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And it is only fair to link to the source..The Periodic Table Of SEO Ranking Factors

13:53 - mmm tasty

But…

13:54 - Uh oh

Im sure all chocoholics would agree, that is just not good enough!

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Yes, this is a simplistic take, and we can discuss all of the standard SEO fluff like relevancy and PR and the rest of it, but, at the end of the day, my job is to build links and increase ranks – and for that – links matter!

An increasing aspect of what I do involves Social sites, Facebook and Twitter being the ‘Big Two’. And it was a Tweet linking to a post that made me write this article. Thanks to @JobBoardDoctor for the inspiration. Notice how it was two ‘web 2.0′ aspects that got me going? A tweet and a Blog.

The post was titled SEO is Dead, And The New King is SMO. Read it, its quite interesting actually!

It was the sheer concept of this post that made me think, has everything that I have done and have yet to do, been for nothing? Has the game changed that quickly, that optimising for Google’s algorithm may soon bear no fruit?

Consider this. Facebook is the number 2 most visited website on the internet, after Google. Facebook now boasts over 500 million users, it even has a movie! Not even Google can say that! Anyone reading this post, I can almost guarantee, has a Facebook profile.

When my ‘Friends’ (be them real life friends, or ‘Facebook Friends’ – read Zynga) post links on their ‘wall’ to various news articles, I click them. If my Friends are interested in this story, then chances are, I will find it interesting too!

Similarly, with their ‘Likes’. Certain people I am Friends with, share very similar interests to me, so if they link to a particular resource online, then I know it must be worth checking out, so I click on that link and read it. Why do my Friends like this enough to link to it? It must contain something of use!

Another aspect of this bigger picture is Microsoft’s tie in with Facebook. A pretty sizeable stake in the company if truth be told, and the suggestion that Bing may start looking at the data Facebook hold when users query Bing’s search engine. And so, the ‘Social Graph’ is born.

Google relies almost entirely on the ‘link graph’, who links to whom, who is the most linked to site for this particular anchor text. Bing are suggesting that they may try something else:

‘If your ‘Friends’ on Facebook ‘Like’ this, then the chances are you will too and so I will show this result in the SERPs if you are looking for this’.

It’s kind of the complete opposite of what we are conditioned for!

As an SEO, this kind of advancement, from the ‘Link Graph’ to the ‘Social Graph’ has huge implications. It’s no longer a case of writing and publishing articles, finding blogs and commenting on them.

It becomes a game of creating a ‘community’ on social sites. Creating content that is ‘Like’-able and finding ‘Friends’ that have an interest in that particular niche.

If Bing’s ventures into the Social world become reality, a lot of people, me included, will have to change the way they work. Even Google can’t deny that people like people, and what your connections ‘Like’ are more relevant to a search than random spam!

For anyone out there who doesn’t have a Facebook presence, why not? What is preventing you? Every moment you are not actively trying to capture Fans on Facebook, your competition will be, and you will be missing out on both relevant traffic and more importantly, being seen as an active ‘Social’ person. It seems ridiculous to me that business would not want a piece of this pie!

Well, enough of this chat, I need to go and build more ‘Friends’ – Feel free to Like or Tweet this post by the way! It just might be the future!

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