SEO Specialist

What is a SEO Specialist?
A SEO Specialist is someone that specializes in search engine optimization.

Breakdown:

define:specialist - a. A person who possesses in-depth and extensive knowledge of a particular area of study. Also subject-field specialist. b. an expert who is devoted to one occupation or branch of learning. c. A provider who has been specially trained in and practices a specific type of care other than general practice.

define:search engine optimization - a. the process of improving the amount of traffic and the quality of traffic to a website via organic listings on search engines. b. Creating and improving a website so that it will rank high in the search engines and help potential customers or clients find the website.

So a specialist is someone with experience in the field of their focus and search engine optimization is helping a site gain visibility through the search engines

That makes me a SEO specialist!

I focus majority of my time developing techniques that will send traffic to web sites through the search engines. I possess a great deal of SEO knowledge and experience, and you can tell based on my search engine optimization website that SEO is my main focus. I am SEO trained and have certificates to prove it. I know how to help sites rank well on search engines like Google, Yahoo & MSN. I know how to help companies gain more traffic via the search engines. I'm all about SEO. I'm a SEO Specialist.

What Does a SEO Specialist Focus On?
A SEO specialist focuses on white hat on-page website optimization techniques and obtaining valuable backlinks from other sites. A SEO specialist helps bring out the best in a site by helping that site's content match phrases most people type into the search engines. A SEO specialist also finds web sites to back-up that site's content with links counting as votes. The main focuses of an SEO specialist is to make a website search engine friendly, match content up to targeted keywords phrases and to find relevant/matching sites to link to that content.

What Does a SEO Specialist Do?
A SEO specialist actually specializes in many things (despite the definition of specialist) to help a site rank well. Since a SEO specialist's job is to make websites SE friendly and to find backlinks, an SEO specialist has to perform various SEO tasks in order to achieve these goals. Here is a list of tasks a SEO specialist should be able to perform (if he or she is really a specialist).

• Keyword Research
• Competition Analysis
• Content Writing, Copywriting
• Keyword Placement
• META Data
• Robot Files
• Site Maps
• HTML & CSS Validating
• Website Submission
• Internal Link Architecture
• .htaccess Files & Redirecting
• Social Media Optimization
• Image Optimization
• press releasing
• Article Submitting
• Pagerank Link Building
• Traffic Link Building
• Brand Reputation

If your SEO specialist doesn't know these basic optimization techniques like the back of their hand, then you should consider leaving him or her. If they can't perform these techniques, you're better off ordering Aaron Wall's SEO Book and doing the SEO yourself. But if you are in competitive field or don't have enough time to perform these tasks, then consider a REAL SEO Specialist.

SEO by the Hour - Freelance SEO Specialist located in San Diego, CA. dominating the search engines with proven old & new school SEO strategies. If you are looking for a REAL SEO specialist contact SEO by the Hour.

Social SEO - A Few New Web 2.0 SEO Profiles

I spent a couple hours the other day going though a list of web 2.0 sites I've been meaning to check out. I went through the whole registering process and filled out as many sections as possible in order the test the full possibilities of these social networks. The main things I recorded were; do I get a link and if so is it redirected or no followed? How many members are their? What's the site's Alexa rank and Page Rank? And what types of media can I upload? If I found a social network that met my criteria, I marked it as a website I will spend more time enjoying and making the best of socially and SEO organically.

Here are a fraction of the social networks I just recently joined and plan to heavly get involved in.

Boomer411.com - This is a social networking site for baby boomers. Very active site with a growing amount of visitors joining everyday. I liked that I was able to have my own profile and bookmark sites that others submitted. Here's My SEO by the Hour Profile on Boomer411.

Blip.tv - If you have any videos, join Blip.tv. This site does a great job at making you feel like you have your own tv show on a tv channel with a faithful group of viewers. I started it with my Flickr SEO Video. I just like the fill of this site. Very fun, yet professional.

BuddyMarks.com - This is kinda like Delicious, but with less traffic and not as advanced. It's a personal bookmarking page. That's it! But, one thing it does have is followed links, unlike Delicious. And to me, this is muy bueno.

Dealigg.com - If you are an affiliate marketer that knows how to work redirects, doorways and/or link cloaking, this site could be one of your favorite sites to visit. Or, if you are someone that likes to find a bargain, this site puts a twist on classifieds and discount purchasing by adding a social aspect to it. They gave me a unique profile page that can be indexed by the engines. My SEO Profile Page on Dealigg.

Eyespot.com - I like this site all around. It's very fun to me because it allows me to upload all my media in one place and let's my friends comment and or tag them. Beside that, I get to create my own blog. To me, it's a cleaner MySpace which I plan on user a lot more of in the VERY near future.

Furl.net - Another Digg, Delicious, Magnolia etc. The difference is the whole layout and how they catergorize your bookmarks. It sets it up in archives making it easier to retrieve past bookmarks. As long as you can remember the day, month, week or year you bookmarked a site, you will have no problem finding old bookmarks.

Like I said, this was just a few profiles I've created and I have many more to go. Just remember to ask yourself one question once you create your profile. Now that I have a profile, how do I get Google to recognize it?

Here's a clue:

"Passing juice from established pages to new unindex pages by linking to them is a great way to help Google find those undiscovered pages WORTH indexing."

10 Steps to Top Google's Local Business Results

Recently, I noticed that a couple sites I do SEO for start to show up in Google's local business listings on the 1st page of Google's search results. These listings are prime positions not only because they rank higher than the number one organic search listings, they also show your geographic location and phone number on the actual SERP. Potential customers can see your listing and business info before they even have to stroll down.

I'm real excited about these listings because the website owners' excitement has brushed off on me.

Not too long ago I asked on this blog how to achieve local business listings on Google. No one responded or even sent me a link. But, here are 10 things you can do to better your chances at these top positions.

1. Create a Google Local Business Listing Here.
2. Add keywords you are targeting to your profile.
   
3. Get customers to give you reviews and to write you good ratings.
4. Link to that profile from your web site.
5. Make sure your URL in listed.
6. Phone number should be a local number. *important
7. Get some back links to that profile.
8. Make sure physical address and city and zip on your website.
9. List all towns you cover somewhere in your site.
10. Make sure every section is filled. Even pictures, videos and specials... Everything!
    

I went way deeper into this in my other (SEO) blog if you want to understand this a little better. But, pretty much just treat that page as regular web site and SEO the heck out of it!

Hope this helped someone out there.

MojoPages, San Diego & SEO... Well, Almost SEO

Just today I was reminded by an email of this site called MojoPages.com. It's a great site with an awesome idea. The owner pretty much explains it as Youtube meets the Yellow Pages.

Mojo Pages is a social networking Yellow Pages. Businesses can get listed by happy or dissapointed users and everyone can put their '2 cent' in about that company/business. To top it off, you can make friends with others in your city/area and share opinions you may have about different establishments in your town.

Being a SEO in San Diego and working on websites here in San Diego, I thought this might be a good chance to add a couple local San Diego businesses to the site. Afterall, I pretty much do this with typical web 2.0 bookmarking sites & regular yellow pages and directories.

But, before I put much time into anything like this, I normally check for nofollows

ctrl + 'U' (If using Firefox),
ctrl + 'F' : find nofollow

As you can see any link added to this site will not get followed by the robots. The page is indexed, so Mojo Pages with definitely have (your) content. But your links wont get indexed. But, this is only a problem when it comes to SEO and PageRank. Any place to add content about your business for free is a good place to start. The site's Alexa rank isn't bad, so it couldn't hurt to add your local company to the website. Plus, even though bots don't follow links and index them, that doesn't mean they can't read them and associate the 2 pages (linker and linkee).

Post dedicated to my favorite resort in San Diego.

Web 2.0 Tags + SEO = Search Engine Love

TIP 5: SEO & Tags

Tags are very important when it comes to SEO and the web 2.0 world. Tags are labels web users give web pages, pictures, posts, etc. They represent community anchor text votes.

So when submitting sites, posting blogs or uploading pictures, make sure when tagging it, you tag it with the keywords you use in your metas and with the most popular tags people search for on that particular site.

This step focuses on making sure your site is listed under your targeted tags;

If you Google the terms "design" "tags", "graphic design" "tags" or graphicdesign "tags"

This will bring sites with the most relevant lists of websites tagged with graphic design. Add your website and tag it with your keywords and make sure everyone is aware your site is online and that your site deserves to be tagged "graph design" also. Many times these popular tagged-named pages on large web 2.0 sites will show up in the rankings without typing in "tag" or "tags".

Well, this finishes off Google's 4th bullet

"Make sure all the sites that should know about your pages are aware your site in online."

Just remember one thing, when you have a legit relevant site that people in your field will enjoy, it's only right that you let all of them know you are there for them. Right???

Flickr is SEOable - A Search Engine Optimized Profile

Today I want to show y'all how to optimize a Flickr account. I'll simply show you how to apply basic SEO Techniques to your Flickr account.

First and foremost, Flickr is a Photo account provided by Yahoo! that allows you to create your own photo galleries and sets. So remember, to use this technique, you must have pictures.

Now, when you create a Flickr account, you are given a profile page with your own url within the flickr domain. In other words, Flickr is giving you a page to optimize anyway you please within their website.

So here we go.

When you first start a profile, you are given the option to choose a username. Pick one with your targeted keywords in the the name, for this will be your unique part of your url address.

For example; If you want to rank high for the term 'san diego law firm', pick a username like sandiegolawyer007, this will turn out to look like this; http://www.flickr.com/people/sandiegolawyer007.

So now we have a optimized url.

Next, when it's time to pick a screen name, pick one that is similar to your key phrase. Use one to 3 words relating to your targeted keywords within your sreen name. This is important because this will be your title tag.

When you edit your profile first and last name, whatever you put here will show up right next to your Screen name. (Latent/Relevant content chance)

Scroll down to Describe yourself...

This is your chance to make a keyword rich page full of content relevant to your targeted keyword.

Flickr says "some html ok", so it's ok to give yourself a bold, italicized keyword anchor text link with keyword-rich surrounding content pointing back to your webpage relevant to your new Flickr profile.

But keep in mind, they do give you a chance to add you "Online bits" so you can add your website later if you don't want within the content.

Later down the page they have the "things you like", these sections allow some html also, so you could add more content if desired. I like to look at these pages like equivalents to my sub-pages and add deep links pointing to co-ordinating pages.

Just keep in mind that every box that is editable is SEOable.

Inside AdWords: Top 10 AdWords Blogs of 2007

10 AdWords Blogs You Should Read

This post is for all the PPC lovers out there. This is a list of Google's Inside AdWords: Marketing Blog's Top 10 blog posts of 2007. If you were riding the PPC/AdWords roller coster this year, then some of these blog post might bring back some memories...

Bye 2007, we'll miss you!