Developer Shed Weekly SEO News for 2009-07-31

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July 31, 2009 Welcome to this week's issue of the SEO Chat newsletter! If you're a news organization and you want to get more people viewing your content, eWeek reported on a new partner program from Google and YouTube that might interest you. If you become part of the program, you'll be able to upload video content to YouTube and see it distributed in Google News. Click the link for the full details. Many SEOs use Google Analytics to track lots of important web site statistics. Did you know that you can do a lot more than just track them? Wednesday's article explains how to do advanced traffic analysis so you can actually improve those numbers including, with any luck, the ones on your bottom line. For more on improving your bottom line, you'll want to check out Tuesday's article. It's the first of two parts on testing your landing pages to increase conversions. One way you can improve conversions is by finding out what your visitors actually want, and one way to do that is by asking them. Monday's article shows you how to set up surveys on your site with Google Docs. Don't forget to check the SEO-related tutorials you can find on Tutorialized. We have more than 100 for you to choose from, covering many of the same topics you see on SEO Chat, such as choosing keywords, website marketing, Google optimization, and more. If you'd like to share your expertise with our readers, we make it easy for you to submit a tutorial. What should you do if you buy a domain name and get a letter from a company telling you to sign it over because you're infringing on their brand? That's the subject of this week's thread. Surprisingly, there's more than one answer. Our Spotlight, just for readers of our newsletter, exposes some major SEO scams and frauds. If you think we're talking about SEOs scamming their clients, you're in for a surprise. If you're job-hunting, you need to scroll down to the Spotlight to protect your own future. As always, thanks for reading. Until next time, SEO Chat Staff

ARTICLES Advanced Traffic Analysis Techniques with Google Analytics Testing SEO Landing Pages and Improving Conversion How to Build an Online Survey with Google Docs SEO on Tutorialized SEO Thread of The Week SEO Chat News Spotlight TOOLS Get Our Content on Your Site with DevText! New Articles, Right To Your E-mail Developer Search NEW! Download a free trial of IBM WebSphere Message Broker V6.1 Download a free trial version of WebSphere Message Broker V6.1, an Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) built for universal connectivity and transformation in heterogeneous IT environments. WebSphere Message Broker distributes information and data generated by business events in real time to people, applications, and devices throughout your extended enterprise and beyond. Learn more. Hello World: WebSphere Service Registry and Repository Manage, govern, and share services across your organization by using WebSphere Service Registry and Repository. Follow the hands-on exercises to learn how to navigate the Web interface to publish, find, reuse, and update services. Learn more.

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It's edgy! It's irreverent! It's all about technology! It's News You Can't Use, and you won't want to miss it! View this week's edition to learn the answers to these burning questions: News of the Weird is back. Watch it so we can feed our kids. Jenny got game. Don't strain a nerd muscle. Video of the Week is back. Easy now... Watch the video!

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Advanced Traffic Analysis Techniques with Google Analytics by Codex-M 2009-07-29 Google Analytics is free, highly reliable and provides a lot of information about your website traffic or website visitors' behavior. You probably know this already. Today we're going to show you some interesting ways to use that data that you may not have known. What distinguishes between a common and advanced usage of Google Analytics is the way the data is being used. For basic use of Google Analytics, it is enough to look at the following numbers and stats and do nothing: The number of daily website visitors (check the Google Analytics Dashboard). The top sources of traffic, so you can determine whether most of your website traffic is coming from search engines, social bookmarking sites or referral websites. You can get this information by clicking on "Traffic sources." Which keywords are used by visitors to get to your website when they are coming from the search engines. You can find this information under Traffic sources Keywords. Which pages of your website are the most popular. You can find this with Google Analytics under "Top Content." Read Advanced Traffic Analysis Techniques with Google Analytics

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Testing SEO Landing Pages and Improving Conversion by Ivan Strouchliak 2009-07-28 Testing has become a key online marketing discipline for increasing conversion rates and getting more out of search/pay per click traffic. There are several books on the topic, along with specialized software programs and companies that do nothing but help improve conversion rates through testing. If you think you need to start doing some tests yourself, you're probably right; keep reading. In this article I will introduce the concept of testing and how it applies to search engine optimization. Topics covered in this article an introduction to testing, SEO and testing, elements you can test and testing post landing pages. The Biggest Companies Succeed Through Testing Some of the biggest testers in the world are Amazon and Google. In fact, testing is one of their "secret weapons." Read Testing SEO Landing Pages and Improving Conversion

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How to Build an Online Survey with Google Docs by Codex-M 2009-07-27 Sure, you can build some simple online surveys, but if you want to do something really sophisticated, you need to know how to program, right? Wrong. Google Docs makes it easy to build some very elegant online surveys. Keep reading to learn how to create an online survey using this popular and versatile web-based application. Online surveys are useful on the Internet because they provide opportunities for users to share their views and be counted. Aside from that, those who analyze surveys can get insights from the opinions expressed on the survey. The interactive surveys available online often give results to viewers showing how many of those surveyed answered a particular way. This may not be entirely scientific, but it satisfies curiosity. Read How to Build an Online Survey with Google Docs

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Tutorialized is dedicated to programming, designing, and many other tech related tutorials. Submit Your Tutorial Today! How Can I Boost My Google Rankings? A definitive guide that teaches you how to boost Google rankings. Read the tutorial. How to get ahead with RSS! A tutorial on using RSS feeds to increase traffic in your niche. Read the tutorial. Submitting your URL to Search Engines How to get search engines to crawl your site as often as possible. Read the tutorial. Submit Wordpress Sitemaps Submit your Wordpress sitemap xml to Google and verify it. Read the tutorial. Learn Techniques Required for Creating Content WordPress Business Blog from average to extraordinary. Read the tutorial. Basics of SEO The basics of SEO in plain, easy to understand writing. Read the tutorial.

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Be careful when you buy domain names; don't choose one you may have to sign over later. That seems to be one of the morals of this week's thread. Domain Name Lawsuit Code_Red Hey everyone, so I have a few questions. I apologize in advance if this is in the wrong forum. I purchased a few months ago a domain name that is keyword rich, but maybe on border line "trademark" grounds. The name is nikeairblog(dot)com. I recently received a email from Fair Winds Partner saying they demand me to sign it over, and they are acting upon Nike's request. So, legally do I need to sign it over, or since its called nikeairblog (all one word) I can keep it. Your help is greatly appreciated. himanshu160 Your domain name infringes the use of 'nike' trademark as it has the potential of confusing the public that 'nike' has somehow/somewhat involved with your website, which is clearly not the case. Avoid using trademarks in your domain names. Do trademark search before choosing a domain name. Get federal registration for your domain name to prevent any unauthorized use of your domain name both in the online and offline world. I suggest you sign it over. realityhack Talk to an intellectual property lawyer preferably with experience in Internet law. You can call your local bar association and they will give you the name of a lawyer specializing in a particular area of law (at least in the US). For example you may be able to keep the domain name but not be able to USE it. You might be able to use it for certain non-commercial uses. Etc. etc. As pointed out Nike has deep pockets but don't sign over anything until you consult a lawyer. And don't take the word of anyone on the Internet as to what you can and can't do. Posts from this thread may have been abridged or removed. Forum members are responsible for the content of these posts. Read the full thread.

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Jobhunting? Beware of Frauds You've probably heard that you must be careful when hiring an SEO because the field is full of snake oil salesmen. If you're an honest, ethical SEO yourself, you know the scammers out there can make it harder for you to gain clients and do your job properly. You may not realize that you're as open to getting scammed in this field as any prospective SEO client. Respected SEO Chat forum member Himanshu recently wrote about his experiences as a warning to other SEOs looking for an in-house job. He has worked in India and the UK, but the responses he received when he posted seemed to indicate that the problems are more widespread than they should be. So here are some practices to watch for when you're interviewing. Does the company seem to be asking a lot of very specific questions, with the interview stretching over hours or days? In particular, do they seem to be wanting you to build a whole SEO campaign and basing whether they hire you on your marketing proposals? The company may want your experience, not you and by picking your brain during the interview, they're trying to get it for free. If possible, try to contact an employee at the company that wants to interview you, to find out if a vacancy actually exists. A disgruntled employee will always be happy to spill the beans, Himanshu notes. Himanshu has also encountered employers that wanted him, as a condition of employment, to sign a two-year bond that would legally force him to work with the company during that time or forfeit a large amount of money. Such a company can create any number of situations that force you to leave on your own, and then you lose that money. They may ask you to work 12 hrs a day, 6 days a week in the name of meeting project deadlines, Himanshu notes. Steer clear of these situations; you have become their slave once you sign the bond. Make sure you read your employment contract carefully several times before you sign it, especially the fine print. You may not be signing up for the job you think you're getting. Himanshu mentioned that one of his friends signed up for what he thought was a permanent position, but was in fact a six-month contract job and during the entire interview process, the employer never mentioned that it was not a permanent position. Lest you think this was some shady firm, he pointed out that it was a multi-million dollar New York based company...with clients like Barclay and offices in several countries. So read that contract, make sure it is signed by a competent authority (such as the head of the HR department) on the company's letterhead with the company's seal. Each page of the contract should be signed, and all HR policies should be mentioned. Also, make sure you know the labor laws for the country in which you're working. Himanshu once had an employer try to cheat him out of paid leave by lying about labor laws for the relevant country. These are just a few of the scams and shady practices that Himansu discussed; you'll find more information if you click the link shown below. But the bottom line is, you need to be at least as careful when hunting for an in-house SEO job as your clients need to be when hunting for an SEO. Your best defense? Do your research, and interview the company while they're interviewing you. Good luck! Read the relevant forum thread.

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