If you’re like many of us, you’re always willing to make more money, even if it means doing (a little bit) more work. That being said, you may be attempting to use some form of social media in order to pick up new clients or business contacts. Here’s a list of ten things that can cause you to lose opportunities faster than Lindsey Lohan goes back into rehab.

1. Putting up silly photos of yourself in your profile. Yes, this is usually something we all do and it can be really funny for people you know, but do you seriously want potential business contacts to see you toppled over on the ceramic tile floor of a Mexican restaurant bathroom, still wearing a sombrero? Please don’t think that I don’t enjoy seeing things like that because I do, I really do, but it’s not something that most people are going to look at and think “now this girl looks like she knows ALL about PHP and has a wealth of marketing knowledge that can lead my team in a new direction for the next 5 years.” Unless of course you happen to be wearing a shirt that boasts about your knowledge of PHP…and if you’re wearing a shirt like that, you’re a serious dork.

2. Joining Facebook groups that are asinine to most people. Groups such as these include, but are in no way limited to, gerbil/hamster bloggers, people looking to get laid in Tampa, Absolutely addicted to PUSSY CAT DOLLS show!!, Unicorns And Rainbows, and SEO Chicks. Ok kidding about that last one. It’s a serious group comprised solely of SEO intellectuals.

3. Listing your activities/hobbies as anything that includes something illegal. Sure you light up a big doobie every night but the guy looking to hire an SEO consultant for $300 an hour might not really think that’s cool. Same goes for necrophilia and driving over the speed limit. If you’re involved in something incredibly nefarious like that, don’t put it on your PROFILE for god’s sake. Actually, if you ARE involved in necrophilia, DO put that on your profile so that the rest of us can shun you.

4. Listing an unprofessional email address in your contact information. While it’s nice that you have the ability to receive all of your cat news in RSS format at Lauren@WeLoveKitties.com, use the gmail one instead in this case.

5. Listing your transvestite porn site as one of your URLs, especially if you’re a model for it or you regularly post about how much better you can walk in 6 inch stilettos than the rest of us, you tramp.

6. Linking to people who are public enemies. This includes anyone who is well-known as a complete jerk in your field (like, for example, if Todd Malicoat, Rand Fishkin, and Rob Kerry all think you’re a total Mr. Meanie Pants.) Linking to said person will only cause you heartache and embarrassment. If you’re into that though, link away.

7. Uploading videos of yourself from back in college when you used to film extremely low-budget horror movies with lots of nudity, attend Klan rallies, or perform with a mime troupe. Trust me when I say that no one will hire an ex-mime.

8. Listing your previous work at places like Big Lots, Burger King, a funeral home, the DMV, or the headquarters of the local mime co-op. Basically if it’s not professional or relevant to what you’re doing now, you are better off skipping it. No one is interested in how you created the first organic goods area for Big Lots, seriously. I’m not dissing hard work at less-than-fabulous places but remember, you’re trying to look like someone who’s at the top of his or her field.

9. Writing intentionally stupid recommendations for colleagues who request it. Well, colleagues who request A GOOD recommendation. No one is going to request a stupid one. I hope. Yes this IS something I would really love to do, to be quite honest, but I don’t think it’s something that’s going to get you hired unless The Onion is looking for new employees. You might think it was highly amusing to make your male graphics designer wear a mint green plaid dress all day after he forgot his wallet at the Pakistani place down the road and you had to pay for his buffet lunch but this probably doesn’t need to be mentioned when he requests some professional feedback to display on his profile. Note to Scott: do not ask me for a recommendation. Even worse than writing something like this is POSTING it if someone does do it to you.

10. Finally, do not attempt to reconnect or make friends with anyone who has recently taken out a restraining order against you. That’s just not going to end well.

I’m going for a long needed holiday tomorrow, back home to Norway, . I feel like I’ve been running around like a headless chicken for the last few weeks =) Time for some relaxing, my mothers cooking, my steph fathers hilarious rants after a glass of whiskey and of course as it is Norway - the land of the midnight sun, alot of daylight! Sweet!

So I probably won’t be blogging much for the next week, but will be back all refreshed and ready to blog like a father mocker =)

Ps: the photo was taken in a gadget shop in Seattle, we stayed in there for so long mocking around with the lightsabers I’m suprised we didn’t get thrown out. They were the coolest lightsabers, but I was thinking if I can’t bring fecking lipstick on the plane I doubt they will allow me a lightsaber lol

Warning: this post has almost nothing to do with imparting any SEO knowledge to our loyal readers.

For those of you who aren’t in the USA, tomorrow is Independence Day. Well, it’s Independence Day for all of us in the states too but you may need a bit of background in order to understand why I’m posting about this. The USA celebrates independence from foreign rule (not to single anyone out but you know who you are!) every July 4th. As a tribute to that fact, I’d like to talk about another form of independence: knowledge.

Data has always been out there if you looked for it, but it was not easily accessible to the common man/woman until the internet became so ubiquitous. You could always search through public records, periodicals, books, and microfilm but that took a lot of time, and you had to also GET to a place that housed all this data. Now, while data still doesn’t magically appear every time you open your eyes, it’s much easier to access, with schools and public libraries housing computers that are connected to the internet, and tons of people having personal computers within their reach.

Knowledge really is something we crave, even if we don’t know it. From something as seemingly minor as needing to know what John Lydon is singing in Seattle to something as major as what’s going on with the war in Iraq today, we want to know. I’m certainly not saying that everything you read is true, because I think that possibly 25% of it is. The media produces much of the data we have access to, and they are certainly not free from censors or bias. Coverups abound, information is misreported accidentally and on purpose, and you have to make your own decisions about what to believe many times. However, without searching for information, where would we end up? Why sit there and be spoon-fed data?

Here’s my best example of the power of search, which, to me, is also the power of knowledge.

My grandfather Jack died right before WWII ended, when my mother was 4. I knew that he was buried in an American military cemetery in the Netherlands, but that was really about all I knew. When I began my search on Google a few years back, I had no idea of what I would encounter. I simply hoped to be able, at minimum, to locate exactly where he was buried so that I could send flowers for his grave. When I finally got a relevant result that led me to a military piece that displayed his information, I was shocked to see that he was the recipient of a Purple Heart. No one in my family had ever mentioned this, so I immediately called my grandmother to ask her about it. I guess I should have assumed he was awarded one, but I really never thought about it.

My grandmother had no knowledge of this. She’d never been told about it, possibly due to the total chaos involved in the death of someone back then in that situation, and she certainly never had the award. So what did I do? I searched for information on how to receive a military honor that had never gotten to the family. This led me to contact Jesse Helms (our state senator at the time) who sent a Purple Heart to me within 2 weeks. THAT is the power of the web for me. THAT is the power of the web for someone like my grandmother, who’s never even heard of the internet. OK she probably has heard of it, but she’s certainly never surfed online or read The Onion.

So celebrate your independence from ignorance, question things more often, and use the internet to find answers to questions that seem unanswerable. Like “why does my best friend Melinda like Robbie Williams so much?” or “how can I make a grilled cheese sandwich using a safety pin, a rubber band, and a pot?”

When it comes to trying out random new keywords in paid advertising, be careful…you could inadvertently hurt your Google quality score and cause damage to your entire campaign. Then you’ll be wearing the same expression I was when I ordered what I thought would be a large(ish) chocolate dessert at PF Changs and it was about the size of a quarter. One that had been flattened on the railroad tracks. One that I had to SHARE with my best friend, a known chocoholic. ANYWAY…

Google’s quality score is defined as follows:

“Quality Score is the basis for measuring the quality and relevance of your ads and determining your minimum CPC bid for Google and the search network. This score is determined by your keyword’s clickthrough rate (CTR) on Google, and the relevance of your ad text, keyword, and landing page. We believe high quality ads attract more clicks, encourage user trust, and result in better long-term performance. To encourage relevant and successful ads within AdWords, our system defines a Quality Score to set your keyword status, minimum CPC bid, and ad rank for the ad auction.”

Now, what to do if you have a client who is constantly telling you to “try these new phrases!” and won’t take no for an answer? Can adding tons of poor-quality keywords to a Google ads campaign actually be as bad as Johnny Marr joining Modest Mouse? Yes I KNOW they are considered to be a good band but still…it makes me shudder and swat at imaginary flies.

Here’s why your Google ads quality score is so important:
If it’s high, your minimum cost per click is lower than it would be otherwise. That might not seem like such a big deal until you consider the fact that a large PPC campaign that generally receives 500 clicks per day could save $50 per day by a minimum CPC that was just $0.10 lower due to a better quality score. That’s around $1500 a month in savings which equates to 375 raspberry mocha lattes. Keywords with low quality scores can also be listed as inactive for search, which means you have to either pay more per click to get them listed or you have to improve the quality score of that keyword by making your ad text more relevant or improving your landing page.

It gets weird here…there is ANOTHER quality score that Google uses to determine ad position. Google says this quality score “differs slightly from the keyword Quality Score used to determine your ad’s minimum CPC bid requirement.” This quality score takes into account how well your ad has performed previously. If you’ve gotten a high clickthrough rate, you have a fantastic landing page, and you’re converting like mad, this quality score will be higher and you will most likely be number 1 for a keyword when you’re paying for the top spot. If you’re paying for the top spot and your quality score is lower than the other guy paying for that privilege, you’re going to be number 2 if your ads are on at the same time.

So, the overall point of this is that when you’re running paid ads in Google or anywhere else, don’t assume that you can just slap some keywords up there and adjust your bids every few days and do NOTHING ELSE. Running a successful paid ad campaign takes a lot of hands-on time. Many people assume that it’s simply a matter of money, that if they’re willing to pay $30 per click for the keyword “really good Robbie Williams albums” they will be number 1 in Google constantly, and they’ll sell a ton of these (obviously non-existent) albums. It doesn’t work that way. Obviously no one will search for “really good Robbie Williams albums” and I cannot imagine that anyone has a landing page devoted to this horror.

Let me close by saying that the information I’ve given comes from the Adwords site mostly. I always recommend that you read authority sources to see what they say, then read everything else you can find on the topic. Many times, the opinions of people outside certain entities (such as Google) will be the ones that really help you out.

For more information on this incredibly riveting topic, here are a few links:

How Is My Keyword’s Quality Score Used?

How Do I Know What My Quality Score Is?

The Buzz On Google Quality Score Changes

Google Quality Score Myths and Truths

Now if you don’t already have this tool, this could make your life a WHOLE lot easier. Well your SEO life anyway, it doesn’t actually help you get a boyfriend or anything like that. Now that would be a great tool? Boyfriend toolbar..

The SeoQuake tool was originally a Mozilla Firefox extension, but they have recently added a Internet Explorer version. Although I would highly recommend you start using Firefox if you are not already using it. Much better, cooler plugins and not to mention so much safer browsing. Ok now this wasn’t meant to be a blogpost about Firefox =)

Anyway, back to SeoQuake. This tool is awesome, it allows you to view a large number of SEO parameters in one go. You get a toolbar that shows you the following parameters of the website you are currently viewing:

- Number of Indexed pages in Google
- Incoming links to URL (based on Yahoo)
- Incoming links to the domain (based on Yahoo)
- Alexa rank
- Age of domain
- Delicious Index
- Whois
- Source
- Internal and External Links
- Keyword density (plus keyword cloud)

plus you can install other parameters such as dmoz info, Technorati index etc etc

Sounds sweet?
Go to find out more about SeoQuake OR to Install SeoQuake

What exactly does the PageRank measure?
PageRank is an algorithm (mathematical equation) developed by Google to determine the “importance” of a website based on the incoming linking structure. Every incoming link works as a “vote” for the website. Google doesn’t only measure the volume of incoming links but also analyses the page that casts the “vote/link”. A link from a page that has itself been deemed by Google to be “important” will give the page it’s linking to some of its goodness, or like one of my client likes to call it, some Google Juice.

So where does the PageRank toolbar fit in?
Now the PageRank equation itself is an important factor of Google’s overall algorithm to determine which website should be ranked before another. BUT, what confuses SEOs and webmasters all over the world is the Google PageRank toolbar. Now this is NOT the same thing, the toolbar was created to give an indication of the importance given to a page by Google, but the problem is that people take it WAY too seriously. The toolbar is not updated often enough to actually give you an accurate representation of the givens page “importance” according to the actual PageRank equation. Matt Cutts himself admits that the toolbar is only updated roughly every 3-4 months.

So why do some people obsess about the PageRank toolbar?
Now this could be a number of reasons. For people that are in the area of actually selling outgoing links the actual toolbar PageRank will very much determine what they can charge for that link (although as a pure white hat wearing angel SEO we would never do this, seriously Matt we wouldn’t!). But also, there is a lot of SEOs out there that uses the toolbar PageRank to “prove” success to the clients. As the toolbar is something they can see, so if the PageRank was 5 one month and 6 the next month, obviously that would be an indication you are doing something right.

Now my overall view of this is YES PageRank itself is important as it IS a part of the Google algo, BUT beware of the toolbar, don’t take it so seriously.

But don’t worry, it’s totally normal to get excited when your PageRank does go up, we all do it =)