A number of people have asked me how to find out more about online marketing and about local vendors (Ft Lauderdale and Boca) that can help them. Heres a few starting points (tell them that I sent you) :
SFIMA - Meets once monthly, Thursday night, in Los Olas around a speaker in online marketing. Very well organized. Online Marketing focus. South Florida Interactive Marketing Association - Welcome to SFIMA
Florida Direct Marketing Association - Meets usually at lunch at the Westin Hotel around a speaker. Focus is direct marketing, more on traditional mail and catalogs than technology but there is overlap.
There are also venture capital, start-up, and technology oriented groups but it's been a few yeas since I have participated.
Local online marketing vendors? I'd mention two in a positive way:
Ten Golden Rules - Smaller multiskilled organization. Broad set of skills (and a great public speaker about online marketing). Based in Boca.
MoreVisibility - Larger organization (several dozen) mostly focused on search engine marketing.
Again, tell them that I sent you.
Wednesday, April 19, 2006
Monday, April 10, 2006
Blog thoughts for beginners
Starting any blog on any subject is a great start. So is clearing up a few hours to work on it on a regular basis. You can think alot about blogs but since it takes no money and less than an hour to get started, this is an obvious place that the best way to learn is to do.
Here is my 2 cents on blogging ....
1. Blogging is a mix of writing and socializing. There are no keys to success that work for everybody. In fact, there are no measures of success common to everybody. In one of my cases, my goals for a blog tend to evolve faster than the blog. For instance, I started one blog as a simple way to keep track of my unanswered marketing questions and to record what I had learned. A simple business journal. Another was a place where I kept my rough draft of new newsletters or web pages (kids online learning fun). Both are evolving into places where people come to comment. I'm pleased.
2, Like most activities, there are some basics to learn. Three examples: Brevity, linking, networking, and promotion.,
2a - Brevity. Everyone seems to prefer short tight entries with links to related topics. This type of writing takes a little time. Also, bolded headlines. Integrating pictures is nice too.
2b - Links. Linking with the right text to the right place takes a little technique.
2c - Networking. A social skill. Most blogs are part of a group of blogs, a blog-crowd, -cloud, or -sphere. This allows you to comment and link back and forth to other people. A type of conversation. Finding people who complement and will work with you can be tricky. These relationships are also immensely interesting and fruitful. Lastly , promotion. This means that the blog can actually be a tool to promote and idea of to sell a product. Also, getting the blog rated and popular requires clever promotion and the right types of links. You can aspire to getting traffic only from links or also from search engines. If you want search engine traffic, you need to think about keyphrases. If its all links, you need to pick your link-partners, web rinks, ad-exchanges etc judiciously. There are plenty of articles and books. Try for instance, this blog overview.
3. Blogging can evolve into a business, become a support tool for another business or mission, or become a way of socializing or introspection. Of course, while a blog is good for support, often a forum is better. See the new online learning parents forum.
4. Most bloggers start by trying to write alot and by reading alot of others blogs. Then, they get rid of their blog and start again. Sometimes, they do this frequently. Often, they constantly consider redoing their blog but feel that they have gone too far to turn back now. No advice here other than almost everyone is always contemplating restarting or not.
5. Don't worry at first about the look. You can spend alot of time worrying about the graphics and structure or, you can get to the point which is to start posting. Once you are started, you will probably have a much better idea on what look, what layout and what imagery you want. You might even find a friend online who will put it together for you. So don't start by hiring a graphic artist to design it or a programmer to structure it. You can figure these things out later.
6. Traffic building - Blogging is also a great way to build position in the search engines. Its been suggested that B-L-O-G is not so much an abbreviation for Web-Log but the secret to a Better Listing On Google. Each blog update is, depending on your settings, automatically entered into the search engines (pinging the engines is usually an automated function with each new article). So a frequently updated blog gets alot of search engine attention and can both pull traffic (if keyworded properly and with some link popularity) and help create page rank for sites it links to. I think this effect will soon diminish since so many people are using it but the impact of blogs on your position in google is so far is striking, google seems to treat them as news sites and give them special attention.
Here is my 2 cents on blogging ....
1. Blogging is a mix of writing and socializing. There are no keys to success that work for everybody. In fact, there are no measures of success common to everybody. In one of my cases, my goals for a blog tend to evolve faster than the blog. For instance, I started one blog as a simple way to keep track of my unanswered marketing questions and to record what I had learned. A simple business journal. Another was a place where I kept my rough draft of new newsletters or web pages (kids online learning fun). Both are evolving into places where people come to comment. I'm pleased.
2, Like most activities, there are some basics to learn. Three examples: Brevity, linking, networking, and promotion.,
2a - Brevity. Everyone seems to prefer short tight entries with links to related topics. This type of writing takes a little time. Also, bolded headlines. Integrating pictures is nice too.
2b - Links. Linking with the right text to the right place takes a little technique.
2c - Networking. A social skill. Most blogs are part of a group of blogs, a blog-crowd, -cloud, or -sphere. This allows you to comment and link back and forth to other people. A type of conversation. Finding people who complement and will work with you can be tricky. These relationships are also immensely interesting and fruitful. Lastly , promotion. This means that the blog can actually be a tool to promote and idea of to sell a product. Also, getting the blog rated and popular requires clever promotion and the right types of links. You can aspire to getting traffic only from links or also from search engines. If you want search engine traffic, you need to think about keyphrases. If its all links, you need to pick your link-partners, web rinks, ad-exchanges etc judiciously. There are plenty of articles and books. Try for instance, this blog overview.
3. Blogging can evolve into a business, become a support tool for another business or mission, or become a way of socializing or introspection. Of course, while a blog is good for support, often a forum is better. See the new online learning parents forum.
4. Most bloggers start by trying to write alot and by reading alot of others blogs. Then, they get rid of their blog and start again. Sometimes, they do this frequently. Often, they constantly consider redoing their blog but feel that they have gone too far to turn back now. No advice here other than almost everyone is always contemplating restarting or not.
5. Don't worry at first about the look. You can spend alot of time worrying about the graphics and structure or, you can get to the point which is to start posting. Once you are started, you will probably have a much better idea on what look, what layout and what imagery you want. You might even find a friend online who will put it together for you. So don't start by hiring a graphic artist to design it or a programmer to structure it. You can figure these things out later.
6. Traffic building - Blogging is also a great way to build position in the search engines. Its been suggested that B-L-O-G is not so much an abbreviation for Web-Log but the secret to a Better Listing On Google. Each blog update is, depending on your settings, automatically entered into the search engines (pinging the engines is usually an automated function with each new article). So a frequently updated blog gets alot of search engine attention and can both pull traffic (if keyworded properly and with some link popularity) and help create page rank for sites it links to. I think this effect will soon diminish since so many people are using it but the impact of blogs on your position in google is so far is striking, google seems to treat them as news sites and give them special attention.
Friday, March 31, 2006
SEO Progress
I have a hierarchy of words that I aspire to place well on. Here, for instance, in the homeschool arena, is a progress report. I'm measuring my place in google on words pulled from Yahoo's data on the number of searches conducted on their engine in Feb 06:
home school -143,598 searches- 64th on google for homeschool, not in top 100 for home school
home school curriculum - 22,530 - 21st on google (for homeschool curriculum)
christian home school - 8,747
home school resource - 6,104 - 90th
online home school - 4,182 - 7th for homeschool online, 12th for online homeschool, not placing with home school spelling
home school program - 3,764 - 100th on google
home school worksheets - 3,385 - 67th on google
high school diploma at home - 2,752 - not interested
home school material - 2,449 - 55th on google for homeschool material
home school driver ed - 2,448 - not interested
I tend to focus on my results on google. As recently as Oct 2005, I was not in the top 100 for any of these terms. However, as last check, I was front page on google for one variation of online home school, under 100 on homeschool program homeschol resource, homeschool material, and homeschool resource. And had just broken the top 100 for homeschool.
What does "one variation mean?" Well, google treats these searches differently: online homeschool (I'm number 7 here today) , online home school (not in top 100), homeschool online (number 12), and home school online (not in top 100).
The different semantic handling of home school versus homeschool and the order is perplexing to me but not an area of great interest. I imagine google and yahoo have a number of rapidly evolving approaches to dealing with these semantic questions.
It's interesting how steady my progress has been over the past 6 months with my site creeping up on a weekly basis.
With more links and page tweeks, I would expect to get on the front page for almost of all these terms by the summer with the exception of homeschool itself.
To be honest, I'm not all that sure where all these links are coming from. I have placed some advertisments staying focused on text advertisements with direct searchable links where they let me choose the anchor text. For instance:
homeschool.com
Ann Zeiss' Cool Homeschooling Site
home school -143,598 searches- 64th on google for homeschool, not in top 100 for home school
home school curriculum - 22,530 - 21st on google (for homeschool curriculum)
christian home school - 8,747
home school resource - 6,104 - 90th
online home school - 4,182 - 7th for homeschool online, 12th for online homeschool, not placing with home school spelling
home school program - 3,764 - 100th on google
home school worksheets - 3,385 - 67th on google
high school diploma at home - 2,752 - not interested
home school material - 2,449 - 55th on google for homeschool material
home school driver ed - 2,448 - not interested
I tend to focus on my results on google. As recently as Oct 2005, I was not in the top 100 for any of these terms. However, as last check, I was front page on google for one variation of online home school, under 100 on homeschool program homeschol resource, homeschool material, and homeschool resource. And had just broken the top 100 for homeschool.
What does "one variation mean?" Well, google treats these searches differently: online homeschool (I'm number 7 here today) , online home school (not in top 100), homeschool online (number 12), and home school online (not in top 100).
The different semantic handling of home school versus homeschool and the order is perplexing to me but not an area of great interest. I imagine google and yahoo have a number of rapidly evolving approaches to dealing with these semantic questions.
It's interesting how steady my progress has been over the past 6 months with my site creeping up on a weekly basis.
With more links and page tweeks, I would expect to get on the front page for almost of all these terms by the summer with the exception of homeschool itself.
To be honest, I'm not all that sure where all these links are coming from. I have placed some advertisments staying focused on text advertisements with direct searchable links where they let me choose the anchor text. For instance:
homeschool.com
Ann Zeiss' Cool Homeschooling Site
Tuesday, March 28, 2006
John Edelson
John Edelson - OK, a little background on who the author is....
YIKES - This is john on 5/22/2016 which is more than a decade after this post was created. This page turns out to be the most popular page on this blog so I thought I should put in a little update on John Edelson. Here's what I look like today and what I looked like in 2007 (not quite a decade ago but it's
the closest that I could find to match the date of the original post). Here's a more recent bio on John Edelson (ie me).
--------------
John Edelson is the founder and president of Time4Learning. He also provides member support services as well as does the marketing. Often, he cleans the office at the end of the day and helps fix broken web pages. Usually, the broken web pages are due to his "help" with them.
Professional Experience
Current - President/Founder, Time4Learning.com ,
Home Schooling Curriculum, Literacy Vocabulary Program. SpellingCity! Science4Us. WritingCity. Time4Writing. Founder and President.
YIKES - This is john on 5/22/2016 which is more than a decade after this post was created. This page turns out to be the most popular page on this blog so I thought I should put in a little update on John Edelson. Here's what I look like today and what I looked like in 2007 (not quite a decade ago but it's
 |
| John Edelson: 2015 |
--------------
 |
| john edelson 2007 |
John Edelson is the founder and president of Time4Learning. He also provides member support services as well as does the marketing. Often, he cleans the office at the end of the day and helps fix broken web pages. Usually, the broken web pages are due to his "help" with them.
Professional Experience
Current - President/Founder, Time4Learning.com ,
Home Schooling Curriculum, Literacy Vocabulary Program. SpellingCity! Science4Us. WritingCity. Time4Writing. Founder and President.
Various educational and entertainment consulting & investing projects: Prepworks - an adaptive program for teaching algebra or preparing for the ACT, SAT, and other high stakes tests. Vcom3D - SigningAvatars for deaf education. Florida. LearningToday - Standards-based online curriculum for school-based education. Florida.
ARC International. ARK.L Senior Vice President & Founder. Semiconductor intellectual property. London & Florida. 1998-2002. Created ARC as a spin-out from Argonaut with 10 people. Raised $12M, acquired three firms, participated in managing the firm's IPO.
Argonaut Games. General Manager. Videogame and technology development. London. 1996-98. Hired as a “turn-around” manager who transformed a struggling 100 person family firm into a growth-oriented profitable company that successfully went public. Raised $6M in capital. Executive produced Croc, a Playstation game that went platinum. The 3DO Company. Developer Relations & Marketing Director. Videogame platform innovator. California & London. 1992-95.
SGI. California. 1988-92. Product Marketing & Developer Relations. Pioneering workstations for engineering analysis and 3D graphics.
MID Consulting. Paris. 1986-88. Corporate strategy, acquisitions, and diversifications.
Price Waterhouse. DC. 1982-84. Business Consulting.
US Peace Corps. Cameroon. 1980-82.
Other
Board Member, WireSpring Technologies
Board Member, The Cooperative Feeding Program of Broward
Yale College. BA. 1980, cum laude.
Harvard Business School. MBA. 1986.
avid but aging soccer player. sometimes runner. currently in the martial arts (red belt). Father of two.
ARC International. ARK.L Senior Vice President & Founder. Semiconductor intellectual property. London & Florida. 1998-2002. Created ARC as a spin-out from Argonaut with 10 people. Raised $12M, acquired three firms, participated in managing the firm's IPO.
Argonaut Games. General Manager. Videogame and technology development. London. 1996-98. Hired as a “turn-around” manager who transformed a struggling 100 person family firm into a growth-oriented profitable company that successfully went public. Raised $6M in capital. Executive produced Croc, a Playstation game that went platinum. The 3DO Company. Developer Relations & Marketing Director. Videogame platform innovator. California & London. 1992-95.
SGI. California. 1988-92. Product Marketing & Developer Relations. Pioneering workstations for engineering analysis and 3D graphics.
MID Consulting. Paris. 1986-88. Corporate strategy, acquisitions, and diversifications.
Price Waterhouse. DC. 1982-84. Business Consulting.
US Peace Corps. Cameroon. 1980-82.
Other
Board Member, WireSpring Technologies
Board Member, The Cooperative Feeding Program of Broward
Yale College. BA. 1980, cum laude.
Harvard Business School. MBA. 1986.
avid but aging soccer player. sometimes runner. currently in the martial arts (red belt). Father of two.
Tuesday, March 07, 2006
Using Keywords and Keyphrases
People typically find most sites through a search on a word or phrase such as: "learning math online" or "kids learning games". The heart of online PPC and search engine marketing is finding the keywords and keyphrases that work for you.
Generally, from a webmaster's point of view, a single word keyword producces a large volume search with less targetted traffic. A multiword keyphrase produces more targetted traffic which is less competitive or expensive to win. For an extreme example, my site does better to focus on "third grade learning games" than to compete for the word games. Lets analyse the keyword "games".
If you look up the search volume on games, you'll find that yahoo has 4 million searches for the word "games" in January. The largest two word keyphrase with the word game was "free game" at 1.4M. Since my site is for learning, its unlikely that most of the people interested in "games" would have much interest in my site (its also unlikely that at this stage that I could compete successfully for these very high volume phrases. Looking down the list, the first expression that might produce traffic targetted at my site is "kids learning games" which has 10K seaches in January. If you look up "third grade learning games", you'll find 56 searches in January.
Now keyphrases can be used in a few ways. You can design a page to do well in the search engines for a keyphrase by using it in the (listed roughly in order of impact) Page URL, page name, body text, H1 or H2 tags, anchor text pointing to that page, meta tags and meta descriptions, and alt tags. (Theres alot more to it than just the onpage issues). You can also buy traffic based on people searching on keyphrases thru PPC advertising.
Comment on synonym engine by google
Although google appears intelligent, its actual "thinking" is primarily based on keyword and keyphrase analysis. Comment on semantic stupidity (doesn't think of 3rd and third as the same)
from Yahoo/Overtures' ranking tool - http://inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion/
4197902 game
1486027 free game
1351503 yahoo game
1043416 online game
793698 free online game
513724 video game
451565 addicting game
434954 video game rental
300809 the game
278053 game cheat
237947 play free game
225750 free game downloads
214947 game spot
213469 dress up game
206045 msn game
195366 kid game
194565 computer game
179996 pogo game
174684 flash game
157221 card game
156792 poker game
154099 pc game
151806 disney game
146618 game downloads
141818 cartoon network game
136806 sex game
136763 play game
121896 disney channel game
121612 baby shower game
120507 console game
118795 casino game
114968 fun game
112515 arcade game
108214 kid learning game - 95th on 4/1/06:
104703 free casino game
etc
Generally, from a webmaster's point of view, a single word keyword producces a large volume search with less targetted traffic. A multiword keyphrase produces more targetted traffic which is less competitive or expensive to win. For an extreme example, my site does better to focus on "third grade learning games" than to compete for the word games. Lets analyse the keyword "games".
If you look up the search volume on games, you'll find that yahoo has 4 million searches for the word "games" in January. The largest two word keyphrase with the word game was "free game" at 1.4M. Since my site is for learning, its unlikely that most of the people interested in "games" would have much interest in my site (its also unlikely that at this stage that I could compete successfully for these very high volume phrases. Looking down the list, the first expression that might produce traffic targetted at my site is "kids learning games" which has 10K seaches in January. If you look up "third grade learning games", you'll find 56 searches in January.
Now keyphrases can be used in a few ways. You can design a page to do well in the search engines for a keyphrase by using it in the (listed roughly in order of impact) Page URL, page name, body text, H1 or H2 tags, anchor text pointing to that page, meta tags and meta descriptions, and alt tags. (Theres alot more to it than just the onpage issues). You can also buy traffic based on people searching on keyphrases thru PPC advertising.
Comment on synonym engine by google
Although google appears intelligent, its actual "thinking" is primarily based on keyword and keyphrase analysis. Comment on semantic stupidity (doesn't think of 3rd and third as the same)
from Yahoo/Overtures' ranking tool - http://inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion/
4197902 game
1486027 free game
1351503 yahoo game
1043416 online game
793698 free online game
513724 video game
451565 addicting game
434954 video game rental
300809 the game
278053 game cheat
237947 play free game
225750 free game downloads
214947 game spot
213469 dress up game
206045 msn game
195366 kid game
194565 computer game
179996 pogo game
174684 flash game
157221 card game
156792 poker game
154099 pc game
151806 disney game
146618 game downloads
141818 cartoon network game
136806 sex game
136763 play game
121896 disney channel game
121612 baby shower game
120507 console game
118795 casino game
114968 fun game
112515 arcade game
108214 kid learning game - 95th on 4/1/06:
104703 free casino game
etc
Tuesday, February 28, 2006
Site Architecture Issues & Comments
Some words of wisdom followed by questions of how to consider them on the time4learning site.
"The homepage is generally considered the most important page of a site - it is the top level document and usually attracts the most inbound links. From here, search engine robots can normally reach pages that are within three clicks of the homepage. Therefore, your most important pages should be one click away, the next important two clicks away and so forth.
" - quoted from entireweb & Craig Broadbent - see below
But, on my site - many critical pages such as HomeSchool Curriculum or Special Needs Learning are two steps from the homepage (at best) via the sitemap. There are 13 links from my home page to the following pages. NONE of these pages reachable from the first page are SEO-optimized page.
2x MemberLogin - PR5
1x Privacy Policy - this link has a https link. As a plain http page, its PR5 Learn More - http://www.time4learning.com/Start/page2.htm - FreeLessons demos - PR3
Learn More - http://www.time4learning.com/start/page3.htm - oldstyle demos - PR2 2x
Sign Up - https://www.time4learning.com/alpha/Signup_Parent_Information.aspx
Sign Up Now - https://www.time4learning.com/alpha/Signup_Parent_Information.aspx
Try It, Risk Free - www.time4learning.com/alpha/Signup_Parent_Information.aspx
Start Helping My Children Now - ~/alpha/Signup_Parent_Information.aspx
Homeschooling - http://www.time4learning.com/homeSchool-online.htm - PR4 SiteMap - http://www.time4learning.com/siteMap.htm PR5 Contact Us - http://www.time4learning.com/contactUs.htm PR5 Internal Links -
"The next thing to consider is how to link the pages together. Search engine robots can only follow generic HTML href links, meaning Flash links, JavaScript links, dropdown menus and submit buttons will all be inaccessible to robots. Links with query strings that have two or more parameters are also typically ignored, so be aware of this if you run a dynamically generated website. " quoted again from Entireweb & Broadbent
SiteMap - How important? So, here are some questions which I would like to find answers to. I'd particularly like to find a combination of SEO / marketing expertise that will help me figure out how best to write for both my human and Araneidae visitors.
Specifically: 1. Should I put a few links to my key (for SEO purposes) pages on the front page? But, I generally want my visitors to follow the "learn more" buttons, not go wandering thru all my internal pages. In fact, I'm about to reduce the prominance of my sitemap link. - check out http://www.webworkshop.net/pagerank.html#internal_linking 2. Should my links to non SEO'd page be put into a format that will not be crawled? If so, how would I do that? Since I don't know how to do it, I have tried to put internal links onto all the pages reached from the home page so that they function as a sort of sitemap. Example: look at the links on: http://www.time4learning.com/contactUs.htm http://www.time4learning.com/alpha/Policies.aspx
Original article sent by entireweb - written by : Craig Broadbent is Search Engine Optimisation Executive for UK-based internet marketing company, WebEvents Ltd. Clients of WebEvents benefit from a range of services designed to maximise ROI from internet marketing activities. To find out more, visit http://www.webeventseurope.com/.
"The homepage is generally considered the most important page of a site - it is the top level document and usually attracts the most inbound links. From here, search engine robots can normally reach pages that are within three clicks of the homepage. Therefore, your most important pages should be one click away, the next important two clicks away and so forth.
" - quoted from entireweb & Craig Broadbent - see below
But, on my site - many critical pages such as HomeSchool Curriculum or Special Needs Learning are two steps from the homepage (at best) via the sitemap. There are 13 links from my home page to the following pages. NONE of these pages reachable from the first page are SEO-optimized page.
2x MemberLogin - PR5
1x Privacy Policy - this link has a https link. As a plain http page, its PR5 Learn More - http://www.time4learning.com/Start/page2.htm - FreeLessons demos - PR3
Learn More - http://www.time4learning.com/start/page3.htm - oldstyle demos - PR2 2x
Sign Up - https://www.time4learning.com/alpha/Signup_Parent_Information.aspx
Sign Up Now - https://www.time4learning.com/alpha/Signup_Parent_Information.aspx
Try It, Risk Free - www.time4learning.com/alpha/Signup_Parent_Information.aspx
Start Helping My Children Now - ~/alpha/Signup_Parent_Information.aspx
Homeschooling - http://www.time4learning.com/homeSchool-online.htm - PR4 SiteMap - http://www.time4learning.com/siteMap.htm PR5 Contact Us - http://www.time4learning.com/contactUs.htm PR5 Internal Links -
"The next thing to consider is how to link the pages together. Search engine robots can only follow generic HTML href links, meaning Flash links, JavaScript links, dropdown menus and submit buttons will all be inaccessible to robots. Links with query strings that have two or more parameters are also typically ignored, so be aware of this if you run a dynamically generated website. " quoted again from Entireweb & Broadbent
SiteMap - How important? So, here are some questions which I would like to find answers to. I'd particularly like to find a combination of SEO / marketing expertise that will help me figure out how best to write for both my human and Araneidae visitors.
Specifically: 1. Should I put a few links to my key (for SEO purposes) pages on the front page? But, I generally want my visitors to follow the "learn more" buttons, not go wandering thru all my internal pages. In fact, I'm about to reduce the prominance of my sitemap link. - check out http://www.webworkshop.net/pagerank.html#internal_linking 2. Should my links to non SEO'd page be put into a format that will not be crawled? If so, how would I do that? Since I don't know how to do it, I have tried to put internal links onto all the pages reached from the home page so that they function as a sort of sitemap. Example: look at the links on: http://www.time4learning.com/contactUs.htm http://www.time4learning.com/alpha/Policies.aspx
Original article sent by entireweb - written by : Craig Broadbent is Search Engine Optimisation Executive for UK-based internet marketing company, WebEvents Ltd. Clients of WebEvents benefit from a range of services designed to maximise ROI from internet marketing activities. To find out more, visit http://www.webeventseurope.com/.
Thursday, February 16, 2006
PPC Analytics - a POOL Tool
Web site owners love the Adwords conversion data. If you haven't tried using Adwords PPC (pay per click) with the google tracking data, you should.
When you are purchasing clicks from google by keyword, it provides you data on the conversion rate and cost per click by keywork. For example, it would allow you to tell that visitors who typed in "3rd grade math help" convert twice as often into customers than people who typed in "1st grade math help". The marketing possibilities become endless: you can try directing each different type of add to individual pages tweeked for the different interests of visitors to get the highest conversion rates.
Additionally, you can adjust your bidding based on this data. For instance, one might find that "3rd grade reading comprehension help" converts at an amazingly high rate but has very few clicks. What keyphrases are worth more? Which ones are we overbidding on? Underbidding? Its somewhat addictive to go in and start bidding more or less per keyphrase. But small business people suddenly need to become statistically sophisticated.
With 14 clicks on the phrase "2nd grade math help" and none of them have converted into customers, is it time to drop that phrase or should I wait for a bigger sample size?
For most of us that are in the under 2% conversion-to-customer rate, you would need alot of data to make statistically reliable decisions if you are looking at each keyphrase independently.
I'm hoping google or some third party will build a tool that does what I'm currently doing by hand with a spreadsheet. Specifically, a POOL Tool (a POlynumeric Optimizer for the Lazy Tool) that :
- Analyses my conversion rate in multiple overlapping pools for the most effective use of my data
- Provide info on statistical reliability (the input would be what our conversion rate is and other variables along with google stats, output would be with what reliability a decision could be made).
Lets return to my problem of being 0 for 14 clicks on "2nd grade math help". This phrase, like most of the ones that I bid one, are constructed out of 3 types of words:
Grade level words such as first grade, 2nd grade, 6th grade etc
Subject type words such as language arts, reading, reading comprehension, math, arithmetic, geometry, science, etc
Other words such as help, tutoring, improve, worksheets, learning games, activities, learning activities, online learning, curriculum, standards, homeschool, etc etc
While most of us don't have enough data on a specific search phrase (ie "2nd grade math help"), we probably do have enough data if we look by pool. For instance, we can compare all the first grade words against the fifth grade words and as a group, we can probably find that generally, one group does better (we can also group first and second together and compare them with 4th & 5th but thats another question....)
We can also compare all the math words (first grade math, second grade math etc) versus another group (perhaps against the average) and find whether math does better or worse.
And of course, we can compare all the ****help phrases against the ****learning games phrases to decide where our best conversions are.
In reality, few of us have enough data to make a statistically meaningful decision comparing "6th grade reading comprehension worksheets" vs "3rd grade math help" but, using the POOL Strategy, it gets alot easier.
Now what we need are some tools (the POOL TOOL) so that the pool strategy can be implemented without the massive ongoing spreadsheet analytical exercise that I seem to run thru periodically.
When you are purchasing clicks from google by keyword, it provides you data on the conversion rate and cost per click by keywork. For example, it would allow you to tell that visitors who typed in "3rd grade math help" convert twice as often into customers than people who typed in "1st grade math help". The marketing possibilities become endless: you can try directing each different type of add to individual pages tweeked for the different interests of visitors to get the highest conversion rates.
Additionally, you can adjust your bidding based on this data. For instance, one might find that "3rd grade reading comprehension help" converts at an amazingly high rate but has very few clicks. What keyphrases are worth more? Which ones are we overbidding on? Underbidding? Its somewhat addictive to go in and start bidding more or less per keyphrase. But small business people suddenly need to become statistically sophisticated.
With 14 clicks on the phrase "2nd grade math help" and none of them have converted into customers, is it time to drop that phrase or should I wait for a bigger sample size?
For most of us that are in the under 2% conversion-to-customer rate, you would need alot of data to make statistically reliable decisions if you are looking at each keyphrase independently.
I'm hoping google or some third party will build a tool that does what I'm currently doing by hand with a spreadsheet. Specifically, a POOL Tool (a POlynumeric Optimizer for the Lazy Tool) that :
- Analyses my conversion rate in multiple overlapping pools for the most effective use of my data
- Provide info on statistical reliability (the input would be what our conversion rate is and other variables along with google stats, output would be with what reliability a decision could be made).
Lets return to my problem of being 0 for 14 clicks on "2nd grade math help". This phrase, like most of the ones that I bid one, are constructed out of 3 types of words:
Grade level words such as first grade, 2nd grade, 6th grade etc
Subject type words such as language arts, reading, reading comprehension, math, arithmetic, geometry, science, etc
Other words such as help, tutoring, improve, worksheets, learning games, activities, learning activities, online learning, curriculum, standards, homeschool, etc etc
While most of us don't have enough data on a specific search phrase (ie "2nd grade math help"), we probably do have enough data if we look by pool. For instance, we can compare all the first grade words against the fifth grade words and as a group, we can probably find that generally, one group does better (we can also group first and second together and compare them with 4th & 5th but thats another question....)
We can also compare all the math words (first grade math, second grade math etc) versus another group (perhaps against the average) and find whether math does better or worse.
And of course, we can compare all the ****help phrases against the ****learning games phrases to decide where our best conversions are.
In reality, few of us have enough data to make a statistically meaningful decision comparing "6th grade reading comprehension worksheets" vs "3rd grade math help" but, using the POOL Strategy, it gets alot easier.
Now what we need are some tools (the POOL TOOL) so that the pool strategy can be implemented without the massive ongoing spreadsheet analytical exercise that I seem to run thru periodically.
Thursday, January 26, 2006
Site Architecture - Internal Linking - Open Questions
List of Questions
- Best practice on what to do with home page links to admin pages such as privacy policy? Can they be made non followable for spiders? Should I add internal links to my privacy policy? Should I add as many as possible or just to key pages?
Are non-spiderable internal or external links a legit useful tool? Search engine robots can only follow generic HTML href links, meaning Flash links, JavaScript links, dropdown menus and submit buttons will all be inaccessible to robots. etc
Is there an optimal number of internal links per page? If I have 50 pages, should each page link to all 50?
Do server side includes work well as a tool or do they have any negative SEO impact? This could be from delay or worse, being treated as frames.
http://www.webworkshop.net/pagerank.html#internal_linking
- Best practice on what to do with home page links to admin pages such as privacy policy? Can they be made non followable for spiders? Should I add internal links to my privacy policy? Should I add as many as possible or just to key pages?
Are non-spiderable internal or external links a legit useful tool? Search engine robots can only follow generic HTML href links, meaning Flash links, JavaScript links, dropdown menus and submit buttons will all be inaccessible to robots. etc
Is there an optimal number of internal links per page? If I have 50 pages, should each page link to all 50?
Do server side includes work well as a tool or do they have any negative SEO impact? This could be from delay or worse, being treated as frames.
http://www.webworkshop.net/pagerank.html#internal_linking
Tuesday, January 24, 2006
Whats the difference between a "SEO Consultant" and
Whats the difference between a "SEO Consultant" and a used car salesman?
Answer: The used car salesman knows when he's lying.
First, let me apologize to those of you have have taken offense at that seo joke. Many used car salesman have been calling to complain ..... (be da ding!)
Yes, that second seo joke was bad. Sadly, the seo industry includes many bad jokes.... (be da ding! be da ding!)
Seriously folks, I've receive alot of calls from SEO sales people and frankly, it would be hard to find a more-misguided group of people. And it's not that they mean to lie, its' just that they "get confused" and carried away and don't seem to really understand much.
My impression is that many of them were part of a SEO effort that resulted in some site coming out number one on some search engine for some keyphrase at some time.
At the time, they might have just been the secretary at the advertising agency that worked with the client.
But, in the course of time, these details got lost. Through the course of exxageration and confusion, they lost track of what their actual role was and what was actually accomplished. Many of them are now boasting: "My last client used this technique and got to number 1 in 3 days!!!!" When they explain to me what they are planning to do, it seems to me to be very unlikely.
And now, they are "SEO Consultants" (salepeople) peddling long term contracts with monthly payments.
They act like that they really do know how to do SEO cost-effectively, that they really can take any site and make it do well in all the search engines, and that we should be gratified that they "prepared a customer analysis for you for free" (ie ran a few keyphrases thru some sort of analysis).
Then, this is a true recent story, I found myself at a lunch with the firm president (saleguy) pushing for a signature on a contract for $5,000 month with no cancellation clause and no "level of effort" commitment or reporting by the contractor?" If you think I'm exaggerating, I'll show you such a contract. The SEO company that I was meeting with was the one pushed by a hosting firm(Webstream) at that time and they were promoting them on the phone and across their site. The company pushed the contract to me repeatedly and really expected me to sign.
yick....
*****
In reality, there are really only two people who actually understand how the search engines work. Of course, they disagree....(yes, thats part of the show....)
*******
My directory of SEO Jokes, Jokes about SEO, and Jokes about Search Engine Optimizers
(OK. That one was a subtle. Did you miss the keyphrase threepeat? Are you paying attention?)
Here's a few that I've found from around the web...with bylines and links....
www.stuntdubl.com/2006/03/24/seos-and-lawyers-its-a-joke/ including:
- SEOs are safe from the threat of automation taking over their professions. No one would build a robot to do nothing.
- If it weren’t for SEOs, we wouldn’t need them.
- Talk is cheap…until SEOs get involved.
ba ba bing... they just keep coming...
Do you know an SEO's definition of SPAM?
(thanks to http://www.webnauts.net/)
S = SITES
P = PLACED
A = ABOVE
M = MINE
sad - this seo joke made me laugh out loud - from http://www.threadwatch.org/node/7134
SEO Anonymous Meeting
Hi, My name is Michael and in the past 5 years the longest I've gone without checking stats or email messages is 3 days ..
Link Importance
What criteria determine what links can really help you? Here is my understanding of what links matter, in some order of importance....
Weight - Very roughly, the importance of a link is derived by looking at the page and calculating the page's incoming links minus its outgoing links. There are free tools (note tools 5 & 6) that will give you a count of the incoming and outgoing links. Of course, its the Importance (see this article) of the incoming links, not the raw amount that matters. And outgoing links to Junk sites count very negatively whereas links to authority sites actually don't hurt or count positively. Page rank is an extremely rough estimate of incoming links.
The relevance of the page that links to you. After much searching, I've found an article on relevance on Jim Boykin's amazingly informative SEO blog. He has much to teach including the fact that google itself is the Great Free SEO tool. For instance, want to understand google's concept of relevance, do a search on google and then look at the similar pages link that google provides. Puzzle - Is relevance done on a per page or per domain basis?
.edu and .gov sites count more than .coms. They are "trusted" or "authority" sites. And, oddly, outgoing links to them can also help your page. Any articles / sources / or research on this?
Placement on the page. Google prefers in body content links to blatant advertisements. How they determine it is a mystery.
Summary - To understand broadly what google is looking for in terms of distinguishing quality links, put yourself in their shoes....
How would you tell what sites are very popular by looking at links?
Would you allow a page to do well if they had a hundred links but they call come from the same page? No you wouldn't. What if all the links came from the same domain? Again, you would count that as maybe more than one link but not as 100 links if they all came from the same domain? Would you discount the links if they all came from the same hosting company? Or if they all came from articles which all read the same or had identical anchor text? Google has seen all of these patterns and is screening for it so they are not fooled.
They are also screening for suspicious patterns of new links - too many too fast means you are either a hot fad or spending alot on advertising, I'm sure they have an alogrithm for distinguishing between them.
Google is screening for common ownership of sites in different domains. (again, see Jim Boykins' blog).
My assumption is that google is smarter than me and has systems in place or coming online to spot any short cuts I take to getting popular. I need to build links as organically as possible and any short-cuts that I take, I do at my own risk.
Google is actually pretty open about their plan. Its in their patent filings. Read all about it.
Weight - Very roughly, the importance of a link is derived by looking at the page and calculating the page's incoming links minus its outgoing links. There are free tools (note tools 5 & 6) that will give you a count of the incoming and outgoing links. Of course, its the Importance (see this article) of the incoming links, not the raw amount that matters. And outgoing links to Junk sites count very negatively whereas links to authority sites actually don't hurt or count positively. Page rank is an extremely rough estimate of incoming links.
The relevance of the page that links to you. After much searching, I've found an article on relevance on Jim Boykin's amazingly informative SEO blog. He has much to teach including the fact that google itself is the Great Free SEO tool. For instance, want to understand google's concept of relevance, do a search on google and then look at the similar pages link that google provides. Puzzle - Is relevance done on a per page or per domain basis?
.edu and .gov sites count more than .coms. They are "trusted" or "authority" sites. And, oddly, outgoing links to them can also help your page. Any articles / sources / or research on this?
Placement on the page. Google prefers in body content links to blatant advertisements. How they determine it is a mystery.
Summary - To understand broadly what google is looking for in terms of distinguishing quality links, put yourself in their shoes....
How would you tell what sites are very popular by looking at links?
Would you allow a page to do well if they had a hundred links but they call come from the same page? No you wouldn't. What if all the links came from the same domain? Again, you would count that as maybe more than one link but not as 100 links if they all came from the same domain? Would you discount the links if they all came from the same hosting company? Or if they all came from articles which all read the same or had identical anchor text? Google has seen all of these patterns and is screening for it so they are not fooled.
They are also screening for suspicious patterns of new links - too many too fast means you are either a hot fad or spending alot on advertising, I'm sure they have an alogrithm for distinguishing between them.
Google is screening for common ownership of sites in different domains. (again, see Jim Boykins' blog).
My assumption is that google is smarter than me and has systems in place or coming online to spot any short cuts I take to getting popular. I need to build links as organically as possible and any short-cuts that I take, I do at my own risk.
Google is actually pretty open about their plan. Its in their patent filings. Read all about it.
Saturday, January 21, 2006
Time4Learning - the brand
Inspired by Jennifer's blog entry on writing a Brand Manifesto, I thought I would revisit my basic branding questions. As background, two years ago, I gave myself (and a part-time designer) 2 weeks to answer the question: What will my brand be?
Vision: Market and develop online educational software. Educational software that really teaches, that is really interesting. Not just game software which is fun and teaches some random items but real education that deals with scope, sequence, assessment, learning styles and takes responsibility for learning.
Also, Time4Learning was initially conceived as a type of "safe internet" for younger children which managed time on the computer and provided a comprehensive approach to online safety and navigation for younger children.
Goal: Create a brand and name that will be the company's name, the service's name, and the name of the character. Build into the marketing the concept of school, fun, computers, and time. Pick names that are not already taken, are protectable, and for which the domains are available. etc
Result: I selected a company and service name of Time4Learning which featured Ed Mouse, the Educational Mouse . He has a clock built into him. He morphs initially from the computer mouse into a fun animated mouse. His transformation is triggered by a school bell. And he is constantly reminding us: "It's Time 4 Learning. And Fun!"
During those two weeks, we came up with the initial character design and storyboard....
Meet Ed Mouse, the Educational Mouse
(Be sure to have your speakers on!)
Self-evaluation: A-. It would have been better if the character's and company's name were the same. I had a few concepts (eg "Learning Ligers") but found that the Time4Learning and EdMouse names worked best. The Mouse has turned out to be very popular and my acquisition of www.Timeforlearning.com and www.Timefourlearning.com solved the name confusion problems.
by john edelson
Vision: Market and develop online educational software. Educational software that really teaches, that is really interesting. Not just game software which is fun and teaches some random items but real education that deals with scope, sequence, assessment, learning styles and takes responsibility for learning.
Also, Time4Learning was initially conceived as a type of "safe internet" for younger children which managed time on the computer and provided a comprehensive approach to online safety and navigation for younger children.
Goal: Create a brand and name that will be the company's name, the service's name, and the name of the character. Build into the marketing the concept of school, fun, computers, and time. Pick names that are not already taken, are protectable, and for which the domains are available. etc
Result: I selected a company and service name of Time4Learning which featured Ed Mouse, the Educational Mouse . He has a clock built into him. He morphs initially from the computer mouse into a fun animated mouse. His transformation is triggered by a school bell. And he is constantly reminding us: "It's Time 4 Learning. And Fun!"
During those two weeks, we came up with the initial character design and storyboard....
Meet Ed Mouse, the Educational Mouse
(Be sure to have your speakers on!)
Self-evaluation: A-. It would have been better if the character's and company's name were the same. I had a few concepts (eg "Learning Ligers") but found that the Time4Learning and EdMouse names worked best. The Mouse has turned out to be very popular and my acquisition of www.Timeforlearning.com and www.Timefourlearning.com solved the name confusion problems.
by john edelson
Friday, January 20, 2006
Press Release
Press release - I am drafting a release designed to build links & visibility. I just read an article on the subject: http://toprank.blogspot.com/2005/10/lowdown-on-press-release-optimization.html - Here is the latest draft
Key message:
News: Time4Learning extends online learning service to Middle School students.
Categories for PRWeb
Education Homeschool
Education K12
Draft
Title - Time4Learning launches Middle School online learning service
Time4Learning now offers online learning for Middle School students for homeschool, enrichment tutoring, remedial, or special needs. Time4Learning, the fast-growing online learning service for preschool and elementary school, now provides online education for students in preschool, elementary school, and middle school.
Time4Learning was launched in 2004 with preschool and early elementary programs for math and reading. The online learning is used for homeschool education, supplementary, remedial, and special needs. Based on feedback from parents, Time4Learning has now added a full middle school and 4th and 5th grades to its offering. The online service provides a complete math curriculum and language arts curriculum with science and social studies provided as a bonus.
The middle school language arts program teaches advanced reading comprehension, literary analysis, critical thinking, vocabularly, grammar and punctuation, and writing skills. These are the skills which are so important to success in skill including doing well on the increasingly important NCLB tests. The math program covers number sense (fractions, real and imaginary numbers etc), prealgebra, algebra, geometry, data analysis, probability, word problems, estimation, and measurement.
Time4Learning features self-paced learning which combines animated lessons, interactive multimedia exercises, printable worksheets, and tests in one integrated systems. Time4Learning includes reports for parents and provides a fun entertaining learning environment. Around half of our families are homeschooling. Around a third of our families have children with special education needs. For instance, many parents with special needs children are finding that the children do better in homeschool.
Time4Learning initially focused on the preschool and elementary school area but were quickly pressured by parents to provide additional grades. Parents requested a middle school learning program for several reasons. Some were kids who liked the system and were moving up. More often, it was families with multiple children where the other children grew jealous of Time4Learning.
In the program for younger children, the children first do their lessons, then get to go the Online Playground. The lesson time and play time are managed by Time4Learning. Time4Learning, like AOL with its parental controls, is helping parents find ways of managing the children's computer time .
About Time4Learning.com
[Time4Learning.com], used for homeschool education [www.time4learning.com/homeschool-curriculum.htm}] and as a supplement to traditional education, is a new approach that takes advantage of today's technology through learn to read programs and kids math games. Time4Learning is a HomeSchool dot com top choice. A recent review in The Old School Magazine said: "My son absolutely loved the site". Time4Learning is popular with gifted, special needs, homeschool, or children who just want academic enrichment. Tour Time4Learning's educational teaching games now. Time4Learning provides language arts, math, science and social for preschool learning, elementary school, and middle school.
Questions:
1 - Optimal length? 500 words? 700 words? - currently at 476
2 - Optimal number of links to main site? 7? Do links to other sites, either authority or related to mine (ie - my blog on member communication could be worked in)
Keywords to work in with anchor text
Learn Reading Math Online
Educational Teaching Games
Learning to Read Online
Math Online
Special Needs Learning
Middle School
Elementary
Preschool Learning Online
Build Reading Comprehension
The Reading Skills Pyramid
Build phonics skills
Learn the Math Facts
Homeschool Online
Homeschool Math Curriculum
Homeschool Language Arts Curriculum
Key message:
News: Time4Learning extends online learning service to Middle School students.
Categories for PRWeb
Education Homeschool
Education K12
Draft
Title - Time4Learning launches Middle School online learning service
Time4Learning was launched in 2004 with preschool and early elementary programs for math and reading. The online learning is used for homeschool education, supplementary, remedial, and special needs. Based on feedback from parents, Time4Learning has now added a full middle school and 4th and 5th grades to its offering. The online service provides a complete math curriculum and language arts curriculum with science and social studies provided as a bonus.
The middle school language arts program teaches advanced reading comprehension, literary analysis, critical thinking, vocabularly, grammar and punctuation, and writing skills. These are the skills which are so important to success in skill including doing well on the increasingly important NCLB tests. The math program covers number sense (fractions, real and imaginary numbers etc), prealgebra, algebra, geometry, data analysis, probability, word problems, estimation, and measurement.
Time4Learning features self-paced learning which combines animated lessons, interactive multimedia exercises, printable worksheets, and tests in one integrated systems. Time4Learning includes reports for parents and provides a fun entertaining learning environment. Around half of our families are homeschooling. Around a third of our families have children with special education needs. For instance, many parents with special needs children are finding that the children do better in homeschool.
Time4Learning initially focused on the preschool and elementary school area but were quickly pressured by parents to provide additional grades. Parents requested a middle school learning program for several reasons. Some were kids who liked the system and were moving up. More often, it was families with multiple children where the other children grew jealous of Time4Learning.
In the program for younger children, the children first do their lessons, then get to go the Online Playground. The lesson time and play time are managed by Time4Learning. Time4Learning, like AOL with its parental controls, is helping parents find ways of managing the children's computer time .
About Time4Learning.com
[Time4Learning.com], used for homeschool education [www.time4learning.com/homeschool-curriculum.htm}] and as a supplement to traditional education, is a new approach that takes advantage of today's technology through learn to read programs and kids math games. Time4Learning is a HomeSchool dot com top choice. A recent review in The Old School Magazine said: "My son absolutely loved the site". Time4Learning is popular with gifted, special needs, homeschool, or children who just want academic enrichment. Tour Time4Learning's educational teaching games now. Time4Learning provides language arts, math, science and social for preschool learning, elementary school, and middle school.
Questions:
1 - Optimal length? 500 words? 700 words? - currently at 476
2 - Optimal number of links to main site? 7? Do links to other sites, either authority or related to mine (ie - my blog on member communication could be worked in)
Keywords to work in with anchor text
Learn Reading Math Online
Educational Teaching Games
Learning to Read Online
Math Online
Special Needs Learning
Middle School
Elementary
Preschool Learning Online
Build Reading Comprehension
The Reading Skills Pyramid
Build phonics skills
Learn the Math Facts
Homeschool Online
Homeschool Math Curriculum
Homeschool Language Arts Curriculum
Tuesday, January 17, 2006
Business Planning for 2006
This new years, I listed the 4 ways to improve (as a business) my kids online learning service:
1. Get more traffic to my site
2. Convert traffic into customers better
3. Retain members longer
4. Sell more to members.
These points, heavily intertwined, are my plan. For instance, a better conversion rate is possible if I get more refined traffic. Or if the traffic arrives in a segmented fashion, I can "talk" more directly to each set of parents particular interests, example, I could talk to the middleschool parents about their issues, the preschool parents about theirs, and so on for the gifted, special needs, remedial, homeschoolers, etc etc
I'm often asked to give business talks (I have run corporations, done IPOs, am a Havard MBA etc etc) and a common great question is how to set priorities.
In my business, working with limited resources, I tend to work on those issues that I know how to progress. That is, I focus where progress is certain. I stay away from issues which, while really important, are not currently within my means or know-how to do much about.
The exception is improving the quality of the experience for existing members. As an ethical and business principle, I put this highest effort the highest on the list. (Just behind my staff's health and needs.)
1. Get more traffic to my site
2. Convert traffic into customers better
3. Retain members longer
4. Sell more to members.
These points, heavily intertwined, are my plan. For instance, a better conversion rate is possible if I get more refined traffic. Or if the traffic arrives in a segmented fashion, I can "talk" more directly to each set of parents particular interests, example, I could talk to the middleschool parents about their issues, the preschool parents about theirs, and so on for the gifted, special needs, remedial, homeschoolers, etc etc
I'm often asked to give business talks (I have run corporations, done IPOs, am a Havard MBA etc etc) and a common great question is how to set priorities.
In my business, working with limited resources, I tend to work on those issues that I know how to progress. That is, I focus where progress is certain. I stay away from issues which, while really important, are not currently within my means or know-how to do much about.
The exception is improving the quality of the experience for existing members. As an ethical and business principle, I put this highest effort the highest on the list. (Just behind my staff's health and needs.)
Monday, January 16, 2006
Adsense
At one point(Q1 2005), I made a bundle from Adsense. Then I wondered if it was hurting my general conversion rate. so I removed them. I lost the revenue, my conversion rate did not change, and I've never been able to recreate the same revenue stream. Why? I can't get the same CTR or $/click.
I'm trying again. Questions:
- is it possible to get adsense windows to open in a new window?
- Are ad units superior? Can they be used to open in a new window?
- Isn't it possible to do your own ad-unit type pages with a page that opens only to display ads?
I'm trying again. Questions:
- is it possible to get adsense windows to open in a new window?
- Are ad units superior? Can they be used to open in a new window?
- Isn't it possible to do your own ad-unit type pages with a page that opens only to display ads?
Sunday, January 15, 2006
Free Online SEO Tools Review
Here's my favorite free online seo tools ....They each have a distinguishing or unique feature to make this list....
1. Find out the number of searches on a keyphrase - Yahoo-Overture Tool
2. Find out how a page does for a certain keyphrase. Plus who is doing well and why. Amazing!!!!! http://www.webuildpages.com/cool-seo-tool . Jim's company has the BEST free tools. For instance: see the list of backlinks with anchor text
3. Tells you how many links a domain has totalling the different engines. Has the additive feature of tracking history and "categorizing you" (unknown vs 900 lb gorilla - great marketing!) http://www.marketleap.com/publinkpop
4. Start with a phrase and find out which pages on your website are doing the best: http://tools.morevisibility.com/ranking/index.php
5. A range of tools that highlight the source of page rank and how its "used" across the number of outgoing links http://www.rustybrick.com/tools.php
6. A great tool that reminds you of your outgoing (and internal) links - http://www.dead-links.com/ . My new favorite link/html checker is: http://www.elsop.com/quick/
7. Find out the number of .edu or .gov links (considered to be "authority" sites) . go to yahoo search - http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=linkdomain%3Ahomeschoolfun.com+site%3A.edu&ei=UTF-8&fr=slv1-&x=wrt and search for: linkdomain:webdomain.com site:.edu
8. Want some keywords to consider? Put in your phrase and get a list of choices: https://adwords.google.com/select/main?cmd=KeywordSandbox
Note that the google search engine - www.google.com - itself is perhaps the greatest free seo tool. To find out how recently google spidered a site, search on google in a way that finds the site (if you must, you can always put the url into google) and then clicked on "cached" to see when it was last spidered. Do this regularly and see what schedule you are on. To see how google is viewing your keywords on a page, search with those keywords so that it comes up and look at the cached version for the highlighting (example: to see whether google recognizes homeschool on a search for home school, type into google: home school domain name and look at the results. Lastly, the "similiar sites" choice in google reveals google's concept of relevance. And, google is pretty upfront about their approach, you can read their summary or their actual patent filings)
To find out your page rank, if you don't want to install toolbars, use http://www.checkpagerank.com/ for google page rank (a primitive view of your incoming links, the higher the better, 1-10) or http://www.alexa.com for alexa page rank (a ranking of user time on the site measured by users with the alexa toolbar instatlled, the lower the better, starting at 3.5M and working down to the most popular site which is #1 - its yahoo followed by google.
Paid tools - This is not the focus of this article but of note....
- www.wordtracker.com - Great site for info on searches, they have a repeatable "2 hour" free trial.
- Web position Gold - Great software that automates alot of the above. Its also full of "BS" in terms of suggesting that you follow the formula for word density etc that the leaders in your category are doing.
-------------------------------
Below - some details & feedback on a few of these tools and some other near-favorites:
2. Find out how a page does for a certain keyphrase. Plus who is doing well and why. Amazing!!!!! http://www.webuildpages.com/cool-seo-tool
- enter a page and a keyphrase to find out how and why that page does well on the phrase.
- On a single chart, you get the top 10 sites for that phrase for google, msn, yahoo compaged with your page in terms of:
- rank, Pages Indexed (google/yahoo), Backlinks to that page, backlinks to the domain, Allinanchor rank, Domain Age, & Phrase count
- Desired features: add in the Yahoo analysis of number of searches for that term last month
3. http://www.marketleap.com/publinkpop
- Provides for up to 3 domains at once, a "total" count of links from google, msn, yahoo, hotbot.- Has the very addictive feature of maintaining your history of searches so you can see progress.
- Also a very motivating but silly set of categories: Limited, average, above average, contender, player, 900 pound gorilla.
Should I admist that I celebrated when I became "average" and then "above average"
4. http://tools.morevisibility.com/ranking/index.php
- For a single word or phrase at time, provides which page (or pages) on your site are in the top 50
- the good feature is finding multiple pages which are doing well for a given term
- Request: it would be great if we could submit multiple phrases at once
6. I started with this tool while I was checking my site for dead links. Amongst other great features, for SEO purposes, it analyses the links out of each page. http://www.dead-links.com/Theres also a reciprocal link checker.
What other free tools do you find useful?
WOW - jsut found the motherload - try a google search on free seo tools.....
Also of note:http://www.dnsstuff.com/ This is a great collection of cool stuff, some too sophisticated for me to appreciate yet. I did find out how to get my dns number and other useful free info.....
Heres one that evaluates the "quality" of your links - http://198.68.180.60/cgi-bin/link-reputation-tool.cgi
http://www.mcdar.net/KeywordTool/keywordtool.asp - another link popularity check. this one gives, for a keyphrase, your rank on google, the leaders, plus the link count (G&Y), Google PR, and allinanchor for you and the leaders...Not as good as cooloh
www.globalpromoter.com has a buncho tools but nothing special has jumped out at me... they have a tool which searches the Yahoo tool and another which supposedly will run a batch thru yahoo...but it didn't work for me.
1. Find out the number of searches on a keyphrase - Yahoo-Overture Tool
2. Find out how a page does for a certain keyphrase. Plus who is doing well and why. Amazing!!!!! http://www.webuildpages.com/cool-seo-tool . Jim's company has the BEST free tools. For instance: see the list of backlinks with anchor text
3. Tells you how many links a domain has totalling the different engines. Has the additive feature of tracking history and "categorizing you" (unknown vs 900 lb gorilla - great marketing!) http://www.marketleap.com/publinkpop
4. Start with a phrase and find out which pages on your website are doing the best: http://tools.morevisibility.com/ranking/index.php
5. A range of tools that highlight the source of page rank and how its "used" across the number of outgoing links http://www.rustybrick.com/tools.php
6. A great tool that reminds you of your outgoing (and internal) links - http://www.dead-links.com/ . My new favorite link/html checker is: http://www.elsop.com/quick/
7. Find out the number of .edu or .gov links (considered to be "authority" sites) . go to yahoo search - http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=linkdomain%3Ahomeschoolfun.com+site%3A.edu&ei=UTF-8&fr=slv1-&x=wrt and search for: linkdomain:webdomain.com site:.edu
8. Want some keywords to consider? Put in your phrase and get a list of choices: https://adwords.google.com/select/main?cmd=KeywordSandbox
Note that the google search engine - www.google.com - itself is perhaps the greatest free seo tool. To find out how recently google spidered a site, search on google in a way that finds the site (if you must, you can always put the url into google) and then clicked on "cached" to see when it was last spidered. Do this regularly and see what schedule you are on. To see how google is viewing your keywords on a page, search with those keywords so that it comes up and look at the cached version for the highlighting (example: to see whether google recognizes homeschool on a search for home school, type into google: home school domain name and look at the results. Lastly, the "similiar sites" choice in google reveals google's concept of relevance. And, google is pretty upfront about their approach, you can read their summary or their actual patent filings)
To find out your page rank, if you don't want to install toolbars, use http://www.checkpagerank.com/ for google page rank (a primitive view of your incoming links, the higher the better, 1-10) or http://www.alexa.com for alexa page rank (a ranking of user time on the site measured by users with the alexa toolbar instatlled, the lower the better, starting at 3.5M and working down to the most popular site which is #1 - its yahoo followed by google.
Paid tools - This is not the focus of this article but of note....
- www.wordtracker.com - Great site for info on searches, they have a repeatable "2 hour" free trial.
- Web position Gold - Great software that automates alot of the above. Its also full of "BS" in terms of suggesting that you follow the formula for word density etc that the leaders in your category are doing.
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Below - some details & feedback on a few of these tools and some other near-favorites:
2. Find out how a page does for a certain keyphrase. Plus who is doing well and why. Amazing!!!!! http://www.webuildpages.com/cool-seo-tool
- enter a page and a keyphrase to find out how and why that page does well on the phrase.
- On a single chart, you get the top 10 sites for that phrase for google, msn, yahoo compaged with your page in terms of:
- rank, Pages Indexed (google/yahoo), Backlinks to that page, backlinks to the domain, Allinanchor rank, Domain Age, & Phrase count
- Desired features: add in the Yahoo analysis of number of searches for that term last month
3. http://www.marketleap.com/publinkpop
- Provides for up to 3 domains at once, a "total" count of links from google, msn, yahoo, hotbot.- Has the very addictive feature of maintaining your history of searches so you can see progress.
- Also a very motivating but silly set of categories: Limited, average, above average, contender, player, 900 pound gorilla.
Should I admist that I celebrated when I became "average" and then "above average"
4. http://tools.morevisibility.com/ranking/index.php
- For a single word or phrase at time, provides which page (or pages) on your site are in the top 50
- the good feature is finding multiple pages which are doing well for a given term
- Request: it would be great if we could submit multiple phrases at once
6. I started with this tool while I was checking my site for dead links. Amongst other great features, for SEO purposes, it analyses the links out of each page. http://www.dead-links.com/Theres also a reciprocal link checker.
What other free tools do you find useful?
WOW - jsut found the motherload - try a google search on free seo tools.....
Also of note:http://www.dnsstuff.com/ This is a great collection of cool stuff, some too sophisticated for me to appreciate yet. I did find out how to get my dns number and other useful free info.....
Heres one that evaluates the "quality" of your links - http://198.68.180.60/cgi-bin/link-reputation-tool.cgi
http://www.mcdar.net/KeywordTool/keywordtool.asp - another link popularity check. this one gives, for a keyphrase, your rank on google, the leaders, plus the link count (G&Y), Google PR, and allinanchor for you and the leaders...Not as good as cooloh
www.globalpromoter.com has a buncho tools but nothing special has jumped out at me... they have a tool which searches the Yahoo tool and another which supposedly will run a batch thru yahoo...but it didn't work for me.
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