Archive for the ‘Out on a Limb’ Category
Thursday, February 21st, 2008 |
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I personally like StumbleUpon. It is a good diversion, some would call it a time-waster, and I have discovered some amazing things through it. On the other hand, I don’t think it is a great method of marketing your site, but it does have its benefits, especially when you consider the minuscule amount of time your actually put into it…basically you click a button and you are done. Hard to complain about the work. No, the real work is creating something worth stumbling. I talked about the infusion of traffic and named then traffic spike “The StumbleUpon Shark” but something different happened this week.
You may have read about our new SEO Comic, Ranked Hard in a previous post (if not, check it out), well it has been stumbled and we saw the biggest spike we have ever received. Of course that was nice, but surprisingly it held serve the next day and increased even more the next day. Amazing.
The graph below shows our site’s total traffic from StumbleUpon. The top number of visitors from StumbleUpon reach 585. We will certainly keep watching over the next few days but it is good to see that StumbleUpon can provide traffic for more than just one fabulous day on occasion. Obviously the quality and possible niche of the content can be attributable to the staying power of the traffic. But it can be done.
Popularity: 28% [?]
Posted in Link Building, Out on a Limb, Social Media Optimization | 2 Comments »
Tuesday, February 19th, 2008 |
What if there was a search engine that actually understood natural English language search queries? Before you say, “What do you mean? Google understands English,” understand that I am being literal. What if there was a search engine that you could talk to like a person and actually have it spit back relevant results? What if you could type in a search query like “Who mocked Tony Blair yesterday?” and receive the exact result you were looking for.
Well, that’s the goal of the Silicon Valley start up Powerset.com, and they mean business. This isn’t just some company based out of a nineteen year-old’s garage. Some very powerful and influential people are behind the project, including the co-founder of Paypal, Peter Thiel, and Dr. Jay Tenenbaum, the founder of the first company to conduct a commercial Internet transaction, Enterprise Integration Technologies.
Powerset seems to understand that if it wants to challenge Google in search, it can’t try to beat it at its own game. It realizes that it must innovate by offering something different, just as Google realized. While the major search engine companies gave up on the idea of natural language search engines long ago, the people behind Powerset kept dreaming.
According to Powerset’s blog, Powerset is superior to the other engines because it can analyze a given query for its meaning and then look for sentences in its index that have a similar meaning. Powerset matches the structure and meaning of a given query with the structure and meaning of every sentence and document in the index. Then it returns results that match the exact intent of the searcher.
Therefore, if you did a Powerset search for “Who mocked Tony Blair?” Powerset would understand that you were looking only for results about who mocked Blair, not merely for passages that had the phrases “mocked” (and its synonyms) and “Blair” in them.
This screenshot from their private beta demonstrates the search in action. In this example, Powerset is only pulling results from Wikipedia.
Now, check out this screenshot of a Powerset search query for “Who proved Fermat’s last theorem?” If the vast majority of search results are as accurate as that one, then Google may have a real fight on its hands, even though the battle will clearly be an uphill one for Powerset.
If you wish to join in the private beta testing of Powerset, you can sign up here.
Presuming that Powerset lives up to the hype when it launches, what do you estimate the odds are that it can challenge Google?
Popularity: 4% [?]
Posted in Out on a Limb | 4 Comments »
Tuesday, January 29th, 2008 |
Every now and then someone will ask what I do for a living and I’ll say I am the President of an SEO company. After a moment of confusion the inevitable question is, “What does SEO stand for?” Of course we know it is Search Engine Optimization, but that got me thinking, (much like my SEO Haiku) what else could it stand for, relating to search optimization?
So I have some other options for those of us in the SEO industry who may want something more interesting when asked what does SEO stand for? In no particular order here are some ideas for the SEO acronym. Feel free to add your own in the comments.
- SEO = Stress Equals Opportunity
- SEO = Searching Everything Online
- SEO = Sweet Exposure Online
- SEO = Seizing Every Opportunity
- SEO = Some Extra (marketing) Offense
- SEO= Supplied Energy Online
- SEO = Successful at Everything Obviously
and since we are looking for an SEO Copywriter…
- SEO = Stellar Employment Opportunity
Nice for a momentary diversion, not much help for our clients, so back to work…
Popularity: 4% [?]
Posted in Choosing SEO Company, Out on a Limb | 5 Comments »
Tuesday, January 15th, 2008 |
Job Description
A creative and driven Web Marketing / SEO copywriter is wanted to help gain prime search engine placement with compelling content that converts site traffic into sales. The SEO copywriter will be responsible for creating original web copy, editing existing copy and interacting with clients to achieve specific SEO goals, namely increasing the organic search engine traffic of their websites.
Duties Include:
- Developing SEO-friendly web content to include strategic keyphrase placement within compelling marketing copy that maximizes opportunities for indexing, ranking, click-throughs and conversion
- Writing and editing articles
- Writing and editing press releases
- Writing blog posts
- Brainstorming additional content components to enhance the user experience and increase organic search engine traffic to our clients’ websites
- Researching effective SEO copywriting techniques
- Conducting keyword research and competitive research to target popular and highly converting keywords
- Meet with clients monthly to present press release, article and website update ideas
Preferred Skills and Experience
- Proven success in writing professional web and marketing copy
- Understanding of keyphrase research and its application to SEO
- Ability to write compelling copy while maintaining brand messaging, persuasiveness and readability
- Proficiency in Microsoft Office products such as Word and Excel
- Excellent written and oral communication skills.
- 1-3 years experience
We are looking for a quick learner that can multitask. You need to be able to work under little supervision and be a team player. This is a full-time, on-site position so no freelancers please. The anticipated start date is immediately. Salary is dependent on experience. Benefits package also included.
Please take the time to read our site and review our client list before applying.
Three writing samples (i.e., full articles, press releases or web copy in Word and/or URLs featuring your work) are required. To apply, send us an email with your resume, salary requirements and three writing samples using the subject line “Copywriter” to contact@bigoakinc.com.
Popularity: 5% [?]
Posted in Choosing SEO Company, Out on a Limb, SEO Copywriting | 1 Comment »
Thursday, January 10th, 2008 |
I was checking into our blog’s external links and found this blog post: http://www.ciao9to5.com/increase-technorati-rating/.
The author, Will Harrison, is trying to increase his Technorati Authority and thereby his rating. His method to do this is to link to 5 blogs, his own and 4 others he enjoys and pass it along. Big Oak SEO blog was one of the 4 he chose (thank you). If he has linked to you and you find the post with the link, a request is made from the post that you do the same.
Sounds much like a chain letter of sorts, which I’m not a fan of, but for the sake of the experiment, I’ll try it. As of today, Jan. 10, 2008 my Technorati Authority is 35 and my rank is 231,062. I’ll report back if any noticeable increase happens.
Here is a snippet from Will’s post:
This makes Technorati seem like an easy enough place to increase your rating. All you need for authority are incoming links.
How are we going to get those incoming links? Glad you’ve asked. I found this method called ViraLink. What happens is: I will post the link to 5 blogs I enjoy, including my own, under this post. Those 4 blogs that aren’t owned by me will see their Technorati ranking increase and look to find out who linked them. Actually, it would probably be best to link smaller blogs that will look to see who linked them. Anyways, when they find this post, they are to copy the post and add another 5 blogs onto the list. It kind of starts a chain.
I see no harm in trying it out, so here is Will’s 5 blogs with my 5 blogs added:
- CIAO9to5
- TylerCruz
- Jon Waraas
- Big Oak SEO Blog
- Practical Blogging
- SEO Tier
- 97th Floor
- Graphic Design Blog
- Hobo SEO
- Marketing Revisited
I hope the 5 blogs I added will benefit from this as well. They are all worth reading.
Popularity: 26% [?]
Posted in Blogging, Link Building, Out on a Limb, SEO Strategies | 4 Comments »
Sunday, January 6th, 2008 |
Update 2/11/08: We have made this comic, bigger and better. Come view the new and improved ‘Ranked Hard: SEO Comic‘ at it’s new home. We have also posted all the SEO comic strips on Flickr.com.
Welcome to the first installment of our SEO comic, “Ranked Hard”!
This won’t be a daily comic or weekly, but we’ll do our best to get a new one out as often as we can. This comic will be about the trials and tribulations of the mythical staff of Ranked Hard, a growing SEO company. There will certainly be parallels to our SEO company, Big Oak, but we won’t tell you where reality and fantasy cross. Although most “SEO people” who read this will certainly have their own ideas about what is from real life. ;-). In any case, have fun and give us your feedback. This is our first attempt and I already see a few things to improve on the next comic.
I will be posting head shots and background about all the characters. For now, let me introduce you to the crew at Ranked Hard:
- Bradley Smart, President & SEO Consultant
- Roosevelt Jones, SEO Consultant
- Beatrice Gonzolez, SEO Researcher
- Simon Caine, SEO Copywriter
We hope you grow to love them as much as we do. And without further delay, our Ranked Hard’s First Comic Strip entitled “First Day.”
by George Perry & Shell Harris
Popularity: 5% [?]
Posted in Out on a Limb, Ranked Hard - SEO Comic | 11 Comments »
Thursday, January 3rd, 2008 |
Before you begin watching this video on RSS, I have to give a HUGE recommendation to the company that produced this remarkable piece of work, Common Craft. They have created some very creative and helpful videos to help people understand a variety of technologies and ideas, such as RSS. They say it best themselves:
We use a simple format and real-world stories to make sense of complex ideas.
We’re interpreters. We present your products and services in plain English using short, unique and understandable videos in a format we call Paperworks.
They have many more videos for you to see and I wish them the best and hope they succeed. The idea is wonderful and the delivery is even better. The Internet needs more companies like them.
Popularity: 4% [?]
Posted in Out on a Limb, SEO Tools, Social Media Optimization | 3 Comments »
Wednesday, January 2nd, 2008 |
I believed the world could be divided into two camps, “Star Wars People” and “Indiana Jones People”. Well, after the Lord of the Rings, I have now included “LOTR People”. Just about everyone has a favorite they rank over the other and so I have made classifications. I say this because I’m going to recommend a very clever blog post about SEO and Star Wars that I thought was humorous and educational. I’m recommending it even though I’m a “Indiana Jones Person”. 
The author mention Darth Sidious and Darth Vader as Blackhat masters and even classifies Luke Skywalker as a Greyhat proponent. All the other major characters are there as well, although Leia is missing. Real Star Wars’ fans will be chagrined to find Jar Jar Binks is also included. Take a moment and read the post, you’ll get a chuckle.
Popularity: 3% [?]
Posted in Out on a Limb, Search Engine Optimization | 2 Comments »
Friday, December 21st, 2007 |
How many companies can make Google Blink? At least one and that company is eBay. Take a look at the no. 74 in the 101 Dumbest Moments in Business as reported by CNNMoney.com. You’ll read that Google invited eBay’s top sellers to a party promoting Google’s Checkout payment system, a competitor with eBay’s PayPal. eBay found out and pulled its ads from Google for a week, just to test. “Mysteriously” Google’s party was canceled.
Its good to know Google “respects” someone. Even it is must cost them a lot of money before they do
Popularity: 4% [?]
Posted in Google, Out on a Limb | 3 Comments »
Thursday, December 13th, 2007 |
I have started doing something I hope catches on in the blog community: Commenting with purpose. Being the owner of this SEO blog I’m always delighted to see comments, especially since this means someone thought enough of what I wrote to read it and then comment on the content.
It can be discouraging when a commenter is taking advantage of the fact that I do follow comment links, but if they have said something worthwhile I feel it is a small price to pay if I give away some link juice. It can also be disheartening to see I have three comments on a post, but the total word count for all three comments is about 30 words. Sometimes three simple comments like, “Nice post, I agree with your thoughts,” can be nice, but more often I would rather have one comment that says something more and even challenges what I have written.
So, I have committed myself to commenting with purpose. When I visit other blogs I will make every effort to make an intelligent, thoughtful and interesting comment that actually adds to the post. It may not always be lenghty, but my comments will never be boiled down to a “Nice Post” comment.
I hope those commenting on my blog will try to do the same, and I also hope my readers will not feel pressured to write more than they want. After all, I would rather see a short post with gratitude than nothing at all. Thanks for reading and for commenting. And when you do comment, use your name, not your keyword, it cheapens the comment, in my humble opinion.
Update: Well I’ve made one comment per day this week and I feel good about my contributions. Here is one of the comments I made on a post by Jill Whalen about changing urls.
Popularity: 6% [?]
Posted in Blogging, Out on a Limb, SEO Mistakes, Social Media Optimization | 7 Comments »
Wednesday, November 28th, 2007 |
How well does Akismet stop comment spam? The Big Oak SEO Blog has been running since October 2006 and as of today, November 28, 2007 it has protected this blog site from 10,608 spam comments
Nicely done, Akismet. I couldn’t have done it without you.
Of course it does say a lot about the pervasiveness of comment spam today and how active it still remains, sadly. But it is also a confidence builder for using the DoFollow Wordpress plugin without the fear of comment spam overrunning your site. Akismet can protect you from comment spam 99% of the time even with 10,000 spam attacks.
Popularity: 7% [?]
Posted in Blogging, Out on a Limb, SEO Tools | 2 Comments »
Want to know what Shell is doing?
