Archive for October, 2014

10 SEO Myths Reviewed by @DuaneForrester

Myths in SEO run almost as deep as they do in Lock Ness and Area 51. Lets have some fun and look at 10 of them today. By no means a definitely list, these still pop up.

Yes, its nice to rank on top, but you know that actual rankings fluctuate on a daily basis. Does the #1 spot actually get you more clicks and conversions and the # 2 or #3 spot. Depends on the phrase sometimes. And for those trying to get off page 2 of the SERP and onto page 1, be careful. Often the click through rate (CTR) of the top spots on page 2 are far better than the CTRs on the lower positions on page one. If you rank well on page 2, be careful when planning your assault on page one. Unless you can get above the fold, it might be better to stay put and own the top of the second page. All of this will, naturally, vary a great deal form site to site, page to page and even across individual phrases. Sometimes people research on one phrase and buy on another version, for example.

Its important, but even the most well-crafted title tag cant elevate a site skipping everything else. This is a somewhat common refrain from bloggers as some of the most popular platforms dont include things like meta descriptions in their base code. Plugins exist to easily add them, and allow access to a bunch of other common areas SEOs like to fiddle with. You should spend time getting the title right, but this alone wont save a sinking ship.

Social takes time, I cant be bothered with SEO, so Ill just do social. There was a time when ranking a website was like making consomm. You wanted one thing clear broth. At that time, you could focus on a single tactic and it would boost rankings. Today its more like trying to make the worlds best seafood chowder. Success depends on a complex mix of ingredients, freshness and timing. One ingredient alone wont bring success, and yet without that one ingredient, you dont have a chowder.

People like to consume content in videos. Videos are easy to produce and easy to consume. Its pretty easy to make high quality videos today, and even if you dont the expectations of people online have aligned with more modest efforts. But lets face it, embedding videos can negatively affect page load times, frustrating visitors. And a video alone wont help rankings. Youve got to give the engines something to understand, as theyre not going to watch that 4 minute rant you posted. Transcripts are a great way around this little issue. Videos are a great part of growing your content, but arent a silver bullet, despite what some ads on Facebook would have you believe.

Nope. No amount of ad buying will get you organically ranked higher. If you still believe this today, click here. The instant and engine starts determining ranking based on ads bought is the instant it loses credibility. Game over, Player One.

Maybe you do, but its not your call to make. Great content is content thats deemed great by searchers and visitors to your site. All the standards in the world wont help you if no one likes your writing style, voice or message. Grammar affects how people (readers) perceive you, so that can have a direct impact on engagement and rankings. But never delude yourself into thinking what you produced is excellent just because you put time into it. Watch what visitors engage with and seek to follow that same pattern.

While important as a vote of confidence for the content they point to, there is simply so much link spam these days that its tough to know where to turn. Obviously buying links is a dead end, and it doesnt matter how you split this hair: sharing, encouraging, incentivizing, buying its all the same. You want links to surprise you. You should never know in advance a link is coming, or where its coming from. If you do, thats the wrong path. Links are part of the bigger picture. You want them, but you want them to be natural. If an engine sees you growing tem naturally, youre rewarded with rankings. If they see you growing them unnaturally, youre rewarded with penalties.

No. It will help the engine gain a better understanding of your content, and allow us to use that content in unique ways in the SERPs (should we choose to), but installing the code doesnt boost rankings.

While technically a different discipline, its time more folks starting seeing them as similar. Both focus on improving a website for users. Investing in SEO and not investing in usability is like tying one sneaker and going for a run. Yeah, youll be OK, but wouldnt it be a better experience with both shoes tied?

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10 SEO Myths Reviewed by @DuaneForrester

Combine Paid Ads with Your SEO Campaign: It's the Perfect Strategy, Says Carlsbad Web Design Agency RemedyOne

Carlsbad, CA (PRWEB) October 29, 2014

Today, Carlsbad web design and internet marketing agency, RemedyOne, announced guidelines for increasing ROI of online marketing spends in their article SEO and Paid Advertising - A Perfect Combination.

Most businesses are already aware of the value and importance of both Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Pay-Per-Click (PPC) advertising, and they may even have active campaigns for both of these strategies. But RemedyOne found that combining both tactics can dramatically increase ROI.

"It's about credibility," says RemedyOne CEO Simon Hunter from their North San Diego County office. "When searchers see a paid ad as well as a highly ranking organic result for a business, product or service, they associate more value to the link, and are more likely to click through to the site."

Another benefit of running a PPC campaign is the instant feedback it can provide on a website's conversion ratios. A marketer can use the detailed and granular information from the PPC campaign to expose and refine potential problems in the SEO campaign and make the site more effective.

The benefits can leak over into website design and development too, guiding the decision-making process. When developing an e-commerce site or a lead generation site, simply knowing which elements convert higher than others can lead to a direct improvement in sales.

Carlsbad web design agency RemedyOne was founded in 2000. They specialize in creating web and cloud-based solutions for businesses in San Diego County. Services include web design, e-commerce web development, PPC management, content creation, inbound marketing and SEO. For more information, visit http://www.remedyone.com.

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Combine Paid Ads with Your SEO Campaign: It's the Perfect Strategy, Says Carlsbad Web Design Agency RemedyOne

[472] Politicos BP Sugar Daddy, Capitalisms Successful Alternative & Fukushima Censorship – Video


[472] Politicos BP Sugar Daddy, Capitalisms Successful Alternative Fukushima Censorship
Abby Martin Breaks the Set on Politico covering for BP, the need to rid the world of nuclear weapons and the continuing effects of the Fukushima nuclear disaster. LIKE Breaking the Set @ http://fb...

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[472] Politicos BP Sugar Daddy, Capitalisms Successful Alternative & Fukushima Censorship - Video

Comment: Don't fear censorship it protects the vulnerable

By Anshuman A. Mondal

The prime minister was recently accused of tolerating racism by posing with some blacked-up Morris dancers for a publicity photograph. His accusers have, in turn, been accused of being over-sensitive or guilty of misreading.

It's a wearyingly familiar scene, played out every time there is a controversy of this kind. One side claims the right to freedom of speech, the other insists that other fundamental rights have been violated (for instance, to be free from racial discrimination). A stalemate ensues that is never resolved, but life moves onuntil the next controversy flares up.

The giving and taking of offence is at the heart of these controversies. But what exactly is going on when people give or take offence? Is it simply a difference of opinion or interpretation, or are there deeper motivations and explanations?

To answer these questions we need to re-think not just freedom of speech, but also the idea of 'speech' on which it rests.

The common sense view of language is that is simply a vehicle of communication. It sees expression as merely the passing of information, ideas, concepts and images from one human to another. 'Speech' is therefore separated from action. While making speech always involves an act writing, verbalisation the expression, once it is made, stands on its own, apart and distinct from the act which created it.

This underlies most contemporary understandings of freedom of speech. The first amendment of the US constitution, for instance, states that "Congress shall make no lawabridging the freedom of speech". If speech is not distinct from action, then this would effectively mean that Congress shall not make any law, which is absurd.

However, in his seminal book How to Do Things with Words, the Oxford philosopher J L Austin developed something known as 'speech act theory'. He argued that there were two broad categories of speech: the first, which he called 'constatives', are simply descriptive and informational; the second he called 'performatives', and they dont simply say something, they do something. These forms of speech are therefore a kind of action.

In my book Islam and Controversy: The Politics of Free Speech after Rushdie, I argue that the giving and taking of offence are performative speech acts in Austins sense. They act upon the world and the work they do is political insofar as they aim to establish a power relation between offender and offendee. Put simply, to offend someone is to subordinate them, to put them down. Conversely, to take offence is to draw attention to that subordination.

The link between abusive speech and the performance of power is demonstrated by a simple thought experiment how many offensive terms of abuse can you think of that apply to the white race, male gender or heterosexuality?

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Comment: Don't fear censorship it protects the vulnerable

UW professor to talk about energy, politics, free speech

By EVE NEWMAN / even@laramieboomerang.com Wednesday, October 29, 2014

University of Wyoming professor Jeff Lockwood is scheduled to speak about censorship by the energy industry during a talk this weekend in Sheridan.

Lockwood, who works in the UW Department of Philosophy, is set to present the keynote address for the Powder River Basin Resource Councils 42nd annual meeting at 7:30 p.m. Saturday at the Holiday Inn in Sheridan.

The talk, Living Behind the Carbon Curtain: Wyoming, Energy and Censorship, is a preview of a book by the same name thats due out in 2016, to be published by University of New Mexico Press.

Im digging into the ways in which the energy industry has colluded with the government in both Wyoming and nationally as well as internationally, Lockwood said, to shape public discourse, and in some cases to explicitly censor free speech, particularly forms of speech the industry finds inconsistent with its interests.

The book highlights five examples of such censorship that have taken place in Wyoming, he said.

His talk this weekend will focus on two chapters and one example, about the cancellation of an art show.

Art work was censored from the Nicolaysen Art Museum in Casper because it was deemed offensive to the energy industry, Lockwood said.

His motivation for the project came from the handling of a sculpture at UW called Carbon Sink: What Goes Around Comes Around. It consisted of a spiral of logs from beetle-killed trees arranged around a pile of coal. The sculpture, by artist Chris Drury, was installed on campus in 2011. It was removed in May 2012, a year ahead of schedule.

University officials initially said water damage necessitated its early removal, though emails requested by the media suggested the sculpture might have been removed because some lawmakers and coal companies found it offensive. Much of UWs funding comes from taxes paid by coal mines and oil and gas fields in the state, plus donations from energy companies.

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UW professor to talk about energy, politics, free speech