Fri 1 Aug 2008
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Blurb by Shaun Anderson (Hobo)
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Hi Shaun
I am a fellow SEO’er from New Zealand, spreading the gospel of SEO much like you. Some public SEO training seminars, teaching other web developers how to SEO their own clients websites properly, SEO’ing web developers CMS’s while SEO’ing their clients websites, creating websites in our own JoJoCMS… the whole 9 yards.
It has been interesting reading your brain dump series about how to SEO. You seem very laid back in your approach. I try and find “rules” like exactly how many characters go in a title before Google adds ” …” = 70, and how many characters before Google does the same for the meta description = 155. Now our blog metas need to be that much shorter if we want to not have the ” ….” given how Google is now adding the date.
Your definition of title = “Probably 8-12 words, but ideally under 65 characters” – ie not exact, and definitely a laid back approach.
But then I definitely have your same laid back approach once I acknowledge the “rules”. On many occasions for my own blog, I don’t bother with a meta description and just let Google pick from the text or let my cms autocreator do the job.
In general I find that when I don’t follow the rules, that there is generally something that comes back to bite me. Take for instance the www/non www rule. As part of that htaccess, I also have the stipulation that its only one domain. So many clients have multiple domains coming into a website. So just by following that “rule” I kill a number of birds with one stone.
I often find that the people I teach initially go overboard and forget the human element. I love the emphasis you place on the human element. So important.
I certainly get alot of business through my website, and have some fun experimenting with SEO using it.
My latest experiment is interesting – I have SEO/Search Engine Optimisation words in my title, and I want to start ranking for totally different words – “Internet Marketing”. On Google.co.nz its a competitive enough phrase that I can’t just be top 10 when I create a blog post about it. Nor can I get top 10 with my home page after giving it a number of “Internet Marketing” links. So I am seeing how long it takes to get a specific page well ranked for the phrase.
I am ranked when I select NZ Sites only on Google.co.nz… but thats not good enough.
Its an interesting question. For a competitive phrase, when you are ranking top for your main phrases, when should you have another page?
So what am I saying? It would be good to see some blog posts about some advanced things you are learning, relating to clients sites.
Advanced linking strategy for ultra competitive search phrases. How you have overdone links, or properly done links for a client. Its all very well for us when we are have the ability to get links from clients sites… but for clients themselves what is the method to safely get links. I am tending towards the following:
http://www.searchmasters.co.nz/articles/153/three-way-linking-strategi es/.
Keep up the good work. I always enjoy reading the latest rss feed from you.
Regards
Michael
Hey Thanks for the considered response Michael.
First – the whole idea of the tutorial was to lay it down all a novice needed to know to get results. I’m moving onto website navigation this week. After that I may talk about my linkbuilding theories and activities. I bet for a lot of readers on this blog it was basic advice but if someone followed it they would get decent results – probably.
More advanced seo? Didn’t you here there is no such thing? Most companies don’t need advanced seo because the competition isn’t using it. Those sites above us probably rank on one thing – link power and the buying and selling of it. In ultra competitive markets it’s the same thing and black hat too.
For me it’s finding a niche to dominate and get the most of that. I think my seo is more and more focused on the intent of a searcher. I don’t mind writing articles to target that.
I used to obsess about granular onsite seo (what I would call modifying titles and alt tags). Now I just don’t see the need. I never found anything noteworthy and I obsesed a long time about it. People can believe me or not – I’m always hoping to discuss how I see seo. I’m happy to test and refine, and learn from the last job I did, and learn from others.
Why waste time wondering if a title tag is performing better with one less character when you can spend that time getting a link or tinkering with your site structure for a much greater roi?
For me a page and site needs to be well crafted, minimal seo and keyword targetted content – it should scream I am not spam. After that it’s about content and making use of the domain’s authority and trust by publishing very focused articles to drive traffic to the site.
I want a natural site and natural looking internal link profile. Let it age and fire a couple of decent links at it and it seems to get results.
I guess it’s getting your house in order as simple as possible and fast as possible so you can start getting links as soon as possible.
Thanks again Michael! Let me know if you are looking for a job swap week – Scotland is beautiful this time of year
I’m and avid reader Shaun, I do enjoy the style and content that Michael alludes to. Your style of writing is easy to read and understand and usually backed up with evidence and personal experience.
The current series of seo tips I’ve found very useful, not only confirming what I believe to be the case but also making me rationalize and so think more about the why and wherefore. Some I’ve yet to get to grips with e.g. Don’t optimise your Alt tags for Google! but I think I know what you’re saying.
Suffice to say when I visit and there aren’t any new posts …
As for what you should be writing about – all those in the list and keep doing what you are doing. One thought is what to do when it all goes wrong. A sudden drop in serps and where to start looking seems to confuse and confound the hell out of most designers including me!
Enough flattery, keep up the good work Shaun, if my blog ever gets “link love” I’ll send some to you.
Writing from Washington, DC. Really enjoy reading the blog, lots of useful ideas. I don’t do SEO for a living, just have a hobby website that I’d love to turn into more than a hobby. Hopefully the ideas taken from your blog can help. Keep up the good work.
Hey,
My name is Anthony Woods and im from Greenock, Scotland and I am a 20 year old web developer graduate from James Watt College (currently attending Caledonian University this year to study my bachlors of science degree in Internet Software Development).
Sorry my comment isn’t as large as the above but I just want to let you’s guys know im a good follower of the blog, I’ve learned alot from it and continue to do so with the quality of blogs you post and im looking forward to anything you will be posting in the future.
Keep up the good work,
Anthony
Well, I’ll put my hand up to being a rank amatuer to SEO, who came to HOBO via your 7 Joomla SEO Tips, The Idiots Guide; also enjoyed your article on sh404sef.
I jumped in at the deep end with a Joomla website, and the whole experience has been a series of eureka moments – my latest being the discovery that Google sees page titles with capitals and without capitals as separate pages, which has made for all kinds of duplicate content mess on my site…I assume everyone knew this except me!
Anyway, in answer to your original question, really enjoying the Blog and Site, and any Joomla advice is more than welcome.
So many thanks – and I’ll go back to lurking and learning again now….
Regards from NZ (we’re a chatty lot),
Bronwyn
I’m a know-it-all web dev with a heart for usability, and I was pretty convinced that SEO and SEOs were all magic smoke and fraud. I can’t remember how I stumbled on Hobo, but it’s really made me realize that there exists a sliver of SEO where the people are intelligent and balance logical SEO optimizations against steadily improving content for people. I can’t emphasize enough how refreshing it is to be able to read useful, logical tips about SEO that aren’t 99% “Google updated and they lowered my PageRank and Google is wrong…”
Your month of tips was amazing, but I’m curious as to where it goes from there. Once we implement the best, most logical tips, would not our best payoff come from improving site content? Does your SEO blog then shift heavily towards writing for web users and general usability improvements (while still monitoring changes implemented by Google)?
@ iMaker – Thanks very much. Good idea – ‘what happens when SEO goes wrong’….. although I have only been involved in one site where it seems to have gone a bit tong with the main keyword.
I’m only a consultant in the project and not involved with linkbuilding, but I might have a post about the project if I can determine what the issue is.
Keep an eye out for it next month
@ Jeremy – Cheers!
@ Anthony – another guy in Greenock into SEO? Perhaps we should meet
Why don’t you drop into the office one day?
@Bronwyn
I’ve always wanted to do a proper Idiots Guide To Joomla. Perhaps I’ll get this cranked out at some point although if I do a Wordpress one I will probably get more IBLs (Incoming Back Links).
I now have a team who handle Joomla development, so I’ll need to talk with them and brush up on my Joomla knowledge. Perhaps Alan can write it lol.
Thanks for the comment
@ Dave that’s exactly what I have been hoping to achieve with my postings so thanks very much.
There’s always something to write about (but I try and refrain from going down the he-said-this-blog-and-do-nothing-but-link-to-a-well-known-blogger) but I do have a hankering to turn the blog into a link-building blog, even for one month.
I have plenty of Google ‘thought experiments’ I aim to share too, for a laugh, and to see if others can help me surmise things. Testing Google can take a long time.
I have 6 years experiences in SEO / SEM and my general focus is on onsite optimization as well as offsite optimization. Worked with numerous internet marketing companies, i have decided to break away from them 2 years ago and set up my own team of SEO. Located in Singapore, we have been serving offshore companies too. It has been a pleasure reading your blog and sharing my experiences. There may be a lot more that has been evolving in the SEO industry which you or the readers may know and i believe i will learn / share along the way. Cheerz
Hello Shaun,
I came across your site in the last few weeks during your tips season. I don’t often subscribe to feeds or newsletters as it is easy to get defocused and clog the email box up, however your regular posts seem to hit the spot.
I like your relaxed approach, which is what SEO calls for. It is not about quick fixes and taking short cuts but testing, tweaking and above all delivering content that your readers will find interesting.
My company is south of the border, we’re a start up and come from an agency background. We concentrate on the digital marketing side of things and SEO is a big pull for us, we try to simplify things with our clients because there is an image of dark arts and magic associated with all things SEO.
I also liked your post about what you guys do on Fridays… I forwarded this to my boss. The culture of a company can be under estimated, however I know for certain we win deals because of how we and our team are as a group, I guess this is the same for you.
Best wishes,
Mike
@ Singapore SEO – Hope you hang around and thanks
@ Mike cheers – and good luck
Yes, it’s not all about smoke and mirrors at Hobo, and Fridays is the best day of the week. Helps us unwind a bit after working like Trojans all week
I just spent a few hours on your blog. You definitely became one of my favorite SEO bloggers. Keep it up!
Hi Shaun,
I’m sure you hear this all the time but I have to say this is the best SEO blog I have ever seen. I have started my small design company recently and your site/blog helped and helps me a lot. I’m based in Harrogate so I cover the north yorkshire area but if someone needs a web/print design company in Scotland no doubt that I recommend Hobo. I don’t say “keep up the good work” because I know you will:):):)
Best Regards
Attila – Green Forest Design
Hello Shaun,
I first came across your site while looking for an SEO company to help build an efficient SEO campaign for my employer. I was really happy that you guys as good as knocked them back, even though they had considerably deep pockets.
Anyway I’m an avid reader of your blog and love the work ethics of Hobo. I would really love to read your thoughts on affiliate linking and making a blog profitable.
Oh and if your interested in taking on an apprentice, I’m based in Cardonald (Renfrewshire) and would love to learn from the masters.
Thanks
Richard
Hey, I’ve been following your blog for a while now (through rss). Today, I visited your site for the first time since I’ve installed my SEO/nofollow plugin into my firefox browser. I noticed your blog link on your homepage is nofollowed. How come? Did you cover this in one of your post before? The closest related post I could find was your post on nofollowing (most sitewide) links to your homepage. Does it have something to do with that?
Anyway, love your blog & nice site.
Howdy James
Hey, have you been snooping about my site
Yes, in a Pagerank sculpting test I nofollowed my blog link, so I was pushing all my PR from my home page to the important pages on my site and THEN on to my blog. It worked from a PR sculpt point of view. I.m not afraid to experiment on the site.
Its in line with my post on Google heat theory bunkum
Works for me.
hello shaun,
when i searched for ‘free link building’ in google search, your’s was the first site to be displayed. I landed here and now i find your site to be really good and i am following your blog now, cause its the best.
good luck , hope you get a PR of 10 one day…
Hi Shaun great blog.
Nice to hear where the opposition are at.
Shall be retiring soon.Had enough of this SEO malarky and 30 years staring at a keyboard.
Hi Hobo-Web
SEO is without doubt a valuable advertising/marketing tool. I have seen significant money being transfered from traditional advertising/marketing budgets and being redistributed to online promotion.
However many advertisers still don’t seem to realise that SEO is just another part of the overall advertising/marketing mix.
Traditional advertising budgets should not be ignored but should work in conjunction with an advitisers SEO campaign.
Fully integrtaed advertising/marketing campaigns are more effective when all mediums are working towards one aim
@ Sir Earl – Cheers
– I thought UK Biz Forums would have killed you yonks ago. 
@ Wigwam – Totally agree. SEO is not a magic bullet to business success. It’s just part of the marketing mix.
@ Shashikant – If I got a PR 10 one day I’m sure I would be removed from Google the next
Hi,
I have to admit I read a lot of seo blogs around the net. I find I keep coming back to this one though. It’s by far the most original and informative. So many people recycle the same old stuff. I’ll be a regular visitor now, I don’t need to go anywhere else. thanks for a providing a great source if infomation.
Keep it coming.
Yo Shaun,
Any idea on why Google sometimes uses DMOZ descriptions in its results rather than the description that’s in the meta tag?
Hi, I’m Jamessy by the way!
This blog Is very informative. It helped me with ocean of knowledge. Good job web master .
Hi Shaun
I’m from a traditional advertising and marketing background and need to get up to speed on online marketing techniques. This site is an invaluable resource tool for me.
The articles are informative and easy to understand even for a ‘numpty’ like me.
Hey, great blog.
I’m just getting into SEO after building my first site. I’m doing all the Google Wemaster Tools/ Analytics, you know, trying to please the overlords. Well, my site was custom made with me doing all the html/php coding and whatnot. I decided this was too much work and I wanted to focus more on the content so I created a self-hosted Wordpress site.
Long story short, I let some archive pages go and today I looked at my webmaster page. Google can’t find those archives. I went from in between the 200th and 300th result (hey, my sites new! haha) to not even in the results for a search phrase I chose.
I’m hoping that it was the “broken links” knocking me out for a bit and not the fact that I am using wordpress now… anywho I guess I’ll just wait around and see if my site pops back up in the results! oh and I did make sure I wasn’t blacklisted (don’t know why I would be) and I wasn’t.
Enjoyed your tips!
I have just discovered your wonderful site. Full of great SEO stuff which is easy to follow and simple to understand. Great job. Well, I’m still very new with SEO.
I have this one nagging question: When I look up for keyword or keyword phrase, should I use quotes, to get a more accurate search result?
Thank you for your attention.
Oh yes, Happy New Year to you Shaun.
Use quotes to get results with that exact phrase on the webpage.
Hi Shaun,
i’m the manager of a french company, based in Nantes. I’m in SEO since 1998, and it seems that we have some similar ways to include webmarketing in websites projets for our customers. I’ll find your blog by SPHINN when i was searching informations on a phenomen we observe on G**** : a site is present, and in few times, results on a lot of quearys are down, deep in the hell. The site is still in the G**** index, for exemple if you search by his name, but for the rest, no. On G**** webmasters tools, it’s phenomen is denied. Did you have observed this ?
Bests regards
Eryck
am finding the blog useful, has given me plenty of things to think about regarding on site SEO
personally would like to see anything on link building
an area that I find frustrating / challenging / boring all at the same time
all tips appreciated
Thanks for the comment Dave!
Linkbuilding. I have started a linkbuilding month serial in my drafts. Perhaps it will be ready for next month
I have often veered away from linkbuilding posts that *might* cause other sites trouble. I think I know away around this now, and make it so the linkbuilding month is actually useful. I’m so busy just now though it’s hard to start a serial with any guarantee I can stick to it. Need to finish my SEO ebook as well!
More search experiments, e.g. the title tag post.
Very useful blog and the important thing is you are experimenting something and sharing with us your results…This helps us to understand the working of search engines better and I am sure whoever is in SEO field,bookmarking your blog is must for them!!
Hi Shaun,
I love the blog. What I would like to see more of is transparent experiments which try and prove or disprove the myths and current ideas in SEO thinking. Your post on the title length was a good example. A simple experiment that demonstrates unequivocally the length of a title indexed in each search engine.
I understand that this is a tall order for many questions we have about SEO but perhaps probabilistic data may be obtained by perhaps testing over several sites which are already established with inference using statistical hypothesis testing.
I always read your blog when I lived in the US now I am back in Blighty (Devon) I still do and am amazed (but not surprised) when people in the biz say they have heard of you guys
Cool
David
drnedflanders cheers
The only problem with doing it over multiple sites is I expose other sites I work on. I dont mind using this one. I’ve got some experiments ticking away as we speak. I’m currently looking at wether or not keywords at the beginning of a title carry more weight. Got 2 of 4 results back so far. Will publish shortly. 
Thanks David
I guess that’s the power of the blog and taking part in the odd social network 
Thanks for the comment it’s nice to hear people actually remember us 
Thanks for the comments so far. It’s gratifying to know folks are keeping an eye out for experiments on the blog. This is what I love doing so I will focus more on this stuff, and get my linkbuilding tutorial done
Thanks Sudarshan for your input too
Hi just wanted to say thanks for your blog. I design basic websites for friends and family and have recently started learning and developing seo skills. I’m not sure how I started getting your email but i’m, glad I did. I find them informative and interesting and fun. I’m looking forward to more info on link building.
Just wanted to say keep up the good work.
Thanks very much Pippa
If you need any help in future just DM meon Twitter 
Hi Shaun.
New to Adsense, and to SEO. I came across your website today and I am sure that I will learn a lot from you. Waiting to get accepted by Google and hope to build a few other web sites in the future. Any help/feedback always appreciated,
Keep up the good work!
I really like what you have to say – you explain things well and back up what you say.
My main focus right now is LOCAL SEO and Google Maps – those are the topics I watch the most.
Good job!
Very useful.
You are experimenting and sharing, it keeps us up to date with the new developing.
Thanks for your blog.
The areas of Google SEO I like you to cover: black hat and how stay away from it.
Your blog has helped me in correcting several errors I committed in my site.
Perhaps, you might improve giving more details in your explanations.
Hi Shaun
I’ve been reading a reader of your blog for quite a while now and i’ve always found it useful, especially the experiments. In fact a few weeks ago i was pondering title lengths when I came across your post on it. The advice on here is always good practical stuff. So just keep doing what you’re doing.
Cheers
‘evenin all.
I have always found this to be an excellent blog and website. The key is that your posts are very informative, varied, not too long and at just the right frequency.
If I could ask for one more wish it would be…whether there will be any impact on SEO with sites who allow users to publish their own reviews against those that don’t; I’m interested to see if this is going to be the new ‘link building strategy’.
As a bit of an experimenter myself I like the depth that you go into on a topic. If I have to read another high level article about the value of link building, pagerank or directory submission I think I’ll go mad…
I’ve subscribed to many different feeds that purport to impart knowledge in this area but have unsubscribed to most over time – but not yours!
So a big thank you from Australia. Looking forward to the eBook too…
Hey,
Michael from Hamilton, ON, Canada here.
Enjoy the blog, especially the content. Like others, the concept of link building needs to be better covered but you’ve mentioned you have something in the works so I’m encouraged. The “Psst” in the top right corner is pure genius. Keep up the great work!
While I tend to have differing opinions on some things, generally your advice is very good and gives me something fresh to think about (and exploit).