by search engines. And Google and other search engines are getting better and better in detecting these artificial link building activities.

Getting too many links too fast is bad!

Ok now I am contradicting my own title of the blog post. But this is known by many SEO experts already. If you build links so fast on a new page, or worst on a new site, and add tons of them in a short period of time, this spells ranking disaster and can get your site into penalty zone if you don't get kicked out right away.

I have seen more and more people experience this when they have a site on page 1 ranking at number 10, then suddenly adds so many links and after two days, they are found beyond the 100 rank. Which is not impossible to fix by the way, you can still crawl your way back up if ever you did experience this.

But massive link building can still be done quickly without getting any penalty!

This actually happens everyday. I have seen this happen many times in the past. But I don't memorize each example so I will just use a very recent one.

The China Earthquake

Now before I continue with this blog post, I'd like to take a break from your train of thought for just a couple of minutes and say a little prayer regardless of your religion and pray that there may be more survivors found in the rubbles of the recent earthquake last Monday at 8:00pm. And for the survivors, let's pray that the affected families be able to recover well from this disaster. It is believed that there are nearly 10,000 deaths due to the earthquake from the intensity 7.9 earthquake. We would like to express our deepest condolences to all the families that were affected by the earthquake. If you wish to contribute and help out in the relief fund, and is not sure where to go to, I always trust the Red Cross than any other website online as there are also scammers online that it is hard to detect who are the real and fake relief entities.

This sad event happened on Monday evening (China Time) which was two days ago. As of current press time, searching from the US on Google.com page 1 shows 4 pages that have so many links right away within 2 days.

Number 3 Result on Google for China Earthquake - CNN.com



CNN is showing that their article about the China Earthquake now has 811 links all acquired in 2 days.

Number 5 Result on Google for China Earthquake is Yahoo News



Yahoo's syndicated news from Associated Press gathers 321 links in 2 days.

Number 7 Result goes to technology blogger Robert Scoble on the popular Scobleizer blog



The techblogger already with a large fan base gets 560 links in two days after the earthquake.

Number 8 goes to the US Geological Survey that records almost any earthquake and volcanic activity world wide.



The high authoritative and very informative site of the US government gets 539 links easily in 2 days.

All of these sites gathered so many links in a very short period of time, and yet they are not beyond page 10. I know many of you may argue these are highly authoritative sites so they can get away with it, and I have seen this effect in the past already with Hurricane Katrina, San Diego's Wild Fires, Indonesia's Tsunami. This can build links to many news sites that are already popular with high Google PageRank. But that does not mean it cannot happen to a site that is unknown.

I have seen this happen to many sites but it is hard to remember a specific example and the one that I can quickly remember is Ms Dewey. Today Ms Dewey has 40k+ links but when the site first came out in 2006, she was totally unknown. The site came out of nowhere and their links just exponentially increased in a short period of time. Where they banned? Nope, their content was purely viral and links were all natural.

Now two words I want you to focus on in the previous sentence: Natural and Viral.

Going Natural

I believe natural links and artificial links is not that hard to be detected by Google. So many factors and patterns to look at. IP addresses, locations, rate of increase, date and time, types of sites, varying link text, deep linking and a lot more. The more natural it looks, the better.

Go Viral

I guess you have heard this word over and over again, viral marketing, viral video, viral media but this is actually an old concept even before the Internet went commercial. The term word-of-mouth is already talking about viral marketing. The more viral it is, the more it spreads, and serves as better link baits. Thus making more natural links.

To end this blog post and sum it up into 1 sentence, that sentence would be: Building links so fast and so many is ok as long as your links are all natural.

And a few more things for you to think about...

• Viral content may not be applicable to every industry. It will all depend on your advertising creativeness. We go back to content is king, whatever the content form is, text, photos, videos, applications, etc. How can you apply this to your industry?


• SEO is not all about link building and it is not all about link numbers but also link quality and PageRank. With earthquake example I had, as of current press time, CNN, Yahoo News, USGS and Scobleizer were on page 1. But the number 1 organic result a blog post that gathered only 59 links.

Note: All the number of links used in this blog post are based on Yahoo's Site Explorer report on links. This may not be an exact number, but is currently the more complete you can get publicly and I used this on all websites to be consistent with the number comparisons.

Google's Friend Connect Ready to Dominate Web 2.0 Social Media

Just when I think I have seen the best that Google has to offer, they come up with something new. And today they did it again with Google Friend Connect. Check out the video and see how this new Google toolset can add social media functionality to your Web site in a matter of minutes (once its out of beta), requires almost no coding and immediately helps your site become more viral. The ability of your friends to publish their activities on your site through their activities feed (which gets displayed on facebook for example) has the potential to be a stand alone viral traffic source. I signed up for the beta today for my bands Web site (www.heavymusic.com)so I will let everyone know once I get in to the program. But I highly recommend the video if for no other reason, because a lot of people are going to be using this soon.

Digital Hollywood Internet Marketing Conference Today

Well I finally made it to Hollywood last night at midnight thanks to my car breaking down yesterday and someone breaking out my back rear window. It's always a bummer to spend $300 just to get back to the same state you were the day before (having a working car...lol). But, undaunted, I made the journey last night to my favorite city outside of San Diego and I am ready to rock! I don't speak today until 2pm but we have an 8am meeting that I am currently at waiting for other speakers to arrive. We are also right next to the Dreamworks people who are showcasing here as well.

Today I am going to be speaking on the best practices of an ongoing SEO campaign. In other words, after you optimize pages and get all the groundwork done, what are the next steps that you can take to keep improving your rankings after the initial optimization lift. We are going to talk today a little about linking strategies, more about Google Web master tools, and content development just to name a few. Anyway, gotta go! More updates soon.

Ask.com Celebrates "Cinco DO Mayo"

ASK.com today decided to do their best Homer Simpson impersonation (DOh!) by celebrating "Cinco do Mayo" (c'mon fellas, let's do some proof reading):

A Visual Comparison of Google, Yahoo and Microsoft

All the noise today about Microsoft dropping it's bid for Yahoo (hopefully it stays that way) inspired me today to take another look at the differences between the search engines and why one (Google) is utterly dominating the competition (Yahoo and MSN). And suddenly as I looked around the office and noticed some of the "swag" that my fellow BOLers had picked up from the search engines at various conferences, I was immediately struck by the obvious. The bottom line is, company culture has everything to do with why one company is winning and the others are losing. And that culture ironically is perfectly illustrated in the following picture. Google uses sophisticated technology and spends the money to do things right, Yahoo has some clever ideas but they aren't quite up to speed, and MSN is still lost in the past: