Ann Smarty Latest search engine news blog articles from Ann Smarty. http://www.seocentro.com/seo-archives/author/Ann+Smarty.html Ann Smarty News Archive http://www.seocentro.com/cgi-bin/rss/go.pl?uid=13221 Usability (as well as accessibility) is a too broad topic to be discussed in one post of course. Besides, I am no professional web designer or usability professional to offer any expert advice on that. Still I've come across a couple of fun and useful tools that should be shared at SEJ: 1. Search Engines News SEO News Ann Smarty Ann Smarty Tue, 18 Nov 2008 11:15:35 GMT http://www.seocentro.com/cgi-bin/rss/go.pl?uid=13175 There are quite a few good Yahoo-based (and a couple of independent ) backlink checking tools (both web-based and desk-top ) that are great for investigating , organizing and keeping track of your own or competitors' link building techniques. However we have very few tools so far allowing for some fun: i.e. visualizing the backlink statistics in any types of graphs or charts. Here are 4 backlink visualizing tools I manages to find ( please add those I missed out ): 1. Search Engines News SEO News Ann Smarty Ann Smarty Mon, 17 Nov 2008 13:23:15 GMT http://www.seocentro.com/cgi-bin/rss/go.pl?uid=13120 A blog is an awesome networking tool. Beside multiple obvious benefits (interacting with your audience, content link building, etc), there are a few more creative ways to build links with your blog. Blog carnivals A blog carnival is a regular topical event connecting multiple blogging based on a chosen theme. Search Engines News SEO News Ann Smarty Ann Smarty Fri, 14 Nov 2008 13:27:46 GMT http://www.seocentro.com/cgi-bin/rss/go.pl?uid=13077 Video is a great way to build links and manage reputation. A creative video will generate links on ts own (like any kind of good content), besides you can always help spread the video by distributing it to a number of video listing and hosting sites. TubeMogul is a very helpful (and free!) service you can try if you are promoting video content. Here I am going to describe my (brief) experience with the site. Search Engines News SEO News Ann Smarty Ann Smarty Thu, 13 Nov 2008 13:45:20 GMT http://www.seocentro.com/cgi-bin/rss/go.pl?uid=13040 I've been posting on the page semantic HTML markup several times previously: Here are a few tools to quickly analyze any page semantic HTML structure ; The piece listing the best practices of using the page headings ; And some tips on how HTML markup helps your site accessibility . While the benefits for accessibility and usability are quite clear , there has never been any real evidence that there really is any benefit for rankings. Search Engines News SEO News Ann Smarty Ann Smarty Wed, 12 Nov 2008 13:12:47 GMT http://www.seocentro.com/cgi-bin/rss/go.pl?uid=13000 Google does allow us to have a sneak peek on which links it is aware of. This data is private and can be accessed only by the site owner through Google Webmaster Tools "Pages with external links" section. Surprisingly, (while Google does know better than anyone which data would be great to show for each backlinking page), the information is rather poorly organized and lacks much important data. Search Engines News SEO News Ann Smarty Ann Smarty Tue, 11 Nov 2008 12:00:13 GMT http://www.seocentro.com/cgi-bin/rss/go.pl?uid=12961 To properly organize yourself and your work and to make your clients happy, you should definitely have your own backlink reporting system. Of course, the reporting method can vary from client to client based on two major facts: your client: well, Search Engines News SEO News Ann Smarty Ann Smarty Mon, 10 Nov 2008 12:40:57 GMT http://www.seocentro.com/cgi-bin/rss/go.pl?uid=12881 Microblogging has been a hot topic recently. It has become a major source of news, a great way to find help and one of the new tactics to promote your business . While I can find time for only Twitter, I know many people who are quite active at a number of micro-blogging platforms. How they manage to do that is up to them but if you want to spread your word throughout several services here is a cool desktop tool for you: Posty . Search Engines News SEO News Ann Smarty Ann Smarty Thu, 06 Nov 2008 13:51:16 GMT http://www.seocentro.com/cgi-bin/rss/go.pl?uid=12878 There have been several posts recently describing the art of getting linked by bloggers: Problogger outlined some great tips while Peter over at SEObook did a great job showcasing how to contact bloggers by email. While some link builders can argue the effectiveness of the tactic in general, I am a great believer that in certain cases (for example, Search Engines News SEO News Ann Smarty Ann Smarty Thu, 06 Nov 2008 13:18:44 GMT http://www.seocentro.com/cgi-bin/rss/go.pl?uid=12835 If you are an active FireFox user, chances are you have very little space left in the upper part of your browser window. Search Engines News SEO News Ann Smarty Ann Smarty Wed, 05 Nov 2008 13:12:11 GMT http://www.seocentro.com/cgi-bin/rss/go.pl?uid=12806 My search activity is not only limited to Google, of course. I search multiple (vertical) resources daily (there are at least 20 of them I mentioned previously). While FireFox is the great search engine aggregating tool in itself, there are a few more applications that can be used to access multiple search engines from one place . Search!o is a new tool uniting an incredible number of search engines in one handy interface. Search Engines News SEO News Ann Smarty Ann Smarty Tue, 04 Nov 2008 19:02:58 GMT http://www.seocentro.com/cgi-bin/rss/go.pl?uid=12784 We see web 2.0 start-ups pop up daily, and naturally we often have to deal with promoting them. Link building from scratch can be both challenging and exciting but it's good to know where to start . Consider adding a resource to start-up blogs - it's a good way to promote a buzz, especially if your start-up has some innovative features to offer. Most of these blogs are followed by other bloggers seeking new post topic ideas who will grab it and promote further. Search Engines News SEO News Ann Smarty Ann Smarty Tue, 04 Nov 2008 11:33:11 GMT http://www.seocentro.com/cgi-bin/rss/go.pl?uid=12755 I have posted a lot about backlink research previously: Exploring the anchor text of backlinks ; Backlink checking tools ; Yahoo advanced link: operator to explore your competitor's backlinks; Analyzing your competitor's backlinking strategies , and many more. With all that actionable advice in mind, Search Engines News SEO News Ann Smarty Ann Smarty Mon, 03 Nov 2008 13:03:10 GMT http://www.seocentro.com/cgi-bin/rss/go.pl?uid=12699 Let's face it, Google knows better what you want to search and find. Their search suggestions, related queries and query expansion are three major ways to help you understand what you really want. Let's focus on Google's query expansion (both the term and the post topic was inspired by WebmasterWorld discussion ). To put it simply, the term can be broadly explained as follows: in some cases, Search Engines News SEO News Ann Smarty Ann Smarty Fri, 31 Oct 2008 15:35:47 GMT http://www.seocentro.com/cgi-bin/rss/go.pl?uid=12584 Love it or hate it, Wikipedia is a widely used, vigorously discussed and actively updated reference resource. The "usefulness" of the tools listed below is based on the following features of Wikipedia: it is popular; it is user generated; it is attentively monitored and edited; it stores a huge amount of material on various topics; it ranks well in Google organic search. Now let's see the three Wiki tools, SEOs and bloggers can find very useful: 1. Search Engines News SEO News Ann Smarty Ann Smarty Wed, 29 Oct 2008 13:20:56 GMT http://www.seocentro.com/cgi-bin/rss/go.pl?uid=12581 While social networking is nothing new today: starting from the early age of Myspace people establish and maintain connections online. A new people search service PeopleJar offers a new (somewhat innovative) focus on social connecting versus social networking. The whole site is built with " Search and Be Found " concept in mind: from the robust search feature to networks and profile creation. Search Engines News SEO News Ann Smarty Ann Smarty Wed, 29 Oct 2008 12:49:49 GMT http://www.seocentro.com/cgi-bin/rss/go.pl?uid=12523 Image optimization is both vital for "search engine friendliness" and web accessibility . Let's look at a few top tools that can help you analyze both the aspects of image proper usage: Juicy Studio Image Analyser is a handy online tool that will look at each image on a given page and evaluate the following parameters: image width / height; alternative text; an URL to an image long description. Search Engines News SEO News Ann Smarty Ann Smarty Tue, 28 Oct 2008 12:40:55 GMT http://www.seocentro.com/cgi-bin/rss/go.pl?uid=12500 Plagiarism is an essential Internet problem hurting both your feelings and your site rankings. While both Google and webmasters are figuring out how to combat it, let's have a look at web-based plagiarism checkers to help you find the thieves: Data source Registration Reliability Usability Copyscape.com Google's Web APIs No (for free version) 90% high Doc Cop Google, Yahoo, Search Engines News SEO News Ann Smarty Ann Smarty Mon, 27 Oct 2008 20:55:13 GMT http://www.seocentro.com/cgi-bin/rss/go.pl?uid=12474 Some time ago I posted on the difference between Facebook group and Facebook fan page . I decided not to stop there and looked at some examples of Facebook fan page creative usage. Information-based approach Some brands focus on product / company background information, the page has no active discussions or updates. Example : Lucky Magazine Fan Page looks like a huge brochure outlining plenty of images and product ads. Search Engines News SEO News Ann Smarty Ann Smarty Mon, 27 Oct 2008 12:25:16 GMT http://www.seocentro.com/cgi-bin/rss/go.pl?uid=12423 Blog search tools are numerous; most of them are pretty much useless (per my opinion). Here I am looking only at the most helpful and unique ones that I do recommend trying and that offer some great features. Search Engines News SEO News Ann Smarty Ann Smarty Fri, 24 Oct 2008 14:41:59 GMT http://www.seocentro.com/cgi-bin/rss/go.pl?uid=12396 AideRSS is a very handy blog evaluating tool that can help you understand and grade your blog posts. The service grades all your blog posts based on PostRank : 'a scoring system that we have developed to rank each article on relevance and reaction' The posts are listed along with the most important evaluating data: post date; the number of comments; number of reactions (per Google Blog Search); number of Delicious.com bookmarks. Search Engines News SEO News Ann Smarty Ann Smarty Thu, 23 Oct 2008 19:13:05 GMT http://www.seocentro.com/cgi-bin/rss/go.pl?uid=12347 Toolbar PR is something many webmasters have no more trust in. The common opinions are: PR (change) often seems to have nothing to do with rankings; Toolbar PR seems not to reflect the true website authority. Believe it or not, but Toolbar PR really means something. Search Engines News SEO News Ann Smarty Ann Smarty Wed, 22 Oct 2008 17:43:42 GMT http://www.seocentro.com/cgi-bin/rss/go.pl?uid=12331 Twitter is this year's main buzz and so far it doesn't seem to be going anywhere. Millions of people spend hours micro-blogging on Twitter and even big brands are embracing Twitter to grow their business . With such Twitter global use it definitely make sense to spot most popular trends people are discussing: Twitter Meme and Buzz Trackers: Tweet Meme , as the domain name suggests, tracks and displays memes in a handy threaded style. Search Engines News SEO News Ann Smarty Ann Smarty Wed, 22 Oct 2008 14:00:05 GMT http://www.seocentro.com/cgi-bin/rss/go.pl?uid=12279 There are a number of tools that aggregate plenty of useful SEO related information on one page. The idea is that you can quickly evaluate any page and get an instant access to each individual source for more information. I can't say I use them very often but at times that's really very convenient when you need a quick SEO overview ( the star-rating for each tool reflects my personal opinion, please try and express your opinion on that ). Search Engines News SEO News Ann Smarty Ann Smarty Tue, 21 Oct 2008 12:43:29 GMT http://www.seocentro.com/cgi-bin/rss/go.pl?uid=12237 Xenu is a highly valuable tool (that's another great exception from the rule: it is both free and awesome). Let's see how we can use it for SEO purposes: 1. Find broken links (to make your site easier to crawl and thus increase your crawl rate ): 2. Search Engines News SEO News Ann Smarty Ann Smarty Mon, 20 Oct 2008 11:54:58 GMT http://www.seocentro.com/cgi-bin/rss/go.pl?uid=12180 In the past I did quite a few posts on competitive research: How to evaluate your keyword competition ; Tools for spying on competitors search marketing tactics ; How to select your competitors ; etc Today I am going to focus on what you can learn from your competitors if you are smart enough. Search Engines News SEO News Ann Smarty Ann Smarty Fri, 17 Oct 2008 13:00:38 GMT http://www.seocentro.com/cgi-bin/rss/go.pl?uid=12140 Search Engines News SEO News Ann Smarty Ann Smarty Thu, 16 Oct 2008 14:32:27 GMT http://www.seocentro.com/cgi-bin/rss/go.pl?uid=12093 Google define:keyword (no space) advanced operator is a very handy (yet not very widely used) way to quickly find the word meaning. However the algorithm behind getting included in Google definitions is unclear. Google states they use "various sources" to pull the definitions from: The query [define:] will provide a definition of the words you enter after it, gathered from various online sources. The definition will be for the entire phrase entered (i.e., Search Engines News SEO News Ann Smarty Ann Smarty Wed, 15 Oct 2008 12:50:20 GMT http://www.seocentro.com/cgi-bin/rss/go.pl?uid=12060 Crafting an effective title is genuine art as it should aim at two main targets: to increase click-through (as this is the most prominent element of your site listing in SERPs); to achieve higher rankings (being the most important on-page factor when it comes down to Google). Thus writing an effective title can't be taken lightly; it is really difficult to craft a title that will both "help rankings and work in effect as a marketing message. Search Engines News SEO News Ann Smarty Ann Smarty Tue, 14 Oct 2008 15:56:34 GMT http://www.seocentro.com/cgi-bin/rss/go.pl?uid=12009 Last week e-Commerce link building was discussed at WebmasterWorld Forums (also reviewed by SEroundtable ). Why is it actually more difficult to build links to an e-Commerce website ? Search Engines News SEO News Ann Smarty Ann Smarty Mon, 13 Oct 2008 16:04:19 GMT http://www.seocentro.com/cgi-bin/rss/go.pl?uid=11998 Last week SEOmoz announced the launch of their new backlink checking tool Linkscape and I felt I couldn't help (briefly) reviewing it at our (already traditional) SEJ toolbox series. So' What's so unique about the tool ? Search Engines News SEO News Ann Smarty Ann Smarty Mon, 13 Oct 2008 12:16:16 GMT http://www.seocentro.com/cgi-bin/rss/go.pl?uid=11964 I search Google daily (min. once per hour, I guess). However I don't just type in words and go through the results. An an SEO, I often use advanced search (especially the date range option to see most recent domain / brand name mentions, for example) and advanced search operators (especially, site: ). Accessing these advanced search options takes time, and as I need them a lot, Search Engines News SEO News Ann Smarty Ann Smarty Fri, 10 Oct 2008 19:11:21 GMT http://www.seocentro.com/cgi-bin/rss/go.pl?uid=11905 A very insightful thread at WebmasterWorld discusses how Google might distinguish trust and authority notions and how they might influence the algorithm. In a very summarized manner, Search Engines News SEO News Ann Smarty Ann Smarty Thu, 09 Oct 2008 14:00:14 GMT http://www.seocentro.com/cgi-bin/rss/go.pl?uid=11861 Image search is evolving rapidly. Today the machine understands much more about images than just a year ago: it can read the text on the image, see its colors and classify it based on its form, shape and textures. So which advanced image search methods can we use today? Image search based on image content (face / landscape / photo / product image search) Face search has been a hot topic recently. Search Engines News SEO News Ann Smarty Ann Smarty Wed, 08 Oct 2008 14:33:11 GMT http://www.seocentro.com/cgi-bin/rss/go.pl?uid=11842 All Twitter benefits and (potential) spheres of usage are yet to be explored. However it is great to see some of huge companies already taking advantage of the tool: To update customers of the company deals and coupon codes : 1. Dell has created a number of Twitter profiles, each meant for different types of deals (e.g. DellOutlet posts recent refurbished Dell computer offers). 2. Search Engines News SEO News Ann Smarty Ann Smarty Wed, 08 Oct 2008 03:23:24 GMT http://www.seocentro.com/cgi-bin/rss/go.pl?uid=11805 Like with many other burning SEO questions, there is no definitive answer as to whether sitewide links are good or bad. If we for just a second forget about search engines, we will see that, on the one hand, sitewides can be good for very important links (as users are much more likely to click them), besides they make the overall site template look more consistent (encouraging users to feel more secure). On the other hand, Search Engines News SEO News Ann Smarty Ann Smarty Tue, 07 Oct 2008 09:19:10 GMT http://www.seocentro.com/cgi-bin/rss/go.pl?uid=11804 While John Mueller did a great job explaining how to analyze your website with Google Webmaster Tools , I thought I could outline a few tips on how to diagnose both on-site and off-site issues with Google Search and its advanced operators . Search Engines News SEO News Ann Smarty Ann Smarty Tue, 07 Oct 2008 09:19:09 GMT http://www.seocentro.com/cgi-bin/rss/go.pl?uid=11765 With all the buzz around recent Google Blogsearch relaunch , I thought that would a good idea to look at most popular blog meme trackers available online. The most general definition of the word meme is : A meme consists of any idea or behavior that can pass from one person to another by learning or imitation . Blog meme trackers (or memetrackers ) monitor what is most actively passed from blog to blog (" If the thing is actively passed around, that must be hot "). Search Engines News SEO News Ann Smarty Ann Smarty Mon, 06 Oct 2008 11:09:20 GMT http://www.seocentro.com/cgi-bin/rss/go.pl?uid=11644 Google highly values the "freshness" of the content. But how does Google defines it against the "staleness" of the content? Google's Historical Data Patent reviewed at WebmasterWorld and SEroundtable sheds some light on what Google thinks to be fresh content and what can be defined as stale documents. Bill Slawski did a great job of summarizing the patent with help of two examples : The Constitution of the United States is an old document, but it's not stale. Search Engines News SEO News Ann Smarty Ann Smarty Thu, 02 Oct 2008 09:41:59 GMT http://www.seocentro.com/cgi-bin/rss/go.pl?uid=11597 Facebook allows for 2 networking tools: Creating/ joining a Facebook group; Creating/ joining a Facebook fan page. While the major differences become evident only after you try out them first, we decided to create and promote both for Search Engine Journal: Search Engine Journal Group ; Search Engine Journal Fan Page . Now what we have found from this experiment.. First and foremost the 2 major differences include: Unlike groups, Search Engines News SEO News Ann Smarty Ann Smarty Wed, 01 Oct 2008 11:46:17 GMT http://www.seocentro.com/cgi-bin/rss/go.pl?uid=11542 Most of link building / linkbaiting techniques are used so often that they lost their effectiveness long ago. Unfortunately, hosting a contest is one such technique: that has become a common fashion to create a contest for the sake of creating a contest without much thinking behind it. However the tactic may be still effective when done right. Search Engines News SEO News Ann Smarty Ann Smarty Tue, 30 Sep 2008 12:12:51 GMT http://www.seocentro.com/cgi-bin/rss/go.pl?uid=11506 Like reputation management , people search is rather a hot topic. Nowadays you can find almost anything about anyone online. Surprisingly, dedicated person search is not yet well-developed (probably that has something to do with burning online privacy problems) but still is something to look into: Search Engine What you will learn about the person Yoname.com Social media mentions. Intelius.com Age, previous cities and relatives. Pipl.com Mentions in web documents. Zoominfo. Search Engines News SEO News Ann Smarty Ann Smarty Mon, 29 Sep 2008 13:56:17 GMT http://www.seocentro.com/cgi-bin/rss/go.pl?uid=11449 Creating a network of micro-sites for the sake of link power manipulation is an illegitimate technique; hence it has become risky to interlink your own websites even for very "white hat" purposes (e.g. to let your readers know about your other relevant sites). Nonetheless, link building with micro-sites can be a highly effective technique if done correctly. Search Engines News SEO News Ann Smarty Ann Smarty Fri, 26 Sep 2008 16:17:06 GMT http://www.seocentro.com/cgi-bin/rss/go.pl?uid=11382 If you are like me, you spend most part of your day browsing the Internet; that results in plenty of great pages and ideas flashing before my eyes and often times I have neither time no energy to try to save those ideas for further reference. Thus I am trying to find more and more alternative ways to organize and categorize things I come across daily to make my working process as effective as I can. Search Engines News SEO News Ann Smarty Ann Smarty Thu, 25 Sep 2008 09:47:01 GMT http://www.seocentro.com/cgi-bin/rss/go.pl?uid=11335 Dealing with huge keyword lists is time consuming and often you can't do without (semi-)automation. While most of the work is usually handled through notepad ("find and replace" option) and Excel ("sort", "insert", etc options), some online tools may also be much help: Tool Most useful feature Local keywords Adds any word (city) before / after the keyword / key phrase. Mytrashmail keyword generator Replaces any word for another one(s). Search Engines News SEO News Ann Smarty Ann Smarty Wed, 24 Sep 2008 13:03:59 GMT http://www.seocentro.com/cgi-bin/rss/go.pl?uid=11297 Some time ago I reviewed tools that help understand the page HTML semantic structure based on H1-H6 headings. While some webmasters question the overall necessity of headings, I insist that they should be used to structure the page content for: SEO benefit : H-heading is one of the best ways to give your keywords prominence ; Accessibility and usability : headings enable screen reader and some browser (e.g. Search Engines News SEO News Ann Smarty Ann Smarty Tue, 23 Sep 2008 17:36:44 GMT http://www.seocentro.com/cgi-bin/rss/go.pl?uid=11256 Last time I posted a tutorial on creating quick search ("smart keyword") bookmarks in FireFox enabling you to quickly search any site or search engine right from the address bar. This time I am sharing my list of 17 quick searches that (if you are like me) you will find useful. 17 SEO related quick searches you might find helpful - with this list you don't need to create a quick search bookmarks yourself. Search Engines News SEO News Ann Smarty Ann Smarty Mon, 22 Sep 2008 21:36:44 GMT http://www.seocentro.com/cgi-bin/rss/go.pl?uid=11223 I already had a few words to say on indirect link building where you promote pages that link back to your site. The technique appeals to me due to several reasons: it is more or less risk-free ; you are able to control the link juice you own ; it is free (but really time consuming); it is very flexible : you can change the link patterns to your liking any time. Search Engines News SEO News Ann Smarty Ann Smarty Mon, 22 Sep 2008 12:17:42 GMT http://www.seocentro.com/cgi-bin/rss/go.pl?uid=11177 I have previously covered ways to organize your keyword list depending on your purposes. Still there is no limit to improving your organizing skills. Besides, key terms are so numerous and diverse that I for one can spend hours trying to manage them to full potential. So, as usual, to find new ways to organize your keywords and more options to get help with the overall keyword research, I turn to 2 desktop tools - both offering handy keyword list managing options. Search Engines News SEO News Ann Smarty Ann Smarty Fri, 19 Sep 2008 15:43:14 GMT http://www.seocentro.com/cgi-bin/rss/go.pl?uid=11166 Last week Jane posted a must-read overview of various URL shorteners and WebproWorld.com forum thread discussed the SEO benefit of TinyURL and similar services (there is no SEO benefit by the way). I think this is hot enough topic to discuss it at SEJ also. Why URL Shortening Services Exist? Search Engines News SEO News Ann Smarty Ann Smarty Fri, 19 Sep 2008 11:51:30 GMT