52 seo-tips

52 SEO Tips - Jan-Dec 2007
presented by:Big Oak SEO
http://www.bigoakinc.com
contact@bigoakinc.com

A word from the author
This all started during Christmas of 2006 while I was home on vacation. My brain, being bored
from all the downtime a vacation provides, began thinking of ways to get other sites to link to
my SEO company website BigOakInc.com. Instead of coming up with a EUREKA solution, I
started writing some on the Big Oak SEO blog. Then it hit me that I should write one SEO tip
per week for an entire year. I mean, how hard could that possibly be? Famous last words.
So, over the year spanning January 1, 2007 through December 31, 2007, I endeavored to create
tips that were based on Big Oak’s experiences in SEO. I also provided references when I could to
support the tips offered and presented the information in a way that would be easy for the SEO
do-it-yourselfer to follow.
This document contains all SEO tips written as blog posts for the year 2007. Rather than make
this an incomplete volume and delete some of the out-of-date tips, I felt that all the tips should be
included. I do want to share the tips that are somewhat obsolete:
• How to Build Links with Flickr - SEO Tip Week 33 (Flickr links aren't as helpful for
SEO anymore, try Zooomr.com or read another post we wrote on how to use Flickr.)
• Google’s Supplemental Results - SEO Tip Week 29 (Google no longer labels
supplemental results.)
• Find Competitor Backlinks with MSN Live - SEO Tip Week 46 (MSN has stopped
showing backlink information, but this may return.)
In the end, the most important nuggets I take from this experience aside from a sense of
accomplishment are that:
1. Coming up 52 unique, robust, non-fluffed pieces of SEO advice is a difficult task.
2. Technology has changed, but the core best SEO practices remain the same.
3. Even those like myself that know a great deal when it comes to SEO can still learn a great
deal when it comes to SEO.
Thanks
Due to the constraints for publishing blog posts into a pdf, I add to erase the author credit for two
very intelligent people who assisted me writing these SEO tips: Chris Alexander and Will
Paoletto. Chris wrote the following tips:
• When to Use a 301 vs. 302 Redirect - SEO Tip Week 35
• Google’s Supplemental Results - SEO Tip Week 29
• Underscores vs. Dashes - SEO Tip Week 24
• Control What Gets Indexed - SEO Tip Week 19
As you can see, Chris wrote the more technical posts and left the easy tactics to me.

Will helped me at week 47, as I was officially burning out at that time, and wrote the following
posted tip.
• The Dangers of Buying Links Through a Service - SEO Tip Week 47
If you find any of the tips helpful, please send us an email at contact@bigoakinc.com or better
yet, come by and visit our blog: http://www.bigoakinc.com/blog/.
If you need help with your own SEO efforts, we are a full-service SEO company specializing in
organic or natural search results. You can learn more about Big Oak SEO at
http://www.bigoakinc.com or call us at 1-804-741-6776. Feel free to ask to speak with me.
Thanks,
Shell Harris
President, Big Oak SEO
http://www.bigoakinc.com

Contents
1 2007 7
1.1 January . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
1.1.1 52 SEO Tips for One Year (2007-01-01 15:27) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
1.1.2 Create A Blog - SEO Tip Week 1 (2007-01-05 12:01) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
1.1.3 Keyword Research Tools - SEO Tip Week 2 (2007-01-12 02:00) . . . . . . . . . . . 8
1.1.4 Use the META Description Tag - SEO Tip Week 3 (2007-01-19 02:32) . . . . . . . 9
1.1.5 Deep Linking - SEO Tip Week 4 (2007-01-26 02:37) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
1.2 February . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
1.2.1 Internal Linking - SEO Tip Week 5 (2007-02-02 02:38) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
1.2.2 Create a Website Sitemap - SEO Tip Week 6 (2007-02-09 02:45) . . . . . . . . . . 12
1.2.3 Duplicate Content & URL Canonicalization - SEO Tip Week 7 (2007-02-16 08:35) 13
1.2.4 Social Bookmarking - SEO Tip Week 8 (2007-02-23 01:00) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
1.3 March . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
1.3.1 Link to Your Home Page Correctly - SEO Tip Week 9 (2007-03-02 06:29) . . . . . 18
1.3.2 Seven â€œSecretsâ€• to SEO Success - SEO Tip Week 10 (2007-03-07 18:08) . . . 19
1.3.3 Get to Know Google Services - SEO Tip Week 11 (2007-03-16 09:07) . . . . . . . 20
1.3.4 Internet Marketing with Articles - SEO Tip Week 12 (2007-03-22 06:50) . . . . . 23
1.3.5 Graphic Headlines Can Work for SEO - SEO Tip Week 13 (2007-03-30 07:30) . . 26
1.4 April . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
1.4.1 Every Web Page Should Be Unique - SEO Tip Week 14 (2007-04-06 06:23) . . . . 28
1.4.2 Register Your Domain for More Than One Year - SEO Tip Week 15
(2007-04-13 07:27) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
1.4.3 Submit Press Releases - SEO Tip Week 16 (2007-04-20 06:41) . . . . . . . . . . . 31
1.4.4 SEO and Flash - SEO Tip Week 17 (2007-04-27 07:08) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
1.5 May . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
1.5.1 Search Engine & Directory Submissions - SEO Tip Week 18 (2007-05-04 14:37) . 33
1.5.2 Control What Gets Indexed - SEO Tip Week 19 (2007-05-11 13:47) . . . . . . . . 35
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BlogBook CONTENTS
1.5.3 SEO for Interior Webpages - SEO Tip Week 20 (2007-05-18 13:45) . . . . . . . . . 37
1.5.4 Finding the Perfect Link - SEO Tip Week 21 (2007-05-25 07:04) . . . . . . . . . . 39
1.6 June . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
1.6.1 Keep Fresh Content on Your Homepage - SEO Tip Week 22 (2007-06-01 20:15) . 40
1.6.2 Keep Current on SEO Techniques - SEO Tip Week 23 (2007-06-09 22:09) . . . . . 41
1.6.3 Underscores vs. Dashes - SEO Tip Week 24 (2007-06-15 15:58) . . . . . . . . . . . 43
1.6.4 SEO Titles, Using the Title Tag - SEO Tip Week 25 (2007-06-22 05:35) . . . . . . 45
1.6.5 Click Here For More Information - Bad Text Links - SEO Tip Week 26
(2007-06-29 19:28) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
1.7 July . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
1.7.1 Flat Site Architecture is SEO-Friendly - SEO Tip 27 (2007-07-06 11:56) . . . . . . 49
1.7.2 Research Your Competition with Yahoo Site Explorer - SEO Tip Week 28
(2007-07-13 09:55) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
1.7.3 Googleâ€™s Supplemental Results - SEO Tip Week 29 (2007-07-20 18:19) . . . . . 52
1.7.4 How to Find Relevant Links - SEO Tip Week 30 (2007-07-27 08:02) . . . . . . . . 53
1.8 August . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
1.8.1 How to Improve Local Search Results - SEO Tip Week 31 (2007-08-03 11:42) . . . 55
1.8.2 Google Supplemental Index Label Disappears (2007-08-09 15:40) . . . . . . . . . . 57
1.8.3 Squidoo for Traﬃc & Link Building - SEO Tip Week 32 (2007-08-12 17:19) . . . . 58
1.8.4 How to Build Links with Flickr - SEO Tip Week 33 (2007-08-19 21:45) . . . . . . 63
1.8.5 Reviews Can Improve Your Local Search Rankings - SEO Tip Week 34
(2007-08-25 20:12) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
1.9 September . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
1.9.1 When to Use a 301 vs. 302 Redirect - SEO Tip Week 35 (2007-09-02 09:51) . . . 66
1.9.2 SEO Toolkit: Everyday SEO Tools - SEO Tip Week 36 (2007-09-09 17:13) . . . . 68
1.9.3 How to Use Keywords - SEO Tip Week 37 (2007-09-17 07:25) . . . . . . . . . . . 69
1.9.4 PRWEb vs. PRNewswire Press Release Service for SEO - SEO Tip Week 38
(2007-09-25 18:31) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
1.10 October . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
1.10.1 Google Alerts for Link Building - SEO Tip Week 39 (2007-10-02 22:29) . . . . . . 72
1.10.2 Unique Product Descriptions - SEO Tip Week 40 (2007-10-08 12:11) . . . . . . . 74
1.10.3 Build Links with Blogging - SEO Tip Week 41 (2007-10-18 12:33) . . . . . . . . . 75
1.10.4 Avoid Blinding the Search Engine Spiders - SEO Tip Week 42 (2007-10-22 13:11) 76
1.10.5 YouTube or Self Hosting Videos - SEO Tips Week 43 (2007-10-29 14:32) . . . . . 76
1.11 November . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
1.11.1 Finding Links with High PageRank - SEO Tip Week 44 (2007-11-02 16:00) . . . . 77
4 c 2008 ’http://www.bigoakinc.com/blog/’

CONTENTS BlogBook
1.11.2 Images Provide SEO Traﬃc - SEO Tip Week 45 (2007-11-11 23:33) . . . . . . . . 78
1.11.3 Find Competitor Backlinks with MSN Live - SEO Tip Week 46 (2007-11-20 11:30) 79
1.11.4 The Dangers of Buying Links Through a Service - SEO Tip Week 47
(2007-11-28 16:01) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
1.12 December . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
1.12.1 Wordpress Plugins Help Google Index Your Blog - SEO Tip 48 (2007-12-05 00:14) 81
1.12.2 Digg-ing Links by Commenting Socially Responsibly - SEO Tip Week 49
(2007-12-11 15:37) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
1.12.3 Go Green, Recyle Old Links - SEO Tip 50 (2007-12-14 20:50) . . . . . . . . . . . 84
1.12.4 Nofollow Helps Internal Linking and Conversions - SEO Tip 51 (2007-12-20 15:45) 85
1.12.5 Create an Wonderful Super Awesome Resource Directory - SEO Tip 52
(2007-12-28 15:11) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87

BlogBook CONTENTS

Chapter 1
2007
1.1 January
1.1.1 52 SEO Tips for One Year (2007-01-01 15:27)
We’ve made a commitment in January, 2007 that we would post one tip every week. We’ve read many tips
myself and I’ve often been surprised at the number of low quality search engine optimization tips that are
ﬂoating around. So rather than list tips that are uninspired have have no examples to back them up, we
have decided to create SEO tips that are meaningful and we have actually used. You will see SEO strategies
that we employ successfully with many of our clients and we’ll even let you in on the behind the scenes work
from time to time. And we will try to do it once a week. So please forgive us if we are late occassionaly,
remember we are running a SEO company in our spare time. ;-)
Feel free to send in any suggestions, questions or encouragement as we do this for one year!
Update: So far so good, although we have been late a few times, the SEO tip has always been up by
Monday. We try to post on Fridays.
nsilva (2007-08-30 16:20:25)
I’ve just found this blog and I have to say that I’m really impressed, I really like the compilation of tips you have
collected, I guess you have a new returning visitor to your blog. Thanks for the outstanding information
Shell Harris (2007-08-30 16:44:37)
Thanks for the compliment and welcome aboard. We try to keep the blog full of good advice and not a rehash of old
tips. ..at least for one year. ;-)
Alex Vitti (2008-01-20 22:59:53)
Just love your blog,every time im getting something new Thanks a lot
1.1.2 Create A Blog - SEO Tip Week 1 (2007-01-05 12:01)
[1] Blogs can be helpful if correctly used. But, blogs will not guarantee high rankings.Blogs provide an
easy way to add new and hopefully unique content. Search engines love new content and they love original

BlogBook 1.1. January
content even more. Blogs are a great way of adding new information to your site because if search engines
know a site is adding new articles or posts on a continual and frequent basis, they will come around more
often to index the site. You can add a blog internally to your site directly (http://www.sitename.com/blog)
or as an external site (http://sitename.blogspot.com).
Think of your blog as a way to reach potential clients on a more informal basis. Your blog will also al-
low you to tap into ”lower hanging fruit” keyphrases that you use in your posts. You will be surprised at the
keyphrases typed in the search engines that will bring users to your blog. It may even inspire a new Internet
marketing initiative.
I recommend [2]Wordpress as the blogging tool of choice. Easy to set up, very powerful with the ability
to add plungins and it has a great support network.
1. http://www.bigoakinc.com/blog/category/52-seo-strategies/
2. http://www.wordpress.com/
Peter Carr (2007-01-31 20:06:51)
Please keep up the tips.. it’s on ly the 31st of january but i’m already hooked. is there any way to get these tips
emailed each week?
Shell Harris (2007-02-01 18:05:50)
Sorry, but at this time (2/1/07) we are hosting on Windows servers and the Wordpress feeds are working correctly
with the server as well as some other functionality. We are working on it, but not sure when or if it will get corrected
so we can add a subscription to the site. You can subscribe to our [1]SEO newsletter which has additional information.
Otherwise you’ll have to visit us now and again for the next seo tip. If there are any requests I’ll take them.
1. http://www.bigoakinc.com/company/seo-newsletter.php
Shell Harris (2007-02-06 12:41:49)
You can now subscribe to our feed through feedburner at [1]http://feeds.feedburner.com/BigOakSeoBlog or click the
link in the top right of this page. You can also register for the blog and become a direct subscriber by clicking
[2]Register or click the link in the top right.
1. http://feeds.feedburner.com/BigOakSeoBlog
2. http://www.bigoakinc.com/blog/wp-login.php?action=register
Peter Carr (2007-04-02 16:23:57)
Thanks... I’ve signed on! keep up the good work!
Seo Tips (2008-01-24 04:17:41)
Peter Carr, Nice rankings for your chiro practice. Keep it up
1.1.3 Keyword Research Tools - SEO Tip Week 2 (2007-01-12 02:00)
[1] In hind sight, I should have put this [2]SEO Tip ﬁrst but better late than never. You must do
keyword research before you start optimizing your site, that much is obvious, but what tools should you use?
There are two excellent keyword research tools that I can recommend as professional tools. They are
[3]Wordtracker and [4]Keyword Discovery. Both are great and both are diﬀerent. At Big Oak we started
with Wordtracker and move over to Keyword Discovery after a year or so. We felt KD had an easier interface

1.1. January BlogBook
and liked they way it worked us. This is not to say Wordtracker didn’t do a fine job for us, because it did.
It was really just a matter of preference. You may find Wordtracker better for your method of research.
If you are just getting into the game you may want to try something else that is free to do your initial
research. You can use [5]Overture’s keyword search tool, but it is limited to one month of keyword searches
and often isn’t working because too many people are trying to use it. You’ll want to move to the pay-for-use
programs quickly if you are truly serious.
In any case, do not overlook this important step and don’t assume you know how people are searching
for your product or service. If you optimize a site with the wrong keywords you may end up with a high
ranking site but won’t convert your traffic! Correctly identifying the best keywords and search terms using
a keyword search tool will help your odds of success and give you a fighting chance to target prospects who
are more likely to turn into clients.
My colleague, Holly Rodriguez has written about [6]choosing keyword research tools on her [7]SEO copy-
writing blog, [8]SEOScribe.com. Check it out if you would like more information.
3. http://www.wordtracker.com/
4. http://www.keyworddiscovery.com/
5. http://inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion/
6. http://www.seoscribe.com/?p=18
7. http://www.seoscribe.com/
8. http://www.seoscribe.com/
1.1.4 Use the META Description Tag - SEO Tip Week 3 (2007-01-19 02:32)
[1] All web sites should use the META description tag. If you have too many pages to add it to, at least
put it on your home page and any core pages that bring in search result traffic. Google will use the META
description you place on your site if the user searched for a keyword that exists in the META description.
Google is giving us some measure of control.
How best to use this you may ask? You need to think like a radio advertising writer. What can you
say in one brief sentence that will entice a user to click your link rather than the one above or below. A little
sensationalism never hurt.
A brand message can help or you can put your phone number in the META description. Think out of
the box; how about a offer a discount or advertise a sale. Be careful though, if you put a sale message and
when the sale ends your message might still display until Google updates your site listing. You don’t want
your text in the search results still announcing a sale that is over. Ultimately you should tell searchers your
unique selling proposition.
Remember that your META description will only show if the search term is in the META description.
While this can be tricky, it can be done with some forethought. You can do this for all of your targeted
pages and have dozens of marketing messages.

BlogBook 1.1. January
1.1.5 Deep Linking - SEO Tip Week 4 (2007-01-26 02:37)
[1] While linking is key to success in the SEO game, deep linking is what will set you apart from your
competitors.
Be sure to acquire links to all your important pages, not just your home page. It looks odd to the search
engines when they notice so many links all pointing to your home page - it isn’t natural. Besides you want
visitors coming to the page that will most likely convert them from a visitor to a customer and usually the
home page isn’t the best page to accomplish this.
You will have the added benefit of having two pages show in the rankings which always attracts more atten-
tion and aids your click through rates. Here is an [2]example. Notice how Big Oak is the shown in the first
two listings and the indented listing is more targeted on the search term ”seo richmond”. Here is a [3]screen
shot in case the link no longer shows the same results.
Deep linking also alerts the search engines to the fact that you probably have good, targeted content if
people are linking to your interior or sub-pages. It gives your site a vote of confidence to the search engines
to have links pointing throughout your site. If all your links come to your home page it might give the
impression your site has little value or its rankings are being inflated unnaturally.
While it is tempting to concentrate links to your home page, you will have many more visitors if you spread
the links around. Linking to sub-pages will help those pages rank well, giving your visitors a better chance
on finding what they were looking for with one click.
Find a new [4]SEO Tip Every Friday.
2. http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&safe=off&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-US%3Aofficial&hs=
Ab4&q=seo+richmond&btnG=Search
3. http://www.bigoakinc.com/blog/images/deep-link-results.gif
David Taboada (2007-01-26 16:12:54)
I understand that Digg and the other social bookmarking services people use help with deep linking, so I assume
this is becoming an important SEO issue. So I would like to ask if you think these services will follow Wikipedia’s
NOFOLLOW policy? And also, if you know of research on the behaviour of social bookmarking?
Shell (2007-01-26 18:20:48)
David, It would seem this is the next step. After all, the only people who would care about such a move are SEO
companies. On the other hand ”real” links are used to establish true popularity and Digg (and other social bookmark-
ing) are a perfect indicator. It would be a shame if this happens. Of course, most people won’t realize the nofollow
was put into effect and still spam the Diggs of the world, just as I am sure wikopedia will continue to receive spam
even though the nofollow is in effect. If I were a betting man I would say this will happen this year and all social
bookmarking sites will follow suit. Too bad, but it seems unethical SEO companies have coruppted another useful
tool on the web.

1.2. February BlogBook
1.2 February
1.2.1 Internal Linking - SEO Tip Week 5 (2007-02-02 02:38)
[1] As with most [2]SEO tips, this one is simple, overlooked and easy to do. Your site’s navigation is
an important part when providing a pleasant user experience and it can be beneficial in aiding your SEO
efforts. Even important is how you handle your internal linking strategy, or your body text links.
Repeat after me: ”I must include internal links within my content.” This is the very foundation for Internet:
hyperlinking text to provide more information about the linked text. Not only is it crucial for SEO it just
makes good sense.
For example, let’s take a look at this page on our client’s site, [3]Agee Woodworks. Within the copy of
this web page are a number of keyword phrases that link to other pages within their site. Some of these
internal linking phrases include ”custom fireplace mantel” and ”fireplace shelf”. This is simple and clever way
to increase the link popularity of other pages within the site. A text link from the home page is delivering
PageRank to internal pages with a targeted keyword phrase. This helps both pages. The only links you can
control are the links on your own site, so use them to your best advantage.
Another example, [4]Grote Consulting Services Page, shows how internal linking can guide you through
the site and provide a lift for the link destination pages. One of the terms linking on this page is ”per-
formance appraisal systems” and when I [5]search in Google for that term it shows a first page listing for
the link destination page ([6]http://www.groteconsulting.com/services/performance-apprai sal/index.asp).
While other factors clearly play a role, don’t discount the helpfulness of an internal link especially when it
is one of the few things you have total control over.
Fortunately, for you, very few sites are aware of the importance of internal linking. By using this [7]SEO
strategy you help the search engines index more of your site and more importantly those internal links will
contribute to higher rankings because of the keyword-rich anchor text that is being used.
Don’t ignore internal linking; use it and watch your own rankings increase.
3. http://www.ageewoodworks.com/
4. http://www.groteconsulting.com/services/index.asp
5. http://www.google.com/search?q=performance++appraisal+systems
6. http://www.groteconsulting.com/services/performance-appraisal/index.asp
7. http://www.bigoakinc.com/blog/category/seo-strategies/
Shell Harris (2007-02-25 13:32:56)
I took a look at your Booster Page article and I totally agree with your hypothesis and I can guarantee you are going
to find successful results. In fact, I think any quality SEO company does this as part of the optimization process or
as part of the monthly service they provide. Since this is a strategy you are using in your seo work I would say you
are ahead of the game and understand the right way to do things. Good SEO is usually a large dose of common sense
with the research to back it up. Well done!
Industrial Search Engine Marketing (2007-02-23 16:04:56)
Great post. We’ve recently found another element of strategy to inject into the creation of an internal linking structure,
having to do with keyword weight and visibiltiy variance between [1]Booster Pages and destination pages. Thoughts?

BlogBook 1.2. February
1. http://www.industrialsearchenginemarketing.com/blog/2007/02/22/
building-an-internal-linking-structure-with-booster-pages/
1.2.2 Create a Website Sitemap - SEO Tip Week 6 (2007-02-09 02:45)
[1] Some SEO tips can be hard to explain, but this is one of the few that is relatively easy to do and
can be done manually with small or large sites. Create a sitemap of your website. There are a few good
reasons to do this.
It allows easier indexing of your site by the search engines.
In other words, it helps the search engines ﬁnd all the pages on your site. Some websites only have a few of
their pages in the search engines and this can be due to poor linking, sparse navigation or a host of other
reasons. A sure-ﬁre cure is to have a sitemap links to all of the major sections of your website. If you have
a small website, linking to all the pages is a good idea. Web-crawlers will thank you for making their busy
lives easier.
It provides PageRank or link popularity to all pages it links to.
If you read about SEO then you have read how important it is to have high-quality links pointing to your
site from other sites. While this is true, don’t underestimate your own [2]internal links (as seen in [3]last
week’s SEO tip) pointing to your own pages. A sitemap can become another source of quality links with
descriptive text for your own pages.
Sitemaps help with usability and site navigation.
You website users can now access any important page on the site with only two clicks. This allows for deeply
nested pages to be found easier and not just by the search engine spiders but by people visiting your site.
Making navigation easier by including a sitemap is just good business sense as well as SEO sense.
Examples of good sitemaps
• Even if you have a large site, using a sitemap to provide quick access to major areas and important
pages is very helpful. The [4]Apple sitemap is a good example of this.
• A more detailed 4-column [5]sitemap by A.M.Best
• Small sites, like Grote Consulting, only need [6]small sitemaps
• Organization and categorization is crucial for an [7]ecommerce sitemap as created by Danforth Diamond
• Sometimes sitemaps can be a more integral part of the site. Look at this ”[8]footer sitemap” by Agee
Woodworks
Do I really need a sitemap?
Sitemaps can be viewed as a luxury, but for new sites they are critical. It can take the search engines months
to crawl your new site and they may never crawl the entire site. Adding a sitemap can speed this process
up. It also helps when adding new pages or sections, the search engines have easy access to all pages through
you sitemap
Don’t overlook this simple step in your search engine optimization success.

2. http://www.bigoakinc.com/blog/internal-linking-seo-tip-week-5/
3. http://www.bigoakinc.com/blog/internal-linking-seo-tip-week-5/
4. http://www.apple.com/find/sitemap.html
5. http://www.ambest.com/about/sitemap.html
6. http://www.groteconsulting.com/site-map.asp
7. http://www.danforthdiamond.com/company_information/site_map.htm
8. http://www.ageewoodworks.com/
David (2007-07-06 15:43:19)
Does anyone know if sitemaps help Blogs? Do all posting pages get indexed?
Arthur (2007-05-01 08:10:49)
If you have any problems to create XML sitemap files for your sites or to notify search engines about updated sitemap
files, try [1]Sitemap Writer Pro. It is a powerful tool that helps you to create and keep up-to-date sitemaps for your
websites. Sitemap Writer Pro has [2]new tools - FTP manager for uploading sitemaps, search engine [3]notification
tool (now supports Ask.com and MSN.com), site [4]crawler for adding an URLs into the sitemap and Yahoo
Index viewer.
1. http://www.sitemapwriter.com/
2. http://www.sitemapwriter.com/onlinedocumentation.php#tools
3. http://www.sitemapwriter.com/notify.php
4. http://www.sitemapwriter.com/onlinedocumentation.php#crawler
1.2.3 Duplicate Content & URL Canonicalization - SEO Tip Week 7 (2007-02-16 08:35)
Before we get into this week’s tip, let me provide a definition for the term [1]Canonicalization.
”It is the process of converting data that has more than one possible representation into a
”standard” canonical representation.”
For SEO purposes this means it creates a definitive and unique page to represent more than one possible
page on your site. You want to avoid duplicate pages on your site.
Sometimes duplicate content is a result of two pages sharing the same information in two different files.
Sometimes you have duplicate content because of the technology causing two different urls point to the same
page. Both of these problems have simple solutions. It is important to correct this because search engines
want to show only unique web pages and text.
If your site has multiple pages with the same content possibly through a Content Management System
(CMS) or through duplicate navigation, or because it actually exists in multiple versions, you are could be
hurting your search engine ranking results. We all know how important linking is to any SEO campaign and
if links pointing to different urls of the same information your link value will be diluted because 2 incoming
links may point to one version and 3 links to another. It would be much better for all 5 links to point to one
url.
301 Re-Direct to the Rescue
The solution is to take any current duplicate pages and use a [2]301 re-direct to point all versions to a single,

”canonical” version of the content or web page.
Most often this problem can be found on a site’s homepage. For example: Search engines view your
home page as having more than one version. How? Take a look at the following urls. All point to the
same page, but to the search engines they are different: http://www.yoursite.com, http://yoursite.com,
http://yoursite.com/index.html and http://www.yoursite.com/index.html. The search engines may find up
to four home pages that have the same content.
While this may not cause your site to be unranked it is certainly not helping and can easily cause poor
rankings. That is a shame for something that is so easily corrected. Most often this is caused by links point-
ing to different versions of your site. You can’t change all the links coming into your site, but you can use the
301 re-direct to solve this by pointing all versions of your home page to the full url (http://www.url.com).
You can read more on how this is accomplished on our [3]301 re-direct blog post.
1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canonicalization
2. http://www.bigoakinc.com/blog/how-to-do-a-301-redirect/
Shell Harris (2007-02-22 13:34:14)
Sam, You should contact your host to see if they can make the changes for you, but you can control it by accessing
files such as .htaccess on your server, if you are hosting on a Unix system. Your host is a good place to start if you
are unfamiliar with the inner workings of your server set up. The different urls should show the same information,
after all it is showing the ”default page” that is identified by the server. Usually this is an index.html or default.html
page. The extensions can be different, but you get the picture. So there shouldn’t be any worry of different pages
showing up. Finally you can tell Google which version you want to show up. You have to sign up for webmaster
account and verify that you are the owner of the site, but ther are other nice features provided by Google’s webmaster
tools to make it worth your while, besides telling them what your preferred domain should be. You can sign up
here [1]http://www.google.com/webmasters/ I agree they should be directed by default, but alas that isn’t the way
it works.
1. http://www.google.com/webmasters/
sam (2007-02-22 13:07:35)
awesome tip! I think this has caused me some problems which I will now fix. It seems like this is something
that should happen automatically somehow. Are there hosts that do this by default? Are there ways that
http://www.samwilson3d.com and http://samwilson3d.com could even show 2 different pages? If why would you
want this and if not why are they not redirected by default?
Seo (2008-01-17 13:48:38)
I haven’t experienced any problem or rankings drop when using www and non-www version of a site at the same time.
Or some link pointing to index.html instead of root. But is always better to add those lines of code in .htaccess file if
you can do it. And I saw once 2 different sites on www.domain.com and domain.com. I think they were hosted on 2
servers and 2 different DNS used for each one. Kinda funny for me..:D
1.2.4 Social Bookmarking - SEO Tip Week 8 (2007-02-23 01:00)
[1] What is Social Bookmarking?
Social bookmarking involves saving bookmarks (web addresses) to a public Web site such as Digg or
Del.icio.us so you can access these bookmarks from any computer connected to the web. Your favorite
bookmarks are also available for others to view and follow as well, hence the social aspect. If you wish to

create your own social bookmarks, you must register with a social bookmarking site (we have many listed
below). No you are able to store bookmarks, tag your bookmarks, and share with anyone interested in your
bookmarks.
Hopefully you can see the value and power of social bookmarks. You can think of it as viral or guer-
rilla marketing in a way. It can be a powerful grassroots method of marketing your site. Be careful though,
like everything else on the web you can spam these sites and make your list of bookmarks appear unappealing
or an obvious marketing ploy which will net you very little.
Keep it honest
Bookmark sites you generally would like to share or feel are valuable, which of course can contain bookmarked
web addresses of your own site. If enough people agree with the value of a bookmark you have placed they
will bookmark it to and as the popularity grows your site traffic will grow.
Don’t abuse this by submitting every page of your site, try to be judicious and think about what pages
of your site may be helpful and of interest to other web surfers.
All things must end
At some point you will reach a place where you are no longer drawing significant traffic from your older
bookmarks, but that’s okay. Your social bookmark page should be included in the search engine’s cached
sites and they are following your links like any normal web user. In fact, you have created an external link
to your site that should be using useful keyword text in the link. The real beauty of this is the fact that
others are also providing free one-way links from their own social bookmark pages. So even after the traffic
from the bookmarks slow you have the added benefit of a grass roots linking campaign providing solid links
to your site, increasing your site’s ranking in the search engines.
While you don’t want to base your SEO campaign on this one technique it should be in your SEO tool-
box of tasks.
A Good Start for Social Bookmarking Websites
Here are some of the better social bookmarking websites. It wouldn’t be feasible to become a member of all
of these but choosing a few couldn’t hurt. I have listed them in order of their Alexa ranking, which supplies
some measure of popularity that should be taken with a grain of salt the size of Rhode Island. In any case
here are some of the more popular social bookmarking sites:
1. [2]Digg
2. [3]Del.icio.us
3. [4]StumbleUpon
4. [5]Reddit
5. [6]Squidoo
6. [7]Furl
7. [8]BlinkList
8. [9]Blogmarks.net
9. [10]Ma.gnolia

10. [11]Simpy
11. [12]Spurl
12. [13]BlinkBits
13. [14][15]Shadows
14. [16]Raw Sugar
15. [17]Yahoo MyWeb
Would you add any others? Do you have a social bookmarking favorite, please send us a comment and share
it.
2. http://www.digg.com/
3. http://del.icio.us/
4. http://www.stumbleupon.com/
5. http://www.reddit.com/
6. http://www.squidoo.com/
7. http://www.furl.net/
8. http://www.blinklist.com/
9. http://www.blogmarks.net/
10. http://ma.gnolia.com/
11. http://www.simpy.com/
12. http://www.spurl.net/
13. http://www.blinkbits.com/
14. http://www.blinklist.com/
15. http://www.shadows.com/
16. http://www.rawsugar.com/
17. http://myweb.yahoo.com/
Michael (2007-02-25 02:11:59)
Thanks for providing such a useful list.
Justyna (2007-02-23 12:47:35)
Yep there is another one not listed yet: www.playtxt.net ItÃ¢â ¬â ¢s a location based social network- really fun,
doesnÃ¢â ¬â ¢t sent you any rubbish and user friendly. Justyna
Jennifer (2007-03-21 18:47:47)
Thanks for the list! This is exactly what I was looking for.
Steve Waganer (2007-02-28 06:43:53)
i read it and i ﬁnd it good. Thanks for that
Shell Harris (2007-02-23 12:56:08)
Justyna, I wasn’t sure if this was a spam comment but I checked it out and it is a social bookmark site. While it
may not be one of the best out there, it does have the distinction of being a bookmarking site created for your mobile
device. Not sure how well it will work, but it is an interesting concept. Thanks for the comment.

Criminal Lawyer Phoenix (2007-10-18 14:30:41)
Good article. It used to be extremely difficult to get links. Before Google started tracking how one got links it was
just a matter of buying links... The good old days. Now with social bookmarking sites one can get not only links but
traffic. This stuff is so cool!
Chicago cleaning service (2007-11-05 16:13:50)
Agree - good article , Is there any software you can recommend or bookmarking script?
Shell Harris (2007-11-05 19:00:18)
We have used bookmarking application called [1]Bookmarking Demon. It has been a solid program, but use it with
restraint.
1. http://www.bookmarkingdemon.com/
Phil (2008-01-31 14:38:38)
Excellent Google ranking for this information. Social Bookmarking plus Blogging equals good search engine optimiza-
tion techniques. Your position in Google proves one of them works... Thanks for the help.
Gel Nails St George (2008-02-23 00:40:50)
I would love someone to point me in the right direction on social bookmarking and how it helps SEO. I appreciate
this overview you have created, but would love to learn more. Thanks all!
Maggie (2008-02-24 16:27:23)
Thanks for the info - very helpful. Has any one used Submit Edge to set up Social Bookmarks? I am considering
using them but what they offer seems too good to be true.... 250 Social Bookmarking for US $65. thanks.
Levi Page (2008-02-25 15:56:52)
Do you feel having outbound links to every one of these bookmarking sites hurts you seo? All of them seem to work
based off of URLs going directly to ”their” site. Should people hide these with JavaScript?, because it would appear
that this would make the links reciprical in nature and not one way links. Is there an effective way to hide links with
JavaScript? Although... I guess you could technically use nofollow.
Online marketing agency (2008-02-27 12:37:27)
I have been using some of those sites for SEO purpose and it has brought us some good traffic!
Shell Harris (2008-02-27 17:18:41)
Social bookmarking has limited appeal for the the SEO consultant. We don’t count on it to increase site rankings
directly, but indirectly it can increase awareness which may eventually provide additional natural linking.
International Trade (2008-01-07 07:29:23)
Shell, Thanx for the list of sites and making me aware of the importance of Social Bookmarking and SEO

BlogBook 1.3. March
1.3 March
1.3.1 Link to Your Home Page Correctly - SEO Tip Week 9 (2007-03-02 06:29)
[1] The last few tips have been a little longer than I planned when I originally came up with the idea
to post [2]one SEO tip per week. On the other hand I wanted the SEO tips to have some meat to them so
I’m okay with making the posts more than a few sentences. But I thought I’d give everyone a break and do
a tip that was short and sweet, but very important, of course.
Be sure to provide a link to your home page.
Pure genius, right? Of course we all know we should do this, but how you do it is just as impor-
tant. I think examples work best so here are some ways not to link to your home page. Let’s assume your
page filename is index.html.
<a href=”/index.html”>Home</a>
<a href=”http://www.mysite.com/index.html”>Home</a>
What is wrong with this you say? The problem is linking to the filename. Always link to the root
address. Your links on your site and any external links pointing to your site’s home page should look
something like this.
<a href=”/”>Home</a>
<a href=”http://www.mysite.com/”>Home</a>
The reason we do this is so the search engines don’t split our PageRank to multiple web addresses
of our home page. If all the links are pointing to the root address (http://www.mysite.com) then all the
PageRank will be gathered in the root address and not split between the root address and the filename
(http://www.mysite.com/index.html).
Get on the Same Page
Be sure all the links on your site point to the root and check them to be sure; even images on your site
should follow this advice. It doesn’t matter if you are pointing to the root with just a ”/” or using the full
url (http://www.mysite.com/), both work the same way. You want any external links to point to the full
url as well and ask anyone linking to your website to use the ”www” in the link. The key is uniformity. We
want all links pointing to the same web address for maximum PageRank and search engine rankings.
Bonus Tip
As a bonus tip, try to use a keyword in the internal links to your home page when possible. Using the
link text ”Home” provides little ranking support unless you sell homes. Don’t let this cloud your judgment
though, having a link to your home page with a three word keyword phrase might look ridiculous and
unprofessional.
Next time you are surfing around, click a link to a home page and see how many are linking correctly and
how many [3]aren’t.

1.3. March BlogBook
3. http://www.arborday.org/
1.3.2 Seven â€œSecretsâ€• to SEO Success - SEO Tip Week 10 (2007-03-07 18:08)
[1] This week’s [2]SEO Tip is more than a tip, it is strategic overview on SEO. I recently spoke with
a potential client interested acquiring our [3]SEO services and when I said that SEO really isn’t that com-
plicated he raised an eyebrow. I followed by saying that search engine optimization doesn’t have any big
secrets or tricks that only we SEO consultants know. It common sense applied with industry knowledge -
knowledge that can be with due diligence and research. So with that in mind, I am revealing the ”Seven
Secrets of SEO Success” and I’m doing it all for free.
1. Research Your Keyword Phrases. Invest the time and do your research. What do users type in
the search engines when looking for services or products on your site. We use a few tools such as
[4]WordTracker, [5]Keyword Discovery and [6]Overture’s Keyword Selector tool among others to ﬁnd
out what keyword phrases are best to target. Never assume you know which keywords to target
until you do the research. I guarantee you will learn something about your business and your target
audience when you do. Finding a keyword you didn’t realize was being searched on can add visitors
and [7]increase [8]conversions.
2. Design an SEO-Friendly Website. I cringe every time I see an all Flash site and I’m asked to achieve
high rankings for said site. As much as Flash can hurt a site for rankings there are other things to
be aware of, such as: sparse text, poorly written code, javascript on your pages, 404 errors, using
graphics instead of text, javascript navigation, deeply nested pages and pages that can’t be found by
clicking a link are just a few. Make sure a someone with SEO knowledge with the site design and build.
While later is better than never, ideally you want the SEO consultant to work with the designers and
programmers.
3. Write Unique Page Titles. I wrote about this earlier so take a look at my post on [9]How Important
Are Website Titles. It is critical that every web page on your site have a diﬀerent and unique title.
It is the most important part of your web page when search engines are determining your web page
message and ranking. This is easy, so be sure to do it.
4. Write Focused Content. This may appear to be simple common sense, but too often a web page will
try to be too many things and dilute its true message. Each thought, theme or topic should have its
own web page. If you sell dog products, then a page for each category would be needed. Dog toys
would be a major category with its own page, but chew toys would be a new page and so on. You
wouldn’t mix chew toys and dog bedding. The search engines want to see a focus so they know what
to rank your web page for as well as where to rank your web page.
5. Insert Keywords. If you have written a descriptive and keyword-rich title it follows suit that your page
content is also going to have keywords throughout. Write for humans, but keep in mind the search
engines. You don’t want to overdue it, but you do want your page theme to be evident. List your
keyword phrase in your titles, headers and content and the search engines will know reward you with
higher visibility.
6. Build Keyword-Rich Links. There is nothing more important for the high ranking success of your site
than strategic link building. And with that said, there is nothing more important than choosing the
right text to link to your site. If your company name is ”[10]Big Oak Studios” and you are an [11]SEO

BlogBook 1.3. March
company then you better be sure to request any links pointing to your site have similar terms such as
SEO, company, firm, search engine optimization, marketing, Internet somewhere in the links. Let the
link state your business, not your web address or company name.
7. Find Quality Links. Since acquiring links is the most important off-site task you can do, then it
would reason you should do it right. While having a large number of links is important, making sure
they are quality is tantamount to your site’s success. This is especially true in high competition areas.
Quality links from sites with authority (popular and trusted sites) carry more weight. One link from
an authority site can be worth a hundred or more low-quality sites.
As an SEO company, we do these things and many more to achieve high rankings. Some of the ”secrets”
listed above require many hours and creative ingenuity to accomplish the task at hand. But the bottom line
is this: there is no secret and if you have the time and initiative and do the research you will have success.
Sometimes you don’t have the time and that is when you should consider talking to an SEO Company to help.
If you are at such a point, please give us call at 1-804-741-6776 or email us at [12]contact@bigoakinc.com.
3. http://www.bigoakinc.com/
4. http://www.wordtracker.com/
5. http://www.keywordiscovery.com/
6. http://inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion/
7. http://www.bigoakinc.com/blog/increase-conversions-on-your-website/
8. http://www.bigoakinc.com/blog/increase-conversions-on-your-website/
9. http://www.bigoakinc.com/blog/how-important-are-page-titles/
12. mailto:contact@bigoakinc.com
Shell Harris (2007-03-11 23:46:15)
A few methods we use involve checking the backlinks or your competitors. Yahoo has the most accurate list-
ings of backlinks so use them. Go to Yahoo.com and then type this in the search box, inserting your domain
name of choice: linksite:www.sitename.com The sites with links pointing to the domain name you entered will now
be seen. Usually the high profile linking sites are displayed first. Target these site for your linking campaign.
There are other tools to find quality links. Here are a few that I have used. http://www.webconfs.com/backlink-
builder.php http://tools.seobook.com/general/link-suggest/ http://www.linkhounds.com/hub-finder/hubfinder.php
You should also be submitting to paid directories. Here is a list of some the best paid directories:
http://www.avivadirectory.com/strongest-directories/
Lists (2007-03-10 13:12:12)
Any tips on how to actually implement item #7? Thanks. :)
Eric E. Smith (2007-03-19 12:10:47)
#4 is a big one and one I see violated more often than any of the others. If a site visitor can’t tell what your web
page is about, how will a search engine?
1.3.3 Get to Know Google Services - SEO Tip Week 11 (2007-03-16 09:07)
[1] Get to know Google. What would an SEO Consultant’s life be like without Google? An interesting

1.3. March BlogBook
question but one we are likely never to have to answer. Google is the new Microsoft and will aﬀect our
lives forever more in ways we don’t even realize yet. Don’t believe me? Do you think Google just does web
search? Think again.
I’ve listed many services that Google oﬀers and I’m sure you may be a bit surprised at how many dif-
ferent pies the search giant’s thumb is actuall in. The list is growing so please contribute if you know of any
I may have missed. I have bolded the Google services I view important for SEO purposes.
Google Services Web Address
Google AdSense [2]https://www.google.com/adsense/
Google AdWords [3]https://adwords.google.com/
Google Analytics [4]http://google.com/analytics/
Google Answers [5]http://answers.google.com/
Google Base [6]http://base.google.com/
Google Blog [7]http://googleblog.blogspot.com/
Google Blog Search [8]http://blogsearch.google.com/
Google Bookmarks [9]http://www.google.com/bookmarks/
Google Books Search [10]http://books.google.com/
Google Calendar [11]http://google.com/calendar/
Google Catalogs [12]http://catalogs.google.com/
Google Code [13]http://code.google.com/
Google Code Search [14]http://www.google.com/codesearch/
Google Deskbar [15]http://deskbar.google.com/
Google Desktop [16]http://desktop.google.com/
Google Directory [17]http://www.google.com/dirhp
Google Earth [18]http://earth.google.com/
Google Finance [19]http://finance.google.com/
Google Groups [20]http://groups.google.com/
Google Holiday Logos
[21]http://www.google.com/intl/en/holidaylogos.html
Google Images [22]http://images.google.com/
Google Jobs [23]http://www.google.com/intl/en/jobs/
Google Labs [24]http://labs.google.com/
Google Local [25]http://local.google.com/
Google Mail [26]http://mail.google.com/
Google Maps [27]http://maps.google.com/
Google Mars [28]http://www.google.com/mars/
Google Mobile [29]http://mobile.google.com/
Google Moon [30]http://moon.google.com/
Google Movies [31]http://www.google.com/movies?q
Google Music [32]http://www.google.com/musicsearch?q
Google News [33]http://news.google.com/
Google Page Creator [34]http://pages.google.com/
Google Personalized Home"¦ [35]http://www.google.com/ig
Google Reader [36]http://www.google.com/reader/
Google Remove URL
[37]http://services.google.com/urlconsole/controller
Google Research Blog [38]http://googleresearch.blogspot.com/
Google Romance [39]http://www.google.com/romance/

BlogBook 1.3. March
Google Scholar [40]http://scholar.google.com/
Google Sitemaps [41]https://www.google.com/webmasters/sitemaps/
Google Search History [42]http://www.google.com/searchhistory/
Google SMS [43]http://www.google.com/sms/
Google Suggest [44]http://www.google.com/webhp?complete=1
Google Talk [45]http://talk.google.com/
Google Toolbar [46]http://toolbar.google.com/
Google Transit Trip Planner [47]http://www.google.com/transit
Google Translate [48]http://www.google.com/translate_t
Google Trends [49]http://www.google.com/trends
Google Video [50]http://video.google.com/
Google Web Accelerator [51]http://webaccelerator.google.com/
Google Web API [52]http://www.google.com/apis/
Google Web Search [53]http://www.google.com
Google Zeitgeist [54]http://www.google.com/press/intl-zeitgeist.html
Please leave a comment if you have more Google services to add or subtract (some beta items don’t last
long).
Visible links 1. http://www.bigoakinc.com/blog/category/52-seo-strategies/
2. https://www.google.com/adsense/
3. https://adwords.google.com/
4. http://google.com/analytics/
5. http://answers.google.com/
6. http://base.google.com/
7. http://googleblog.blogspot.com/
8. http://blogsearch.google.com/
9. http://www.google.com/bookmarks/
10. http://books.google.com/
11. http://google.com/calendar/
12. http://catalogs.google.com/
13. http://code.google.com/
14. http://www.google.com/codesearch/
15. http://deskbar.google.com/
16. http://desktop.google.com/
17. http://www.google.com/dirhp
18. http://earth.google.com/
19. http://finance.google.com/
20. http://groups.google.com/
21. http://www.google.com/intl/en/holidaylogos.html
22. http://images.google.com/
23. http://www.google.com/intl/en/jobs/
24. http://labs.google.com/
25. http://local.google.com/
26. http://mail.google.com/
27. http://maps.google.com/
28. http://www.google.com/mars/
29. http://mobile.google.com/

1.3. March BlogBook
30. http://moon.google.com/
31. http://www.google.com/movies?q
32. http://www.google.com/musicsearch?q
33. http://moon.google.com/
34. http://pages.google.com/
35. http://www.google.com/ig
36. http://www.google.com/reader/
37. http://services.google.com/urlconsole/controller
38. file://localhost/home/blogbooker/tmp/bhydq65r/
39. http://www.google.com/romance/
40. http://scholar.google.com/
41. https://www.google.com/webmasters/sitemaps/
42. http://www.google.com/searchhistory/
43. http://www.google.com/sms/
44. http://www.google.com/webhp?complete=1
45. http://talk.google.com/
46. http://toolbar.google.com/
47. http://www.google.com/transit
48. http://www.google.com/translate_t
49. http://www.google.com/trends
50. http://video.google.com/
51. http://webaccelerator.google.com/
52. http://www.google.com/apis/
53. http://www.google.com/
54. http://www.google.com/press/intl-zeitgeist.html
Ubuntu Linux (2007-07-20 08:59:07)
What about Searchmash, Google’s testing ground for new features: http://www.searchmash.com/
Shell Harris (2007-07-26 10:06:36)
i hadn’t heard of searchmash.com but I like it. Thanks for the link.
abi (2007-06-21 14:13:25)
google’s programmers search engine http://devshots.com Devshots returns Google search results, but emphasize on
programming related sites and resources. So the search result will be smart and accurate.
Audi (2007-05-25 05:33:13)
Nice list, eventhough google suggest is inside google labs, I think it deserves its own link. And maybe Google’s url
removal service @ http://services.google.com/urlconsole/controller
Shell Harris (2007-05-25 10:10:55)
Thanks, Audi. Done and done. ”Google Remove URL” was added.
1.3.4 Internet Marketing with Articles - SEO Tip Week 12 (2007-03-22 06:50)
[1] If you have been involved in the mad world of search engine optimization for any time you know
that building links to your site is importance in achieving high search engine rankings, especially in Google.

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You might also know how important writing and submitting articles can be in your quest for one-way links
which lead to page one results.
Before starting an article marketing campaign, make sure you invest in a sound strategy. You don’t want to
write an article, submit it and then forget it. Article writing should be part of a bigger SEO plan. What
do I mean? Well, I like real world examples and Big Oak has many great [2]SEO success stories, so lets
take a look at one of our many successful clients who have used articles in their SEO campaign: [3]Danforth
Diamond.
Articles, A Gem of a Strategy
Danforth started with us with a brand new site, no search engine visibility and a small budget. Of course
they had lofty goals. They wanted to rank highly for search terms such as diamond engagement rings and
[4]engagement rings. Both are very competitive search terms and needed an aggressive, yet [5]ethical [6]SEO
Company. We have helped them achieve the rankings they were hoping for ([7] #4 in Google, for engagement
rings) and article marketing was an important part of the SEO process.
We have published many [8]well-written articles for Danforth, with a variety of links from the author’s
box and the article itself pointing to the jeweler’s home page and internal pages of the site. Quality writing
is a standard at Big Oak and this has allowed us to have a greater distribution across of the Internet which
provides more inbound links for Danforth. Be sure your writing stands above the competition. Take a look
at similar articles and be sure your article says something new or at least says it better.
SEO and the Article: Working Together
So what is the strategy I’m talking about? Use articles are part of a coordinated marketing effort. Back
up your article with multiple SEO strategies to make the article more effective. Danforth decided to sell a
new metal called Palladium. They are ranked [9] #3 in Google for the search term ’Palladium Jewelry’ and
rank well for other palladium search terms so our strategy works. Here is how we did it. (Links show actual
examples)
1. Write the landing page for [10]palladium jewelry.
2. Write [11]article about palladium and why it is a good choice for jewelry. Distribute article.
3. Write [12]press release about palladium being available at Danforth Diamond. Distribute press release.
4. Frequent posts on [13]company blog about palladium.
5. Focus link building with keywords such as palladium, jewelry, rings, etc.
6. Be patient a few months and watch top rankings appear.
Trusting the Article Source
All of these steps were vital to search ranking success but article marketing was key. Not only did it provide
one-way links, it gave the potential customer information about Palladium so they could make an informed
decision. It also established Danforth as a trusted and knowledgeable merchant, which made buying from
them with confidence a given.
Running a successful SEO campaign requires a lot work and expertise. Well, it requires a lot of quality
writing and expertise. Don’t overlook the importance of article marketing and be sure to use it wisely with
other SEO efforts. It will be a better tool as part of a holistic SEO strategy rather than a one-shot, short-
sighted strategy.

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Article Submission Sites
It is good practice to find article sites that specialize in your article’s topic. It will give you a higher chance
for being published and makes backlinks more relative. Be on the lookout for sites that have articles catering
to your web site’s subject matter. You can easily find such sites by searching for your ”keyword” + article
in the Google search box. Here are some generic article submission sites we use at Big Oak.
• Idea Marketers - [14]http://www.ideamarketers.com/writers.cfm
• Buzzle.com - [15]http://www.buzzle.com/secure/become-edit or.asp
• Article Central - [16]http://thewhir.com/find/articlecentral/suggest.asp
• Go Articles - [17]http://www.goarticles.com/ulogin.html
• EzineArticles - [18]http://ezinearticles.com/submit/
• AMAzines - [19]http://amazines.com
• Article City - [20]http://www.articlecity.com/article submission.shtml
• NetterWeb.com - [21]http://www.netterweb.com/articles/
• Article Insider - [22]http://www.articleinsider.com/start.php
There are hundreds more to be sure, but I would say less than 30 generic article submission sites are worth
your time when submitting. Be sure they article submission site you are looking into will provide good
marketing exposure for your masterpiece!
–
We hope you are learning from our [23]weekly SEO tips. If you have any suggestions or questions, [24]please
let us know. If you submit a good question, we may use it in our tips. If you wish to contact Big Oak to
help you drive traffic and sales to your site we look forward to speaking with you. [25]Contact us today!
2. http://www.bigoakinc.com/portfolio/clients/full-client-list.php
3. http://www.danforthdiamond.com/
4. http://www.danforthdiamond.com/engagement_rings/index.html
7. http://www.google.com/search?q=engagement+rings&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:
official&client=firefox-a
8. http://ezinearticles.com/?expert=Jill_Renee
9. http://www.google.com/search?q=palladium+jewelry&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:
official&client=firefox-a
10. http://www.danforthdiamond.com/palladium/index.html
11. http://ezinearticles.com/?Palladium-Jewelry:-The-Affordable-Treasure&id=288163
12. http://www.prleap.com/pr/47545/
13. http://www.danforthdiamond.com/blog/palladium-jewelry.html
14. http://www.ideamarketers.com/writers.cfm
15. http://www.buzzle.com/secure/become-editor.asp

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16. http://thewhir.com/find/articlecentral/suggest.asp
17. http://www.goarticles.com/ulogin.html
18. http://ezinearticles.com/submit/
19. http://amazines.com/
20. http://www.articlecity.com/article_submission.shtml
21. http://www.netterweb.com/articles/
22. http://www.articleinsider.com/start.php
24. http://www.bigoakinc.com/company/contact-big-oak.php
Bill (2007-04-09 16:01:16)
All good stuff. The trick with article marketing, I find, is to actually write an article that’s really worth reading AND
is easy to read. If Digg and Reddit are anything to go by, ”easy to read” often means having a list structure, or at
least avoiding large and off-putting blocks of text.
Shell Harris (2007-04-09 16:20:41)
Bill, I agree. We try to walk the thin line and write quality material in our articles giving them a new point of view
and then we try to make it easy to digest for the casual reader.
Brian (2007-03-26 21:49:55)
Great post, very informative.
Wesley Warren (2007-03-26 12:38:36)
Nice article. Writing quality articles is a great way to build up readers and links.
kabababrubarta (2007-03-26 19:19:46)
Cool! kabababrubarta
WordPress Wizard Advice (2007-07-29 22:53:57)
I must say there is considerable amount of info in this article. First I did not know so many sources of writing articles.
Secondly you have outlined the article marketing with step by step process that makes it easy for people who are just
starting up the seo of theoir site and know very little about it.
1.3.5 Graphic Headlines Can Work for SEO - SEO Tip Week 13 (2007-03-30 07:30)
[1] This examples in this tip are no longer online. The recommendations are still the same. Using
graphic headlines are still okay if you use the title and alt tags.
This week’s tip is for those sites which are graphically heavy or rely on a specific typeface for their headlines.
While we at [2]Big Oak SEO always prefer a HTML text headline, we understand that sometimes the client
or designer would really prefer to use a typeface that isn’t available through HTML. Instead of being heavy
handed and insisting the site be changed to all HTML text we have gone with another, simpler approach.
Let me clarify this: I would prefer to see HTML text used and with all things being equal
HTML text will always be better than any techniques applied with graphic text.

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As I have written in the past, I feel that examples are the best way to learn and we have applied this tech-
nique to [3]Grote Consulting, a long-time client of Big Oak.
You can view the [4]Performance Appraisal page we will be using in the example.
We used the following HTML code to place a <H1> tag around our graphic text and allow the search
engines to read it as a heading:
<h1><img src=”/images/headers/performance-appraisal.jpg” alt=”Effective Employee Per-
formance Appraisal Tools” title=”Effective Employee Performance Appraisal Tools” width=”750”
height=”96” /></h1>
The key is using both the alt tag and the title tag within the image source HTML code. Matching both tags
with the same text is helpful. The search engines may devalue the alt and title tags, but when they conform
with the HTML text and title of the page they can contribute to higher search engine rankings.
Further using this web page as an example I have provided a link the the [5]Google cache for this page.
The H1 header is clearly identified even though we used graphic text on page. And finally, to prove that
Google respects the proper use of this SEO technique I did a search for the H1 header ’Effective Employee
Performance Appraisal Tools’ and the example page is the [6] #2 result in Google.
Let me repeat this, using HTML text is always better, but using graphical text with the technique I have
shown you will help your rankings too. If you try spamming the alt or title tag in the image code you are
abusing this technique and lower rankings will follow. Use this wisely and be honest when adding text to
the alt and title tags, especially when wrapping an H1 tag around them.
–
Hope you have enjoyed this weekly [7]SEO tip. If you have any suggestions or questions for Big Oak,
[8]please let us know. If you submit a question we like, we may use it in our tips. [9]Contact Big Oak SEO
to help you drive traffic and sales to your site.
3. http://www.groteconsulting.com/
4. http://www.groteconsulting.com/expertise/performance-appraisal.asp
5. http://72.14.253.104/search?q=cache:http://www.groteconsulting.com/services/performance-appraisal/index.
asp&hl=en&strip=1
6. http://www.google.com/search?q=Effective+Employee+Performance+Appraisal+Tools&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=
org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a
emil (2007-03-30 15:01:54)
wow, thanks for the tip. I will use this !

BlogBook 1.4. April
Shell Harris (2007-03-31 00:07:07)
Emil, Glad you found this useful. If you do use it, please submit a link. I think it is extremely helpful to see examples
when giving out SEO tips.
Seo (2008-01-15 19:17:46)
the page and the rankings are gone today but the experiment is interesting..of course the keyword is not very difficult,
that page has some links using similar anchor text(more than 20) but the experiment is still pretty interesting for me.
Would like to test it without the links pointing to that page though and weight better the factors of this equation.
Thanks
1.4 April
1.4.1 Every Web Page Should Be Unique - SEO Tip Week 14 (2007-04-06 06:23)
Every page on your web site should have its own story and clear message. You must be sure that the search
engines have no doubt what each page should rank well for. Do not mix signals or too keyword phrases on
a page. If you are selling [1]vinyl replacement windows, have a page directly focused on that product line.
If you look at this [2]example link from [3]Creative Energy, a local [4]client of Big Oak, you can see the
focus on vinyl replacement windows is clear from the content.. Being a local Richmond, VA company, their
goal for this page was top placement in Google for the search term ’Richmond vinyl replacement windows’.
They have the [5] #1 and #2 listing. But we also have them [6]ranked #12 for the term ’vinyl replacement
windows’. How did we accomplish this?
We gave this page individual attention and that made the difference. Let’s look deeper and check out
the factors that make a web page unique in your web site.
Title
The title sets up the page for the search engine. Short and direct, this is a good title that states clearly what
the page is about to the search engines.
<title>Vinyl Replacement Windows from Simonton Window | Creative Energy of Richmond,
Virginia</title>
Meta Tags
While the [7]importance of meta tags is questioned, using the description tag has its uses. And if you are
going to use it, make sure it mentions your targeted key phrases. Thr meta description tag on our example
page also contains the key phrase vinyl replacement windows.
<meta name=”description” http-equiv=”description” content=”Creative Energy, the exterior
experts, installs vinyl replacement windows in the Richmond, Virginia region and recommends
Simonton Windows to homeowners in central Virginia.”>
Even though the meta keyword tag is ignored for the most part, if it is part of your plan, make it count and
make it different for each page.

1.4. April BlogBook
<meta name=”keywords”http-equiv=”keywords”content=”vinyl replacement window, simon-
ton window, replacement window, replacement window, vinyl window richmond virginia ”>
Keyword Density
I just wrote post on the [8]myth of OPTIMAL keyword density, but having the keyword phrase on the page,
of course, makes good sense. If you check out the keyword density for this page for the term vinyl replacement
windows it is 4.21 %. This may be a little high but if you read the page it doesn’t feel ”spammy” so it is
acceptable. Remember, you are writing for the search engines and people.
Linking, External and Internal
Make sure you have a few keyword-rich links to your important pages from external sites and your internal
links. This is referred to as [9]deep linking and will help your site’s ranking.
Here you can see an [10]article written for the replacement windows with the exact link text we want in
the author’s box. For the internal linking, the footer on Creative Energy’s web site contains a link to the
Vinyl Replacement Window page with the link text ’[11]REPLACEMENT WINDOWS’, a good text link
even without the keyword ’vinyl’ included.
Building Your Web Site One Page at a Time
As you can see this page was given the individual attention it needed to show high in the search engine
rankings, but the real message of this [12]SEO tip is that this page is has its own voice on the client’s site. If
you view the other product web pages for Creative Energy you will find they follow suit with targted titles,
meta tags, content and linking. Take the time to craft each web page individually and take care to spend
time on the components I’ve listed.
1. http://www.creativeenergyexteriors.com/windows.htm
4. http://www.bigoakinc.com/portfolio/clients/full-client-list.php
5. http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&safe=off&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-US%3Aofficial&hs=OY7&q=
richmond+vinyl+replacement+windows&btnG=Search
6. http://www.google.com/search?q=vinyl+replacement+windows&hl=en&safe=off&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:
en-US:official&hs=hDS&start=10&sa=N
7. http://www.bigoakinc.com/blog/use-the-meta-description-tag-seo-tip-week-3/
8. http://www.bigoakinc.com/blog/keyword-density-myth/
9. http://www.bigoakinc.com/blog/deep-linking-seo-tip-week-4/
10. http://www.centurionexteriors.com/nashville_windows/lower_bills.html
WordPress Plugin Advice (2007-07-16 22:36:35)
This is not the first place I heard that internal linking does help SEO, but somehow you did not explain why. May
be You have reserved that for some other post ?
Shell Harris (2007-07-26 10:10:12)
Internal linking helps the same way that external linking helps. Links from inside your site count just as links from
outside your site. The big difference is you can precisely control what your internal link text is and where it points

BlogBook 1.4. April
to. Take care of your own ”house” first and use your linking strategically before going after external links.
1.4.2 Register Your Domain for More Than One Year - SEO Tip Week 15
(2007-04-13 07:27)
I have an easy [1]SEO Tip this week. Make sure you register you domain name for more than one year.
Register it for a minimum of three years and more if you can. This is especially important for new sites.
The search engines, particularly Google, want to see that you believe your site is going to be successful.
They also want to be sure that your site will be meaningful. A good indicator can be fort the length of
time you register your domain. And the first place they check is with your domain register company (e.g.
[2]Godaddy.com).
Google has also filed United States Patent Application 20050071741 stating this very fact.
”Valuable (legitimate) domains are often paid for several years in advance, while doorway
(illegitimate) domains rarely are used for more than a year. Therefore, the date when a domain
expires in the future can be used as a factor in predicting the legitimacy of a domain and, thus,
the documents associated therewith.”•
Another good reason to increase your domain registration period is it will prevent you from accidentally
losing the domain name because you overlooked or didn’t receive the reminder email to renew.
While this tip is not going to rocket you to #1 in the search results, it can provide a quicker exit from
the [3]Google Sandbox and may provide some boost in your rankings. With so many contributing factors
why overlook one of the easiest things to do. Go ahead and renew, it’ll do a website good!
2. http:///
3. http://www.bigoakinc.com/seo-articles/googles-sandbox-effect.php
Vjeko (2007-04-20 07:36:25)
Hi to all! I don’t have a lot experience but I am certain that this is very important factor. I have just realised why
my site went down from 10th postion to 80th!!! I am not joking. I was on free server and the service was free ’for
ever’. When I changed IP address of the site, and paid domain for 1 year it went down. Regards, Vjeko from Croatia.
Shell Harris (2007-04-14 11:43:08)
There are many sources that agree with my post. Here is another article about this from [1]Search Engine Guide.
Google has also filed United States Patent Application 20050071741 backing up my theory.
Valuable (legitimate) domains are often paid for several years in advance, while doorway (illegitimate) domains rarely
are used for more than a year. Therefore, the date when a domain expires in the future can be used as a factor in
predicting the legitimacy of a domain and, thus, the documents associated therewith.
Of course there are also people who think this is a ploy cooked up by the domain name registering companies. I still
hold that it is good business practice and a small investment. Whether you do it for 10 years or 2 years is up to you.
I still say it makes sense for a host of reasons, betting rankings is just one of them.
1. http://www.searchengineguide.com/hartzer/005144.html

1.4. April BlogBook
Orderer (2007-04-14 07:24:58)
Is that a fact? I always only pay for a year in advance cause I figure I can’t trust the registrars for too long a period
of time. Would you please share the source of the info, if there is one? Thanks a lot!
1.4.3 Submit Press Releases - SEO Tip Week 16 (2007-04-20 06:41)
Submit Press Releases for Link Building
[1] Finding one-way links to your website can be a tough task. Finding quality one-way links to your
websites can be even more difficult.
Wouldn’t it be wonderful if people put links to your site without you even asking them to? Well, sub-
mitting a press release can help accomplish this. Similar to my tip on [2]SEO[3] with articles, using a press
release to build links and increase search engine rankings can also be effective. What so many people overlook
submitting press releases, which are copyright free, is the fact that you can put links to your site within the
content of the press release. We used this method of promotion for our [4]online toy store client and you can
see one of their [5]press releases.
Not only can you place helpful links to your home page in the body of the press release but you can
use [6]deep linking and link to interior pages of your website. Deep linking is often harder to do as most
websites would rather link to your home page. We use PRweb.com and the cost is higher to use text links
rather than actual URLs.
Press Release Submit Site
As I wrote, PRweb.com does charge a fee for submission, but there are many free press release submission
sites as well. Here are some that we also use:
• [7]www.24-7pressrelease.com
• [8]www.prfree.com
• [9]www.prleap.com
• [10]www.pressbox.co.uk
• [11]www.press-world.com/add
• [12]http://www.express-press-release.com
• [13]http://www.free-press-release.com
Press release submission is not the magic bullet for SEO success, but it is a valuable tool in the SEO
consultant’s toolbox. Whether it is a product release, a major hire, or a strategic acquisition you can make
the press release perform double duty as both a internet marketing tool and a link building tool. Big Oak
provides [14]press release writing & submission as part of our SEO strategy.
2. http://www.bigoakinc.com/blog/internet-marketing-with-articles-seo-tip-week-12/http://www.bigoakinc.com/
blog/internet-marketing-with-articles-seo-tip-week-12/

BlogBook 1.4. April
3. http://www.bigoakinc.com/blog/internet-marketing-with-articles-seo-tip-week-12/http://www.bigoakinc.com/
blog/internet-marketing-with-articles-seo-tip-week-12/
4. http://www.sillyasstoys.com/
5. http://www.prweb.com/releases/2005/2/prweb204256.htm
7. http://www.24-7pressrelease.com/
8. http://www.prfree.com/
9. http://www.prleap.com/
10. http://www.pressbox.co.uk/
11. http://www.press-world.com/add
12. http://www.express-press-release.com/
13. http://www.free-press-release.com/
14. http://www.bigoakinc.com/capabilities/seo-press-releases.php
Abdul Hayi Mansoor (2007-08-05 02:59:13)
Very informative and profession. Would be of great help for me in future.
1.4.4 SEO and Flash - SEO Tip Week 17 (2007-04-27 07:08)
Flash-based sites have problems with SEO or ”Skip This Intro”
Update: I laughed out loud after reading this post theGoogleCache.com. View the [1]Should I Make a Flash
Site Flowchart?
Using Flash is a slippery slope, even [2]Adobe’s Flash page is light on the Flash. I hesitate to bring up
this topic as it can be very heated. Why, I myself used to be an avid Flash developer about 8 years ago.
But back then not many people understood the concept of SEO or Internet Marketing and Google was just
a twinkle in the Internet’s watchful eye.
Well, now SEO has become one of the fasting growing industries on the Internet and Flash has lost some of
it’s...well, Flash. In other words, more often than not, we search frantically for the ”Skip This Intro” button
when we see animation start flying around the screen. If not the first time then definitely the second time.
We don’t have time for Flash intros and tedious downloads in today’s world. We want information and we
want it fast. Flash is contrary to this in many cases.
Don’t get me wrong, I like Flash, and think it can be helpful and entertaining of sites for entertainment,
gaming and site’s that have inherit brand popularity such as [3]Coca-Cola. Most of us running a business on
the web need visitors, customers, users and clients coming to our sites. Truth is though, it is hard to find a
Flash website vs. a non-Flash website. Yes, I know that [4]Flash can be indexed, I also know that an HTML
site will beat a Flash site every time when all things are equal.
Of course, using Flash in a traditional website can be fine and dandy. When used efficiently, Flash can
enhance a website without damaging it’s search engine rankings. But Flash must be used with caution.
If all of your content and menus are in Flash, search engines will have a harder time following the links. If
you feel strongly about using Flash, be sure to create an HTML version of the page as well. Your users will
thank you as they will now be able to find your site with the help of the search engines. You may wish to
block the Flash version of your pages from the crawlers with a robots.txt file, since you don’t want your

1.5. May BlogBook
pages indexed twice. If your website contains Flash, be sure put the navigation outside of the Flash content
or the search engine spiders won’t be able to navigate your site. Your content should also reside outside of
Flash’s influence.
Think of Flash as accent material for you site. Use it for graphical callouts, [5]product images, interac-
tive portions of your site and anywhere you can enhance the user experience without causing problems for
the spiders or confusion for the user. Remember, never use Flash as your entire site if you want any search
engine visibility. This is important because you can optimize the [6]page title, [7]meta tags and other content
placed on invididual pages making sure each [8]web page is unique.
Finally, give your users a Flash and a HTML version of your site. Watch the visitor stats and I’m bet-
ting you see a much higher number of visitors view the low-bandwidth verision of your website. In any case
you will have given the spiders something to follow and the search engines something to index and searchers
something find. It may seem like extra work, but the traffic you will acquire from it will be worth it.
1. http://www.thegooglecache.com/?p=46
2. http://www.adobe.com/products/flash/
3. http://www.coca-cola.com/home.htm?lang=en_US
4.
http://www.webpronews.com/topnews/2004/09/07/google-can-now-index-flash-an-interview-with-michael-marshall
5. http://www.cartoonsmart.com/product_display_techniques.html
6. http://www.bigoakinc.com/blog/how-important-are-page-titles/
7. http://www.bigoakinc.com/blog/use-the-meta-description-tag-seo-tip-week-3/
8. http://www.bigoakinc.com/blog/every-web-page-should-be-unique-seo-tip-week-14/
jefe (2007-06-15 22:31:01)
Site needs traffic because Search Engines are not picking up your Flash? Then submit your Flash based website for
free at FlashSEO.net! HOW DOES IT WORK? Search engines will Index our pages, direct traffic to your new auto
created page on our site, and then we direct the traffic to your website automatically. Free Services: Search Engine
Optimization for Adobe Flash Sites and Directory
Voluntary Death (2007-04-29 14:31:30)
I like Flash too but that was ages ago. I still do include flash or do flash projects and accept clients who wants flash.
However, personally, my site is now a blog and most of the other sites are now blogs too. Well, why? Just as you’ve
said, search engines love blogs and non-flash sites more than flash.
1.5 May
1.5.1 Search Engine & Directory Submissions - SEO Tip Week 18 (2007-05-04 14:37)
[1] Directories are an easy way to build links because anyone can submit and get listed. Directories
can, therefore, be of little use for the same reason. Of course getting in directories can be time consuming
but it is a one-time affair and usually worth the time. They provide one-way links which will increase your
online presence. Not all directories are created equal and paying for the better ones is often money well
spent.
Inclusion Tips

BlogBook 1.5. May
Select the best category for your site and follow the instructions on the submission form carefully.
Write your descriptions without sensational text. Descriptions of sites should describe the content of the site
concisely and accurately When submitting to directories, make sure to vary anchor text and use keywords
in the description and title fields.
Choose the most appropriate category for your site. Finding a category that best matches your
site’s theme or content will increase traffic from the directory and provide higher quality one-way link to
your site for the search engines to follow.
Good Directories
A few of the more search engine friendly directories for valuable links are the following:
[2]Yahoo! Directory: The Yahoo! Directory is the biggest and oldest directory on the web, and one
of the few directories that can provide traffic.
[3]DMOZ: The Open Directory Project (DMOZ) is a free, volunteer-run directory. Google and many
other sites pull information directly from DMOZ and display the description in the search engine results.
[4]Business.com: A huge business-related directory.
[5]Best of The Web: One of the oldest directories on the web.
[6]Aviva Directory: A well-marketed directory.
[7]GoGuides.org: Another well-run directory that has been around a while.
Blog Directories
Here are some recommended blog directories.
[8]MyBlogLog: Everyone who reads a web site or blog can learn about and engage with one an-
other, and in the process take the conversation to a whole new level.
[9]Blogcatalog: Labeled as ”the premiere blog directory on the internet”. Promote your own blog or
find blogs on various topics.
[10]Bumpzee: join a community, you are fed with an ever-updating list of blogs and blog posts sub-
mitted and chosen by like-minded individuals.
A more complete [11]list of online directories is on our website. Aviva Directory has has a list of
the [12]best directories.
2. http://search.yahoo.com/dir?fr=yfp-t-501
3. http://www.dmoz.org/
4. http://www.business.com/
5. http://www.botw.com/
6. http://www.avivadirectory.com/

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7. http://www.goguides.org/
8. http://www.blogcatalog.com/
9. http://www.blogcatalog.com/
10. http://www.bumpzee.com/
11. http://www.bigoakinc.com/limb/seo-directories.php
12. http://www.avivadirectory.com/strongest-directories/
John Hunter (2007-07-04 19:05:06)
The [1]Curious Cat Cool Connections directory has been around for over 10 years and provides SEO friendly links.
The ”catch” is it is actually designed to be used by people and only the best sites are included (plus the scope is
limited). But for the right sites it is a useful resource, I think.
1. http://curiouscat.net/cool/
Akhilesh (2007-05-08 19:19:17)
It’s sad that the good ones are not free and that the free ones (like DMOZ) have a lengthy review process. I’m not
into blogging for the money, and so can’t spend any. Oh well.
Andy Beard (2007-05-08 09:36:00)
You should probably add sites like MyBlogLog, Blogcatalog and Bumpzee to the list. I get more traffic from them
every day than I receive from DMOZ over a few months, and the links they are already providing are more valuable.
Shell Harris (2007-05-08 09:47:12)
Great suggestions, Andy. I have placed links to these sites for blogs in this post. Thanks for taking the time to
comment, I’ve always been a big fan of your blog. And purely coincidentally I added a link to Bumpzee today from
my [1]Dofollow post. I submitted my blog as well.
1. http://www.bigoakinc.com/blog/nofollow-no-more-seo-blog-joins-the-minority/
1.5.2 Control What Gets Indexed - SEO Tip Week 19 (2007-05-11 13:47)
[1] Before reading this tip, make sure that you have read the tips from week 7 ([2]Duplicate Content &
URL Canonicalization) and 14 ([3]Every Web Page Should Be Unique) to understand why unique content is
valuable.
Under normal circumstances, you want every page to be unique, and for there to be one, and only one,
URL displaying that content. However, there are situations where you might use multiple URLs for specific
purposes, such as tracking your Pay Per Click (PPC) campaigns. Giving your PPC ads individual specific
URLs makes them easier to track in your website statistics or analytics packages.
Example Original URL: www.company.com/mypage.html
Example PPC Ad URL: www.company.com/mypage.html?src=ppc001
The problem with giving ads unique URLs is that they may end up being indexed by the search engines,
especially Yahoo. The best solution is to use a [4]301 redirect to the original URL for that page, thereby

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capturing any importance the individual URLs may have. If you cannot use a 301 redirect for technical or
other reasons, you can stop these URLs from being indexed with your robots.txt file.
If you only have a few URLs that you want to disallow, you can list them individually:
User-agent: *
Disallow: /mypage.html?src=ppc001
Disallow: /mypage.html?src=ppc002
This can become problematic if you are trying to disallow hundreds or even thousands of different URLs.
This is where wildcards come in. While wildcards are not part of the standards of robots.txt files, Google,
MSN, and Yahoo all support them. This can be extremely helpful in trying to get rid of some of those tricky
content duplication problems.
The two supported wildcards are the asterisk ”*” which matches any sequence of characters, and the dollar
sign ” $” which signifies the end of a URL string. Trailing asterisks are redundant, and not needed, since
that is the natural behavior of the robots.txt standard.
CompUSA Example
The [5]CompUSA home page is indexed hundreds of times by Yahoo with many variations of referral and
tracking parameters.
If they wanted to get rid of all URLs with parameters on their default.asp page, they could use:
User-agent: *
Disallow: /default.asp?
Additional Examples
If you have printable versions of all your HTML pages that contain ” print” in the URL, you would use:
User-agent: *
Disallow: /* print*.html $
If you use a session id parameters called ”sessionid” with users who are logged in, you would use:

1.5. May BlogBook
User-agent: *
Disallow: /*sessionid=
If you have a private folder called ”private memories” and you don’t want hackers being able to know the
full name of the folder simply by looking at your robots.txt file, you would use::
User-agent: *
Disallow: /private*/
As you can see, there are many uses for the robots.txt file now that all of the big 3 search engines support
wildcards. Hopefully the official specification for robots.txt will support wildcards in the future, and all bots
will understand them.
2. http://www.bigoakinc.com/blog/duplicate-content-url-canonicalization/
3. http://www.bigoakinc.com/blog/every-web-page-should-be-unique-seo-tip-week-14/
5. http://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com/search?ei=UTF-8&p=http%3A//www.compusa.com/default.asp&bwm=p&bwms=
p&searchbwm=Explore+URL
Francisco Cheng (2007-06-29 08:28:18)
Good post, this could be very useful information.
Orderer (2007-05-16 11:17:30)
Wow that compusa stuff is really weird.
Chris Alexander (2007-05-18 09:55:32)
Yes, the noindex meta tag will also accomplish this. However there are many instances where it’s difficult, or not
possible, to use the noindex meta tag.
Perfect Wealth Formula (2007-05-17 20:54:15)
Can you use the noindex meta tag to accomplish this?
Shell Harris (2007-05-13 22:27:04)
Chris, That is a great tip and one that can literally bring your site back into the rankings practically overnight.
1.5.3 SEO for Interior Webpages - SEO Tip Week 20 (2007-05-18 13:45)
Most websites focus on their home page which is of course a good idea. It is the most important page of
your site whether you are looking at search engine optimization, internet marketing or customer conversion.
Making sure you homepage is optimized and marketed should be of primary importance, but be sure not to
forget your interior pages.
Often the arm chair optimizer will make the mistake of only trying to rank their home age. By this I

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mean they will only build links to the home page or make sure it is titled with the most important keywords
and so on. And while the home page should get the most SEO love, it is also important to your online
marketing success that you show your interior pages some SEO attention. Do you interior pages that aren’t
ranking well, but should be? Not every keyword can be crammed on to your home page, although I’ve seen
it attempted. A car dealer has [1]tried this approach.
Supporting the Home Page
While marketing the home page is a monthly focus for us here at Big Oak, we are also aware of the power
interior pages have for converting visitors into clients. We think of the home page as a lobby that helps direct
you to the page that will provide the information or product you are searching for. If we can skip the lobby
altogether and get the user directly to the page that would be better. That is unlikely to happen without
providing [2]deep linking to your interior pages.
Marketing Interior Pages
I like providing examples so here are some real world examples from our own clients. Our client ExhibitDeal
provides [3]trade show displays and accessories. Their number #1 term is ”trade show displays” and as of
today May 18, 2007 they are ranked #1 in Google ([4]Trade Show Displays Ranking). They also rank #1
in Google for the term ”trade show flooring ([5]Trade Show Flooring Ranking Screen Shot). If you click the
links to view the screen shots you will notice the #1 ranking for trade show flooring is an interior page of
ExhibitDeal.
Trying to rank the home page for trade show flooring would have been impossible. So we marketing both
keyword phrases for their respective pages and achieved high ranking rankings for both. Currently the trade
show flooring page has [6]89 backlinks according to Yahoo. Not an extremely large amount but decent
amount when a targeted strategy is applied to a single interior page. Of course it helps that the site has
[7]4,374 links overall, but only [8]3,009 links are pointing to the home page.
Obviously it works for ExhibiDeal. Leading searchers to a page about trade show flooring when the search
matches will increase sales.
Choosing Interior Pages for SEO
Decide on a a few interior pages that can help your conversion efforts. If placing a user directly on an interior
page, bypassing the home page, would help the sale or get them calling wouldn’t you want that? After you
have decided which pages might help your business if they ranked well, maybe 2 or 3, start optimizing them
and then start link building.
Providing deep linking to these pages will allow your site to have increased value overall and not just
on your home page and the search engines like to see a site with popularity throughout on just on the home
page. This can increase you authority and your ranking for your entire site.
Sound link a lot of work? It can be, but the rewards will be a website with much higher search engine
visibility. If you need help, [9]Big Oak SEO is available.
1. http://www.wheelanddeal.com/
3. http://www.exhibitdeal.com/
4. http://www.bigoakinc.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/05/trade-show-displays-1.gif
5. http://www.bigoakinc.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/05/trade-show-flooring-1.gif

1.5. May BlogBook
6. https://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com/search?p=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.exhibitdeal.com%2Fproducts-flooring.
html&bwm=i&bwms=p&bwmf=u&fr2=seo-rd-se
7.
https://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com/search?p=http%3A%2F%2Fexhibitdeal.com&bwm=i&bwmf=s&bwmo=&fr2=seo-rd-se
8. https://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com/search?p=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.exhibitdeal.com%2F&bwm=i&bwms=p&bwmf=
u&fr2=seo-rd-se
1.5.4 Finding the Perfect Link - SEO Tip Week 21 (2007-05-25 07:04)
[1] This week’s SEO tip gets to the heart of the linking question. We know we need links, but what
kind of links? (See our article on [2]Dissecting Links) Well, what if we could choose a link to have all the
qualities that would benefit our site? This ”perfect link” would benefit our SEO efforts, and it would be use-
ful at driving traffic through clicks as well as inflating our link popularity and increasing our search engine
rankings. Of course, this is can be subjective and I always welcome differing opinions, so if you feel I’ve
missed something, please add your comments to this post.
The anatomy of a perfect link:
• It would be a simple HTML link as follows: <a href=”•http://www.yourdomain.com/page.h-
tml”•>keyword phrase</a>.
• The anchor text would would include keywords that are important to your site.
• It would be part of a sentence, which would be part of a paragraph.
• The content surrounding the link, and the entire page, would be on topic with your site.
• It would reside on a site with a similar theme as your site.
• The page would have links to other sites similar to your site.
• It would be on a [3]trusted site, with the site itself having backlinks from many sites including .edu
and .gov sites.
• The link would drive direct traffic to your site...targeted, highly converting traffic.
• It should be an [4]authoritative site.
• The site the link resides on should be popular and well-read.
I think you can also see why the perfect link is only slightly easier to find than [5]Bigfoot or [6]Nessie - much
of the link’s perfection is derived from the site and page where the link resides. The old adage in real estate
applies to link building too, it all about location, location, location!
2. http://www.bigoakinc.com/newsletter/200701/link-building.php
3. http://www.seobook.com/archives/000661.shtml
4. http://www.webworkshop.net/seoforum/viewtopic.php?p=145797
5. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/1999/01/24/SC86886.DTL
6. http://paranormal.suite101.com/article.cfm/the_search_for_nessie

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