Market Samurai is suggesting that the page is indexed, but outside of the first 1000 results.

So I feel it is time to change tact.

Bookmarks are good, but they vary too frequently between DoFollow and NoFollow depending on which site you use, and the value in them varies a lot too.

Looking at the competition on Twitter for my name search, I am definitely not in a good place. My Twitter account is my Company name, rather than my name – which is what the other accounts have done. “James Hunt” is on my Bio as a keyword, but that clearly is not as useful as having it in the URL.

So for Day 6 and Day 7 of this challenge, I am going to utilise another backlinking strategy.

I regularly read and comment on forums, anything from Search Marketing and industry sites, through XBOX and Television ones. Currently, my signature across these accounts is pointing to my main website, so I am going to visit all my Forum Profiles and add another signature link to my Twitter Profile.

Typically, I would advise Clients to use Anchor text such as “Follow me on Twitter” for this, but I am going to tweak it slightly and use the sentence “Follow James Hunt on Twitter” instead. This not only tells the other users what they are clicking on, but also incorporates the Keyword I am targeting.

Check back in a couple of days to find out how this goes!

Well the past couple of days, I have been continuing to add bookmarks to my profile, and a quick check of ranking has highlighted a fairly important issue with Twitter, one that is both concerning and confusing.

I think most people have heard of ‘canonical’ issues, whereby two pages exist with different URL’s but the same content. Well it appears that Twitter accounts suffer the same problem.

I now have two accounts that have been indexed in Google:

• http://twitter.com/payasyougoseo
• http://twitter.com/PayAsYouGoSEO

Now for the uninitiated of you, this may not appear as an issue, but in the eyes of the search engine, both of these URL’s are different and could contain different information.

One of the biggest challenges to overcome with this canonicalisation is a familiar issue with many website owners, the fact that any links that are generated to the site can be split between two separate pages.

The lowercase account currently has 47 backlinks, whereas my preferred account, the uppercase version, has 145.

With a website, this is easily resolved with a rewrite in the htaccess file, with Twitter accounts…I will need to figure out a way.

In order to get an understanding of the task ahead, my first job is to find out where I currently rank in Google. Using a really great piece of software (Market Samurai), I have discovered that I am not the only James Hunt on Twitter, not surprising really, but interestingly, my profile does not appear in the top 1000 results, however, two other profiles with a handful of links are ranking quite well.

Using another part of Market Samurai, I have also identified a gap on the first page, where I am going to aim for. Positions 6, 7 and 8 are all low competition websites, with poor on page seo and not many backlinks.

A perfect start really, the two things to take away are:

1. Twitter profiles rank well with what would appear to be little off page optimisation
2. The competition on the first page is not that great below the fold.

I think my first task will be to use some decent, do follow, social bookmarking sites to get some nice easy links through to my page and see if I can get my profile indexed in the next day or two…there are a couple of reasons for doing this first;

1. Good social bookmarking sites (StumbleUpon or Reddit, for example) not only provide that all important link, but also drive a good volume of traffic. Some of my clients get more Stumbles than visits from Yahoo and Bing combined!
2. Social Bookmarking sites also get crawled fairly often, so I will have better chance of the link being found and indexed in a timely manner.

I will update you more tomorrow.

I cant see the link between doing without a mobile phone for a month and being a better person, but hey, if that’s what makes you happy!

So, while perusing the SERP’s for a few people I follow on Twitter, I noticed that many of them seem to be doing quite well in Google for the names as search terms – try a search for Bill Boorman, a man who tweets far more than is healthy, but the whole first page breaks down his portfolio of blogs…

How easy/difficult is this to replicate? Is it simply a case providing useful content to enough people and Google will reward you?

Well, I have a slightly different issue, my name!

“James Hunt” is synonymous around the world for one of my hero’s, and the man I was named after, and quite rightly the late Formula One legend occupies a similar level of authority for that search. As well as the other 8 million competing pages.

But, one of the things I learnt early on in SEO is that “they are only there because I haven’t tried to get there yet!” And so, the next 30 days will begin at midnight on the 3rd August 2010.

I am going to try and get my Twitter profile, which is not in my personal name (although it is in the Bio) as high as possible.

Later today, I will find out some stats about where that page currently sits, if it is indexed at all! and we can see how this progresses.

Well, today in a prospect meeting, I went through the usual patter, gave examples, showed where changes could be made, and then went on to explain anchor text and what it was.

To my surprise, Adobe were not number one, another website (www.xe.com/ucc/) have jumped in to that position. In fact, the Adobe Reader page is actually in at position 6! With Adobe Flash Player at number two.

I have to say, in a rather geeky way, that this is the most interesting SEO news I have seen all week!

Adobe are certainly killing it in terms of Authority using the superb Open Site Explorer tool from SEOMoz but looking at the number of linking domains and links in general, XE have a heap more.

Is this a brilliant SEO campaign for a purely PR (traditional sense, not Page Rank) based purpose, or do XE see some tangible benefit in appearing position one for such a non-commercially viable keyword?

Needless to say, my meeting was interrupted momentarily when I simply lost track of what I was doing, and almost forgot I had a prospect with me, but the explanation was still given and her understanding of Anchor Text was complete

One of my clients is an online sweet shop and we have been discussing potential keywords that could be targeted. Looking at the calender, the next major festival in the UK is Halloween, more than 3 months away.

In terms of SEO, this is a perfect time-frame to begin optimisation of the specific page and also off-page optimisation and link-building.

It will give me plenty of time to publish articles and post blogs that will direct traffic and links back to the main site, as well as the internal page. Hopefully, by the time Halloween is here, there will be plenty of traction in Google for the search terms we are targeting.

Three months will give us plenty of time to optimise some medium tale phrases as well as beginning to target the more generic terms with high volume. Any amount of time shorter than this and we would have had to target longer tailed searches, which are far easier to rank for, but don’t carry the volume.

Be sure to check back for updates to see how we get on!

Like any website, your Twitter Profile can be optimised to maximise it potential to rank well for your important keywords, so lets look at the primary ways of doing this.

Twitter Username – This is one the most important parts of building your profile and online reputation. Depending on the industry you are in you can use your name, a nick name or a brand name. Try to make it short and snappy, something that is easy to remember. This is one area that you need to think about, make sure you get the right name first time round, otherwise you will need to build that reputation all over again with a new profile.

Twitter URL – This is where you place a link to your primary website or blog. There is no need to use a URL shortener, simply enter the full website address. Twitter will only display the first 20 characters of your website here, so you can either drop the www. bit and ensure the rewrite is in your .htaccess file. See how I have dropped the www. bit? But when you click on it, it will redirect to the www verson as that’s how I prefer it to look. If that sounds to complicated than just go ahead and use the whole URL, we can put the website on the background image at a later stage.

Twitter Bio – This area should be treated in the same way as your homepage meta description. Since this is the bit that will show up in the search results, make sure it sells your services well, don’t waste any characters and keep it upbeat. After all, no one wants to follow someone with a boring bio!

Twitter Profile Photo – Just like any image on your main website, your Twitter profile pic should be optimised correctly too. Although you cannot specifically add an Alt tag, be sure to name the file with your primary keyword! An important tip here – don’t leave any spaces, if you want to use multiple words then seperate them with a ‘-’.

Many organisations perceive themselves as too small to make use of social media and cannot see the real benefit of utilising these powerful sites.

Traditionally, the role of an SEO has been to achieve first page results for certain keywords. And why not? The holy grail for all businesses is the “position 1 in Google”.

The traffic and confidence that a position 1 result generates is tremendous, but how much thought goes in to the other 9 results?

The average business has a number of routes to achieve high first page results for a particular keyword. On-page optimisation, off-page optimisation and pay-per-click all play their part in good ranking for certain phrases. But each of these carry their own positives and negatives for reaching the end goal.

Social media has changed this. There are now many different ways to achieve a first page listing and Google is loving Web 2.0 properties at the moment.

From real time Twitter results to the pure Page Rank of social media sites, the first page is now a battleground for SEO’s.

Hubpages, Squidoo Lens’, Facebook groups are all being indexed and ranked highly if optimised correctly and each is a result in its own right.

Whereas the traditional SEO will optimise your site to rank highly, the real objective should be to dominate the SERP’s for a particular search term. Why have one position when you can have 30 out of the top 50?

By utilising Social Media correctly, your website could be ranking for its blog posts, a hub page, a squidoo lens, a facebook group, your linked in and twitter profiles. Each one referencing your primary site, but also occupying the results page.

Not only does this lead to more traffic and therefore sales, but it prevents your competition from even getting close.

Who wants a first page listing? I want the first 7 positions!

Google, as most people are aware, put the largest amount of weighting on inbound links and the anchor text of those links, so surely it would be wise to invest every effort into getting more links, right?

Well, sort of, let me explain it differently in way most people can relate too. If you are getting a new carpet fitted, you could simply just get it fitted on top of the concrete floor. It would look ok, guests would notice it was new and it will perform its job fine.

However, to really make the most out of the new carpet, you should also invest in new underlay. This way, the carpet would feel nicer, it would last longer and most people would recognise the difference a good underlay makes.

In this example, the carpet represents off-page optimisation, inbound links, social bookmarking etc. The underlay is on-page optimisation – ensuring the search engine knows exactly what each page of your website is about. Hopefully that makes some sense to you! It is possible to just optimise off-page but starting out with good on-page will definitely make the end result better!

A few months back, I was reading one of my favourite SEO blogs and saw this image which I immediately saved and use with my clients. (A massive two thumbs up to the guys at www.seomoz.org)

In all my years of explaining on-page optimisation, this picture sums up the whole effort.

So if you’re thinking of optimising your website, and confused as to where to start, check your pages, and check your tags.

Pay As You Go SEO offer custom built SEO services for SME’s in the UK