Biggest SEO Mistakes

• Using Auto-generated title tags
  If your titles are generated from your post and/or category name, consider an SEO title tag plugin that allows you to customize your titles and slugs.  I personally use All-in-one SEO pack but admittingly, I’m a creature of habit and only use it because it does what I need and I haven’t looked at any plugin since. Keep it short, put your keyword first, then your post title at the end. 
• Not using PR sculpting (rel=nofollow to direct pageRank flow)
  o On the links in trackbacks, comments (by default on most platforms)
  o Where the link would be reciprocal
  o On links to date based archives, assuming you have category and tag hierarchy (noindexing/disallowing is not enough)
  o Even google uses it on youtube videos on internal links
• Hosting blog/feed URLs on a domain you don’t own (feedburner, wordpress)

Great plugins for SEO

• UTW Theme Compatibility Thing
• Related Posts (yet another related posts) plugin
• Top 10 posts (popularity contest plugin)
• Next and previous/ pagination (wp-pagenavi plugin)

SEO tips for blogging

• Optimize URLs
  Short URLs get clicked 2x long URLs (source: marketingSherpa)
• Optimize anchor text
  Make the post’s title a link to the permalink page
• Minimize duplicate content
  Don’t use the more tag.  Create a unique paragraph of content to introduce your post.
• Improve keyword focus
  Add Category name and a paragraph description on the category page, check out Sticky posts (wp-sticky or adhesive plugin)

One of the most extensive resources I’ve found on the topic can be found here: http://yoast.com/articles/wordpress-seo/

1. Internal links and external links on the same page may not be splitting the PageRank vote equally.
2. The location of the link affects PageRank.
3. Multiple links to the same url from the same page may not each get the same piece of the PR vote.
4. Run-of-site external links may reduce impact of PR.
5. Links between domains that Google sees as “related” may have their PR significantly damped down. Possibly the same goes for sites that link to subdomains.
6.  A major overhaul was made to the way content is parsed and separated into blocks (sidebar, main content, comments, footer) - and each block may have more or less value based on the relevance of the element on the page to the specific keyword.

1. SEO Slugs
   The SEO Slugs Wordpress plugin removes common words like ‘a’, ‘the’, ‘in’ from post slugs to improve search engine optimization.
2. Google Analytics plug-in

https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal

What is nofollow for anyway?

When Google sees the attribute (rel=”nofollow”) on hyperlinks, those links won’t get any credit when we rank websites in our search results. This isn’t a negative vote for the site where the comment was posted; it’s just a way to make sure that spammers get no benefit from abusing public areas like blog comments, trackbacks, and referrer lists.

How can you increase your PageRank?
Higher PageRank can be achieved by increasing the number of links going to that page. Each link has the ability to pass PageRank to other pages, often called passing link juice. The nofollow tag allows you to increase link juice to more important pages by adding the tag to pages you don’t need to pass rank to.

They Say - I Say

They said:
…if you want a site to have an effective information architecture for both end users and search engine spiders, then create a good information architecture.

I say:
Good advice for your average website.  Now, we all know that if you want to beat the competition, you have to go above and beyond your competition and stay abreast on the latest trends and technology.  Now, if they’re doing NoFollows, you must do nofollows just to stay on par with them.  If they aren’t, you must do it to set the standard.

They say:
I predict that many SEO professionals will massively abuse the nofollow attribute and that it will no longer be valued.

I say:
I predict that if your site contains valuable content, search engines will value your site.  And, if there are pages that don’t provide as valuable of content as others, you are doing search engines a favor by sculpting your PageRank.

Interactive Media (recommendations extracted from http://www.marketingprofs.com/8/beyond-youtube-video-for-marketing-sales-anderson.asp?part=2):

• If you just need an easy way to get a video on a Web site and share it with others, try YouTube or Blip.tv.
• If you want to post a video with clickable “chapter” descriptions so people can jump right to a particularly interesting spot in a longer clip, use a service called Veotag.
• If you envision a series of related video content—say, an occasional video case study highlighting users of your flagship product—get familiar with the video section of the iTunes Music Store.
• For a live or recorded business presentation with PowerPoint slides and other rich media elements, try Proclaim (from my firm, Netbriefings).

http://www.aimclearblog.com/2007/06/02/wikipedia-seo-monster-for-brand-managers/

1. http://www.digitalpoint.com/tools/suggestion/
This tool will show you the results of your query from both Wordtracker and Yahoo! Search Marketing (formerly Overture) for determining which phrases are searched most often.

2. http://freekeywords.wordtracker.com/
It’s not as robust as the full version but it will give you some good keywords and traffic estimations.

3. https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal
Google’s free keyword analysis tool, often used in conjunction with adwords.

Yahoo used to have a free tool with their acquisition of Overture but they have since taken it down.  We want it back!  I’ll keep you updated when/if one becomes available.