Hitwise reports search engine traffic breakdown… Google is Killin’ it!

Google - 67.9%; Yahoo - 20.3%; Microsoft - 6.3%; Ask - 4.2%; Other - 1.4%

Fresh targeted content and links are the two most important components of search engine optimization. Do the following and you will kill two birds with one stone:

1. Write as many tidbits of advice / words of wisdom / how to’s / fun facts etc… as you can think of that are geared towards the topic of your website. They should be no more than a couple sentences each, a small paragraph at most (try to get at least a few hundred to start - this is why you may want to hire a copywriter for this. I recommend LifeTips. Make sure to do your keyword research so you know what keywords to target. I use Keyword Discovery.
2. Create a page on your site called “Daily ____ Tips” ( or “knowledge nuggets” or “how to’s”, etc…)
3. Create an RSS feed that will present your tips as you upload them daily (How to create an RSS feed)

By creating an RSS feed of daily tips related to your website you provide fresh content for the search engine spiders to crawl daily. Having this information in a feed allows others to syndicate this content on their sites, which will always link back to your site. In my opinion this is the best SEO tip in the book. What’s your best SEO tip?

I finally found an EASY way to add the social bookmarking buttons to my blog posts.  Of course I am weary of overdoing it, but I’ve been trying to find an easy way to “socialize” my blog for some time, so I’m doing it!  Your on your way to Social Media Optimization bliss in just 5 steps:

1. Download Sociable 2.0 here: http://push.cx/sociable
2. Unzip the files to your computer
3. Using FileZilla (or another FTP server) upload the social folder (not just files in it) to the wp-content/plugins folder of your blog
4. Go to your Wordpress Admin and activate the plugin on the Plugins page
5. Go to Options and choose which social buttons you want and how you want them presented

 You get to choose from the following 61 sites (but be tactful!):

blinkbits, BlinkList, BlogMemes, blogmarks, co.mments, connotea, del.icio.us, De.lirio.us, digg, DZone, Fark, feedmelinks, Furl, Fleck, Gwar, Hemidemi, IndiaGram, IndianPad, kick.ie, LinkaGoGo, Linkter, Ma.gnolia, MisterWong, MyShare, My-Tuts, NewsVine, Netscape, Netvouz, PopCurrent, ppnow, RawSugar, Rec6, Reddit, scuttle, Shadows, Simpy, Slashdot, Smarking, Spurl, SphereIt, StumbleUpon, Taggly, Technorati, TailRank, Webride, Wists, Wykop, and YahooMyWeb.

My favorite 7 are in bold.  Which one’s do you like?

Check out this free way to drive qualified traffic (readers interested in your blog’s topic) to your blog. Click BlogRushto sign up.

Check out this SEO informational video with interviews of the top guns in the SEO industry.

Google once again is playing the role of the puppet master as the massive Internet company pulls the strings behind the social networking umbrella platform called OpenSocial. It has been confirmed that MySpace, SixApart, and Bebo will join forces under OpenSocial, already consisting of Orkut, Salesforce, LinkedIn, Ning, Hi5, Plaxo, Friendster, Viadeo and Oracle, in an attempt to take on Facebook Will Facebook be forced to join, or is the college based network just getting started? Please feel free to weigh in…

Getting big companies without any internal SEO personel to take a holistic approach to their SEO efforts is difficult. They want to be ranked on top for a host of competitive keywords. They want their web pages to be optimized for those keywords. And they want it all to happen much soon than later. Many of these websites have been around for a while, and have passed through so many hands with different priorities and marketing viewpoints, that architecturally, they are simply in shambles. Marketing executives at these companies can get their heads around the benefits of having the right keywords, but their capacity or desire to understand why they may or may not being ranking well, seems to fall short when it comes to site structure, internal linking, redirects, errors pages, page rank, etc… This, of course, is why us SEOs have a job. We are here to communicate these problems and SEO tactics, however at times it feels like our attempts at explanation falls on deaf ears.

One specific client is hell bent on purchasing and purchasing domains with keywords instead of building content focused pages within their main site. Stopping the use of session IDs in their URLs should be their first priority, and yet every week in our status call they want to discuss what domains they should buy. I see how it is hard to ignore the fact that many of the top ranking sites have keywords in their domain names, but they need to focus on building content on the well trusted domain they already have and making sure the spiders aren’t getting error pages because of their use of session IDs.

There is no doubt that solid keyword research and strategy drives the most effect SEO campaigns, but make sure you are presenting a smooth functioning, well structured website to the users and the spiders before you start expecting high rankings on all your keywords.

The’ve got big names from Microsoft and Amazon running the show.The’ve got the catchy name. Will they eventually come to dominate the second home real estate market as the so adimantly claim?

The answer is yes, and here’s why.

1. SecondSpace embraces Web 2.0 user interaction that online real estate consumers are aggressively heading towards.
2. The majority of real estate listing websites are behind the times when it comes to interacting effectively with consumers.
3. SecondSpace is building out specialized vertical search engines for any and all areas that are necessary for buying, owning, and selling real estate. Specialized search is the feature of the internet.
4. Each of SecondSpace’s verticals (now LandWatch and ResortScape) utilizes semantic search.

For these four reasons SecondSpace will eventually dominate the online real estate market for people’s second homes.

Its the classic chicken or egg mystery. What came first, the search engine rankings or the organic traffic? Does it really matter?, you ask. It does when you are performing a balancing act between the strict SEO who is concerned only the rankings and the traffic hungry client who demands the direct correlation to their bottom line.

It its not trackable from a traffic perspective is it worthwhile? Search engine rankings can certainly come without traffic. If the SEO does a poor job targeting the appropriate keywords, than it doesn’t matter if you are ranked number one. You’re not driving any traffic because no one is searching on those terms. On the other hand, if an SEO is able to obtain good search engine positioning on strategic keywords, the organic traffic will come in droves. Once the highly sought after rankings on Google, Yahoo, MSN and ASK are achieved the benefits are reaped for years to come. These desired results, however, take time and it is virtually impossible to equate one thing or another to the reason for success. SEO is a sum of its parts and always evolving with the social trends of the Internet. Find an SEO you can trust with references and then give them some breathing room. They will get you the rankings eventually, which will be followed by the traffic. And always remember, long after you have paid for their services, that traffic is still in rush hour.