Florida SEO Says, "Dear JavaScript ... Will You Ever Forgive Me? "

In my last post ... I attempted to explain how pure JavaScript menus were not good for SEO. However, after reading how the message came across to some of my readers, I feel it's probably best if I add some clarification. Thanks to Dan Switzer at PengoWorks for pointing out that my post needed some explanation. What I mentioned regarded the usage of pure JavaScript menus -Not All- JavaScript menus. If my post confused anyone, I apologize. There are lot's of SEO friendly menus that incorporate both JavaScript and yet maintain good web design practices ... So, now let's take a look at a few that stuck out with me.

In my humble opinion, menus that use JavaScript to manipulate the DOM (Document Object Model) and CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) to handle styling, maintain a good balance between usability and provide a dynamically appealing experience.

Okay ... So Show Me Some Cool Stuff Now

Before I show the following examples I want to point out the main factor that make these menus search engine friendly is the accessibility of the links to the robots. These menus do not rely on JavaScript to display the content either.

The first example here is from one of the most respected names in design ... A List Apart. Here Dave Shea provides an excellent detail on creating a menu implementing CSS Sprites with JQuery.

1. CSS Sprites2 - It's JavaScript Time

A List Apart
by: Dave Shea

Next, one of my favorite designers, Collis Ta'eed provides in exhaustive detail, everything required to create a very attractive and effective tabbed content area using CSS & JQuery ...

2. Slick Tabbed Content Area using CSS & JQuery

NetTuts
by: Collis Ta'eed

Soh Tanaka offers a very clean and attractive JQuery & CSS menu. Aside from issues with IE6's non-support of the :hover psuedo-class for elements other than anchor tags, this is a very good menu and degrades gracefully with JavaScript disabled.

3. Sexy Drop Down Menu w JQuery & CSS

Noupe
by: Soh Tanaka

Clark gives a solid example of how to create an animated drop down menu that also degrades well with JavaScript disabled - The key here is that the animation on the list elements is acceptable regardless of whether the visitor has JavaScript enabled.

4. Animated Drop Down Menu with jQuery

ClarkLab

Okay ... I'm not a great designer by any sense. But, when I created this site I decided I wanted a little DHTML action and of course promote good SEO techniques at the same time ... So, I used Adobe's Spry  Accordion Widget to build my right navigation ... It too degrades gracefully with JavaScript disabled - The menus tabs will simply open up if JavaScript is not activated.

5. SEO Compliant Spry Accordion Menu

by: Adobe Lab

There are many excellent examples out there ... I really just wanted to take a few minutes to clarify the difference between a pure JavaScript menu and a menu that uses JavaScript and CSS.

That's it.

While I was hacking and cursing my way through a routine to convert RSS feeds in to HTML ... I had an idea. I thought, "Wow, maybe there's another way to do this ..." Converting RSS can be messy so I opted for a much easier and cleaner solution ... JSON. For those Ajax pros out there ... have a heart ... I'm definitely a nOOb at JSON ... I just wanted to share my experience because the introduction and experience was enlightening ... at least to me it was.

Before I go in to this, I am offering this obligatory warning. What I'm about to do may not be in compliance with Google's T.O.S. So, if you get yourself in a pickle with the big G ... It's on you. You've been warned.

What I wanted to do is create dynamic and fresh content for say ... Oh the news. That's a no brainer. Typically you could just grab some RSS feeds and embed them in your content. So, What if you wanted the HTML from say ... Google's news ... Hmmm? You could use a SOAP request to Google for the info ... But SOAP won't be supported by Google for much longer ... So, that's no good. That's where Google's RESTful JSON interface comes in. According to Google documentation for their AJAX Search API, The interface was created for developers that need to have access to Google's Search API in non-JavaScript environments. The docs provide the base URL's to retrieve results for several of their searchers. Here' s a list of all the types of searchers you can access remotely.

• Web Search: http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/services/search/web
• Local Search: http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/services/search/local
• Video Search: http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/services/search/video
• Blog Search: http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/services/search/blogs
• News Search: http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/services/search/news
• Book Search: http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/services/search/books
• Image Search: http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/services/search/images
• Patent Search: http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/services/search/patent

So I decided to have my hand at grabbing some news ... Here we go ...

The Google Search API's Class reference has a list of all the arguments you can include as URL parameters that will give you plenty of options to customize your results ...

After reading this post you won't be able to "Master Search Engine Rankings" ... However, with some simple guidelines, you can create an effective plan to put your analytics data to work for you. Before I jump on my soapbox and start preaching the gospel of SEO, I want to state for the record that there isn't one absolute way to plan out an SEO strategy.To be honest, I don't think I've ever taken the same exact approach for any web site I've worked on ... and I've worked on quite a few over the years.

SEO is to Analytics as Grapes are to Wine

When I was in college I waited tables at a really exclusive restaurant because ... well, I could make decent money if I could sell steak and wine. Every day we would have lessons from an in-house sommelier that would instruct us about all the different features of what ever wine they had to offer. I really didn't know much about wine so I tried to get this guy to tell me everything he knew. So, I asked, "What do I need to know to sell the best wines?" and he said ... "It's grape juice ... just tell the customers what's it tastes like ..." That made it ridiculously easy to look at wine as nothing more than ... sour grapes ... my wine sales soared after that ... The point is ... SEO Analytics are not mysterious, esoteric and complicated. People are though ... and many SEO's and web masters don't really "get the point" to having analytics data.

SEO Analytics Data » Looks So Good

I hate to be a buzz kill but in my book there really isn't anything exciting about ... data. Maybe if some hot naked blonde was presenting it to me ... I might be a bit more interested ... but that doesn't happen ... everyday. Now don't get me wrong, there are some great software applications that display visual depictions of rankings, conversions, click-patterns, visitor trending and heat maps, in uber cool Flash and Flex applications or snazzy charting and graphics, but the only thing these visuals are representing is data. That's it.

Analysis Paralysis is Not Good

When I first started in SEO I was working for a company with a fairly large base of resources and tools at my disposal to research, review, study and learn all about the SEO field. That wasn't necessarily a good thing. Though I have a voracious appetite for knowledge ... I found that after a while I wasn't being all that effective with all of this stuff I learned. I had to keep what I could use everyday and leave the rest for later. So, that got me looking in to some GTD solutions ... more stuff to learn ... but, this time the learning was definitely worth it.

Research » Plan » Execute

That's it. This is my big secret to mastering search engine rankings ... It's that simple. Please note that I said simple ... not easy. If you want your analytics data to work for you ... you need to know what metrics are important to you, and which one's are not. Since I do SEO work mostly in the services sector, most of my clients are interested in generating business leads. Based on that, the most important metric for me to measure is the value of a new client for my clients. Once I have that figured, I move in to action by setting up goals and objectives. SEO Analytics data is simply the information required to create ... A Plan. Once I know the key performance indicators for my campaigns, I set up a plan to either increase or maintain the positive aspects and reduce the threats and liabilities. As soon as I forge a solid plan of action ... I execute. After I execute ... I go back to the analytics data, do my research, come up with another plan and execute again. Guess what I do next.

Goal Conversions are The Bottom Line

Recently there seems to be a big shift in focus in the SEO industry regarding the importance of conversions over search engine rankings. This concept really sounds like a no-brainer to me ... probably because I was trained in SEO by a company that earned income solely from their lead generation ... If our rankings didn't turn into conversions for our clients ... We didn't complete our goals ... We lost our clients. The bottom line for my SEO strategy has always been focused toward online conversions of search traffic.

So Why Are Conversions Important » Now?

Last year Google ramped up their personalized search initiative which effectively tailors search results from behavior based user data ... According to Google's Matt Cutts, there needs to be a shift in the way SEO's currently operate. WebProNews's Mike McDonald recently asked Matt "Is Ranking Dead?" In response to Mike Matt stated,

"I'm not sure I would say ranking is dead but it's not as important as it used to be. The fact is the smart SEOs are not just necessarily looking at the rankings. They are looking at conversion, they are looking at their server log. It's great if you're ranking for a phrase but unless that leads to sales that doesn't help you very much."

"The challenge is not to pay so much attention to ranking, pay attention to traffic, pay attention to conversions and keep building good content and don't worry about 'can I show people that I rank number one for my trophy phrase ' ... "

The video below is from the interview with Matt Cutts and Mike McDonald at PubCon LasVegas ...

Furthermore, Google's working diligently on their Universal Search model and SEO's need to be able to adapt to Google's ever changing environment by learning to develop and initiate a broader range of tools to complete the conversion equation by bringing in targeted search traffic. For the SEO industry this means you need to focus more than ever before on building campaigns that are targeted towards conversions and not so much on rankings. However, it is important to note that rankings are only a metric, and have always been only part of the equation that is required to increase conversions. Obtaining search engine rankings without actually benefiting from that positioning is not very useful.

SEO is Changing » Is Your SEO Strategy Changing Too?

Recently there was a guest post by Eduard Blacquiare on Joost de Valk's site entitled, "Measuring SEO » Why Rankings Are Worthless". In his post he mentions several key points supporting the transition of rankings-based success to a conversion focused model. Some of the key factors Eduard mentioned are:

• Ranking Checkers » Google has recently been blocking some automated ranking testing equipment.
• Personal Search » Google is putting a great emphasis on their efforts to tailor their search results.

Furthermore, Eduard continues in his post with his view on things we can do to measure our success.

• Measure the Growth Rate of Search Engine Traffic ...
• Measure the Growth Rate of Search Engine Traffic per Keyword ...
• Measure the Growth of Conversions from Search Engine Traffic ...
• Measure the Growth of Conversions from Search Engine Traffic per Keyword ...

Personalized Search » What About Traffic from Nationally Focused Search Terms?

This is a topic I would like to discuss with Matt myself... In Matt's discussion with Mike McDonald, he mentions searching for the word "bank" will illicit a different result in the United States than it would in Great Britain. This is due in part because part of the metrics to determine personalized search results are based on the user's I.P., their search trends and their search behavior. From what we can infer from what Matt stated, personalized search result are relevant to the term as well as user data. Though personal search is playing a big roll in the dynamic, ever-changing environment at Google, I don't believe that competition for keyword ranking is going to be dismissed for nationally focused keywords.

Analytics are Paramount in the Quest to Obtain Conversions

Again, I received a fairly intense introduction to the SEO industry, so I have a solid understanding of the importance of conversion statistics. One of the first tools that I used was ClickTracks, which I still to this day consider a powerful tool in any SEO's arsenal. However, I recently also picked up a copy of the absolutely fantastic book, "Advanced Web Metrics with Google Analytics" by Brian Clifton which I highly recommend for anyone interested in measuring the success of their SEO marketing campaigns.

A Little Gem at the End

So, now that you've gotten this far, I can only assert that you are interested in the success of your SEO campaigns. Again there was another excellent post on Joost de Valk's blog, this one by Andre Scholten, on how you can track your organic Google rankings with Google Analytics ... Here's the video on Vimeo ...

Adding a ranking filter in Google Analytics from Joost de Valk on Vimeo.

I've implemented this on several of the campaigns that I am currently running and I can verify that it definitely works. You can now have your organic keyword rankings appear in your Analytics reports by setting up some custom filters in your Google Analytics account. This means you can determine the quality of the conversions you are getting from both paid, and non-paid keywords and their respective positioning in the search engine results pages ... How's that for conversion statistics?

That's It.

While doing my morning crawl through my email I ran across an article from Eric Enge of Stone Temple Consulting regarding a recent interview he had with Angus Norton of Microsoft ... after reading the article, I was persuaded to go check out Eric's site to see if there is anything valuable to the SEO world that he was kind enough to share with the rest of the us ... and sure enough there was ...

Perusing through the linkbuilding category on his site, I found a reference to LinkDiagnosis.Com ... knowing Eric to be of a discriminating taste, I investigated a little more ... and I'm glad I did ... This is one gold mine of a tool ...

Once you go to LinkDiagnosis.Com ... you need to click on the download link and install the firefox extension (Sorry IE users) and then restart your browser ... then return to the page and enter your URL or your competitions ...

I'll let you be the judge of the rest ...

That's it ...

Okay ... I haven't been blogging too much as most of those that I speak to have mentioned ... Well ... I have to be honest ... I really haven't been interested enough in anything to write ... maybe I'm just being resistant to the "Once a Week" suggestions from the blogging pros ...

For what it's worth ... the blog bug has somewhat returned ... so, I'll try to get back to writing at least once a week ... Blog ... Blah ... Blah ... Let's see how long this lasts ... Oh yeah ... Have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year ... If I don't blog again before their times arrive ...

Blog Humbug ...

The MoxyMedia SEO division is officially gone. I have to be honest and tell you that before I decided to start my own company, I really enjoyed working with most of the people over there, and I learned quite a lot too. On Tuesday Oct 7th, I found out the official news when a friend of mine that I trained over there sent me a text message letting me know that all of the employees in the SEO division were let go. I have since learned that Tsavo media picked up some of MoxyMedia's assets as well as a search engine optimization firm, Better, Inc. That probably explains why they decided to let the staff over at Moxy go - Tsavo apparently has other plans. However, in reality the writing has been on the well for a long time. As for the team of folks I enjoyed working with over at Moxy (you know who you are) Good luck and I hope the future brings you much happiness and prosperity. It was an honor working along side you.

Well, it seems that the mighty Google is back at their PageRank updates again. At the time of writing this post, the Tool Bar PageRank of Florida Search Engine Optimization and SEO Fort Lauderdale went down a point. That's interesting since Matt Cutts recently mentioned the possibility of this happening on his blog ...

Matt Cutts » September 24, 2008

However, I'm not too sure the update has stabilized yet - many sites I visit often have also dropped a point from the prior rankings and I've noticed some new sites that had no PageRank a day or two ago now showing up as PR 4 and 5. This leads me to suspect that this ain't over yet.

I'm really impressed by some of the new and effective internet marketing strategies that have been coming out lately. On LinkedIn, I saw a post for a sharing widget and decided that it would be cool to add this functionality to the collection of social media buttons on Florida SEO Blog. [directions to install the code].

As long as LinkedIn doesn't decide to change the API too much, I can have my readers spread the word about the content on Florida Search Engine Optimization and Florida SEO Blog to all of their contacts in LinkedIn and possibly expand Florida Search Engine Optimization's reach to a targeted market that otherwise I would not be accessible to.

For the CF coders that want to install the LinkedIn code on to BlogCFC, it's not too hard. There are five URL variables to be updated to share the article submission with your LinkedIn network.

• 1. The LinkedIn URL
• 2. The Article URL
• 3. The Article Title
• 4. The Article Source
• 5. The Article Summary

			
			
			

				
				
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			  ColdFISH is developed by Jason Delmore.  Source code and license information available at coldfish.riaforge.org

			http://www.linkedin.com/shareArticle?mini=true&url=
    {articleUrl}&title={articleTitle}&summary={articleSummary}
    &source={articleSource}
		1http://www.linkedin.com/shareArticle?mini=true&url=
2    {articleUrl}&title={articleTitle}&summary={articleSummary}
3    &source={articleSource}

I added the following code to the row of BlogCFC's social media buttons around line 100 of index.cfm. The content for this area is within div class="byline". If you want to add a LinkedIn Icon ... there's a good set of LinkedIn Icons here ... I used the 16px version.

			
			
			

				
				
				view plain
				
				
				copy to clipboard
				
				
				
				
				print
				
				
				about
				
			
			  ColdFISH is developed by Jason Delmore.  Source code and license information available at coldfish.riaforge.org

			<img src="#application.rooturl#/images/LinkedIn_16.png" align="middle" title="Share on LinkedIn!" 
    height="16" width="16"> <a href="http://www.linkedin.com/shareArticle?mini=true&url=
    #application.blog.makeLink(id)#&title=#URLEncodedFormat("#title#")#&summary=
    #URLEncodedFormat("#Left(application.blog.renderEntry(body,false,enclosure),200)#")#&source=
    #URLEncodedFormat("#application.blog.getProperty('blogTitle')#")#" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">LinkedIn Share!</a>
		1<img src="#application.rooturl#/images/LinkedIn_16.png" align="middle" title="Share on LinkedIn!" 
2    height="16" width="16"> <a href="http://www.linkedin.com/shareArticle?mini=true&url=
3    #application.blog.makeLink(id)#&title=#URLEncodedFormat("#title#")#&summary=
4    #URLEncodedFormat("#Left(application.blog.renderEntry(body,false,enclosure),200)#")#&source=
5    #URLEncodedFormat("#application.blog.getProperty('blogTitle')#")#" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">LinkedIn Share!</a>

Oh Yeah ... If you liked this article ... Don't forget to share it with your LinkedIn network ... :)

SEO for lawyers has turned out to be a very good return on investment for most legal services. Though I have done some SEO campaigns for several other verticals such as mortgage, real estate, insurance, educational loans and local retail business, the legal industry as a whole seems to benefit much better from SEO than some of the other service sectors. Quite simply » SEO for lawyers, rocks.

I actually got my beginning in search engine optimization as an SEO for lawyers when I worked for a large holder of legal domains. After I left the company and started
Florida Search Engine Optimization, I soon realized that doing SEO for lawyers was a win-win situation for my clients and my company.

From my experience, there are many practice areas that benefit greatly from SEO. Of those, the ones that I have found SEO for lawyers to produce the biggest earnings for include:

• Tax lawyers
• Litigation Lawyers
• Bankruptcy Lawyers
• Immigration Lawyers
• Personal Injury Lawyers
• Criminal Defense Lawyers
• Class Action » Tort Lawyers
• Medical Malpractice Lawyers
• International Business Lawyers

First off, the value of a lawyer reaching the first page in Google will vary. Not all conversions for legal cases are worth the same amount. For instance, the value of a medical malpractice lead may be worth anywhere from $10,000 to $1,000,000.

A personal injury lawyer that practices in one of the 6 major markets, where the search volume for personal injury cases are relatively high, would benefit greatly by having high search engine rankings and even a highly competitive SEO campaign that costs between $25,000 to $50,000 a year would pay for itself in a matter of no time.

However, comparing that same case scenario with that of a traffic lawyer and the return goes down quite a bit. Realistically the aggregate value of a traffic case is loosely around $100 to $1,000. Following the same level of competition with the SEO campaign for a personal injury lawyer, this would require at least 50 cases a year just to cover the cost of the campaign » not a real profitable investment.

From my experience, it takes anywhere from 15 to 20 cases for the average general practice lawyer to make a profitable return on their investment within the first year. However, after the first year, the value of the initial investment of an SEO campaign will normally sustain it's value since the value of the site increases as the internal quality of the site improves, the amount of content increases, inbound link partnerships are built, and PageRank is established. Furthermore, the rankings that have been obtained from the first year's optimization efforts may be maintained relatively easily through an SEO maintenance plan which, is nominal in comparison to the cost of a full SEO campaign.

I'm quite amazed at the amount of lawyers that choose Pay Per Click (P.P.C.) advertising over organic search engine optimization. The only viable reason that I would justify spending money on a P.P.C. campaign is to provide support for an organic campaign that is still attempting to obtain an acceptable position in the Search Engine's Results Pages, (S.E.R.P.'s). I tend to think the difference between a P.P.C. campaign and organic SEO is like paying rent in an apartment versus owning your own home. If you can afford your own home, why rent an apartment?

With a P.P.C. campaign, once the keyword budget is depleted, all value from the investment is gone. If you compare an organic SEO campaign to a P.P.C. advertising campaign, it's easy to see how organic SEO for lawyers is the only way to go. If you want SEO for Lawyers, Contact Florida Search Engine Optimization.

I really like regular expressions (RegEx's) and I have this crazy fascination with learning and using them whenever and wherever I get a chance. If you don't know what a regular expressions is, the Sun Developer's Network's states:

"A regular expression is a pattern of characters that describes a set of strings." » Simple enough.

I picked up the bug for RegEx's after trying to "think my way through" a JavaScript form validation function without any experience in regular expressions or JavaScript for that matter.

That event led me to pick up Mastering Regular Expressions, III ed. By Jeffrey Friedl; OReilly's JavaScript, The Definitive Guide, By David Flanagan, and a fierce desire to learn more about the almost alien-looking esoteric characters that were here to take over my programming world.

The good news I found out later was not only that I am not the only RegEx fan that has been drawn in by their mysterious attraction. Many of the coders and developers that I've found to respect, have this crazy bug too.

So, what I want to do now, is put together a RegEx Library right here on this post for all of the coolest regular expressions you know. So, post me your regular expression(s), with a brief description.

News travels fast on Twitter, and while I was checking out my updates, I saw that Delicious has changed their domain name from del.icio.us to the dot com delicious.com. I don't typically like change too much, but I think it will definitely help the site attract more visitors transferring over to the simpler name. I can't even count the amount of people that I tried to get started with delicious bookmarks that were completely confused with del.icio.us.

Changing the domain name wasn't what really stood out the most for me though. When I browsed over to my delicious bookmarks page to see the new name in my browser, I noticed that they completely changed the layout too.

Now I do a lot of bookmarking in delicious, but I usually don't go to the actual page that much since I have delicious bookmarks for Firefox installed - I just do all my bookmarking from the browser and don't actually go see the site.

The first thing I like about the new page design is the much simpler and probably more effective style of managing the bookmarks. With over 1800 bookmarks ... it gets really tough to handle the hundreds of different tags and bundles I've placed them all in.

That's It.

Okay, so the wind of change is screaming at Microsoft ... That's not all that shocking. However, it seems that the incumbent software giant is trying to one up Google by coming out with a late-in-the-game answer to the PageRank algorithm - BrowseRank.

Now, it seems a bit strange that the geniuses at Microsoft would be so thoughtless of the current search community, so "Microsoft", they would actually create the name of their project with only a one word difference from Google's - BrowseRank? Wasn't the name for Google's PageRank algorithm based on Larry Page?

So, does Microsoft have an engineer named Browse? Apparently they want to be known as the knock-offs of the search industry. I wonder if they figured that metric in to their "User Behavior Data" concept.

If you want to see the details on their "unique" idea - letting visitors vote for web page importance ... you can check out the PDF on "Microsoft's research" ...

But wait a minute ... didn't Google recently decide to start the beta testing for implementing a Digg like interface which, is slated to let visitors vote for sites?... Oh yeah ... and didn't Google and Microsoft recently start their preparations for Bidding on Digg?

Now, I may not be smart enough to write a search algorithm or a business plan to capture market share ... but it sure seems like Microsoft needs to rethink their business strategy a bit when it comes to the search industry. The last thing we need is to find out that Larry Page has a brother named Browse that's trying to take over the search market.

That's it.

If you are wanting to get a nice back link from Twitter, Dave Naylor recently exposed a way to get a do follow link from Twitter - If you're reading this, you might just want to open up another browser tab and do it while you're here ... I don't think this opportunity is going to be around for too long.

Here's the deal. The "More Info URL" area in the account settings page for twitter offers a link for whatever web site you have ... But, the link is a NoFollow link which doesn't give you any PageRank ... if your twitter page even has any at all ... Mine does not ... (Florida_SEO).

So, if you take a look at the Bio information ... You can insert your URL in there, and get a Do Follow back link ... for now ...

That's it.

Well it has been a long awaited advancement for the SEO, SEM and SMO industry ... but Google has finally added exact searches per month for keyword phrases to their keyword tool, Adwords Keyword Tool External.

Previously, the tool would return results for the targeted keyword in the form of a low, medium or high bar graph which really didn't help to quantify the value of a given search term. However, as with the previous major keyword tool Overture, Google Adwords Keyword Tool External provides the amount of searches for a given term per month and the average amount of the aggregate search volume for the search term ...
The snapshot below shows the new results ... That's it.

Okay ... So I am a real freak for my country. I really love the United States and especially where I live, Fort Lauderdale, Florida (WooHoo). There are few other places that I would truly rather be. It really makes me mad when I hear people that are from other countries talking smack about how they don't like this or that about America. If it's so bad, why are they here? I am proud to be an American, and I feel that I owe a great bit of debt to my country for giving me everything that I have today.

I think the number one problem with most people today is a lack of gratitude for what they have. A great deal of the American public has become spoiled by the freedom which has been given to us from those that fought for our country. Maybe if all US citizens had to fight or contribute in some way for their citizenship, they might be a little more appreciative of what they really have here. At any rate, I Love America and it's with pride I say, Happy Birthday to the U.S.A. That's it.

Thursday June 26, I was privileged enough to hear a presentation on the basics of link building by Loren Baker of Search Engine Journal. Loren, gave a solid beginning to intermediate level preso, focused on building authority through internal links and delivered some good advice to those that might not have any experience in dealing with the touchy subject of link requests. All and all, his approach was straight up.

I'd like give a word of thanks to the guys over at the S. Florida SEO meetup ... John Carcutt, Daryl Long, Mark Laymon, and Mark Hughes, and all the others that made it another great night. I'm really looking forward to hearing what might be on the agenda for the up and coming months, and may be inclined to start focusing my attention a bit more to Tech Crunch after listening to what Loren had to say ... (hmmm ... ) That's it.

Pics @ the preso ...

Well, It's alive ... I've launched SEO Master List. I have high expectations for this application and hope that it is well received in the SEO community. Which, brings me to another subject. SEO's, can be quite pretentious and highly critical ... So, we'll just see how they like it. Then again ... if they don't ... I really dont' care all that much. I like it.

SEOMasterList is basically just a feed aggregator with a lot of cool Ajaxy stuff on it and some cool styling. Ray Camden actually created the app ... the original code is on coldfusionbloggers.org. A Big thanks goes out to him for his help in debugging the install too ... Thanks Ray.

For those that want their 'SEO' feeds aggregated on SEOMasterList.com ... send me an e-mail and I'll get right on it ... maybe. If your feed wasn't aggregated, and I tried to add it to the list ... there may have been a problem with the xml structure - there were many good SEO blogs that I was unable to parse due to xml rendering issues ...

Thats it.

I just wanted to post a belated (June 9th) birthday shoutout to Shana of Social Desire ...

Shana is a friend of mine that contributes an enormous amount of her time and energy to blogging about all things Social media, Web 2.0, and search engine optimization ...

Besides being an incredibly disciplined and driven blogger, a full-time mom, and a darn good writer, she too is a very sweet and endearing person that I hold a great deal of admiration for ...

So, without further adieu ...

Shana ...

Happy Birthday to You ..

When I first started doing SEO work I used little more than Dream Weaver, Overture, Word and Excel. I went through a fairly intense OJT training where the unspoken, but thoroughly understood realization was ...

If you lagged behind your co-workers, even in the slightest, you had better have a backup job awaiting. 

So, for my first six months as a neophyte SEO specialist, web developer and programmer, I literally worked day and night, to absorb every thing I could about my craft. I probably slept an average of two, to three hours a night during week days, and only a bit longer on the weekends.

After my skills in sharpened  a bit, I began to use more powerful and more productive tools to get my SEO work done. So, out of the hundreds of different applications, services, tools and products that I have used to do SEO work with, I have generated a list of the top ten SEO tools that I use for SEO campaigns.

Number One - Dream Weaver

I have learned how to develop HTML, CSS, JavaScript,  ColdFusion, and PHP, all within this one IDE. Hands down, this is the most productive tool for SEO that I use.

Number Two - The Web Developer Toolbar By: Chris Pederick.

For all of the projects that I work on, I use the Web Developer Toolbar to help me with the common HTML and CSS tasks quite a bit ... Now that I have been using it a while ... I wouldn't want to work without it.

Number Three - Xenu Link Checker

I love reports ... and with Xenu, I can check several important facts about a web site really fast. If there is a problem with redirects, 404's or bad inbound links ... it's really simple to just check out the report after running a scan and get a quick snapshot of the condition of a web site.

Number Four - MS Excel

Now many of you that read this will think that Excel has nothing to do with SEO ... but I use it so much that my life as an SEO would be very difficult without it. I use Excel for so many different SEO tasks that I have set a side a little bit of time each week just to learn more tips and tricks about Excel ...

Number Five - Webconfs Keyword Density Checker

I don't always check the density on the SEO pages that I create but there are times when I feel that a search term or situation calls for attention to the density of the keywords for a project ... Even though I am getting to the point where I can usually just go with my intuition on keyword density ... the keyword density checker at Webconfs is the one I use when I decide to get the numbers.

Number Six - Domain Tools SEO Text Browser

I really like the online SEO Text Browser that domain tools has ... It's gives a very nice depiction of a web site much like one would see if using a regular text only browser such as Lynx, but, without the poor navigation  and ugly user interface you get with most text only browsers ... it even gives you the basic details regarding you Meta Tags ...

Number Seven - Webconfs HTTP Header Checker

This is one tool that I am beginning to rely on more and more ... sometimes when you are unsure of the responses that you are getting back from a site ... it's a good idea to check out what the server response codes are to determine if there are any unseen errors ... this is one very handy tool.

Number Eight - Search Status Extension for Firefox

This is a tool that I only picked up recently but since I added it to my tool kit ... it has become apparent that this is a very cool little feature to have around ... it really comes in handy when I have to get stats on a site quick ... this makes it an invaluable resource for dealing with clients that want answers on the fly. 

Number Nine - SEO Link Analysis Extension for Firefox

This tool is becoming one of my favorites to get info on link data. Joost De Valk has really brought a fantastic extension together to provide link information to SEO's from the interface of Yahoo! ... this is also another tool that can can save a conversation about links from going south ... fast.

Number Ten - Trellian's Keyword Discovery

I left the best for last on this one ... No SEO campaign can be complete without effective and thorough keyword research. Though it is the most time consuming and tedious part of an SEO campaign, SEO's that don't do their homework usually end up with results that reflect just that ... Keyword Discovery proves to offer the most reliable selection of keyword data for the price ...