My browser homepage is set to the Vertical Measures Blog, because in my opinion there is no better portal to what’s happening in the SEO world, and about a month ago they did a feature interview on the team at ontolo. What stuck out in my head about the interview was the amount of link building content covered… things that I’d never even heard of before! Considering I’ve been doing professional level SEO work since 2002, I like to think that I know a thing or two about search engine optimising… but after reading that Ontolo interview I felt really humbled and it inspired me to step up my game and learn more about link building.

So then I went off and visited the Ontolo.com website….

OMG, are you serious?!!

These guys are using SEO tools and systems that I would never have dreamed of in a million years. At this point I feel like a tiny, little acorn sitting in front of a 100ft oak tree.

So I read and read as much of their content as my brain can handle, but eventually I reach information overload and walk away to take action and practise the tips I’ve just learned from ontolo. I now understand how much more I need to learn and absorb…

I really love those moments in life though! When you think you’ve got things under control and then BAM you realise that people out there know tonnes more…. it’s an opportunity to grow and learn more, which I think is the main point in life.

So with that said, we arrive at the point where I find the Ontolo link building book! In the words of Garrett and Ben, this is what the Ontolo link building book will teach:

After reading benefits like those it was a simple (and quick) decision on ordering a copy.

Now I have my hands on it and over the next 5 days I’m going to review each section as I read them…

If you can’t wait to hear my feedback, perhaps you should go grab a copy of your own right now: Ontolo link building book

traffic bug

I signed up for Mike Roberts’ software (traffic bug) about a month ago and have been testing the trial account since. Gotta say, I’m pretty impressed with the results I’ve obtained from just a few hours using traffic bug.

I simply input a URL and some descriptive text for 7 websites I had just built, then walk away to let the bug do it’s thing. After checking my stats today, I see that traffic bug has obtained a combined total of 1,753 new backlinks, bookmarks and submissions for those 7 websites.

I had my eye on traffic bug for over 6 months but finally went ahead and tried it out around the time I was doing a lot of RSS submissions. Both are very handy to my business because they allow me to spend a small amount of time setting up a new campaign that will then go out obtain a massive amount of inbound links. This is a great way to leverage your productivity, but it also cuts out the boring tasks involved with getting links and bookmarks to your sites.

Well I got an email today reminding me that my free trial to traffic bug is about to expire in a few days. In the message was an offer to sign up for $19/month with protection from future price increases while still receiving updates to the software. For me, this is money well spent considering how much time it saves me and what I get in return.

If you’re thinking of trying out traffic bug then I recommend doing so, you can get an extended trial period when registering through the thirty day challenge too. I think then you get 40 days instead of the standard 30 day trial for traffic bug.

Leave me a comment below if you’ve used traffic bug or similar types of software, it would be good to hear other opinions out there

google video search

The video I distributed a few days ago has made it to the #1 and #2 spot in the google video search results and youtube. It started at #9 within the first day, then dropped down a page or two, then made it back up to the top 2 spots. I achieved 2 spots because I recut the main video into a slightly different sequence then distributed with similar keywords.

Next I’m going to interlink each video to point to each other and spread some link juice around.

I uploaded some new videos tonight, for the same niche but this time targetting a 3 term keyword. I will let you know when that makes it into the video search results and the position it achieves, I’m hoping for another #1 as this is 3 words now and is getting close to being long tail video marketing.

SEO for Google goggles

I’ve been reading about “Google Goggles” lately and as usual, I’m trying to get my head around the bigger picture in hope of predicting future trends. I’m also doing some testing on how to SEO for Google Goggles, which we’ll get into after a quick update on the service…

For those that haven’t heard about Google Goggles (that’s no typo either guys), it is one of the cool new services being developed over at the Google Labs.

Goggles basically allow you to take a picture from your phone, then submit that photo as a search query to google. After a short amount of time, search results will be returned to your phone based upon the photo you submitted.

Confused about Google Goggles already? Let me give you a simple example….

Let’s say you were at the park one day and saw a dog that you liked the look of, but didn’t know what breed it was and never had the chance to enquire with the owner. Well to solve the puzzle, you could either:

• sit down with a book of dog breeds and flick through every single page until you found it
• jump on google and type the physical attributes of the dog into the search box and see what came back
• you could just snap a photo of the dog using your phone, then have google goggles send you search results based upon that photo (wiki info, youtube vids, recommended dog food, fan sites of the breed, etc)

I think this new way of searching for answers will take a slight paradigm shift, because most of us are so used to simply typing a question or keywords into google. But Google Goggles will (at times) make it faster and easier for you to ask questions because you wont need to describe the problem, object or topic.

Just look at the example I gave above to see the time saving implications! Using the old school method, you would first have to find a book of dog breeds which could take hours if you were to leave the house and visit the library or book store.

If you were to do a manual text search in google, this would generally take a few minutes once you returned home and fired up the PC and typed something like “brown dog with long hair that is 30 inches tall and looks like a cocker spaniel cross highland terrier” into googles homepage. But now with Google Goggles, you don’t need to come up with descriptive keywords or a question, because you snap the photo and then send it from your phone. The Goggles service (a huge network of computers, not actual people sitting down looking at the photos in case you’re wondering) then interprets the photo and queries it’s own databases to find related websites.

So in terms of ‘SEO for Google Goggles’ some of you might be wondering how do we optimize for this new service so that our websites are deemed relevant to a goggles search? Well this will be an evolving process, because I’m sure the Goggles algorithm will be constantly updated and improved. But by using basic SEO fundamentals and a little bit of guess work, then I think it is safe to say these methods will work if you want to SEO optimize for Google Goggles:

• #1 SEO tip for Google Goggles:
  Start implimenting optimized images on your website that feature either the solution you’re providing or the problem it is fixing. If you sell wine for example, you would probably have an image of each type of wine on your site already… but do you have close up shots of the label, the stamp on the cork or  the bottle seal that goes over the cork?
• #2 SEO Tip for Google Googles:
  Create geographical cues on your site in places like the about us page. If you were a coffee shop next to Trafalgar Square, then place a photo of the location on your site that states you are just 100 feet away. Then if someone uses Google Goggles while they are standing beside Trafalgar Square, you could show up in the results and have them visit your store for a cup of java or mug of early grey.
• #3 SEO Tip for Google Goggles:
  Get your list of related keywords and search terms together, compile multiple photos for each of those, assign keyword rich filenames to the images, upload to your site and place the keyword in both the alt tag and text immediately below the image on a webpage. Google has already admitted that they will interrogate their image database, so if you rank well in Google images already then you will have some type of image rank juice transferred through to Google Goggles.

That’s just some core tips to SEO for Google Goggles, I’ll be testing more methods from here in my quest to figure out what works well. I just love new technology and the challenge of figuring out something that will bring traffic and increased profits. Google Goggles fits both of those loves, so check back and subscribe to my feed if you’re also interested in how to optimize for Google Goggles.

adwords quality score

Obtaining a high quality score for your AdWords campaigns is important, very important actually because it will determine how much you pay per click and sometimes if your ad will show at all.

If you have a commercial website, perhaps promoting your own products or service then chances are your site pages will be full with rich, relevant content.

But what if you are setting up a new website and adwords campaign from scratch? I tend to do this on a weekly and sometimes daily basis, so I’d like to share some of the expensive lessons I’ve learned along the way that will:

• allow you to create websites that receive a high adwords quality score
• avoid being google slapped and forced to increase your cost-per-click
• minimise the bid amount per keyword
• increase your ad position without paying more money

So before we even get into the AdWords system to setup a campaign, you need to make a website that fits in with what google wants.

You may have heard that it’s not easy, you may have paid Google experts for an adwords course, you may have even spent hours pouring over adwords related websites you find in the search results… no matter what your history is with AdWords so far, I’m guessing that the common perception out there is that everything to do with the AdWords Quality Score is quite difficult and specialised.

I’ve been through that steep learning curve, so I know how it feels. There have been times where I was so frustrated with underperforming AdWords campaigns that I just wanted to pack it in altogether. But I stuck with it, I forced myself read for weeks and weeks, I split tested A BUNCH of variations… then one day it all became easy and second nature. My goal today is to get you through that steep AdWords learning curve so that you can focus on a few core things to get your quality score high each and every time.

So the first step, as I mentioned before going off on a tangent about learning curves, is setting up a website that Google agree’s with.

You can read what Google wants on their official answers page (adwords.google.com/support/aw/bin/answer.py?answer=10215) but they give short, vague statements which are by no means a how-to guide on improving quality score! They do give you some important cues though, so focus your attention and energies on: quality + relevance

QUALITY: You need to create quality content, which basically means it should be of intrinsic value to the reader.

Sure it’s nice to have some keyword density and LSI optimisation in there, but don’t ever lose sight of the fact that we create websites for people and not for search engines. Too many people in SEO have that the wrong way around and do everything for the spiders.

So with quality, create pages that are 350 – 500 words long which mention the main keywords while giving the reader a genuine reason to stay on the site and continue reading (or taking an action).

RELEVANCE: Your website and content need to be relevant to the AdWords campaign and the keywords you are targetting!

If you plan to create an ad campaign around duck hunting, then make sure your website is about duck hunting locations, duck hunting tips, duck hunting seasons, duck hunting weapons, duck recipes, etc. This point I’m making here is two fold… you need to be relevant, because Google with score your relevance. You also need to be relevant, so that when someone clicks on your ad they will find something of interest and value once they arrive at your website.

I witness all too often, people putting their focus on getting people (traffic) to their website but give almost no attention to keeping them there. You don’t want to churn and burn traffic, you want to attract it… then keep it there…. then encourage them to come back…. and even get their friends to visit.

Get as specific as you can, so if your topic breaks down into 5 sub-topics create a page for each of those rather than lumping everything into one huge page.

Over from those points, you also need to incorporate another factor.

THE TRUST FACTOR: All good websites that care about their customers have a few things in common… a contact page, an about us page, a privacy policy page, perhaps a return policy page also.

Generally speaking, websites that are not to be trusted would never have any of those pages. So don’t be placed by default into that pile of bad apples, spend a little time setting up these extra pages so that Google and your visitors will view you as a trust worthy website that has nothing to hide.

So that is phase 1 of ensuring you obtain a high AdWords quality score. Next I will talk about click through ratios (CTR), keywords, ad groups, preselling methods and a few other must-have elements you’ll need in your AdWords campaign.