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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:

http://www.inlineseo.com/dofollowdiver/

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.

As Rand says on the Whiteboards, "Howdy SEOmoz fans",

I am obsessed with Wordpress, but wanted to spread my wings a bit and have been playing around with Drupal.  I really like it.

I had the idea for a new site that would have a Drupal set up (in the front end for pages and training) with a Wordpress blog on the subdomain or a directory for the Social Media integration I like to do with Wordpress.

I'm just brainstorming a couple questions:

1. Would you guys and gals recommend sticking to just one or the other for SEO or does this not really matter as long as they are deep linked well?

2. Also, would you recommend subdomain or directory for WP?

Have a good one,

Jared

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 Joe,

That's a nice looking site!

You could try the Wordpress SEO plugin instead of Platinum.  It is what I use and I like it better than Platinum.

Have a good one.

Hey everybody,

I finally started shooting some screen capture videos and it is actually fun!  Right now, I am uploading to Youtube and soon, Vimeo.  Next, I embed them on a post and share it around a few social sites, Tweet it, and share it on my Facebook Page.

I know there are more effective ways and sites for doing this.  What tips can you Mozzers share?

Thanks,

Jared

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 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!

There are many routes you can take with your new blog to drive traffic.

One of the most cost and time effective strategies is to determine your most effective keywords.  These are ones that are driving traffic and sales to your site already.

If these phrases are low on the first page of results, or on the second page AND sending you leads, these are the phrases to target first in a blog post to get them higher in the search results.

The duplicate content will only happen if you copy exact product descriptions from the main part of the site onto the blog.  As for categories vs. products, it really depends on your top keywords and your goals.  If you are in a micro niche, it may be better to lean towards products.

Don't let these choices freeze you up, though.  Make related original content as you flesh out a plan and stay consistent!

A poem about keyword research?  You are a kindred spirit, sir!

Thanks for the reply.

Sounds like drivel, poppycock and shenanigans to me!

Hey everybody,

Thought I would poll my fellow Wordpress users about their favorite social plugins.

Mine are WP Socializer for customizable buttons, Facebook Like Box for my Facebook pages, and SEO Facebook Comments for crawlable Facebook comments.

Happy Holidays,

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 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

I have always read that (-) is the best practice for URLs for telling search engines the separation of keyword phrases.  I think about it terms of my computer's hard drive to keep it simple.

The (/) separates files (blog directories), and the (-) is what I use on my files (web pages).

Just my way of rationalizing it to myself!

Have a good one,

Jared

That's my opinion, too, Sebastian.

There is a pretty cool site called Inline SEO that has a do follow comment-finding-tool-thingy.  You can Google it.  It is a pretty useful tool!

Happy Holidays,

Jared

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

As long as your comments don't show up anywhere else on your site, there shouldn't be any duplicate content problems.

The next time that page is crawled, the comment just appears below the content.

Jared

I couldn't agree more, Steve.

I tried about 4 different of these networks and the success was only temporary.  It would be absurd to think that Google doesn't have a full time employee whose only job is to discover those networks!

I don't even touch spinning any more.  It continuously becomes less effective.  Instead of dealing with those tactics, I would rather spend my time making a quick video and posting it to a couple of video sites, then embedding it on a new post.

I'm keeping my money out of those networks.

Since it goes to your page, you could edit it, then underneath the profile image it should say, edit thumbnail.

You could put your website along the bottom of the profile pic, then the share button would have your url.

You can also make your site's name clickable under your About Section in Facebook.  Those are for the visitors that enter through Facebook.

I see you're into video, too.  There is a cool optimization channel called VidiSEO you may want to check out if you get a chance.

Great site!

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