Search Engine Strategies – San Jose 2008

Whew, so the first day of Search Engine Strategies is finally complete.  What a crazy day, I have so much in my brain right now it’s almost overwhelming.  There are so many things I can apply to what I am doing currently, let alone what I haven’t already implemented.

The sessions I sat in today we’re extremely valuable to me.  I was able to get an insiders look from high end experts deep inside the search engines themselves as well as reputable website conversion experts such as Bryan Eisenberg from Future Now and Grok Dot Com.

Here is a quick breakdown of what my day consisted of:

Universal & Blended Search

• The expert panel consisted of Senior Level Management from the following search engines

Pay Per Conversation

• Bryan Eisenberg, Co-founder, Future Now Inc.
• Brett Crosby, Group Manager, Google

Storytelling Marketing: Art of Storytelling Matches Up With the Business of Marketing

• Gary Stein, Director of Strategy, Ammo Marketing
• Sally Falkow, President, Expansion Plus Inc.
• Larry Lawfer, Founder/President, YourStorys.com

Opening Keynote Presentation: Lee Siegel

• Lee Siegel, Author of “Against the Machine”

So yeah, pretty informative day yeah?  Yeah you’re right.  Also, on top of that, I received a signed book from Bryan Eisenberg – “always by testing – The Complete Guide to Google Website Optimizer”  You can purchase the book here at amazon. As I get some time to read through the book I will make a review post on what I have learned from the book.  Apperantly the book has over 250 different mulit variant testing scenarios.  I believe it after sitting in a hour and half session with him.

This guy is awesome.  I made a comment about it on Twitter today, and within minutes he responded to it and started following me on twitter.  I just thought that was so neat, and just solidified my thoughts about him and Future Now as a company.

I apologize for such a brief post.  I will breakdown the following items when I get a few breathing moments. I just need to put down the main points and then I will start to share my experience with you throughout a few posts breaking down Search Engine Strategies – San Jose!

More to Come…

-JR-

You should choose your blogs categories carefully.  Not that I am some self-proclaimed “blogging pro” (haha) but I do know a bit about site functionality and allowing your visitors an easy way to navigate your site.

I don’t know… maybe I shouldn’t jump the gun like that but don’t you agree with me?  I mean some blogs are just getting ridiculous with their category list.

Next time you have a minute you should make sure your categories aren’t getting out of hand.  I get that you don’t want to be too generic but also don’t get so fine tuned with your categories that it starts to get overwhelming.

So this turned out to be quite the random post/thought but I think this is important to keep in mind with a brand spanking new blog or a blog you have had for years.

More to come…

I wrote a post last night featuring the Aesma Pro WordPress Theme

Today I was going through my Google Analytics account like usual and notice a ton of traffic already from terms like, wordpress, wordpress themes, pro wordpress themes.

I did a quick check in google for a few different variations on the above keyword terms.  So, I come to find out that I am on the 1st page of Google for the keyword, pro wordpress theme and pro wordpress themes

Anyway, not that I haven’t been ranked for any keyword variations in Google before but for such a competitive niche I thought that was pretty crazy to be on the first page of google for.  I am going to dig some more into other keyword variations but pretty cool stuff huh?

Can you automate your social media?

For example, you have a blog right?  Then you have a twitter account right?  Then Facebook account, MySpace account, Digg account, Flickr account… AH!

It’s hard enough for most of us to keep track of our usernames and passwords.  But social media truly can helpful and if you use them right they can be very powerful to promote yourself, business or ideas.

Here’s where I am getting at… sometimes it gets overwhelming to have to re-write everything you just wrote in your blog in all of your other accounts, sites, etc.  So what can we do to help automated this?

I have been doing some research about this particular topic and I have chosen to start with Twitter.  Twitter seems to be the hottest thing right now since Big League Chew (love that stuff, especially the grape flavor) so I thought that would be a good place to start.

Right now I am testing out 3 Twitter Widgets or Plugins that work with WordPress.

Not only do they work with WordPress but… of course it talks back and forth with Twitter.  Here are the plugins I have installed.

Twitter Tools – Alex King

WP Twitter

Twitter Updater

Now, unfortanetly the theme I use currently doesn’t allow me to use the plugins with all their features. (Displaying in my sidebar.)  But, I have used these themes to see all of their features.

Already Twitter Tools is leading the race.  I noticed with others, my site would take some time to load because the Twitter Updates on the sidebar were taking so long to load. (If you use Twitter you know that their servers sometimes can’t take the traffic!)

Twitter Tools, like I said is great!  It automatically updates your Twitter account when you are posting blog post, editing, and so forth.

But, here is my favorite part so far. When you are in your WordPress Dashboard and you click the “Write” tab you are giving a new sub option.  The usuals are new post, new page, new link and now a new one shows up, “Write Tweet”  How cool is that?  So right from my blog dashboard I can make an update on my Twitter account.

I think this one might pull away with my vote but I am interested to see what others have thought?

Anybody have comments or found something better for WordPress and Twitter to communicate?

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P.S. – You can Follow Me on TWITTER.

Lately, I have noticed quite a few blogs/sites that are not taking advantage of the permalink feature in WordPress. With how competitive it’s getting to be out there SEO wise, every little bit helps.

Lets take this post I am writing right now as an example – the URL that displays to all users and the search engine is:

Permalink: http://www.jrfarr.com/creating-seo-friendly-urls-using-wordpress/

Now some of the site’s I have seen are looking more like this:

Permalink: http://www.thisiswhackjack.com/?p=17

You can see that URL is not getting the advantage it can from a keyword targeting standpoint because the URL structure is not properly structured.

AH! My URL’s look like that… What can I do to FIX THIS!?

Luckily for anyone new to WordPress with the most current download or anyone who has upgraded to version 2.5 or 2.5.1, wordpress now displays the permalink structure as you input the title of the post. Plus you can even edit it right o the spot! Sweet!

Click the image to view larger if you can’t see it well enough.

Now, for anyone using an older version of WordPress, don’t worry you can still change your non SEO friendly URL ways! Sweet!

The following is an example of how to change your permalink structure in WordPress version 2.0. I believe all of the version’s leading up to 2.5 are pretty similar to this version. If you go back even further then that, then dude you need to update your WordPress version ASAP! No I am kidding, let me know and I’ll see what I can do to help.

Ok so here we go…

Login into your dashboard, and click the options tab. Then click the permalink tab.

Under the “Common Options” you can see that its most likely set to “Default”

Select the “Date and Named Based”

Now if you select the “Custom, Specify Below” you can create a custom structure…

I usually choose this option and delete the date information and just leave the “postname”

This is a great URL structure for any of your sites to have. If your current site is not using a strategic URL structure then you need to make sure you start doing it.

Hopefully anyone reading this post found this helpful and now on your URL’s are full of SEO friendly goodness! Now give yourself a pat on the back!

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P.S. – You can Follow Me on TWITTER.

A comprehensive, in-depth list of blog-specific marketing strategies designed to drive traffic from search engines, referrals and brand building. Includes descriptions of how to implement each tactic and pitfalls to avoid.

read more | digg story

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QuwbIKRyg90]

Blogs are hot. Vlogs are hotter. A vlog, or video blog, is the newest way to engage your audience while kicking up your buzz factor. You can use video to enhance your blog, or you can use it as your blog’s main content.

Why vlog? It’s got publicity power. A good video clip gets attention online–it’s instantly talked about and linked to by bloggers. Every day, ordinary people are becoming superstars thanks to online video. And business professionals who jump in early and publish “infotainment” will generate a whole lot of traffic…..

…..Like blogs, successful vlog marketing requires the enlisted help of raving fans. Reach out directly to bloggers and vloggers; ask them to rate and rant or rave about your videos. And post your clips on social sites such as iFilm, My Space Video and YouTube.

To evaluate if vlogging is right for you, host a meeting your marketing team is sure to enjoy: Brainstorm video ideas. Nothing is too wacky, so long as you tie ideas to your business and create a call to action for this campaign. That’s key. Always tie a promotional campaign back to a valuable action you can track–a newsletter sign-up or a sale, for example. The buzz about your business might last just 15 minutes, but that could be all you need to capture an entire new community of customers.

Vlogging can provide your business with instant, massive exposure on the web. Are you up for the challenge?

Read the rest of the article here.

I don’t know its a cool term but I have been putting videos on blogs and seen them everywhere else. So why haven’t I heard the term “Vlogging.” After writing this post I think its actually kinda cool.

Maybe it will motivate me to put more videos on my blogs because I can say “I posted a vlog on my blog today.”