Archive for November, 2009

SEO Contests

Joining an SEO contest is really entertaining, fun and will bring the best out of your SEO skills and talent. But sometimes, its the opposite feeling and emotion.

SEO contest is defined as:

“An activity awarding prizes that challenges search engine optimization (SEO) practitioners to rank themselves among the major search engines such as Google, Yahoo, and MSN using certain keyword(s).”

I joined two SEO contests or, sometimes it was called an SEO race, in the past and luckily, on both contests, I managed to grab the 3rd spots.

The SEO Race

As an SEO newbie by that time, SEO contests really push me hard and keeps me going until I found my self ranking on the SERPs (search engine result pages). That result gives me the joy, excitement and of course pride because, I am ranking for a certain keyword along with other SEO experts.

The first SEO contest I joined is for the “Tnomeralc Web Design Toys” keyphrase.  Check the contest leaderboard or final results at:

http://claremontdesign.com/leaderboard/

The second one is for the “Eriuqs Spires Healthy Recreation“. Check the final result at:

http://habitually.blogmas.com/2009/05/13/eriuqs-spires-healthy-recreation-leaderboard/

My blog entry for both contest is a blogspot (blogger) blog; which is one of the very first blog I created. But sadly, that blog is now down due to some blogger issues.

New SEO Contest

And now, there will be a new search engine optimization contest. It is a contest that aims to invite all SEM and SEO professionals; not only here in the Philippines but also from all over the world, to compete with one another with a certain keyphrase.

The said contest is created to help typhoon victims in the country. What I love more on this contest is, it will mainly focus on a TAGALOG keyword or keyphrase.

You can check the full details of the said contest at:

http://www.palarongseo.com/

I am looking forward in joining and of course, in full determination, in winning the said contest.

Learn Search Engine Optimization Basics

I learned SEO via a self study and with the help of some authority websites, ebooks, videos and forums. It was not that easy; at the beginning. But as time goes by and the more I read, watch and listen, the more familiar and effective I become on the SEO field.

Until today, I am still reading and studying anything related to SEO.  SEO is a never ending process and of course, requires constant studying and analysis so we can cope up with the ever changing algorithm of search engines and the world wide web.

Today, I will give you those websites that helps me much and made me an effective SEO today. I hope that you will learn the same way I did when I read them.

Beginner’s Guide to Search Engine Optimization – SEOmoz.org

As how they describe it, this is a comprehensive guide to the practice of search engine optimization for those unfamiliar with the subject. The guide covers dozens of areas of SEO including keyword research, page optimization, site structure, link building and more.

I find this SEO guide by the Mozzers easy to follow and understand, perfect for SEO newbies and wannabees.

You can read their guides online at http://www.seomoz.org/article/bg0

SEO Basics Search Engine Optimization Made Easy – Aaron Wall Of SEOBook.com

A well outlined step by step search engine optimization tutorial. It discusses all things from market research up to the result checking and analysis.

Read it online at http://knol.google.com/k/aaron-wall/seo-basics/38v8wakla8f98/2#

The Basics of Search Engine Optimization – Blogoscoped.com

Targeted with Google search engine optimization. A well versed SEO primer that also covers some do’s and dont’s in a SEO process

Read it online at http://blogoscoped.com/archive/2007-01-07-n13.html

SEO Fast Start – Dan Thies SeoFastStart.com

This is a free ebook providing clear, step by step instructions for search engine optimization. This is a process driven method which saves beginning and advanced SEO practitioners money and time. This guide is perfect for offline reading. Personally, I printed their guide and read it away from my computer.

Download the free ebook at http://www.seofaststart.com/download

I hope with the guides above, you will now learn and start to get going on the SEO field and industry. Of course, you need to take into action, by testing or making some trial of what you read and learn from the said guides.

Career Path And Growth In SEO

This is a repost from my old blog. This article deserves a repost or may I say, a bump for many reasons. Personally, I find this information useful for all SEO practicioners, may it be a beginner or an expert in the field.

SEO Career Entry Point

IT/Programming/Graphics/Web – People who started here are good with the code. They know what makes websites appealing, and how they function. In the process of making websites, they learned about SEO. And from there, they got hooked and wanted to learn more.

Marketing/Sales & Promotions – People who are into marketing and sales has the ultimate goal of increasing profits. Sales people know what it takes to convert off line, from telemarketing, tri-media (TV/Print/Radio) and face-to-face selling skills. Marketers know how to create the buzz and helps in the overall sales process. But as they learn the potential power of selling online, they hear about SEO and start learning how to do it to augment their marketing and sales skills to be well rounded.

Journalist/Writer – They write eloquently, appealing to the people that read what they write. Convincing, and puts in all the hooks to call the baits and increase sales. They may have started with newspaper press releases, print ad copy, or even TV and Radio commercial scripts. Then suddenly they had to do the same thing for online marketing and press releases, articles and blog post and learn more about SEO which adds in more required knowledge like keyword research and writing proper title tags, meta tags, h1,..h3…h6 tags, image alt tags. Making better calls to action. Click compelling titles for blog post and articles and social bookmarks. Content that is good for search engines and yet still keeps the readers hooked until the call to action and conversion.

SEO From The Start – Unaware of what they really wanted to do, but was highly influence by other people. Friends, brother/sister, other relatives, parents, spouse, etc. They never had any other job but was exposed to SEO right away and wanted to learn it right away and eventually wanted to do this all their life and do nothing else. Or it just so happened you were interested right away after reading about SEO from somewhere and was immediately hooked.

It just landed on my lap, my first job – They had no job and didn’t really know what they were going into. Landed in some company to do some procedural work for an SEO company. Let’s say started out as a link builder just posting everywhere.
Mastering Your Craft

Learning The Technical Side of SEO – This is for the Writers and Marketing people. Since code is their disadvantage, the next step is learning the code.

Learning the Marketing Side of SEO – This is for the Tech people and the Writers. Learning how to sell and how to market online pushes SEO in the next step. SEO should not be only about the highest ranking, but about maximizing the sales and marketing benefits of search engines.

Learning the Writing Side of SEO – The Marketing and Tech people should learn how to write well. The better your content is written, the better the ranking is, and the more conversions it can create.

It may not be an easy task to master all very proficiently, but good enough to know what works and what does not and start passing it on to their own team members, or outsource people, or just do the best themselves.

The Next Step – Trying to make it big!

The SEO Employer/Manager/Supervisor – You own a business, or has a high ranking position in an SEO business where you handle a team of SEO people. By this time you should be paid a bit higher than the rest. From the experience you gained learning all aspects of SEO and proving your knowledge pays off for you to be a leader. Here you need management skills too. Not only on managing people, but managing projects. Occasionally you can be pulled into customer support calls, sales calls or may even need to help out in making proposals and doing pricing. Of course your prices should make sense that you can justify the sale, at the same time make the company profitable and employees happy and well paid. And since you have a good well rounded knowledge of SEO, you know how to come up with a process that is cost-effective and repeatable.

The SEO Employee – You have proven your worth and has made a name for yourself in your own way that you become a sought after employee. Companies chase you because of what you know. You may eventually end up a manager/supervisor of an SEO team, but if you do not work for an SEO company, but just any company as their in-house SEO guy, you are the SEO go to man (or woman). You call the shots and simply coordinate with the company’s marketing and sales people, IT people and copywriters.

The SEO Consultant – You do not work for anyone but yourself. You have not only proven your worth to a potential employer, but to other SEOs as well. You are respected among SEO peers. You have great knowledge that even other SEO people talk about you. You do speaking engagement, and teach and promote the industry. Companies hire you on a contractual basis to help grow their own SEO teams.

SEO My Own Stuff – You do not work for anyone but yourself. But you do not care about having SEO clients nor doing consultancy. You make money simply because you really know how to rank well and increase online sales through SEO. Thus you decide to do your own business and SEO it. Either a brick and mortar business that you do some SEO to increase sales, or simply have no products or services and just do affiliate marketing or ad publishing.

Some SEO people may land in more than one spot here but specializes in a few or one of them only.

After SEO

PPC – Need to harness more power of on-the-spot sponsored results. Managing budgets, writing proper ad copy and making a good ROI.

Email Marketing – Subscriptions and other opt-in list type of marketing. Drip marketing. Mailing list cross-promotions etc.

Media Buying – Banner ads, post-roll and pre-roll video ads, learning your niche industry and proper places to advertise.

Social Media – Building communities and leveraging them to generate more business.

Usability/Accessibility – Learn the art and science of making your web visitors happy, pleased, less confused that all generates into better sales.

You’re Rich! What do you do next?

I don’t know, you tell me? Invest in real estate? The stock market? invest in Gold/Silver? In Oil? Bonds/Mutual Funds? Buying a company? Or just spend the money where they supposed to go to. Like your family(or future family), make your spouse and kids happy. Give them a full experience of acquiring knowledge of what you are doing so the chain goes on that it would be easier for them to run their lives when they grow up.

Originally posted from SEO.PH Forum by benjarriola