Dude, what can I do to help?

When was the last time you gave something to someone? In terms of SEO, I mean. You have a talent. I don’t know what it is. Maybe you are a great designer. Maybe you are a CSS guru or a PHP pundit. Maybe you are a marketing genius or have the gift of gab. Whatever it is, you have something to offer. When was the last time you offered it? When was the last time you said, “Dude, what can I do to help”?

Giving your talents to someone else reaps rewards that are often unimaginable. Many times, you don’t reap…

3 Comments

Whew, upgrade done!

Wow, that was painful, not because the upgrade went badly (it went great), but because it was excruciating to have to watch the new WordPress files upload ever so slowly to the server. But as far as I can tell, both the MySQL upgrade and the WordPress upgrade were successful. If you find anything weird on SEO Scoop, however, please let me know. I think I need a drink now!

No Comments

Niche revenue

I have a friend whose site niche is mortgages, and all things related to mortgages. I personally don’t have any sites within that niche or anything related to that niche, so when I was first approached about a sponsored post for a new revenue stream for publishers that involved insurance, mortgages, etc., my first inclination was to turn it down. However, I decided to accept it after all for two reasons.

1. It could help my friend and others like him, who do service these niches.
2. I like the concept and would like to see it evolve into other niches.

So here…

No Comments

Currency Converter adds usability and improves conversions

Just the other day, I was shopping for a product and landed on a site that was selling it. The price, however, was listed in Australian currency. I had no idea how that relates to the US dollar, so I just left the site. Who knows, maybe the price was great, but I had no idea and didn’t stop to try to find out. Instead, I just moved on to another site, after quickly wishing that they had listed my currency as well. Later, I started wondering why I haven’t provided multiple currencies on some of my own sites before…

No Comments

Server upgrade today

I’ll be upgrading my server today, so if everything disappears for a while, you’ll know why. I always get really really nervous about upgrading, despite the fact that I’m diligent about backups. And actually, this time, I’ve hired an expert to do the upgrade for me, so hopefully it will be quick and painless. Still, there’s always the chance that applications will no longer work with the new version of whatever is being upgraded, and that’s enough to make me sweat.

Why am I upgrading? So I can upgrade again. You see, I want to upgrade an application, but it…

2 Comments

Pay for Performance Optimization Model

There’s no such thing as a standard pricing model with search engine optimization companies. This makes it difficult for site owners to compare. I often see requests for people wanting a Pay for Performance model, but I rarely see a company that actually offers this. There is a search engine optimization company that I am familiar with that offers pay for perfomance optimization. That company is eTrafficJams.

I’ve never used eTrafficJams before, but then again, I don’t generally use another seo company’s services because I don’t need to. But most often, you can tell a lot by the information on a company’s…

No Comments

AdWatcher - Click Fraud Monitoring and Ad Tracking

There’s a new online click fraud and advertising manager called AdWatcher, created by the Search Marketing Standard group. Boris Mordkovich was kind enough to let me demo the product so that I could give you a good idea of its features and scope.

Campaign Tracking

AdWatcher allows you to track all of your advertising campaigns from one place, no matter where you advertise, organizing all of your ad campaigns by groups, time frames, and performance. You get to see the results of your efforts whether you are advertising via Google Adwords, Yahoo, MSN AdCenter, second or third-tier search engines, individual website banner ad buys,…

No Comments

Supplemental Results Tools - Head to head competition

Two sites are launching their newest SEO tool today to help webmasters gauge the ratio of their sites’ pages in Google’s supplemental index. So pick your tool and check them out. From what I can see, they are both tied as winners!

Supplemental Ratio Tool #1

Supplemental Ratio Tool #2

3 Comments

SEO Scoop now has a mobile version

Just in case any of you were needing to read SEO Scoop on a teeny-tiny mobile phone screen, I’ve added a mobile Wordpress plugin template, so now you should be able to see everything on your mobile device quite clearly. I highly doubt this will affect anyone (hello? anyone out there ever try to access this site on a mobile device?), but just in case there’s the odd one or two people out there who need it, now you have it. Thanks, Alex King, for the Wordpress Mobile Edition plugin.

4 Comments

One man’s story of working for Microsoft, Google and Yahoo

Here is an interesting read from a guy who has worked for each of the Big Three at some time in his life, although he currently works at Yahoo. Most of his time has been as an intern, but the stories he tells about the different work environments is compelling. He also shows a chart that sums up some of the points he makes about each. My favorites include:

Research Lab:
Microsoft - world reknowned
Google - not really
Yahoo - medium sized

Biggest Fear:
Microsoft - stagnant growth
Google - what’s after ads?
Yahoo - Google

I wish there was a way of knowing for sure that people who…

1 Comment

Google and Wikipedia sitting in a tree, k-i-s-s-i-n-g

How much closer can Google and Wikipedia get? I mean, c’mon, we’ve all known they were thick as thieves for quite some time, but when Google starts showing Wikipedia as Answer-type results, then there’s got to be more to the relationship than a merely platonic one. Wit, over at SEOrefugee, brought what he called Little Special Searches to our attention today. He used the example search of [genre sonic youth] which returns as the #1 result:

Sonic Youth (album) — Genre: Alternative Rock
According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonic_Youth_(album) - More sources »

Now, when one site is shown as an “answer” on another site, generally speaking,…

1 Comment

I’m a star!

LOL, just got home and saw this mock movie poster starring ME! The post is good too, but the graphic cracked me up. I’ve been cast as Demi Moore! Wow, what could be cooler than that! Check it out, and if you want my autograph, just let me know. :D

2 Comments

Funny and brilliant marketing

Number One on the Google is the title of this brilliant video created by PushON, an Internet Marketing firm. It does a glorious job of encapsulating the typical thought process of a man thinking of promoting a business via the “interweb”, as he calls it. We’ve all seen this type of thing in real life, but to watch it on video just brings tears to my eyes as I LOL.

Despite the fact that our world is becoming net savvy, there are gazillions of people out there who don’t yet understand it. These are the people who eventually reach out to…

No Comments