Jeff Swanson » seomoz

My current top 5 favorite blogs

Jeff Swanson — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 05:59:20 +0000

In no particular order…

Scott Monty’s Social Media Blog
Follow on Twitter: @scottmonty

SEOmoz Blog
Follow on Twitter: @seomoz

Mashable Social Media Blog
Follow on Twitter: @mashable

Copyblogger
Follow on Twitter: @copyblogger

Silicon Prairie News
Follow on Twitter: @siliconprairie

Widgets are great for link building

Jeff Swanson — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 18:26:22 +0000

Creating a successful link building strategy can be difficult, but it’s much easier if you have something interesting to offer your community. The idea is to produce some type of content that Linkerati in your industry will link to. This could be a fascinating article about a breaking trend or something as simple as a widget. Let’s use the social media badge below as an example:

View SEOmoz’s Social Media Marketing Guide

Notice that the link within this widget that points to the SEOmoz domain. By simply providing users with code to embed this widget on their blog or other Website, SEOmoz gains valuable links back to their domain, thus improving their number of backlinks and the position of their Web pages in major search engines. This is a classic example of a well-thought long-term link building strategy.

How to get indexed in UK search engines

Jeff Swanson — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 15:45:07 +0000

If you have a .co.uk domain, it’s obvious to search engines that you are a UK site. But what if you have a .com domain? A .com domain is international, so search engines have to look at other factors to determine which results you should appear in (i.e. Google.com, Google UK, Google Japan, etc.).

Some major factors include where your hosting is located, a UK address on your site and where your backlinks are from. When you work with clients, there are often stipulations on projects. On a project I recently worked on, I was to have a site display in UK search engines that had a .com domain and hosting that was in the U.S.

You can read about it more in a YOUmoz post I wrote on SEOmoz: UK Indexing Case Study

Top 5 resources for new SEO's

Jeff Swanson — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 17:35:05 +0000

There’s a lot of information out there. Unfortunately, a lot of it is bad, too. There’s no editorial diety traveling through cyberspace to make sure content is valid. That’s why you need to find information from trusted sources and always get multiple opinions on whatever topic you’re researching.

I’ve put together a list of five terrific sources for SEO information. There are many more available, but these are key in my opinion. You can always find terrific information and new ideas from some of the top in their profession. Also, you won’t have to worry about being penalized for shady black hat techniques that some sites may promote.

Without further ado…

5. SEO Book
Great blog and useful tools for newbies. They also provide consulting services.

4. Search Engine Land
Tons of great free information on search engine marketing. For access to more content, you can buy a premium membership for about $150/year.

3. Matt Cutts blog
For those who don’t know, Matt Cutts is the head of Google’s Webspam team. Some of the information on his blog can get very technical, but you won’t find a more trustworthy site.

2. Bruce Clay
Bruce Clay offers search engine marketing services, but also has tons of great content for you to do it on your own. A well respected name in the industry.

1. SEOmoz.org
SEOmoz is my favorite place for SEO information. They always have fresh ideas and maintain a wonderful site. Some of the content is free, like the daily blog, but to access all of their articles and SEO tools, you have to pay to become a PRO member, which is around $80/month. Well worth it.