Vancouver SEO Meetup, Aug 09 #vancouverseomeetup

By Jose Uzcategui August 27th, 2009 Events, Social Media No Comments

Two nights ago the Vancouver SEO Meetup brought together some of the most influential SEOs in Vancouver. This was the first SEO Meetup featuring a presenter, Alex Brabant from www.emarketing101.com, and he did a great job presenting about SEMPO Canada.

To be honest, I didn’t know what to expect for this meetup. Yet, I was impressed by…everything.

Attendance was good, around 18 people – considering we’re still in summer. I know once we hit fall and winter this number is going to grow, a lot. Even more, it was a good mix of SEOs – some knew a lot, some were just interested.

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The Link Request Letter I Received Today

By Jose Uzcategui June 16th, 2009 Internet Marketing, Personal 1 Comment

Today I received a letter requesting a link from my blog. Because I’m a relatively small player, I though some of you might be interested in seeing what one of these looks like.

Link building is ultra-very important when trying to build our site’s authority, page rank, and overall SEO awesomeness. What is “link building” you say? It’s any strategy used to get links from other websites pointed to your website.

How do you it? There are many ways, and one of them is sending a letter to the site’s owner requesting a link just like the letter I received today. Here’s the letter:

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Passed the Google Analytics Individual Qualification Exam!!!

By Jose Uzcategui June 1st, 2009 Internet Marketing, Personal 21 Comments

Yes, the Google Analytics Individual Qualification (GAIQ) exam exists, and I just passed it!

Indeed I’ve been polishing my skills. First, the Advanced SEO Certification I mentioned on my last posts; this week was the GAIQ; and next will be…shhh, it’s a secret.

I enjoy learning new things, which is good since constant learning and Internet marketing go hand and hand.

Google introduced the GAIQ earlier this year – and what a great idea to encourage professionals to take the extra learning step. The test consists of 70 questions, is 90 minutes long and costs $50. To pass you need more than 75% and once you do, you get a very modest PDF with your name on it.

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Captions on Your Videos Help Your SEO/SEM

By Jose Uzcategui May 9th, 2009 Internet Marketing, Social Media No Comments

I’ve already talked about videos on your site and how important it is for you to have one or two laying around. The problem is that, even though video enhances user experience, search engines and some visitors are not able to understand video content. That’s where captions come in.

Adding captions to your video will give search engines, hearing impaired and people who don’t speak your language the ability to read and understand the video.

When spiders crawl your site and they bump into a video, they only see your video’s file name (which should also be optimized) and move along. But if it’s a captioned video, (more…)

SEO Basics: You Can’t Pay Google to Be 1st

By Jose Uzcategui April 25th, 2009 Internet Marketing No Comments

I keep meeting people who still believe you can pay Google to influence search results. Well, can you? Yes and no.

When you make a search query in Google you get (a) unpaid “search results” and (b) paid “AdWords ads.”

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Relationship SEO – After Valentine’s Special

By Jose Uzcategui February 16th, 2009 For fun No Comments

Valentine’s Day is a great time for single people to reflect on what they’re doing to be found by cupid – your “single rankings.”

So, how did you do? Didn’t get a lot of visits from potential buyers? Then you might want to work on your Relationship SEO.

It’s simple. Apply the same principles for improving your rankings on Google to yourself and you’ll have a better chance to be found by that lucky person.

Top 5 things the best Relationship SEO gurus on the planet say are important: (more…)

Have a Sitemap.xml, it’s good for your site.

By Jose Uzcategui February 3rd, 2009 For fun, Internet Marketing No Comments

Last week, on the Skytrain, I had an interesting conversation about website optimization with a business owner . The man was comfortable using the Internet  and managed his own website but, like most people, that was it – he wasn’t  a web developer, designer or techy guy. At one point we talked about sitemaps, and then here I am writing this…

A sitemap.xml file is important for your rankings.  It’s a relatively small document that gives the Web spiders, the ones who check your site for content, a blueprint of your site.

The good news, it takes almost no time to make one. The bad one, it’s a XML file.

But no problemo, if you don’t know and/or don’t care about XML, you can still get one, for free,  at www.XML-sitemaps.com. It has an ultra-easy to use sitemap.xml file generator. When you go to the site, just type in your Web address, the Sitemap spiders will crawl it and create it for you.

That’s no the only place you can visit to get your free sitemap.xml file; the Help section of Google Webmaster’s Central recommends other sites. I found www.xml-sitemaps.com to be the easiest to use AND it doesn’t ask for any personal information – major bonus points.

Once you have the file,  you can edit it with Wordpad (or a similar program) and upload it to the site’s “root folder.”

Of course, there’s much more to it, but the first step is the most important, right? You can research more at www.sitemaps.org or at Google Webmaster’s Central

Ah, almost forgot, if you have a WordPress blog, make sure you install the Google XML Sitemaps plugin.

Choosing a Company Name for Robots And Not People?

By Jose Uzcategui January 25th, 2009 Internet Marketing No Comments

Once again, I’m in the early stages of starting a business. While deciding and researching a good name and web address I’ve found an interesting trend; SEO has changed the way people choose a company name. Sometimes, it seems, people are caring more about SEO robots than people.

Take a look at TopSEOs’ rankings for Canada and the U.S. and you’ll see what I mean: Clicks2Customers, Increase Visibility and SEO Image are some of the top ranking names. I’m sure the quality of their service, and not their name, has brought them up there. So I can’t help but to think that choosing such a precise name – names that restrict the company’s products – might be somewhat risky. What if Clicks2Customers or any of the above decides to grow into a full online marketing agency? Then the name would turn against them.

It seems to me that some names, like Vancouver’s 6s Marketing or California’s Bruce Clay Inc – also on the top-ten list –, have more accommodating names. 10 years ago, Nike was about shoes, now it’s about shoes, clothes, sports, etc. Microsoft, Starbucks, Virgin, they change their products – for the most part – without changing their name.

What do you think about names that dictate the product?

Online Strategies Your Website Should Have By Now

By Jose Uzcategui January 13th, 2009 Internet Marketing No Comments

Around six years ago I became interested in a company that made air-powered cars, Motor Development International (MDI). Air-powered cars, cool right?

I entered my information to receive updates but, in the first year, I maybe received two of the most boring updates I’ve ever seen. For following years I visited the site but nothing seemed to change. Their News Room published infrequent press releases that were technical in nature and hard to understand. The site’s videos didn’t change. I eventually became uninterested, and finally assumed the business flopped because I didn’t get any updates.

Today I visited the site and, to my surprise, they’re still in business! At least it seems like it.

Who knows how much free press and how many potential investors MDI is loosing by not having a strong online strategy? Yes, there will always be a bit of a buzz out there. After all, we’re talking about an air car – pretty catchy stuff. But imagine how big they would be if only they’d made a decent effort!

MDI has now a one year-old website. It’s much better than the last, but even though it looks pretty, I’d rate it poor content and strategy wise.

These are just some of the basics we should all consider when thinking about business’ websites:

1. Write your press/media/news releases for a broad audience, not only reporters. Back in the days releases were only for the media, but that’s no longer the case. Most visitors are probably looking for information on your business or organization, and many times they will check the News sections on your site to get it.

Write releases so that as many (consumers, bloggers, reporters, lost surfers) can understand, rather than the few (reporters) typical media releases were intended to reach in the past.

2. Have easily accessible and well formatted news on your homepage. Many people visiting your site assume your “News” are the most up to date section of your site. Why not bring it right to the homepage? Not only will they find what they’re looking for quicker, but you also make it possible for user to stumble across information they didn’t know they wanted. Plus, pages that are constantly updated get a higher ranking on search engines.

3. If you publish news on a regular basis (and in most cases, you should) provide some kind of web feed - I hate to say it but, welcome to 2009! Many people give priority to the information shown on their feed reader (i.e. Google Reader, etc.), you should give visitors the option to add sections of your site to it – compare it with saving your favourite radio stations on your car stereo.

4. Have a blog. If you’re reading this, you probably understand the importance of blogs. People want to interact with people, not faceless organizations. A blog is a great way to communicate with your market, and for them to communicate with you. If you’re doing something right or wrong, they’ll let you know.

5. Websites are not like pastime magazines – they need good content! Pictures are good, but if a user is visiting your site it’s because she is looking for information, not waiting for her doctor’s appointment. Great graphics should complement great content.

I did a quick search to see if I could find a good website a company like MDI could learn from and quickly found one: The International Small Technology Network (www.nanotechnology.com)

As soon as you enter the site you the latest news releases, links to relevant questions, forums and some social media friendliness. Even with the poor graphics, the site feels user friendly and up to date.

Any other relevant examples out there?