In a nutshell, #SEODJWed is a group of SEOs from around the world with a wide range of musical tastes, each sending out links to music they enjoy, or have been asked to play… and it happens on Wednesday.  It’s been dubbed “Social DJing”, I just call it fun.  It’s the way radio ought to be, great music, an occasional interesting story and no commercials.  It’s defiantly NOT your parents’ radio.

To find out more about what it is and how it got started, I did an email interview with some of the frequent contributors.  I sent questions to Monica Wright (@MonicaWright), Tony Verre (@TonyVerre) and Steve Plunkett (Steve does his DJing as @djpaisley), and since I recently started pitching in, I figured I provide my own answers as well – that doesn’t make me crazy, right?

How did #SEODJWed get started?

Monica Wright is credited with creating the concept (before it got the hashtag), so I asked her how it got started.

Monica Wright:
It started really back this winter – one day I noticed Branko Rihtman (@neyne) was pushing out music via Grooveshark and not blip.fm, so I got on and we started sharing music pretty regularly. Then one day I threw it out on Twitter and asked if people wanted to hear Led Zeppelin or More Americana / AAA format music (The Doves, Conner Oburst, Hot Tuna, that sort of thing) and got a resounding response for Led Zeppelin. People started making requests, I started sending out tributes, and then next thing you know Tony Verre gave it the hashtag of #seodjwed. The following Wednesday Tony and I chatted about what we were going to play, and it went from there.

I’ve talked about music quite a bit with @djpaisley, @netmeg, @michellerobbins and Tony, so they were all part of the group. Contributors now just happen – you Jack started contributing – and I recall Branko doing an 8o’s stint once this spring. Now Steve Plunkett, and @melyssatweeting have joined in as well. Tony has been the most consistent, though. I try to take part, but most of my meetings happen on Wednesdays while in the office.

But the magic is that it just happened. Nobody really “owns” it, nobody is territorial, and anything goes. And it’s not just playing the music, people actually listen and make requests, share lyrics, you name it.

There was a subtle thing that happened at SMX Advanced this year… Chris Sherman asked attendees in advance what they want to listen to. I suggested a few songs, ones I actually really got into from #seodjwed. While at the meet and greet before the conference I heard one of the very random (and not well-known at all) songs I requested. Of course I pulled out my phone, DM’d Branko, “Holy crap they are playing PlayRadioPlay!”

And it wasn’t even a Wednesday.

How do you share music with Twitter?

There are a several different tools for “tweeting” what you are listening too, I asked each of these “Social DJs” what their favorite is and why;

Steve Plunket:
Blip.fm – integration into feeds.. prohibits download of music w/o buying from itunes, amazon or soundcloud of course.

Tony Verre:
Personally, I like Grooveshark. The interface is really straight-forward. It’s easy for me to create playlists, spending 30 minutes lining up songs, and then roll them out.

Monica Wright:
I like Grooveshark, but I use Blip occasionally as well. I just got used to the interface, and I have a desktop app, so all the ads and video aren’t flashing in my face like Blip. I haven’t really listened to Pandora much lately.

Jack Leblond:
I really like the selection at grooveshark, and the fact that it’s not polluted with people doing their at home karaoke versions of songs, but I stick to blip.fm because it creates a channel based on the #SEODJWed hashtag, people can jump in at anytime and start listening, regardless of who tweets the song and they don’t need to click each song individually.

How do you find the music you share?

To me, it seems the DJs have an endless supply of great music at their fingertips, I asked how they choose the music they play;

Tony Verre:
I like to pick themes each week, genres if you will. Sometimes I just have no inspiration, and field requests. Monica and I wanted it to be a spontaneous expression; just play good tunes. Unfortunately, when I think that people depend on something (and hopefully they do) I start thinking about songs and playlists on Monday. It’s sad, and little pathetic, but, hey, I’m a people-pleaser.

Monica Wright:
I just kind of go with it. I try to find new stuff from other people (that’s usually my mission), but I go with whatever I feel like listening to. And then when other people start requesting or sending feedback, sometimes themes can happen.

Steve Plunkett:
I go for breaking club hits from the UK, local hip hop radio playlists and secret releases from artists that leak to me.

Jack Leblond:
I play a lot of my favorites from “back in the day”, I ask for requests, but also rely on Google to provide “best of” lists that I pull titles from.  I know that’s cheating, but it’s amazing I often I find myself thinking “Wow, I forgot about that song – I loved that song back then.”

What’s your favorite music?

The music that gets played by these people varies wildly, I was curious if they had a favorite genre;

Monica Wright:
That too goes with the mood. I know it seems like I am avoiding the question. Maybe the better question is “What is your favorite genre lately?” That would be a lot of indie stuff (if you classify it that way) – The Doves, Vampire Weekend, PlayRadioPlay!… you can see what I’m listening to on Grooveshark and Blip, that would be easiest.

Steve Plunkett:
Electronica.

Tony Verre:
Jam-Band.

Jack Leblond:
As the old man of the group (you kids get off my lawn!) I tend to lean towards the classics of rock and punk from the ‘70s and 80’s.

What music won’t you play?

One of the great things about SOCIAL DJing is that people don’t feel compelled to play something they don’t like.  I asked the DJ’s if there was anything they wouldn’t play;

Steve Plunkett:
Country.

Tony Verre:
Been doing this for a while now, and I noticed I don’t play much hip-hop at all. However, that’s about to change (next #SEODJWed it’s happening). As for anything I won’t play? So far I haven’t had that challenge, and I hope it stays that way. J  I try to keep to fun and play meaningful, nostalgic stuff.

Monica Wright:
Haven’t gotten there yet, but anything REALLY noisy, violent or crude. It’s just not my thing.

Jack Leblond:
I’m really not a fan of hip-hop or rap, but if somebody requests something that doesn’t make me feel like jamming a pencil in my ear, I’ll still play it.

Why do you do it?

Given how busy I know these people are, I wondered why they took time from their work-day to do this every week;

Tony Verre:
#SEODJWed started out as something that Monica Wright (@monicawright) and I put together, after Michelle Robbins (@michellerobbins) suggested it. We’re both music junkies, quite eclectic tastes between us, but have a base in jam-band bands.

I’ve really enjoyed doing it the last few months. For me it’s another creative outlet, crafting musical themes each week and really stretching my music catalog. I really do believe it’s a more than sharing music; at sub-conscious level, you’re helping people share memories. Where you were when you heard that song, what you doing when you heard that song; your own personal wormhole.

Not to mention I think it’s another unique way to make the Twitter space less about hyper-information sharing, but give it more panache, in the same manner FollowFriday gave people something to look forward to each week.

Admittedly, #SEODJWed runs the risk of being “played out” in the same way FollowFriday did, but I think it’s still little to obscure for that yet (once people start spamming the hashtag, we’ll simultaneously know we’ve made it and know that’s it’s dead.  J)

Monica Wright:
Why not? It happened organically, now it’s an event.

Steve Plunkett:
I love music.. if I wasn’t doing SEO I would be dj’ing in a club.

Jack Leblond:
It gives me some time to “shut off the SEO” for a while and just have fun.  In the middle of the week, that can sometimes be a life saver.

Join Us

I’d like to thank Monica, Tony and Steve for taking the time to answer these questions – and for letting me play along on Wednesdays.  If you aren’t already familiar with these people, you really should make a point of checking out the things they do.

Monica Wright is a terrific Maine SEO.
You can find Monica at; blip.fm, Grooveshark.com, Twitter and of course on her on site www.monicawright.com.

Steve Plunkett is a great Digital Communications Strategist.
You can find Steve at; blip.fm, Twitter and on his site www.dallasseoblog.com.

Tony Verre is a phenomenal Milwaukee SEO.
You can find Tony at; grooveshark.com, twitter and his site www.themilwaukeeseo.com

As for me, other than right here where you have already found me, I’m on blip.fm, grooveshark.com and Twitter.

Please Tune In

If you don’t already have an account on blip.fm, or grooveshark.com, make sure you get one before Wednesday arrives so you can tune in and enjoy the music.

Post from: Austin, Texas SEO - Jack Leblond

What is the deal with #SEODJWed anyway?

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In my last article I published a list of “TEN DO’s” from the 1998 edition of “Web Publishing for Dummies”, today we review ten things the authors thought you should NOT do. You might be surprised, as I was, that all ten are still applicable today.

The great thing about this book (if you ignore references to CompuServe, Prodigy and GeoCities) is that it was written before the search engines moved to the front of everyone’s mind. The information presented is primarily focused on creating a better experience for your visitors, and that is something that we should all be working towards.

Take a moment or two and review this list – did I miss anything?

1)  DON’T inadvertently limit your audience

Be careful when designing your pages not to inadvertently limit your audience by using some oddball feature that can’t be read by large numbers of people who use different Web browsers. Stick to basic HTML and Netscape additions through Netscape Navigator Version 2.0. Think twice before using HTML frames, Java programs, or ActiveX programs; many people won’t be won’t be able to access them. Warn people if you u se nonstandard features. Often providing alternative pages, such as text-only versions of your pages, is worthwhile. And including links to the software that works with your pages often pays-off; a link to Netscape if you use Navigator-specific tags, or a link to the RealAudio site if you include RealAudio sound, are two good examples.

This is still true, however, this advice is all-too-often ignored.  While the various browser makers are getter better about following standards, some still offer “extended capabilities” that some developers take advantage of; ignoring the fact that the rest of the world probably will see none of their hard work.  A larger problem though is the remaining site-owners that insist on having their site mostly in flash.  Years ago people were leery of flash because not everyone had it, and the download for the player was large (based on slower connection speeds), eventually though the folks at Adobe managed to get flash pre-installed on almost all machines.  This made some owners and developers think is was OK to go 100% flash.  WRONG. Aside from the SEO issues (that’s a whole other post), there are millions of people that access the web via mobile devices that have no idea what to do with your flash pages.

2)  DON’T abuse netiquette

Abusing the etiquette of the Internet is easy to do and can bring you a lot of negative attention. If you make any serious offenses, your Web service provider’s server may remove your page. And you can even get into legal problems. Avoid dubious practices such as spamming, sending unwanted e-mail to publicize your site; flaming, being fervently disparaging of other people or other Web pages; or putting up offensive material without some kind of warning label. Netiquette is an amorphous and evolving area of online behavior, so you may want to join a Web-oriented newsgroup where you can ask questions before publishing. Also, check out this site for more info: www.fau.edu/rinaldi/netiquette.html (link no longer valid).

Netiquette is as important now as it was then, just the ways people can ignore it have changed.  I used to say “if you wouldn’t do it in front of your mother, don’t do it on the ‘net”.  Then I moved to Texas (it’s hard to believe what people here will do in front of their mothers).  Even if you WOULD do something in front of your mother, the web may not be ready to see it.  Don’t make assumptions about anything – ever.  Ask lots of questions, participate in the community.  After you know what they want – make sure you have at it.

3)  DON’T “borrow” content without asking

Make sure that content you get from the Web to use on your own Web page is labeled as being freely available for reuse, or else get permission to reuse it. Most people are quite happy to help if you ask nicely and credit their work. The best part is that you make some good contacts with other interesting people. You also keep the law on your side.

Stealing is wrong people, no matter what you call it or how you do it.  Aside from the legal and ethical issues, this is what the search engines call “duplicate content” and it’s a good way to get your site dropped from the listings.  You want good content? Create it yourself, or pay somebody to do it for you.

4)  DON’T make your site hard to navigate

Beginners often organize their pages so that their sites are hard to navigate. If your site has more than two levels, you should give some thought as to how your visitors will navigate it. Nobody likes wandering from link to link with no idea what is where or having to follow ten links to find one piece of information. Keep the relationship between your pages simple. Make it clear which links are internal to your own site and which go out to other sites. Provide an index page or a common menu. And make navigation work consistently throughout the site.

Good site structure is becoming even more important, at the 2010 SMXAdvanced conference, one speaker used a slide that said something like “site structure + SEO = BFF”.  This is another case of the engines liking something that is good for users.  Users have always liked it when it’s easy for them to get around a site and find what they want – now the engines like it too.

5)  DON’T abuse graphics and multimedia

The biggest mistake beginning Web authors- and some experts- make is overusing graphics on a page. Keep in mind that not everyone has fast, expensive T1 lines (special high-bandwidths phone lines) wired directly to their home PCs; by far, the greatest majority of folks receive your web page via a more limited 28.8 Kbps modem. Keep your page size, including text and graphics, under 100K. Here are ways that you can do this without sacrificing design flexibility;

• Convert all photos to JPEG format.
• Use simple icons and banners- images without very many colors or complex textures-in FIG format
• Lay out your site to limit the amount of graphics on any one page, adding pages if you need to display more graphics
• Use thumbnail icons to give access to larger images

All those strategies make your pages smaller and faster for others to download. Your Net surfers will thank you.

Raise your hand if you ever connected to the ‘net via a dial-up connection…bonus points if you remember what your “baud rate” was.

Of course page load times are still important, though I can’t imagine a non-mobile page being under 100k anymore.  Once again (you may get sick of hearing this) the search engines are mirroring what users like;  Users want fast load times and the engines have started putting more emphasis on it as well.  Even though most homes now have super-fast connections, and even mobile devices are getting faster, you’ll want to make sure you tweek every ounce of speed out of your site.

6)  DON’T forget ALT tags and text-equivalent menus

Another basic mistake is not using text-equivalent menus forgetting that many people surf the Net without graphics turned on. Who would turn off graphics, you ask?

Many home user turn off graphics to speed things along, downloading only the graphics that they really need. Some people pay a high hourly rate for their Internet access, especially in much of the non-Western world, and turn off graphics to save money on their connection time. Others receive Web pages via e-mail because they don’t have a direct Internet connection. And some people who are visually impaired use the web with software that translates text-but not graphics-into spoken words. Always use the ALT tag to provide text equivalents to your graphics, as described in Chapter 7. Using the ALT tag is easy to do and will make it possible and easier for all these people to access your content.

It’s somewhat disturbing to me that the primary reason (according to the authors) to use alt-tags was for potential cost savings for users and the last reason was for screen readers/visually impaired.  Sadly, it’s only slightly better now.  Most people include alt text in their images because it helps with search engine indexing and the fact that it helps with screen readers is a nice bonus.

7)  DON’T forget the basics

Your site may be the greatest thing since sliced bread, but if you forget to include contact information for yourself in the site, how will you find out that you misspelled “bureaucracy” all over the place? Similarly, you won’t get many orders for your spiffy new widget if you put the ordering information five levels down in a web page called “fruit bat guano statistics-1876.”

More basics:

• Use mailto: tags (HTML tags used to specify your e-mail address; for example, <A HRES=*MAILTO:comments@mysite.com>).
• Include a copyright notice
• Add an index
• give credit where credit is due
• Make the important info prominent. Be ready to revise, based on user feedback.

OK, this literally made me laugh.  You have a book “for dummies” and assume they know the basics and are reminding them not to forget them.  Alrighty then.  How about instead of waiting for a site visitor to tell you about your spelling mistakes, you use this new thing we have now…maybe you’ve heard of it – “spell-check”.  But otherwise, yes – do remember to include your contact info, and make it easy for visitors to use. Do have both a site index and a menu, and for the LAST bullet (which should have been first)… make important content easy to find, and adjust if it’s wrong.

8)  DON’T start by setting up your own Web server

There are several “easy-to-use” Web server packages on the market, and Web server capability is even being built into Macs and PCs. But even with these efforts, buying, setting up, and maintaining a Web server can become the most expensive, most complicated, and most frustrating part of Web publishing. Luckily, you can use the free services described in this book, or paid services, to put your content on someone else’s Web server while you learn the other tricks of the trade. Then, as your knowledge and experience grow, consider setting up your own Web server.

I don’t think most people would even consider this an option any more, thankfully there are lots and lots of powerful and affordable web hosting companies available – I’m a fan of hotgator.com.  There are very few cases where it’s necessary to maintain your own server.  Additionally, the phrase “easy-to-use” should never be used to described any web server package.

9)  DON’T forget the “World” in the World Wide Web

Remember that your Web pages are available and accessible to the whole world. Think a bit about that foreign audience. Is it worthwhile to include some foreign language content? Do you use colloquialisms that may not be understood by your foreign Net surfers? How do your pages look to your overseas colleagues who view them through the slow transoceanic Net link? Will your humorous or risqué content offend someone in another country of culture?

When you become a Web publisher, you also become a global citizen and your Web pages play on a global stage. Think through the meaning of your page in advance.

This really boils down to knowing your audience – and being able to adapt if needed.  Usually, a site’s content will fall into a consistent them or category and people who want to read about that content will understand most of how you write about it, regardless of where the live. However, writing for an international audience does take a little forethought.

10)  DON’T be afraid to learn more

Web publishing is not rocket science. It is computer science, but it’s relatively easy computer science. You’re not trying to land the space shuttle here- and chances are, lives are not at stake. Experiment, try weird things. Ask for feedback. Never be afraid to learn complex and hard stuff. (It’s only complex and hard because you don’t understand it yet!) Neat stuff is being developed (and some cool stuff is already out there) that will make Web publishing even more exciting- VRML, Java, new browsers and publishing tools, groupware, Net-based games, and online business infrastructure. All this new stuff is understandable and usable by normal folks like you. Don’t be intimidated. You can use all of them. (If you’ve come this far, you’ve got what it takes!)

Not only should you not be afraid to learn more – you should do your best to always be learning more.  Don’t be afraid to make mistakes, rarely do you learn something by doing it correctly.  Be sure to document how you do things, what works and what doesn’t – this sort of testing will make your life easier.

There you have it – Ten Web Publishing DON’Ts, straight from the web design time machine.

What did you do then that you find yourself  NOT doing today?

Post from: Austin, Texas SEO - Jack Leblond

Ten “DON’Ts” from the Web Publishing Time Machine

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I was somewhat startled to discover a copy of “Creating Web Pages for Dummies (1998)” on my desk this morning. The book promises I’ll be able to “Create Dazzling Home Pages – In No Time!” I’m still not sure who put it there, or what they are trying to tell me, hopefully that mystery will soon be solved, and hopefully they were thinking I’d get a laugh from it and not that I’d learn something from it. As I glanced at the table of contents, it did generate a grin or two – there’s a whole section devoted to geocites. However two chapters stood out more than the rest “Ten Web Publishing DO’s” and “Ten Web Publishing DON’Ts.” I just knew these tips from the early days of the web would create some laughs, so I flipped ahead and looked at the lists. I could not have been more wrong. Why I was wrong is connected to the fact that there is something very important to note about this book – the ONLY mention of anything search engine related is this brief definition:

Search engine: Web-based services that help you find things you are looking for.

Why is that important you ask? Because this book was written before web designers/developers thought that getting attention from Google was more important than giving visitors good content. The fact that the authors were concerned with content makes both of their lists still (mostly) accurate. Below is the list of ten “DO’s” along with my comments about how they may (or may not) apply today.

1) Do think about your target audience

Who is your Website targeting? A little thought along those lines can make your pages much more appealing to your visitors. Before you begin creating your website, choose the right look and feel and style of presentation that is appropriate for your audience. Include links that your visitors find interesting, not just the ones that you find interesting – unless that’s the point of your page, of course. In addition to using good sites as models (see the next “DO”), research other media, such as newspapers and magazines – the articles and the ads – that have a similar audience as yours to find good and bad examples.

This is still great advice – it’s impossible to deliver great content if you don’t know what your audience wants. Your site might hold the secret formula for free energy from the ocean, but if the reader is looking for instructions on how to make great mojitos, to them, your site sucks.

2) Do use good sites as models

Many good sites are out there. Ignoring those good examples when designing your own site is not the best idea. Take a look around and find the designs that work. Think about why each design you like works well for you. Is it the use of color and layout of the Web page? The fact that the site loads quickly? Well-organized content? Note what works and why, and then strive to duplicate that effect in your own Web pages. Look for conventions in presenting information that Web users have grown accustomed to, neat design ideas, and various types of content. You’ll be surprised how many ideas you get from this huge reservoir of Web expertise.

I had a boss once that was fond of saying “I don’t need you to re-invent the wheel, just find a better way to use it.” Keep that advice in mind while you research other sites for ideas. You don’t always have to do something completely different, just do it better than the rest. It’s interesting to me that in 1998 (when people were lucky to have a 56kbs modem at home) a quick load time and well-organized content where obviously important factors. Today, when most teens (college students) have NEVER used a dial-up connection, we are once again concerned about how quickly our pages load.

3) Do get permissions for content

You can easily peek at the HTML source of any Web page, and that’s a good way to learn new design techniques. But you can also easily grab any content that exists on the Web, even privately owned content that belongs to others. However, the fact that grabbing others’ content is easy does not make it right or legal. It’s also not necessary.

A great deal of public domain content is out there, and getting permission to use private content is not hard. If a Web page does not explicitly say that its content can be freely borrowed, assume that it’s copyrighted or otherwise protected – which means you should ask before borrowing any of it. Many people are happy to let you use their content in order to gain exposure on your pages, as long as you provide proper attribution and reciprocal links. In the process, you may just gain new friends or business contacts, as well as avoid legal problems down the road. (And in case you get tempted to borrow quietly, keep in mind that word of unethical practices gets around quickly on this amazing global network.)

Sadly, this is something that seems to always be forgotten. C’mon folks, don’t be a jerk – it only takes a minute (or two) to do things the right way.

4) Do use links to outside sites

No matter how great your content is, you’d be wasting the most important feature of the Web if you did not include links to sites outside your own. No matter what your topic, you can find complementary sites out there on the Web. Giving your visitors links to those sites is only courteous. If you research your links carefully and organize them well, your links can be a valuable resource to others. In your own Web surfing, you’ve probably found it to be true that one of the best experiences on the Web is the serendipity of stumbling upon some cool link that you had no idea existed; give your visitors that experience. Point them to the outside world. That’s why it’s the Web and not the Thread.

I can recall conversations with clients about this, they would get so upset about me linking to OTHER sites. “Why do you want them to leave?” they would ask. Thankfully, I think most people have now realized that links to other sites are not only NOT evil, but people like them. And, since people like them – guess what, the search engines like links too.

5) Do use graphics and multimedia

A prime attraction of the Web is that it is designed to present graphical information, yet there are still many beginning Web authors who are intimidated by graphics and shy away from using them. Include a picture, icons, bars, and graphical menus in your Web page. Go ahead, try out transparent and interlaced GIFs. Multimedia is a great addition tool one or two sound files, a QuickTime movie, even a simple animated GIF can really liven up a site. The bottom line is that sites rich with graphics and multimedia are much more interesting than purely text-oriented ones. Give it a go. (But be prudent)

This is still true, in fact it’s been shown that pages with images actually get more readers than those without. Just don’t go overboard, you don’t want to give people seizures.

6) Do think before you create

It may sound basic, but a surprising number of people lust jump in and start throwing around text and HTML tags with no clue about where they’re going or what they want to accomplish. That approach is fine if you just want to play around – in fact, that approach can be a lot of fun. But if you want to make a good impression on the Web, sitting down and thinking about a few things ahead of time really pays off. Sketch your Ideas on paper. Then describe them to someone else and ask for feedback. This prep work forces you to consider things that you may not think about otherwise: Page layout, graphic design, relationship between pages, target audience, content structure, link grouping, and other issues that, when properly integrated, can make your site a first-class Net surfing experience.

Back in 1998 look and feel were among the biggest concerns of somebody building a website. The web hadn’t started creating applications yet, sites were mostly information storage locations. While look and feel are still very important today, you need to go beyond that in your planning phases. Think about your site structure, what directories, file names, tags, categories – even how much traffic you might eventually get. It can be difficult to gather all of this, but if you don’t get it right in the beginning, your growing pains might be bad enough to kill a whale.

7) Do ask for feedback

You’ll be amazed by what people say about your pages. (Some of the comments may even be complimentary!) Put your e-mail address on your home page and ask for comments. People who have never before seen your site will have a good, fresh perspective and can give you feedback on things that you may not have thought about. Everyone can benefit from outside input. Criticism by your prospective audience is not only useful, it’s also educational. You can learn a lot about what people expect and want. Criticism can’t hurt anything but your pride, and it almost always improves your site.

It’s hard to believe, but there was a time when people would only tell you what they think of you if you asked them. Now, in the era of Twitter and Facebook, it can sometimes be difficult to make them stop talking about you. That can be good or bad, depending on what they are saying – but in any case – LISTEN TO THEM.

8) Do test your pages

Testing your pages is easy. You probably don‘t send e-mail without spell-checking lt. Similarly, you should not put up your Web pages without testing them. That means looking at your pages on your own machine before testing them on the web – follow links, see how graphics and text fit together and so on. Also, looking at your pages in different browsers doesn’t hurt. If you can`t do it, ask a friend or even a stranger to help. Oh, again, don t forget to spell-check your pages.

This is just plain crazy-talk, right? While some people are comfortable throwing up gibberish, I don’t know many people who enjoy reading it. And, as the authors pointed out – make sure all your images load correctly, links are coded with valid addresses and yes, even on 2010 you STILL have to check your site in multiple browsers.

9) Do publicize your site

Nothing is more frustrating than putting up a site that no one visits. Fortunately, publicizing your site is not hard. Add your site to the popular indexes, for example, through the excellent “Submit-it” site: www.Submit-it.com (NOTE: This is no longer a submission site)
You can also post to appropriate Usenet newsgroups, put out a press release, or shout it from the rooftops. Just building a site doesn’t necessarily mean people will come to it. You still have to get the word out.

Of course site promotion is still important, but I would certainly suggest you avoid sites/services that claim they’ll submit your site to thousands of engines and indexes. Press releases, done correctly are a good way to start. Does anyone use UseNet anymore? You should make sure your site has a valid sitemap for the engines to crawl, but beyond that – there are lots of ways to promote your site.

10) Do update your site

A static site is a boring site. True, it works for some purposes, but in general, if you want people to continually revisit your site, you must keep it updated. The best sites are those that continually provide new and interesting content. Include pointers to information that’s frequently updated, like “Thought for the day” or “Links to new, cool sites.” Let users know how often to expect updates and be sure to showcase new content. A “New” icon next to recently added or updated content can work wonders.

You’ve probably heard the phrase “content is king” more times than you care to remember, but it’s based on the fact that both people and search engines like for you to keep your site fresh and the easiest way to do that is with a steady stream of new content.

There you have it – Ten Web Publishing DO’s, straight from the web design time machine. What did you do then that you find yourself doing again today?

Post from: Austin, Texas SEO - Jack Leblond

Ten Web Publishing “DO’s” from the Web Publishing Time Machine

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The quote below is word-for-word from a rather expensive looking insert, in an even more expensive looking direct-mail piece I recently received.  Ordinarily I like (Well, I don’t hate it) direct-mail, when it’s done correctly.  But this thing, which is titled “Who We Are” just talks in circles.  I’m sure I lose brain cells each time I read it.  I’ll hide the name of the company, partly because I think they are idiots, but more importantly, I don’t want to help them spread their name even a little bit.

“XXXXXX is a full-service social technology partner.
A global leader in the practice of digital consulting, community building, technology solutions, and digital measurement, XXXXXX helps our clients leverage the power of social media to drive greater value and success for their businesses.

Using expert cross-discipline strategic thinking paired with leading-edge customizable technologies, we create unique and innovative solutions that thrive in the ever changing and challenging online environment.”

BINGO!

I think what that means is they have to cool, new ways to use social media that will make more money for their customers.  If that is what it means, why don’t they just say that?  Or at least speak plain English.

The flip side of the piece does have some of the same techno-babble, marketing-speak but is actually understandable.  When I read the “what we do” section, I actually come away with a good idea of what they do.  It’s hard for me to believe the two sides of the sheet were written by the same people.

However, the bad taste and foul stench of the “who we are” blurbage makes me wonder if that’s how they’ll try talking to me if I were a customer.  No thank you.

Social Media is conversations and relationships.

It’s great to have tools and technology to help you with your Social Media, but keep in mind that a fool with a tool, is still a fool.  If you can’t (forgive me) engage your community, all the tools in the world won’t help you.  Techno-babble, marketing speak won’t help you.  Well, if you’re targeting 1992 era marketing people, then maybe they will.

You need to speak the language of the community you are reaching out to, and hopefully since they are your customers you know how to do that.

If you’re trying to sell tornado insurance to an Arkansas trailer park resident, you better not talk to them like they are playing a role in Macbeth.  And visa-versa, of course.

It’s not rocket science folks, this is old-time advertising gospel;  People respond better to images and language that reminds them of themselves, or who they want to be.

I don’t know about you, but who I want to be is NOT a 1992 marketing professional.

Post from: Austin, Texas SEO - Jack Leblond

Social Media BINGO!

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Not long ago, I was dropping some shirts off at the cleaners.  I had noticed that a few of my buttons were cracked and broken.  I asked the young woman working the counter if they repaired buttons.  She simply replied “No, we don’t.”  I was puzzled, I thought all cleaners did this – now I would have to either find a new cleaner, or repair them myself.  But then, possibly sensing the building frustration on my face, she added; “We can replace the broken ones if you’d like.”  What? I was dumb founded.  How could this woman be so clueless as to not understand that is what I had meant?  It seemed fairly obvious to me that I didn’t actually expect them to be sitting back there with a tube of crazy glue repairing the buttons.  Then it occurred to me, I had asked the wrong question.  Even worse, I had expected them to interpret what I asked into what I meant.

What’s your reason for asking the question?

Before you ask any questions, you have to have a qoal – or two, or 10.  What is it you want your Web site to do?  Guess what? Tony Robbins and all the other self-help dorks have something to teach us about SEO.  If you can’t measure it, it’s not a goal.  It might be interesting, but it’s not a goal.

Which of these statements might make a good goal for a Web site?

1. I want a web site full of silly pictures of cats that spreads joy and happiness throughout the world.
2. I want a Web site full of silly pictures of cats that attracts 25 bazillion visitors a day and makes so much money in ad revenue that I have to use a wheelbarrow to take my checks to the bank.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for joy and happiness, but how do you measure it?

Are you asking the correct questions?

After you have a goal, no matter how simple or grand, you must also set measurable steps to achieve it.  Each of those measures are the questions you need to be asking.

If you want to have XX number of visitors per month, that’s an easy measurement.  If you want XX dollars in ad revenue a month, also an easy measurement.  If you want to rank on page one of Google, well, that too is measurable.  However, is the phrase your are measuring the right one?  Does it support your end goal, or is it just interesting?  For example, many companies set a goal of ranking on page one for their own name.  While that certainly is something that every company should be able to do, I don’t see that as a worth-while use of time.  Simply because if you don’t rank for your name, you have bigger problems.  A more important question; How does your site rank for the name of the products you sell?

Just because you can, does not mean you should

It’s important for you to understand that just because you CAN measure something, does not mean you should, or need to.  If you are selling widgets for $10.25 a piece, perhaps 2,00 page views is pretty good for you.  Perhaps 10,000 page views translates into sales of 150 widgets, enough to keep your staff maxed out.  But are page views really what you should be measuring?  Are they what drives the success of your site? Sure, you could show a chart the demonstrates an increase in page views equates to in an increase in sales, but that’s selling harder, not smarter.  There’s a reason wal-mart doesn’t count people as they walk into the store.  They know it doesn’t matter.  Sure, there is a general correlation, but what really drives sales is shopper’s ability to find what they want quickly, and at a price they are willing to pay.  Can you say the same about your Web site?

What if the reason it takes 10,000 page views to sell 150 widgets is because your Web site is difficult to navigate? Or your products are hard to find, or your check-out process is too complicated?  Perhaps, the questions you should be asking are;

• What’s the ratio of completed to abandoned orders?
• How much time does someone spend on the site before they make a purchase?
• How many pages do they look at before they purchase?
• What are people searching for with your on-site search tool?
• What is your bounce rate?

Conversion doesn’t not have to mean selling something, maybe you want people to request more information, or to call an 800 number or download a white-paper.  Whatever it is, identify real things that may effect your conversions.  Those are the things worth measuring.

Compare Apples to Apples

While you may be able to make some broad industry comparisons, don’t get caught up in “benchmarks”.  Your site is your site.  Even if a competitor sells the same products as you, they will (probably) be using a different method and process to do it.  You can’t and shouldn’t model yourself after what you *think* they are doing.  Do what is right for you, for your company.

Test Everything

Now that you have your goals and measurements established, make sure you do lots and lots of testing.  It’s possible that something as simple as a button shape, or the hair color of a model could make a big difference in your sales.

Share the love

Now get busy setting your goals and determining the right measurements so that the next time your boss asks how many page views your site had, you can tell him “Sorry, we don’t repair buttons.”

Have fun!

Post from: Austin, Texas SEO - Jack Leblond

Are you asking the correct questions?

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I’d say that horse is dead, can we stop beating it now?  Customer support reps are SUPPOSED to provide great service…it’s like, their job, right?

Who should we be talking about?  The people who earn their living doing something else, but still step up and try to help when they sense frustration directed at or about the company they work for.  I recently had such an experience (Guess you figured that was coming)

Last week I was trying to get an answer to what I thought should be a fairly simple licensing question.  You see, my company uses ColdFusion on its public facing web servers, I wanted to know if we could legally use the license on more than one machine at the same time.

Side note: I have been a fan of ColdFusion since its early days when it was created by two brothers in their Minnesota garage. I can’t fault the brothers for selling off the company, but as ColdFusion has moved from Allaire, to Macromedia and now to Adobe, the support has gotten just horrible.

Traffic has grown on the company sites to the point that we want to implement fail-over servers.  ColdFusion is not cheap (that’s one of its few downfalls).  I wanted to find out if we could share the license on both the public-facing and fail-over servers if only one of them had public traffic at a time.  Simple question, right?  Wrong.

Over the course of two days I was bounced from sales, to pre-sales, to tech support to customer support, to volume licenses and back again.  I think I may have even talked to a janitor at one point.  Most people didn’t understand what I was asking (at least it seemed that way to me), others understood, but said it was not their area.

I was thrilled when, at last, one of the customer support reps told me she had found a document that provided the answers I needed.  I was dumb-founded when she told me the document was for “internal use only” and she could not forward it to me or give me an official answer based on it.  Imagine my joy when she transferred me to technical support.

Throughout all of this I sent FOUR, tweets out to the world mentioning Adobe and my growing frustration.

Enter our Hero,  Jeffrey Tranberry.  Jeff does not (officially) do customer support.  Jeff is not involved with the ColdFusion product line.  Jeff is on the Photoshop development team.  However, unlike the people that passed me from one department to another, Jeff is one of those rare employees that enjoys his job and his company.  He wants to help whenever, however he can.  He reached out to me with a simple message “Let me know if you don’t get your issue resolved.”

After a very brief exchange, I emailed him my question and he forwarded it on to someone he thought could help.  Within a few hours I had an answer – in print – from an actual support person.  Hooray!

Let’s quit congratulating companies for adding Twitter to the list of tools they use for customer support.  In my opinion, if an issue gets to Twitter, it’s because some other method has already failed.  Let’s stop congratulating people who are supposed to be doing customer support anyway and just happen to be on twitter.

Let’s start celebrating those rare employees who reach out when they aren’t required to, who step out of their comfort zones to help a customer when they have no real obligation to do so.  Let’s all tell Jeff and the others like him, we appreciate them and what they do.

Have you been helped by a non-support person on Twitter?

Post from: Austin, Texas SEO - Jack Leblond

Adobe’s Customer Support Hero – Isn’t in Customer Support

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If you’ve been here before you know how much I dislike lazy, uniformed e-marketers.  Relax, this is not going to be another rant.  I want to help you get better results, and maybe reduce the “junk” that fills my in-box every night.

Forrester Research reported that the average cost per order from an email marketing campaign was only $6.85.  Compare that to $12.27 and $19.32 for affiliate and paid search campaigns and it’s a no-brainer as to why companies are ramping up their plans to do even more email marketing.  Unfortunately, many companies are leaving money on the table.  The same Forrester study showed that of the companies doing email marketing, only 58% segment their lists based on customers’ purchase history or preferences.  This lack of segmentation not only costs them revenues, it is needlessly filling their customers’ mailboxes with unwanted mail.

If Customer’s don’t want it – It’s SPAM

One of the most difficult things for some e-marketers to understand is that just because someone opts in to their mailing list, that does not mean they want to see every offer under the sun.  It does not take many off-target emails before the customers start to view messages as an intrusion – spam, and not as messages from a trusted merchant.  It won’t be long after that when they start ignoring your messages, unsubscribe, or worse yet – click the “spam” button in their email software.

List segmentation is the solution to this problem.  By categorizing your subscribers into many smaller, targeted lists you are able to send them messages that are more likely to be of interest to them, therefore improving your click and conversion rates.

We’ll examine several forms of segmentation and how they might benefit a fictional sporting goods retailer.  The easiest methods are based on basic demographic data such as gender, age and geography.  Every retailer should be collecting and using this data at a minimum.  Loren McDonald, vice president of industry relations at e-mail services provider Silverpop Systems Inc. has been quoted as saying that with basic demographic segmentation, a retailer might increase open rates, click-throughs and conversions by 10% to 20%.

Gender Segmentation

As much of the country is well into the cool weather of autumn, our store wants to run a special on sweaters.  They could broadcast a generic message to their entire list.  Or, if their list contains some very basic demographic data (which it really should), they could spend a few extra minutes and craft two messages, each written to specifically target either men or women.  Believe it or not, this simple step will increase the click and conversion rates.

Geographic Segmentation

The purchasing department managed to score a great deal on snow shoes.  Naturally, our store wants to pass the savings on to its loyal customers (and make some bucks at the same time).  How likely is it that someone in Arizona will be interested in a pair of snow shoes?  I’ll say not very.  The e-marketing team should pull out a map of the USA and draw a line dividing the north and south halves….you know, places that might or might not have snow.  They should only send email to the people north of that line.

Customer Preference Segmentation

Our sporting goods store sells a wide variety of products, as such it could be difficult to get a fine-grained detail of specifically what each customer likes.  However, it’s pretty simple to create several categories of goods and ask them to select which they are interested in when they subscribe.  Maybe categories like; Outdoor, Summer sports, Winter Sports, Water Sports, Hiking, Biking, etc.  Now you are able to target these people more accurately.

Click-through Segmentation

There are a couple ways to segment based on how your subscribers react to your messages.  The first is one that usually causes the V-8 head slap when I tell people about it.  You are already tracking when people click through, right?  Are you tracking how often each individual person clicks though?  Why not?  Segment your lists by those that are frequent clickers, occasional clickers and almost never clickers.  Target each of them with specific messaging.  This is also a good method of performing housekeeping on your lists – if somebody NEVER clicks on your links, why continue to send them messages?

If your messages contain multiple offers, make sure you are tracking each one uniquely and also by who clicks on them.  Over time you may notice a trend that some subscribers  more frequently click to offers to certain products or manufactures than others.  You can use that information to send people messages that specifically target that product or manufacturer.  For example, our sporting goods store may see that some people click links to Nike shoes and others seem to prefer the Converse brand.  We could use that information and increase our click through rates by targeting messages to people based on the brand preferences.

Customer Activity Segmentation

This method is both powerful and potentially complicated.  Use your sales system to track what products subscribers view on your Web site and when they abandon a product in the shopping cart.  There are a couple things you can do with this data.  First, group the people that browsed your site by product or product type and send them specific messages enticing them to come back and purchase.

For the people that abandoned the shopping carts you’ll need to first do some analysis to determine why they did not complete the order.  Was it because of price? Is the process too complicated?  Is your shipping too costly?  After you have figured that out you will know what actions to take.  If price appears to be the problem, you can send out messages with enticing offers.  It’s possible that the shopper just got distracted and forgot.  If that looks like the case, send out messages to all of those people and remind them about the purchase they still have pending.

Date/Time Segmentation

Humans are creatures of habit.  I read a report not too long ago (sorry, I couldn’t find a link) that showed people tend to do the same types of things online more or less on the same days of the week and times of the day.  If you are able to group your subscribers by when they are active on your site, or when they subscribed to your mailings and send them mail on the same day of the week and time of the day, it is logical to assume that they would be online and be at their computer when your mail arrives.  People are more likely to open a new message when it arrives than they are one mixed into a list of several in their in-box.

Blended Segmentation

The holy grail of email marketing.  I think you’ll agree that each of the (fairly) simple methods I’ve discussed could have significant impact on your clicks and conversions.  Now, imagine what could happen when you start to blend these methods.  If you could send a message at 10 AM on Wednesday to men, over 40, who live in the south, prefer converse products and recently looked at running shoes on your Web site – wow!  That could really be amazing.

How do you segment your mailing lists? What have I missed?

Post from: Austin, Texas SEO - Jack Leblond

Improve Email Conversions by 20% with List Segmentation

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If you’ve been surfing the web for more than a few years, you may remember the days when seemingly every Web site was constructed using frames.  I built more than a few of those myself.  On the surface they seemed to be an ideal solution to many of the problems both coders and marketers had with non-framed sites.  For coders it meant you didn’t need to copy your navigation, headers and footers into every single page – saving you lots of time.  For marketers, it meant that your menus. logos and other branding information was always viewable by your site’s visitors, no matter how much scrolling they did.  In the days of Yahoo and other directory pages, it was a perfect way to build pages.

Then came the next generation of search.  Instead of relying on human provided data to build a huge list of web pages, these new search indexes used “robots”, “spiders” and “crawlers” to automagically navigate the internet.  Following links, they located pages and read their content dynamically.  This is when using Frames become a bad way to build pages.

Most web developers slowly stopped building pages with frames, mostly on their own, some after repeated, severe beatings by SEOs.  They are a very rare thing today, but I happen to stumble across one this weekend that is a perfect example of why using frames is bad, so I thought I’d share it with you.

Frames are Bad for SEO

I’ve been planning to replace my above ground pool’s small paper filter (which seems to always be clogged) with a more robust sand filter.  Thanks to some good luck (and Sherry’s Craig’s list addiction) we scored a used filter for next to nothing.  Now we just need a pump.  I spotted one at our local Home Depot and rather than buy it on the spot thought I would do a bit of research on it.

When we returned home I turned to my good friend, Google, and asked it to show me information on “flotec pool pumps.”  Considering that I included the company name, I was surprised at the results.  They were on page one, but way down at number nine. It seems the Flotec brand is well known on the web, but most of the results were for resellers or local pool shops. The fact that they did not rank higher for a query including the company name was odd.
My puzzlement grew when I clicked through to the page. As you can see, it does have some navigation to various product categories, but no other site navigation or information about the company. I kept clicking through, eventually working my way to the pump I was interested in. It looked like it would suit my needs, but I wanted to know where else I could buy it, if Flotec offered a warranty, where they were located.  I could find none of that information.
Noticing that all of the URLs I had visited contained an .asp file and some dynamic code information, I decided to strip off all but the root domain name. Happily, I was greeted by a not altogether unattractive home page. The page had decent menu, branding and links to the additional information I had been looking for.  The layout seemed a bit too familiar to me though.
I clicked the “pool & spa” link to see what navigating from the home page would show me. The scroll bar revealed the answer to the mystery.  When the scroll bar does not go all the way to the top or bottom, you can be sure the page is loaded inside some kind of frame. This is also why the layout seemed so familiar to me.  Branding on the top, navigation on the left.  It was the same layout used by nearly every frames-based site ever built. This is why the pages I found in my Google search looked the way they did.

Search engines are dumb

You have to keep in mind that as “smart” as the algorithms get, they are still pretty dumb.  They do not understand images and do not care about layout – well, not entirely anyway.

The most important thing to the search-bots are links and content.

Even though the Flotec home page appears (to us humans) to contain both content and links, what the search engines see is just three links.  This is where the problem begins.  To the engines, each of these links exist as independent documents.  Some have content, some just have more links.  The engines don’t care, they just crawl and index as they move along.

Because the engines are dumb, they don’t know that these content pages contain no site navigation and rely on other pages to provide it.  So, when a query comes along that seems to fit the content, they deliver it in the results.

That brings us back to where we started – an interior products page, devoid of any navigation or branding.  Obviously, that is bad.

Bad SEO bonus points.

The Flotec site earns a few bonus points in the bad SEO contest.  Not only are they using frames, but they also have at least two domains serving the same content, and also allow the pages to be served by both www and non-www versions of the domain.  That makes Google think there are FOUR sites with all the same content.  And what’s even more fun?  Google site searches for each of the four return different numbers of results.  They are throwing Google goodness right out the window.

site:flotecwater.com – 68 pages
site:www.flotecwater.com – 61 pages
site:www.flotecpump.com – 191 pages
site:flotecpump.com – 192 pages

Yahoo’s site explorer reveals even more trouble for Flotec and their web site.  Each of these four valid domains has links pointing back to it.  Having links distributed to multiple domains like this (without properly redirecting them) hurts their overall rankings.

Now you know why frames are bad (and why canonicalization is good).

Oh – if you happen to know somebody at Flotec, PLEASE have them drop me a line, cause we seriously need to talk.

Post from: Austin, Texas SEO - Jack Leblond

Frames: Good for pictures, bad for Web sites

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Think before you write

1. Define the job by picturing an ideal reader at the moment they finish reading. What exactly do you want them to be thinking and doing?
2. Identify the reader’s key questions. What are the questions you must answer to get the response you want?
3. Design paragraphs/sections that will respond to the reader’s questions.

Complete a draft before you edit

4. Find your voice. Can you hear the tone, rhythms, and word choices of the voice that will prompt the desired response?
5. Write a fast draft by answering your reader’s questions, engaging in an implied dialogue. Temporarily banish your internal editor.
6. Take a break and clear your head.  You know what you meant to write, and often your mind will just “fill in the blanks” if errors are present.

Edit before you publish

7. Give it a global edit, checking structure, voice, and scannability.
   • Structure: Do paragraphs/sections answer your reader’s key questions, and are they arranged, like stepping stones, to get your reader to the desired response?
   • Voice: Do you project the voice you want your reader to hear and do you keep it consistent?
   • Scannability: Can your reader get the gist at a glance?
8. Give it a line edit, checking flow, clarity, and concision.
   • Flow: Do you guide your reader, moving old to new within paragraphs and sentences?
   • Clarity: Do you convey the bulk of your meaning through concrete nouns and action verbs in your main clauses? Do you get to the verb quickly, usually within the first eight words of a sentence?
   • Concision: Does every word add more than it costs?
9. Take another break
10. Proofread check the following as you read aloud.
    • Accuracy: Is every claim true, fair, and provable?
    • Word choice: Does the ordinary meaning of every word convey your intended meaning? Have you checked for “caution words” like ensure/insure, accept/except, affect/effect, advice/advise, etc ?
    • Punctuation: Have you checked commas, hyphens, dashes, apostrophes, and other punctuation marks?

Publish

Now sit back and enjoy the compliments resulting from your new-found writing skills!

Do you have other tips or techniques you use when you sit down to write?  What are they?  Please share.

Post from: Austin, Texas SEO - Jack Leblond

10 Steps for effective writing

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I spent some time recently scouring the app store looking for tools that might be useful for those who want their sites to rank better on the search engines, for people interested in buying domain names, reviewing web statistics or monitoring the health of their web servers.

I was pleased at the number of applications available, many for free, some at reasonable prices, others – well – just a bit too high priced for me.  The following lists are by no means all inclusive, and are not sorted in any particular fashion.  They just happened to catch my eye somehow.  You can (and should) click the app names for screen shots and more details about the app.

Search Engine Optimization iPhone Apps

Everyone wishes that their Web site(s) would get better placement on the search engines, everyone.  Some of these might help, others – might get you banned.

1. Rankings
   Cost: Free
   What it does: enter a website address and a key word/phrase and the app will show you where the site ranks on Google, Yahoo & Live.
2. iSEO
   Cost: Free
   What it does: Enter web address and a search term and it tells you what page your result is on – but I have no idea what engine it checks.  It also shows how many inlinks a web site has, but again – no idea where it gets the info.
3. WebFight
   Cost: $.99 for full version, or Ad-supported lite version for free.
   What it does: Enter two search phrases and it will tell you which has had more search traffic and provide snapshots of Google search for the phrase.
4. Pokeseo
   Cost: $0.99
   What it does: Enter a web address and the app shows you (occasionally) what the PageRank is and how many backlinks the site has from Google, Yahoo,Bing and AOL.
5. SEM Calc
   Cost: Free
   What it does: Provide 5 nifty calculators that help PPC and email/banner ad marketers determines true costs.
6. SEO Submit Pro
   Cost: $2.99
   What it does: Submits your web site to 20 search engines.
7. URL Site Submitter Pro
   Cost: $0.99
   What it does: Submits your site to 20 search engine.

Domain Name Research & Registration iPhone Apps

Can you ever have too many domains registered?  I know a few people who would say “NO NEVER!”.  If you are one of those people, these apps are for you.

1. DomainScout
   Cost: Free
   What it does: Enter a domain name and the app checks to see if it is available, shows you whois info for those already registered.
2. Instant Domain Check
   Cost: Free
   What it does: Enter a domain and it tells you if it’s available or not.  Provides links to GoDaddy and Network Solutions if name is not already taken.
3. TLD Lookup
   Cost: Free
   What it does: Provides a glossary of all the top level domains.
4. HotNameList
   Cost: Free
   What it does: Displays names of recently expired domains, grouped into related categories.
5. Whois
   Cost: Free
   What it does:  Uses the Network Solutions whois to look for available domain names.  Provides registration link if name is not taken.

Network/Server iPhone Apps

Every once in a while it’s just nice to reach out and ping someone, right?  Well maybe not, but with these apps you can do that a few other network style geeky things.

1. iNetUtil
   Cost: $0.99
   What it does:  Allows you to enter a list of sites you want to verify are “alive”, reports on the IP address and server software, provides whois information and displays the source code of the site.
2. Network Utility
   Cost: $0.99 for full version, or ad supported free version
   What it does: Allows you to ping a web site, scan its ports, perform GeoIP Lookup and whois queries.

Web Site Statistics

Without analytics, anything you do online (maybe anywhere) is just a moo point.  If you want to know how your site is performing, these apps might just be what you need.

1. Analytics Agent
   Cost: $2.99 for full version, or a ad supported “lite” version for free
   What it does:  Enter your Google account name it displays your Google analytics information for you.
2. Analytics App
   Cost: $ 5.99
   What it does: Provides access to every detail of your Google analytics data and reports.
3. Domain Tracker
   Cost: Free
   What it does: After you enter the domains you want to track, it provides you with the Google and Alexa page ranks.  Allows you to track the history of the site.

In closing, it’s worth noting that many of the iPhone app developers have figured out the art of keyword stuffing.  Hopefully Apple will figure this out soon and put a stop to it.  As I browsed through the App Store it was clear from many of the title and descriptions that the developers were hoping to be found for words that don’t necessarily apply to their application.  One of the SEO apps I considered reviewing, but decided to use the $4.99 elsewhere, had a 17+ rating and listed a huge list af reasons – including “Frequent/Intense Sexual Content or Nudity”.  How disappointed must the people be that buy this app based on that disclaimer?

Do you have a favorite app that I missed?  Love, or hate one of these?  Let me know!

Post from: Austin, Texas SEO - Jack Leblond

17 iPhone Applications for SEOs and Web site owners

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