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SEO Hats Are Dead – It’s All About Risk

Monday, November 24th, 2008
In the past few years, archetypes for search engine optimizers have emerged. They include a three point spectrum that includes “White Hat,” “Gray Hat” and “Black Hat.” SEO hats, like most labels, were designed to pigeonhole and simplify what a person does. However, as the practice of SEO had matured and search engines like Google continue to arbitrarily write the rules of the Internet, these labels are quickly becoming insufficient and irrelevant. Most seasoned search engine optimizers use an eclectic approach to SEO. In fact, the techniques they use can vary in degree and can also be intensely debated based on ...

http://raven-seo-tools.com/blog/288/seo-hats-are-dead-its-all-about-risk

Google introduces SearchWiki; SEO heads explode

Friday, November 21st, 2008
If you’re signed in to Google this morning and have performed a search, you’ve no doubt noticed that they’ve introduced interaction elements that allow you to move results up or down or suppress them from your display. Google is calling this feature SearchWiki. According to the Google Help Center article on SearchWiki, your modified results persist whenever you are signed in to Google and search for those same terms. Naturally, this feature has implications for both search engine optimization and user experience. Having been on both sides of search: designing the search itself, and optimizing content for display in result sets, ...

http://raven-seo-tools.com/blog/3076/google-introduces-searchwiki-seo-heads-explode

Attack of the Quechup Fem Bots!

Friday, November 7th, 2008
Skip to full story below the image Most social networks grow through people finding friends or people they relate to. In some cases, people will friend others solely for the purpose of expanding their reach and exposure (usually for marketing purposes). But what happens when the friending is a result of the service itself and not overzealous or spammy users? The result is a steady, constant flow of friend requests from attractive women, day after day, after day, after day… This has been exactly the case with the social network Quechup. Since creating my account several months ago, I’ve received on average ...

http://raven-seo-tools.com/blog/279/attack-of-the-quechup-fem-bots

Apple’s Marketing Spanks Microsoft’s Marketing

Monday, October 20th, 2008
It’s hard to sell something you don’t really believe in. That’s the assumption I’ve been making with Microsoft’s new ad campaign, created by Crispin Porter & Bogusky. Microsoft has thrown some $300 million dollars at CP&B to make them pretty again, but the only thing they’ve been able to do is a sloppy job of plastic surgery. The entire campaign has seemingly been sloppily handled, as indicated by an abrupt confusion and stop of the Gates & Seinfeld ads and the overtly touted spending budget. With such PR and marketing gaffes, it’s made Microsoft once again an easy target, as ...

http://raven-seo-tools.com/blog/2891/apples-marketing-spanks-microsofts-marketing

Proof That Linking Out Actually Engages Readers

Tuesday, September 16th, 2008
There are many reasons to link out from your website. Sometimes it’s to link to a trusted partner or to a sister website. If you’re a search engine optimizer, you link out because it helps your website perform better on search engines (I’m not talking about link exchanges). However, there are still many websites, especially news oriented websites, that refuse to link out to external websites. There’s an unfounded, but seemingly logical fear that linking out will lose the visitor. The formula seems simple enough; If you make a way for the user to escape your website, they will. Scott Karp, ...

http://raven-seo-tools.com/blog/2885/proof-that-linking-out-actually-engages-readers

Graffiti or Art?

Friday, August 29th, 2008
I recently found these stencil based images on a small power box by the sidewalk, about a block away from our office. For all technical purposes, this is illegal art. However, unlike tagging, which is the equivelant of a human dog marking their territory with something that adds no cultural value (imo), this was actually intriguing and somewhat thought provoking. Similar to a mural, these stenciled images seem to present a story (possibly random). It transformed an otherwise boring green box into an abstract message. I’m curious to know how other people feel about this. Do you see it as an ...

http://raven-seo-tools.com/blog/2882/graffiti-or-art

What’s in Your Word Cloud?

Wednesday, August 13th, 2008
The Online Marketing Blog is a regular internet haunt of mine because of the consistent quality posting of search related content. Often one of the issues directed at search related content, and in particular search related blogs or sites, is that the content is regurgitated. So, to put that to the test, Lee Odden ran the top search marketing blogs through a word cloud creator Wordle. The results are stunning, in more ways than one. The word visualization is presented really well by Wordle, but the insight it gives you into the content on a particular blog makes the tool extremely ...

http://raven-seo-tools.com/blog/223/whats-in-your-word-cloud

The Trouble With SERP Tracking

Monday, April 7th, 2008
There’s an ongoing obsession with tracking search engine result pages (SERPs). Both seasoned search marketing specialists and know-enough-to-be-dangerous webmasters can’t get enough of them. So what’s so special about these stats and why do people track them? Why Track SERPs? There are generally three reasons why people track SERPs: Research, Trends and Performance. Research tracking allows an SEO specialist or webmaster to know where a website ranks based on a set of keywords. It’s one thing to know if a website is in a search engine’s index, ...

http://raven-seo-tools.com/blog/148/the-trouble-with-serp-tracking

7 Social Media Websites and Their Impact on SEO

Wednesday, March 19th, 2008
“The problem with social media is… there are more people writing it than reading it.” Mixx After being granted a credibility boost from the New York Times recently, it seems like Mixx is here to stay. The underdog of social networking, Mixx has a smaller following than other user generated content (UGC) sites, but was seen as worthy enough to be invested in by the Los Angeles Times. Positive Impact You can use Mixx’s smaller user base to your advantage. Any item that you submit to Mixx will be given a better chance of exposure, because there’s not as much competition as there is ...

http://raven-seo-tools.com/blog/137/7-social-media-websites-and-their-impact-on-seo

Hammock T-shirt+Photo=Laptop Equals Very Cool

Tuesday, February 19th, 2008
Nashville’s Hammock Publishing has a 16-year-old annual tradition: giving T-shirts to the people they work with throughout the year. This year they added a new twist to that tradition: T-shirt+Photo=Laptop. If you received a T-shirt, Hammock asked you to add a photo to a world map on their website. For every five photos added to the map, they donate a laptop to the educational efforts of the One Laptop Per Child Foundation in developing countries. Kudos for a very cool way to help kids! The Sitening crew added a photo to the map today.

http://raven-seo-tools.com/blog/3017/hammock-t-shirtphotolaptop-equals-very-cool

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