The Official ActiveRain Guide

The Google SEO Starter Guide - Tips To Know about SEO

With all the SEO experts out there, the one thing that I have learned over the years is to be sure and research things in detail that are important to you or to the success and marketing of your business.  You just can't believe everything you read out there these days.  We all know that SEO changes, and NO ONE except the employees of the Search Engine companies and their programmers and engineers know the truth and technical aspects of how it all really works.

However, this is some important stuff that can "make" or "break" a Blog.  I may not know or have all the answers, but I consider myself an honest and sincerely dedicated individual/resource who will find the right or correct answers and stop at nothing to try and help other members. (not because it's my job either, I really enjoy what I get to do for ActiveRain and for the members here)

So regarding SEO, this comes from the experts over at Google.  I trust their opinions.  This is no secret, (except to some) it's been out there since November 22nd of last year, but I thought it might be a good time to share this since many of my recent posts have been discussing post titles, SEO, hyper-links, title & Alt-tags, stickiness, long tails and short tails, and all the rest of that techno-babble stuff. 

It's the stuff most people never want to hear about but will eventually need have to learn. 

The Google SEO Starter Guide

Keep in mind that while SEO is important and a critical piece of the Blogging Puzzle, it is just another tool in the Big Picture.  Landing at the top of the Search Engine pages is exciting and very beneficial but getting the traffic and the leads, then converting them to clients and developing long term relationships is the most important part of capitalizing on any of your social networking or media marketing efforts.

Other Blog Improvement Ideas, Tips, and Suggestions:

• How To Create A Blog Post for Consumers and Search Engines

• Create Stickiness, Increase Traffic, and Get Repeat Visitors

• Finding Popular Keywords, Search Terms, Topics and Phrases
  

This post is a Re-Mix of a post I wrote in 2006, Formerly called: “How to Scope Out a Competitor’s Website and Learn From It.”

It’s always fun and interesting to check out what your competitors are up to. When you type in a search for your keywords, who comes up? Are your competitors ahead of you or below you? Why? Do you know what kind of traffic they get? Do you know how many links are coming into their site?

 

Competitive Research

In search engine marketing, competitive research and analysis is everything.  Since search engines are all about ranking, the websites you see in the search engine rankings above and below you are your competitors.  So it’s very helpful to know how to research those competitors to discover how and why they rank the way they do.

 

 

10 Free Tools For Researching Your Competitor’s Website

 

#1.  SpyFu.com

SpyFu is one of my favorites as it can show you how much money a competing website may be spending on pay per click advertisements.  And is also useful to show you which organic keywords may be bringing in the most traffic.  Tool Use Rating: Easy

 

 

#2.  SEODigger.com

SEO Digger is a free tool that will show you what keyword phrases different websites rank for.  The ranking database is updated every 2 weeks and is usually very accurate.  This can be a great resource if you’re trying to find out what phrases a competing website ranks for.  They can also be sorted by order of Wordtracker popularity which shows how many times those phrases are searched.  Tool Use Rating: Easy

 

 

#3. SEOmoz Tools

If you are already familiar with SEOmoz, you know that they provide a host of tools that can help with SEO.  Many of which can be helpful for competitive website analysis including: SEO Toolbox, Trifecta, Term Target, and their new tool called Linkscape.  Note on Linkscape: this tools is definitely for more advanced users, but can be very valuable to search for link data on almost any website.  Tool Use Rating: Ranging from Easy - Difficult

 

 

#4. WebsiteGrader.com

The Website Grader is an extremely user friendly site that will give a quick review of any website and show helpful data like: domain age, domain renewal information, meta data, backlinks, onpage factors, traffic, and alot more.  The really helpful thing is that it gives easy to understand explanations if it happens to find any erros on the website.  This is a great tool for discovering basic strengths and weaknesses with any competing website.  Tool Use Rating: Easy

 

 

#5. NicheWatch.com

Niche Watch takes a little different approach in that it doesn’t start with a competing website, but with keyword phrases.  You type in a phrase, and it will show you data on the top 20 competitors including backlinks, links to the page, Page Rank, and alot more.  This is a great resource to see info on offsite factors for each website and it can often times give you great insight as to why a site is ranking the way it is.  Tool Use Rating: Moderate

 

 

#6. SEO For Firefox

SEO for Firefox is one of the more famous tools of the bunch.  Aaron the creator claims that over 50,000 people are using it.  If you don’t already have Firefox, you may want to consider downloading it just for the purpose of using this great add-on.  When turned on, this tool will show extra data under each Google result after you complete a search.  The data includes useful things like: backlinks, page links, .edu links, pages, domain age, Dmoz, Yahoo Dir, and alot more.  Basically it lets you see why competitors are ranking in the results, and based on the data, it’s usually very easy to see why sites are being ranked the way they are.  Tool Use Rating: Moderate

 

 

#7.  Compete.com

Looking for exact traffic numbers for a competitors website?  Too bad, that is priviledged information.  But the next best thing can be found at a site like Compete.com.  They compile data on millions of websites to provide you with fairly accurate traffic analytics, and basic search analytics; like which terms are used the most often to bring search traffic.  It’s about as good as you can get unfortunately.  If you want to compare data try Quantcast and Alexa.  Tool Use Rating: Easy - Moderate

 

 

#8. LinkDiagnosis.com

Link Diagnosis is a newer tool that I’ve only been using for a few months.  But I have been extremely impressed so far.  It basically will look at the backlinks of any website and examine the anchor text, Page Rank, quality of link, and number of outbound links on the page and displays it in an easy to read and export format.  It is really sweet for being able to tell how strong incoming links are to any giving website complete with data on NoFollow links.  Tool Use Rating: Moderate - Difficult

 

 

#9. SearchRascal.com

Search Rascal is purely a ranking analysis tool that allows you to see who is ranking for any given keyword.  The unique thing about it is that it tracks past ranking and will show whether or not websites have moved up or down in ranking in the last day, week, or month.  It is very handy.  Note: only works for more competitive phrases.  Tool Use Rating: Easy

 

 

#10. Google & Yahoo

Believe it or not, Google and Yahoo are a couple of the best tools you have available for competitive analysis.  You just have to know how to use them… Google consistently has the best search results, so make sure you use it the most when trying to search for actual competitors.  If someone is ranking above you in Google, chances are they deserve to be there.  Yahoo is great for searching incoming links to your website.  In fact, almost all the tools above use Yahoo’s data to search for links.  To get an overall picture of how many links are coming in, visit Yahoo Site Explorer, type in your domain name with or without the www, and click on “inlinks”.  This will give you a full picture of your incoming links.  Tool Use Rating: Easy

 

 

I hope these 10 free tools will come in handy as you try to learn more about your competition.  Make sure to keep track of your findings, and if you have any questions about how to use any of them, don’t hesitate to comment below.

 

     

     

     

 

Original Article Here: 

Competitive Website Research Analysis | 10 Free Tools

RSS is such an interesting technology.  It has truly spearheaded a complete mind shift in the way people design, look at, and interact with the internet.

When I first read an e-book in 2003 about this new RSS technology that was becoming more mainstream, I have to admit, it was a little fuzzy.  The only RSS readers available were software programs you had to download and install.  Only a few sites even published RSS feeds, and the few popular blogs that existed only had a handful of subscribers.  But even in my ignorance, I ran out to get a blog realizing at the time, that it was one of the fastest and cheapest ways to publish your own RSS feed.

Now look at where we are today!  Most sites that publish content on a regular basis have an RSS feed.  All blogs have one, or multiple feeds.  We have over a dozen very high quality web based RSS readers that keep getting better, and subscription options are more plentiful than ever.

Awareness of RSS is still growing, and it has really begun to pick up steam in the last 2 years.  Even for people that aren't very technically saavy... it's easier than ever to get them plugged in as an RSS subscriber through new easy to use tools.

 

Still Unclear About RSS?  Here are some resources and a video that will help: 

• Seth Godin's Squidoo page on understanding RSS
• Justin's - Beginner's Guide to RSS
  
• Jim Cronin's Real Estate Tomato RSS Explanation

Great Video Explaining RSS:

 

If you are just getting started, I highly recommend the new version of bloglines, which can be found at: http://beta.bloglines.com  or Goolge Reader.  Both offer easy ways to subscribe to new feeds, and are realy easy to manage.  I particularly like Bloglines because it has a great folder organizing option, and automatically checks off articles you've already read.

 

 

Quick Steps to Getting Started as an RSS User/Reader/Subscriber

Really quick... if you are still unclear about how to sign up to an RSS feed, I'll make it really easy for you:

Step 1:  Make sure you have Firefox 3.0, or Internet Explorer 7 or 8 installed. 

Step 2: Navigate to a website you want to subscribe to.

Step 3: Find the Orange RSS Icon in the browser bar and click on it.  (some sites don't have an RSS feed)

 

 

 

Step 4: Choose Your feed reader

 

 

 

Step 5: Visit your RSS reader to make sure you subscribed (optional)

 

 

~ Homework~   Go sign up for an RSS reader and subscribe to 10 blogs or websites.  This will get you familiar with the RSS technology, and prepare you for what we are going to cover next.

 

 

Do You Publish An RSS Feed?  If You Have a Blog, Then The Answer Is YES!!

In this 2 post series, I want to review not only what it means to be an RSS user/reader/subscriber, but what it means to be an RSS publisher!  If you're reading this, I can safely assume that you're an ActiveRain member that has an account.  If that is true, then you have your very own RSS feed!  I want to show you how to use it to it's full potential.

 

*** This section will explain how to find your ActiveRain RSS Feed.  If you need help finding your feed on an outside blog, please comment and I will help you.  (Keep in mind, some blogs have multiple RSS feeds!)

 

First, let's find your RSS feed.  Navigate to your ActiveRain blog, and scroll down until you see the RSS chiclet in the right sidebar.  Or simply type in "rss" after your blog URL, like this:  http://activerain.com/blog/YourARusername/rss

This RSS feed is important, it's your lifeline to your readers.  One of your primary goals as a blogger is to get as many people as possible to subscribe to your feed.  The beautiful thing about RSS is that your content will be pushed to your subscribers.  You won't have to trust that people will come back to your blog every time they want to read your articles (which isn't likely to happen). 

Your Activerain RSS feed is a great tool, but it has it's shortcomings....

 

What is Feedburner, and Why Should You Care?

Feedburner is a Google owned company (as of recently), that is in the business of RSS delivery.  In a nutshell, they will take your plain old RSS feed, and will provide a number of services including:  more browser flexibility, more subscription options, subscriber statistics, RSS email delivery, and alot more...  Feedburner is your RSS feed on steroids.

If you are serious about getting RSS subscribers, giving your readers more flexibilty, viewing subsriber stats, and delivering your feed via email, then I HIGHLY suggest you sign up for feedburner.

 

Getting Your RSS Feed Set Up With Feedburner:

Step 1: Sign up for an account at Feedburner.com

Step 2: "Burn" your RSS feed.  (tell Feedburner to start managing your RSS feed)

 

Step 3: You're done.... wasn't that easy?  Now you simply need to promote your feed.

 

~Homework~  Find your RSS feed, and get signed up for Feedburner.  Then, make sure to subscribe to this blog so you can read the second part of this RSS Series.

 

======

Feedburner is an essential tool in any blogger's arsenal.  My post next week will cover advanced tactics to optimize feedburner.

Learn How to:

• Set up Feedburner email subscription options.
• Add an email subscription box to your ActiveRain blog.
• Add social bookmarking options into your Feedburner feed.
  

 

Hope to see you there!

======

Please comment if you have any questions!!

 

     

     

     

From: The Publisher's Guide to Understanding RSS

 

The first comment I made on Active Rain was August 5th, 2007.  Since then, I have amassed 7404 comments made over the past 182 days.  That means that I am averaging 40.68 comments daily here.

I could write (and have written) posts about the friendships that began as stray comments on AR, or the referrals that I have received (also covered that a few times in posts).  However, I wanted to point out that the "Google juice" is a phenomenal side benefit of commenting that you may not have realized. 

What am I talking about?

Well, it's really quite simple: The more you comment on posts, the more links you will have pointing to your Active Rain profile. 

As you know, when you submit a comment, it automatically includes your signature line, which links back to your profile page.  For example, my personal automated signature line says:

Jason Crouch, Broker - Austin Texas Real Estate

So, EVERY TIME I write a comment (if the post is public and not "members only"), this link has the potential to be seen as a backlink for my profile page, which links to my primary website, so it actually benefits both of them.  My link "anchor text" (actual title of the link) includes both my name and my primary keyword.  To change your signature, you must edit the first and last name fields in your profile.  (EDITED: Tom Lyons produced a companion piece to this post in the form of a video tutorial about how to change your signature: Changing your Signature File in Active a Video Tutorial)

HOPEFULLY UNNECESSARY NOTE: Please do not take this as a license to write 50 inane comments on random posts each day.  Try to add something of value.  If you do cut-and-paste comments, you will not only make yourself look ridiculous, you might just get banned from the site altogether.

If you are only using your name and no keywords in your signature, I would urge you to consider editing this to include something that a consumer might actually type into a search engine.  Currently, my AR blog is on the third page of Google and slowly moving up for the term "Austin texas real estate", which is our most important keyword.  My primary website is #5 for this term on Google.  On Yahoo, we are at #2 presently.

 

The reason that "Members Only" posts do not produce backlinks is that the entire post is automatically tagged in HTML with "noindex", meaning that these pages will not be included in the search engine results.  That is one reason that I try to limit my "Members Only" posts to those items that will not have interest beyond this network, such as contest announcements, or specific features of Active Rain.  Everything else just gives me an extra chance to be found by the consumer. 

 

Currently, my AR profile is showing 239 backlinks on Google, and 1,780 backlinks on Yahoo.  That is more than a respectable number considering that almost all of those are comment links from my signature.  It certainly makes you think about what your signature says, right?

I have been learning and practicing SEO for our site since 1998, and the algorithms are always changing.  In fact, when I started, there was no Google at all.  It is important to stay on top of the trends as much as possible.  Content development and blogging seem to be the new frontier for SEO these days.

 

You may be wondering how I even checked my backlinks on Google in the first place.  That is also very easy to do.  Just go to Google, Yahoo, or whatever search engine you are curious about and type the following as if you were going to run a search:

link:http://activerain.com/your profile name goes here

So my specific command looks like this:  link:http://activerain.com/jasoncrouch

This command will cause the engine to display the number of backlinks, along with the sources.  Please note your profile name may not be the same as your real name, so yours may look different.  Also, Google takes a LOT longer to update their backlinks than Yahoo, and it always shows less links than Yahoo.

 

As a side note, if you are attempting to develop inbound links on other sites or forums, you will want to make sure that they are not tagged with "nofollow", as these are utterly useless to your cause.  "No follow" means that the search engine spiders will not even follow that link.  Since you clearly want the spiders to find your page, for SEO purposes you don't want to bother placing links that will not be followed.  Clearly, there may be other reasons to comment besides SEO (see second paragraph of this post).

Here is a normal link within the source HTML from one of my AR comments (you can click View--->Source while on a webpage to see this yourself):

<a href="http://activerain.com/jasoncrouch">Jason Crouch, Broker -  Austin Texas Real Estate</a>

If Active Rain used "nofollow" tags for the signatures, which they DO NOT USE (thank God!), the link would begin like this instead:

<a rel="nofollow"

Active Rain does use the "nofollow" tags for the actual body of the comments, in order to prevent rampant comment spamming.  So, placing a link within your remarks will not help you here.

I believe in giving credit where credit is due, and this post was inspired by something I read earlier by Kay Frenzer.  I used her premise and expanded on my own experiences, as I thought this might be helpful for my friends here to know. 

Thanks for taking a few minutes to read this one.  If you have any questions, please feel free to call or email me anytime.  I am always happy to help when I can. 

Copyright 2008  Jason Crouch