Fragen Sie den SEO-Guru

I thought you might be interested in seeing a little bit of India from the perspective of someone who always has his eye on the commercial aspects of the people and environment he is in. People fascinate me. Especially in what they buy and why and who is selling it to them and how. India is the most business minded place I've ever been to in my life. There is such a huge variety of businesses and business people here in Ahmedabad and I'm trying to learn as much as I can as fast as I can, I feel like a one-eyed dog in a sausage factory, I don't know which way to look next !

I've been very fortunate to meet and interact with all kinds of business people here from top to bottom and it is an honor to be allowed to see it, involve myself in it and be welcomed to learn from it. I will never see my own business the same again and I am grateful.

I took my first step into the world of screwtube all by myself today. I've had several projects utilizing video hosting services done for me, but this is the first time I'm dealing with a new set of resources in a company in India and I decided to learn to do it myself, (Man, I HATE that! Talk about teaching an old dog new tricks :(  so, I'll send you to youtube for the 4 minute one and load up the 2 minute one here. (if it works.)

So, as you marvel at my videography talent and technical expertise, please keep in mind it is about the people and their business and not about my artistic love affair with a cheap camera.

How medium sized construction projects typically get built. We recently gave away some Techndu t shirts on a Sunday afternoon and happened to be standing in front of this construction project.

This one you GOTTA see. A business unique to India

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=american+seo+in+india&search=Search

THANK YOU INDIA!

As humans we all need certain things if we wish to survive. We NEED food and water. We are driven to seek heat when we are cold and shelter when the elements threaten our well being. And as far as I’m concerned, a little whoopee from time to time ranks right up there with the shelter stuff at least. All right all right, so maybe I’m not being completely open here regarding the whoopee. I should of said a LOT of whoopee from time to time. OK ? Life is good.

What we don’t need is to waste our precious time being led down one more primrose path. We don’t NEED to invest another minute into any more regurgitated drivel that exists for no other purpose than to bait one more link. And we don’t NEED to watch another attention starved glory hound Fonzi-izing his hair in the cyber mirror of self adoration. Blogging just to hear himself type. I’m not referring to you or me of course, I’m talking about those “other” guys. We both know who they are.

Outside of the basics, needs are subjective. We all make comments like, “I NEED some new shoes”, or “I NEED to check out Sphinn (http://www.sphinn.com) today,” but those are much closer to desires than needs. You don’t actually need shoes to survive but you do need them IF your objective is to walk faster or be more comfortable or to impress someone with your unique sense of fashion and style. <- mental of Rand Fishkin’s yellow loafers pops into head http://www.aimclearblog.com/2007/04/12/rand-fishkins-yellow-shoes

You don’t NEED to check out Sphinn today unless you have an interest in the SEO industry and realize that it is probably the one place to get the most news with the least effort.

If you make your living, (or would like to), from some type of online marketing, but that making a living thing greatly reduces your spendable minutes available for endeavors that don’t produce direct revenue, then you NEED to be selective in where you go and who you listen to, when it comes to increasing your chances of making more revenue. Makes sense huh?

If you’re an old hat at this online marketing thing then you already have a list of those you pay attention to and those you ignore because experience has taught you where to find the value. If that’s the case you may be questioning your own judgment even as you read this now.

But if you are struggling with your online venture and you’re here because you’re trusting the Guru to help you see the light, then today you hit the jackpot. I can’t do your digging for you but I’ve been doing this long enough, I can certainly point you to where the gold is.

If you enjoy just hangin out at seo forums, or if reading seo and marketing blogs is just a way to eat the clock until quitting time, then you don’t NEED to listen to people like Dan Theis, http://www.seoresearchlabs.com, John Andrews, http://www.johnon.com/, or Ed Purkiss, http://www.me3inc.com/.

But, if you have a desire to master your craft and actually become better tomorrow than you are today, then you very much NEED to be reading, listening to and learning from these three very smart men.

I’m by no means implying these are the only three people who are worth listening to. Nothing could be further from the truth. There are a LOT of very smart SERP(search engine result pages), jockeys who are in the trenches everyday and who could teach you a lot. Even for those who deserve little note based on merit, even they could say something that could have real value. I mean really, it could happen. Even a blind hog finds the occasional acorn.

AND, I fully intend to continue recommending the people I think you can count on for quality information, but I mention these three today because in this last week each of them have done or said something to remind me of how impressed I am with them each time I do read their stuff.

This past week I read a post by Dan debunking keyword density http://www.seofaststart.com/blog/lies-about-seo-statistics.

As I read, I was grinning from ear to ear and I realized that Dan has built a name for himself in the industry by focusing on an important niche. I say focusing on because he does a lot of things in the SEM arena but he has become an expert at keyword research by actually doing the work. He deserves the reputation he has because he is deeply involved with the topic on a daily basis and has proven himself time and time again. He knows this stuff like I know better than to stick my wet tongue on a frozen ice tray --- again.

If you are going to put anyone on your list of NEED to listen to, he belongs right there at the top.

Then there is a guy who started blowing me away with his posts two years ago at the now defunct, (sadly), Threadwatch.org. From my first read of his,  I was instantly impressed with not only his intellect and command of the written word, but more so by his unique perspective and insight into the world of search engine marketing. Very smart guy.

This past week he raised the bar on what I consider really great posts with this commentary on Google.

http://www.johnon.com/391/seo-whiners.html Understanding the Google

As I read it, it knocked me out how someone this smart could see something so obvious and yet so overlooked by an entire industry and still be willing to share his observations with anyone who would take the time to listen. In my opinion, this is the single most helpful post of 2007, (so far). If you do not read it, think about it, understand it and apply it, it is your loss and I’ve done all I can to help you.

Then there is Ed Purkiss. http://www.me3inc.com

I’m going to do a top 10 reasons why I’m not a blackhat soon and one of those reasons is that I’m not technically competent enough. I have never had any desire, ( or aptitude),  to learn any type of coding. I’m a salesman and I’m comfortable in that skin. I’ve worked hard at learning to apply my skills to the web but only to the extent of enabling myself to hit my numbers, which luckily, was without me having to actually learn much of anything tech related.

However, I’ve always had respect for those who were into that stuff and I also can see that maybe it won’t be the meek but rather the geeks that shall inherit the earth.

Ed reigns supreme over any one else of any technical skill level that I have ever read, spoken to or even heard about. AND he constantly blows me away with how much of his exceptional knowledge and insight he is willing to share with anyone who will ask.

Whether you are a budding script kiddie or a senior developer wanting to learn to use your skills to make more money online, you do NOT want to miss the opportunity to interact and learn form this guy. http://www.perkiset.org/forum/

I have no deal with any of these people. I have not made any prior arrangements with them and they don’t have any idea I’m even mentioning them. I don’t even have any ulterior motives other than to point out how smart these men are because it makes me look smarter just by mentioning them and as always, I’m trying to use this medium to teach you how to do more with less effort without shoving anything down your throat or talking down to you. 

So, if you are satisfied with your present income and satisfied with your online marketing skills, then you don’t NEED to listen to people like Dan Thies, John Andrews or Ed Purkiss.

But, if your time is precious and you are wanting to earn more with less effort, wanting to service your clients better and wanting to learn from real experts, then you NEED to pay close attention to these people and seek out people like them that can teach you, guide you and inspire you with no more effort on your part than sitting in a comfortable chair and paying attention.

These men definitely understand the concept of the internet Golden Rule. The more you give, the more you get. They give a LOT.

If you have someone you would like to see mentioned as worthy of the time, feel free to list them in the comments as long as it’s not yourself.

Peace

The SEO Guru

Boy, you name a blog “Ask the SEO Guru” and people start asking for SEO help. Crazy world huh?

If you’ve become an avid reader of the the Guru in this past two weeks you already know that  I’m in India for a few months setting up a BPO (business process outsourcing), company and my wife had to remain in Oklahoma. It’s summer there and this past couple of weeks the temperature got up into the triple digits and Murphy’s law being applicable in all things, the air conditioner went out.

We have a service that we’ve used for years for our building heat and air but this past year the owner passed away and left the business to his nephew and son. One of them, my wife remarked on how cute he was. One is very business minded and the other ------ not so much.

My wife called to request service and was told they were really behind and couldn’t get there until the next day. She waited and no one showed. She called and got the one who’s not so good on the phone and complained by telling him how hot she was and what good customers we have been and how she was worried her plants would die and so forth only to be told some cock-n-bull story about having to service people first who’s life might be in danger due to the heat and he didn’t know when he could get to hers.

When I spoke to my wife on skype that evening she relayed her tale of woe. I told her to call back the next morning and ask for the other one, which she did. I told her what to tell him, which she did.

After getting the other one on the phone, she said she was glad it was him and if that if he couldn’t make it that day she understood but she hoped it would be him to make the call because even though she was old enough to be his mother, she enjoyed watching him bend over to get his tools much more than his cousin.    

The air conditioning was working fine within the hour. :)

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I bet you’re a little frustrated sometimes from reading blogs and forums until your eyes glaze over and yet you’re still not in the top. You’ve listened carefully to one SEO after another and the ones who SOUNDED like they knew what they were talking about, you followed their advice to the letter only to feel like more of a failure when their advice didn’t pay off in top slots for your website. It leaves you feeling like there’s just a little more they’re not telling you and if you just knew the secrets they had, if you just knew the rest of the story, the last little piece, then untold riches would be yours for the taking.

So how are you going to get those secrets? Hey, why not just ask? The worst that could happen is they say no and maybe they won’t say no. Maybe they’ll tell you, I mean they seem like they want to help. They seem nice enough on their blog.

So you roll up your sleeves and invest the whole two or three minutes to send them an email with your sad story of failure and disappointment only to get no reply or at best just a form letter with a link to their sales page. SHOOT, we didn’t want to pay for anything we just wanted the secret.

What went wrong? We told the seo all about how our dog was in the hospital and how we can’t afford a computer and how we have to walk through the snow to the local library 8 miles away to build our website and it’s uphill all the way, BOTH ways. Is that SEO that heartless?

The Guru has been getting these kinds of emails for years. In fact, that’s one of the reasons he stopped moderating at seo forums and writing newsletters, (for all you newbies that’s been on the net for less than a decade, that’s what they had before there were blogs). The Guru likes to help and it’s hard having to say no. Sometimes it’s hard saying no. Sometimes  ------ not so much.

Dear Bob I was referred by XXXXXXXXXX.

I know the answer will be NO, but I still wanted to ask anyway. Back in the early 90s I was able to get my little credit card applications on Page 1 of Alta Vista and several others, and as The Guru you know thats ancient history, the past.  Now days it takes thousands of dollars to achieve a page 1 ranking, or even page 2.

Heres my story.... I am a legally 100% DISABLED VIETNAM VET, with few resources (the govt dont care much about helping vets...ask any veteran)....I NEED WEBSITE TRAFFIC for my site, 

The Credit Shoppe  online since 1994  www.xxxxxxxxxtcardshoppe.com   I was hoping you might be a Guru hat has the attitude of helping the less fortunate, or perhaps "giving something back to the NET" ?

I know that credit cards terminologies for key search words and phrases is Highly Competitive! 

David vs Goliath.  But I was wondering if you might consider optimizing my site. I do not have access to the website, via FTP. Its template, server side. I could get them to change the key words and heading.

If this site is un-workable, here is one that gets zero traffic I started, as a novice, to which I have FTP full  access.....  www.XXXXXXXtcardstore.com  I am an affiliate marketer for credit cards, fyi.

Any help would be most sincerely appreciated.

Respectfully submitted:

XXXXXXX XXXXXX

xxxxxxxx877@earthlink.net

While I have nothing but the utmost respect for those who have fought for our country, there is nothing I can do to bring this person up, (I believe there’s a little more to the story but that’s for another post another time), he could only bring me down. (Unless he sells me his 10 year old credit card siteJ)

If you want anybody to do anything for you, stop before you ask and ask yourself one question. What is in it for them?

 This is actually not about getting free seo advice. This is about getting anything from anybody ESPECIALLY links to your site. When you tell someone how terrible your life is or how badly you need something, you are forgetting the 13^th law of power.

 When asking for something you want from someone else, appeal to their self-interest and never to their mercy or gratitude.

Maybe that sounds a little mercenary but the important thing is that when you tell people why YOU need help, you’re forgetting that maybe they can give you seo tips or maybe they can give you a link, but they can’t operate on your dog, they can’t fix your car, they can’t get you access to your ftp and all the other things you use to try to appeal to their merciful nature. So what you are doing is reminding them that the thing they have that you want has limitations. You are taking away the one thing that makes them want to help and share things in the first place. You’re invalidating the power they have built up due to their perceived success.

Aside from whining about needing help, the gratitude of telling them you already linked to them ain’t gonna cut it either. For the same basic reason. You’re saying 1 of two things and neither of them are any good to me if you want my help. Either you felt I needed the link, (invalidating me), or it is a thinly veiled ploy to make me feel indebted to you which is far worse. Instead of just not caring, now, I don’t really like you very much and think you are a person of low character.

You want free seo advice?

 Tell them you like watching them bend over to get their tools.

On the one hand it has always been categorized as spam and the perp, (if known), chided for such a vulgar display of their algorithmic wizardry, while at the same time impressing the hell out of the wannabes for obviously having such a firm grip on the dark arts as to command free traffic at will. A kind of upside down feather-in-the-cap of the person who could now appear to be allowing search engines to survive only out of the goodness of their spammers heart.

 It’s that basic premise of thinking it’s unfair but boy, we sure wish we had it,  that allowed me to justify taking the editorial license to use that headline to describe how effective branding your site can be.

 I discussed the power of being  #1 going way back to one of my earliest posts from last week. There is little that can shake the searchers perception that if it’s #1 it MUST be relevant, so how powerful is that perception if you are #1 -2 -3-4 and 5? Makes me salivate like a 4 pound dog looking at a 10 pound roast, how about you?

 I must not be the only one so desirous because the Guru received this email from a crazed fan just the other day.

*********************

I just learned about your website and a little about who you are. I was wondering if you could address a question for me, whether it be by email, or through your posts that I have been dying to know. If you search on Google for “SEO Book”, you will notice that the first result, www.seobook.com ranks #1 with a whole bunch of sublinks under him. How was he able to do that? Any thoughts or tips would be appreciated!

 Jeremy Morris

 Miracle Money Matters

www.miraclemoneymatters.com

**********************************

Google is not spamming their own results and Aaron Wall didn’t do anything to “make” Google do anything. Google WANTs to put those multiple listings there and they would want to do it for your site too and I’ll explain why.

In my opinion, Aaron Wall and the SEO book saga should be the classic case study of online branding. I believe any university that offers any kind of marketing studies and does not address SEO Book is doing their students a disservice.  He stayed on message, worked hard, played it smart and thus has built a virtual death grip on the SEO informational market. The SEO Book is the prerequisite SEO tutorial above all others. Good job !!

He had a couple of breaks with the traffic power fiasco http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/050830-152234 which gave Aaron the chance to look like the defender of truth and justice in the face of evil. What a break!

Daniel Brandt had his 15 minutes in SEO circles by almost convincing us he was pretty smart with his whole Google is dying because of the y2k+3 theory. http://www.google-watch.org/broken.html But once the theory failed to produce fruit, we all pretty much realized that being smart doesn‘t mean you can’t be a little crazy too. I mean serial killers are pretty smart but you probably don’t want to link to them. So again, it was Aaron who was able to come off looking like the smart one. He played it well. And I always admired him for that.

But I digress. The point is that he got a couple of breaks that gave him the opportunity to display very brandable qualities which helped solidify him in the market, but I believe there is no such thing as luck when it comes to branding. He was able to capitalize on those opportunities because he had worked hard and smart to make himself ready to capitalize on those types of opportunities.

So now let’s talk about why Google would give a rat’s patooty about that.

Google’s driving purpose with it’s search engine is to deliver the perception of relevancy to every searcher to secure their position in the market. In other words, if they don’t give you what you are looking for, you are going to be looking at someone else’s results, (and ads). So even though Google may be one of the smartest companies to ever exist in the history of human endeavor, they can’t read minds. Yet.

So, when someone searches for something that is a broad term that could have several correct answers they have no way of knowing which answer is best for that person at that time other than having access to a lot of historical data that could be used to indicate a likelihood that one of the limited number of results they return would be the one YOU thought was most relevant.

Let’s look at another example of branding. However this one has spent millions and millions to be able to have the same thing Aaron got for just  --- well --- a LOT less.

Victoria’s Secret has a huge brand, huge catalog and a huge website. When someone searches for that term, Google has no idea of whether you want their catalog, their swimwear or their sexy undies.

So, Google wants to do two things. Show they have the power to find just what you are looking for AND provide a better user experience than their competitors by sending you directly to the appropriate page instead of sending you to the index page and making you dig for what you wanted. SMART! Very smart.

Now back to SEO book for a moment. The same EXACT principle applies to Victoria’s Secret and to SEO Book. Both have huge brands, huge sites and a lot of relevant options that relate to the broad BRANDED term.

Do a search for books about SEO. Now there are no longer 5 results for SEO Book because that query is not the same BRANDED thing. In fact, seobook.com is not even #1. BUT when you search for SEOBOOK, Google knows that others have searched for the tools from seobook.com and they have searched for videos etc.

{pack your bags kids, we’re going on a sidetrip}.

Now for a little conjecture. For the SEO Book search, notice the two references to the same basic thing at different urls. Buy the book at order and buy the #1 rated book at buy now. This indicates to me, (the Guru loves arguing about SEO theories so feel free to chime in), that it is not them knowing what has been searched for as much as they are tracking clicks from links on the site. If I’m right about that, this is huge in terms of knowing how to structure your interior pages to build authority status. They wouldn’t have the data for the clicks on the page without the toolbar installed, (which I doubt Aaron has), but they would have referrer data either way and I believe that could do it. It could also be contextual I suppose but I doubt it. Searches or clicks would be much more reliable especially when there could be dozens of pages about videos or tools on seobook.com the same as there could be a LOT of pages for panties at Victoria’s Secret. The Guru wouldn’t know about that. He’s just guessing. : )

So, there it is. He has multiple #1’s on the first page because Google doesn’t know EXACTLY what you want from a search for a branded term but they know the options to offer that are most likely to keep you coming back to Google for your next search.  Very smart for Google and a very good reason to build your brand.

Build for the people and the engines will follow.

For about two years now there has been a debate raging in SEO circles that far too often got far too heated. The Guru has always been a little surprised how some people can get so emotionally attached to an online discussion that it causes them to lose their tempers.  He’s pretty sure it has something to do with people sometimes being desperate to be right. Or maybe it's that they are desperate to not be wrong. Whatever.

If you’re not familiar with the term or the concept, the Guru recommends this post http://www.twospots.com/web-articles/21/. It explains what most of the industry THOUGHT it was at the time. You’ll notice that it describes what it is and what it does in a manner that automatically assumes it as a fact. It is not a fact and never was. But the article is concise and it does a pretty good job of describing the position of the yes-there-is-a-sandbox faction.

In spite of the fact that Googleguy himself told everybody there was no sandbox, http://www.clickz.com/showPage.html?page=3605961,  the assumptions of the above article seemed to satisfy the conventional wisdom and even the Guru freely admits something had changed in the way sites and pages were being indexed and placed for keywords, but during the entire debate, the Guru was still having new sites get indexed, placed and delivering search traffic faster than ever before. So, something was different but it was not a blanket penalty on all new sites that kept them from being found for keyword searches until they could establish trust.

Bob Massa offered proof of no sandbox  in an interview he did for Seobook http://www.seobook.com/archives/001819.shtml. It may have been seen as a kind of joke, (he does like to tickle the funny bone when given the chance), because it referred to bathroom spamming, but the point was no joke. It doesn’t take 9 months to get search engine traffic!  

That was almost a year ago, and that brings us to today.

Today on Google, a search for:

Ask the SEO Guru #1

Ask an seo #3

SEO Guru #8

How to steal clicks #31

(I mention this one because if you read the post from the 17^th

http://massa.techndu.com/CommentView,guid,59dbb266-0afd-45a1-8e24-6cd42b4ba38b.aspx#commentstart

in the 11^th comment I mentioned that I was #39 but it would move up and today it is at #31)

These placements did not take 9 months. They barely took 9 MINUTES! They were there in less than 24 hours and started moving up. There are several other terms in the top too but this should be sufficient. Those terms don’t generate a lot of traffic. The guru was just making a point. The only one that is bringing any traffic is the ask an seo and that is more of a pain in the backside than it’s worth.

This Techndu domain is less than 30 days old. This blog is less than 1 week old. It was not submitted to any directory, article submission service or press release service. It was not submitted to Google sitemaps. It was not submitted to anything, anywhere. There’s no anchor text targets other than a clever title, (read the post about the title tag from the 17^th of August), in fact, I can not imagine how anyone could do any less to promote a website or blog than the Guru did with this blog.

Naturally, there was a plan and a purpose for the blog and how it would be put up and why but it was not to teach seo or prove the Guru could get any site into the top of search engines. It was to teach how to make money online and prove to the world, (especially my customers and partners), that if the Guru could do it, anybody could do it.

ANYBODY CAN MAKE MONEY ONLINE WITHOUT HAVING TO BE AN SEO

I recently have become involved with a free hosting service focused on the Indian market. That is why I’m here in India and plan to be bi-continental for several years to come. My job is now to see that our hosting partners learn as much about how to make  money online as fast as possible and the Guru is well suited to the task. THAT is why he wanted to kill the sandbox debate. It is just a step in the process.

So, if your site is not generating any traffic and you tell yourself it is because of the sandbox, (or any other reason you choose as an excuse to not make any money online), you are throwing money away. If you don’t have any placements anywhere for any terms that would attract the demographic you are targeting after several months, you did something wrong. The quicker you accept that and start addressing the reality, the quicker you can start telling your friends how you like to make money online in your spare time.

Just think – one day soon you could be just like the GURU.  

Well like most things SE0, conventional wisdom seemed to be if one is good, then more is better. So, almost every search you would do started returning links that had the exact the same thing you searched for repeated over and over in the big blue links in the results. THAT’S how smart search engines and webmasters were back then.

Now over a decade later webmasters and search engines both are much smarter and realize repeated keywords in a title tag does not a relevant result make. With internet marketing now hitting the financial scale in the 10 digits the world knows now that a powerful marketing message and a value driven call to action is much more effective for a commercial search.

Weeeeeelllll  you might think so but take a look at this results page for hotels in London

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=hotels+in+london&btnG=Google+Search

Out of the entire list of  some 20+ results, (counting both the paid and organic), the closest thing to a marketing message are the words discount, cheap and budget in about half of the listings. OOOHH, we’re selling now! <extreme textual sarcasm

I’m not saying SEO’s have done anything wrong. Obviously since Google highlights the matching words in the title and description, it must be a big part of the ranking algorithm right?

Wrong! I have long said that the blame for poor results and lack of relevancy lies not so much at the feet of the webmasters who are only doing what they think the engines want them to do, but at least some of the blame lies squarely on the shoulders of the engines themselves.

Those words are highlighted not because it is tipping the hand of the algorithm, they are highlighted to give the searcher the impression that the engine has located relevant results.

GASP! SEO Guru, are you actually implying that the keywords in the title don’t play a part in an engine determining relevancy??? <multiple question marks to signify shock and disbelief<

No. I’m not implying anything. I’m telling you that:
#1. the keywords in the title tag don’t play nearly as big a role in the placement factors as the majority of people in the web marketing community believe and
#2. what difference does it make if you are not #1 and #1 gets over 70% of the clicks. And we can’t all be number 1 all the time for every keyword.

 While I’m talking about getting clicks, I’ll address the fact that there is no question that results on the first page with keyword repetition in the title do get clicks, but my contention is that they get the clicks because they are on the first page NOT because the message offers value or has a clear call to action. This may be the single biggest factor to the entire web marketing world thinking that a 2.5 conversion ratio is pretty good.

Search engines have done such a good job of public relations that the general consensus is that if it’s on the first page it MUST be relevant. In spite of the fact this is a misconception, it is actually a good thing because that is what enables a complete newbie to kick the butt of SEOs and steal their clicks.

Let’s take a look at another search term. Granted this one is not as commercial and therefore not as competitive, so that will leave plenty of room for argument, (I actually enjoy the arguments but then I also enjoy bus fumes), but there can be no question that it shows keywords do not HAVE to be in the title to rank on the first page for a search.

Let’s do a search  for rabbit husbandry. A VERY popular search term with young, affluent, adult male rabbits.
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=rabbit+husbandry&btnG=Search

Notice that four of the 10 results do not have either word in their titles yet they are on the first page. Also note that there are highlighted references to the words in the description but that goes back to the engines trying desperately to “prove” to the searcher they found “relevant” results. We’ll discuss that a little more later.

Also, check out a search for trajectory of the moon.
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=trajectory+of+the+moon&btnG=Search
Now 6 out of the ten top results have neither word in the title. Obviously, keywords do not HAVE to be in the title to be on the first page.

GASP! Are you actually advising us to not put keywords in the title SEO Guru???? <there’s that shock thing again with the multiple question marks>

NO! If you omit the keyword from the title tag and description tag, the engine will have to hunt really hard to find matching words to highlight to give the impression that it found relevant results. This is the main reason, (well this and the fact that page rank is a little flawed and it needs some real help), that you don’t see your description tag in the results the way you write it.

You used to be able to sell with your description tag, but those were the good old days. Now they have to show highlighted words from the search terms or it looks like they made a mistake so they will butcher your description or even use weird places in your text to accomplish this. Which means selling anything is tough but the engine looks good to the searcher. No problem. Remember, that which doesn't kill us only makes us stronger --- and more money if we do it right.

The take away of today’s article is how to steal those clicks and what I’m telling you is that if you try to get more occurrences of your target term in your title tag which is limited to about 150 characters or so, including spaces, you are blowing it and letting the number 1 guy win. Use the space to make sure you have your target term in your description and text, (the anchor text of your inbound links actually have more to do with what gets highlighted from where on your site than your tags do), BUT if you want to steal the clicks from number 1 then sell the title tag!

What if your title tag said
Where do celebrities stay in London?
Riverviews of the Thames from your hotel room
Londons’sexiest concierge at your service
etc, etc, etc.

The point is almost anything besides Hotel London, london hotel, hotel discount in London, is going to stand out like a sore thumb and attract the eye.

If you focus on selling with your title instead of stuffing the keywords into the title tag, any newbie can steal those clicks.
 

Peace
Massa

 PS
If you’re thinking, “ok fine, SEO Guru,  but how do I get the top 10 away from all those seo’s in the first place?” Well, over the next few days, I’ll discuss how to use this strategy with long tail keywords and show you EXACTLY how.

There is a discussion today at Webmasterworld http://www.webmasterworld.com regarding the fact that that someone noticed last night that Google has added one significant word to their webmaster guidelines regarding link schemes http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=66356&query=link+exchange&topic=&type

That word is excessive.

There has been a raging debate for years about how much is too much when it comes to reciprocal links. The debate rages for two basic reasons. #1. It is in Google's best interest to be a little vague when it comes to describing their policies and there can't be a single black/white answer because there are simply far too many variables.  #2. Those who can not see the point and the intent of Google's statements are very likely the ones most guilty of an infraction and simply do not want to see. 

Of course you are free to believe what and whom you choose but here is my simple to understand, works every time, nothing to worry about approach to the question. Keep in mind that when I discuss these things it is always from a commercial perspective. I don't run hobby sites or non-profit sites. I spend my time looking at this stuff with a value driven, risk vs reward, how to make sale approach and always discuss it that way too.

Is the link you are about to trade in a reciprocal deal, (reciprocal link means I will link to you if you will link to me), going to result in a desired action once the visitor gets to your site? Is the link you have pointing to you going to help convert enough visitors to make the link you are going to point to them worth sending a visitor from your site to theirs?

Look, there is only one reason to exchange links with anybody. Because you believe you will gain something of value from the deal. If you think that value is getting one paying customer from every link pointing to you from someone else's site, then a million of them are NOT excessive. That is smart business and if you have a million paying customers from a million reciprocal links, who cares whether Google likes it or not? You don't need Google with a million paying customers.

BUT, if you are telling people, (and yourself), that the reciprocal link is on theme and good for your visitors all the while you are not REALLY just wanting to help your visitors, what you are REALLY wanting is to see those links push you up higher in Google search results, then:
#1. You're lying to yourself and trying to justify it and that makes even one reciprocal link excessive, and deep down you know it and don't need to be asking the question "how many is too many" in the first place.
#2. You are looking for some easy way to "get around" the fact that building your business takes more than just being on the first page of Google and for some strange reason you have gotten it into your head that getting reciprocal links is easier than just building your business
#3. You are forgetting the number one guiding principle of making money online. Search engine placements without conversion are the epitome of irony.  Search engine placement is an expense and if that expense does not result in enough sales to make a profit, then who the hell cares how many reciprocal links is excessive?

#4. If you are trying to find out how many reciprocal links you can “get away with”, then whether you admit it or not, you are practicing black hat SEO. Just not very well. You would be better off accepting that you have now entered into high risk areas and your site could be penalized at any time so you might as well start learning about things like auto content generation, automated domain registrations, DNS manipulation, IP delivery, REAL link acquisition and so forth.

 
It is not about reciprocal links or how many is too many. It is about making more money from less visitors with less expense and more profit.

Don't let your self get sucked into wasting your time judging linking opportunities with a yardstick of whether Google will think it is excessive or not. Approach each reciprocal  link deal with a single thought. Will this link exchange bring me enough paying customers that I can justify recommending to my visitors to go to his site instead of staying at mine?

If you approach it that way you have a much better chance of making money and as a fringe benefit you get Google placements too. Doesn't that make more sense than trying to get Google placements and as a fringe benefit you hope to get some sales?

You don’t really need Google guidelines to tell you what is excessive. If you feel the need to ask, you know already.

Today is all about freedom. Freedom is wonderful and I believe should be given to every living human being on the planet without them even having to ask for it. It should be like the air we breathe. it should just be.

But sometimes the dreams that freedom offers aren't so free. They cost money. What I want to do is expand the horizons of your own freedom to do and go where you dream. The easiest way I know of is through residual passive income. That is available to you on the web. And the good news is, it isn't that hard if you are simply willing to learn a little and spend a little time.

Let me ask you, how would YOUR freedom be better if you could still study, still work, still spend time with your friends and family BUT earn an extra Rs 1000 per month? What about 5000? what about 1 lakh! :O Well there are people doing that and even more right now and YOU can be too.

Adsense can do that for you if you just understand and apply a few simple basics. Banners ads, text ads, sponsorships, affiliate programs or even selling your own home made jewelry or maybe your own recipes from your webiste. The possibilities are endless. And you have the FREEDOM to learn how to get traffic, top search engine placements, how to make money from your videos on youtube and about a thousand other ways. I can teach you. I don't know all the ways and I can't make you rich without working at it, but I can show you a lot of things you didn't know before. I can open your eyes to why some people make money online and others don't. I can show you a lot of ways that bring you that passive, residual income.

AND as our free hosting family grows, others will learn and they will teach you too. I am promising everyone right now that I will do all in my power to see that any one who has a desire to help others will have a voice right here at Techndu. There is great power in a community that shares knowledge with each other.

Soon, with just a little focus and dedication on your part, you too will transform from the student to the teacher and then the circle will be complete. Remember, the more we give, the more we get.

In the last 7 years or so, I have had literally hundreds and hundreds of blogs built and maintained for myself or for clients, but I persoanlly have never authored a blog of my own basically because I believe:

Small words spoken in truth can sway the minds of nations. But I don't care who you are, keep talking long enough and you WILL say something stupid.

I believe in that quote with all my heart. That is the number one reason that after 11 years of making my living online I have never ran a blog. Even though I am considering it now, I still believe in that quote.

I just feel that there are plenty of people already speaking a lot and saying little and I am just not sure of which camp I can contribute the most to. I will try to speak little and say a lot, but alas, I fear it may not be in my nature.

Now with launching the Techndu.com free web hosting service I have a vested interest in using the experience I have gained over the last 10+ years of being in the SEO business in the USA to share with the members of the Techndu family. I can help anyone build sites that get more traffic and generate online revenue for themselves. I want to help by giving our hosting partners a place to ask questions and get answers from me and other hosting partners and a blog will serve that end well.
 
By the way, there are a couple of other quotes I believe in as well. I'm not sure of all the authors so I can't give all the credit due but I do enjoy using them and ones gets such a rare opportunity to use them in conversation. Except of course when one is speaking to oneself.  I will point out the author when I know them. Here goes some of my favorites.

It is often better to have others wonder about your true ability and remain silent than to speak and remove all doubt.
                                                                                unknown

A man once offered me work and said he would gladly pay me what I was worth to which I replied, "man, I can't live on that!"
                                                                 unknown

If I'd have known I was going to live this long, I would have taken better care of myself.
                                                                                   My Grandma

I'll add more as they come to me and if you have good ones you are welcome to share them with us here.


Peace
Massa