Everybody knows that article directories are the only way to use your literary works to get those oh-so-valuable backlinks, right? That’s been the way of thinking for a long time, but it might not be quite that accurate. In fact, many SEO pundits are pointing towards using document sharing sites over article directories. This might well be the big link building trend for 2010.

But why document sharing sites? Well, Google seems to like them better. Might that have something to do with their very own Google Docs? It’s possible. Whatever the reason, Google appears to rank document sharing sites higher than article directories. Documents are also indexed at a faster rate, usually within a few hours of being published.

Perhaps the biggest reason to consider document sharing sites though is the fact that most of them don’t limit the number of links you can have in an article. Obviously you don’t want to overdo it, but it would be nice not to be confined to the resource box. It’s not just articles. Links can be added to anything because many types of documents are allowed, from simple .doc files to PowerPoint presentations. This can result in a higher click-through rate because it’s easier to use images, etc. to draw a reader’s attention.
It’s certainly seems worth the effort to check out sites like Scribd and DocStocs. It might be the wave of the future for those article marketers out there.

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So you think that SEO has nothing to do with programming? Well by and large this might be so, but anyone even thinking about starting an SEO campaign needs to know a little HTML. Why? Well, because Google says so of course. Or at least they’re saying so with the introduction of the HTML 5 Version of their YouTube video player. Since Google is the standard by which many SEO professionals measure the success of their campaigns, this is not to be taken lightly.

Why introduce a new HTML system at all? HTML 4 first came into being in late 1997, over 10 years ago. That’s a lifetime when it comes to technology. In those days websites were mainly static and didn’t include the level of interactivity that exists on a lot of sites today. HTML 5 is designed to address this issue and essentially speed up the internet.

Websites will be better able to be standardized, making it easier for web developers to work on and update projects. New tags will also allow page divisions to be read better by search engine spiders. This means that they will be able to read the content as opposed to the whole page and this will translate into more precise search results. It remains to be seen whether HTML 5 will take over the internet but, with Google backing it, the chances are pretty high.

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Well the news is out. Apparently the much discussed search advertising deal between Yahoo! and Microsoft has been given the go ahead by both the U.S. Department of Justice and the European Union. Many are heralding that decision as the end of the Yahoo! search market share, which is sad because that’s kind of what Yahoo! has become known for over the years. Sure Yahoo! has their Shopping, Mail and News categories but they’re most thought of as a search engine.

So what does this deal mean for Yahoo! Essentially their free search capabilities will be transferred over to Bing while a paid search platform will become known as adCenter. The justification for this was that the deal would increase the level of competition amongst advertisers. Well this is good news for the companies, but not so much for search engine advertisers since more competition for ad space will ultimately drive those prices up.

So what’s an advertiser to do? The most logical step is to disperse advertising resources across fewer high cost methods and look for effective low cost methods to invest in. One of these is social media, which is possibly the cheapest way to get access to a large number of people. Some SEO gurus are already predicting that 2010 will be the year of social networks, with more and more advertisers moving away from search campaigns. After all, there aren’t that many effective search engines left.

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One thing you’ll quickly realize about the SEO world is that there’s always some debate or the other. Take the example of RSS feeds. Some people firmly believe that they’re a waste of time and create nothing but duplicate content which search engines will ignore. Others argue that RSS feeds should be a part of any SEO strategy, if used properly. There might be something in this if you can write summaries which include your keywords but are different from the wording on your site. This way you can actually increase the number of times your keywords appear without being accused of keyword stuffing.

RSS feeds are common on a lot of sites now as webmasters are seeing their value in reaching potential visitors. By giving them an interesting teaser, it is possible to entice them to your site thereby increasing your traffic. RSS feeds work best on sites which are regularly updated though so if you have site that isn’t updated more than once a month you won’t be getting its full benefits. These include:

•    RSS feeds are a convenient way to update content.
•    RSS feeds allow potential viewers to find out about your site without feeling as though they’re being forced to visit.
•    RSS feeds are compatible with both human readers and search engine spiders.
•    RSS feeds are an excellent way to market blogs since these tend to updated most often.
•    RSS feeds have the potential to be ‘syndicated’ by other webmasters and this can increase your back-links.

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We all know the saying that content is king when it comes to SEO. The problem lies in updating that content when you’ve got a huge site. I remember trying to update some pages on one of my sites a few years back. I wish I could say that I remember it fondly. CMS applications have made this process a lot easier and that’s why many web developers, especially those running blogs, have turned to them. It much more convenient to make changes and this can help with fine tuning meta tags, title tags, alt tags, etc., which is a big part of SEO.

Anyone reading about CMS applications will undoubtedly come across the debate as to whether they are really useful when it comes to SEO. Most of this is actually centred on WordPress, which typically cannot handle very large sites and has plug-ins that can go either way when it comes to helping or hurting your SEO efforts. Personally, even though WordPress is undoubtedly the easiest CMS application to use, I’m backing Joomla. Why?

•    Joomla features include page caching for improved performance and the use of RSS feeds.
•    Joomla has a lot of plug-ins available which can increase the content of your site by linking to Wikipedia articles etc., thereby improving its importance in the eyes of the search engines.
•    Joomla gives webmasters more freedom in terms of the number of things they can do. It can even create URLs that are more easily read by search engines.
•    Joomla allows the insertion of custom code into its own, making it easy to integrate revenue programs such as Google AdSense or tracking code such as Google Analytics.

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Personally I’ve seen some Flash sites that have just been breathtaking. I think they can really add a touch of elegance to a site and they can even showcase a webmaster’s creativity. Still, I never advise my clients to use entire flash pages, or rather splash pages, as part of their sites. This is one of the basic SEO errors and should be well known by now, but some people still persist in wanting to include such elements.

So what’s the big deal about splash pages? Oh nothing really, just that for the most part they’re not recognized by search engines. I’d say that’s a big deal. What’s the point of having great content when it’s embedded in a Flash website and can’t be indexed? Not only are you going to be invisible to the search engines but also to potential customers. Even if visitors do make their way to a splash page, chances are they’ll leave just as quickly. Very few people have the time and patience to sit through a long, drawn out introduction. I know I don’t. Even if you include a ‘skip intro’ link, you’re still asking visitors to make one extra click to get to your site.

If you absolutely have to use Flash as part of your website, use it sparingly. This is best done as headers or within small areas of your content. Too many animations can be annoying and can also drastically increase the page’s loading time. Take my silly advice and rely on quality content to entice visitors, not flashy graphics.

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There’s so many SEO techniques out there that it’s hard to keep track of what works and what doesn’t work. Personally I think it depends on the site you’re trying to market. I’ve had sites which have seen a huge boost in traffic from social networking and others which have had to rely on article marketing. One mistake I’ve seen a lot of webmasters make throughout my career is getting caught up in the latest thing and forgetting all about the basics of SEO. Yes, you’ve got to keep up with the times but you can’t ignore the SEO foundation techniques either.

•    Title Tag: I loathe seeing a site with the exciting name of ‘untitled’. Remember that this is the first this search engines and visitors see.
•    Meta Tag: Proper meta-tags are a great way to include keywords, as long as you don’t go overboard.
•    Heading Tags: These tags help users and search engines to know where the key points are.
•    Alt Tags On Images: Not only does this provide an alternative if the image doesn’t load but it’s also a way to add extra text to your source code.
•    Title Attributes On Links: Again, this is another way to get those keywords in and to show that a link has relevance.
•    Sitemaps: Search engines use these to index your site.
•    Content: I visit sites because they’ve got some content that I’m interested in. Do it properly and you can get quite a few keywords in as well.

Well that’s my little diatribe on getting back to the basics. Feel free to add any little pointers that I might have overlooked.

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So I have been playing around with xtranormal.com and decided to do a blog post in their video format. Hope you understand it, basically it just explains how you can increase your brand by not just focusing on keyword targetted anchor links but rather obtaining brand domain anchor links.

I.E. The reason sites such as Toyota, Ford etc have seen a brand boost is because the majority of their links if not all of them link back with their brand domain name. So as an example if I registered djsdjsndjsndj.com, youwould look at getting anchor links for djsdjsndjsndj to increase your brand rating.

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I don’t usually post news stories as I try to make the blog different and unique, I mean why post something that everyone else is posting, with exactly the same stance. But I feel that the Caffeine update that Google have recently announced is well worth a blog post.

Here is a caption from the official announcement

For the last several months, a large team of Googlers has been working on a secret project: a next-generation architecture for Google’s web search. It’s the first step in a process that will let us push the envelope on size, indexing speed, accuracy, comprehensiveness and other dimensions. The new infrastructure sits “under the hood” of Google’s search engine, which means that most users won’t notice a difference in search results. But web developers and power searchers might notice a few differences, so we’re opening up a web developer preview to collect feedback.

Read the full post by Google Here

The Google caffeine update clarifies exactly what I have been saying and thinking for the last few weeks, you can refer to the recent blog post http://www.seotops.com/google-are-now-bringing-in-more-real-time-results_1096/
I like to post about things that I see and notice happening in the search industry from experience and testing. So let’s get down to discussing the Caffeine update. So what does this mean to search positions? The future of search? And so many more unanswered questions?

Well from what I have seen although Google say that they are testing the new infrastructure on www2.sandbox.google.com and some people stating it will not affect the results. I have been seeing this is the current SERPs for some weeks now. Basically what I am seeing is results constantly changing, updated content is getting a fresh boost for major terms a lot more now query deserves freshness, part of the faster indexing and crawling capabilities. I.E. new blog posts go straight into the Top 10 for competitive terms and gradually drop out. Results are no longer stable and personally from a searchers point of view it’s a good thing. The reason I say this is because the internet has expanded so much, whereas we used to have a strict Top 10 with all the best sites, there are now so many more sites online and simply not enough room to show ever decent authority site in the Top 10.

We all know that users do not navigate to page 2-3-4 etc, so what Google can now do is constantly refresh the Top 10 with the authority and power sites, so users get to see much more great sites as well as newly created content for what they are searching for. This is basically a response to Twitter and a right back at you to Bing.

But from what I am seeing, although Google seem to be bringing in real time results and constantly refreshing the SERPs, the Top 4 positions seem to be still be stable. Again the reason for Google doing this is because they have to please all searchers, although moving into real time is all very well and good, a lot of people still want consistency and a huge amount of users click on the Top 4 results, so they have to stick. I mean if you go and search for something find a great site at the top, you want that site to appear there next time.
So where does this leave SEO? Personally I think it’s good for the SEO sector. I mean even the most competitive terms do not get that much traffic from positions 8-9 and 10. So the constant refresh will allow Google to deliver a constant flow of great results and allow all sites to get coverage numerous times a day, stable positions for competitive terms will be a thing of the past, unless of course you are a good SEO or employ a good SEO to push you into the Top 4.

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The current popularity of Twitter and the fact that Twitter are trying to turn them selves into a real time search engine has made Google stand up and react.

Although we all know that fresh unique content was always essential to build power and authority on your site and also give your new post a freshness boost, there has been a slight tweak in the algo from what I am seeing over the last few days to give further power to fresh posts from authority and powerful sites.

What seems to be happening is that when a new post is created it gets indexed and then placed into a Top 10 position for some highly competitive terms, this ten over the next few days drops off on to page two, three and then eventually disappears from the SERPs.

It seems as though Google have increased the algothirm to bring in fresh results a lot more. Again this is great for that extra little bit of exposure.

A great example of this is the term “SEO”. Firstly it was Dave Naylor’s post about geo targeting which came straight into the Top 10 and then slowly faded out as the post aged and then the Search engine journal post which hit the first page and then slowly started shifting out.

I have also seen this occur on numerous other search terms

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