If you type in Mat seo in Google you’ll find my friend Mat Siltala’s home page. I thought I was all over the internet! I need to create a page on www.janetmeiners.com linking to my linkedin page, MySpace profile, Delicious bookmarks, Facebook page, et etc etc.

Mat is the smartest SEO expert that I know. I got to know him through his SEO blog. Frankly, I thought he doubled as a bouncer at rock concerts. But, no, he’s an SEO expert. I have good reason to kiss up, he’s going to be famous someday. He should be speaking at conferences.

MarketingSherpa gave some great tips on how to land a speaking gig and how to maximize the effect. I challenge Mat to speak at an SEO conference next year. He’s good at teaching complex subjects in a straightforward way.

How did I get to know Jeff Barr? How did I get to know Jeremy Palmer? Wayne Porter? I heard them speak at conferences. It’s often worth it to talk to the people whose speech you liked. I really enjoy talking to the speakers and giving feedback. They usually appreciate it too.

If you have experience getting speaking gigs - let us know how you got started.

Paul Wilson wrote about a tool that shows you how much money you could make on your blog if you used Google Adsense. It’s called Adsensemeter.com. According to that tool I could make around $1000 a month. He compared me against some of my peers. As I’ve mentioned before my friends at BuzzBooster pay their mortgage with AdSense revenue.

I haven’t put Adsense on this blog because I think it’s ugly. It interferes with the writing - which already has little aesthetic appeal. My blog in general is very much based on information. You’ll see I have affiliate ads (thank you to anyone who has bought from my blog). They are pretty ugly. But my friend Mat says, who cares. I guess I do care.

So what do you think? Should I turn on the AdSense ads and see what happens? I think I’ll turn on MightyAdsense - a Wordpress plugin - and test it out. Would it make you leave me?

I’m a little surprised that Adsensemeter doesn’t have any links to how to optimize AdSense for your blog. It seems to me, when you see the potential you want to know exactly how to. They are missing out on a chance to write articles with AdSense ads on them. Or sell ebooks or other eproducts all about AdSense. They could team up with Joel Comm, AdSense king. I just don’t understand why they are not capitalizing on this when their tool is focused on capitalizing.

P.S. - This post is a rebellion against SEO. So please excuse the funny links. I’m just feeling burned out on it today. I spent too long trying to explain it to beginners.

Free Business Cards from Vistaprint (you just pay about $5 shipping)

Top 20 SEO Factors from the Search Engine Ranking Factors Guide by SEOmoz.

Each principle has commentary by SEO experts. You can learn a lot by reading the comments. Some of these factors work better in some search engines than others (like misspellings in meta keywords work in Yahoo but not many other search engines - though perfect to use in your PPC ads). Some of the factors I’ve completely ignored or don’t quite know what they are speaking of.

My biggest SEO lesson. Your title tag, and H1 header tags should match exactly and have the main keyword for the page. I changed my title tags on a site, it lost page rank and it has never returned (big regret that I can’t change it back!).

The top 10 positive factors - what you should be doing (in order of importance)

1. Use keyword in title tag (can you believe this simple factor can have the biggest benefit?)
2. Global link popularity of site (how well linked is your site?)
3. Anchor text of links going to your site (use your keyword as the text that is linked, rather than making all links say “click here”)
4. Link popularity within the site’s internal link structure (not sure what this means)
5. Age of site (unlike people, search engines favor the old. It shows a sense of permanency and therefore greater trust & higher ranking)
6. Topical Relevance of Inbound Links to Site (if your site is about internet marketing are your links also about internet marketing and related terms?)
7. Link popularity of site in topical community (so if your site is about affiliate marketing, get more links from other affiliate marketing sites)
8. Keyword use in body text (repeat your keyword a few times in the body of your web site, especially as links, bold, headers, or italics).
9. Global link popularity of linking site (get links to your site from authority sites, like .edu sites, Wikipedia, high page rank, etc)
10. Topical relationship of linking page (just meaning does that particular page that links to your site relevant?)

5 negative SEO factors to avoid:
1. Server is often inaccessible to bots
2. Content very similar or duplicate of existing content in the search engine
3. Your site links to low quality or spam sites
4. You participate in link schemes or you actively sell links
5. Duplicate title/meta tags on many pages (mix them up, a new title and meta tag for each page on your site)

Search Engine Optimization Specialist Gives Top Tips

This is basic for some of my readers. I wrote it for women entrepreneurs who are at various stages of internet marketing. Kelly told me my post on her site gets a lot of hits, so I thought I’d review search engine optimization basics. Then she’ll can post it on her blog, which I’m sure is backlogged.

Think about what terms people might put into a search engine if they were looking for your blog, web site, or products. You can have a beautiful site with a lot of information, but if no one can find it, you’ve wasted your time. One primary way people find web sites is through search engines like Google, MSN, or Yahoo. They might type in your company name, your personal name, your product name, where you are located, etc.

Read more…

Dave Taylor of AskDaveTaylor.com answered an SEO question recently that I think is worth commenting on. It is very straightforward. I know a lot of companies get confused because they hear different takes on SEO from different people.

I like how Dave explains SEO. You want people to be able to find your company when they search on terms relating to your business. He explains it so clearly. I’m with him in that large companies are often leaving a lot on the table while small companies often get too caught up in the minute details.

Big companies are doing too little, and many small companies are too focused on SEO at the price of good content production. The magic bullet is just to produce lots of good, fresh unique content, not to play SEO games and trick people into linking to you…

I’ve fought political battles over SEO many times. Do meta keywords matter? How much do they matter? Should we use this or that strategy for getting higher rankings (common phrases or long tail phrases, a few keywords or many)? There are all sorts of philosophies out there. I felt a little famous when a friend pointed out my blog is everywhere in the search engines for affiliate marketing terms…because honestly I don’t monitor it at all. I don’t have time to worry or care. I just write. In fact, I don’t write in my blog enough.

I interviewed a few people at Affiliate Summit and we have some different camps when it comes to SEO (search engine optimization). One group believes in formulas and exactness in getting ranked (a systematic approach). The other focus primarily on writing high quality, useful information for PEOPLE and arrange it so search engines can easily find and index it (site structure). Talk about formulas and their eyes glaze. (Can I name drop here? Rosalind Gardner, Colin McDougall, and Will Reynolds fall at various spectrums in this camp).

Personally I think there are some formulas or deliberate ways of going about writing that work. However, I’m not *that* detail-oriented (or I’d still be a web developer not a marketer). The actual implementation can take the joy out of writing for me. That’s what cheap labor is all about, right? let them handle the details (be the editors). In fact, I’d love to have a detail slave (there are people whose minds work like this I’m told) go through my blog and add links and format it and make it all look good for me. I need a blog editor, not as in a WYSIWYG editor or tool, but as in a real live person. I guess I know I’ve arrived as a writer if I get my own editor.

What SEO strategy more closely defines your philosophy? Are you a technician (you control the details to the desired outcome) or a creator more concerned about the overall affect (you set everything in motion and let the rankings continue to build)?

[tags] affiliate marketing, internet marketing, online marketing, search engine optimization, SEO, SEO blog [/tags]

The Online Marketing Blog posted results from their recent reader polls. Remember these are SEO geeks and they are most likely SEO agencies. I’m going to put the top answer to each and some commentary.

What do you like most about your search marketing job? (67 answers)
You are truly appreciated for your expertise and contributions (21%)

Note: Money wasn’t one of the top reasons. People like to make an impact. Building a reputation was next, which is related to this idea.

What is your favorite marketing conference? (56 answers)
Search Engine Strategies (46%)

Note: Affilliate Summit came in last with 4% (though it is more specialized and this is an SEO crowd, not a crowd of affiliate marketers).

What is the primary purpose of your blog? (54 answers)

To publish/share my ideas (35%)

Interesting enough getting the significant SEO benefits of a blog was dead last on the list at 6%. Again, this is from SEO folks (SEO agencies it looks like) who are savvy and could benefit from the marketing and SEO. Sharing openly is a HUGE part of blogging. In its best form it’s not a one-sided relationship (getting links, getting business) but a giving/contributing one. I love the community-building aspect of blogging as well. Has someone you don’t know ever hugged you because of your blog?

I talked with Danny Sullivan at Affiliate Summit about how people read things into your blog and make assumptions (like that a particular post was about them, excluded them, etc when in reality it had nothing to do with them. Chris Knudsen says that’s part of the reason he pulled back on blogging).

What are your most common reasons for discontinuing a client relationship? (64 answers)

Client is too difficult to work with (53%)

Yes, once again money again wasn’t a factor. Getting paid well is a side benefit but if the client is difficult to work with it doesn’t matter.

Mat Siltala’s SEO blog rocks. I wish I had more time to read it. It’s full of insightful, original thoughts on search engine optimization. We all need to keep on top of it if we’re on the web. So just read his blog. He also posted about social media press releases on EplanIt.

Also check out Chris Bennett of 97thfloor. Here’s a great example of his expertise in this post about directory submission sites. These are must-read SEO blogs.

If you live near Provo Utah, stop in for a free SEO Presentation at Corporate Alliance. It’s on Thursday, January 18th at 9:15am. It will be given by Joshua Steimle (someone I’ve always wanted to meet), who owns MWI, a Utah SEO firm.

The free 20 minute presentation is titled: 10 Search Engine Optimization Tips Anyone Can Implement.

Einstein’s Bagels will be served at 9 a.m., and the presentation will begin at 9:15 a.m. and will have a question/answer session afterwards.

No need to RSVP and everyone is welcome. Corporate Alliance is in East Bay at 746 East 1910 South, Ste #2, Provo, UT 84606. They are a great organization for small business owners.

My friend Christer has started aggregating my blog on Utah SEO Planet. I’m with some great company there. The only thing is, it makes me feel like such a talking head.