Work Hard and Play Hard at BusinessOnLine - Celebrating Another Great Year

I have to admit, I love my job. Not only am I one of the privileged few who get to work in this crazy and fun industry called SEO, but I get to do it with some amazing people who know how to work hard and know how to play hard ;) We celebrated another successful year on Friday with a "Day of Surprises". And certainly the biggest surprise was not the double decker bus that picked us up in front of the office, but rather the Tequila tasting that shortly followed the bus ride. I have to say, big kudos to Trevor for one of the best ideas for a work function ever. And who knew there was so much to know about Tequila, and that Patron really isn't that high quality relatively speaking.

Unfortunately, my knee wasn't up to the scavenger hunt through downtown San Diego or the resulting bar hop, dancing, and karaoke, but my partners in crime (the BOL staff) represented us in fine fashion. So now that we took a little time to celebrate last year's accomplishments, it's time to focus on the new year and the challenges of 2009. I can't wait to see what this year brings!

Here are some pics from Friday:

Tequila Tastes Best When BusinessOnLine is Buying!

Fun on the Bus

It's a dangerous crowd...lol.

You can feel the competition in the air.

The secret to winning is having a good plan

There's more than bragging rights at stake in this scavenger hunt!

There is no place like home

Our fearless leader is not scared to wear pink

A Preview of my 2009 Online Marketing Summit (OMS) Presentation on Long Tail SEO Strategies

Wow time sure does fly. Seems like only yesterday I was doing my SEO for 2008 presentation at OMS 2008 here in San Diego and now it's already 2009! I am really looking forward to seeing everyone again this year and getting another opportunity to talk SEO with so many other industry professionals. And, what's really exciting for me is that this year, Rand Fishkin will be speaking at OMS for the first time!

If you are not familiar with Rand, he runs SEOmoz.com, is a very well respected speaker at a number of SEO conferences, and he has contributed a great deal to the SEO community. So it's very exciting for me to have an opportunity to speak at the same conference as Rand and talk a little SEO. I know that the OMS community will be very impressed with the depth of knowledge and experience that Rand brings to the table. And he is a really nice guy.

I will also be trying to bring some new SEO ideas and tactics to the table for 2009. My presentation this year will be focused on targeting the long tail. If you're not familiar with the concept of long tail SEO, here is a good reference for you. Essentially we are talking about putting yourself in a position to capture as many of the less competitive keyword phrases as you can, on an ongoing and consistent basis. During my presentation, we will be talking about some of the on page, off page, universal search and social media SEO tactics that will improve your ability to target relevant, long tail keywords.

Some of the SEO topics that we will touch on will include keyword research, page titles, content optimization, internal linking strategies, blogging tactics, other social media opportunities and using analytics to augment your campaign.

It makes a lot of sense for companies to focus on long tail SEO for 2009. Advancements in personalization and Geo targeting are making it less and less likely that any two users will see the same listings for the same search query. That's not to say that rankings for competitive keywords won't continue to be a focus of SEO. But rather, just like the stock market, you should be diversified and not put all your SEO eggs in one basket.

One last thing, if you haven't already signed up for free to be part of the OMS community and checked out all the cool SEO and Internet marketing blog content, visit the OMS Blog and do it!

Original dog image is a modification of a preview image of a 3D dog model by Andrey Kravchenko on his gallery on TurboSquid™

Proven Spam Free Blog Comment Link Building Strategy

The crucial element to any effective strategy for link building is to have a consistent ongoing campaign. Much like the fable of the tortoise and the hare, slow and steady wins the race. Incorporating link building as part of an overall SEO campaign involves deciding on a pace that is realistic and sticking with it. If you are just beginning a link campaign a good starting point is to build 3 links per week, and then gradually increase your weekly number. There are always new and inventive ways of building links. One such strategy which will be discussed here is by commenting in the blogosphere.

Blog > Read other blogs in your industry > Participate on those blogs by commenting > Build a link to your blog in your comment > reap the rewards

Blog commenting is one of the best ways to market your blog if you are incubating a brand new blog or want to increase your readership and build quality links on an already established blog.
If you make interesting/intelligent/insightful comments on highly trafficked and well recognized blogs in your industry and build links to your site through your nickname or within the comment itself, you will be;

1. attracting many relevant visitors


2. building quality links to your blog


3. promoting your brand


4. building some authority in your industry

Once you leave a comment with a link on someone’s blog, they will check out your site. So there is at least one relevant visitor to your blog per comment. If the blog you’re commenting on is in your industry then there is at least one relevant link (we will discuss nofollow / dofollow a bit latter) to your site for your commenting effort.

If you make interesting comments on highly trafficked blogs in your industry, your potential for relevant traffic is infinite. You are also putting yourself in a position to generate natural links because that blogger that followed your link may be looking for topics to cover for their next blog post and just may reference your content.

Best practices for blog commenting for link building include; writing a compelling blog post and then searching on Google Blog Search for any other bloggers that may be writing about the same or similar topic. Read the entire blog post and the other comments. Make useful comments and keyword focus your username (do this intelligently, as keyword focused usernames tend to sound spammy.) Some bloggers are more strict than others when it comes to keyword focused usernames (especially do follow blogs) so read the blog’s commenting policy if they have one. If the blogger has strict rules for leaving links, follow those rules to the T even if it means not leaving a link at all. Use Cligs to track the clicks you get from your commenting effort.

Avoid using any automated blog commenting software and make sure that your comment is not mistaken for spam. Bloggers are especially acute to any form of spam and will report spam by using programs such as Akismet . This is a program that blocks certain commentators based on email and IP addresses as well as the commentator’s name. The rule of thumb is to make your comment sound relevant to the post and avoid phrases such as “I like your blog” or “great post” or “interesting insight”. The bottom line is remembering that your comment will go through a human review and concentrating on making an insightful comment that adds interest and attracts relevant visitors should alleviate any spammy looking comments. If you find that you are having a difficult time coming up with a comment that you like on a certain post than skip it and find a post that you have something of value to add.

Comment on all blogs that you find interesting and relevant to your industry, however commenting on dofollow blogs will help your SEO effort, (don’t just comment on a dofollow for the sake of a link, make sure it’s relevant and that the page your linking has real value to those following the link.) Remember that you are an evangelist for your brand and people can see right through you if your intentions are in the wrong place.

Chances are you will end up finding a few blogs that you really like, when you do, submit the best posts to your favorite bookmarking site, this will add to your profile at your social bookmarking site of choice which will increase your authority at such sites. By commenting on these blogs and submitting posts to bookmarking sites you will end up building a relationship with that blogger. They will start to read your blog, submit your posts to bookmarking sites and eventually you will develop some quality banter which can lead to industry contacts. Link building is about cultivating relationships and this is one of the best strategies to develop those relationships and give back to the community.

Image Credits: Comment box by: Seigel Display Products

10 SEO Tips from Google's Guide to Search Engine Optimization

I just finished reading Google's guide to SEO. It was very gratifying to see that our process is consistent with the content of this document.

Here are some of the highlights:

1) Always focus on User Experience.
2) Always have unique page titles and Meta descriptions.
3) Use short concise URL strings, preferably with descriptive words.
4) Make your site navigation as flat as possible.
5) Avoid using generic page names like page1.html.
6) Be consistent in your internal linking (caps versus no caps, www versus no www).
7) One URL to each document, avoid duplicate URL paths to the same content.
8) Have an xml and html sitemap with no errors.
9) Use breadcrumb navigation
10) Make sure the link text of all internal links is keyword focused.

There is a lot more in this document that makes for a great read about SEO, especially for those just learning the art. Reading it is the perfect way for any SEO to start a great new year.