BizPro Solutions announces partnership agreement with Bottom Line Connection
By murph | August 23, 2008
I also recently reached a partnership/barter agreement with BLC in downtown Baltimore. BLC offers a “business process review” or valued survey feature called Infoquest which a lot of fortune 500 companies have caught on to. They specialize in catering to large financial firms as well as large corporations, and they seem to be growing rapidly. They had some clients who need some search engine marketing completed as well as some vacant office space, so we reached an agreement. Thanks to Morris and Larry at BLC for moving forward with this agreement so promptly and I look forward to working with BLC in the upcoming months.
-George
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Bizpro announces verbal agreement with Spin LLC
By murph | August 18, 2008
I have been meeting with the folks over at Spin LLC (a screenshot of their awesome new web site, which has yet to launch, is pictured above) over the past few weeks and it looks like we’re moving forward with a partnership agreement.
SPIN has a great office space in Hampden in a very cool building called Mill Centre (it’s like an old school… well… school, from the outside… but once inside it’s an ultra-modern cross between art studio and tech heaven, and is a much welcome change from the city) and a Washington, DC office as well. They specialize in every type of integrated marketing – primarily for the built environment – from Public Relations to New Business Development to, now, search engine marketing.
I would like to take the time to thank Pauline, Tim, Jenn, and all of the great folks over at SPIN for their patience and open-mindedness towards this new and evolving marketing niche, and hope that their clients will see the same type of potential that they realized that Search Engine Optimization does indeed possess. I was completely blown away by some of the marketing collateral and work I’ve seen over the past few weeks by SPIN and know that we can continue to support their clients with work of the highest standards.
I hope everyone had a good weekend and isn’t too bummed about the summer coming to an end. There is more news to come later this week and maybe even an SEO tip if I can find the time!
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Google cycling answer results
By murph | August 12, 2008
So over the past few months it seems like Google has made an effort to include at least one answer service result for a lot of the search queries, and now it seems as if they are cycling the results. If you do a Google search you will most likely see one or two questions from answer sites like Yahoo! Answers, QnA, Lyqos IQ, Fluther, Answerbag, Wiki Answers or wikihow, or Askville come up.
Surprisingly enough, if you do that same search 24 hours later, you will likely get a different result and different answer services. Of course this depends on how competitive the keywords you’re searching for are and if people are actually asking questions relative to your search, but it seems as if Google has predetermined that at least one of the results for every search should be from an answer service, and to cycle them daily.
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Guide to posting on Google Knol
By murph | July 29, 2008
Google has recently launched Google Knol, their answer to Wikipedia and the fact that Wikipedia entries come up on page one for almost every keyword in the entire freakin world!
Google has said that Knol pages won’t be considered higher authority just because they are on Google, but this is hard to believe. I wanted to expand and do something similar to what Danny Sullivan did (I took the featured Knols ), and here are a more results:
Pediatric Sports Injuries- 1 (it was 13 when Danny wrote his post only five days ago)
Migraine Management - 10
Well, you get the point. These Knol entries will likely have high ranking and authority, and it may even take only a few days.
Wikipedia has said that there is a conflict of interest in launching the product, and I’m not sure that I disagree. Regardless, this tool may serve as a good self-promotion tool if used the right way. Knol is still brand new, so see if your product/service/offering has been listed yet, and create an entry. Here are a few tips I have when creating a Knol entry:
1. Don’t use this as a link building technique, it looks cheesy and spammy. Yes, the entry will likely be given a high priority by Google, but the fact that people will see this entry as merely a way for you to drop a link to your site makes them question your motives.
2. Instead, promote the useful content that you bring to the table, as well as the level of expertise of who it comes from. The entry should be from whoever should be the face of the company. When doing this, make sure he/she has:
3. A biography completed (it may be okay to include a link in the biography for the person representing the company) and a professional picture uploaded as well.
4. Don’t copy and paste from Wikipedia or elsewhere. Take the time to create an informative entry about your product or offering. Remember, these entries will be rated and commented on by fellow Knol users. So it’s VERY important to:
5. Maintain a positive and transparent reputation. Take the extra hour or two to come up with YOUR content and information as an industry expert to keep it from looking like you just copied and pasted from 3 sites and it took you ten minutes. Oh, and keep it simple.
It’s probably early enough for you to have the first entry for whatever service or product you are in (unless you’re in Search Engine Optimization, of course), but keep it in good taste.
The problem I see with Google Knol is that it doesn’t seem to be heavily moderated. Pretty much anyone can create an entry about anything, which leaves the floodgates open to spam and self-promotion. The only good part about this? The comment and rating system allows other to expose these efforts. Keep your entry tasteful and informative.
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Blogging: walking the line between sharing information and giving away trade secrets
By murph | July 14, 2008
I’ve had a couple of conversations in the past few weeks about blogging and what to share on a blog. Yes, it’s true that you want to overload search engines with USEFUL information, but not to the point where you’re posting your business plan and trade secrets online.
An example: If I were to start a cell phone repair business, you would think that posting a video on how to fix the speakerphone in an iPhone or replacing a cracked Blackberry screen would be great for SEO, but it may be bad for business. How many people are going to find this video and try to do it themselves (and, most of them will fail miserably, trust me)?
The point is, it’s okay to share information, but be careful what you blog about. Some may think that me sharing the 28 social bookmarking sites that use dofollow links would be like giving away a very valuable piece of information in regards to my business. But, trust me, if I started doing SEO based solely on building links by flooding social bookmarking sites with links, I wouldn’t be around for very long. And this is something that is out there on probably 10,000 SEO sites already anyways. It’s knowing what to do with the information that is important.
Share information on your blog that is informative and useful, something about your business or trade that the general public doesn’t already know (here’s an example, I did these three blog entries, which shared information, allowed the site to still maintain a level of transparency, and still allows possible clients to still want to maintain this site’s services).
People love when you share personal information as well. Pictures of family getaways, pictures of your office and/or staff, pets whatever you can share to make people relate to you and your blog.
Don’t always just think of your blog as a source of fresh content that search engine spiders can crawl or a source for linkbait articles and news stories. Think of it as a grassroots marketing campaign, where you’re asking every single potential viewer to share in your experiences as well as share information.
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20 dofollow Social Bookmarking Sites
By murph | July 14, 2008
Here are 28 20 social bookmarking sites with that don’t use nofollow links, along with their Pageranks. You’re welcome 
Blinklist - 7/10 Are now doing nofollow
Furl - 7/10
ClipClip - 6/10 They don’t nofollow the bookmark but they do nofollow the actual link
Backflip - 6/10
Bibsonomy - 6/10
LinkaGoGo - 6/10 They also now appear to be doing nofollow
Mister-Wong - 6/10
Raw Sugar - 6/10 Very hard to navigate and add bookmarks
Spurl - 6/10 Still nofollow (for now). You have to install a button in your toolbar, and this is a message posted on the site:
We are currently forced to offer reduced functionality due to heavy spam attacks. The lists with New and Hot spurls are therefore disabled until further notice.
Our apologies for the inconvenience.
Buddy Marks - 5/10
Jumptags - 5/10 Noooofolllloooooooooowwww
MyJeeves / Ask - 5/10
MyLinkVault - 5/10
Xilnus - 5/10
A1 Webmarks - 4/10
Bookmark Tracker - 4/10
Connectedy - 4/10 Can anyone even sign up for this site? The captacha never seems to appear
Diigo - 4/10 Womp Womp
OYAX - 4/10 The captchas are really annoying and you have to seperate the tags by “/”
UpChuckr - 4/10 Always get an error upon submission, but they end up in My Bookmarks afterall
MyVmarks - 4/10
TeDigo - 4/10
info4it - 3/10
ez4u - 3/10 403 Forbidden error for days
Space-Ed - 3/10
MyPIP - 3/10
SyncOne - 3/10
Yattle - 2/10
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Bin Laden family in bid for Newcastle?
By murph | July 8, 2008
This has nothing to do with SEO or anything business related, but with the most boring time in sports (with all due respect to Roger Fedrerer and Nadal, when A-Rod’s divorce makes the top story after a weekend, I’m sorry, it’s boring) right now, this is an interesting story for all of us fans of the beautiful game.
With all of the transfer talk heating up (looks like Freddy Adu AND Michael Bradley may be heading to Monaco, and as a Manchester United fan I would love to see Berbatov in a red shirt next season, Ronaldo is staying, unfortunately) this may be the most controversial story thus far.
ThisisLondon.co.uk is reporting that a construction company headed by the Bin Laden family is planning a bid for Newcastle United.
Newcastle have since denied the claims , and everyone knows not to trust english newspapers sometimes, but what if there is truth to this? Will all of those bandwagon American Newcastle supporters that started buying black and white strips since the movie Goal came out continue to support this side? Their best player, Obafemi Martins, is reportedly headed to Arsenal to replace Adebayor, and Newcastle aren’t exactly making a move for the top four.
With what will likely be the near collapse of Manchester City after their owner’s funds are frozen once and for all after trial(right, like Ronaldinho would want to play for Man City), what kind of negative publicity will this add to football (soccer) ownership (along with Gillette and Hicks at Liverpool feuding).
Let’s hope Jim Rome doesn’t hear about this and talk about it on his show, the 10 people who actually watch might tell their Nascar buddies.
I’ll hope to get back on topic later this week and post something useful.
Topics: Random Soccer Rants | No Comments »
Blog Spam can be rediculous sometimes
By murph | July 1, 2008
And I’m not talking about the 20 comments about Cialis, auto insurance, or online gambling that I have to reject every time I write a new post. I’m talking about blog posts like this:
http://weildxilppo.blogspot.com/2008/07/save-energy-in-your-kitchen.html
http://rowiekzho.blogspot.com/2008/07/how-led-light-bulbs-can-save-you-money.html
If you’re going to create a blog post for linkbait, at least make it relevant to the links you are baiting for. The links posted on these blogs will likely carry NO link juice and can really hurt the site’s SERP.
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Use answer service sites to your advantage
By murph | June 30, 2008
When doing SEO for your site, be sure to somehow utilize the following websites:
Yahoo Answers(links posted as nofollow but good for traffic)
I won’t post specifics on the best ways to utilize these sites, but as a starting point, search for questions that are relative to your site and what it does and get your link in there somehow. Make sure to make it a relevant comment and not spam, and make sure you offer something useful to the conversation. I’ve had answers chosen as Best Answer on Yahoo just because the comment I left was meaningful to who asked it, which means that question is indexed and around for a whole. Google and other search engines seem to put a higher priority on answer services, go type a question in a Google search like “why does my dog stink” and see if something from Fluther or Yahoo Answers doesn’t come up on the first page.
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Happy Take Your Dog to Work Day!
By murph | June 20, 2008
You know what I absolutely love about doing SEO full time from home? The flexibility. Yes, you’re jealous. Why? Well today is National Take Your Dog to Work Day. But every day here at Baltimore SEO By Murph is Take Your Dog to Work Day.
So without further ado, the vice president of eating, sleeping, and bugging me to take him for walks to the park every 2 hours, Jackson:
(PETA don’t email me yet; I’m not choking him, he needed some help looking at the camera). And he looks very similar to Link from Bizpro, what a coincidence.
I haven’t posted an SEO tip in a while, so here’s one. Word of the day:
Cherrypicking.
See what sites are in the top two pages for your keywords. Then see what sites link to them (either type “link:competitorsiteaddress.com” or if you have the Google toolbar with Pagerank enabled installed, click the Pagerank and click check backlinks). And then, get the same backlinks for all of them along with whatever links you are building, and you’ll be well on your way. Just make sure your on-page stuff is done first!
Link cherrypicking. Maybe not completely original, but very effective.
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