Mark Flavin's Blog | News & Tutorials On SEO, Social Media, Website Traffic & Internet Marketing » SEO

The 10 Best Google Chrome Extensions for Online Marketers

Mark Flavin — Thu, 24 Nov 2011 21:22:21 +0000

With the speed and versatility of Google’s Chrome browser you can now have quite a few more extensions and still have your computer humming along at maximum efficiency. The ChromeWebStore is full of great plug-ins to make your life as an Online Marketer easier. Below are the top 10 that you shouldn’t live without.

Of course, I will say that each marketer specializes in a particular piece of the trade. So all of these plug-ins might not fit the idea tool set for each person, but if you are a jack-of-all-trades kind of marketer like myself, you’ll see the value in each one.

PageRank

A lot of marketers will argue against the value of relying on Google’s PageRank number to judge a site. But if you are trying to comb through a ton of websites to find the ones worth spending your time on, there is no better initial indicator in my opinion. And with thismandatoryplug-in you don’t even have to click anything to see where each site stands.

bitly | a simple URL shortener

Bitly has always been my preferred shortening service for their tracking features and easy to use service. Their ChromeExtension gives you everything you have been enjoying from their website and Twitter and puts it at the top of your toolbar.

SEO for Chrome

SEO for Chrome is the grand-daddy of Internet Marketing extensions. This SEOanalysisextension allows you to see a ton of metrics for each site you visit including various backlink providers, traffic numbers, pages indexed, and a bunch of other on-site SEO checks. If you haven’t been using this Extension you have been living under a rock.

Awesome Screenshot

The year is 2011 and if you are still using Print Screen to take screenshots of websites you are way behind. AwesomeScreenshot is a plug-in that not only gives you the most sought after ability to take a screenshot on an entire webpage, but it also gives you a simple editing screen with tools that cover most annotations you have been doing in Photoshop all these years.

Linkclump

If you do a lot of competitive analysis or outreach, you are probably holding the Command key down a lot as you click multiple links to open in new tabs. Linkclump let’s you drag a square around the links you want to open and automatically opens them all in new tabs for you.

Shareaholic

It isn’t always appropriate to share your marketing material using the same message across all of your social channels, but with Shareaholic, taking care of the sites you aren’t focused as attentively on is easy.

META SEO Inspector

This is another SEO plug-in that saves you time from viewing the source of each page to see what they have in their head tags. METASEOInspector is really great for making sure your own sites META description is as you’d like it and that all your script calls are linking to external documents.

Speed Tracer

SpeedTracer takes a look at a websites code and gives a very complete on-site diagnostics. This extension is great for making sure your own site is performing at its best to help Google crawl it faster (and Google made it themselves).

Domain Details

DomainDetails is a great extension for the really hands on marketer who is looking to make connections, buy out-of-date domains, or try to find website networks. The extension gives you all the data you usually look to GoDaddy or dnsstuff to find.

SeoQuake

I’m putting this one at the bottom of the list because I don’t actively use it, but I do know a lot of marketers that swear by it. To me this SEOextension is overkill with how much data it is pulling and the taking-over of my Google pages is a bit overwhelming. But if you really want to know everything about a website at a glance, this is the most complete plug-in out there.

Frank Anderson is a technology and marketing blogger. He works with email exchange hosting and various other email technologies.

The 10 Best Google Chrome Extensions for Online Marketers is a post from: Mark Flavin's Blog | News & Tutorials On SEO, Social Media, Website Traffic & Internet Marketing

The Latest Change To Google’s Search Algorithm

Mark Flavin — Thu, 03 Nov 2011 23:04:01 +0000

The latest change Google has made to it’s search algorithm is designed to bring ‘fresher’ and newer content to the top of it’s results.

For example if you’re searching for the ‘European Championships’ it will presume you are searching for the championships next year and not one from 20 years ago.

Google explains it like this:

Given the incredibly fast pace at which information moves in today’s world, the most recent information can be from the last week, day or even minute, and depending on the search terms, the algorithm needs to be able to figure out if a result from a week ago about a TV show is recent, or if a result from a week ago about breaking news is too old.

This update shouldn’t change much for people who regularly update their content in fact it should help them, but if you’ve got a static site and are not updating content regularly this is another update which could hurt your rankings. So bottom line….. start making regular updates to your content, blogging is one of the easiest ways to do this.

The Latest Change To Google’s Search Algorithm is a post from: Mark Flavin's Blog | News & Tutorials On SEO, Social Media, Website Traffic & Internet Marketing

Quick SEO Tip

Mark Flavin — Sun, 19 Jun 2011 11:24:46 +0000

If you’re not optimizing your websites URL’s & Titles then you’re missing out on FREE search engine traffic. Having your keywords in your URL’s & Titles is vital for your search engine ranking & an easy way to optimize your URL’s & Titles if your site is built on wordpress is to use the All In One SEO Plugin.

Here’s some of it’s features:

Support for Custom Post Types
Advanced Canonical URLs
Fine tune Page Navigational Links
Built-in API so other plugins/themes can access and extend functionality
ONLY plugin to provide SEO Integration for WP e-Commerce sites
Nonce Security
Support for CMS-style WordPress installations
Automatically optimizes your titles for search engines

So if you haven’t used the All In One SEO Plugin yet give it a go & you might just see your search engine rankings rise.

Quick SEO Tip is a post from: Mark Flavin's Blog | News & Tutorials On SEO, Social Media, Website Traffic & Internet Marketing

How To Use SEO To Ruin Your Own Online Business

Mark Flavin — Mon, 23 May 2011 09:51:13 +0000

White hat SEO services employ time-tested strategies and leverage the raw power of social media to impress their clients with steady results. Other services grasp at newfangled tricks promising quick ROI, usually to their detriment. If you want to ruin your rankings, and possibly receive a nasty Google ban for your efforts, then here are six ways to do just that.

1. Use Broad Match in the AdWords Keyword Tool

Google’s Keyword Tool in AdWords defaults to Broad Match. Say you want to be known for “outdoor clothing.” When you search in the Keyword Tool for “clothing”, every word that can be associated with clothing makes it into the results, from baby clothing to pet clothing to clothing stores.

Uncheck the Broad box and check Exact. This drastically reduces the number of results to more relevant phrases.

2. Stick with Java navigation menus only

For all their whiz-bang programming, search engine spiders still cannot read JavaScript menus like those used for navigation. You do not have to sacrifice slick Java menus for text just to appease spiders like Googlebot. Keep your Java navigation menus for visitors, but include hyperlinks to other pages for the spiders to crawl. These page links can be placed near the top or bottom of the page, for instance.

3. Make 100% of your anchor text keywords

Say your site sells seashells, supposedly by the sea shore. If you want to rank highly for “seashells”, avoid using “seashells” in every bit of anchor text. Google deems this unnatural. Rank will suffer for it.

Ideally, between 8% and 10% of anchor text on your site should be “seashells”. The rest should be variations of that keyword phrase, such as sand dollar, sea urchin, and so on. People searching for “sand dollars”, for instance, reach your site and see your other offerings.

You do, however, want other sites to link to you with “seashells” in their anchor text. Just make sure to not overdo it on your own pages.

4. Employ blocks of content just for spiders

Place a block of text somewhere on each page stuffed with keywords, 90% to 100%. Also known as SEO copy, such blocks of text are keyword-only hyperlinks that are in bold with “< strong >” tags or underlined, or both. Spiders find this suspicious. Instead, disperse keywords throughout an appropriate amount of genuine content.

5. Don’t link to your own pages

Inbound links are important, but do not neglect to link internally as well. Linking to your own valuable content sends a good message about the authority of your material.

On a related note, remember to link to pages that link to you. Once high ranking sites start linking to your content, return the favor. This is a win / win for both the linker and the linkee.

6. Build links as fast as possible

Many a webmaster and small business owner can honestly claim to have patience until they pursue a link building campaign. It is tempting to see how many links the competition has, and want to rush your progress in response. Pursuing this action is the wrong way to go about business. Increase your monthly links around 4% to 10%, depending on how much content you add. Any more than that and you risk falling under the cold gaze of the spiders.

Simple mistakes like a poorly configured robots.txt file can prevent Google from indexing a page, or worse. More serious, so-called black hat tactics like phishing invite a complete ban. Keep the basics of SEO in mind, and that SEO is an ongoing process of continuous improvement. Avoid the six bad practices mentioned here, and your site will be poised to excel in the rankings.

How To Use SEO To Ruin Your Own Online Business is a post from: Mark Flavin's Blog | News & Tutorials On SEO, Social Media, Website Traffic & Internet Marketing

Technorati Tags: search engine optimization, search engine optimization mistakes, SEO

eHow.com & Others Slapped Hard By Google Panda Part Deux

Mark Flavin — Mon, 18 Apr 2011 07:50:20 +0000

Google has released an expansion to it’s Google Panda algorithm update & while it’s not as expansive as the original update it still affects about 2% of U.S. searches.

Somehow during the first Google Panda update eHow.com managed to survive being slapped & it was certainly a site people expected to be affected by the update. But with the release of ‘part deux’ eHow.com has been hit hard.

Sistrix has put together the winners & losers from this update. You can check them out below:

eHow.com & Others Slapped Hard By Google Panda Part Deux is a post from: Mark Flavin's Blog | News & Tutorials On SEO, Social Media, Website Traffic & Internet Marketing

Technorati Tags: ehow google panda, ehow.com google farmer, Farmer Update, google farmer, Google Panda, Panda Update

5 Free Resources From Google That Will Help Improve Your Search Rankings

Mark Flavin — Wed, 23 Mar 2011 17:49:04 +0000

What better place to get help with Search Engine Optimization then from Google. Below I have compiled some really great resources provided by Google which will help you get better rankings.

Resource 1: Google Webmaster Tools

Google Webmaster Tools allows you to see how Google views your site, to share information about your site with Google using sitemaps & even lets you set GeoTargeting for your site so it will show up in the relevant GeoTargeted searches. There’s lot’s of other really helpful tools in there as well so if you haven’t signed up for webmaster tools yet, please do soon.

Resource 2: Google’s Very Own Guide To SEO

Google’s Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide is really the beginners Bible to SEO. It goes through:

SEO Basics
Site Structure
Optimizing Content
Dealing With Crawlers
SEO For Mobile Phones &
Promotions & Analysis

This is really a must read for anyone looking to improve their ranking in Google.

Resource 3: Matt Cutts Blog

Matt Cutts works on search quality & web spam at Google so if anyone knows what Google is looking for when it comes to rankings this is the guy.

Resource 4: Google’s Webmaster Guidelines

Google outlines what it looks for from websites it its Webmaster Guidelines “Following these guidelines will help Google find, index, and rank your site.”

There are:

Design & Content Guidelines
Technical Guidelines &
Quality Guidelines

Resource 5: Google Adwords Keyword Tool

While the Adwords Keyword Tool is primarily for Google’s pay per click platform. We can use the data from it to find Global & Local Monthly Search Data which can be very helpful in deciding what keywords you may wish to target in your SEO plan.

So there you have 5 resources provided by Google which can help you get better search rankings & hopefully lot’s more traffic! If you’ve got any resources of your own, from Google or otherwise please leave a comment below.

5 Free Resources From Google That Will Help Improve Your Search Rankings is a post from: Mark Flavin's Blog | News & Tutorials On SEO, Social Media, Website Traffic & Internet Marketing

Technorati Tags: google resources, google seo, google webmaster guidelines, google webmaster tools, matt cutts blog

SEOPressor Review – 1st Page Google Rankings In One Day

Mark Flavin — Thu, 17 Mar 2011 00:31:37 +0000

I got access to a plugin called SEOPressor a few weeks ago & really like it. In a nut shell it helps you optimize your wordpress posts for your chosen keyword phrase & helps you get better search engine rankings for them.

Just yesterday I wrote a post reviewing Upflame a new sales page & squeeze building software. When I first started the post I had an SEOPressor score of 0% but I followed the plugins instructions, got the SEOPressor score over 66% & just a few hours later I was on the first page of Google for the terms ‘Upflame’ & ‘Upflame Review’.

Now obviously I have a well established blog with pagerank & inbound links so when I post something if I optimize it correctly it often finds its way to the front page or even to the top of the results but SEOPressor makes optimizing each & every wordpress post extremely easy.

Basically you follow what SEOPressor says & let it do ‘it’s thing’ & it will optimize your post for your chosen keyword phrase.

You can see the results below. (Go search Google for ‘upflame’ & ‘upflame review’ yourself to make sure there’s no shenanigans! Remember depending on what country your in or if you’re logged into your Google account the results may differ)

Results for search term “Upflame Review”

Results for search term “Upflame”

So their you have SEOPressor. A really easy to use wordpress plugin that can help you get top Google rankings. It will help you optimize every post you make so that every wordpress post can potentially bring you lot’s of free traffic from Google & the other search engines.

If you think a tool like this would be of help to you, you can try SEOPressor for just $7 for a 7 day trial.

SEOPressor Review – 1st Page Google Rankings In One Day is a post from: Mark Flavin's Blog | News & Tutorials On SEO, Social Media, Website Traffic & Internet Marketing

Technorati Tags: seo pressor, seo pressor review, seopressor, seopressor review, seopressor test

Google To Start Letting Users Block Sites From Search Results

Mark Flavin — Fri, 11 Mar 2011 11:53:01 +0000

Google is rolling out a feature which will allow search users to block sites from their search results. These are customized results & a user will have to be signed into their Google account to block sites but I would imagine Google will start using data from this in their ranking.

If a site is getting blocked by thousands of different users then their is an issue and I can’t imagine Google not using that data to effect the sites ranking in some way.

From an SEO point of view the usual goes ‘Content Is King’ if you’ve got great content you wont be blocked so it wont effect you in fact it may help you as the bad content around you gets weeded out.

But this is a very new feature, in fact it’s not active on my account yet, I haven’t had a chance to use it so right now I’m just speculating as to how the PhD’s at Google may use the data from this but it’s definitely something to keep an eye on.

Google To Start Letting Users Block Sites From Search Results is a post from: Mark Flavin's Blog | News & Tutorials On SEO, Social Media, Website Traffic & Internet Marketing

Technorati Tags: google seo, google users block results, search engine optimization

A Quick Start Guide To Search Engine Optimization For WordPress Bloggers

Mark Flavin — Wed, 02 Mar 2011 21:49:27 +0000

I just finished writing a short report called “A Quick Start Guide To Search Engine Optimization For WordPress Bloggers” (short report, long title!) It just goes over two things you MUST do to your wordpress blog to get top search engine rankings & shows you how to implement these two on page optimization strategies. Well worth reading if you’re starting a new wordpress blog or you haven’t optimized your current blog.

To download the report right click the download link link below & save the report to your computer. It’s in PDF format so if you don’t have a PDF reader on your computer you can download one here for free.

=> A Quick Start Guide To Search Engine Optimization For WordPress Bloggers (Download Link)

(Please click the Facebook like button to share this free report with your friends)

A Quick Start Guide To Search Engine Optimization For WordPress Bloggers is a post from: Mark Flavin's Blog | News & Tutorials On SEO, Social Media, Website Traffic & Internet Marketing

Technorati Tags: blogging search engine optimization, blogging seo, SEO, wordpress, wordpress search engine optimization, wordpress seo

EzineArticles.com Slapped Hard By The New Google Farmer Algorithm Update.

Mark Flavin — Sun, 27 Feb 2011 22:48:31 +0000

Unless you’ve been hiding under a rock lately you’ve probably seen & heard the bashing Google has been getting regarding it’s results & particularly the quality of the content it ranks highly. Basically people were creating crappy content on the cheap, getting backlinks to it & getting top rankings (Including major corporations such as JC Pennys)

Well Google decided to make some changes & many of the major article directories and ‘content farms’ are after getting hit badly after Google rolled out this new update to their algorithm & have seen their rankings drop dramatically.

One of the major losers has been EzineArticles.com A site I use a lot and I’m sure a lot of people reading this post do too. Over at Search Engine Land there’s been some number crunching going on & EzineArticles.com has lost over 130,000 positions in Google!

As you can see above lots of other well known sites were hit hard too.

Over at Abbamont.com Dan Abbamont has done some keyword position comparisons from before & after the Google update. Here are some of the EzineArticle.com changes:

ezine – From #1 to #2
ezine articles – From #1 to #1
cell phone lookup – From #1 to #2
reverse phone lookup – From #21 to #35
“lowest air fare” – From #>100 to #>100
copy paste traffic review – From #4 to #34
cell phone – From #>100 to #>100
reverse cell phone lookup – From #4 to #2
phone number lookup – From #26 to #36
ezine article – From #1 to #1
phone lookup – From #31 to #>100
acai berry – From #17 to #>100

For a full list check out Dan’s post here.

So what does the algorithm change mean for you? Well straight from Google’s mouth here’s what the update means:

In the last day or so we launched a pretty big algorithmic improvement to our ranking—a change that noticeably impacts 11.8% of our queries—and we wanted to let people know what’s going on. This update is designed to reduce rankings for low-quality sites—sites which are low-value add for users, copy content from other websites or sites that are just not very useful. At the same time, it will provide better rankings for high-quality sites—sites with original content and information such as research, in-depth reports, thoughtful analysis and so on.

So the bottom line is simple. Create original content that will entertain, inform, educate and help your readers. Give value to your readers & make sure your site is useful to them & it keeps people coming back to your site over & over again.

So what it really comes down to is creating content for your readers & not for the search engines.

So have you been effected by the Google Farmer update? How you seen your rankings drop? Did you have high ranking EzineArticles in Google? Leave your comments below.

**UPDATE** Ezine Articles has acknowledged this issue & will be making changes to their site, editorial review & guidelines in response to the Google Farmer algorithm

**UPDATE2** Ezine Articles have made 5 changes to their editorial review process including changing the minimum article word count to 400 & doubling the amount of review time per article.

EzineArticles.com Slapped Hard By The New Google Farmer Algorithm Update. is a post from: Mark Flavin's Blog | News & Tutorials On SEO, Social Media, Website Traffic & Internet Marketing

Technorati Tags: ezine articles slapped, featured, google farmer, google farmer algorithm, google slap, google slapped, google slapped ezinearticles