Last week, I offered to edit, for readability and SEO purposes, posts that readers felt could be better written.  Today I’ll be looking at a post by Tricia Lawrence, Moving with kids in tow, on her blog Relocating to Silicon Valley.

Next week, I’ll take a look at Blogging Personal, a blog by Lani Giesen, and her post A Personal Blog is Art – stay tuned.

Editorial and SEO Review for Relocating to Silicon Valley: Moving with kids in tow

Overall, Tricia writes well, breaks up her paragraphs, and is clear so she really needs very little help in terms of writing, but I would like to offer a few lessons in the art of linking.  You can read my rewrite of Tricia’s article at the end of this post.

Linking strategy

The first thing I noticed is Tricia’s linking strategy.  She has three external links, and I’ll discuss each one, but first, I’d like to talk about linking in general.

The Web is made up of links.  Links are great to get you noticed (via pings and trackbacks) by other bloggers; they are great for visitors that need further information, and search engines use them to determine how useful a post is.  When you link to another site, the site owner will notice you, and if you write well and offer quality content, that site owner just may return the favor and link to you when the opportunity arises.  If you have links going out to related content, search engines deem it a useful resource, and link to it.  So link much, but link well; make sure your links are useful for your readers.

To link well, I’ll examine the three links Tricia has used in her article:

Blog:  Tricia has used the word blog as her anchor text to a post titled: Are there optimal ages for a move or relocation.  The search engines see “blog” and it means nothing as there are millions of blogs out there.  A better way to link to the post is to use the title of the post; it serves two purposes:

• It names the article for Tricia’s visitors, so they don’t need to hover over the link to see whether it would be useful to them.
• The text lets the search engines associate the words in her heading “Moving with kids in tow” with “Are there optimal ages for a move or relocation” and find a commonality.  If it is related, it is good for SEO.

Single Parent’s site: Again, the anchor text shows a link to someone’s single parent’s site, rather than the name of the site which is “Single Parents Blog” on the “Family” network; both of these sites can be linked to.  This is more about good etiquette, and good habits. 

Specializes in relocation: Tricia has used this text to link to her business, California Concierges.  While it is good business sense to link to your own site, it is far better to consistently use the same anchor text because over time, search engines will associate specific keywords with specific sites and send other searchers there too.  Tricia ends that paragraph with the words “…didn’t want to move to Silicon Valley.”  It would be better to link the text “…move to Silicon Valley” to the California Concierges home page; better still to use the exact keywords she wants California Concierges to be found under, which I believe are “Relocating to Silicon Valley,” it just means tweaking the copy a bit.

Internal linking

There is very little internal linking to Relocating to Silicon Valley itself.  A long post, such as this (540 words), offers ample opportunity to link back to previously written articles on the blog. This is important as it will direct new readers to previous articles that they may not have seen on a blog, it is also significant as it is noticed by the search engines.

Sub Headings (H1, H2, H3)

When a post is longer than 200 – 300 words, it is useful to divide it into sub headings.  Not only does it benefit the reader who, at a glance, can see what the article is about, it is also good SEO strategy.  The major search engines pay attention to these sub headings; if you think it is important to point something out, search engines will think it is important to point it out too.  Of course, you can go too far and have too many sub headings, but when used properly, they certainly help with site promotion.

Finally, the phrase “in my opinion” seems to pop up a few times too many.  It’s your blog, so it’s a given that it is your opinion.  You are a specialist in this field, don’t diminish your authority!  Speak up woman!

I would love reader feedback, let me know if you have any other suggestions for Tricia.

Edited: Moving with Kids in Tow

I just read a post:   Are there optimal ages for a move or relocation? on the Single Parents Blog of the Families network, about when, if ever, is the best time to relocate kids to a new home. The writer correctly stated that every kid is different as far as readjusting is concerned, but sometimes it can get harder as they move into their teens and have established strong roots of friendship and familiarity.

Many of us have moved with kids in tow and have encountered all types of problems - new schools, making new friendships, finding new interests, or just being plain sullen and miserable at having left their friends behind and blaming it all on Mom and Dad.

What to think about when moving with kids

For elementary and middle schoolers, try not to move them just after the summer holidays have started. Two reasons:

1. You will be faced with some long weeks of entertaining kids who have not made any friends yet, as they haven’t been able to attend the local school.

2. They will start the fall semester along with every other new kid and no one will be making any special effort to make them feel at home. If they start school soon after the beginning of the school year they become the “new kids” and can be made special and probably be buddied up with someone by the teacher.

So the best option would be to move them into their new school a few weeks before the end of the school year so they have time to make some new friends with whom they can spend more time in the summer.

Or if that timing doesn’t work for your new job, don’t worry about possibly starting the new term a little late. The benefits of being made “special” and looked after by the other students outweigh the disadvantages of arriving a little late into the school year and having to catch up.

And, the other thought is, as someone who specializes in relocation, I encourage every parent relocating with kids to make sure that they find out where and how they can continue to participate in their sports or pursue their interests. We have totally turned several families around whose kids were adamant relocating to Silicon Valley was a horrid idea.

An example from California Concierges 

One I remember in particular was a family with two boys, not at all happy about leaving their friends behind in North Carolina. They came over for a visit before making the final decision. The wife, too, was reluctant but we found out that she loved sailing, so a trip to Santa Cruz won her over; the teenage boy was mad about lacrosse, so we found and introduced him to one of the few lacrosse coaches around at that time (this was several years ago) and his younger brother was a crazy skateboarder so a tour of the local skateparks convinced him this was the place to be!

So get to know someone in your new area, or better still, a relocation expert who can find the answers to your kids’ questions; someone that will reassure them that life does go on after the big move.

If you’re on the move to Silicon Valley, please feel free to leave question in the comments below or send me an e-mail.

There is an ongoing argument about whether SEO is dead or not. Some even talk about SEO 2.0.

I don’t really care; I just want the Web to be easier to navigate and safer to use, and for this to happen we need to pay attention to Web standards.

If you’re a blogger, does the product you use measure up?

Mine does. Not only does it measure up, but Google likes it too.

Coincidence or not?

So what’s in search results for blogging software at Google?

Sites that use embedded video are finding that oftentimes the page is not Weappearing in search results, even though it is getting a lot of traffic from users that know about it.

Mark Yoshitake, YouTube and Google Partnerships, and Erick Hachenburg, Metacafe at the Searchnomics 2007 conference suggest:

• Upload content to YouTube, then re-embed using YouTube embeds
• Write a description that feeds curiosity
• Ensure you tag with accurate tags and tag lots
• Use memorable and descriptive titles
• Don’t mislead
• Get to know the industry standard Media RSS

More from Searchnomics 2007, Shashi Thakur, Member of Technical Staff, Google Inc., and Paul O’Brien, Marketing Director for Zvents discuss the things you should, and the things you should not worry about when it comes to search engine friendly design.

Stuff to worry about

• Include unique, useful content, preferably HTML
• Include relevant and organic links
• Think accessibility – it needs to be easy to reach with a text based browser
• Use alt tags
• Take care with images, flash, frames, JavaScript
• Think aesthetics
• Make your pages “ bite size”
• Check page rendering in different browsers
• Don’t include too many advertisements
• Good Titles are extremely important
• Pages need to be easily reachable
• Don’t bury the good stuff deep within the sites

Stuff you shouldn’t worry about (stuff that does not affect ranking)

• Type of server (Apache vs. IIS)
• File types: HTML, PHP, ASP, CFM
• AdWords and AdSense

Links: The Good and the Bad

• Encourage related sites to link to you by writing unique content
• Avoid reciprocal links for the sake of a link
• Avoid any type of link that you have to pay for
• Avoid link exchanges (you know the sites, you give me a link, I’ll give you one back)
• Avoid bad neighborhoods, that is, the shady areas of the Web

Ugly Links vs. Pretty Links

Ugly links are long and keyword less

Good looking links are short and keyword rich

Both of these sites talk about Independence day, which do you think makes more sense to search?

http://free.ed.gov/subjects.cfm?subject_id=257

http://www.usa.gov/Topics/Independence_Day.shtml

Paul O’Brien suggests by tidying up your URL’s, you can increase your ranking in search results; he suggests getting to know Mod Rewrite.

Anchor text

When using anchor text (the text within your site that links to another page), make sure you use choose your words wisely.  Give some meaning to the words, so when search engine bots look at them, it makes some sense:

Awful Anchor Text:

Using the word “here” as the anchor text in this sentence:

“You can read more about Searchnomics 2007 here”

Great Anchor Text

Using the words “Searchnomics 2007” as the anchor text in this sentence:

“Read more about Searchnomics 2007″

Related content on BlogWell that may interest you:

     See your site through different browsers

     Why does my site not appear in Google

     Tools for Search Engine Marketing

Microsoft has released a developer toolbar for Microsoft Internet Explorer which may be useful to SEO folk for ad-hoc analysis of individual pages.

For example, it allows the details of the commonly used description and keywords meta tags without having to troll through the raw html source code.

Tooltips are used to allow the all of the content to be displayed. 

 
It is interesting to note that MS capitalize the tag names within the toolbar even though lowercase is the strict W3C definition.

A suggestion for MS with respect to visually distinguishing between the different meta tags is to include the name value within the navigation tree on the left hand side.  For example, instead of “<META>” you would see “<META name=’description’>”.

The other common SEO attribute is the title tag, but viewing the actual contents is confusing at first as nothing is shown when the title tag is viewed even though one is set.

To view the value of the title tag you need to use the innerText attribute of the tag, which is done by checking the “Show Read-Only Properties”.

 
Another suggestion for MS would be for the innerText attribute to always be displayed.

Without going into too much detail, there are a lot of interesting things you can do with the toolbar:

1. Easily resize Internet Explorer to 800×600, 1024×768 etc to see what your page looks like for the resolutions you want to support.
2. Easy access to W3C validation tools and link checker, and accessibility reports.
3. Ability to turn off CSS – which is interesting for no other purpose that to see how awful a page looks.
4. Table and div tags etc can be outlined on the screen.
5. You can change the class of a tag and see its effect immediately before you edit the change within the actual page file.  All other read-write attributes can be changed also.
6. The toolbar can annotate the tag to image sizes, link paths, etc.  For example, viewing link paths replaces the original text of:

With the following:

 
7. And lots more

Download, install and give it a spin.

Displaying the toolbar is less than intuitive in my mind, which is done by selecting the >> to show additional items.

I was recently given the opportunity to speak with Adam Lasnik, Google’s Search Evangelist about search engine optimization, and it started me thinking about title elements and meta description tags; specifically, just how important is it to get the words right?

When you search on Google, the two most obvious things that come back are the title of a Web page, and a brief description of it. Most people will easily recognize a result from a search query.

Read more »

The only thing Googlebot and other search engine robots “see” when they crawl, categorize, and index Web sites is text.

They don’t care that your site was designed by the latest award winner, or that you have the next Bill Gates, sitting out the back furiously spitting out code.

What bots do look for in text, is relevant content. Spend your time putting together great information and Google and the rest of the search engines will hunt you down, index your site, and rank it well. (Google recommends you use the Lynx viewer to see how your site appears to the Googlebot)

Sounds simple right? It is, but here’s the kicker. People are wary of simple things, especially when it comes to technology.

So, let’s take a step back.

The major search companies, Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo! are just that–companies.

They want to make money (they are a business after all) and they are really, really good at it. Their chief concern is to find content that will bring them more traffic and advertising revenue, and the only way they can do that is by spitting out relevant results.

Think about it. If you are type “Ice Hockey” into Google, and it comes back with a list of a hundred sites dealing with refrigerators, chances are you will try another search engine. Can you really imagine Google saying, “…Um, no, No…thanks anyway, but why don’t you go to Yahoo! instead?”  This is an extreme example, but it will serve you well to remember this.

Write for the user is the mantra, but really, it’s just a variant of what is taught in journalism school – write for the audience.

To do this effectively, be prepared to spend time learning and researching. I said it was simple, not easy.

Webster’s Dictionary defines simple as:

“not elaborate or complicated; plain.”

It defines easy as:

“requiring no great labor or effort.”

You have to invest time and effort into writing your content.

Brush up on your grammar skills; write well constructed, succinct content, include enough varied information on the subject so your visitors don’t need to go elsewhere, use words that you know your users are interested in, and voila, your site suddenly becomes hugely attractive to the Googlebot.

Let’s say your forte is stone - specifically travertine, limestone, marble and apple stone. You want to hit the global market, even a local market, so the obvious choice is an online business - or you want to offer information to existing customers - or you want to attract new customers - doesn’t matter, the nett result is the same - you need an online presence and you need the search engines to see you.

There are three ways you can approach this.

The ‘easy’ route:

Build a Web site; take amazing shots of your work, post beautiful imagery on your site, describe what you do, put in costs and contact details, and then sit back. And wait. I guarantee you will still be waiting in six months; wondering why your site has no visitors (other than Aunt Gertrude) and why Google doesn’t see you.

Complicate the simple stuff:

Start by investigating search engine optimization (SEO). Learn about keyword density. Try and work out the algorithms. Put your site up and stuff as many keywords in as you can…

Given you are working with photographs; you will most likely stuff your image tags with keywords too.

Guess what? Googlebot will see you, BUT – remember what I said robots being simple? They work to formulas that will look at your site, see it is filled with useless information, and brand you “spam” (like the Monty Python song, spam is an endless repetition of worthless stuff). When a search engine deems your site spam, it goes away and ignores you.

Effort: Invest in mental power:

Start thinking laterally.

Sure, do all of the things in the ‘easy’ example above, but then do more. Remember, the more information you provide, the less reason your visitor has to go to another Web site, and isn’t that your goal? To entice the visitor to stay, look around, and ultimately buy your gorgeous stone?

So what else could you include? How about:

• What is marble/travertine/limestone/apple stone?

• Types of stone

• Terminology or jargon explanation

• How to care for marble/travertine/limestone/apple stone

• How do you get so many colors?

• How water affects stone

• The process of manufacturing stone

• Diagrams showing technical specs*

• Other uses for stone

• Benefits of using stone over tile

*If you choose to have the technical specs as an image make sure you label the image really well - eg.

“Technical-specifications-for-Urban-brvc” not “urban_brvc.gif”

You don’t want the URI reading: “Urban_brvc.gif”

This applies to the tool tip as well, instead of “basins” the tool tip should be very specific e.g. “Urban brvc basin”

By writing to the user, you have written to the search engines as well. Yes, it definitely will take more time to put together a site like this, but if you want the search engines to reward you, you need to put in some effort.

Oh, and if you think your work is now done, think again. Time moves on, and new information becomes available. Your visitors want regularly updated information, along with the basic reference material they have come to love on your site. Guess who else likes to see updated content. Yep. Those simple bots searching the Web—don’t disappoint them.

The idea of generating traffic to your website seems daunting for many; people often use not too clever ideas, sometimes learning about the Google death penalty as a result.

You don’t want that.  If people can’t find your site, they won’t come to your site; if they don’t come to your site – no surprise - your product or service can not sell.

Q: So how do you generate traffic to your site?

A: You encourage new links!  Think Link Bait!

Eric Ward sums it up neatly and accurately:

“Link Bait has been around longer than I have.  It’s what we used to call ‘content’.”

Matt Cutts describes it as “Anything interesting enough to catch people’s attention.”

Although it has an unfortunate name, the ideas are tried and true; just ask any journalist, PR or marketing person – you need to ‘hook’ the reader.

Types of hooks:

Informational Hook:

Provide information users find useful in the form of a report.  Make sure you work with subjects you either know well, or want to learn about.

For instance: If you have a thing for Bill Gates, look through his speeches for a common link; let’s say, predictions he has made about technology.  Then find out how many have actually played out, how many are on their way to reality and how many seemingly have no chance of ever working out.  Talk to others in the field and get good quotes.  Then write your report.  Title it “Bill Gates sees the future 90% of the time.”  Cite your sources, link to them and summarize your findings.

News Hook:

Write about breaking news if you have it or set up a site that is a reliable news source for a specific subject.  If you have an interest in aromatherapy for instance, put together a site that has latest findings, information about different oils, uses etc.  Become the expert.

Debate hook:

Find a story that someone in your industry has told recently, then retell from the opposing view.  This works best if you strongly disagree with what the person has said your voice will carry the passion.  It becomes much like a debate, however it does not mean you should be nasty or malicious, just give the flip side of an argument. 

Attack hook:

Being mean or talking about someone in a derogatory sense will bring you attention.  Be ready for backlash if you choose to use this one – unless of course your complaint is valid.

Humor hook: 

Tell a funny story, share a funny picture or video.  If you’ve been around an industry long enough, you should have enough anecdotal arsenals.  People like to laugh, or at least smile a lot.

If you are involved in the media industry, look for amusing stories in the industry rags, include weird and wonderful ads or stories you see in the papers, find or take silly photos, use funny stories from your past (no names of course) and don’t confuse this hook with the attack hook.  They are very different.

Tool hook: 

Create a tool useful enough to get people talking about it online.  Use an invention of yours and show people a way they can benefit from using it.  Then, and this is the bit you may not like, give it away.  Describe how someone can do/make something in detail, write a Google gadget and submit it.  Write about something that benefits readers and you have your hook.

Fear Hook:

If you do a great job writing your title and lead, scare tactics bring people in.  This hook needs great care too; you don’t want unhappy readers, you want to use link baiting effectively, and unhappy readers don’t come back.  Take care with your words and be prepared to back everything up.

I guess by now you have realized you need to tap into an emotion if you want people to come to your site.  Journalists have been doing this for a long time.  Take a look at any story and if it’s good you will see the author has reached out on an emotive level.  People respond to emotions, they cannot help it, it’s intrinsic.

If you want tips from a brilliant marketing mind – check out Seth Godin’s blog.

And finally, three lessons from a master baiter at seoblackhat.