SiteProNews |
- Reader Rescue: How do I choose what keywords to target?
- How to Participate in a Tweetchat
- Guide to Listing on Dmoz
| Reader Rescue: How do I choose what keywords to target? Posted: 08 Feb 2010 12:13 AM PST
I have two questions. 1) How do I know if a keyword merits my time and energy? For example, when I use Google’s Keyword tool, it says “debt settlement facts” has “not enough data” in the local search volume , when I input in “debt settlement texas,” I get 1,600 searches. Is this tool accurate to estimate the potential traffic to keywords ? 2) How do I know which keywords my competitors are using ? What I did was check each competitors site maps and looked at individual pages to see what they were targeting. William ————————————– Hi William 1) It sounds like you’re using Google’s PPC Keyword Tool, which is helpful for choosing which keywords to target using pay per click advertising, but I’ve found it not so helpful for SEO campaigns. I would use other KW research tools such as Keyword Discovery, Word Tracker and iSpionage to get a better idea what people are typing in as search queries. All KW tools should be used with a grain of salt in terms of search data anyway – they can give you a general idea based on traffic figures, but trial and error is really your best bet when targeting keywords for your site. 2) Yes, looking at your competitor’s pages to see what keywords they are targeting is a very good idea. You can also view the source code for their pages to see what keywords their Title, META Description and META Keyword tags contain. Kalena ————————————– Got a Reader Rescue question of your own? Send it to kjordan [ at ] sitepronews [ dot ] com and you might see it featured here. Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources |
| How to Participate in a Tweetchat Posted: 07 Feb 2010 10:34 PM PST You can get to know people on Twitter in your area of interest by participating in a tweetchat on a related subject. What is a tweetchat? It’s a stream of tweets on the same topic in real time. Imagine it as a gigantic instant messaging free-for-all on a stated topic. First let’s talk about participating in one. Then we’ll talk about how starting one can help you market on Twitter. Let’s take this scenario: I announce that a tweetchat on #ficbkmkt (hashtag for fiction book marketing) will take place on a specific date and time. (I make sure to state what time zone in the U.S. this is.) I tweet about this ahead of time and get others to also tweet the topic, time and date. At the specific date and time I use a third-party application to participate in a tweetchat in real time. This way I can follow the tweets of people I’m not following yet and people who are not following me yet can see my tweets on the subject. While there are other third-party ways to participate in tweetchats, I like tweetchat.com the best. Just know that you can change the speed of how fast you get the new tweets. I’m a fast typist so I choose to get new updates every five seconds (the fastest). For others that may be too hard to follow and you’ll want to leave it at the 10 seconds default or even increase to a longer interval between tweets. At the date and time I go to tweetchat.com and enter my Twitter username and password. Then in the room prompt I enter #ficbkmkt and I’m part of the conversation. When I tweet from inside this “room” the hashtag #ficbkmkt will be automatically added to my tweet (which is why I don’t have the full 140 characters in a tweet). If people not participating in the chat are following any of the people in the chat, these outside people can see in their regular Twitter stream the tweets with the hashtag of the people they’re following. And the outside people can respond from their regular Twitter stream but must manually add #fictbkmkt to their tweets so these tweets will show up in the tweetchat room. Tweetchats are usually for an hour or more. Some are the same time every week and others are for a special event. The regularly scheduled tweetchats may have a specified topic for each chat or they may be an open exchange of information. The tweetchat organizer decides the format. I will admit that the tweets can fly fast and furious. Leaders of well-organized tweetchats often have a series of questions and ask people to put the question number before the reply to make it easier for people to follow the conversation. Thus a tweet reply inside the tweetchat that answers “How do you search on Twitter?” (which has been designated as question 4) may look like this: Q4: There are numerous applications that allow you to search Twitter by different criteria. [hashtag of tweetchat automatically attached] Now let’s say you want to host a special event tweetchat or start a regularly scheduled tweetchat: Why would you do this? To establish yourself as a leader in a specific niche. To be known as someone who truly contributes to the conversation in this area. To help out someone. For example, when getglue.com was new, I offered to host a special tweetchat with a representative from getglue so that he could explain to book authors how getglue could be used for book marketing. The tweetchat afforded book authors the opportunity to learn from the getglue representative and also share tips with each other. Now I admit I offered to do a tweetchat for getglue for a self-interested reason: I wanted myself to understand how getglue could be used for book marketing. But I did put effort into promoting the tweetchat ahead of time plus I edited the transcript from the tweetchat and put it on my FictionMarketing.com blog so that others who didn’t participate in the live tweetchat could benefit from the advice. This I utilized the Twitter marketing strategy of providing valuable information for others while learning information for myself. One other hosting tip: Because many people on Twitter don’t know what a tweetchat is, when I sponsor a special event tweetchat I create an announcement through twitwall.com. This way I can have a headline about the tweetchat (which becomes the tweet) and then a link to the twitwall announcement with instructions about how to join the tweetchat. P.S. And if you’ve added good information as a participant or host of a tweetchat, you’ll discover that a lot of people from the tweetchat who weren’t following you before will now be following you. Phyllis Zimbler Miller (@ZimblerMiller on Twitter) has an M.B.A. from The Wharton School and is an Internet business consultant. If you liked this article, you’ll love her FREE report on “How to Become a Twitter Marketing Expert” – download the report now from www.millermosaicllc.com/free-twitter-report Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources |
| Posted: 07 Feb 2010 09:00 PM PST
Dmoz’s full title is the Open Directory Project. Dmoz is an acronym for Directory Mozilla. The acronym reflects loose association with ex-owner’s Netscape’s Mozilla project, an Open Source browser initiative. Originally called ‘Gnuhoo’ by founder Rich Skrenta, it was renamed the Open Directory Project in October 1998 when it was bought by Netscape. It was then acquired by AOL shortly thereafter, and Dmoz was one of the assets included in the acquisition. Unlike a search engine, for websites to be listed in the Dmoz directory, they have to be submitted first. They are then reviewed by individuals (known as Editors) who are assigned to various categories within the Dmoz directory. Is a Dmoz Link Worth It? It’s fair to say that Dmoz isn’t what it used to be. You may notice whenever you search for something online these days that a Wikipedia entry is often on the first page. This used to be the case for Dmoz, meaning it was a good referrer of traffic to websites. The key words there are that it ‘used to be’. Dmoz’s category pages do not rank well at all anymore, so traffic referral is next to nothing. It’s not all bad though, Google has its own directory which is in fact just a re-branded version of Dmoz. This shows us that it is still recognised as an authoritative website and that is demonstrated by the high Page Rank of some of its pages. In fact many websites use Dmoz’s data which means if you get in Dmoz, you may inherit far more backlinks than you expected. One of the reasons why it is still considered authoritative is that you can’t pay to get in as with many other directories. Providing a reciprocal link isn’t an option either, so the theory is that Dmoz is more or less incorruptible. The fact is though, with many thousands of websites being submitted every week, there are simply too many for the Editors to handle. This means websites aren’t reviewed often and so Dmoz’s content is out of date, especially compared to modern search engines. So, perhaps Dmoz is not the be-all-and-end-all it once was, but lets not get too negative. It takes minutes to submit, so there is no harm in trying! How to Submit to Dmoz Before you submit your website, make sure you give it a thorough health check. Have you checked it for broken links, bad spelling and missing graphics? These are all things your website can be rejected for so don’t shoot yourself in the foot! In order to submit, you must visit the category you wish to submit to and click on ‘Suggest Url.’ It’s important to follow the guidelines, if you miss one element you will be rejected. For the full steps to submitting, visit: Ensure you don’t spam your submission with keywords or be ‘creative’ with the title. You may get away with this in other directories, but not with Dmoz. If you’re reading this article, you should already be aware of the basics of Search Engine Optimization, so the description you give Dmoz should be related to your website as well as the keywords for which you want to rank. For help in writing the best entry, the easiest thing to do is to simply take a look at entries already within the category you are aiming for. If they’re in, they’ve obviously done something right! This is also a good time to ensure the category is the right one for your website. Take a look at the websites within the category and make sure they are similar to yours. If not, it’s best to find a more suitable category. How Long Does It Take to be Accepted? Dmoz is well known as an authoritative directory website. Needless to say then, it is very popular and thousands of websites have been submitted. Despite having a large number of editors, the fact that each entry is reviewed by humans means the process is longer and the backlog builds up. Considering Dmoz has been running since 1999, that backlog has grown year on year. With this in mind, waiting a year for entry is not unreasonable. After submitting your website to Dmoz it is worthwhile looking at your web analytics program and searching for the telltale sign of your website being reviewed. The address to check in your logs for is ‘editors.dmoz.org‘. Is There Any Way of Speeding the Process Up? Not really. The biggest mistake to make is to get impatient and presume you’ve been forgotten about, and then re-submitting. You could easily be rejected for this. Likewise, even though deep links and multiple categories are not banned from Dmoz, it’s probably best to avoid the potential downfall of doing this. However, there is one way to get into Dmoz quickly (relatively speaking). Naturally, people are drawn by the high Page Rank of a main category. Thing is, these are the sort of categories that take literally years to get into. It can be as little as a few weeks to get into a lesser Page Ranked sub-category. It’s very simple, fewer people submit their website so the backlog of submissions is much shorter. As an example of this, our last submitted reviewed website by Dmoz was first submitted 4 months beforehand. I Think Dmoz Rejected My Website, Why? In many instances, websites aren’t really rejected, they’re just taking a while to be reviewed. Some of the busier categories will mean you have to wait months before having your website reviewed. This is why it is important that when submitting to Dmoz, you take care in writing the best entry for getting in, not the best entry for your search engine optimization campaign! Another common occurrence is that your website may be in a different category to what you actually submitted to. It’s not uncommon to see a website moved to a more local category, if you have a .co.uk. domain for example. Make sure you use the Dmoz search tool before presuming you didn’t get in. If you are sure you have been rejected and it isn’t down to a) a bad description or b) your website being littered with broken links, then you can contact the editor of the category. Simply visit the category you submitted to and scroll to the bottom to the editors’ names. Sometimes you will see a ‘volunteer to be an editor’ link, in which case you need to go up a level to see the editor for the parent category instead. When you click on an editor’s name, you will have an option to email them. You can also see their activity on Dmoz under their ‘Bookmarks.’ This will help you find the best editor to contact (if there is more than one). It goes without saying when contacting them, be polite and professional! There are myths and exaggerated stories about ‘corrupt’ editors who only accept websites after receiving a fee, but a minority of editors may be managing categories that are related to their professional background. Unfortunately, that may mean some direct competitors of theirs might get rejected, no matter what the rules are. Rob Fenn is an SEO specialist, working within the Webtacular (http://www.webtacular.co.uk) department of the website design firm Sixth Sense ESP (http://www.sixthsense-esp.co.uk), which focuses on Internet Marketing for SMEs. Outside of SEO, Rob is also a Google AdWords Qualified Professional Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources |
Hi Kalena
What is Dmoz? Dmoz is a human edited directory that has been running since 1998. It was created as a cooperative environment that would allow volunteer editors to keep up with the internet explosion. Way back, Yahoo used to be a directory – not a search engine – and Dmoz was an (eventually bigger) alternative to this. The only difference of course is that we are now well into the Google era of information at your fingertips. Dmoz on the other hand, is pretty much where it started.| You are subscribed to email updates from SiteProNews Recent Articles To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
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