photo credit: kamaru

Too bad for the world. These marketers will continue to put out depreciated, non-semantic web sites. And they throw tons $$$ in SEO at them, and those sites spread (like cancer) throught the world wide INaccessible web. Who cares about the byproduct of using valid/semantic HTML anyway, if it doesn’t fit their bottom dollar? Well, I do. I care about that byproduct. Its accessibility. And it’s needed…

A couple of weeks ago, I blogged about Google selling links for a cheap annual price of $1,995. It was a story that I read some time ago but could not find the real owner, until today when Rustybrick sphunn what I had just sphunn and provided a link to the original story. I appreciate someone finally telling me who I could credit because I don’t… read more | digg story

I’ll post more on this very soon, so stay tuned…

“…most of the search engines frown upon paid linking. There is no smile or a high five for those who are artificially trying to gain rank…”

Yes, SE’s frown upon paid linking. I don’t disagree with that. What I disagree with is the blanket statement of selling text links for artificial rank gains. If you agree with me, or just want to read the rest of my comments, please read more | digg story.

Do you know what I do everyday? I track the optimization progress of the many sites I maintain in SERPs (Search Engine Results Position) as well as the far many optimization scores that a site registers. And to do this, I pray about it first, then I check the desktop programs I have installed. Them I check my email – yes my email, for the notifications of any change that the sites configured at SheerSEO.com.

You see, they have – by far – the best free seo software online that I have found.

Not only does it keep statistics for your websites current PR (Google pageRank), Indexed Pages, Single Page Analysis SERPs – but it also keeps analytic history of those statistics:

I use my three accounts every day, one for each domain that track, with many more that I need to track as well. If you’re as serious about your website analytics as I am, you’ll open your free account as soon as possible.

Network with colleagues, network with acquaintances, network with fellow “name-your-hobby-or-career”, network, network, network!

Of course that makes perfect sense, but for me, all these years in web design and SEO, I’ve been a bit selfish. You see, I’ve always thought of networking as long as I got a major benefit out of it. I always made sure that my design or SEO services (and recently website hosting) would be – at the very least – mentioned, and at the most – prominently made priority in that working relationship. Bad Martin…bad.

Now within the current year, social networks have been heavily used for search engine optimization. And these social networks are great for…well…networking. But I’ve realized that’s more than optimization, it’s building trust and solid working relationships. Even if you give “Link Love” without getting it back in return – that’s ok…

So I’ll see you at Stumble, or digg me up, I’ll see you at Reddit, blog and Technorati me, and so on and so on…

You see, with my current clients, and my future clients, I can choose to track them with a simple spreadsheet. But once you become really successful, how well do you think our faithful Excel will handle our futures? You, and I as well, need an upgrade to a real customer relationship management system. And that’s where AIMpromot comes in.

It’s funny how when your online business is still small in size, a hobby more than a real job, handling your customer relationships is fairly simple. You have their contact info in a spreadsheet, or your email contact address book, right? Well, I’ve though about my own needs handle my few clients – and also important are my future “leads” (marketing term for “prospective clients”) in a much more organized, professional way. You see, communication is very important to me, and I like to follow-up with the leads I have been past from my network of associates. If you feel that you are ready for enterprise level features that a company and software like AIMPromot can bring to your table, check them out. I found their services to be reasonably affordable.

Just like Semantics – Use Only What You Need

Now, I’m not about to recommend a total overkill of services and features that you need to sign up for. See, the greatest thing that AIMPromote’s customer relationship management software features is simple: pay and use for just what you need. You can install modules needed for your online marketing (or whatever way you’re making money online) business, and skip the other features that you do not require. Saves on the “learning curve” for you too.

If you’ve found yourself growing into their product, AIMPromot is there for you.

photo credit: Rhian vK

As I’ve covered previously, the two worlds being discussed in our topic are beginning to parallel like never before. SEO professionals are seeing the real benefits of created semantically correct, accessible websites. Accessibility experts are understanding that the use of SEO techniques are not always rooted in Black hat methodology, and with properly used keyword placements and other On-Page Optimization, they will be able to reach many more users than ever before.

So with that as our foundation, let’s look today at specific techniques that will allow the SEO’ers, Accessibility / Usability Designers, and Standards Evangelists to march to the same drummer. Yes, you can become a SEO’er yourself!

Not everyone who is working SEO are wearing Black Hats! What trend I was really referring to was the overall temperature of the SEO’rs I know. They’re growing cold on Black Hat, and Hot on Organics! Why do I say so? Because in the many SEO/web design/webmaster forums I’m a member of, I’ve seen the trend myself.

But what I wanted to blog about today is Plain Old Marketing. Plain Old Marketing (or Plain Old Advertising) is simply when a web master wants to sell a piece of website property to colleagues and other interested parties in the form of text links and ad banners. Sounds great! No problem! It’s the webmaster’s site, and as such, he/she should be able to do anything they want with it, right? Yes they can, but if they do, they face the Big Brother Google.

Not that I’m about to bash Google. As a matter of fact, they rank this site (as of June 30, ’07) #1 and #2 for the term “Plain Old Semantic HTML” (With Yahoo’s SERP at #4, and MSN’s SERP at #1 for that term). But if you’ve been where I’ve been on the ‘Net, then you know that many in the industry are up in arms at what Google has announced regarding selling text links on your sites. They even have a (crafty) link on Google’s Webmaster Tools titled, “Report paid links”.

Here’s an excerpt from the page that link goes to:

“We work hard to return the most relevant results for every search we conduct. To that end, we encourage site managers to make their content straightforward and easily understood by users and search engines alike. Unfortunately, not all websites have users’ best interests at heart. Some site owners attempt to “buy PageRankâ„¢” in the form of paid links to their sites”

Well, that sounds real cool, right? They’re concerned about their search results being most relevant for you, Great Internet User! But I have issue with this! Why? Why do I disagree with their efforts to stop paid links? I agree that it’s their index, so they can do whatever the heck they want to do with it. But for the typical web master who wants to earn a bit of cash from advertisers on his site by selling his internet real estate, that person can’t afford to do it, in fear of Big Brother Google clamping down on his efforts. What’s Google’s penalty for being snitched out on your paid links? They will remove your site from within their index!

But, and here’s my point…

Google themselves offers to help you get paid for links! If you sign up for a Google’s AdWord account , Google will place your ads on – guess what? – other sites that are relevant to yours that run Google’s AdSense! So, use their service, and you get to get paid for links. Not to use them will cost you plenty!

With the internet explosion most of the businesses are resorting to search engine marketing channels and email marketing for advertising their products and services to the global market. The search advertising is pursued by many buyers and sellers to find the relevant products. the marketing of their products and services costs the business men on the basis of pay per click advertising. Through link exchange system more and more products are put forward to the consumers to go for the best buy possible. The huge companies make their site the most visible for the internet buyers by getting the seo solutions installed for them.