Daily SEO Tip

*The following is the guest post by Emily Thompson*

The Google Local Listing has grown in importance more and more in recent time. In many instances, the local 7-pack, consisting on local listings, is appearing at the top of a search results page, above even organic listings. This placement creates huge opportunities for small businesses to gain visibility and traffic on the web.

There are many components that work together to create an optimized, high-ranking listing. One of the key elements of an optimized local listing is the category section Google provides. These categories classify your business according to industry and they can have a profound impact on which searches your listing appears in.

One of the challenges is that it can sometimes be tricky to know how your industry is categorized in the Google Local Business Center.  For example, say you are a lawyer, so you search for lawyer, but you aren’t sure what other synonyms Google might assign to your trade. In order to assist you with discovering the most targeted categories, local search expert Mike Blumenthal has a great tool in beta right now that aggregates all the category options and allows you to see the ones that apply directly to you. Check it out. Google LBC Categories Preview Beta

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*The guest post is by Marita*

Before you simply name a file page1.html, image2.jpg, or some complicated string like a product number, think again. Filenames play a role in SEO, but a good file naming structure also makes it easier for your visitors to save and share links and navigate your website. From a developer’s point of view, having well named files makes it easier to find files and properly structure the hierarchy of the website.

To take advantage of SEO, stay organized, and make it easy for your visitors to enjoy your website, keep the following in mind when creating filenames:

Use keywords in your filenames. Filenames for individual pages become part of the URL and search engines may use the URL to determine relevance in their search results. If you’ve optimized content on a page, then it’s a no-brainer to use the title as the filename, with words separated by hyphens. (more…)

Some days, it’s nearly impossible to come up with fresh content for your blog. Other days, you’re brimming with ideas.

Or maybe you think your website is as perfect as can be - all of your visitors find exactly what they came for.

Regardless of which camp you’re in, your website and blog probably have some form of site search.

Ever take advantage of it using Google Analytics?

If you have site search, but don’t have it set up in your Analytics. It’s relatively easy and you can learn how to do that here.

Once you’ve gathered some data, log in to your Analytics account. Under the Content section, go to Site Search, then Search terms.

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Want to get into affiliate marketing and puzzled on which way to go and which programs to work with? The Affiliate Marketing Report Card may be right up your alley. If you are looking for an interesting comparison of affiliate programs.

Every affiliate marketing account offers different types of commissions,  order sizes, and may have specific payment thresholds .. so be sure to do your homework

Source: Affiliate Marketing Review Report Card by AceAffiliates.com

*The following guest post is by Duncan*

After reading a couple of posts on this site and seeing just how worked up people are getting over the whole ‘no-follow’ link business. I thought I would chuck my thoughts into the mixer and try to clear up a few things.

A History

Firstly, the no-follow attribute (it’s not a tag) on links was first introduced back in 2005 by the Big G. They said that if you add rel=”nofollow” to your links then those links “won’t get any credit when we rank websites”. MSN and Yahoo! Quickly jumped onboard and said they would support the new initiative as well.

Even back then there was a level of mis-trust surrounding Google, and so webmasters and SEOs took it upon themselves to test this new ‘no-follow’ theory. Some found that the no-follow attribute did indeed work and sites did not get any power when linked to with no-follow links. Others have since claimed that power is still passed through no-follow links.

There was even speculation over whether Google actually crawled and indexed pages that had only been linked to using no-follow links. Unfortunately, there has never (to the best of knowledge) been extensive research conducted on this topic and certainly no categorical evidence on the matter published on highly-trustworthy sites. Instead, we have been left with much hearsay and speculation about whether no-follow actually works or not.

However, what we have got are indications and hints from the search engines that we can use to piece together some idea of the truth. (more…)

Have you ever wondered why that really good looking website that you thought had all the perfect information on it to get tons of traffic doesn’t rank anywhere near well on the search engines?

Sure it’s great looking, but who can tell if they can’t find it?

And how about your web site? Are you working hard hard on your web site SEO (search engine optimization) to improve your search engine rankings and conversions, but doing that manually yourself turns out to be too confusing?

There are many online SEO (search engine optimization) applications which can help you analyze and measure your web site’s rankings and conversions potential. Even if nobody knows the exact algorithms that the search engines use, they still can be very helpful if you are not afraid to use your intelligence and common sense.

If you would do a search with search engines to find such kind of applications, which keyphrase would you type in the search engines search box to find them? Please help giving your vote in the poll below.

*The following guest post is by Amber Singleton Riviere*

Web design can be challenging.  For me, the challenge is in not making things too complex and in keeping things simple and clean, which makes the site more user-friendly and a more pleasant experience for visitors.  Here are a few steps to make sure your site is effectively helping you achieve your objectives, while remaining easy to use for your visitors.

Step 1: Keep it simple.

I think it’s tempting, or maybe just our first impulse, to over-complicate things.  Website design is not exempt from that tendency, but if you want to build a site that’s effective (that helps you achieve your goals), simplicity is key.  What is simplicity in web design?  It’s sticking with the basics.  It’s not worrying about being cool or edgy or unique.  I know, we want our websites to stand out, but even though intuitively we might think the opposite is true, simplicity in design, layout, and functionality actually will make them stand out from the crowd. (more…)

*The following is the guest post by Duncan*

External hyperlinks are great for SEO, but it’s the internal variety that you can manipulate to your heart’s content and optimise for search engines. Given this level of control you have over your own links, are you sure they are working as hard as they can be for you? If they aren’t complying to the advice below, then chances are they are slacking and need to be given 100 push-ups right now!

Keywords in Anchor Text

This might seem like an obvious one for some people, but you would be amazed just how many sites don’t think to include keywords in their internal links. This one of the major factors that search engines look at when trying to determine what a page is all about, so as long as you are not compromising on usability, you should get those keywords in your links. For example, let’s say you have a site offering corporate hospitality that covers all the major sporting events. Rather than link to the Superbowl page with the text “Superbowl”, it would probably be much better for you to use the term “Superbowl hospitality”, or “Superbowl corporate hospitality”. Don’t go crazy though and starting linking to your homepage using the term “corporate hospitality events” or “premium client entertaining” etc, as this will just start to confuse users. (more…)

*The following guest post is by Duncan*

I like to think that I have become a more passive and accepting internet user over the years. Perhaps this is because I no longer have to wait ten minutes to upload an image and web pages load as fast as my brain works (sometimes even faster). I have not however lost my contempt for people trying to get one over on me or make me do things I don’t want to do.

I remember back in the day, the first time I opened a .exe file from a friendly email, only to get a huge phone bill through the post a couple of weeks later saying my computer had been ‘dialling’ out to Delhi every five minutes for the last fortnight. I was soon after introduced to virus and malware protection and coupled with my cable internet connection I again felt safe to roam the streets of the information super highway once again. I think I even reached a state of browsing zen for a couple of days, until I found my first pop-up that is. (more…)

*This is a guest post by Jason Capshaw*

If you have been in the internet marketing game for any length of time, chances are that you have run up against a highly-ranked Wikipedia page in your search vertical. SEO is no exception.

Not only does Wikipedia have the first two spots, but it also has a “Show more results from the wiki” underneath its listing. Of course, Wikipedia has major domain authority with 82 million inbound links, and it even outranks Google’s own SEO page. (more…)