A component of the Rockstar Marketing Series – Custom crafted by JR Farr.

SEO is changing constantly & this my friends, is SEO for today’s world… 2009.

Changes are always taking place within the webmaster guidelines, search engine algorithms, etc. which ultimately shifts our SEO techniques. In fact, a big change happened in 2006 when Social Media started making waves.

Not too long ago, SEO (search engine optimization) use to consist of stuffing keywords into your sites content while completely negelecting keyword density & frequency. Writing quality content & keyword density was an after thought and the internet was already being polluted at such a young age. This same technique is still being practiced today and sadly, the pollution of ridiculous content continues. *Sigh*

Let’s change that.

Right now, most are still trying to adjust to the new web 2.0 phase, so you need to make sure you’re adjusting your SEO strategies as well. That’s exactly what Rockstar SEO will cover.

The Techniques You’ll Learn – On Site SEO & Off Site SEO

When executing proper SEO campaigns or techniques it is actually split up in two different types.

• On-site SEO & Off-site SEO

Nowadays, because of Social Media, I believe a big part of your SEO success is actually what’s happening “off your site” (off-site seo).

Often times, most people think SEO success only comes from what SEO strategies you’re deploying “on your site”. Yes, this is a large part to your success but it’s only some of the ingredients to the SEO stew. A few on-site strategies to consider:

• Well Structured Content
• Semantic Web Markup
• SEO-Friendly URL’s
• Unique & Fresh content

We’ll go into these in future parts of this series

So… What’s Next in the Rockstar SEO Series

This Rockstar SEO Series is for today’s world, 2009. With that being said,  my plan is to talk about best strategies right now and how to leverage the new “Web 2.0″. Here are more topics you’ll be sinking your teeth into. These aren’t quite set in stone… yet, so don’t hold me to them.

• How to use Social Media to Boost SEO.
• Creating Killer Content that Search Engines Love
• Creating Killer Content that your Readers Love
• Never underestimate the <title> of your posts.
• Social Media and How it Effect’s SEO.
• Semantic Web Markup
• Unique & Fresh Content

Check back soon for new posts on these topics as this series gets underway.

How do I hop on this Rockstar SEO Series train?

What do you have to do to get your hands on this series?  Pretty simple really. Just follow me, JR Farr on Twitter or simply subscribe to my RSS Feed and witness some insane content about to be published right in front of your eyeballs. Not too painful right?

What do I get out of this?

I’m providing this quality content because I believe in providing more value then you consume. I’m putting myself out there and sharing my knowledge because this is my passion. You’ll see it through my series and on the chance you’re diggin’ it… I just want you to share it with everyone! Oh and comments are nice too

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-

I have mentioned a site I visit regularly quite a few times on my blog.  It’s called SEOmoz. Masterminded by Rand Fishkin and his crew they come up with some awesome info about SEO as a whole.

Anyway, after my post yesterday I thought maybe I was a bit harsh on Cuil.  I started reading around to see what others thought.  Of course I went to my valuable resources, which SEOmoz being one I noticed Rand Fishkin had come up with a very extensive review of Cuil.  I thought I better share it the all ya’lls.

I don’t know if you’re like me but I am a huge visual learner.  If I see it, it just clicks for me.  Another reason I like SEOmoz so much.  You can take the time to read the post or just skim through it and see the major points through the visual aids.

Here is what caught my eye instantly…

Rand Fishkin came up with his own system that broke down all the major elements a search engine should have and ranked them accordingly.  If this image doesn’t intrigue to read further then I apologize I made you read this far.  If it does, you can continue reading SEOmoz’s latest blog post -

Comparing Search Engine Performance: How does Cuil Stack Up to Google, Yahoo!, Live & Ask”

Just to clarify… I honestly just like SEOmoz and their knowledge they so willilngly share.  I don’t know Rand Fishkin or any member of SEOmoz I am just spreading the love.

I hate that I feel like I have to do that ya know…  Some people are just lame and get a kick out taking things out of context.

Anyway, enjoy the awesomeness SEOmoz brings with this featured post.

What do you guys think about this?

Do a search for anything you’re interested in… I’ll guarantee that the images that show up next to your results make no sense.  Also, what’s with changing the flow of how the results show up.  The top 3 search engines all serve up their results the exact same.  Why?  Because that’s what we’re used to.

But no, Cuil spits them out in 3 columns and you have the option to choose 2 columns.  What is this like a WordPress blog or something?  I feel like I’m searching through a wordpress theme directory or something.  It just doesn’t look right.

Anyone who honestly thought they would even compete with Google needs some serious help.  Look at Yahoo! for a minute.  I mean if Yahoo! can’t find away to become a bigger search engine then Google then how the hell do you think Cuil is going to do it overnight.

Oh sorry I forgot Cuil is backed by $33 million in Venture Capital and was started by ex-employees of Google.  Whoa!  I guess I didn’t realize that.  Well in that case yeah I think Cuil is going to be bigger then Google. You idiots.

They forgot that Google is backed by billions & billions of dollars.  Oh yeah and the fact that Google… well is Google.  How could you honestly think that they would out do Google.

Anyway, if I see one more post about how Cuil is going to take over the world one Google at a time… I might blow a gasket.

Can I get a hell yeah or something?  Is anyone with me?

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?

Adobe is Partnering with the top search engine dawgs to do something pretty incredible.  If you know about SEO you know that flash isn’t the most “SEO friendly”

My first thought was, “How would you even go about doing that?” You will have to go through this DMnews article, but it’s pretty interesting.

Adobe Systems has partnered with Google and Yahoo to improve search results for content within Flash-based rich Internet applications and dynamic content.

To achieve this goal, Adobe has provided both search engines with optimized Adobe Flash Player technology in order to improve the indexing of the Flash file format (SWF).

According to Adobe, although search engines can already index static text and links within SWF files, rich Internet applications and dynamic Web content have been difficult for the engines to index due to their “changing states.”

It does go on to say more about Google and Yahoo and what they are doing to improve this.  Here are a few quotes from an Adobe product manager.

“Right now, so many advertisers are choosing to use Flash because of the great experience it provides in delivering their brand [and] delivering their message,” said Justin Everett-Church, senior product manager for Adobe Flash Player, when reached by phone today. However, when advertisers used Flash, they had to make “a bit of a tradeoff” in terms of showing up in organic search results, he said.

“With this announcement, what we’re talking about is you can deliver all those same great experiences and there’s no trade off any more,” Everett-Church said. “You’re going to have all your content fully indexed and showing up in the search engine.”

I am glad there are working together to make improvements on this.  Flash can be very influential but like he said, Flash does have its cons when it comes to SEO.  Keep your eyes open to see what results come from this.

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.

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