Posts by AccurateAG

Hi All:

Some additional wants and needs for my ideal SMS marketing program:

• Able to group responses up top
• Able to handle photos, videos, etc.
• Alert sounds
• Don't have to refresh to ensure the messages come through

I know, pie-in-the-sky, right? Oh well, I have to ask; maybe what I want actuall exitsts.

John

Yes, but only for voice mail. I do not like a lot of Google products, and Google Voice is one of them. Sound quality is terrible.

Hi All:

I have recently started using a web-based texting service; it is just easier than texting on a cell phone.

I have a few concerns, and I would like to see if anyone has any answers.

1. Is there a free or low-cost web-based service that turns texts into voice mails? I know Verizon and Sprint do, but I don't use them for cell phone service.

2. Is there a way I can tell if a text has gone to a non-text-capable number, to include dumb phones, land lines, fax lines, data lines, etc? It is frustrating; I sent oud a text and I don't know if the recipient saw it!

3. What is the best web-based service to use for text messages? I use Pinger, but are there any other services that answer my needs and concerns?

Thanks for your help.

John

Hi Daniel:

Um.... um.... um.... That is like asking a doctor to explain anatomy in three easy lessons.

First, you need to do your keyword research.
Then you need to do your on-page SEO
Then you need to do your off-page SEO and keep on doing your off-page SEO until you close your web site.
You need to run analytics, measure performance, and tweak as needed.

First page is NOT guaranteed.

Good luck.

John

Hi googinup:

Yes, directories are important, but only as a PART of your off-page SEO. You need to do other things, too, such as social media marketing, blog posting, article marketing, and other things.

Want to know how to start? Look at my tutorial on this site, "Basic Directory Posting"

John

Hi Willson:

No, I do not know anything that can predict the future accurately. Google Trends is good, Google Insight is good, but to accurately predict the future is not possible. You can give probabilities, but not certainties.

Good luck.

John

Hil Willson:

No, it is not. I went over the guidelines at Google Webmaster Tools, and there was not anything that was even marginal. Believe me, I don't use black hat techniques. I definitely don't stuff keywords.

John

Mine stayed at 1.

A formal school, such as going to class, taking tests, etc? I have not heard of anything like that, but I am not all-knowing.

The way I learned is the old-school techie way of doing it: Poke around in the program first, ask stupid questions, then buy a "for dummies" or "complete idiot's guide to".

• First, I went on to the web, searched google, and learned the basics.

• Then I did what I learned. That reinforced my learning.

• Then I went to forums, learned from them, and started putting up posts and tutorials. When you start teaching, or writing tutorials, it reinforces what you know, and shows you the holes in your knowledge. To answer the questions that come up requires thought and research.

• Then I bought SEO for Dummies and read that.

• Then I applied what I learned in that.

Bottom line: in the military, it would be called OJT, on-the-job training.

Hey, if you can convince a school that you are qualified to teach such a course, go for it!

John

I just did a quick Google search, and found this link: http://www.dailyblogmoney.com/traffic-status-after-page-layout-algorithm-update-what-do-you-see-and-how-to-recover

It mentions too many, and too large, H1 tags.

The person who did my web site put 6 h1 tags on the home page. I went and looked at the code, and found them.

Questions:

1. Does this sound reasonable?

2. Will redoing the H1 tags drop me even further?

Please help!

John

Well, I just checed again this morning, and the same exact problem recured.

I have not even done any directory postings in the last few days (since Monday, I think).

I did not check my rankings on Wenedsay or Thursday, so this may date back to Wednesday at the most.

Any suggestions on how I can recover from this?

Black hat is defined as something the search engines don't like, as essentialy they are deceptive. Black hat techniques try to trick the search engines (Google, Bing, and Yahoo) into giving a site an undeserved high ranking. Some techniques are:

1. Posting junk to forums. You have seen them; the commenter just says something like "Hi" or "good post". They also post links to their web sites. This is why places like Daniweb keep new posters from putting in links.

2. The specific techniques you asked about, Directory postings, social bookmarking, press releases, classified ads, are not black hat. They can be, if you abuse them. Ask CanadaFred about that.

3. Really, entire books have been written about black hat SEO. I would go find a book called Search Engine Optimization for Dummies; there is an entire chapter on black hat--so you DON'T do it.

John

Sure you can. BUT!

1. Have them give you references--companies they have put on the first page of Google, Bing, and Yahoo.

2. Have them tell you how they will do it. Look on this forum for "black hat" SEO techniques. If the company is going to use "black hat" techniques, RUN AWAY FAST AND FAR! Black hat techniques get you on to the first page of Google, Bing, and Yahoo--for a while. Then the search engines find out about the techniques, and you are NO LONGER on the first page. In fact, if the company did a lot of black hat SEO, your site could be banned.

3. Have them give you a proposed timeline to get on the first page, as well as a budget for the iniital setup and monthly costs.

4. Learn SEO yourself, if only to understand when a company is trying to blarney you.

Hi All:

As part of my SEO, I tried to get my auto glass company listed in Google Merchant.

Now, with auto glass, there really is not a fixed price. It varies by:
- Year, make, and model of the vehicle. Obviously a windshield for a Mercedes will be much more expensive than one for a Honda Accord
- Type of the glass. Windshields, door glasses, vent glasses, back glasses, sliders, quarter glasses all vary in price.
- Brand. There are more than 100 brands out there.
- How competitve the market is.

Availability can vary by the year, make, and model of the vehicle, but more importantly by what is carried by my vendors.

When you know there are more than 10,000 different pieces of auto glass, and multiply it by 100, what do you get? More than 1,000,000 variations. So what did Google want? UPC codes! For EACH different item! For more than a miliion items! And WHERE am I supposed to get the UPC codes, not to mention the time to get them data entered?

So I asked for help in their forum. Here is their reply:

unfortunately, only fixed-priced items are allowed --
items with variable prices are simply not allowed.

brand, mpn, and gtin are global-trade data that must
allow the consumer to trace back an exact item to an
exact brand-manufacturer regardless of which merchants
are selling that item. (GTIN is GoogleSpeak for UPC codes)

availability …

Hi all:

I went back to Google this morning and ran the same search I do every morning. I am BACK on P1 of Google for both keyword phrases.

At first glance, this looks like a solved problem. Thanks for all your input.

HI ITG:

That would not apply to me. My content is original; I wrote it myself.

Now, I HAVE put up pretty much the same directory listings, with only a few variants (Meta Description, then 2 others I have used a lot). Would that count as "duplicate content" in Google's eyes?

John

Today, I went to check my web site's SERP rankings.

Yahoo and Bing, no problem; they are firmly on page 1, where they have been for more than a year.

Google, big problem. My site is now on Page 3 for one keyword, and not even in the first 10 pages for the second.

When I looked at this using a Google Banned checker, it comes up as not banned.

It is still where it has been on Alexa, google PageRank, etc.

The only thing I have done for SEO in the last few days is to do more directory postings.

I checked my Webmaster tools and there are no nastygrams; in fact, no messages since November 2011.

I know a new Google algorithm update just came out.

A few questions:

1. Has anyone else been affected by this?

2. Has anyone seen their rankings recover from the algorithm update hit? If so, how long did it take?

3. Does anyone know what Google is penalizing these days?

Thanks for all your input.

John.

HI tadisaus2:

You can hire someone, but look at it this way: It should only take you about an hour a day to post 10-15 directory postings. If you work 25 days a month, that equates to 250 to 375 directory postings per month.

Want the easy way to do it? Look at my tutorial here on Basic Directory Postings. Once you have all the information accumulated, you should be able to get at least 10 postings done per hour. That hour can be while you are sitting on hold, or any other little bit of downtime you might have.

How do I know you should be able to do 10 postings an hour? Because I do! And I don't do anything sophisticated, just copy and paste.

Definition of SEO: Search Engine Optimization. That collection of techniques used to ensure the search engines, especially Google, can find and index your site. The techniques break down in several ways:

On-page and off page. Look on this forum for a LOT of information about these.

Black Hat versus White Hat.

- Black hat tecniques are those disapproved of by the search engines, especially Google, since they are designed to deceive the search engine into indexing something where it should not be indexed.  Black Hat techniques can get your site banned!

- White hat techniques are non-deceptive techniques.

- Grey Hat techniques are somewhere in the middle.  I have been unable to get a good handle on "Grey Hat" techniques, as they seem to vary by intent.

To get a good handle on SEO, go buy a "Complete Idiot's" or "... For Dummies" book on SEO. All the techies I know learn from those books after they have poked around a subject.

Use Firefox for SEO, but test your sites in Firefox, Chrome, Safari, Opera, and IE.

I keep up with SEO by getting e-mails from companies, including HubSpot. I also look at the technology section of Yahoo News; they frequently have articles of interest.

Important? Not really. However, it takes only a few minutes, and it certainly can't hurt. Ideally, it should be done as soon as your website is up, so your alexa rankinig can rise.

Hi Dark:

Even if meta keywords are decreasingly relevant, it is still a good idea to put them in. It can't hurt, and it only takes a minute or two.

I have never heard of changing the description every month. I can't figure out why someone would say that.

Hi CanadaFred:

I must protest your categorization of forum postings, directory postings, and blog commenting as "grey hat"; in other words (if I understand correctly) a less-than-ethical method that borders on, but is not, black hat SEO.

I do not feel these methods, used in moderation, are unethical. Directory postings are used less frequently now, so the person who does them is rising in the rankings. Blog and forum commenting are unethical only when you don't submit relevant comments, but just put up something like "Hi there!" or a link to your web site. Otherwise, they are perfectly ethical.

Hi Sharma:

You need to:
1. Write good, original, quality, grammatical, and correctly spelled content.
2. Ensure your keywords are on the correct pages. You already did your keyword research, right? Right?
3. Ensure you have:
- H1, H2, etc., tags
- Alt tags for your images
- Meta tags (title, description, and keyword)
- NO BROKEN LINKS
- Unique titles for each page of your website
4. Optimize your images.
5. After your site is live, go to a website grader and make changes as needed.
After that is done, THEN submit your sitemap to Google and Bing.

Have you tried Craigslist? When I went to the CL site, I found it in about 1 minute.

Read the tutorial at the top of this forum! This will get you started.

Hi Zesiranjha:

Before you do your off-site SEO, you need to ensure your on-site SEO is good.

Your off-site SEO listing is excellent. Just remember, you can make all the lists you want, but you actuallly have to do the work to get the results.

Hi Mukes:

There are a few things you can do to optimize your images:

1. ALT TAG your image.
2. Check your load time with one of the online tools. If you have too many images, load time suffers.
3. You can also edit your images to reduce the load time. Again, there are several tools you can use on line. Personally, I tried this once, and I do not feel it decreased my load time. Your results may vary.

John

Hi Clerisy:

You can do a lot of technical analysis of your bounce rate, view time, etc., but I feel there really is only ONE true gauge of your SEO success: Sales.

Have they gone up? If yes, then your SEO campaign is a success. Of course, that assumes you don't have any other marketing efforts.

If you do have other marketing efforts, then you need to ask each time how they heard about you.

All the other indicators are secondary. Of those, your most important metric is where do you rank with the search engines? The others can tell you where to improve, but SERP ranking is critical.

Hi Tad:

I agree with some previous posters:
1. Ensure your on-site SEO is up to speed.
2. Both article marketing and directory listing have their place; use whatever works best for your. SEO is more of an art than a science at this point.

However, there are a few other things you should be doing:
1. Post comments on YOUR blog!
2. Post comments on YOUR Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and other social media sites.
3. Ensure a link goes from your site to your blog, social media sites, etc.
4. Ensure a link goes from your blog to your web site; also, a link from your Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and other social media sites goes to your website.

This will help you rank.

John

PART 1

1. INTRODUCTION: When you are starting with your first SEO project, you may feel as if you have been told to empty the ocean with a teaspoon, there is so much to know and so much to do. Well, don't freak out, it is not as bad as it sounds. You simply have to look at it as a series of tasks to be done. The U.S. military works this way; they look at a goal (say "Force the unconditional surrender of Nazi Germany") and break it down to what needs to be done, how they can do it, what resources are needed, how to get those resources, and budgets for money and time. You need to do the same.

There is one other thing to remember: SEO is marketing. Now, in the old days all you needed was a sign and a Yellow Pages ad, and you were set. SEO is not like that; it is much less expensive in money (if you do it yourself) than the Yellow Pages, but it is much more time-consuming.

1. GOAL OF THE PROJECT: Get on the first page of Google, Bing, and Yahoo so you can increase sales and GET MORE MONEY!

2. ASSUMPTIONS: This article assumes:

3-1. This is a new business.

3-2. You have done your due diligence, including, among other things, researched your local regulatory requirements and fees, done your market research, defined your Unique Selling Proposition, written your business plan, done your keyword research, researched your …

Hi All:

I have the following situation, and I need some advice.

I am helping out a friend with SEO for his web site. After starting the project, he called me and said his web person was beginning to freak out, that my friend's web site could be banned. I spoke to the web tech, and he stated:

1. If we submit the same web site to Google Analytics more than once, the web site could be banned. Is this true?

2. He does not believe in posting to the Yellow Pages sites, says they have issues. Is this true?

3. He had not submitted the sitemap to Bing and Google, as this is a Wordpress site, which has issues with sitemaps. Is this true?

4. He had not submitted to the Google, Bing, or Yahoo local directories, said he preferred to get organic results by checking in to places through Facebook on my friend's IPhone. Is this true?

I just need to see if this guy knows what he is talking about. I don't have enough experience to know if this guy is a BS artist or telling me the truth.

Thanks.

John

Hi All:

I am having a bunch of trouble with Craigslist; basically, I think I need more phone numbers so I can make new accounts.

Until I can do that, I want to post image ads on CL.

The only image ad service I know of is Use.com, where I can use templates, etc., to make image ads.

However, Use.com is a pain! I keep running into problems with it. I don't understand how this site works! It makes way too many assumptions about what I want to do, it does not allow me to see what images I have, and on and on.

Does anyone know of a better, easier-to-use, FREE image ad service?

Thanks.

John

Hi Mike:

If you are ranked #4 on Google for your keyword, with 12,000 searches per month, and you are not getting a response, you need to review your website ASAP.

Basic things to look at:
1. Is there an effective call to action? In other words, do you give people an easy way to buy?
2. Look at the writing of your website. Is it clear, concise, properly spelled, with excellent grammar and punctuation?
3. Are there links on your site? Do they all work?
4. Finally, look at your competition. What are they doing right and you are doing wrong?

John

Hi Roy:

Let me see if I can make it easier for you:

1. This is a long-term process, not a project. You will be doing SEO until the day you take your website down.

2. First, you need to do your on-page SEO. You will want to review the many many threads here and on the web for this. However, a few quick tips:
- Ensure your keyword research is done properly.
- Ensure you have ALT tags on all your images
- Ensure you have registered your site with Google, Bing, Alexa, and DMOZ, and put their verification codes on your site.
- Ensure your website has links to your social media sites (i.e. Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, YouTube) and your blog.
- Ensure your site loads quickly. Look on the web for tools that will tell you this.
- Ensure all your links WORK!
- Go to a website grading site, such as HubSpot, and see what they say about your site. Tweak as needed.

3. You will then want to do your off-site SEO. Again, there are a whole bunch of threads and articles on this, both here and on the web. Review them. Some ways to start are:
- Directory postings. You will want to see my tutorial on this.
- Article marketing
- Blog postings
- Forum postings and commenting.
- Social Media marketing.
- Video marketing, such …

Hi Mike:

Um, a little more information, please.
1. Have you compared this keyword with other, similar keywords to see if this is a high number of searches?
2. Is it a short, one- or two-word phrase, or is it a longer phrase (long tail)?
3. Are you marketing to one local area, the nation, or the world?
4. How competitive is it?

You don't have to answer ME, but you do need to get the answers for yourself. Then you will have answered your own question.

Hi Mukes:

Let me see if I can clear up any misunderstandings. I have been working with PCs for so long, things that are intuitively obvious to me are very confusing to others.

The original poster wanted to see how his website is rated; in other words, was it on a banned list with one of the "parental rating" companies. Their purpose is to keep R and X-rated sites away from kids.

There are two basic versions of this:
- A "banned list" of sites that are inappropriate for children
- A "permitted list" of sites someone on a company network can go to.

To ensure he is not on the "banned list", I told him to register his site with the various parental rating companies, and display their badges on his site.

I do not know of a way to ensure a web site is on a permitted list for a company; those are usually company confidential.

My original post did not address this, but addressed how to see if a web site is accessible through your company's web service. I can think of several:

1. Try to go to the web site. If one browser does not work, try another; I would use Firefox, IE, Chrome, and any other browser you may have on your system. I personally have a vendor website that is only accessible through IE.

2. Try some DOS level utilities, Ping and TraceRT. To …

Hi:

I have a few tips on generating and using QR Codes:

1. If you are only going to generate one QR code, make the code using the Text option; the others are less flexible.
2. DON'T use the VCard option; really looks bad.
3. Post it on your web site as well as putting in on all your marketing materials, including packaging.

Hi all:

I have a slight problem, and I need s little advice.

I need to know which image format loads fastest
- jpg
- gif
- png

Basically, I have all my images as .PNGs. Half of them are 40 X 40 pixels. The other half vary in size.

Does it vary with the browser, the OS, or some other factor(s)?

Does it matter? Is the loading speed for all 3 similar?

Just looking for a little input.

Thanks.

John

Hi Jeff:

If I were you, I would look into how my site is rated at things like SurfSafely. Register your site with them and ensure the badge is displayed on your site.

I would also search to see what other companies are out there and register with each one of them, then put their badges on your site.

While I don't have a lot of experience with this kind of thing (my ex took the kids before they started surfing the web), it is my understanding there are at least two versions of blocking/filtering sofware:

- A "bad boy" list of banned sites
- A "good boy" list of permitted sites.

While you may be able to avoid being on the "bad boy" list, I don't know how you can get on a list of permitted sites.

John

Hi CanadaFred:

I am unsure what you mean when you say "Grey Hat technique". I am still a newbie, I suppose, but I have never heard of "Grey Hat technique"s.

While you may not like directory postings, they have worked well for me. They have been a key part of my getting onto the first page of Google, Bing, and Yahoo. Of course, it took more than six months, but I DID get there.

You recommended posting your link to ODP only. Unfortunately, that has not worked for me. It has been almost 2 years, and my link has never been posted in ODP/DMOZ.

While I recommended commenting on blogs, forum postings, etc., I certainly did not recommend you put a lot of spammy links in your forum signature.

Again, as with just about anything, moderation is key. You can obviously log on to a new website and put up a bunch of spammy forum/blog posts; how often have we seen that here? What I did was find blogs and forums in my areas of interest, and try to make intelligent, useful comments. The links generated, if any, are secondary or even tertiary; the knowledge gained is what is most useful.

John

Directory submissions for the purposes of SEO is mostly a grey hat technique and certainly not whitehat. White hat SEO generally ceases after listing to the ODP.

Commenting on someone else's post for the purpose of dumping links is a grey hat …

Hi Nuclear:

Try a few simple tests:
1. Go to the website, using different browsers.
2. In DOS, do a ping <website>. You want to see 100% or so response.
3. In DOS, do a tracert <website>. You want to see a full trace from your PC to the web site
4. If you need help on Ping or Tracert, do ping/h or ping/?. This brings up the help screen; the same for tracert.
5. If you can't read the entire help screen, or want it for future reference, do ping/h > pinghelp.txt. This will create a text file. You can then read it in a word processor, such as Notepad or Word. The same applies to tracert; don't forget to put in tracerthelp.txt as the filename, though.
6. There is a web site, www.downforeveryoneorjustme.com, that will tell you if the site is up.

7. Also, don't forget to run a Google Banned checker tool! You can find that by running a web search.

Hi Thiru.b:

There are many ways to get backlinks. The white-hat ways are:

- Listing your site with directories
- Posting blog comments
- Posting forum comments
- Article Marketing
- PR Marketing
- Social Media marketing, such as Twitter, Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn, etc.
There are more, but you get the idea. These all come under "off-site" SEO. You also want to do your on-site SEO so your off-site SEO is fully effective.

There are a lot of postings on each of those areas. If you want to start with Directoy Postings, for example, see the Tutorial I wrote and posted here.

Don't forget to list your site with Google, Bing, Alexa, and DMOZ!

DO NOT expect your site to reach the first page of Google, Bing, and Yahoo immediately. It WILL take months. Off-site SEO is not a project, it is a continuing process.

John

HI anuragini123:

I don't quite know what you mean by "backlink tool". Do you mean:

- A way to check backlinks?
- How to get backlinks?
- How many backlinks you have?

Please be a little clearer. Backlink tool, on this forum, is about as open-ended a question as possible.

John

Hi All:

I have the following problem, and I am turning to the forum for a little insight.

I want to a link to Google Plus1 on my site. However, I am using GoDaddy's Websight Tonight website builder, and I find it to be maddening; things that should be easy to do, when you talk to tech support (a really nice feature of Godaddy) they say you can't do it! ARRRG!

I am unable to put a Google Plus 1 snippet and icon where I want it. I put in a link to my Google Profile, but I am unsure if this is secure or not. So, my questions are:

1. Is putting a link to my Google Profile secure?

2. Does anyone have a generalized URL for a Google+ link?

3. Can anyone provide me with a Google Plus icon of 40 X 40 pixels (the standard size on my icon bar)?

4. What is the easiest way to get Google Plus on my site?

Before you respond, please let me tell you I have ALREADY put the code snippet from Google on my website.

Thanks for your help.

John

Hey Guys:

I tried Blekko and OpenSiteExplorer.com - both worked. Thanks. I have been looking for something to replace the non-result at highqualitybacklinks.com

John

Hi Hits:

You need to do BOTH.

You first do your on-page SEO, optimizing your site. Don't forget to add the links to your social marketing sites (i.e. Twitter, Facebook, etc), blogs, and other links you feel are needed.

Then you need to do your off-page SEO. This consists of one or more of the following:
- Directory Postings
- Social Media postings
- Blog postings
- Forum postings
- Article marketing
etc.

This process is NEVER done while your web site it live.

John

Hi Hits:

I am afraid I don't understand your question. Do you want to go back to a directory ypu previously posted to and change your listing? That is fairly simple; if you registered with the site, you just log in to your account (you did keep a record of your login, right?) and change it. If you did not register, then you would need to look at the site and see if there is a procedure listed.

Please rephrase your question so I can understand what you mean.

Thanks.

John

Hi All:

I would like to give a few tips on making your life easier when it comes to putting links on your site.

1. When you make a blog, set up a social media site, etc., copy the URL into a file for future reference (I didn't, at first).

2. When you go to put links to these on your web site, the easiest way to get the icon is to go to Google Image Search, and search by "exact size". Makes it look nice, when all the icons are the same size, and it is MUCH easier than modifying it to size in Paint. What, you don't know how to do it in Paint?

3. In Paint, go to Image, Resize, then click on Pixels. Simple, and a LOT easier than dragging it, or reducing by percentages.

4. When you add the icon to your site, ensure you put a descriptive alt tag in there, with something like "Accurate Auto Glass Blog" or "John on Twitter". This definitely helps wit your SEO.

5. When you are done, TEST THE LINKS! Simple, I know, but so easy to forget.

Anybody have any other good tips?

John