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• Time Allocated: 90 mins
• Required Passing Score: 75%
• Number of Questions: 90
• What you get from the test: A cool Google certificate showing you are authentic and the right to claim you are a Google Analytic certified individual.
• Expiration Date: 18 months from test date

My Personal Opinion of the Test: It had a lot of application questions, which makes it more difficult but more fair at the same time. I wouldn’t even try the test if you haven’t watched the Conversion University videos, they hide a lot of good information in each video. When you study for the test don’t gloss over anything especially if you don’t really understand what Google is saying, odds are if you do that is what will be on the test.
The biggest thing I gained though from taking the test is just getting a better idea of where to look for answers to client problems. Even if in a few months if I don’t remember the exact name of the cookie Google embeds or how to write Regex character for character I have a base to go off of. I have a better idea of what analytics can do and I can use that to think of new solutions. All said and done I would recommend that any SEO professional should take the challenge, or at very least go through the Conversion University.

Contacting bloggers is a powerful tactic, it can be a win-win situation for both parties. Many bloggers are looking for new good and intriguing content.  A good strategy is to approach them with and ask if they would be willing to trade. You write some good content for them using the skills you know if they would let you post a link or two in that post. The blogger is getting new and good content and you are getting some high quality links.

There are definitely things you shouldn’t do when contacting bloggers and by studying those we can better learn what we are suppose to do.

Never Send a Mass Email:

Mass emailing may save you time in the initial work it takes to send out emails but your response rate will be so low it won’t be worth your time in the end. Remember bloggers are really people with time constraints, goals, dreams and are putting some hard work into their blog. They will be able to tell that you really haven’t spent much time on their blog and that your offer was sent to hundreds of people. They won’t feel a desire to respond.

A better way to contact a blogger is to spend some time on their site, read their posts, and get to know their style. Then tailor your message to them as an individual person. Acknowledge their work and what you liked about it; also refer to something specific that they have done on their blog.

Never Just ask for a Link:

Blogging is a business just like your ecommerce business or corner grocey store or the consulting company you own. You wouldn’t just let someone advertise on the side of your business, or in your newsletter, or on your employee’s shirts for free. A blogger isn’t going to include your link on their site just because you asked. They have to feel at least these 3 things first

1. There has to be obvious value for their readers
2. They have to feel that there is a personal benefit for them (whether that is a comission on sales, broadening their resources for their readers, or even an exchange of resources. For instance if you want a link on their site offer to put one on your site.)
3. They have to feel recognized. Bloggers work hard at what they do and they want to be appreciated for those efforts.

Never Start a Conversation with How Good your Company is:

Nobody likes to hear how good you are until they know you like what they do. If you start your letter out with statements all about you and how you are amazing a lot of people will just skip over the email and move on to something else. Acknowledge their strengths and what about their work attracted you to their blog. Then proceed to explain to them how a partnership would be beneficial.

How to Find Blogs in Your Industry:

Go to one of the following blog search engines and type in some industry specific phrases.  You should be able to find quite a few that write about your industry.  Don’t forget to search for blogs in related industries as well.

1. technorati.com
2. blogsearch.google.com

Wrapping Up:

Contacting bloggers takes a lot of one on one effort but it is worth your time because of the link value it will give you. Who knows, a blogger may even be willing to post about you, your business, or review a product you offer allowing you to be introduced to all of their readers.

Any questions?

Internal Linking Strategy #1: Content Linking

If you own a blog, inter-linking within your posts is an excellent idea. Every post you write watch for the keywords you are focusing on. If you use a keyword in your post link that word to the landing page URL you are trying to rank for that phrase. Blogging with your keywords in mind will increase the power and effectiveness of your blog and the generation of new relevant links will increase your power within your given niche.

Also outside of blogging it is beneficial to strive for that same form of linking with in the general content of your site.  Any article or content page that you create can link phrases within the text to other landing pages that are focused around ranking for those phrases.  These links help tie all your content together, allowing Google to understand better what your site or blog is all about and more specefically, what each page/URL is about.

Internal Linking Strategy #2: Navigation Bar Links

On the navigation bar of your site is a great place to add optimized links. For instance one of our clients operates an ecommerce site that sells tool parts. Their key phrases are phrases such as ‘DeWalt Parts‘, ‘Makita Parts‘ and ‘Bosch Parts‘ (I just used method 1 for external links to my clients site, but you get the idea). Orginally their navigation bar was a series of image links of the tool brand logos. Although this enhanced the look of their site to the user it decreased its effectiveness in Google. Image links are good for the use-ability of a site. Just make sure you include text links beneath the image so that Google can read what your links are about. And don’t forget to "nofollow" those image links.

Internal Linking Strategy #3: Footer Links

On every site you have the ability to add links to the bottom. These links will show up on every page in your site and are known as footer links.

When you have your clusters formed, choose the main phrase from all of your main category pages to include in your footer links. Here is a good example that we added for one of our clients:

http://www.cmoe.com/

Creating internal links within your blog and site will increase your site’s search engine exposure. Starting with these basic tactics is a great way to optimize your site. If you have any questions as to how or what internal linking is just add a comment below this post. Also if you have any other methods that have worked for you let us know, we would love to hear what has been successful for you.

Create A Squidoo Lens- With Squidoo you are creating an outside site that is sending your site an incoming link. Therefore the more time you take to create a lens that has quality and good volume content the more power your Squidoo lens will carry, meaning the more power your incoming link will have. Now you can take 15 mins and whip up a lens with a few paragraphs containing a link or two to your site. However that incoming link won’t carry as much power as if you created a lens that actually gets traffic. Don’t go overboard and spend more than an hour, but take the extra time to create a quality, topically relevant lens which in turn creates you a quality link.

Submit to the D-List- The D-List is a list of blogs that have Do-Follow link value in their comments, meaning when you comment your name can become a link to your site. Courtney Tuttle offers a list of do-follow blogs, there is a list of links to these blogs there so it is easy to click down the list and make comments. This is a valuable resource but must be used with caution, don’t spam through comments. Go in, genuinely read their posts. Then use the keyword you are trying to rank for as your name and put your sites URL in the website box. Make a comment that adds to the post. This will not only ensure that your link is left in their comment section (instead of removed as spam) but it will also build a positive reputation around your keyword link.

Write an Article- With an article, you are writing the content that will go on another site, meaning it will be relevant content that will point back to your site. Write an article on one of the keywords you are trying to rank for. Make it completely relevant and interesting and then link one or two of those keywords to pages on your site. Then submit the article to a variety of article directories.

Submit to Unspun- Unspun is a site where users can create their own ‘Top 10’ lists and then vote on which item in the list is #1. The lists vary from topics like the” Best Skin Care Products” to “Hardest Disability to Overcome” so you are more than likely to find a list that fits your topic. The 2 coolest parts about unSpun are one; if you don’t find a list that fits your topic then you can create one. And two, you can add your link under the item on the list that fits your topic. On the actual list page the link is no follow but if you click on the item in the list it will take you to a page where your link has followed value. It can take some time for this page to be seen by Google but every link counts so it is worth the 5-10 mins it takes to add your URL.

Link building isn’t impossible, it can just be difficult to know where to start or where to try next. These 4 ideas are just starting blocks but they can help get your site ranked, indexed and become more appealing for future link trades.

Video is on the cutting edge of internet marketing and for good reason; People love watching video and videos are ranking high in the search engines and are becoming a source for traffic. In my research I read ‘Optimizing Video Content’ by Andreas Roel on Clickz.com and he made a statement that really emphasizes the call to jump on the video band wagon now. “By 2012, 62 percent of the total U.S. population and 88 percent of the U.S. online community will be watching videos on the Web, according to eMarketer”- Clickz.com, March 18^th, 2008 That is a huge chunk of people that are becoming marketing targets! Producing a video seems daunting and like it will be tons of work. There is some truth to this line of thinking; a video can very quickly become very complicated and very costly. At first you may think you need a high-tech camera, expensive editing software and professional actors, not to mention a script and a music score. A list like this is enough to turn the majority people away from producing videos. There is however another way to produce video in a much more timely manner and on a much smaller budget.

The Step by Step to a $20 Video

1. Download the free 30 day trial of Camtasia- This is a program that will record what is on your computer screen. There are many possibilities for this software but for this video we are going to only use it in conjunction with Microsoft’s PowerPoint.
2. Outline a slide show around your topic. For instance if your keyword was adult dyslexia you could make a slide show on the symptoms to watch for. Or maybe your keyword is bird watching, make a slide show with pictures of various birds and use text to identify them. Or perhaps your keyword is skin care; make a slide show around an effective nightly routine for women to follow. This video will be a still shot video so you will only get 1-2 pictures to portray each idea so make the points short and simple.
3. Gather your pictures for your video at Stock.xchng this is a photo sharing site that is filled with copyright free pictures you can use in your videos. Simply check the availability status (underneath the picture) and it will tell you what you need to do. Some of them ask for you to notify the photographer telling them you are using their picture. In that case send them an email telling them briefly the topic of your video and the number of the picture you are going to use.
4. Now build your PowerPoint slide show. Add the appropriate text (remember to keep the phrases short), the pictures that coincide, timings of the slide and then animations if you would like.
5. Use Camtasia to capture the slide show. (When you download Camtasia there is a tutorial on how to capture a PowerPoint slideshow)
6. Add an appropriate sound track to back up your video, because lets face it a video with out sound is just boring. Make sure to get a royalty free track so you don’t infringe on anyone’s rights. This is where the $20 comes in. A good royalty free track will cost you some money but it will add a new and necessary dimension to your video. Stock20.com (http://www.stock20.com) sells royalty free songs for only $20 where a lot of places will charge you around $80.
7. Then publish the finished video through Camtasia
8. Finally finish by submitting your video to a variety of video sharing sites

Final Video Tips

• Put your URL in the video more than once. Particularly at the end and beginning.
• Keep your phrasing short and don’t try and tackle your entire topic all in one video, pick one facet at a time.

Videos don’t have to be expensive and time consuming but there is a definite benefit to getting your message and keywords out in a variety of media. Take a few minutes to study what makes a good video and the benefits it can have. Then dive in and tackle it.

1- Instant Popularity Some believe that starting an SEO campaign will give you instant popularity: ranking you in the search engines, driving up traffic and increasing revenue. Although these are all side of effects of an effective SEO campaign that does not mean that it occurs instantly. As a matter of fact, big effects from SEO can takes months and even years depending on how competitive your industry is. Don’t give up half way down the trail because you haven’t seen the results you want in the first couple months. Quality link building takes time. So hang on for the ride because even though it’s a journey, the end results are well worth it.

2- One Time Magic False Thinking: ‘I’ve optimized my site, changed my meta tags, added keywords and linked internally creating an impressive web of information. I have also gathered a decent number of back links, submitted to directories, built some Squidoo pages and even gained a PR 6 link! I am finally finished!’ The Truth: SEO isn’t a project that you start and then finish like a To-Do list: i. Clean Kitchen ii. Write Term Paper iii. Rank #1 in Google iv. Buy Milk and Eggs Search Engine Optimization is an ongoing process, like brushing your teeth. You wouldn’t dream of going a day without brushing your teeth, or worse you wouldn’t spend 5 hours brushing your teeth on the first of the month so you didn’t have to brush them the rest of the month. SEO is the same way. SEO is never finished but it isn’t a huge project that has to take hours and hours every day. A simple effort daily can have a big impact but skip a couple days and your rankings may start to decay.

3- Google Hates Me Well that is a little harsh don’t you think? But the truth of the matter is: Google might. Put yourself in their mindset and see if your efforts are actually countering theirs. One of Google’s biggest business objectives is to provide viewers with a search engine that provides them with relevant and valuable information. If your attempts to get ranked are thwarting that goal by submitting content that is already all across the web, or has no relevance to keywords you say it does, then can’t you see how that could cause some hard feelings. But the reality of the matter is, if you are making the effort to stick to white hat tactics Google will reward your efforts. It may seem that sketchy tactics work faster, and they probably do at first, but in the end it isn’t IF you’ll get caught it is WHEN. Giving Google what they want, relevant content linked to other relevant content, will give you the benefits of being an asset to its algorithm instead of a worrying when you will get banned.

4- Once an Expert Always an Expert If we believe we are ever done learning about anything then we are done succeeding because success is based upon a strong, ever growing foundation of knowledge. SEO is no exception; this industry is growing so quickly that in order to gain success you have to have a desire to learn and innovate along with your market. Never be so quick to throw out a concept or idea before mulling it over in your brain and seeing it from every angle. A can opener is a stupid invention if it is used as toddler’s toy but when placed in the right setting it proves invaluable.

5- All Links are Created Equal Imagine again for a moment that you are a search engine and you had the fun task of organizing sites and ranking them in an order of relevance. What would you look at? If it was me I would look at any element that would prove a site was relevant to the topic they are professing. For instance, pretend a page selling snowboards is trying to rank well in the search engines. I (as a search engine) go to that page and see that they have text about snowboards, meta tags about snowboards , headlines about snowboards, yet they are chalk full of links that lead to everything from buying a car, to taking out a loan, to a Good House Keeping magazine subscription, in my mind those are irrelevant holes in the site making it deal less with snowboards and more with selling anything to anybody. Also equally important are those links that are pointing at your site. No site can completely control where all of their backlinks are coming from, and it wouldn’t make sense to be punished for having irrelevant backlinks, (because then competition could sabotage you). It does however, make sense though that there are rewards for having relevant ones. A relevant link is like having all three of the properties in Monopoly, the value they carry because they are grouped and all relevant to each other is higher then another property that just stands on its own. Its not that the single property doesn’t carry some value and won’t bring income but you will never win the game if you aren’t creating relevant sets of properties.

6- Beauty is Solely External I don’t think anyone would deny that one of the most important aspects of SEO is building a strong external linking campaign. However it would be a crucial mistake to forget internal linking and believe that only external links matter to a complete and beautiful campaign. Internal linking is vitally important. When something on your site is relevant to one of your past articles, link to it. This will create an interlocking web of information that does two things. First, it proves how relevant the information on your site is to itself. And second, it causes the reader to get lost in your site going from one article to the next.

7- And the Lucky Number is… Some have adopted the idea that there is a certain number of links you have to gain or a PageRank (PR) you have to achieve to get ranked on Google. That is simply a misunderstanding of how rankings work. You are not battling to be ranked #1 in Google you are battling to be ranked #1 for a keyword in Google. It is a minor wording difference, but the change makes all the difference in terms of meaning. The first phrase suggests that it is a worldwide battle meaning we are all competing against each other in one large war. And if this were the case then there would be a set number of links and rankings that you had to achieve, or top. Instead, we are battling for keywords, making the goal that of winning lots of smaller battles with different competitors. In other words each battle is different and so there is no set number of links or PR because the conditions to win each battle are different. Ultimately SEO is about being willing to change, grow, research and work hard. Society has a credit mentality, meaning I’ll take it now and pay for it later. This line of thinking has created the idea that you can get something for nothing. Getting caught up in that line of thinking when it comes to SEO will get you nowhere. But if you are willing to work hard, research, change and then research some more then you will succeed at SEO. SEO isn’t a magical, mystical world where results have to fall out of the sky and only a select few are lucky enough succeed in it. You can do SEO and be very successful, just don’t fall prey to the myths that surround it.