Dream Systems Media Blog

A Thanks To SEO

SEO has been GOOD to me.  SEO has been GOOD to my clients. I have been doing this since the late 90s, and still no complaints…from anyone, not one.

Don’t compare us to lawyers, don’t try to tell us we are selling snake oil, and especially – I mean especially, don’t try to tell us our industry is dead (have you heard of Google?). We have heard it all before, and to be quite honest, we are getting bored of it. Seriously figure out something else to talk about in 2010. Please? Go link bait your agenda in some other industry.

SEO online marketing, SEO, SEO is dead, SEO is not dead

My approach to press releases is different than traditional PR. Most of the press releases I write are less about getting press coverage for my news, and more about getting quality backlinks to my site. However, it is possible to do both. It starts with a good story and added to that, online distribution.

Many people believe it’s enough to blog about their news. For some high traffic blogs (thought leaders) this might be true. For most blogs there isn’t the distribution. You want to reach outside of your community for greater exposure.

Here’s an IM conversation I had recently about the importance of press release distribution:

Clogon: i guess i just put my “press releases” in the form of blog posts

Me: yes and your reach is pretty limited compared to a distribution site that sends it to thousands of people

SEO, Sales and Marketing, Search Marketing online PR, press releases

About a month ago I had a conversation with an old school mate that found me via Facebook. It has been about 14 – 15 years since I last spoke/saw/did anything with this guy. We mostly just talked about what I do for a living, but it was interesting for me to hear his thoughts and ideas about our industry (and how he thought he did the same thing for a living). I have to admit the conversation was a bit irritating, and I ended up having to tell my old friend I had to .  I  can’t remember the reason I gave him, but the real reason was I was two seconds away from losing it and really giving him a piece of my mind!

SEO Internet Marketing, Marketing, online marketing, SEO

Brandon Buttars

A long time friend of mine, who also happens to be a web developer recently took some time to answer some questions for me.  He and I have noticed there is a huge communication gap between most web developers and SEOs/Internet marketers.  We feel that the web developer thinks that they know how to build the site “good enough” without talking to an SEO, and the SEOs assume the developers don’t have a clue about marketing online.  Both are wrong. You each bring something amazing to the table and need each other.  I think we need to have some better communication from the very start and to kick things off, and get you thinking differently – here is my interview of Brandon Buttars, web developer.

SEO Brandon Buttars, Internet Marketing, SEO, web developer

Do It Yourself Site Review

I complete a lot of site reviews. Often times, I give the same exact advice to each customer. Therefore, I thought I would just go ahead and share the 12 most common things that are wrong or need fixed with most sites – from an SEO/marketing standpoint.  I usually conduct these site reviews during my initial site audit for client or potential client.  I know I posted about the 5 Minute SEO Audit Checklist a while back on Search Engine People, but I wanted to expand on that article with a few other things to look for:

1. URL canonicalization and 301s need to be set in place because on 100% of the sites I review they are not.
2. Custom 404s – I have seen catchy ones, crazy ones, ones that let you search, but at this point having anything is better then an ugly “this page does not exist” result that takes customers away from your site itself, thereby giving you less credibility.

SEO SEO, seo audit, site audits, site reviews

Last weekend I built a fancy chicken coop called a chicken ark. Sadly, many of my friends and family members were actually surprised that I could turn out this custom home. I guess they didn’t know I was a super star in my high school wood shop.

OK, so your not impressed and would like to know what SEO campaigns have to do with building chicken coops. The correlation has to do with being able to work both inside and outside of the blue prints.

David Mink, SEO chicken coop, SEO campaigning

Local Search Marketing Tactics – Local search doesn’t only happen in relation what’s on a map. This

Local Search Marketing Panel

session looks at a variety of local search tactics that are not necessarily tied to your physical location’s listing.

Moderator: Greg Sterling, Founding Principal, Sterling Market Intelligence

Speakers:
Scott Dunlap, CEO, NearbyNow, Inc.
Matt McGee, Assignment Editor, Search Engine Land
William Scott, President, Search Influence
Dennis Yu, CEO, BlitzLocal LLC

NOTES

Scott Dunlap, CEO, NearbyNow, Inc.
Topic: Tracking and Measuring Online/In-Store Shoppers

Local search is by def: a multi-channel opp.  Search online and buy in store.  There is a 9 to 1 ratio of people wanting to buy in store due to urgency.  So the questions is how do you track traffic to convertion when they are finding you online, yet buying in your store.

Solutions:

General, Local Marketing, SEO, SMX SMX, SMX West

I had a great conversation with a client last night that lasted until 10 PM.  I usually don’t schedule meetings that late (or like them) but in this situation I had no other choice.  It turns out that it ended up being a good meeting that involved a lot of listening.  It got me thinking about the way we listen to our clients.

Often times we (Internet marketing/SEO folks) talk with smart, capable business owners who don’t understand what we do, and we end up doing all the talking, and get use to doing all the talking.  Sometimes we do so much talking we don’t take the time to listen to what our clients are saying, or what they really need from us.  I know I have been guilty of this in the past!

SEO clients, SEO

Talking with a client the other day, I was asked how to write a blog post that is efficient from an SEO prospective, yet is still worthy of a read from her customers; here is the answer.  I have written about this before elsewhere, but figured I might as well post it here too.

Blogging Tip List:

1. First of all, hopefully you are writing something that is interesting and relates to your reader.  Every now and then I post something that might just be funny, or not really related to the theme of any certain blog I’m writing on, but in most cases if you are in the industry of money management and your traffic visiting your site is hitting it via words related to money management, than by all means write about that topic instead of what you had for breakfast this morning.

Blogging, SEO Blogging, SEO

A friend of mine who is just starting out (Internet business) was asking me the other day about 301 redirects, www’s vs non-www’s in domain and the .htaccess file and how it all relates to what I do and SEO etc.  Because of that, I wanted to post it here on this blog.  I have posted this information in other places before, but wanted it here for any of the Dream Systems Media readers to have access to it.

For anyone who is serious about search engine optimization knowing about 301 redirects is a MUST.  I searched and searched all over for the “bottom line-tell me how to do it” examples of the 301 redirects and found the information confusing.

What you need to know, and NOTHING more!

First: The code to get your non www’s always redirecting to the www’s is as follows:

Here’s the code:

SEO 301 redir, 301 redirects, htaccess file