SEO/SEM MeetUp Presentation in Los Angeles, CA

Tomorrow will be my first general audience presentation session on the topic of Search Engine Optimization and Marketing - and I only have an hour. For many years now I have performed many training sessions and presentations but all have been to specific individual clients – business groups and one-on-one – but always very specific to their individual websites and their specific needs to addressing SEO and SEM issues. I also generally spend anywhere from 1/2 a day to multiple days on their training. I don't know how well I'll do given only an hour! I hope to cover everything without having to take the motor-mouth approach!

I also thought that I’d find a need to be more generalized and limited in my topic coverage for tomorrow but kept finding that bringing specific examples to the table can explain things far better. So, I will be interested to see how much this general group will “get” on the topics covered on SEO and SEM as compared to my always happy and complimentary clients of the past [I actually love teaching and training]. I have picked one of my old client sites for examples for tomorrow that I was only able to help for a few short months – company changes, new CEO and economic issues kept me from continuing my work with them. I was sad to loose this company and website because it had so much going for them, they just needed to know how to guide their efforts and where to prioritize items.

I will also try to video tape tomorrow’s session and post it later – so you’ll hopefully see if it is successful!

In the meantime, and for the folks that will be at my SEO/SEM session tomorrow asking for this list, I am pre-posting some helpful websites, tools, services and info all around the topic of SEO and SEM. Know that there are so many useful tools that this list is barely a sampling – but hope you find it useful too.

Keyword Research Tools:
https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal - Google AdWords
www.keyworddiscovery.com/ - Trellian Keyword Discovery
http://freekeywords.wordtracker.com/ - WordTracker

Google Toolbar:
http://toolbar.google.com – IE and Firefox Toolbar with Google Search

Analytics Tools:
www.google.com/webmasters/tools - Google WebMaster Tools
www.google.com/analytics/ - Google Analytics
www.google.com/alerts – Alerts on your queries for Web, News, etc
www.google.com/trends - Search and compare trends for queries
www.compete.com – Compete – track competition
www.linkdiagnosis.com - Link analysis – Firefox add-on
siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com – Yahoo – pages indexed and inbound links
www.archive.org – Check the age and history of a website.

Ranking Monitors:
http://ranking.thumbshots.com/ - Thumbshots Rankings
http://semrush.com/ - SEMRush
www.seotoolset.com – Bruce Clay SEO Tools
www.webposition.com - Web Position 4 (Gold)
www.seobook.com – Rank Checker - Firefox add-on

Social Media & PR:
www.facebook.com – Facebook – social utility
http://twitter.com – Twitter – social messaging
www.linkedin.com – LinkedIn – networking tool
http://checkusernames.com/ - Social Media check domain ownership

General SEO Tools & Info:
www.google.com/webmasters/ - General SEO Website Info
www.seobook.com – Misc Information and Tool
www.seotoolset.com – Bruce Clay SEO Tools
www.seomoz.org/tools - SEOmoz general SEO Tools

Blog/Website Services:
WordPress
Blogger
Blogsome
Movable Type
Textpattern
B2evolution
LiveJournal
MSN Spaces
Squarespace
TypePad
Yahoo 360

The Good and The Bad of SEO

Time and time again it seems that SEO consultants are having to help the general public understand the good and the bad of Search Engine Optimization. There is a wealth of website and SEO information out there that the general public simply can’t tell what is good useful information as opposed to silly ignorant and possibly hurtful bits.

I read various articles and posts yesterday about John Dvorak’s comments on The Trouble with Search Engine Optimization and Armando Roggio's survey and findings on website merchants not knowing the difference between good SEO tactics and questionable ones. It seems many are upset with suggestions that SEOs are “modern snake-oil salesmen”. It is very sad when we “good” SEOs see the general public get burned by the “bad” ones. And sadly, we do see it way too often. We see too many out there able to use the correct buzz words or sell themselves well but simply cannot prove themselves when it comes down to the end results – better rankings, better traffic and better conversion rates (purchases, emails, forms, or items affecting ROI in a positive way).

What the general public needs to know, especially like John Dvorak and ecommerce merchants, is that good SEOs are able to find the problems with your site and its surrounding factors. They should be able to explain what is needed to fix those problems and why. The guys (I won’t refer to then as SEOs anymore) who just say “do this and all will be good” are not good enough for anyone to talk to, much less pay for! The “why” something should be done is the most important factor and should be easily understood and also easily verified with the incredible amounts of information online. If you cannot find consistent information to substantiate a claim for fixing an SEO related problem online then it most probably won’t work and may actually hurt your site.

Dvorak said that someone told him to make long URLs (page names) and that this was some special trick. Creating a good, static URL is no “trick”. Knowing how to create a good, static URL is a technique, and there are good techniques and bad techniques - and both can be explained. But what everyone should know is that there are no “tricks” or “magic” in SEO. What there is are clever, smart, good problem solving people who know what is expected of a site to perform well and can intelligently guide and fix things on sites in proper priority and focus and at the right time to a good end. That’s no trick.

The bad ones can sound good – there are definitely plenty of snake-oil salesmen all over - but they don’t know when to do things, where to do things or how to do them effectively and efficiently.

And you know where I see this the most, with those who are busy soliciting business, trying to find website owners who don’t really understand SEO and then using buzz words that sound cool but generally no one knows what is being said. I’ve seen many of the bad guys be the first to put down another SEOs work trying to prove they are better rather than acknowledging items that are good but others that could be done better. A good SEO can see the direction another SEO might have been taking. This doesn’t necessarily make it bad work it’s just a different way to solve the problems. But, then on the other hand, it is very simply to see bad work, bad SEO advice, and/or black-hat tricks going on too. SEO is a constant work-in-progress. Things are never perfect, there is always going to be something that can be done better. As long as your SEO is helping in a positive way, ROI is going up, nothing is going down inappropriately then you have probably hit a good one. I have always suggested to my clients that my job is not to take away but to add to your site and business.

Be careful who you talk to at the SEO conferences or seminars too. I’ve seen plenty flaunting themselves and handing out cards inappropriately. Truly, the good SEO consultants aren’t there to solicit business, they are there to share knowledge. They want as badly as I do to help the general public better understand the good information to be had. They want to help the general public be able to better distinguish between the good and the bad.