Hope you enjoyed your weekend - what was your score on the quiz?

Today feels like Monday so we're catching up - tomorrow we'll start working on continuing our discussion on the patent.

Till then enjoy your Tuesday!!

First hope everyone enjoys their holiday weekend - we won't be posting on Monday but will resume on Tuesday.

If you have a chance - take the SEO Quiz -

http://www.socengine.com/seo/guide/seomoz-quiz.php

If we get a chance we'll do the same and post our scores on Tuesday as well.

Continuing our discussion on the patent - possible changes on the google algo.

Again taken from here - http://www.marketposition.com/mp-0505.htm

RATE OF DOCUMENT CHANGE -

What helps :

Blog or News pages that change frequently.
Greater weight is given to changes in the title .... hmm.


What doesn't:

Changes to nav bars - navigation structure
Java / Ads etc.

The rate of change -

If you accelerate the rate of change you're given more credit - so monitor your competitors - note their rate of change if any.

Make it a goal to goal slow - say change every month or so - if your competition increases their rate of change then you do the same - to every couple of weeks.

So how can you take advantage of the changes / coming changes in the last lesson.

1) Make a list of your top ten or so competitors.

On your spreadsheet list -
1) Terms
2) What postion they are in Google.
3) Start monitoring the page changes - update when they changed / what changed.
4) Do this for a month or two.
5) Monitor their positions -

It may actually take more than a month or two to find a trend.

So what is an easy way to monitor page changes - you can find out more information from this site.

http://www.thegrid.org.uk/about/help/updates.shtml

http://searchenginewatch.com/searchday/article.php/2178631

So what can we learn from that patent application -

Make sure to read the complete newsletter here -

http://www.marketposition.com/mp-0505.htm

We'll just be adding our comments to the discussion -

Document Age:

First - think for a moment - which page do you think should rank higher.

1) A page that has been online a week.
2) A page that has been online for three years.

Note that I didn't say changed last week - but has been online a week.

Google obviously likes fresh / content. I agree with the article that probably in instances where newer topics are discussed that fresher pages may prevail -- but if your optimizing for fishing lures then older - fresh pages are key.

So take away things -

1) Old pages can be made fresh with content updates and getting fresh links to them from other sites. If you're still getting all the links to your home page it's time to mix things up.
2) If you redesign your site it is now even more important to keep the structure.

We'll talk more about the patent tomorrow.

Market position posted an excellent newsletter - please take a moment and review it -

http://www.marketposition.com/mp-0505.htm

Most important (and something we'll be discussing some tomorrow and Weds) is the patent application and what it may mean for your site.

Hopefully you enjoyed your weekend. We'll be taking some time off this week so we should be back to our regular posting schedule next week.

Have a good one.

Something to take a look at - A new take on tags and links - an interesting read.

http://www.clickz.com/experts/search/opt/article.php/3503596

Have a great weekend.

Another aspect of preparing the garden is getting ready for the harvest. We'll talk first about a follow up plan -

Do you have a plan on contacting someone even if they don't order from you? Believe it or not some folks won't order the first time or the fifth or even the tenth.

You can find more information about creating a follow - up plan at the link below -

http://www.blitzpromotions.com/blitz185.htm

Tim

Have you had a chance to work on the worksheets from yesterday? I know that mainly it pertains to someone building a new site but it might help with an old one as well.

If you want a break try http://www.20q.net/

Continuing the website prep - take some time today and check out 12 Webdesign Decisions.

http://www.wilsonweb.com/articles/12design.htm

Make sure to save it / print it out. We'll be discussing it more as the week progresses. For now just download / save it / read it / print it.

Have a good one.

Hopefully you had a chance to do yesterdays task.

This weekend do the following :

Get 5 - 10 volunteers to visit your website while you're watching them (not all at the same time of course).

Ask them to:

1) Order a specific product.
2) Contact you with an email.
3) Tell you what your normal shipping time is.
4) Order 3 additional products.
5) Ask them to sign up for your newsletter.

How did they do?

If you notice that all of your test subjects struggle with a certain task - you may want to think about making that task easier. Things that may be super simple to you - may be extremely difficult to someone visiting your site. Ask them for input on things they found hard, ways that you could improve your site.

For tomorrow - download and read the following .pdf on search engine optimization.

We'll discuss this in depth starting next week.

http://www.websiteoptimization.com/presentations/organic-seo-itzone.pdf

So make sure you save it somewhere.

See you Monday. Don't forget to HUG your Mom this weekend.

First step in growing our garden is preparing the ground - after all you wouldn't just dump seeds on rocks and expect them to grow.

Garden #1

Make sure that your site is viewable using Firefox.

http://www.getfirefox.com/

Explorer has held the crown for many years - but Fire Fox is slowly but surely catching up. If you haven't viewed your site in Fire Fox make sure that you do.

A great new contest from Yahoo - you could win a million free impressions. Looks like entering the contest is pretty simple. The only requirement is that your business is small. You can find more details on the contest at the following link.

http://thinkbig.yahoo.com/

Hopefully this week we'll have a bit more time to post - last week was pretty wild - stormed quite a bit / busy etc. Today it feels like winter time again, but hopefully no storms this week.

Have a great Monday!!