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Tags in Wordpress carry no SEO weight.  Going forward, I would ignore them completely.

If you erase your tag pages now, it may cause some broken links from your sitemap.  I attached a video of Matt Cutts explaining keyword meta tags.

Jared

watch?v=UnHhmy7Ovro

You can find do follow locations for your comments with this free search tool:

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When I comment, I make them long and thought out as a way to get my name out there.  People like to see debate and controversy, so don't be afraid to comment (politely) about why you disagree with their opinions.

Tags carry no SEO value.  All they do is notify your competition the exact keyword phrases that you are targeting.  Matt Cutts has suggested many times that categories alone are a best practice.

Have a good one,

Jared

The more you post and the more videos you make, the more exposure!  That is a more valuable goal.

Hey Mark,

Also, as you add content, let your analytics guide you towards long tails that you can write about.  Focusing on incoming search keywords will allow you to drill into micro niches within your market as well.

I used to put much of my time into manual back links, but I had to learn that it is far more valuable to analyze my stats and write a good post or two instead.

This leads to more long tail and more micro niches.

If you are using Wordpress and they are showing up as trackbacks, make sure you delete them, or disable trackbacks and pingbacks.

I almost threw up!

Hey Garry,

The best lessons that helped me over the last two years are:

-Only analyze the strength of first page of Google results (MOZbar + keyword optimization).  Forget about exact match, intitle, and inurl numbers, etc.

-Make a huge list out to the long tail.  Group similar phrases together over time.  It is an ongoing process.

-Write more content above all else, insert your long tail phrases all over the place, then analyze.  Let the tools point you towards topics and niches that are working in your market instead of PPC (I don't have that money to waste).  You will be surprised about the route analytics takes you.  Don't corner yourself into thinking about a few topics.

-Look in places other than the Adwords Tool since the vast majority of Internet Marketers and SEOs look there.  I like Keyword Optimizer Pro and again, my analytics.

Take care,

Jared

Hey Nate,

Try Keyword Optimizer Pro (Google It)

It is free and here is what it does:

When you search Google, it shows a list of suggestions before you hit "enter".  Now try this: hit "space" letter "a".  This gives a new list, delete it, then "space" letter "b", etc.

Keyword Optimizer Pro scrapes A-Z and 0-9.  There are a couple of settings, the longest which can return 10,000 phrases.

You can take the lists, and if you are signed in to Adwords, you can paste 2500 keywords in there to analyze them.  I use it at least once a week with no problems and it was completely updated about a month ago.

Hope this helps (I know it will),

Jared

Mainly it is site structure plus speed.  It does have quite a few  features, so when you use an SEO plugin, there may be some overlapping features to keep an eye out for.

Hey everybody,

I thought I would get your opinions on the sites where you like to mine keyword phrases.

Before determining competition, I like to get ideas from the Adwords Tool, Keyword Optimizer Pro (a Google suggest scraper), Insights, Trends, and by looking at the phrases competitors are optimized for.

How about you guys?

Jared

Tags carry no SEO value.  All they do is notify your competition the exact keyword phrases that you are targeting.  Matt Cutts has suggested many times that categories alone are a best practice.

Have a good one,

Jared

Sounds like drivel, poppycock and shenanigans to me!

Here is what I like to do:

On Google Analytics go to Traffic Sources --> Sources --> Search --> Organic.  On the bottom right of that report, change "show rows" to a larger number.

This will give you the long tail search results that you are starting to snag.  Grab a few key phrases that look enticing to you.

Next, run those through Scroogle.org --> Scroogle Scraper.  It looks spammy, but I have used it over a year with no problem.

Scroogle will return Google results with no personalized or history enabled.  With the latest update, this is huge.  If you find you are not ranking very high and still getting a bit of traffic, you can get a back link or two for an easy boost.

Half the time, I see success just from a couple text links from my other posts (deep linking).

Hope I didn't confuse!

Jared

Hey Diane,

This may have been one of those little algorithm tweaks Google is so fond of.  They may be playing with their exact match domain strength.

The important thing is to not panic!  Get a couple of quality links, or maybe go vertical with a quick video, which could do well if you embed it.

You could also write a post about gastric band hypnotherapy and point the anchor text to the page that normally ranks, or link from content that already exists.

Also, you could throw your keyword in the H1 tag.

You're right, those other sites are garbage!

Hey Michelleh,

This won't count as duplicate content.  The more embeds, the better your videos will do based on the content that it is embedded within.

If Google sees a lot of embeds, it means that your video is helpful for people and should get more attention.

Hey Petr,

1. The links from a site on the same server won't do much for you.

2. If you want to get a back link from another site, it would be better to write something original for them and do this for many related sites.

The last two practices don't really work any more.

You should try to combine social with video and embedding.  Get social buttons on your site.  Make a Facebook page, slowly share your pages on digg, delicious, twitter, reddit, and StumbleUpon.

Shoot some quick videos using screen capture (CamStudio is free) and OpenOffice presentations.  I can't read your language, but it looks like mortgages?  Quick 1 minute videos about tips and basics is always very easy and effective.

Embed those vids in a relevant post.

You really need to be stand out from your competitors and search is losing its market share.  Target the traffic across multiple types of media and social sites and expand your horizons!

SEO is an ongoing, constant process that you need to constantly work at.  You'll get there.

Best of luck!

Jared

Hey Alexander,

Your first two URLs are more relevant for those keywords in their meta description and title tags from the page source.

You could try to position the exact phrase "Georgia Mortgage Lender Bond" into the title tag and meta description of the URLs which need a boost.  Another thing to try would be to expand on your unique content a little bit for each URL by writing a bit more.

Jared

I love Thesis and it's all I use.

If it's good enough for Matt Cutts and Search Engine Land, it's good enough for me!

Hey Mark,

Also, as you add content, let your analytics guide you towards long tails that you can write about.  Focusing on incoming search keywords will allow you to drill into micro niches within your market as well.

I used to put much of my time into manual back links, but I had to learn that it is far more valuable to analyze my stats and write a good post or two instead.

This leads to more long tail and more micro niches.