SEO plugin for Firefox

This is a great little tool to help save time when reviewing websites that compete against yours (or your clients site).

Just fire up firefox and browse over to http://tools.seobook.com/firefox/seo-for-firefox.html and follow the installation guidelines.

The tool will show up in search engine results pages, allowing you to see at a glance, the PR of a site, the age of the domain, the number of Yahoo! links, Del.icio.us links, Yahoo! directory listings and more.

Have a go, install it, use it see what you think!

A new way to search

Google Labs offers a new way to view search results.
Essentially your search results are seperated into a timeline and looks at time/dates associated with the search phrase and then divides it all neatly.

Map view allows all your Geography nerds to enjoy the actual global locations associated with the search phrase. This is quite a good idea, I'd like to see what else the creative guys at Google come up with next.

I still love the image search MSN put out recently, how awesome is this??

The French search service Kartoo is another take on the increasingly inventive search engine market. It includes an advance GUI and some crazy cartoon pictures. Speaking of crazy cartoons, this slightly disturbing video turned up on Daily Motion (Another French site) recently. Google is a fat man with a mask who helps you read the papers and read your mail. The ending is to represent what could happen if Google knew just about everything about you.

Maybe Yahoo! will turn out to be some odd little search alien obsessed with following the lead of the fat man from Google...

IFrames and SEO

Anyone got any ideas on improving the SEO on a site with IFrames? Any alternatives? Any way of directing a SE to the content in the IFrame?

Any hints tips or advice welcomed... I have a client that is hell bent on including IFrames in their new website... I think they want it because they like the scroll functionality and how the Iframe looks.

Link to another SEO blog...

http://seo-uk.newsvine.com/ - Number of different posts about SEO.

Web Hosting

I'm just doing a little research into cheap webhosting. I'm trying to find real cheap webspace + domain name. This might well help some of you SEO's doing mini websites to drive traffic to other areas or whatever...

I will post some info soon on this.

Some excellent links

These are a selection of useful tools I use to help optimise websites.

Optimising press releases:
http://www.nowpublic.com/ - Excellent, quick & easy to set up.
http://www.pageflakes.com/ - Not used it yet...
http://forums.searchenginewatch.com/showthread.php?t=15966 - Interesting article on the subject of online press releases.

Page Rank:
http://www.iwebtool.com/pagerank_checker - Really good tool that displays PR from different Google datacentres.

Domains:
http://www.archive.org/web/web.php - This will show you when your domain was first issued. You can find out the "age" of a domain. A new domain can be difficult to optimise sometimes.

Page strength:
http://www.seomoz.org/page-strength/ - Cool tool to show how SEOMOZ rates the strength of a page.

Ranking Factors:
http://www.seomoz.org/article/search-ranking-factors - Comprehensive info on the important factors to consider when optimising a page.

Link Building:
http://www.seomoz.org/blog/every-site-is-linkbait-linkerati-worthy - Well informed article.

Let me know if you guys have found any good stuff.

Keyword research

I was wondering how other people carry out keyword analysis. Do they just look for low competition highly searched, relevant words? Or is there more to it?

Personally I use http://inventory.uk.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion/ to find out how many searches are done for the keyword. You need to bear in mind that Overture has less searches than Google, so a accurate figure for searches on Google can be found by multiplying this by 4. Obviously, checking the amount of competition is just a case of searching for the term on the relevant search engine (in this case Google) and noting the amount of other results there are.

Does anyone know of any better tools/techniques out there to do this?

Hello!

Hello this is my first blog. Most of the stuff on here will be about SEO because that's what I do for a living. Please feel free to post feedback and any SEO hints/tips you find useful...

Thanks for reading,

SEO-PRO

Contact SEO-PRO

For quotes and website analysis please contact me via email.

Include:
-Your site URL/Web address
-Your name
-Your business area

I will get back to emails asap.

Recommended Books

Some of the most useful books I have read (and am reading) about Online Marketing. These books were created by a range of authors, from Aaron Wall, the creator of "The SEO Book" and SEObook.com to Avanish Kaushik a Google statistics guru. Plenty of people ignore books in favour of regularly updated online marketing blogs and forums, but I find a book is easier on the eyes and I can be a bit old fashioned at times!

• Aaron Wall Creator of the SEO Book, a great way to learn SEO quickly



• Google Hacks 100 Industrial strength tips and tricks. A bit dated but a good book for a beginner



• SEO an hour a day Avanish Kaushik's book on SEO. Straightforward and no nonsense, the book also includes a good glossary



• Landing Page Optimisation A great insight to designing webpages that generate conversions



• Call to Action Some more insight into creating webpages that convert users

SEO and Online Marketing Services

I have over 8 years experience in website design, SEO and Online Marketing with FTSE 100 companies and small start ups. I can analyse your business website and recommend changes to improve the key performance indicators you specify. I am UK based and have several high profile clients, from the travel industry to audio electronics.

If you want:

• An increase in the quality and overall traffic to your site


• Better conversion rate on landing pages


• An increase in search engine visibility


• An assessment of your current online marketing


• Advice on how to improve your site

I can help and advise.

I have built up key online marketing skills from my experience and success with a range of different clients. Some of my online marketing skills include (but are not limited to):

Targeted link building

Social media optimisation

Landing page design and optimisation

Search Engine Optimisation for E-Commerce websites

Strategic online marketing advice

Please Email me direct for a free website assessment. I charge £25 per hour for all freelance work.

Online Marketing Jobs

Some of the best recruitment websites that specialise in Online Marketing and E-Commerce Jobs and careers. Recruitment is an industry that has moved online with great success for both recruitment agencies and the job seeker. Finding an excellent job advertised online is only half the battle, but offers candidates an unbeatable choice very quickly.

• Job seeking Some online marketing job hunting advice from my own experience



• E-Consultancy The job section of the information, events and training company



• Indeed.co.uk A meta-search job site that covers various top job sites



• Digital Media Jobs Has regular New Media based roles advertised



• Jobs In Search Specialises in recruiting for search based roles



• The IT Jobs Board Has IT jobs in various areas, including SEO and PPC



• Total Jobs Offers a wide range of jobs, from Web Design to Analytics

Miscellaneous

Some links to blogs, games and other miscellanea that doesn't fit into any other category.

• The Carrot Blog The random musings of the life of the carrot



• The Surrealist A collection of ideas and jokes done using the medium of the Internet



• Hell of Sand A unique Java game with no actual goal



• Shuffle Ball based strategy game designed in Flash



• Metal Slug The classic arcade shoot 'em up first released on the Neo Geo



• Bloxorz A 3D shape puzzle game designed in Flash

Webdesign Links and Resources

Some of the best webdesign links and resources.

• CSS Cheat Sheet A guide to Cascading Style Sheets



• Spoono Photoshop, Flash, XML, Javascript and other tutorials



• Mini Ajax Downloadable DHTML and Ajax scripts



• Luke Maras Excellent Flash tutorial website with sample code



• gotoAndLearn Flash video tutorials



• Pixelgrafters Low cost business web hosting

Affiliate Links and Resources

Some of the best Affiliate marketing links and resources. This page is under construction...

Associate Programs Affiliate site

SEO Links and Resources

A selection of the finest and most useful blogs and resources on SEO and online marketing.

Search Engine Optimisation Blogs


• Aaron Wall Creator of the SEO Book, a great guide to learning SEO



• Eric Ward Link building guru



• Avanish Kaushik Web analytics expert



• David Naylor The SEO blog of the UK search marketing expert



• Kun Dang SEO blog



• Richard Baxter UK based recruitment SEO specialist



• Robin Goad Blogs about statistical analysis



• SEOmoz Seattle based US SEO agency



• The original idea for Google An interesting presentation about Google by its founders


Some useful SEO tools


• PageRank Checker Useful PageRank checker that uses multiple datacenters



• Internet Archive The way back machine keeps a record of old websites for you to browse



• Firefox SEO toolbar Excellent browser add on with SEO functions and timesavers



• HTTP Request/response Check server response for 302 redirects and other problems