This is one of the most interesting and captivating images I have run across in quite a while!

This was found on Photobucket.com. You can have a free account with 500M of storage space and 10GB of bandwidth each month. For around $25 a year, you can up the storage to 25MB and unlimited bandwidth. From what I can see, it may be worth exploring.

Another cool feature is that you can make the account private, yet still link to the images within the account for use on your website, blog or social medium! This allows you to use the images without the images becoming open viewing in your album for the entire world.

So what has this to do with SEO? Using a service like this is considered “off loading” and can help make your website and server run smoother and quicker. Faster loading websites are better optimized websites.

A Domain Name May Not Matter - At Least Not As You May Think

What does a domain name matter?

For quite some time, there has been talk about finding “keyword rich” domain names when selecting a domain name for your website. In reality, this does not really matter… at least not for reasons you might think!

Limited Top Level Domain Names

To start with, there is a major limit on available top level domain names. Most of the “relevant” .com names that you would love to have have already been taken by someone else. In many cases, these have been taken only to sell back to someone else for a profit because you just have to have some special domain name that is relevant, or keyword rich, to your intended audience. If you are intending to start a website about credit cards, for example, good luck finding a good domain using “creditcards” anywhere in it. The same can be said for roughly any broad term that is out there. You can always drop to a .net, .org or even .info, but they aren’t as desirable as the .com name is. So there is a limit on what is available.

Strategy: Be open to any name, not just related keyword domains

Unrelated Domain Names Actually Work

What is a trulia? What is a google? Anyone ever find a definition for a flickr? These are all names that are made up, yet they are some of the major websites found online. Yahoo was probably one of the pioneers of this idea… after all, the definition of Yahoo was never “search engine” or “website portal”… well, at least not until Yahoo made it as such! And taking Flickr as an example… the domain name itself does not indicate pictures by any means. Yet, it is one of the largest online photo services available (and very popular!)

Strategy: You’ll make a name for yourself, regardless of the words (or lack of) in your domain

What About Dashes in Domain Names?

Some people will use dashed versions of a domain name in order to get a “keyword rich” domain. They may not be able to get TopCreditCards.com, but “top-credit-cards.com” might be available. So why not use the dashes? Does it impact search engine results? Is it considered spam? How many dashes?

Actually, the dashes in a domain will have little to no impact on search engine results! The major impact here is the intended audience… the one actually targeted to view the website itself. In my opinion, the use of dashed domains should be reserved for websites that are only planning to use search engines and links as a way to get traffic. Once the visitor lands on the website, they are not as focused on the domain name itself, but rather the content. However, if you are looking to use your domain as a brand, or just something memorable that a user will enter the URL directly into a browser, dashes will lead to loss of visitors. They may not remember the dashes and end up at someone else’s website, or worse, see the website as something “less than trustworthy” and never visit it.

Strategy: For direct marketing and easy to remember, avoid dashes. For search engine only marketing, who cares?

Future Use of Domain Name

This is one of the most under-thought-through parts of choosing a domain. I myself have been guilty of this one. What will you do with the domain name if down the road you choose to go a different direction?

Here is an example, from my own experiences. Years ago, when I entered the mortgage industry as a loan officer, I wanted a domain name that I could use. Not knowing any better, I followed an example I saw often in the real estate industry and registered my name (EdNailor.com) to be used for my mortgage site. After all, I reasoned, if you know my name, you will know my website.

I worked hard and eventually had EdNailor.com dominating the local mortgage search results for a mortgage in the Charlotte NC area. It was the content that did it, after all, what did the term “EdNailor” have to do with mortgages from the search engines’ point of view? My content was solid and my seo strategies allowed me to be on top of my game in that arena. So what was the problem with using my name as the domain? I left the mortgage industry!

If I had chosen a different domain, I could have sold the domain to another mortgage professional and walked away with cash. I did get offers for EdNailor.com, but that was MY NAME… and I did not want something down the road to come up with my name that would embarrass me.. so I would not sell it. I lost out on a financial opportunity. And now, to transition it to a different focus would be a long and tedious process, and would seriously confuse any visitors to the site. Side note: Since then I have transitioned the site to a more appropriate domain name, but with any domain change, SERPs are impacted (at least short term) and I have to wait a while to use EdNailor.com for anything else.

Strategy: Choose a name that would allow you to make changes in the future. If you leave your industry, you can always sell (if you have done a good job with content and rankings!)

Domain Name Choices

A domain name matters, but not for the reasons you may have heard. Choose something that is appropriate for your method of marketing, is fairly easy to remember and can be used in a different way (or sold) in the future. Don’t be afraid of a new word or term, as long as it isn’t confusing or extremely difficult to remember. And above all, remember that your content and seo strategy will determine your long term success, not the domain name you register!

Recently, we added an option for our clients to allow them to add a custom line of text at the bottom of their website. The intention was to allow them to have an additional point in which they can add basic content that will be site-wide and add to their SEO strategy. One of my clients had a question about this and asked me to explain further. Here is my reply:

At the bottom of the page there is a line of text that you can change to fit whatever you want to be there.  For example, on my website (http://foundbydesign.com) I have my set to show the following line:

Found By Design is a website design firm located in the Charlotte NC area, specializing in affordable websites and SEO strategy that help website owners establish a strong online presence that generates more business!

What this does is allow me to add additional base keywords that reinforce what my website is about, i.e. “website design firm”, “affordable websites”, “SEO strategy”, “strong online presence” and “generate more business.”

This text is displayed on all pages, so should be used as an overall description of what your website is about. Each page will highlight specific facets of that business, with this tying it all together. Just be careful that you don’t just lay a bunch of keywords in there… a bad example using my website might be:

“Website design, web site design, designing websites, seo, seo strategy, strategy for seo…”

You see, just adding keywords like this would be considered keyword stuffing, a practice of just adding keywords in repetition in order to manipulate the search engine rankings. For the end user, the one visiting the website, these series of words would mean nothing at all. The search engines are looking for valid content to deliver to their own visitors, and manipulation such as stuffing keywords can produce the wrong results.

The footer text option is not designed to be used for keyword stuffing, but should provide a general overview of what the site is about for the reader. Whatever you place in this area should in fact be targeted to the end user, not specifically the search engines. However, as with any content you write, careful consideration on what keywords you are focusing on and where they are placed within the content is prudent.

I Now Understand My Purpose for Twitter

Is that how you feel? At one time, I had the same feeling. Didn’t see what the big deal was. If I wanted to say something I wanted more than 140 characters to work with. But as anyone that works in website design, I had to at least explore something that was so popular and has such a large audience. Was I missing something? Unfortunately, I must admit I was missing something. But I am man enough to fess up and admit my error.

After trying Twitter recently (follow us at http://Twitter.com/foundbydesign), I have found that Twitter has a lot to offer, and it all depends on what you are seeking. For my own purposes, Twitter was never going to be purely social. I don’t sit around wondering what exactly my friends are doing at this exact moment. In too many ways, that can just be TMI! No, my focus was on communication, greater exposure and SEO for my own website. I wanted to be able to communicate with current clients, prospective clients and maybe other associates within my field. I also wanted to gain further exposure to new groups of people and to pick up additional links to my website for SEO purposes. And what I have found is that Twitter has met these needs very well!

Communication using Twitter is rather easy. Yes, you are limited to 140 characters, but you can easily create a full on article on your website and link back to it from your Twitter account. But it is also great for quick announcements, updates and answering simple questions. I have used Twitter to announce our new Free Wordpress Themes we have made available for Wordpress self-hosted users. It seems to be a simple way to just quickly update people on what’s what.

Gaining greater exposure for your website is something I hoped for, but wasn’t sure if I’d see. As of this article’s posting, I am only up to 134 followers, but I already have an audience I would not have had any other way. Sure, some of the followers are there only to get me to follow them, but there are a number of people that are following my “tweets” that are in a greater position to shed light on my corner of the web… so that spurs me on to create great content! Besides, with the exposure of Twitter, we have already seen great response to the downloads of our free Wordpress themes, primarily promoted using Twitter!

One thing I did not know going in was that Twitter add a “nofollow” tag to each of your “tweets” so you do not get any real credit for links, particularly with Google. So as far as SEO went, I was beginning to think that maybe this would be a place I did not see anything. Wrong! Twitter’s “tweets” are also broadcast using RSS feeds and are then republished on a number of services which do provide links back to your website. Using my Google alerts, I just found that TweetMeMe.com was aggregating my Twitter items and providing dofollow links back to my individual URLs within my site that I was linking to! How cool! I am sure there are more like this, and look forward to getting future alerts!

In summary, it appears that Twitter may yet be a great tool to use for the promotion of a website. Whether its building a social following or simply to have another place to post your articles to, you will most likely find a positive outcome to using Twitter. I have found Twitter to be useful for communication, website exposure and greater optimization using links. What have you found Twitter to be useful for?

Considering Auto Direct Messaging on Twitter

Should I use Twitter Auto Direct Messages (auto dm)?

I just recently began my journey on Twitter and for the most part have found it to be a great tool. Not only can I communicate with current clients, but I can also promote my website’s articles and get my ideas out to a number of others that might not have otherwise found this website! After only a couple weeks, I have nearly 100 followers, most of which just decided to follow me for reasons unknown to me. That’s pretty cool!

After playing around for a bit, I have found a few cool programs to  help automate posting to Twitter and have seen a few “tricks” along the way. One of these “tricks” is called the Auto DM. The DM is a direct message to a follower and with an Auto DM a new DM is sent to a new follower automatically. Ideally, an Auto DM should be a “thank you for following me” message. Unfortunately, spammers as well as very aggressive marketeers have abused the Auto DM giving it a bad name. Do a search on Twitter for “autodm” and you will see a lot of angry Twitter users crying out for an end to the practice!

Personally, I think a carefully crafted message would be more than appropriate. Something along the lines of “Hey @user, thank you for following my Tweets. I look forward to reading yours as well! Ed” would be a great DM. I have even looked around for services that handled the Auto DM for me. Sadly, the more I have researched this, the more I have come to realize that the Auto DM has been too badly abused and seems to have such a poor stigma, that to do this may be a bad move on my part. So, for now, I have decided not to use the Auto DM on Twitter just yet and will research it some more.

If you are a Twitter user and have an opinion on the Auto DM, please share it with me. Do you recommend using it, or staying away from the practice? I’d love to get some real feedback on this one!

Thanks

Ed

Avoiding Low Quality Links? Why you can't!

Low Quality Incoming Links… Avoiding Them?

There seems to be talk in the SEO community about avoiding “low quality” incoming links. “Low quality” incoming links commonly refer to links from websites that are unrelated to your website and have little to no “Page Rank” with Google.

The Problem with Low Quality Links

Many in the SEO world don’t like “low quality” links. They feel that the addition of low quality links comes off as spammy and will detract from the overall power of links pointing to their websites. They would much rather have less links, but from high ranking, high “Page Rank” websites, as these links are your more coveted links since Google tends to give them more weight. However, when it comes to link building,  in my opinion, this is a bit misguided and unrealistic!

The Goal of Incoming Links

All webmasters are looking to add links to their website to help boost their rankings in the search engines. Since links to a website are viewed as “popularity votes” by the search engines, they are an important aspect of SEO. When the stronger and more popular websites link to a site, it tends to be considered a more valuable link. (Sound like high school?) Links from small, less popular websites still count, but with less influence. So ultimately you want to be linked to from the bigger sites.

That being said, you have more opportunity to develop your own links from the smaller websites. For example, you can visit a couple related blogs a day and add comments to their topics. If you select “Dofollow” blogs, you will get a link back from the website you commented on. However, some see these sites as low quality as they are well known to allow links, so they can be abused. Sure, this may be right, but the ability to easily add your own link to a major website that is actually followed by the search engines is so much smaller. And if those websites exist, they are also well documented for others to exploit!

The Reality of Links

The reality is that for most websites, getting linked from major websites like CNN or CNET is nearly impossible. In most cases, the lower “quality” links are much easier to get. So why avoid them? Since links are votes in popularity, the more you have, the better. Of course, you will want to avoid certain links, like those from adult sites, warwez sites, etc. However, getting a ton of links from smaller websites and blogs can have a positive effect on your own website’s rankings.

How to NOT avoid Low Quality Links

So what if you still want to avoid these low quality links? Well, that’s easy… offer no content and no reason for someone to link to you! You see, if you ever land those coveted links from “top quality” websites, you will have to have built a site that makes those sites want to link to you. And if your site is that awesome, there likelihood that smaller websites will also mention you in links is pretty good. And there is no way to stop someone from linking to you! So the reality of this is that you can not avoid low quality links! So if you are going to get them anyway, take control of who links (as much as possible) and what the links are like!

Top 5 Reasons to Use a List for Article Titles

Using a LIST in your title is Effective

When writing articles for your website, one of the key things you need to address is the title of the article. It should be compelling, hint to content and intrigue the reader to dive in further. One of the most appealing and effective titles you can use is the LIST title. Examples of a LIST title would include titles like “Top 5 Reasons” or “10 Great Resources”. They suggest a list of information for the reader.

This type of title is appealing for a number of reasons. Here are the top 5 reasons to use a LIST title (and article) as often as possible:

5. Create Instant Interest

When writing a Top 10 list about something, you typically give the reader the subject matter in the title. A title such as “Top5 reasons to Write Articles” promptly suggests to the reader that the subject matter is about writing articles. This allows the reader to quickly gauge their interest level in the article before having to get involved in the article. What’s really great about this is that your reader becomes much more invested in your subject and your article from the moment they start reading it! After all, if your Top 10 List is about a topic most would find boring, those that read it will actually be interested in what you have to say.

4. Suggests length and depth

The number in your list will suggest the length and depth of the article and subject matter. For example, a title such as “5 Quick Tips for SEO” would suggest a shorter list, a quicker read and most likely concise points about the subject. On the other hand, “300 Search Engine Optimization Techniques” would suggest a very long and exhaustive article. Which these titles would suggest that more time is required to get in to the subject? Yeah, the 300. That’s why this is only a Top 5 list!

3. Suggest an Impact

If the subject is interesting, and the length and depth of the article are appealing to the reader, the further appeal of a LIST is the potential to impact the reader in some way. “The 7 SEO Tips You Need to Know” indicates that this article may become a tool for the reader, if in fact they are interested in SEO. “150 Photoshop Techniques” would indicate a tremendous resource and tool for the reader interested in Photoshop. The point is that the list will provide some impact to the reader, hopefully for the betterment of themselves. Of course “The 5 Most Hated Women in Hollywood” may not have a major impact to most, but it can produce gossip material, which would have an impact for some!

2. Opinionation

Is opinionation even a word? Maybe not (at least according to my spellcheck!) However, the one thing you can count on with every potential reader is that they have an opinion, and in most cases are completely in love with their opinions! So any time you use an article such as “Top 10″ or “5 Best” you are stating your opinion on the subject, thereby challenging the reader’s opinion right off the bat. Often times they will read the article just to see if they agree with your opinion or not. They may not realize why they are so interested as this can be a subconscious reaction. But that does not negate the power of opinion.

1. More for the admission price

Most articles might provide a hint of the subject which would attract the reader to take the time to read. However, when you add a number to that title, the reader feels as if they are getting more information that the average article might provide. After all, “The 5 Best Examples of an Optimized Website” tell us we are getting more than just one site review in this article. If a reader is searching for information, sometimes an article that seems to have more information may be more appealing. “An Optimized Website” may only suggest one website being reviewed, which just seems brief. Which one would a reader choose first?

While writing a title is important for drawing the reader in, you still need to make sure the content is worthwhile. It should stay on topic and be related to the title throughout. This way your reader does not feel as if they were tricked into reading the article. Besides, it does not take long for a reader to figure out if they will stay and read on, or decide to try another article elsewhere.

An added benefit to using this type of title and article is that in addition to increasing an article’s readership, you get a very focused readership! Your audience is targeted by their interest and you know that the readers want to be there. So you have a much better chance to convey whatever it is you are seeking to convey.

So what are your thoughts? Do you agree with these points? Let me know what you thoughts are on the subject.