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Posted by Dr. Pete

Many SEO topics are like good games – you can learn the basics in a few hours, but really mastering them can take years. One topic that seems simple but that generates a ton of questions here on SEOmoz is URLs: How to construct them, how to optimize them, what the pieces are, etc. In the spirit of great SEOmoz cheat sheets like Danny’s web developer cheat sheet, I’ve decided to put together a 1-page guide to all things URL. You can click on the image below for a larger image or download the PDF (105KB).

Download as a PDF (105KB)

The guide is broken up into two sections: (1) "SEO-friendly URL", showing a modern URL and it’s parts, and (2) "Old Dynamic URL", showing a classic, dynamic URL with CGI parameters. Both sections contain useful tips and stats about URLs and their optimization (based on SEOmoz research).

(1) SEO-Friendly URL

(2) Old Dynamic URL

I hope you find it useful and welcome any comments and criticisms.

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How are your referral stats looking? Noticed more traffic from Bing lately?

According to a Nielsen report last month, Bing is growing faster than any other search engine. It was reported Bing had 10.7% of the total search market, up 2% from the month before. Yesterdays report from Hitwise suggests Bing has since dropped to around 8.96 percent.

So, somewhere around 8-10% perhaps.

The new statistics, from internet research firm Hitwise, will make disappointing reading for Mr Ballmer, who has said he is willing to spend as much as $11bn on search. Earlier this week he told The Daily Telegraph: “We’re trying to give Google a little competition in the search business

Microsoft have struggled for along time to make a dent in Google’s share of the search market, so it looks like they are beginning to make inroads, albeit slowly. Microsoft have done a ton of marketing to promote Bing. They’ve introduced cutting edge features like visual search and voice support.

This is not a battle Microsoft can afford to lose, and for search marketers, competition between engines can only be a good thing.

Is Your Site Optimized For Bing?

The thought of adopting different optimization strategies for different engines feels so antiquated now.

Years ago, there used to be a lot of talk about how to optimize for the different engines. Some webmasters would go so far as to serve differently optimized pages to each major engine.

In the past few years, SEO has been about all-Google, all the time, so the rule of thumb is to optimize for Google, and the rest pretty much takes care of itself.

This advice still stands.

Keeping Up With Bing

Google has Google Guy (Matt Cutts). Likewise, the Bing search team regularly reaches out to the SEO community. SEOs should bookmark the Bing Webmaster Centre announcements.

In particular:

• Search Engine Optimization For Bing
• Making Links Work For You SEM 101
• Are You Content With Your Content

NB: You need a Live Id to see those links.

Microsoft released a comprehensive document for Webmasters. Check out page 23 where they address SEO specifically.

Like Google Guy advice, it tends towards the general and is ultimately self serving, but interesting to be aware of, nontheless.

The Bing Difference: Why Bother?

In terms of search engine results pages, the two engines do produce different results. Here’s a nifty tool for side-by-side comparisons.

Why should you be interested in Bing at all?

Even though usage is lower, the user demographic for Bing is different to that of Google. Ask search marketers and you’ll get anecdotal evidence that Bing/Yahoo users don’t tend to be as web savvy as Google users, use the web less often, are more likely to click on ads, and are more likely to be involved in online shopping, whilst Google appeals more to researchers, webheads and geeks. If you’re engaged in web commerce, you need to be thinking about Bing.

Bing Ranking Tips

From the Bing Features For Webmasters document:

Because of this new way of thinking about search, some webmasters might initially be concerned that the shortened primary organic listing in the new Bing SERP might render their SEO efforts as less effective. Instead, Bing makes it easier to compete for broad terms because it surfaces more categories automatically, increasing the number of results on the page and generating more relevant content.

In reality, the same SEO strategies you use for Google apply to Bing.

1. Get Your On-Page SEO Right

Nail the basics.

Make sure your content is unique, use H tags for titles, use alt tags for images, use unique page titles and description meta tags, one topic per page and ensure your copy is free from spelling and gramatical errors. Like Google, you can sign up for MS Webmaster Center which will help you spot and troubleshoot problems.

2. Quality Inbound Linking

Bing appears to favour linking from pages that share a similar topic area.

Is Bing a theme-based engine? Think of a theme as a topic pyramind. A themed site would have the topic “cars at the top. The level beneath that would be makes of cars i.e. Ford, Ferrari, Lotus, then below then models, then components, etc. The theory goes that a site should be all on the same topic to rank well, and links should come from sites on the same topic. Themes used to get discussed a lot, but fell out of fashion when people realised Google didn’t use themes.

Is Bing using themes? I don’t think so. Like Google, the algorithms appear to be largely page based, as opposed to site based. Bing looks at the topic of the page linking to you. If the linking page is on a similar topic, the target page receives a boost. Have a play around with the title tag on the linking page. Try to ensure the title tag keyword on the linking page is the same as the keyword you’re targetting on your optimized page.

3. Domain Age

Domain age seems to be an important factor in Bing – the older, the better. Like Google, Bing tries to establish authority, and domain age is one way it does this.

Got any tips for optimizing for Bing? Any patterns you’ve noticed, particularly in respect to how Bing differs from Google?

The following is a guest post by Ari Ozick, a member of our SEO Community who frequently shares great insights.

The above graph is based on an intensive questionnaire of over 2500 world class SEOs, including freelancers, in-house corporate types and SEO entrepreneurs. In the questionnaire, I asked one simple question – what is the most profitable activity in your business. The results are in, and as the graph clearly shows, Twittering away the day is by far the most profitable activity for most SEOs. Apparently there is more money to be made on twitter then there is in link building and out ranking the competition.

Obviously (I hope), I’m lying. I didn’t conduct any survey. I just made up the graph with Smart Draw. In fact, if I had to guess, I imagine the most profitable activities for companies would be conversion optimization, link building, and public relations.

Here’s the thing, though: I don’t have to guess about any of these answers for my business. I know. If you’re guessing or following other people’s advice on pretty charts (even if it’s backed up by third party expert opinions), then you’re leaving a lot of money on the table. Let me show you how, with a little change in thinking and how you approach business, you can make a lot more money out of what you do, everyday.

Most SEO Blogs have an Agenda

Aaron recently mentioned that there are over 5,000 SEO blogs out there today. A lot of people read the more popular SEO blogs as if they were the Gospel itself. What most of them don’t realize, or don’t want to realize, is that almost all of these blogs have one of a few agendas:

• To promote the business running the blog so they can get more clients
• To promote the blogger as an SEO expert so he can get more clients.
• To get lots of links, so that they can rank for [SEO] and, you got it, get more clients and sell advertising

Granted, there are a few exceptions. The bottom line is, however, that most of these blogs are fundamentally aimed at increasing their readership, their clients, and their reputation. That means that the information they offer is less aimed at being fundamentally useful, and more about furthering their goals. It very rarely is about providing concrete, useful tips that will lead to a direct increase in your ROI.

Don’t Believe Anything Anybody says

Often, someone will come to me and tell me that they’ve stopped writing content, or that they don’t want any reciprocal links, or that they don’t want to be listed on site X. Then I ask them why. Invariably, the answer I get is “I read it on a blog” or “It was on a forum”, or “I saw it on Twitter”. You need to make a business decision based on data, not on what something written somewhere on some forgotten piece of the internet.

Different sites will also have different focuses that provide higher ROI. E-Commerce stores may put more focus on optimizing for conversions from existing traffic, while sites like blogs and forums that sell advertising on a CPM or flat rate model will optimize for higher traffic – link baiting and public relations. Niche Adsense publishers and others operating on the longer tail of search will look to create volume quality content and build links in a more focused manner, sending link juice to the pages that need it most.

Data is King

The only way to make a decision is by looking at data gathered and seeing if the data provides you with enough information to make an informed decision. I think Diorex said it best:

I will share with you the same answer that my employees get.

“Do you have any data?” The answer is usually “No”, or they would not have asked the question.

To which I respond “Well why don’t you run a test and get some data.” Once a test has been run, they no longer ask my opinion because they now have an answer (good or bad, testing will give an answer)

I have said it before and will probably say it again, buying data in the form of testing is the best investment you can make in your business. It is not cheap, which is what scares most would be internet marketers away.

Getting the Data

So Data is what helps make informed decisions. How do you get the data? If you’re doing anything PPC/CPM based, you just need to start running a test campaign and use that data to scale, or alternatively shut down the project before you lose too much money.

SEO is a bit different – no two web sites have the same link profile, and minor differences can lead to very different results in terms of how certain types of links and on page changes will effect changes in search results. That being said, it’s best to have a secondary group of sites so you can measure the effectiveness of different link building methods, without endangering your profitable, money making sites.

Ideally you also need to have a good idea of the link graph in the verticals you work in, and an idea of what competitors are trying to accomplish. To that end, I highly recommend Majestic SEO and SEM Rush (I’m a happy customer, nothing more). There’s nothing like having fairly accurate data without being at the complete mercy of a search engine. It’s a liberating feeling.

What Data Has Taught Me

Data has taught me that what works for one site doesn’t necessarily work for another site. Strong sites with aged links have consistently performed better when they receive low quality links, while newer sites have languished until they received some better links.

In one test, we sent low quality links to an aged authority site in a competitive niche. These are links that are probably not your top priority on your link building list, and certainly not given the time of day on most SEO blogs, yet we saw a definite increase in rankings on competitive terms. In the vertical we had a newer, less linked to site – there was absolutely no movement in either direction for that site. Our testing on authority sites has shown us that you can send almost any type of link and get some benefit, either in rankings boost on a specific keyword or a larger net for long tail keywords. Yet if you tried to rank a new site using the same tactics that clearly work on an old, trusted crusty site, there’s a very good chance the new site would at the very least be filtered, and at the top end of the spectrum be penalized. Of course, defining what is an authority site is another issue – I suggest you go out and test what exactly is an authority site, and reach your own conclusions.

The Bottom Line

You need to be actively running tests and making efforts to build your business and your sites. The only data that you should trust is your own. While it’s good to have an idea of what’s going on in the larger SEO community, what really matters is your rankings. Everything else is, and should remain, secondary.

Ari Ozick is CEO of Wired Rhino and occasionally blogs at AriOzick.com. He would love any constructive feedback or questions you have, either in the comments or direct via email: first name @ wiredrhino.com

Last week I attended and spoke at IMC Vancouver. It was a nice little conference that featured a lot of different speakers from the SMX/SES shows. While my sessions focused on SEO, there were a number of panels that discussed social media marketing. I heard a lot of feedback from attendees praising the social media information, saying it was valuable and tactical advice.

When I came back to work I noticed this eMarketer article that highlights a Unisfair survey asking marketers what their top plans and priorities are for 2010. 60% of the marketers surveyed said they were going to focus on acquiring new customers. What I found especially interesting about the survey is that 75% said they plan to increase social media in their 2010 marketing efforts (vs. 51% who said they’d focus more on web search and SEO).

I also found this chart to be really interesting. It depicts which social networks marketers find most valuable:

Based on the survey and what I heard at IMC Vancouver, I think a lot’s been said about social media marketing lately. Namely:

1. Social media success is multi-faceted. I still hear a lot of people touting Digg as a huge piece of the social media pie, yet only 1% of the marketers surveyed felt that Digg was the most valuable social networking tool. Yes, Digg is extremely beneficial from a traffic-driving standpoint and can bring links into your site. However, there are tons of other important social sites that are equally as valuable as Digg, especially if you’re looking to build relationships by networking and if you want to seek out and acquire new customers. Lots of people are finding value in LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter, so it’s important to cast a wide net as well as figure out where your time is best spent. Some people will get the most value out of Digg, while others benefit from networking on LinkedIn or CafeMom. It depends on what your goals are, where your audience is, and what’s the best, most logical fit for your brand.
2. People want to hear about tactics, not have their time wasted with anything else. Mona Elesseily, the Director of Marketing Strategy for Page Zero Media, presented at IMC Vancouver and said that she was really impressed by the quality of social media information being given at the show. She mentioned that a lot of conferences are more basic and introductory when it comes to dispensing social media marketing advice, but at IMC people drilled down into specific tactics and shared valuable information. When a new(ish) marketing strategy like social media emerges, people want to know how they can use it to their advantage and to bring success to their business. They don’t want to waste time hearing about how “social media is the future!” and other pointless, fluffy claims and generic speak. They want useful, applicable advice on what they need to do on these sites in order to use them efficiently.
3. Social media is being accepted as an important facet of marketing. More people plan to focus their efforts on social media than on SEO in 2010, and I think that’s because they see a clearer line that attaches social media to marketing than the one that attaches SEO to marketing. Don’t get me wrong, I see obvious benefits of SEO, but I think that to businesses, social media marketing is an easier and more valuable concept to grasp because it’s simply marketing across a new medium. It holds the same principles of marketing and customer interaction and networking and relationship building, only it’s over the Internet and using new websites and tools.
4. Email campaigns aren’t dead! I know that email marketing is considered more old school while social media marketing is the NKOTB (that’s New Kid on the Block for those of you who weren’t adolescent girls in the early 90’s), but 49% of the marketers surveyed said they plan to ramp up their email marketing efforts next year. I think that email campaigns can be very valuable if they’re done right. If you’re able to bring a social element into your email newsletters and marketing materials (Yelp does a great job of marrying traditional and social in their newsletters), I think you can have a very successful campaign.
5. Social media marketing isn’t a fad. I’ve heard some SEOs and marketers grumble about how sick they are of social media marketing, thinking that it’s just the next big thing that will blow over soon and get replaced with a new up and coming fad. I think the problem is that, as with SEO, there are a lot of people in the industry who can give the craft a bad reputation because they’re messing around in a sphere they don’t know much about. However, like I said, I think that social media marketing is just an evolution of traditional marketing and will continue to be important as the Internet remains an essential part of our everyday lives. The core of marketing is all about promoting, selling and distributing a product or service, and the best way to do that has always been reaching out to your audience and resonating with them in a way that will make you memorable. Social media is exactly that — it provides you a new medium to reach out to your audience and make some sort of imprint. To say that social media marketing is a fad is to dismiss marketing itself as a fad, and we all know that marketing’s been around for hundreds of years and doesn’t show signs of slowing.

I’m happy to see that there’s an increased awareness of social media marketing and its importance/benefits. It’s rewarding and promising to hear about people wanting to hear more about it at conferences and planning to dive into it more in the coming years.

An SEO�s best friend (other than a stiff drink) is a good tool. Tools save us time and energy and streamline the process so we can get to making money instead of researching. They provide the information you need when you need it. But it is important to remember that knowing when to use a particular tool and how to use it is more important than any list.

This is why I�ve created Yoda�s ultimate tool to put all the tools one would need in 1 place. Since this list is too massive to fit in one post, it will be a multi-part list that will cover: Competitive Research, Keyword Research, Must have Firefox plug-ins, Reputation Management tools, PPC Tools, Domainer tools and my favorite non-conformist miscellaneous tools

So here we go: Part 1 � Competitive Research

Step 1: Who is your competitor and where have they been?
Competition Finder
A great tool, this shows you how many pages are indexed in google competing for your key terms. This will let you size up the competition and market saturation.

Archive.org will show you what their website looked like the past as well as give you the age of the site

Whois.sc
By adding this bookmarklet to your firefox browser you can find out the whois information for the site you are viewing simply by clicking on it.

Step 2: What kind of marketshare and traffic do they have?
Compete.com is one of my FAVORITE sites. They have a lot of great free tools (and some really cool paid for ones). You can compare sites, get traffic information and get an idea of how much your competitors are spending.

Index Rank
The first time I saw this was on SEOBook, (Aaron has some amazing tool�s listed there as well, so you should definitely check out that list too). Index Rank is incredible useful in showing you how many times Google is indexing your site compared to competitors sites.

SEO Quake is a pretty cool tool that shows you PR, # of pages indexed, Links, Alexa ratings, Age, whois info and density of every site you open in Firefox.

Who is linking to your competitors?

The Tattler
Originally posted by Todd, this is a great tool to scrape who is linking to your competitors

Backlink and Keyword Tracker
Totally free tool can be used to check search engines for the number of back links to any specific URL over time

Link Diagnosis is a is a great link hunting tool especially if you want to see what kind of anchor text your competitors are using.

Another great one, from a fellow chicklet�s site, is SEOmoz�s Backlink Analyzer. This shows the backlinks to a competitor�s website and the common anchor text. In general the SEOmoz tools section is a must read

What keywords are your competitors buying?
There are a several different tools that do this that vary in prices. Spyfu is a good option, that is not too expensive ($300 a year or about $40/month). It lets you see what keywords your competitors are buying up as well as see what they optimizing their site for.

Have they made any changes?
WatchThatPage will email you with any changes made to a competitor�s site or your site (although you probably should know that already)

Search for Broken Links
Xenu�s Link Sleuth will search for broken links on sire

Great Overall Site Analysis Tools
Last but not least, LinkVendor. This is a site filled with awesome research and site analysis tools.

Originally published on SEO Chicks

Not only was IM Charity Party the best party at SES San Jose, but thanks to amazing sponsors like ACS SEO, We Build Pages, BOTW, SureHits and everyone that attended, we were able to raise $40,000 for charity! We donated $26297.96 to the Children’s Hospital (Jon Kelly matched the original $13,133.98 bringing us to the $26k+ total) and $13732.04 to the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society.

Highlights of the night included Marcus Tandler winning a Neil Patel and proceeding to sell him to Frank Watson for a beer and Carolyn Shelby getting every available dollar donated during the raffle.

(pic c/o Laura Lippay)

Since this event was such a success and just outright fun, we are doing it again TWICE!

Next up is SMX East. Jim Boykin and Pat Sexton are giving me a break on this one and throwing the party with 10e20, BOTW, Search Engine Journal and Surehits to raise money for the Ronald McDonald House. So if you are at SMX East, go to the Social Bar (795 8th Avenue between 48th and 49th) on Monday night for an open bar extravaganza with your favorite new ninjas from 8-11pm. It’s all you can drink for $50 so come thirsty! For anyone who knows New York, this is a great deal and not to mention a tax write off. For more details and to DONATE IN ADVANCE, please check out IM Charity Party.

If you can’t make it to SMX East, you can still attend the next IM Charity event at Scary SEO. Hosted by David Snyder on October 25th at 8pm there will be a 3 course meal and open bar for only $65 a person. Proceeds will all go the Ronald McDonald House. If you are attending Scary SEO this is a MUST attend event.

Originally Published on Search Engine Journal