Click Sentry Blog http://www.clicksentry.com/blog ClickSentry SEO, Link Building, Marketing and Super Duper Blog. Tue, 18 Jul 2006 07:20:30 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.0.1 en All Quiet on the SEO Blog Front http://www.clicksentry.com/blog/2006/all-quiet-on-the-seo-blog-front/ http://www.clicksentry.com/blog/2006/all-quiet-on-the-seo-blog-front/#comments Tue, 18 Jul 2006 07:20:30 +0000 jason SEO News SEO Linking Blogging Google Yahoo! http://www.clicksentry.com/blog/2006/all-quiet-on-the-seo-blog-front/ Usually, posting on the SEO blogs goes in spurts. As many of us have a few minutes, we post something of substance or something that is completely meaningless. Lately, it seems pretty quiet around the SEO neighborhood and I think I know why. It is time for many of the people in the search marketing world to get back to the basics. For a long time now, it has been too easy to manipulate the search engines like Google and Yahoo with artificial link schemes like those found at DigitalPoint and LinkVault, among others. Many people have stopped doing what they know they should be becuase these tools have made things too easy. I think a lot of people out there are taking inventory and cleaning up their shops a bit these days and getting back to brass tacks. What the hell am I doing here?

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]]> http://www.clicksentry.com/blog/2006/all-quiet-on-the-seo-blog-front/feed/ Google Pulls in the Reins http://www.clicksentry.com/blog/2006/google-pulls-in-the-reins/ http://www.clicksentry.com/blog/2006/google-pulls-in-the-reins/#comments Thu, 13 Jul 2006 05:10:33 +0000 jason SEO News SEO Linking Google http://www.clicksentry.com/blog/2006/google-pulls-in-the-reins/ I am sure I am not the only one who thinks this, but I believe they have made the decision to get proactive when it comes to link distribution networks like the ones found at Digitalpoint as well as at LinkVault. These networks have made it too easy for every little kid with a webserver and a basic knowledge of PHP to generate hundreds and thousands of backlinks to any website. Maybe Google has decided that they cannot handle this problem from their side or maybe it is just easier to just crush it by penalizing sites with the tracking images used. In any event, I think this is a good thing. I have seen a number of sites that are completely unrelated to these link networks improve their rankings steadily over the past two weeks…and I have done nothing to help them with regards to SEO or link building. This of course is not proof of anything, but all of the pieces appear to be coming together to show that this may be the case.

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]]> http://www.clicksentry.com/blog/2006/google-pulls-in-the-reins/feed/ Rel = No Follow No More http://www.clicksentry.com/blog/2006/rel-no-follow-no-more/ http://www.clicksentry.com/blog/2006/rel-no-follow-no-more/#comments Tue, 24 Jan 2006 21:54:01 +0000 jason SEO Linking Blogging http://www.clicksentry.com/blog/2006/rel-no-follow-no-more/ In case you have been living in a cave, you don’t care or you don’t have a blog, then you have surely noticed that search engines like Yahoo! are showing links to sites that have the “link condom” or rel=”nofollow” attribute on them.  This has been going on for some time now and there is just starting to be some chatter here and there about it.  It is kind of a shame and a blessing at the same time. I think that the blogging community, aka the blogosphere, has really benefitted and showed the rest of the web how things should be. You link to something because it has value and is probably related to what you are writing about. Since traditional webmasters and SEO types became aware of Page Rank and how it can affect a site’s rankings or juice, linking out has become more and more guarded. Perhaps this is one of the reasons why Google stopped showing realtime toolbar PR (I am sure there are a bunch of reasons).  Removing some of the incentive webmasters have to link out to other sites and resources on the web. Of course there are going to be sites that are unrelated to yours that you link to, but is this a bad thing? I don’t think so. A vote is a vote and now that the webmaster community at large is more educated with regards to how search engines like Google use the power of links and anchor text to help something rank, I think we are all better off. This is why I think forgetting about the nofollow attribute is a good thing. But, there is also a downside.

Of course, this means that comment spam is going to become more and more of an issue in the near future.  Clearly, many of these types have been aware of the apparent lack of use of the nofollow attribute for some time as comment spam seemed to pick up a bit about two months ago for me. Clearly, the brilliant minds behind these schemes knew about this before most of the world.

I for one am glad to see the nofollow attribute fall out of favor.  People should be free with what they link to. If you like it, link it. My 2 cents.

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]]> http://www.clicksentry.com/blog/2006/rel-no-follow-no-more/feed/ Article Submissions for the Win http://www.clicksentry.com/blog/2006/article-submissions-for-the-win/ http://www.clicksentry.com/blog/2006/article-submissions-for-the-win/#comments Wed, 11 Jan 2006 21:28:50 +0000 jason SEO Linking http://www.clicksentry.com/blog/2006/article-submissions-for-the-win/ Here is a great article on creating articles for high-quality link building. If you are in this for the long-term, then forget submitting your site to free directories and get on creating quality content in the form of articles and submit them to some of the free article submission sites on the web. Again, quality is better than quantity. Take the time to create an article that someone who is interested in your products, services, or market segment would *want* to read.

What to Write About

Most people lose interest or don’t even start on an endeavor like this because they can’t figure out what to write about. Here are a couple of ideas on things you can write about, no matter what the subject is:

  1. User comments and questions. If you have an existing website/blog, look at what your userbase/visitors have asked you about in the past. Use those questions to create an article answering the most asked question(s) in some detail. If nobody has commented or asked you about anything ( :) ) then look at the pages/posts most frequently viewed to get an idea of what people are looking at when they get there. Use those topics as a starting point. Then think about what your first questions were when you first started learning about that particular subject.
  2. Visit the Overture Search Term Suggestion Tool or Digital Point Keyword Suggestion Tool and type in the main keyword people have used to find your site (or the main keywor(s) for your site). Most of the time, you will see queries that are clearly questions people are looking for with regards to your keyword. Using the methods in Step 1, take these questions and write a quality article answering/addressing this or a combination of this and other questions.
  3. If all else fails, search for your top terms on Google, Yahoo, and MSN and see what the top-ranking sites write about. This will give you an indication (hopefully) of the major areas of interest for your particular market. Write a well-informed article or resource for people interested in that area.

Do’s and Don’ts

Spend some time researching your topic and resources on the web. It is always a good idea to cite other works on the web that can expand on a particular topic or area of focus. Don’t plan on creating a quality article in 10 minutes, submitting it to 50 article submission sites and expect that the traffic will come-a-runnin’ in a day. You create crap, you get crap. Have someone else read over your article. It is always a good idea to hear other people’s opinion even if they don’t know anything about the subject. Other people’s input is invaluable.

Okay, ready to begin? Check out the article I posted at the beginning. Then get crackin’. Here are some other resources:

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