Importance of image optimization was explained a lot of times by many web marketing experts (Example: Search Engine Watch, Web Analytics World, or SEOBook) but most webmasters still ignore basic rules to optimize images and attract get traffic from image searches like Google Images, Yahoo! Image Search, or Bing Images. Honestly, I wasn’t a big fan of image optimization for search engines because I was just lazy to tag (add “alt” tag) and write descriptions for each image. In August I decided to test how image optimization can improve my traffic. I spend all day applying image optimization and SEO strategies to images in my library. This week I took all data and it kind of impressed me.

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 Today another person asked me how to get YouTube video on Google Search, make optimization, and improve rankings. It actually suprised me because I had the same question in the past. YouTube is another website and Google treat YouTube like any other site. Some people are saying that Google prefers to rank YouTube better because YouTube is part of Google network… it is not true. In fact, Google does not give any preferences to it’s own sites, for example, search for a keyword ”translator” and you’ll see that Yahoo Text Translator appears higher than Google Translator. YouTube rank high on Google (and other search engines) becasuse it is the best video sharing network and one of the most popular site in the world with billions content pages.

Snippets to different 2 chicks 1 cup reactions in Google search results.
 As you see, it is not only YouTube videos but also other networks as well.

 Google treat YouTube videos the same way like any other popular video sharing sites (Veoh, MetaCafe, Revver etc). It creates snippet with video preview for popular videos or regular result preview for less popular videos. It is automatic process and if your video is popular enough it will appear in search results for related keywords. I would say even more, authors of popular and viral videos almost never use any search engine optimization to gain success.
Read more to find how to optimize YouTube Video

 Every experienced search engine optimization expert will tell you that the best link is one-way link from related websites. For new site it is hard to receive good backlinks and regular submissions in free directories or link exchanges doesn’t work as it used to. Sometimes webmasters needs to go on other websites and ask for a links.

Picture source: SEOmoz

 In most cases email which ask to give backlink look spammy and most webmasters delete it and even report it as spam. Let’s look what Google recommends on webmaster guidance page: “Make sure all the sites that should know about your pages are aware your site is online”. Yes, Google suggest to go and tell other webmasters that your site online… hm, but how to do it in legal way without spamming?
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Last week Jeremy Shoemaker made a post SEO’s Need To Adapt Or Die explaining that SEO’s need to blame themselves and not recession. Jeremy also pointed that SEO is not important as it used to be because everyone knows how to make site appear on top of Google and many technology companies create SEO friendly products which can help.

I’ll agree with Jeremy that SEO’s need to change to stay in business but I am defiantly not agree about technology companies. Of course many content management platforms are trying to create software which is SEO friendly but there are still a lot of work needs to be done by human being who can review product and make adjustments. Wordpress, for example, there are still a lot of fixes needs to be allied by professional SEO. Most content management providers create custom product for everyone, but every website and idea is unique and it is work of SEO specialist to improve new shopping blog, photo blog, blog social site, or business news for search engines.
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Article by Lisa D. Myers Get Special Price” to Appear in Google Maps, Now! captured my attention. Lisa wrote about company from Norway which offered her friend to submit business in Google Maps. As we know, Google doesn’t offer any featured, paid, express, sponsored submissions but some companies still use shady tactics trying to sell free service to business owners who are not too savvy in technology and web marketing. Working in advertising industry for many years I saw a lot of examples when companies with big names try to cheat and add “extra” services to their bill. It raise my eyebrows and make me laugh when some sales agent call or come to my office trying to sell me something with hopes that I still live in 1986.

The most unique and sometimes funny tactics I met:

We’ll keep meta tags on your website for $1000 / month!

Yacht dealer from New England hired me to help with SEO and I noticed right away that website doesn’t have meta tags. I called their CMS (content management) provider, apparently multinational company, and asked why meta tags is missing and there is no way to access FTP or add them through their content management. Representative on the phone told me that it will cost $1000 / month to activate meta tags option on a website. Holly crap! How come I never came up first with this “genius” idea”!
Read about more shady techniques

 Search engine submission lost it’s importance in web marketing since search engines became faster and can index new website or page incredibly fast. It is useless to use Google submission form because it still takes days and even weeks to index a website. Many webmasters found that link building and participation in social networks guarantee indexation in several hours. In many cases it is enough to submit new website or page in several sites like Digg or Stumbleupon and site will be indexed.

 Many people are getting confused between two terms: search engine optimization (SEO) and search engine submisison. Search engine optimization is a process to improve a website in search engine results and get better traffic from search engines. Search engine submission is a process to list your site on peoplular search engines like Google, Yahoo, or Bing.
Read more to find how to get listed fast…

There are many articles about how to build links, some of them provide good information but some of them raise more questions about quality of links and “white hat” SEO strategies. Of course, it is risky and not efficient to submit site in hundreds directories or exchange links with other webmaster. We decided to provide as many good strategies to build links as possible, most of this strategies we use providing SEO services to our clients.

1. Submission in niche directories is an easy way to increase amount of links from related sites especially when your competitors already listed there. Some good niche directories you can find on DirectoryCritic niche directory list but be careful because Directory Critic approves a lot of spammy and low quality directories.
2. Find bloggers with related blogs, subscribe for their feeds, comment, and follow them in social networks. It takes a lot of time and efforts to become real friends in blogosphere but it will benefit your business with more publicity and visibility. Many bloggers link their friend from blog posts or help in social media by Tweeting, bookmarking, and talking about your business and services.
3. Sign up with the most popular social sites and add your link in profile. Be active, don’t just go to create hundreds profiles. Pick only popular and topic related social sites. Example: if you are a doctor you can use popular healthy living and environment www.Care2.com site to contribute knowledge and information.
4. Participate in forums and discussions sharing information with other members. Put link in signature and profile page. Again, use only several topic related forums and become a good member of community.
5. Check who link your cometitors using backlink checkers like LinkVendor , Domain-pop , or Webmaster Toolkit.

Read more to find how…

Google traffic is a fresh air for many businesses which are trying to get customers especially in competitive market. Organic optimization and pay-per-click remains the most popular way to promote product or service. However, there are several ways to receive decent traffic from Google: organic results, sponsored results, Google Maps, YouTube videos in organic and Google Video search, Google News and Blogs, Google Image Search, and traffic through third party websites which list information about businesses and appear in search results.

Total search engine domination for specific business could appear when all components of web marketing and SEO applied and integrated into single campaign to achieve the best result from online investments.

Read more to achieve total search domination

 Search Engine Optimization is not exact science and different companies do it different ways to improve result and drive web traffic to their business. Most business owners prefer to outsource SEO because lack of experience, knowledge, and time. Some companies use different SEO’s for different purposes such as content writing, link building, tracking, or paid web marketing.

Too Good to be true?

 There are different techniques of search engine optimization, most experts divide them in two categories: black hat SEO and white hat SEO. White Hat SEO is a legal way to optimize a website by writing powerful content for readers, building online reputation in social media networks, creating natural links from other websites, and creating site maps with easy navigation’s. Many SEO companies with good reputation provide additional services like lead management, landing pages, press release distributions, integration of online and offline advertising efforts, and more.
Read more to avoid SEO malpractice…

Many experts was trying to explain of what the Google Algorithm formula might look like. Some of them came with very close ideas but it was still just thoughts, guesses, theory with lack of evidence.

 Search Engine Optimization can not become exact science because Google (as well as other search engines) keeps it’s formula / algorithm in a secret. We decided to challenge ourself and explain Google Algorithm and what to look at optimizing a website. Our work based on observations, research, reading, discussions, experience, and rankings of a websites we can track.
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