My online Manifesto

You’re one of the latest casualties. Google just broke up with you- after a yearlong pagerank 7 relationship. Hundreds of thousands are crying in the street. You’re one of the namesless broken hearted.

It’s just temporary of course. So you gather up your strength and hold your chin up high. You’ll have Google chasing you back. After all, you’re armed with some hardcore search engine flirtation tips.

1) Go bold. Just as women love bold suitors, so do search engines. Start highlighting keywords on each page with the B tag to increase search relevance. Search engines are attracted to words contained in the H1 and B tags. Just don’t go wild- two bold words per page is enough.

2) Go Deeper. Having other sites drill deep into your web at various locations tells google that ‘hey, this guy has varied useful content’. It’s poor SEO strategy to acquire links just to link to the homepage. The search engines may ultimately discount those links

3) Go foreign. Why focus on North America? You can take your business to India, Pakistan, UK and Hongkong! Start creating pages for lucrative markets and submit to their local directories. This ensures multiple streams of revenue

4) Fire Up Newsletters. Provide articles to publishers like ezinearticles. The links breathe for many years in their archives and funnel backlinks to your site.

5) Go Bi. Image links are good, but text links are more appreciated. If your site is full of image links, have your webmaster place the text links first because that’s what google looks for. Subsequent links are often discounted.

6) Multiple Partners. Create different domains on varying IPs that talk about similar subjects. The reason is that Google only lists one domain page per search result. Imagine if you owned ten domains that came up for the same search result? You’ll be seducing more curious searchers. Another tip: search engine consulting firms recommend varying the keywords used on these domains just to minimize looking spammy.

7) Article Exchanges. You’ve heard of reciprocal link exchanges. Text link purchases. One way backlink purchases. Try them, and it’s like getting herpes on the net. Google blacklists you and your worth is downgraded. But article exchanges are different. Whip up an article, upload to Ezinearcticles and before you know it- wham! Dozens of sites publish your article and bring fawning admirers to your door.

8) Shun Unvaried Anchor Text. If 1000 sites links to you with the appellation “Gimme Money”, Google starts to squint and dig deeper, “Smells like automated filthy spam, methinks.” Avoid the search engine ban by varying the anchor text. Dance under different names and you’ll flirt more grandly with search engines.

9) Expose Your Glory With a Site map. Your visitors reach the honeypot more rapidly when you have a structured sitemap that links to every major page. Keep the map on a location easily accessible so you keep the action flowing. Google bots flirt with sitemaps too and often births detailed search results. So keep it search engine friendly.

DAO (Digital Asset Optimization); with the acronym DAO floating around everywhere these days it might lead you to wonder; is DAO replacing search engine optimization? The answer is no, in fact DAO can best be described as the evolution of Search Engine Optimization (SEO), SEO isn’t dead, but it is rapidly evolving. Over the past few years emphasis has shifted from a focus on “on page elements” to the off-site criteria. It began with Google’s PageRank. PageRank is defined as a link analysis algorithm that assigns a numerical weighting to a website, with the purpose of “measuring” its relative importance on the World Wide Web (wikipedia.com 02/12/08). In simpler terms, Google counts every external link to a website as a vote for that website, it also measures how relevant each one of those voting websites is to the content of the linked website; in essence we are measuring the popularity of a website. What does PageRank have to do with DAO? DAO is all about moving the focus of our optimization efforts from the text on a page to more relevant assets of a website regardless of where that takes us. It is about helping the searcher find the most relevant website based on the criteria and content that is important to them, not just the text on a page.

The bottom line is that companies must figure out how to best adjust their Internet marketing strategy, which includes but is not limited to website optimization (SEO), paid search (SEM), email marketing, Web 2.0 & social media optimization, link building, and affiliate marketing strategies to maintain a competitive advantage. The best way to achieve this is to focus the right balance of your resources on standard text optimization as well as the optimization and promotion of all other digital assets. You might be asking yourself – when is it the right time to start making this shift? The answer is simple – right now! The search engines already have their systems in place to measure the relevancy of a website’s digital assets and they are constantly focusing on improving these systems and making them a more prevalent part of their search systems. The only question is how long it will take for the users to fully realize that they have these resources at their disposal.

Both Google’s Universal Search and the new Ask3D interface show users more information from more sources (news, images, products, video, etc) in the first page of results than we have ever seen before. This shift in how search engines present the search results illustrates the need to consider more media types than standard text documents. The growth of Universal search means the kinds of search results SEO consultants have become accustomed to and have been optimizing for are either on the way out or on the decline. Figuring out new ways to optimize any electronic file that can be crawled, indexed, categorized and sorted is where the opportunity lies. This is about a lot more than just optimizing social media, it’s about “the big picture”, having the ability to optimize the Internet as a whole, making all content easier to find via search rather than simply having to rely on the text within the website. These days it is becoming more common for businesses to produce an array of different content types, and search engines are doing their best to index that content. A search engines success is directly related to its ability to adapt to changes in the market, this means that those of us who use these search engines to market our websites must adapt as well. With such intense competition, and so much money at stake, the leading search providers will continue to make the user experience better thus making it easier to find whatever it is we seek.

The trend in search is shifting from optimizing for a slow, one-dimensional engine, and is moving towards a highly sophisticated integration of elements, including image, video, consumer reviews, social networks, social ratings, podcasts, and much more. This means we must begin to adjust what needs to be optimized from the platform to the actual asset itself. This is what makes DAO the future of Internet marketing. DAO views the platform as merely the vehicle which carries the content directly to the searcher, as opposed to SEO which focuses almost solely on bringing the platform (a website) to the searcher, and waiting (or hoping) for the searcher to discover the content. For example, by understanding how videos can be optimized, a search campaign can be successful on Google or YouTube. We no longer need to use text optimization as the only method to reach potential visitors, all the while hoping that once they arrive the more “sophisticated” content will actually close the deal. So, the future of SEO as defined today is destined to change. The days of success being optimization for 10 text links on a standard results page will be over soon.

So long as billions of people continue to use search engines on a daily basis, there will be progression in the modes of optimization we use to improve a websites visibility to the search engines, helping to enhance their presence on the Internet. Companies need to consider all of the digital assets that they have to work with in order to give both the search engines and the customers the information they’re looking for in the formats they’ll respond to. Optimizing comprehensively starts with an inventory of a company’s digital assets. Text, images, audio and video should all be considered when determining what we need to optimize, we no longer need to wait for the customer to find us through our use of text optimization so we can impress them with our other digital assets. Matching digital assets with channels of distribution provides marketers with even more opportunity to reach customers since each channel can drive traffic independently as well as improve a websites standard search visibility. Digital asset optimization is not just a better definition of the future of search marketing; it is the future of search marketing.

First of all, Google does not display all of the links they find to a site and thus, this count will leave you with about 5 or 6 percent of the real links to your main competitors.

Yahoo! is much better at displaying all the links to a site however even this has it’s shortcomings in the analysis process. Secondly, the number of links is only a fraction of what’s important in their development.

To fully grasp how your competitors are ranking highly for your targeted phrases you will want to know a number of things about the links to their site including:

• how many links do they have?
• How many of these links come from the same sites?
• Are these sites relevant?
• What is the PageRank distribution of the links?
• Are these links image or text links and if text,
• what anchor text is used to link to your competitor’s site?

Why Are These Factors Important?

These factors are important as they define the value of the link. To put it simply: the high value of link means that your Home Business Start site is of high value.
The number of links is perhaps the least important of these factors. A site can have 10,000 incoming links and if they are all from a single unrelated site with a low PageRank then the value of these links is negligible.

Knowing how many of the links to your competitor’s site come from the same site or sites will let you know where they have bought advertising and also help isolate weakness in their link counts.

Multiple links from the same website are not given the same value as multiple links from different websites. If your competitors have thousands of incoming links that come from 5 different websites you have far less work to do that if they even had a couple hundred, all from different sites.

The relevancy of the incoming links is extremely important and gaining importance every update.

Unfortunately this is also the hardest factor to gauge as, “what constitutes relevancy?” and, “how exactly do I find out if my competitors links are relevant without visiting every one of their links?” can be problematic questions.

Gauging relevancy can generally be done with a simple thought: if I am on a site and the link makes sense to be there (for example, a web design company linking to a web hosting company) then it can be considered relevant.
Basically, if there are people who will actually click the link then it is relevant. Finding out if your competitor’s links are relevant without visiting every one of their link partners is a different hurdle to jump.

Rather than visiting each-and-every link it is easier view only the most important ones; that would be the ones from high PageRank pages. But how does one do that?

It is very energy-saving to use a top-software (see below) to tear apart the external factors our main competitors are using to hold top ten positions.

While in on page optimization it was possible to note that there are other tools out there that break down keyword density elements, I am not able to do the same with offsite optimization factors.
Once you have optimized the onsite factors from part one of SEO process it’s time to launch into the external factors. External SEO factors generally refer to the internal links to your, and your competitor’s Home Business Start sites.

First of all, Google does not display all of the links they find to a site and thus, this count will leave you with about 5 or 6 percent of the real links to your main competitors.

Yahoo! is much better at displaying all the links to a site however even this has it’s shortcomings in the analysis process. Secondly, the number of links is only a fraction of what’s important in their development.

To fully grasp how your competitors are ranking highly for your targeted phrases you will want to know a number of things about the links to their site including:

• how many links do they have?
• How many of these links come from the same sites?
• Are these sites relevant?
• What is the PageRank distribution of the links?
• Are these links image or text links and if text,
• what anchor text is used to link to your competitor’s site?

Why Are These Factors Important?

These factors are important as they define the value of the link. To put it simply: the high value of link means that your Home Business Start site is of high value.
The number of links is perhaps the least important of these factors. A site can have 10,000 incoming links and if they are all from a single unrelated site with a low PageRank then the value of these links is negligible.

Knowing how many of the links to your competitor’s site come from the same site or sites will let you know where they have bought advertising and also help isolate weakness in their link counts.

Multiple links from the same website are not given the same value as multiple links from different websites. If your competitors have thousands of incoming links that come from 5 different websites you have far less work to do that if they even had a couple hundred, all from different sites.

The relevancy of the incoming links is extremely important and gaining importance every update.

Unfortunately this is also the hardest factor to gauge as, “what constitutes relevancy?” and, “how exactly do I find out if my competitors links are relevant without visiting every one of their links?” can be problematic questions.

Gauging relevancy can generally be done with a simple thought: if I am on a site and the link makes sense to be there (for example, a web design company linking to a web hosting company) then it can be considered relevant.
Basically, if there are people who will actually click the link then it is relevant. Finding out if your competitor’s links are relevant without visiting every one of their link partners is a different hurdle to jump.

Rather than visiting each-and-every link it is easier view only the most important ones; that would be the ones from high PageRank pages. But how does one do that?

It is very energy-saving to use a top-software (see below) to tear apart the external factors our main competitors are using to hold top ten positions.

While in on page optimization it was possible to note that there are other tools out there that break down keyword density elements, I am not able to do the same with offsite optimization factors.
Once you have optimized the onsite factors from part one of SEO process it’s time to launch into the external factors. External SEO factors generally refer to the internal links to your, and your competitor’s Home Business Start sites.

What are you not asking that you should be? Find out the answer and you’ll find your way to Top SEO Rankings.

SEO continues to be the talk of the town.

“Are reciprocal links good? Are one-way links better? How do I use Google SiteMap Submission? Does PageRank still count? How many blogs do I need? Who has a bigger index – Yahoo or Google? And does it matter? Which engine is more popular – Yahoo or Google, oh wait I heard MSN is gaining ground. Is it MSN?”

OK, I’m sure you see my point – there seem to be more questions out there than answers. And then if you do get answers, they sometimes conflict with what another SEO firm told you already or what you read in an article last month, or what your friend’s little brother did on his site that made him rich overnight. (Don’t laugh; we hear those stories all the time)

I’m here to answer these questions, in total and complete honesty. Are you ready? The answer is actually simple and applies to ALL of the questions above as well as any other question you may ask.

The answer is:

It doesn’t matter… because you are asking the wrong question!

OK, so what is the right question?

Don’t worry – I will tell you – the question is: Are you in the 64% or the 36% group?

Now for the answer …

I Don’t Know…Only You Know the Answer (and have to deal with the results).

Let me explain….

There was recently a study on the results of company’s outsourcing SEO (September 2005, by Jupiter). The results may seem shocking, but it is something we see every day in this business.

The study shows that 64% of companies that choose to outsource their SEO do not follow the instructions of the SEO firm they hired! I am going to repeat that again so the full impact reaches you — 64% of companies that choose to outsource their SEO do not follow the instructions of the SEO firm they hired!

They recognize the need for traffic (OK, off to a good start). They did their research and selected a company (nice, moving forward) and they plunk down the money (and if it’s an SEO company that’s any good, it wasn’t just pennies either). So far it all sounds good. What happens next -

it all falls apart.

The SEO Firm does their analysis of your site and situation, they share with you the most basic items to be fixed (which are often easy to fix with just a little attention) – they tell you this is of the utmost importance, it is the foundation of your whole campaign.

And what do you do?

That depends – are you in the 64% that does nothing and ends up asking all the wrong questions and whining months later when you are still nowhere? Or are you in the 36% that take action, treats their website and their business with the seriousness and commitment it deserves and then get to work with the SEO company to open the floodgates of traffic SEO can deliver? It’s simple and it’s your choice.

After you have made the commitment to be one of the 36% (something to ponder: how many of your competitors are in the 64% asking the wrong questions and doing nothing – and how quickly can you by-pass them when you are one of the 36% doing it right?) and you have taken the steps necessary to lay the foundation for a solid SEO campaign, you can then sit back and watch the company you hired, with their proven expertise bring in the rankings you desire.

Please understand, I write this article with a little humor to show the absurdity of the situation. I mean, would you hire a mechanic and then refuse to fix what he determined is the problem? No – you probably wouldn’t. I want you to understand not following your SEO Firm’s instructions can be just as detrimental to your business as ignoring a mechanic’s suggestion to fix that smoke coming out of the engine can be to your car.

The more SEO changes, the more it stays the same. The SEO winners are not the ones chasing each new trend and asking the wrong questions. The winners are the ones that commit to their SEO firm and their own business and follow the guidance of the firm they hired. They follow those firms right to top rankings.

So, now that you have asked the right question, made a commitment to the growth of your business and have an SEO firm diligently working for you, and you are just sitting back waiting for the results – you can ponder all you like the details of who’s database is bigger – Yahoo or Google or MSN, as well as all the questions out there people ask daily.

However, with the right SEO Firm – you still don’t need to ask these questions. Questions like is PageRank still important, how many blogs do I need and how do I use them, and all the others will all be answered. The answer will be in the results the firm got for you based on your cooperation and their knowledge and expertise.

Forget Desperate Housewives – try Desperate SEO Firms – with 64% of clients NOT doing what it takes, no wonder there are rumors of SEO insanity out there. Gain some sanity and take action today to make sure you can ask and answer the right question correctly.