Credit: BigStockPhoto.com

It’s another new month (a new year actually!), so it’s time to share some recent search and social media stories with you. This month we have our usual players in Google and Facebook. And we have a few updates from other social media sites as well — from SOPA protests to design changes.

Here are some of the stories that got our attention over the last few weeks.

1. Google+ Pages See Changes

One of the biggest problems with the launch of Google+ Pages was the fact that only the page owner was allowed to serve as an administrator. In other words, if you hired a marketing firm to set up your page, only one of you could update it. Or if you let an employee set up your page and they left the company, you could be left with no access to your own page.

Google listened to feedback on the issue, and they’re finally fixing things. You can now assign administrator privileges to up to 50 people. Is it perfect? Not really. Ideally I’d like to see at least two levels of administrators — those who can fully administer the account (settings, basic profile info, etc.) and those who can only share updates. How about you?

[source]

2. More Social Media Facelifts

In our last update we told you about the next “New Twitter” with that site’s design changes. Now more social media companies are joining in and updating their look. This month it’s everybody’s favorite social video darling YouTube and a new look for StumbleUpon.

YouTube 

StumbleUpon

[source]

3. Reddit to Stage a SOPA Blackout

Reddit has announced plans to blackout their service on January 18th from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. to protest SOPA (the Stop Online Piracy Act). Instead of your usual content, you’ll find a message about SOPA on the site during that time. How do you feel about these kinds of blackouts? Will it annoy you as a user, or do you appreciate their stance and attempt to educate more visitors? Who would you like to see join the blackout? Do you think it will be effective in any way?

[source]

4. Facebook Introduces Paid Ads to News Feeds

Facebook is rolling out featured ads when you view news feeds through the service. In an attempt to keep the ads relevant to you as a user, you should only see ads from friends or pages you’ve “liked.”

[source]

5. Google Takes New Steps Towards Social Search

Google unveiled its new Search plus Your World effort to make search more social. You can choose to search as usual or see more personalized results including things people have shared with you on G+.

I’m already noticing a big problem with the personal results. If you happen to follow just friends and family, that’s fine. But if you follow bloggers and or businesses who aggressively market (read “whore out”) their sites by recommending their own posts and sites constantly, they’re featured prominently in results. Score one for the more sleazy marketers.

Just because I follow someone on a social network and they happen to constantly “share” their own stuff, it doesn’t mean their results are more relevant when I search for something. This seems like a natural flaw with social search though, and a limitation that means I’ll personally be sticking with usual Web searches for now.

[source]

Share your thoughts on these or any other recent search industry or social media news stories in the comments below.

If you too have been waiting with baited breath to see how to use Google Plus for business, I have your answer. Google Plus is completely open to the public (invitations are not required) and Google Plus Pages are now here. In addition to circles to inform your friends, coworkers, and family with the messages you’ve written just for them you can show support to and follow your favorite businesses. Connect with your favorite clothing line, bands, coffee shop, and more.

For local businesses and globally recognized brand names, Google Plus Pages have been introduced, worldwide. Now you can share with individuals who are passionate about what you do. It’s social media marketing at its finest, real relationship building and nurturing.

Individuals can recommend you with a +1, add you to a circle to get regular updates, and get to know you and your business. All you have to do is start sharing. Google is currently limiting pages, not everyone will be able to create one right now. A number of pages are already available for public viewing and soon any organization will be able to create a page at plus.google.com/pages/create.

What does Google Plus Pages mean for search? Two things. One, Google Plus Pages will be included in search results. Two, Direct Connect. From Google search you can search for (+) followed by the page/company you’re interested in. Google will direct you to the Plus Page related to your search and allow you to add the page to your circles. Direct Connect is still in Beta (it doesn’t work for my page yet, for example – just a few well known brands).

I’ve been waiting for months to see if Google Plus could compete with Facebook. I’m still not sure I’ve got a good answer. Google Plus hasn’t taken off quite as quickly as I thought it would, but I’m excited to see what Pages have to offer. I recently added the +1 icon to my blog and will be adding badges to my website soon. I hope to use my brand new Plus Page to build a base of super fans and loyal customers as well as educate potential clients (much like what I already do on Facebook). Be sure to +1 Fletcher Freelance and add my page to your circle for marketing tips and all the latest in social media.

Your Plus Page is a blank state. Share what you’ll make of it in the comments below.

Credit: Fotolia.com

Each month we update you on what’s going on in the search and social media worlds. It’s that time again! Over the last several weeks, most of the news seems to have come from Google’s neck of the woods — largely due to the much-anticipated launch of G+ Pages.

From that change in the social media world to branding changes from two big players in the search industry, here are some stories you might have an interest in.

1. Google Plus Launches Pages for Businesses

The biggest news in the social media world lately was the launch of Google Plus Pages. Google upset some business owners previously when they were told not to sign up for Google Plus because the company wasn’t yet ready to handle business accounts. While the new Pages leave much to be desired (and updates are planned — such as allowing multi-user access), at least businesses eager to jump into the network now have the means to do so. What are your thoughts? Is this is a case of “better late than never” or “too little too late?”

[source]

2. Bing Deals Becomes MSN Offers

In our first rebranding announcement of the day, Microsoft is changing the brand identity of their daily deals service. No longer tied to the Bing branding, they will now be called MSN Offers.

[source]

3. Google Announces More Service Shutdowns

Google is still in house cleaning mode as they streamline services. More on the chopping block include Knol, Gears, Bookmark Lists, Wave, and more. Will you miss any of these services? Tell us why.

[source]

4. Google Checkout Merges with Google Wallet

Mobile payments and more from Google Wallet - Credit: Fotolia.com

You may have heard the recent buzz about Google Wallet as a mobile payment solution. But now Google is officially rolling their older Google Checkout payment processing service into the Google Wallet brand. Does Google Wallet make you feel more or less interested in using Google for financial services?

[source]

5. Google Music Store Launches, Enables G+ Song Sharing

Google already offered a storage locker for music, but now they’re officially competing with the likes of iTunes and Amazon with their new Google Music Store. How is this tied to search and social media? Aside from yet another venture from the search giant, Google is adding a social component to their music store. Users will be able to share songs purchased through Google on their Google Plus accounts, letting followers hear a song once on the social network for free.

[source]

What other stories caught your interest over the last several weeks in the search and social media industries? Share your thoughts and other news in the comments below.

Credit: Fotolia.com

Each month we take a look back to reflect on recent news in the search and social media industries. It’s that time again! The last few weeks have been hopping with news all throughout the tech industry, from Facebook’s F8 conference to the sad passing of Steve Jobs. Let’s turn our attention to some of the social media and search news you might have heard about, and some stories that might have gotten lost in the mix.

1. New Facebook Features Launched — Timeline, Subscriptions, Friend Lists

Some of the most talked about changes in the social media world recently have been Facebook’s new features. For example, Facebook overhauled friend lists to give users Google Plus’ Circle-like features — the ability to sort your friend list and decide who sees what updates.

They’ve also added the ability to subscribe to public profiles. You use the new subscribe button (like the Google Plus default “following” circle or Twitter’s follow feature) to get public updates from people whether or not they’re in your friends list.

The feature with the most recent buzz however is Facebook’s new Timeline profile format. Rather than having a profile share only your most recent updates, Timelines will essentially document your life as shared on the social network.

2. Google’s Flight Search

Google is now competing with travel sites like Kayak with its new flight search feature. Google Flight Search is designed to help you find better deals on flights. However, according to David Daw of PC World, they still have work to do as they aren’t finding as many flights as competitors and are missing pricing information for entire airlines. So you might want to give them some time before making any switch.

3. Google Plus Opens to the Public

Are you tired of having to hand out invites to friends wanting to join Google Plus? Are you sick of having to ask for invites to get into social networking tools like this one? Then here’s some good news. Google Plus has officially opened to the public. You can log into your Google account and sign up any time you want, without needing an invite.

4. YouTube’s Online Video Editing Service

If you’re a regular YouTube user, you know that minor edits and re-uploads can hurt your videos’ stats. A re-upload counts as a new video and the numbers start from zero. But YouTube is changing that with their online video editing services. Now you can make basic edits to your videos online with their tools and keep them at their current URLs. Check out the video below to see some of the video editing features available.

5. Delicious Gets a New Lease on Life

Remember Delicious from its golden days as one of the bigger players in the social media world? Well, it might have another chance. After Yahoo! announced plans to kill the social bookmarking site, two of YouTube’s founders — Chad Hurley and Steve Chen — bought the site. Can they return Delicious to its former glory? They’ve succeeded before, so why not again?

6. Spotify Offers Private Listening

Sometimes you just want to listen to music without the world knowing what’s on your playlist. Previously if you used Spotify with Facebook, your music was shared with your friends. Now Spotify lets you hide your guilty pleasures from Facebook friends with its new private listening option. Take back control and share only what you want, when you want.

What were some of your favorite stories in search and social media over the last month? Leave a comment below to share additional news or your thoughts on any of the stories mentioned above.

Credit: Fotolia.com

Near the start of each month we bring you a look back on the last few weeks in the search and social media industries. Here’s some of the social media and search engine news that caught our attention.

1. Eric Schmidt on the Google+ Real Name Policy

Google’s real name policy for Google Plus has been controversial since its start. And yet again we’re getting contradictory information from Google’s head honchos as Eric Schmidt basically says use your real name or don’t use the service.

That’s in contrast to past assertions that real-sounding names were fine (as opposed to generic handles). But according to Schmidt, G+ isn’t really a social network. It’s an “identity service.” And for whose benefit was it created? Apparently not yours or mine. According to Schmidt G+ “depends on people using their real names if [Google's] going to build products that leverage that information.” In other words, you’re only valuable if you give up your real information, because you’re the product they sell to advertisers.

I won’t go into all of my thoughts on this issue here. Suffice it to say, as an early G+ supporter and as someone who uses multiple pen names for legitimate professional reasons, I’m less than pleased.

[source]

2. Google Changes Treatment of Subdomains in Search

In search results, Google used to treat subdomains as their own sites. Now they’re treating them like a part of the main site. That means links from subdomains will count as internal links rather than external links. Personally, I’m happy about this considering I’ve seen large networks use the subdomain strategy to dominate rankings. This seems like a small step to level the playing field. How do you think this will affect your rankings?

[source]

3. Twitter Expands Advertising (to Brands You Don’t Follow)

You may have noticed Twitter’s sponsored tweet ads at the top of your stream. These promoted tweets appeared only from brands you already followed. Twitter is changing this policy to show promoted tweets from brands you don’t follow. If they decide you have things in common with people who do follow the brand, you may see the ads.

[source]

4. Facebook Closes “Deals”

After four months of testing, Facebook is discontinuing support for their daily “Deals” service. They’re instead turning their attention to other ways of helping businesses reach customers through the social network, including ads, business pages and check-in deals.

[source]

5. Facebook Lets You Approve Photo Tagging

You no longer have to worry that friends will “tag” you in less than flattering photos they upload to Facebook, having it shared automatically on your profile and with your network. While people can still tag you, a new feature allows you to approve them before they’re shared on your own profile. You can also now approve third party tags before they appear on photos you upload.

[source]

Google News Timelines Bite the Dust - Credit: IvanWalsh.com (via Flickr)

6. Google Closes News Timeline and Google Squared

Google continues to pare down its services as the company focuses on core offerings. It announced that their News Timeline and Google Squared features are being shut down.

[source]

7. President Obama Joins Foursquare

While it might not affect you personally (especially if you don’t live in theU.S.), it’s worth noting that President Barack Obama joined Foursquare this past month. It’s not surprising to see the President and / or campaign staff using new social media tools prior to next year’s election — they’ve generally been known to be a social media savvy bunch. Foursquare will be used to share information about where the President has been (such as speech stops) and what he did there. The campaign will be using Foursquare’s new Tip Lists feature in the process.

[source]

What other news caught your eye this past month in the world of search and social media? Share other stories or your thoughts on these ones in the comments below.

Credit: Fotolia.com

It’s that time again where we take a look back at the previous few weeks to see what’s going on in search and social media. While the social media news has calmed down a bit after the recent launch of Google+, there’s still a lot going on from new travel search tools to features and brand names being retired by Google.

Here are some interesting tid bits from the last month in search and social media news. We have a lot of news coming out of Google lately, so let’s start there:

1. Google+ Reaches 25 Million Users

Google+, the new social network making waves last month with its limited launch, has already attracted more than 25 million users. That’s faster than other popular social media sites — including Facebook and Twitter — reached that target. To be fair though, Facebook did originally target a more limited audience and Twitter was a new kind of tool to most users rather than another social network. Still, the growth is impressive. Are you on Google+ yet? Meet up with us there! [Source: Search Engine Land]

2. Google Drops Services, Brands

With its Google+ push, the company is streamlining services and brands. Google Labs is gone. [Source: ReadWriteWeb] Others, like Blogger and Picasa, will get a branding makeover. Picasa will become Google Photos and Blogger will become Google Blogs. [Source: Mashable]  What do you think of them streamlining services under the “Google” branding? Do you think it makes sense as they tie things together under Plus? Or will you miss the a la carte style of more segmented services?

3. Google Releases Hotel Finder for US Cities

Travel-related search is the subject of two updates this month, the first coming from Google. They’ve released an experimental hotel finder tool in the US. The map shows popular tourist destinations. You choose the attractions you actually plan to visit. And the tool offers you a list of hotels that are appropriately-located. [Source: Search Engine Journal]

Example from Google's Experimental Hotel Finder

4. Bing Attractions Improved

Bing also released some travel-related search news recently. They’ve overhauled Bing Attractions. When you search for attractions for a specific location, the tool provides a quick list of some of the hottest spots. And now they’ve introduced better filtering options so you only find the attractions you’re actually interested in. For example, you can filter by kid-friendly attractions or find beaches near your travel destination. [Soruce: T3.com]

5. Spotify Brings Social Music to the US

Spotify.com — a service that allows music streaming, playlists, and the ability to easily share music with friends — has come to the US. The service offers Facebook integration to help with the social sharing side. Currently free access is invite-only, but you can get immediate access with a premium account. [Source: Spotify.com]

6. Twitter Expands Advertising

Twitter recently announced changes to their advertising program. You’ve seen sponsored tweets for a while now, but the company now plans to integrate those sponsored tweets into your Twitter feed. On the positive side, you should only see the ads if you follow that brand, and you can close an ad as you find it (at least for now). My question is why brands would want to pay for ads only to reach the people they already reach (their followers). What will you do if you see these ads from brands you follow? Will you simply unfollow them so their “tweets” don’t appear above all of your real conversations?  [Source: Fast Company]

7. Visual.ly Lets You Share or Make Your Own Infographics

People love infographics, and they seem to do particularly well in social media (we love to share pretty things?). For some smaller companies and individuals the cost of hiring designers to create them was a roadblock. Now a new service, Visual.ly, will let users create their own infographics. Not so fast though. Despite the announcement, the infographics creation feature (Labs) still isn’t publicly available. You’ll need to sign up for updates on the open launch. In the meantime you can “Twitterize yourself” or compare yourself to another Twitter user or browse a collection of infographics for inspiration. Upload your own for feedback too! I’ll be keeping an eye on this one, especially their Labs. [Source: TechCrunch]

What other search and social media news caught your attention in recent weeks? Share your own favorite stories in the comments below.

If you spend any time reading or learning about SEO or link building, you will come across the phrase “build good links” or “build quality links” more than once. But what makes a good link? And how can you tell if a link is worth chasing? In this post, we’ll take a look at some aspects of assessing link quality.

Trust – IMHO trust is the most important factor in getting a link. Why are trusted links more important? Each link passes a little trust on to your website. Once you have obtained enough trust, search engine algorithms will let you rank for more competitive terms. Unfortunately, there isn’t a public metric that you can look at for link trust. Many link analysis services such as Majestic SEO or SEOmoz will publish an estimated link trust score. While not perfect, these are helpful.

Authority – After trust, authority is the next most important link quality. Authority speaks to the number of links you have.

How does trust differ from authority? I’ll use a high school analogy to make it easy to understand. If half the students voted for you for student council president, that would be authoritative. However, if half the teachers said you would make a good student council president, that would be trustworthy. If the teachers said you would make a good president but none of the students agreed, that would give you trust without authority, which is not a good combination. If most of the students voted for you but none of the teachers believed you were qualified, that would give you authority without trust, which is also not a good combination. You want to achieve a combination of trust and authority. At that point, you have what it takes to rank well for competitive terms.

Link Age – Are new links worth less then older links? IMHO yes they are. The longer a link has been around, the more likely search engines are to believe it was given editorially. If you are getting links but people take them down shortly after, that’s not a good signal for the search engines to see. While it’s true that some sites go down, either temporarily or permanently, and many sites do change and update links, if you have a large number of links in your profile that change, it looks bad. It’s in your best interest to get links that will have a long life.

Anchor Text – Anchor text consists of the actual words that people put their mouse on and click to get to you. The linked words–and the surrounding words, to some extant–give the search engines some idea of what your page is about. The more anchor text you have pointing to you for “blue widgets,” the more likely a search engine is to believe that’s what your website is about. However, there is some danger here. If all of your links have the same anchor text, or if there isn’t a lot of variation, it looks manipulated from a search engine perspective. If you try and focus your anchor text too much, it may be counterproductive and actually hurt your rankings. Focus your anchor text to help you rank for the keywords you want, but don’t obsess over it or push so hard that it looks fake.

Destination URL – The destination URL is the page that the link connects to. For most websites, the homepage is the most frequently linked-to page and the one with the most links. Similar to anchor text, you need to have diversity in your destination URLs. It’s natural for some pages to get more links than others; however, it’s possible to have too many links to a page. If you try to build too many links to a particular page, usually a commercial page, a search engine may see this as manipulated, and it will work against you. So try to balance your destination URLs as much as possible.

Topicality – IMHO this is one of the weakest signals. If you are a plumber, having links from other plumbing websites is a good thing and completely natural. It’s also likely you will have links from other local businesses in your area. To some extent these act as signals, telling search engines what you are about and what areas you serve. However, hopefully you get links from other websites that aren’t about your subject matter as well. As long as you have a good mix, it’s not something to worry about. The only cause for concern would be if all of your links were from off topic websites–to a search engine, that would look unusual.

Homepage Links Versus Insite Links – Getting a link from another website’s homepage is going to be the strongest link you can get. However, in most cases, those links are temporary, and they get archived to another part of the website. Again, this is a perfectly natural behavior and not something to be concerned about. As long as the site has a decent architecture and the search engine spiders can crawl it and find it, there’s nothing to worry about. Don’t obsess about only getting homepage links. It’s another signal that would make your website look manipulated.

Number of Links on Page – IMHO Google changed the way they evaluate links and, as long as there aren’t hundreds of links on the page, the number of links on page won’t matter that much. Would I prefer to be on a page with less links? Sure, but only because it makes my link more likely to get clicked, not because it means more “link juice” flows to my link.

Placement on a Page – Where your link exists on a page is one of the aspects I feel is important. In my opinion, Google has the ability to look at a website and tell the template from the content and weight the links accordingly. Weights that are in the content are of more value than links elsewhere, especially in the footer.

Sitewide Links – In my opinion, this type of links is the worst to get and can even be dangerous. Getting a sudden surge of site-wide link from one or more websites might have a negative effect on your backlink profile. If you are a brand new site, getting a site-wide link from a page with 20,000 pages could throw your backlink profile off. For sites that have been around a while or already have lots of trusted links, this is a non issue. The only time to worry is when your website is new or when your backlink profile isn’t trusted and authoritative.

Hopefully this article has given you some insight about how to assess some of the most important qualities of links, and you will have a better understanding about what you are looking at and what types of links you should concentrate on building and working on.

Photo credit: Photospin

Search and social media are two constantly (and rapidly) evolving areas. So to serve you better and make sure you don’t miss some of the bigger or more interesting stories, we’re launching a new series. Near the beginning of every month we’ll reflect back on the previous few weeks, highlighting some of the search engine, SEO, and social media stories that grabbed our attention.

Google has generated a lot of buzz recently with news on both the search and social media fronts. But they’re not alone. Facebook, Microsoft, Baidu, and even Myspace make a showing this month. Check out some of the latest stories, or share other news that has you excited in the comments.

1. Google+

Google has dominated social media news lately with the launch of Google+ — their latest attempt at a Facebook killer. Not a fan of Facebook myself, I’m looking forward to seeing how Google+ might (or might not) be a better fit. One of the main features I’m excited about is Google’s “circles.” Basically you can group your friends, family, colleagues, or whomever into different circles and share different information with each group easily. I just received my invite today and can’t wait to test it out. Are you on Google+ yet? Do you think Google+ will have any affect on traditional search? [source]

Credit: Google+ (Circles feature)

2. Google Discontinues Real Time Search, Wonder Wheel and More

One of the biggest stories in search right now is the discontinuation of Google’s real time search feature (where they showed tweets and other information as it happened). This is reportedly due to a contract expiration between the search giant and Twitter. Google has also discontinued other enhanced search features including the Wonder Wheel and they’re sporting a new look (including a black / charcoal bar at the top of the site which seems to be a “love it or hate it” change). [source]

3. Facebook-Skype Video Chat

Facebbook and Skype announced a joint effort to bring you video calling and better integration between the two services. You’ll be able to video call your Facebook friends and even set up group video calls through Skype. How will you take advantage of these features? Do you think video calling was a natural step for Facebook? [source]

4. Google Panda Update 2.2

Google released their Panda 2.2 update in mid-June. Some webmasters have seen their rankings improve from the last update while others are now feeling Panda’s pain. Where do your sites fit in? According to Matt Cutts the update specifically targets scrapers. [source]

5. Microsoft / Baidu Deal for English Search in China

Where Google was previously willing to pull out of China, Microsoft wants a way in. With that goal in mind Microsoft recently came to a deal with Chinese search giant, Baidu. They’ll work together to provide English-language search results to the market. [source]

6. Facebook Blocks Friend Exports to Google+

If you’re both a Facebook user and an early user of Google+, I bet you’d love a way to move your friends’ information to the new tool. Right? Well, with Google+ barely out of the gates Facebook is already putting a stop to it. They recently blocked the Chrome extension, Facebook Friend Exporter, that allowed users to export Facebook contact info and import it into their Gmail address book (where Google+ pulls contact details from). Does sharing their info with you count as an opt-in where you should be able to move to another service (like with email marketing)? Is this a move to protect user privacy, or just an anti-competitive strike-down? We’ll let you decide. [source]

7. News Corp. Sells Myspace

News Corp. finally parted with the social network, Myspace, at a huge loss. It was sold to Specific Media for $35 million. Apparently Justin Timberlake will have an ownership stake and some say in the site’s future. Do you think the new owners can breathe life back into Myspace by going back to an entertainment focus, or is Myspace just clinging to its last breath? [source]

Share your thoughts on these recent stories from the search and social media industries, or share other stories with our readers by leaving a comment below.

Credit: BigStockPhoto.com

If you’re interested in link building for your website, you’re probably familiar with Web directories. You’ve probably even seen huge Web directory lists encouraging you to submit your site to as many directories as possible. These types of lists are still (unfortunately) often sorted by Pagerank. Yet Pagerank is one of the last things you should look at when choosing Web directories to help you promote your site. Let’s talk about why.

Risk vs Reward (and Getting Your Priorities Straight)

Mass directory submissions are a form of spam. But more importantly, when you target those directories based on Pagerank, you risk being accused of trying to manipulate your own Pagerank by Google, which can lead to having your PR or rankings manually penalized.

If you really want to get the most from directories, it’s not about submitting to every directory with link juice to spare. It’s about quality over quantity — submitting your site to Web directories that can actually reach your target audience and send them your way as relevant traffic as opposed to simple back links. After all, it’s that relevant traffic that’s most likely to convert to sales, sign-ups, etc. And those are the end goals you should keep in mind. Improving your own site metrics goes far beyond generic visitor numbers.

Why PageRank is a Faulty (Pretty Much Worthless) Metric

There are a few different reasons you should stop looking at a directory’s Pagerank when deciding to submit to them or not. Here they are:

1. Pagerank doesn’t reflect traffic.
2. Pagerank is easily manipulated.
3. Pagerank has nothing to do with audience targeting.
4. Pagerank can change (or disappear) at any time or at Google’s whim.

Seek web directories sending you targeted traffic - Credit: BigStockPhoto.com

Instead focus on things you can control, monitor, and improve without fully relying on a third party like Google. For example, you could view a Web directory’s overall incoming links to see if they’re getting traffic from sites that are relevant to your own (or from spammy sites). You could look at things like blogs or other resources tied to the directory and see what kinds of visitors they go out of their way to appeal to (or in the case of blogs, what type of visitor is actively engaged with the directory’s site). If you really wanted to do your research, you could even contact owners of similar sites to yours who are already listed in a directory, asking them if they find it to be a worthwhile investment or if it seems to send targeted traffic. If you’re direct competition they might not be willing to share that information. But if a colleague is listed and you know each other already, they might be more inclined to share. It doesn’t hurt to ask.

What are your thoughts on looking at Pagerank when choosing Web directories? Do you still obsess over it? Do you ignore it? Do you fall somewhere in between? Why? Leave a comment below to tell us what you think.

http://www.freedigitalphotos.net/images/view_photog.php?photogid=989

These days it seems like everyone and their mom thinks they’re a professional SEOer. So what do they do? They find relevant keywords and then they pack them in their content like sardines in a can. The result is completely unreadable copy. And unreadable copy is copy that does not convert. So what’s the point of boosting your rank if you can’t turn readers into buyers?

Besides, at this point, keyword stuffing is pretty much useless. The reality is, you should only lightly sprinkle your keywords in your content. Think of it like salt. A little is good but too much kills the flavor. So if you aren’t cramming your content with keywords, where are you putting them? Here are five other places you can place them.

1. Image alt tags—One of the newest advances in the SEO world, optimizing your images is a good idea. Not only will it help your page rank, but it also allows your images to pop up in image searches. So when someone clicks your image, they go to your site. Make sure you make your image alt tags as specific as possible.

2. Meta description tag—This is basically the short summary of your page that appears on the search results page. This description should be carefully written as it’s not only a place to put your keyword, but it’s also an important piece of copy. It must convince whoever is performing the search to click on it. So be careful that you don’t force your keyword here and make it read awkwardly.

3. Heading and subheadings— Headings and subheadings are basically mini-titles. So it only makes sense that you should include your keywords here. Does it actually improve your rankings? No one seems to know for sure. But it can’t hurt as long as you don’t overdo it. And it definitely helps with readability.

4. Title tags—The title tag holds the exact title that will show up in search results. This is what searchers will actually click on. That said, this is one of the most important places to put your keyword. Make sure you make the title tag for each page specific. Meaning use a relevant keyword. Not the same one over and over.

5. URL— This one seems like a no-brainer, yet you still see people using the most nonsensical URLs. It’s only logical that you should place your keywords in the matching URLs. Not only does it help you boost your rank, but it helps categorize your site as well.

Where else do you think you should put your keywords?