Līve Ambitions

“My Page Order” is a WordPress plugin that allows you to re-order your page links through simple drag and drop.

The original plugin for “My Page Order” is located here:  http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/my-page-order/.  However, that plugin didn’t work for me.  More specifically, the drag and drop feature wouldn’t work, even though the plugin was successfully uploaded and activated.  So, I kept searching and finally found my solution with this revised plugin by Morten Høybye Frederiksen:  http://www.wasab.dk/morten/2009/06/my-page-order.2.7.1mf.zip.  It worked like a charm!

Hope this helps others who are having the same problem as I had.

PR Sculpting is the process of optimizing the linking structure within a website for the purpose of achieving the highest possible PR (Google Pagerank).  The primary technique used for PR sculpting is the utilization of the “nofollow” tag within links.

According to Google, their search engine robot does not crawl links with the nofollow attribute which means they don’t pass PR juice.  So, you would think that by “nofollowing” the crap out of all your external links, that you would be able to retain the full potential of the PR on your site, right?  Wrong.  This may have been the case before, but Google now handles “nofollow” tags differently.  Here’s an illustration for all you visual folks:

So, does PR Sculpting work?  Probably not.  Worry about what is more important  – content and inbound links.

Nigerian 419 Scams?  Nope.  Now the scams are right in our backyard.

Today, I received this email:

Dear Website Owner,

65% of people searching the Internet will never find your web site unless you’re ranked on first page of Google, MSN, or Yahoo. If I help you obtain as much as 4 times more WEB traffic to your online business by promoting you to the first page of the search engines would you be interested?

Our company is on the first page when you search on Google for our primary search term “SEO Company.” We would like to do the same for your web site so you can come up for your main keywords as well? All of our processes use the most ethical “white hat” Search Engine Optimization techniques that will not get your website banned or penalized.

This special SEO program includes:

• No upfront fees
• A month-to-month program
• More traffic guaranteed

Please reply to my email and I would be happy to send you a proposal.
______________________________________________

Sincerely,
Cliff Blackwell
501 VERDUGO WAY
WESTLAKE VILLAGE , CA
91362 – USA

______________________________________________
Simply reply with opt out if not interested to hear from us.  

I try to check out all emails even if it ends up in the spam box because I figure you may eventually come across a legitimate offer.  In the past, I have done business with companies who have solicited me via email. 

With all offers like this, I do some research even before responding to the email.  Running a simple search on Google led me to a bunch of complaints regarding the same type of scammy email.  The verbiage is usually the same – sometimes they change the name, address and contact information.

Speaking of SEO scams, the company I currently work for was recently scammed by a company called Visible.net.  This was before I came into the picture, but they got scammed for about $6,000 within a couple of months.  My company tried to dispute the charges, but Visible.net fabricated a bunch of BS documents at the last minute.  Credit card companies don’t know crap about the SEO business, so it’s no surprise they bought the documents as proof.  Also, under the terms of contract, should there be any dispute, the client would agree to use an intermediary service chosen by Visible.net.  This intermediary service would probably end up costing more than the disputed charges, so no point.

There are 2 parties at fault here – Visible.net for being the scammer and the person at my company who failed to do their homework on Visible.net.

To make matters worse, these dirt bags post positive reviews on various review sites hoping to fool someone else.

For businesses seeking to hire a SEO company, my advice is:  Do your research!

• Just because they call you on the phone doesn’t mean they are legit!
• Just because they have a legit sounding company and domain name, doesn’t make them legit!
• Just because they tell you what you want to hear doesn’t make them legit!
• Just because they have a fancy looking website doesn’t make them legit!
• Just because they have some positive reviews doesn’t make them legit – it’s easy to make phony reviews!
• If their email address is using a different domain from their website, I would be suspicious.
• Check to see that their credentials are legit.

A good way to find some sincere reviews of companies is by reading forums.  If the forum is popular and well-maintained, more often than not, the reviews will be from real customers.

I must admit that a few years back, I had no confidence in Microsoft’s search engine algorithm.  However, in recent times, I think they’ve gained a lot of ground in terms of search results relevancy.

Although Google is still my preferred search engine, I occasionally use Live Bing.  I never use Yahoo for searching, but I like the other services they offer, such as news articles, email and music videos.

You can compare search results on this site: http://blindsearch.fejus.com/.  According to the poll, Google is the most favored, followed by Bing and Yahoo.  I agree with the numbers.  If you would’ve asked me 3 years ago, I would’ve told you Google #1, Yahoo #2 and MSN #3. 

It’ll be interesting to see whether or not Bing gains ground on the search market.  According to Nielsen, Google leads with 64%  of the market share with Yahoo at 16.3% and MSN Bing at 9.9%.  I think Yahoo has 2nd place only because so many people use their portal and email system.

Relevancy is the key to capturing search engine market share, and I predict that Bing will gain some ground in the coming months.  The main thing I don’t like about Microsoft’s Bing is the name itself.  I would’ve stuck with Live as the brand.  Badda-Bing!

I just went over Google’s Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide.  It’s a solid foundation to have if you’re just starting out in SEO.  The PDF file provided by Google is only 22 pages long, but I decided to make it even shorter.

1.   Create unique, accurate page titles
       a.   Accurately describe the page’s content
       b.   Create unique title tags for each page
       c.   Use brief, but descriptive titles

2.   Make use of the “description” meta tag
       a.   Accurately summarize the page’s content
       b.   Use unique descriptions for each page

3.   Improve the structure of your URLs
       a.   Use words in URLs
       b.   Create a simple directory structure
       c.   Provide one version of a URL to reach a document

4.   Make your site easier to navigate
       a.   Create a naturally flowing hierarchy
       b.   Use mostly text for navigation
       c.   Use “breadcrumb” navigation
       d.   Put an HTML sitemap page on your site, and use an XML Sitemap file
       e.   Consider what happens when a user removes part of your URL
       f.   Have a useful 404 page

5.   Offer quality content and services
       a.   Write easy-to-read text
       b.   Stay organized around the topic
       c.   Use relevant language
       d.   Create fresh, unique content
       e.   Offer exclusive content or services
       f.    Create content primarily for your users, not search engines

6.   Write better anchor text
       a.   Choose descriptive text
       b.   Write concise text
       c.   Format links so they’re easy to spot
       d.   Think about anchor text for internal links too

7.   Use heading tags appropriately
       a.   Imagine you’re writing an outline
       b.   Use headings sparingly across the page

8.   Optimize your use of images
       a.   Use brief, but descriptive filenames and alt text
       b.   Supply alt text when using images as links
       c.   Store images in a directory of their own
       d.   Use commonly supported filetypes

9.   Make effective use of robots.txt
       a.   Use more secure methods for sensitive content

10.   Be aware of rel=”nofollow” for links

11.   Promote your website in the right ways
         a.   Blog about new content or services
         b.   Don’t forget about offline promotion
         c.   Know about social media sites
         d.   Add your business to Google’s Local Business Center
         e.   Reach out to those in your site’s related community

12.   Make use of free webmaster tools

13.   Take advantage of web analytics services

You should keep these things in mind whenever you decide to develop a new website.  It’s easier/better to launch a website having all these things already implemented vs. fixing any issues later down the line.

Yesterday, I watched my 1st episode of Pitchmen on Discovery.  After watching the show, I began to wonder whether an average joe like me could come up with a new invention that could possibly end up on the shelves of Walmart one day.  I’ve never took inventions too seriously, but the show yesterday inspired me.  There was a story of a man (friend of Billy Mays) who was crippled in a plane crash, but later invented the Awesome Auger.

In our free land of capitalism, the possibilities are endless.  The hard part is actually taking an idea and bringing it to life.  I’m not saying that anyone can become a successful inventor, but if someone has the “right” idea and actually puts work into it, I think it’s a very possible scenario.

When you think about all the crazy ideas that turned into successful inventions, it’s pretty mind-boggling.  For instance, the paperclip and paper-weight.  I know competition is much stiffer now than it was back in history, but even in today’s market, there is still room for new inventions.  In fact, it doesn’t even have to be a new invention – it could simply be an improved version of an existing product.  Though we have the disadvantage of greater competition, we have the advantage of a bigger audience.

I had 2 ideas in my head yesterday – both of which I found out already have patents.  The 1st idea was for an airplane parachute.  This idea came to me because I’m terrified of flying and there’s been more reported cases of plane crashes lately.  The 2nd idea was for a toe/finger nail clipping collector case.  This idea came to me because I had many situations where I didn’t want to clip my nails in public, or times when I would clip my nails indoors and the clippings would fly all over the place.

I’ve never seen or even heard of these products before.  Maybe I’ve been living in a cave.  Anyways…back to the drawing board. 

I’m a little late on this topic, but I wanted to share my thoughts on it.  I think it was Google who first implemented it, but the others quickly followed.

To me, the search query suggestion feature is just another blow to the SEO industry.  Although the feature adds convenience and saves time, I believe it also alters natural search behavior.  This hurts the little guys the most because people aren’t typing in the long-tail keywords anymore.  Now, people simply select the most popular suggestions even before they’re done typing the entire search query.  I often do this myself.

Undoubtedly, the search suggestion feature only helps to bring more traffic to the bigger websites (and corporations) that are already ranking in top positions for popular keywords.  Therefore, the mom-and-pop sites will have to work twice as hard to compete for the same keywords.  In addition, more money would have to be spent for SEO and marketing.

This may seem unfair for small business, but I think there is an ulterior motive behind the search query suggestion feature.  This is my theory: Since the little guys (small business) can’t compete for top 10 rankings naturally, they would have to resort to paid search marketing or PPC.  This would generate a lot more PPC business for the major search engines.  Why would they target small business?  Because small businesses account for 99.7% of all firms in the U.S.  This is a huge market, especially now that more and more small businesses are looking towards the internet for new customers.

How does this affect the users?  Sure, it adds convenience.  But does it alter natural search behavior?  I think so.  I’m not sure about everyone else, but when I do searches now, I catch myself choosing from the top 3 list of suggestions.

Has it changed your search behavior?