How well-rounded is your SEO knowledge these days?

SEO blogs are no different from any other form of media in that they represent the author’s agenda. Whether this agenda is a deliberate attempt to convert you to a certain belief or it’s a subtle stab into your subconscious, an author has a specific point of view and, even if he or she is writing in what appears to be a neutral fashion, don’t assume that it is. Knowing where an idea comes from and understanding the factors that influence what a person writes or says is a very important step towards getting the full picture. We don’t always seek out the alternative, however. Sometimes it finds us, or we happen upon it, but we need to all start paying much closer attention to what’s between the lines, what’s not discussed, and what we truly think ourselves.

If you’re one of those people who thrives on mainstream living, please take me seriously when I tell you how detrimental your habits are if they aren’t soon amended. I mean that in a really nice Southern way too, with no malice at all. Being in the mainstream has its perks I suppose, but its all about what’s average. I don’t want to read an average novel, or listen to an average band. If I wanted average, I would be much easier entertained because average is everywhere. OK before I wax philosophic about this any longer, I will get to the point…get onto a few alternative SEO blogs and forums and stop believing everything you read and hear without checking it out and finding out whether there are other viewpoints on the issue.

I am not saying to stop reading all popular blogs. I don’t want to give you the impression that Matt Cutts’ blog, for example, is a horribly skewed view of Google so you shouldn’t read it. On the contrary, I think that reading blogs like this are critical. He has an insider’s perspective, and he gives you factual information that you need in order to do a good job marketing your site in Google. Obviously he has a Googler’s viewpoint, which IS by its very nature skewed, but that’s ok because it gives you ideas and information that make you think. I do think, however, that you should seek out other information about Google when you’re trying to figure it out. Go read up on some blackhat methods of exploiting this powerful engine. Decide for yourself on how to go about manipulating (excuse me WORKING WITH) Google. Hopefully you don’t get all your news from MSN (Melinda, I am talking about you sister!) so don’t get all your SEO information from authority sources either. DO still read the authorities, of course, but don’t take their word as gospel on every single subject.

Threadwatch was so fantastic a site because you could depend upon the users there to argue about things. Sometimes they argued for the sake of arguing, and it did get a bit ridiculous at times, but overall, you were able to get many different opinions on something there. Many blackhat blogs are also really good for discussing things that aren’t being discussed anywhere else. Even if you are a sweet little whitehat-wearing angel, you should still check out what the blackhat SEOs are doing because, chances are, it’s a hell of a lot more fascinating than your meta tag writing AND they tend to have some seriously innovative ideas that you can think about and that can help shape your own work. Whether you totally react against what they say or you find a way to do some of what they discuss doing, it’s invaluable to get their perspective.

In much the same way, don’t simply attend a conference and go to the sessions to hear a “name” speak about how to use keywords wisely or the value of relevant content. Listen to the audience’s questions and, when you hear someone ask something totally whacked out, find that person afterwards and start a discussion. Look for the people who aren’t following the SEOlebrities around. These are the people with whom you can have the most enlightening discussions. Attend a local event like the infamous LondonSEO or go to a small conference/roadshow event, where there will be fewer people and (probably) better discussion.

In closing, I would like to reiterate that I don’t want anyone to give up what they’re currently doing. Supplementing your knowledge is the key. No one likes an extremist…although I am utterly unwilling to believe anything bad about The Clash so if you see a site that says Joe Strummer was mean to orphans in Third World countries, don’t try and bother me with it. I won’t believe it even if I see photos of him beating them with a belt.

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I’ve been seriously slack at the blogpost writing lately….sorry girls for the delay in this post…no excuses, I’ll kick myself up the backside =)

For the last couple of weeks I seem to have been haunted with questions about domains, and it’s really getting to me how little people think this through. It’s quiet a few things to consider when choosing a domain, here are some tips and “rules” (my rules, you don’t need to follow them but you would be stupid not to…)

Choosing a brand – what’s the competition?
If you are building a brand, you obviously need the brand name as a domain, that’s essential. But if you have the opportunity to get involved in the branding process from the start it’s imperative to check whether any other companies have the same brand name, as well as whether the domain is available. Basically if there are loads of companies with the same name you are going to have to compete to appear in the search engines for your own brand name. Now this might not seem like a “biggy” but it really can be, even if they are not even slightly the same type of business as yours. I have recently been doing SEO for a client that has trouble ranking for their brand name and the companies they are competing against in the SERPs literally have hundreds of thousands of incoming links, ouch!! I’m pretty sure I can safely say that everyone wants to at least rank for their own bleeding company name. So considering analysing the SERPs for competition BEFORE would be a freakin great idea.

Get the freakin .com for god sake
Ok when you are choosing a domain, if the .com is not available don’t sodding buy it. And whatever you do don’t JUST buy the .com. Get the .net .org and if you are a UK business buy .co.uk as well. Although .info and .biz won’t you get any traffic they might be worth picking up as well. I also have it from a very good source that .tv domains are going to blow up in the next year and will be great for any social networking sites.

Get a unique domain, but don’t do a Flickr
Having a unique domain that is easy to remember is very important but don’t make it so freakin unique that people can’t type it. And if you do insist in being all hip with the kids and you want to buy 2nite.com make sure you buy the logical, properly spelt domain as well. Now why the heck does Flickr not own Flicker.com???

Get some descriptive domains and 301 them
Obviously I’m not saying buy 100 different domains, but it can’t hurt to buy a few extra descriptive domains and 301 redirect them. Especially if your brand name is not descriptive of your business, now don’t just buy some random descriptive domains but put some thought into it. Do some keyword research and find out which keywords are the most descriptive and would attract the most traffic. Now I’m sure I’ll have loads of people disagreeing with me on this one, saying that keywords in the domain is not beneficial. My comment: Rubbish!!! Having your primary keywords in your domain can help you rank. I would also recommend using hyphens if you want to use two keywords in the domain as hyphens tells the search engines that it’s two separate words, BUT don’t have more than two hyphens, that’s just ridiculous.

Old domains – a pot of gold
If you can get hold of a previously owned domain for a cheap buck, maybe even a descriptive old domain (ok now I’m feeling high!!), then do it! Obviously you will have to do some background checking first and make sure you are not buying some old porn site as that could have some seriously bad history with the search engines and do more harm than good. But that should be a given, do your research if you are buying a previously owned domain.

Lastly – better three more than traffic lost
Heck, I don’t know where I was going with that heading (it’s past midnight it doesn’t need to make sense). Basically, it’s better to buy a few too many domains and own every version that you possibly can (if you can afford it) then just to buy the .com and .co.uk and then discover some wanker bought the .net and .biz and is stealing your traffic.

Happy domain hunting!!

Other blogposts about domains:
Rand Fishkins tips on domains
14th Colony on how to choose a breakthrough domain
Search Engine Land on best practise coroporate domain management

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My fellow SEO Chick Anita, the loveliest Bulgarian ever and author of How To Write A Kick-Ass Review, has tagged me to write a meme post about 5 Ways You Can Increase Your Visibility in Search. Since I love Anita dearly and have the utmost respect for her, I will do it BUT I will insist upon letting her buy me a glass (or two) of cabernet in Las Vegas.

1. Surround yourself with other really good-looking people, especially women. Yes, this is sexist. Yes, this makes me feel shallow and horrible. However, I can almost guarantee you that the SEO Chicks blog would not have been off to such a great start if we were a bunch of hags. As one very sweet SEO male told me at the SMX conference in Seattle, “you guys are like cheerleaders, but even better because you can do SEO!” That speaks for itself. I didn’t make the cheerleading team in high school, since I never tried out for it, but I did feel like I’d finally arrived. Our blog received a ton of traffic while we were at this show, then received lots of good links from people we met there. It gave us a great start and established us as bimbos who KNOW something. That’s worth the outrageous price we had to pay to fly into Seattle. If you don’t know any good-looking people, see if you can find any halfway decent-looking people and use them. Still having trouble? Step away from the premenstrual bongo group or Star Trek convention attendees you’re hanging out with. Bam! Immediate gratification. This is also a good time to use that money you saved by not buying an iPhone, and renting an escort with it. Trust me, in Vegas, no one’s gonna notice. If you simply hate all other people and want to be alone, spam the crap out of the engines.

2. Become known for something unique, especially involving color. Whether it’s Rand’s yellow shoes or Mikkel’s red-orange suit, find a niche and fill it. Get a catchy name like evilgreenmonkey. Fake a different accent at each conference, making sure to learn the actual words for different colors in several languages. Drink only violently pink drinks and insist on them being garnished with turquoise paper umbrellas. Don’t try and fit in for god’s sake. We have enough drones in the world of technology. Eventually, people are going to notice you and want to know more about you. Consequently, they’re going to seek you out and maybe even stalk you. It’s just like high school. If this doesn’t seem like something you’re up to, spam the ever-living hell out of the engines.

3. Get an expense account and buy people drinks and/or dinner. No one is opposed to being treated to a Tom Jones performance either. If this is impossible, kill off that lingering old relative who’s named you in his or her will as the sole beneficiary of a really nice fortune. If you don’t have any money, stay away from the rest of us because we don’t want to always be buying everything. If you do happen to be wealthy, I am exceptionally friendly, funny, and able to accept free drinks and food with the utmost grace and style. If you’re REALLY wealthy, I can also arrange for my husband to meet with an unfortunate accident. No financial future? I’ve got something you can invest in. Spam.

4. Get a job with Google. If that is impossible due to the fact that you have no credentials to speak of and have just gotten out of federal prison, take a cue from fellow former inmate Martha Stewart and make a homemade Google shirt to wear to all the conferences. The Googlers get the girls, let me tell you. If pretending to work for Google seems like too high a goal and you’re up to the challenge of pretending to be even more dense than everyone thinks you are, pretend to work for MSN. Please note that no girl is going home with you because you say you work for MSN though. Guys might, if you’re into that. If you’re above a charade, crank up your spaminator.

5. Start a fight with anyone who disagrees with you. This can be done online (good) and in person (even better!) and can really make your reputation. People, especially SEOs, really enjoy controversy and I can tell you that when DaveN starts blasting Brett Tabke, I am on it like stink on a pig. I am currently willing to get into a display of fisticuffs with anyone who thinks that Green Day is a true punk band. Don’t be nice when you’re fighting either. That’s boring, and I can watch Masterpiece Theatre and see a glove slap. Yell out some curses too. Everyone likes cursing. In the spirit of fighting, throw some spam out there too for Matt to fight.

Anita, was this supposed to be serious?

And now, you’re IT! Hands up all those who are really tired of my IT puns! Warning: if you people don’t do this I’m sending the Viking after you.

Jay Young: your topic is 5 Ways to Get Sites to Link to You.
Danielle Winfield: your topic is 5 Design Mistakes Made by SEOs.
Ciaran Norris: your topic is 5 Hottest Guys in UK SEO.
Ekrum Ashgar: your topic is 5 Best Cities for SEO Conferences.
Ylayn Ousley: your topic is 5 Hottest Guys in European SEO.

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Warning: if you’re a miserable misogynist, stop reading now, as this post contains information suggesting that women might not actually be as stupid as you seem to think we are.

Judith’s recent post about women in tech drew a comment about Grace Hopper, a woman who was involved in the development of COBOL (I can barely type “COBOL” without shuddering). This, in turn, led me to comment about Ada Lovelace, who is credited with being the first computer programmer. It all made me think about the role that women have played in the development of computing as we know it today. With that in mind, here are a few more notable women who’ve paved the way for all of us to enjoy technology.

The ENIAC Programmers
Their story is incredibly fascinating. Kathleen McNulty Mauchly Antonelli, Jean Jennings Bartik, Frances Snyder Holberton, Marlyn Wescoff Meltzer, Frances Bilas Spence and Ruth Lichterman Teitelbaum were chosen out of 80 programmers to physically program switches, digits, and cable trays in order to determine ballistics trajectories for the US Army in the 1940s. The ENIAC Computer soon became the world’s first stored program computer, giving these six women the distinction of being the only programmers to have ever programmed it on the machine level.

Alexandra Illmer Forsythe
Credited with writing the first computer science textbook in 1969, she was also a noted computer science instructor at several universities, including Stanford University.

Evelyn Boyd Granville
One of the first African-American women to earn a doctorate in mathematics in the US, Granville worked on the computing behind the first US manned missions into space and to the moon.

Erna Schneider Hoover
While working at Bell Laboratories, Hoover developed a computerized switching system for telephone traffic, replacing the hard-wired system. She was awarded one of the first software patents for this achievement, and became Bell Lab’s first female supervisor of a technical department.

So, you see, not all women are destined to make tea and just look pretty. I would like to say that Lisa HAS, in fact, made tea for me and it was lovely. I guess some of us can do it all.

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I am a firm believer in leaving people alone unless they’re doing something detrimental to children and/or animals, trashing Joe Strummer’s good name, or harassing my favorite Viking. That being said, it should come as no surprise that I am firmly against turning in your competitors for violating webmaster guidelines. First of all, it’s an extension of tattling as a child. Secondly, it’s just bad karma. You’re going to do something bad at some point and you’re going to really wish the person who turned you in for it was nice like you should have been when you turned someone else in for something asinine like using doorway pages to rank one spot ahead of you.

I’ve worked with SEOs who choose the path of least resistance in getting ahead in the SERPs, which usually means digging around on a higher ranking site and reporting on findings when turning them in to Google. That technique might clear the path for you a bit, but it’s a sign that you obviously don’t know how to get ahead without hurting someone else, which, to me, says you’re not a great SEO. You might, however, think about going into American politics.

We all know that Google frowns upon cloaking. Still, if your competitor IS cloaking, figure out how to beat him at his game without resorting to tattling on him. You may have skeletons in your own closet, after all, and in many cases it’s going to be apparent to someone who’s been doing the tattling. I have dealt with clients who would give me the names of competitors and ask me to dig around to find out if I could turn them into Google for anything. In most cases, I have indeed found something, but I’ve never turned anyone in. I also have never transported Dracula at night or eaten a candy apple. There are lines I will not cross.

Analyzing how your competitors do things is a key part of SEO, and it’s helpful to figure out WHY they’re ranking higher than you are. However, once you ascertain that they’re doing something that violates Google’s guidelines, for example, just keep it to yourself please, as full of yourself as you are. When you use this information to harm someone else you’re the equivalent of the office arse-kisser, tattling on coworkers in order to get in good with the big boss. It’s horribly ill-mannered behavior, and it’s not something that a good Southerner does.

It’s been my experience that the black hats of SEO are the ones who inspire my utter awe. I am completely fascinated by black hat techniques, especially the really hardcore ones that involve writing code that I couldn’t possibly begin to imagine how to do. These people have serious talent, and I don’t really care how they use it. If they’re ahead of me in the rankings, kudos to them. If these black hats were working on coding the search engine algorithms, maybe we wouldn’t need all the spam reporting tools, because the engines would be smart enough to catch spam without relying on humans to do it for them.

Turning in your competitors is not an act of improving the internet for the rest of us either. That’s an argument that’s making less sense the more I hear it. Honestly, the ideal of doing SEO with the goal of simply making the web a better place where kittens can frolic is lovely, but I really do not believe that it’s anyone’s true desire. We do SEO because we want to make our sites do better than everyone else’s.

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Ylayn Ousley also known as SEO Fangirl messaged me last week through facebook and said she was coming over from Paris to London at the weekend. I’ve met Ylayn once before at SES London and love her humoristic blog about men of SEO, but I knew little about her as a person.

We met in central London and literally didn’t stop talking from the minute we met….We went for dinner at a really nice Indian restaurant and literally talked SEO and online marketing for 3 hours straight. This girl has got a serious business head and more passion for online marketing than you can throw a stick at. And she is also delightfuly crazy =) It’s fantastic to meet up with other people that shares your passion for the industry, to bounce ideas from and share your frustration with. So if you see Ylayn at a conference be sure to go up and talk to her, she is one intresting fun girl!

SEO Chick Lisa and SEO Fangirl Ylayn
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This weeks Girl Geek Dinner (which is more snacks than actual dinner) is about Women in Technology and breaking down the barriers. Another topic on the blog and elsewhere has been about the perception of women in technology. Lisa had a great interview published and it got me to thinking about some stuff I’ve had happen to me lately.

We are different, apparently, us female SEOs. I did miss the memo and so when I’ve been reminded, it’s always been a shock. I’m not sure what it is, but somehow my DNA must have an anti-tech bent to it so that as a woman, I cannot possibly be good at anything technical. Or reading map directions. So I suppose the female SEO is a genetic abnormality, making me odd (but I knew that already).

There have been some great female SEOs and usability experts and web developers that have done the conference circuit, blogged and made a name for themselves while paving the way for the rest of us who followed silently. These women have really been excellent role models for everyone - not just seo-chicks *winks* They have really helped change attitudes.

Despite all these fantastic women have done for us, I have experienced discrimination as recently as May 2007. In my darker moments it seems like it doesn’t matter what I know - the perception is that as a female I can’t possibly know what I’m doing.

I don’t want special treatment for being female. It would be nice to be recognised for what I know, how long I’ve been doing it and for the contributions I’ve made by writing my own articles (as well as blogging here) along with speaking at conferences. I did start young but so did all the guys in the class with me plus the sysop who ran our line in to the internet. We all started early together.

The people I have worked for in the past have been spectacular at supporting me and believing in me - especially when they saw my results. And to my female programming teacher who tried to stop me taking the PASCAL programming class because ‘programming was no place for a girl’ I still say

Join me at Girl Geek Dinners Thursday August 16th for which FREE tickets are still left. For geeky women, by geeky women – men can come but only in the company of a woman. You sign up for FREE at http://londongirlgeekdinnerparty.eventbrite.com/ password: girlygeekdom

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I learned a valuable lesson recently (yes, just one)…most things in life are not about intent, they’re about reaction.

My mouth once again got me into trouble last week, as I said something that was interpreted totally differently than I had intended. However, I can now easily see why it was, unfortunately. Considering my first post for this blog was about knowing your audience and relating to them in terms of their culture, this was a mistake that I should not have made but I have definitely learned from it.

In much the same way, intent is difficult to determine in what you do on the web. Everyone’s favorite Viking (and if she isn’t, she darn well should be) had a great post about ip redirection, and the intent issue was a big one with that. She asked if the engines would see geo-targeting as cloaking even if that wasn’t her intent. Let’s say Google does, for some reason, see this as cloaking and they ban you. You can appeal it, let them know what’s going on, and potentially get your site relisted. This is like your chance to explain that you weren’t intentionally being rude when you said something wrong though. What if it’s too little, too late? The damage is done.

Think about the times when you’ve argued with someone over which keywords to market. Your client thinks that people search for one thing but your keyword research shows you that actually, they don’t, but they do search for THIS one. We don’t always know best, even when we think we do. Both of you have completely different ideas on what the right thing to do is based on your perspective. The client can’t see that your keyword choice is better because he is so completely certain that his 25 years in the industry has made him an expert. You’re looking at simple data. One choice may bring in visitors, one may do nothing at all. The data may be flawed. You may market the keyword well but the site doesn’t back it up enough to get a conversion. Your client’s choice may have been the best one after all…

Everyone has intentions that may be fine and dandy, but there are always problems when you’re seeing something from one side. I don’t think it’s truly possible to map out every possible reaction in your mind, but you need to come as close as you can. You need to think about how, no matter what you think you’re doing, you might inadvertently do something a bit different than you’d intended. Google might think you’re cloaking a site in order to manipulate the SERPs but all you wanted to do was stick the content where the bots would find it due to poor site design. Your system administrator might not understand that you thought programming an infinite loop for a site on a major production server would be an amusing way to wait for your next conference call to start. For the record, I do not recommend doing that because really, it’s only funny for about one minute. Learn from this (and please don’t try and get a job with anyone who builds elevator systems.)

Before you engage in anything that is even the slightest bit open to misinterpretation by anyone or any engine, spend some time analyzing all major potential reactions, good and bad and everything in between. If the likely scenario is in your favor, go for it. If you aren’t sure, think a bit more before engaging in what you’re doing. Otherwise, you could seriously regret it. Your site could get banned, your page might not display in IE, you could lose a good friend, your mom could actually read your blog and realize that you didn’t like her cookies, and life could get a lot more complicated.

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Is how a search engine handles your private data going to soon determine whether or not you use it?

In a recent decision, Ask.com has told users that it will no longer store data on their queries. This sounds very nice of course, until you get down into the nitty gritty of it and learn that it’s almost meaningless. So basically, for those of you who like to conduct searches on items such as men’s girdles, rare Adam and the Ants singles, and BASIC programming guides, you should still be a little worried that your user data could haunt you at some point (this is excluding how it simply affects you to know what Adam looks like these days.)

Here’s the main problem with this: their partners could potentially still be privvy to this so-called private data. Considering all of the blasting I’ve heard over the years about everyone wanting to get their claws on all of our data, this does actually concern me a bit. Keywords used in an Ask search can still be seen in the web address bar, and your ISP can still get this information. Apparently Ask plans on reviewing this issue with their partners and wants to come to an agreement on how this data can be used. Still, why say you’re not going to keep private data if, in fact, you really are keeping it, even if it’s by passing it onto another party?

Obviously this information can’t really hurt you if it’s not being kept. However, the promises of purging it and no longer retaining it seem way too good to be true. Obviously I am not too embarrassed to be searching for Adam and the Ants singles, although I will acknowledge that I SHOULD be, but I certainly do not want Google knowing that I am also a big fan of Clap Your Hands Say Yeah in light of their second album’s being crap. This is extremely humiliating and could potentially wreck me if it came out in court.

Google and MSN will supposedly purge user data after 18 months. Google’s cookies are now going to expire in 2 years, not in 2038 (which is about when the last batch of chocolate chip cookies my mom made will expire…I almost needed dental work.) MSN “apparently” stores its search information so that it can’t be attached to personal information. Yahoo is going to “anonymize” data after 13 months. My head is spinning around like Linda Blair’s did in the Exorcist, and I am not even wearing a nightgown right now so it’s not nearly as funny.

I have never been a private person. Just ask the tons of horrified people who have been witness to me after one glass of red wine. People who constantly complain about their lack of privacy usually have something nasty to hide, like an affection for Celine Dion, but I’m beginning to see their side of things. I’m not beginning to see their affection for Celine, of course, because that is incomprehensible, but I am beginning to understand that, where privacy is concerned, there are some simple principles that we should think about.

We should all be aware that most of what we do online can be recorded in some way. That still won’t stop most of us from calling our boss a horrible troll on Yahoo IM (although I don’t do this), sending Photoshopped photos of our friends done up as Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz to everyone we know, or looking for thigh-high latex boots. However, we need to realize that just because we’re sitting behind a screen, we’re not anonymous in the eyes of the search companies or our ISPs.

The real questions: How will you react to this? Will you continue to use Google if it keeps all your information, or will you switch to something like MSN if it turns out that their privacy policy makes you the happiest? Is privacy THAT much of an issue? If it’s not going to haunt you in a legal manner, do you really care? Are you going to search for “Celine Dion in thigh-high latex boots” and hope you get caught so you can get help?

So, some feedback please, if you would…nothing about this issue is black or white. What are your thoughts on this?

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That’s right… It’s conference time again for me so I need stuff to talk about. Of course, since I was unable to procure that Time-Life series on unlocking the untold power of my mind, I’m afraid that I was simply being a bit of an old-timer g33k there. For those of you who remember that commercial, I apologise if you were concurrently consuming a beverage. If you use some cloths and cleaner before it dries, it should be OK.

I love speaking at conferences but I’m always worried that I have nothing of any value to say. I look at people like Rand Fishkin, Graywolf, evilgreenmonkey, and others and wonder what I could possibly contribute to a room full of them. Nothing much since I couldn’t even talk about the latest fashions or shoes (although chocolate might be a talking point…).

I can’t remember a time when I wasn’t attached like a Siamese twin to some website or another. I grew up online and I suppose I have this mental image of everyone being smarter than I am. It’s been difficult to realise that I’ve got something of value to share that I’ve worked hard on developing – my SEM skills.

The last time I spoke at a conference, one speaker basically gave my talk (in brief) without realising it. I was chocolate-less and so there was an amount of panic involved. I was doing a basic “top SEO tips you can do yourself” and because I had great practical examples and clear, concise explanations, I got top ratings. That or I scared everyone in to rating me best *grins* That was a fantastic conference and I got invited back!

This time around, the conference I am speaking at has a significant price tag attached to it. It is aimed at corporate marketing types so I rest assured of a lack of people heckling me just for the fun of it. If you’re interested in this kind of corporate marketing conference, please do pop by the Search Engine Marketing conference I’m speaking at and say hi when you’re there – friendly faces are always welcome (as is chocolate)!

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