First off, if you’re not burning your RSS feed using Google FeedBurner, then you might want to look into that now. That is, if you’re not already keeping track of you’re blog’s subscriber stats using some other means. But even then, Google FeedBurner is probably a better solution than what you’re using now.
For the longest time I wondered how a few of the most respected industry gurus were using their own domain names and still burning their RSS feed through Google FeedBurner. A few weeks ago I stopped admiring and decided to figure it out. Now I’m sharing it with you because I just think it’s the coolest thing ever!
Common ways to publish your RSS feed
You’ll commonly see feed URLs that look similar to http://www.seorankings.com/feed, http://feed.feedburner.com/seorankings, and a few others. With the former usually being left basic, and latter using the more sophisticated web feed management tool Google FeedBurner. If you don’t already know, Google FeedBurner allows you to track subscribers and subscribe via email, among various other important things. That’s why you’ll see most experienced bloggers using it. Which is great but, it can also look a little amateurish when you’re sending people to a third party website to subscribe to your RSS feed. So I’m going to show you how to take advantage of all the cool tools FeedBurner has to offer while keeping your brand at the forefront.
Instead of having a feed that looks like this:
feeds.feedburner.com/seorankings
You could be using a nice branded one with your own domain name similar to this:
feeds.seorankings.com/seorankings
While still taking advantage of all the same great features. Which one looks more established and professional to you?
How to Activate MyBrand
Obviously you’re going to need a FeedBurner account. Once you’ve burned your feed in your FeedBurner account you’re going to need to → login → click on the appropriate feed → then click on My Account in the top right corner → and last on MyBrand. Or you can just click on this link: http://feedburner.google.com/fb/a/mybrand too. Now, this is where it can get a bit confusing if you don’t have a grasp on setting up DNS and redirects.
Google has already done a great job outlining the steps you need to take on that page, so I won’t go into detail here, but I will give you a summary and let you know of a few snags I had. Just be sure to read carefully, and follow the referenced links for help.
If you host your website with a third-party, then you’re probably not going to have enough privileges to create the required CNAME entry yourself, so be prepared to ask your hosting provider. Google offers this advice for creating a CNAME entry, with a step-by-step guide for some of the most popular web hosts. Of course none of mine were on their list.
Once you have your feed set up correctly you’ll need to change the active links on your website to point to the to point to the new URL and redirect to old URL to the new one so you can get an accurate count of the previous subscribers who still subscribe to the old URL. Just be sure to also read Google’s feed redirect advice to be sure you get everything working correctly.
Then, after you think everything is working properly, and your old posts are showing up at the new URL, be sure to test by creating a new blog post and making sure it shows up at the new feed URL too. My “new” posts weren’t getting published at the new URL because I didn’t have the redirects set up properly. However “old” posts (posts previous to this change) were showing up at the new URL, so it can be a bit deceiving.
My Offer to You
When I was looking to set this up for my sites I obviously hit a few snags. There were only a few sites offering advice on how to set this up, but none of them really did a good job explaining things. And Google doesn’t offer any support for this service either. So, if you dare, give it a try and feel free to leave me your comments or questions below, if you have any trouble. I’ll do my best to help you sort it out.
Good luck, and if you haven’t already, you should subscribe to our feed to get more great tips like this one!
A few month ago I purchased the Search Engine Optimization All-in-One For Dummies by Bruce Clay and Susan Esparza. I have found this to be a fantastic reference guide for beginners and experienced SEOs alike.
One of the things I like about this book is it does a great job of laying out the best practices for building solid, user-friendly, search engine optimized websites. As well as the importance of branding and effectively using PPC and other strategies to generate the most traffic to your website using the search engines, and not just how to obtain a few top rankings. This book also covers what not to do.
Even though you can read about SEO in forums and on blogs all day long, some times it is very difficult to know which recommendations to trust. Especially when you’re new. When I was first learning SEO I read so much mis-information on the web it cost me a lot of time and money I wish I could get back. And, while there is no replacement for experience, this book will definitely set you on the right path.
The key components of this book are:
How Search Engines Work
Keyword Strategy
SEO Web Design
Creating Content
Linking
Optimizing the Foundations
Analyzing Results
International SEO
Search Marketing
Even though I’ve already been doing SEO for a few years, I still reference this book regularly because I find it insightful to know what Bruce Clay has to say regarding certain aspects of SEO. And, I’d be lying if I didn’t say I’ve learned from it too. Search Engine Optimization for Dummies can be read cover to cover and used as a reference guide.
Overall, I am really impressed with how much information is covered in SEO for Dummies and highly recommend this book!
Right now there seems to be a mad rush to get listed in free local listing services like Google Maps and other location-based search service websites. If you’re like most people, you probably get a little overwhelmed trying to figure out which of these online websites to submit to too. Of course there is likely some benefit to submitting to them all. While many people have written off Yellow Pages websites in search of the next hyped up social search service, I have found some of the “old school” platforms still offer remarkable value for location-based businesses.
SuperPages is one of the websites on the top of my list. Here are a few reasons why I recommend submitting your business to SuperPages:
Your Business Listing Will Appear in Multiple Web Resources
SuperPages.com
Yellowpages.lycos.com
TrueLocal.com
SwitchBoard.com
LocalSearch.com
Just to name a few of them.
No Aggressive Sales Calls Following Your Submission
Many of the online Yellow Pages require you to speak to someone before they will approve your listing, and try to confuse you with several paid offers during the submission process. That is not the case with SuperPages.com. There are some offers, but it is pretty straightforward, and I can’t recall anyone following up with a high-pressure sales call after my submission.
Quick Approval. Quick Indexation.
Some SuperPages competitors take months to approve your listing. All of my submissions to SuperPages have been approved within a or two day, and the listing was index in Google within another day or so. Many of the other Yellow Pages business listings never get indexed by Google at all.
Helps Your Google Maps Listing
Someone else who uses SuperPages may submit a review to your SuperPages listing, that review will get picked up by Google and show it in Google Maps. As you know this helps with your ranking in Google Maps.
There are also several other features available for your free listing, and some paid services too. So you might want to check it out. Unfortunately the website link in your listing doesn’t pass any PageRank, so it’s not going to help your business website rank in the organic search results. Even so, getting listed there is still well worth the few minutes it takes to submit your business.
Figuring out where to submit your listing can be a bit confusing, because there is also the social side to the site with a separate login. You will need submit your free business listing here, then it will show up in SuperMedia’s network of websites including SuperPages.com.
Good luck. I hope you found this review useful, and benefit from their free service!
As you probably already know, getting reviews for your business is the best way to increase your rankings in Google’s local business center – Google Maps. Surprisingly, one of the most common questions I get is how to submit a review for a business listed in Google Maps. So, I’ve created this video and even written the steps below to assist with that explanation in the future.
Steps for submitting a review for a business listed in Google Maps:
Type in the name of the business and click on “Search Maps”
Locate the business you would like to submit a review for and click on “more info >>”
Verify it is the correct business, then scroll down and click on “Write a review” in the center of the page
Log-in with your Google Account or create a new one
Takes you directly to the review submission form where you can start by filling in a title for your review
Rate the business
Write your review
Hit save!
That’s it! Your review should be live within a few hours, if not immediately. If you are having issues you can visit: http://maps.google.com/support/, or you can ask me question in the comments section below.
P.S. This is the first video I made using Microsoft Expression Encoder 3 Screen Capture, and I would really like to improve the quality of future videos. If anyone has any recommendations, please leave your suggestions in the comment section below. Thanks, I really appreciate it!
Yep, I’m giving these domain names away absolutely free! I have too many of them, and they are beginning to pile up. So it’s time to start cleaning house. So I’m giving them away on a first-come, first-serve basis.
Most of them are with Godaddy. So all you have to do it set up a Godaddy account, then we can transfer them into your account for free. I’m not sure if you can do the same with Domain Discover. Either way, I won’t charge anything for them. The only fee you might have to pay is to transfer them into your account. For the 4 Domain Discover domains you may have to pay around $7 to transfer from them to Godaddy, if you have to. That also comes with a free one year extension. So it’s still pretty much free.
Just beware, at some point each domain name will only be redeemable for a redemption fee + renewal fee. So around $100/ea. As of today, none of these domains are at that stage. All of the ones in my previous post are, though.
Available Domain Names
Expired But Redeemable Domain Names – Domain Discover
Domain Name – exp. Date:
RateTeams.com – 1/27/2010 – Expired
MarinersForums.com – 1/28/2010 - gone
Domain Names Expiring Soon! – GoDaddy
SeattleSEOService.com – 3/7/2010 – Since Expired
StartEmailing.com – 3/15/2010 - gone
SocialNik.com – 3/24/2010 - gone
SocialNik.net – 3/26/2010 - gone
SEOShowDown.org – 3/30/2010 - gone
TechPik.com – 3/30/2010 - gone
TechPik.net – 3/30/2010 - gone
TechPik.info – 3/31/2010 - gone
TechPik.org – 3/31/2010 - gone
ShortSaleForum.net – 4/3/2010 - gone
SeattleSportForums.com – 4/10/2010 - gone
SEOmars.com – 5/11/2010 - gone
SEOminars.com – 5/11/2010 - gone
SEOminars.net – 5/11/2010 - gone
SEOminars.org – 5/11/2010 - gone
Domain Name Expiring Soon! – Domain Discover
CellPlanFinder.com – 6/3/2010 - gone
Just let me know if you want any of these FREE domain names so we can transfer them into your account.
It would be a lot easier on me just to give them all to one person, but to give more people an opportunity at this free grab bag, I think it’s fair to only offer 1 free domain name each. However, if one domain name has multiple extensions, you can have all of the corresponding domain names too.
I know, some of these names are pretty corny. But that’s what happen when you are up every night until 4 in the morning working on the computer. You come up with a lot of off-the-wall ideas. Kinda like this one. But hey, the late night madness is my loss and you’re benefit; with absolutely no catch!
I have a few great domain names and a couple of stupid ones expiring soon. In case you are interested. You can either put them on back-order or ask me to recover them for you. Unfortunately they are all expired-redeemable right now, so It would cost me about $100 to recover them. If you want to take a chance you could put them on back-order through Godaddy or another registrar and get them at the normal price when they become available. Or have me recover them for you and transfer them into your name for about $100. I won’t charge you anything on top of what it costs to recover them and put them into your account. So let me know.
Here’s the list:
seahawksforums.com
steelersforums.com
playerrate.com
rateplayers.com
newluv.com
I just really don’t need them. I have been offered money for seahawksforums.com and steelersforums.com in the past. I just don’t have time to track those people down again. Those two are somewhat seasonal domains. The exact keywords in the URLs are actually searched for a lot more often during the season than shown using the Google keyword tool right now.
For those of you who aren’t familiar with it – Google Alerts is a free service offered by Google. Obviously. Google Alerts allows you to set up email updates based on keywords of your choice. You are then notified whenever Google discovers new stories or mentions of the specific keywords or phrases you selected to monitor.
Here are 5 great reasons to use Google Alerts:
1) The Obvious: Reputation Management
Now this might be work for those of you who have common names such as Bryan Smith or Jennifer Johnson. However, if you have a name like mine (Wesley LeFebvre), you can rest assured almost all name mentions are actually about you. Which makes reputation management pretty easy.
2) Industry Research
Another great way to use Google Alerts is to track the latest industry trends, job opportunities, company news, and individual industry leaders. I don’t think these need too much more explanation.
3) Brand Monitoring
If you’re in business, it is always a good idea to see who’s talking about your brand. Whenever someone mentions your brand this give you the opportunity to engage with them. Nearly ever time I mention a specific brand on this blog, a representative from that company acknowledges the mention by either commenting or tweeting my post – depending on what I write. They are obviously using Google Alerts or a similar service.
4) Track Your Competitors
There are several reasons you might want to track your competitors. One great reason is link building. There are some obvious benefits to knowing where your competitors are getting their links from. Some other reason would be to track news mentions, product releases, and new service offerings, among other things.
5) WOW Your Clients
This one is probably my favorite. I read it somewhere awhile back, thought this was a remarkable idea, and I have been doing it ever since. This is such a great way to impress your clients, past or present. Use an important news mention as a great reason to catch up with an old client, which of course, can lead to new business. And what if you impressed one of your current clients by catching a negative mention about them or their brand and offering ways to remedy the issue before they even knew it existed. It’s really simple to set up, and going that extra mile really shows you care. You could even do this for your family and friends.
These are only a few great ways I use Google Alerts. I’m sure there are many others too.
Do you have a creative way you like to use Google Alerts? How about a favorite service? I’d love to hear some other great ideas.
Do you know how to submit a press release? Well, it’s actually really easy. And if you’re short on cash, there are several free press release websites to help you get started. You probably won’t get picked up by any of the major news sources by submitting a free press release. However, that doesn’t mean there aren’t still plenty of reasons to do it.
Just take a look at ever major company, nine times out of ten they submit regular press releases.
Here are several advantages to submitting a press release:
Shows professionalism
Could be picked up by a major news source
Includes a link back to your website
Will likely get picked up and referenced on several other websites
Provides exposure in front of an entirely new audience
Helps with branding
So when should you submit a press release?
Release of a new product
Offering new services
Launching a new website
Opening a new office
Establishing a new partnership
Hiring a new executive
Offering a new special
See, there are plenty of really great reasons to submit a press release.
Here are a few press release websites to consider:
Recently I was asked for some advice by someone looking to start thier first online business. This person reminded me a lot of myself, because I had no clue what I was doing when I first started online. In response, here are a few things that first come to mind.
You can start a successful online business without implementing SEO. Conversely, however, you’re not going to be very successful online if all you’re counting on is SEO. With that said, search engine optimizing a high-quality website can grow it tenfold.
SEO is still a relatively new practice; one that is constantly growing. So the way one professional defines search engine optimization can be completely different than the way someone else does.
Since I’m writing this post primarily for the typical newcomer, based on my experience, I’m going to assume most people outside of the industry think of SEO as the practice of getting their website top rankings in the search engines, and that’s it. But to me, it is a lot more than that. I’ll explain later. Considering the above definition though, SEO, without offering anything of value, is not enough to be successful online.
Here is a list of the mistakes I made with when I jumped into my first online endeavor:
I ONLY focused on getting top search engine rankings.
My first website sucked! It was just a site filled with a bunch of affiliate links and not much content (which you could get away with a little more back then).
I only thought about the first sale, and didn’t worry about getting visitors to return or give them any reason to recommend me to someone else.
I spent most of my time researching and chasing what one of my major competitors was doing. Or at least what I saw them doing. I should have been paying more attention to Internet marketing leaders.
I didn’t start blogging soon enough. You don’t have to blog, but you should at least be updating or adding new content to your website on a regular basis, i.e., your website should always be growing.
I threw a bunch of money at PPC, directing people to a crappy, poor-performing website.
I tried to build out multiple half-assed websites, hoping one of them would stick, rather than putting in the work necessary to become successful with the first one.
You can still be successful with an affiliate website, however you need to offer additional value, i.e., a lot of additional content people can use. Perhaps really good product reviews, how-to guides, or a glossary. I think you get the idea.
Today, I think of SEO quite differently than I did in the beginning; I worry about my search engine rankings as well as bounce rate, conversions, unique visitors, return visitors, natural links, popular content, user experience, subscriptions, new customers/clients and of course revenue and ROI. Just to name a few important KPIs.
Starting an online business takes a lot more than what I can explain in a single blog post. Just take your time, do your research, provide great value, and don’t try to monetize too early.
Do you ever get tired of sitting behind the computer and wishing you had more industry related articles in print to read? I know I do.
If you answered yes, then I highly recommend subscribing to Website Magazine. Website Magazine offers a free quarterly subscription as well as an upgraded paid subscription to their increasingly popular Website Magazine.
The pro membership subscription is offered at $44.95/mo, however the free quarterly subscription is more than enough for me.
Each quarter the magazine covers a a variety of topics from E-mail marketing, PPC strategies, Website Design, to various search engine optimization techniques, and more.
For me, It is really nice to have a hard copy I can bring with me places or pick up when I’m sitting in the living room, and not always have to get behind the computer or look at a tiny phone screen to read some of the latest articles related to the SEO industry.
It’s real easy to sign up for your free subscription to Website Magazine. Just go to their website and fill out a short survey to start receiving your free quarterly subscription to one of the web industry’s hottest print magazines.
You might be surprised to find a lot of great tools, tips, other information and great industry related articles to read.
Search engine optimization blog and Internet marketing resource dedicated to helping you
drive traffic to your website through search engine marketing! Be sure to check
our blog daily for frequently updated SEM tips.
First off, if you’re not burning your RSS feed using Google FeedBurner, then you might want to look into that now. That is, if you’re not already keeping track of you’re blog’s subscriber stats using some other means. But even then, Google FeedBurner is probably a better solution than what you’re using now.
A few month ago I purchased the 
Right now there seems to be a mad rush to get listed in free local listing services like Google Maps and other location-based search service websites. If you’re like most people, you probably get a little overwhelmed trying to figure out which of these online websites to submit to too. Of course there is likely some benefit to submitting to them all. While many people have written off Yellow Pages websites in search of the next hyped up social search service, I have found some of the “old school” platforms still offer remarkable value for location-based businesses.
Yep, I’m giving these domain names away absolutely free! I have too many of them, and they are beginning to pile up. So it’s time to start cleaning house. So I’m giving them away on a first-come, first-serve basis.
For those of you who aren’t familiar with it – 
Do you know how to submit a press release? Well, it’s actually really easy. And if you’re short on cash, there are several 
Recently I was asked for some advice by someone looking to start thier first online business. This person reminded me a lot of myself, because I had no clue what I was doing when I first started online. In response, here are a few things that first come to mind.
Do you ever get tired of sitting behind the computer and wishing you had more industry related articles in print to read? I know I do.
