Run SEO Checks on Your Sites – Top 15 Tools & Resources

One of the biggest tips I can give for SEO is to run monthly or bi-monthly seo checks on your site.  With the constant changes of how websites are organically ranked, making sure you stay on top of any issues is vital.

I recommend the following online services:

1. SpyFu (free and paid services)
2. SEOSiteCheckUp
3. seomoz.org/rank-checker
4. mtsolutionsweb.com/google-position-find.php
5. seomoz.org/geotarget
6. tools.seobook.com/firefox/seo-for-firefox.html
7. hittail.com
8. iwebtool.com/multirank
9. raven-seo-tools.com (free and paid services)
10. viciao2k3.net
11. iwebtool.com/visual_pagerank
12. urltrends.com
13. webmaster-toolkit.com/search-engine-optimisation-tools.shtml
14. digitalpoint.com/tools/
15. globalpromoter.com/seo-tools/

And the infamous 136 SEO Tools

Google Adwords Long Tail KeyTerm List

I have found that a good long tail keyterm list always performs much better than a few high traffic words.  It is easy to get caught up with the most popular searched terms and create an incredible list with them.  But when your CPC is through the roof, and your ROI plummeting, you will quickly understand the value of good long tail search terms.  With lower competition rates your CPC will be more manageable and while you may not be getting thousands of searches of day on these terms, you will be getting better targetted traffic to your ads.

An example of this:

• Keyterm – Find a Nanny
• Long Tail Term – Find a nanny in new york city
• – Nanny Agencies in New York City
• – Where to find a nanny in New York City
• – How to find a Nanny in New York City
• - Nanny for infants in New York City
• - Need Nanny for toddlers in New york city
• - Live in nanny for infants in new york city

Daniel M. Clark Releases the Big Book of Spam

We have all received those ridiculous spam emails with outrageous subject lines, well Daniel M. Clark did something that most of us don’t do, he didn’t delete them, no he actually encouraged more and more of them.  Why would anyone sane do this you may wonder.  Daniel took the subject lines from these emails and compiled them into an absolutely hysterical book.  Read more

Kansas City Events

Kansas City Local meetups – whose attending?  I will be at all three, if you are interested in chatting before, after or during, email me at aunesty |at| rolet dot com. Read more

Marketers Give Back

Missy Ward, Jen Goode, Heather Paulson and several more are raising funds to fight breast cancer. During Affiliate Summit and at the Meet Market on Sunday they were selling buttons to raise money and if you bought a button you were entered into a drawing for some great prizes! Read more

Evan’s First Affiliate Summit

Evan Emerson

Originally uploaded by aunestyj

Sitting in Kansas City International Airport, Evan managed to get a last minute work project done before boarding. He had no idea what to really expect at Affiliate Summit, boy was he pleasantly surprised when he had a BLAST!

One would think that Rolet Internet Services, Inc and 1 and 1 Hosting wouldn’t be able to even get along let alone be friends. But the great guys at 1 & 1 and Rolet, well what can we say, not only do I think they are awesome, so do the Rolet Tech guys. Evan spent one night out with them going to a few bars and down to China Town in Boston. I don’t think he expected that at all!

Evan also met several others that he had a blast with – Connie Berg of FlamingoWorld.com – Adam Reimer of Downtown eCommerce – Jason (Beachy’s developer) and many more. He is excited to go to Vegas summit in January with me just to see his new affiliate marketing friends.

The basics in starting in the social networking world online Part I:

1. You need a well written synopsis of your company, whether that is just your site, or a corporation. This will be used in various forms on a multitude of sites.

Details to include:

• Who Founded?
• When Founded?
• Why Founded?
• What makes your company special/different?
• Location
• Growth
• Future Plans
• Key Employees – their roles

2. Images that represent your company. These can be any mix of screen shots, to logos, to employees, to your store front. The more to choose from, the better

3. Account Setups:

a. Wikipedia

b. Twitter

c. Facebook Group Page – if relevant for your brand

1. Do you have a forum?

2. Are you a membership based site?

3. Is your consumable a product that brings people together? (i.e. concerts, wine tastings…)

d. MySpace Page – again if relevant to your brand

e. A Blog

f. All employees on LinkedIn

g. Ning Social Networking for your site – again if relevant only

h. Forums that are relevant to your brand or business type, if you can’t offer advice then you shouldn’t join – it is that simple, if there is a question about this, then DON’T join.

i. Plus a few of the many more social networking apps, i.e. dig, stumbleupon, youtube, flickr…

1. Be detailed on your profile pages, but be honest. Honest about who your company is and what it does. Give your profile pages some personality as well, after all there is a real person filling it out and posting to your account. Both Comcast and SouthWest Airlines Twitter representatives do an excellent job of being a voice for their company, but both do it with personality.
2. Put some time into developing your pages, do not just use the standard every day profile layout that comes with each of these apps. Build your CSS, and images to differentiate yourself and your brand.
3. Acquire friends and followers, I know it is not as easy as it sounds. Ways to do this:
   1. Your companies employees
   2. Personal friends on these different apps
   3. Employees friends
   4. Former co-workers and associates
   5. Vendors or business contacts
   6. Family members if need be
   7. If you have a membership based site, invite your members to communicate with you via these various apps
   8. Your customers, let them know it is a safe place to voice their opinions as well
   9. Geographic target, most of these apps allow for searching other users based upon location
   10. Related groups, look at their membership list and see who fits your users profile, invite them to join your group. Be VERY careful with this though, DO NOT spam people. None of us like getting spammy invitations.
   11. Tell others about these apps, through your newsletter, your website, twitter, on the various apps link to your other social apps.

Ok so now you have your groups, friends & followers, now I bet you are wondering what do I do to entertain them all? In what order? I am going to tell you how I do it, and if this doesn’t work for you, then develop your own system and routine.

New Blog Posts:

1. Post on your Blog
2. Twitter about your blog post – post a link
3. Add the first paragraph of your blog post to your MySpace and Facebook pages, link to your blog to read the rest.
4. Post a link to your blog post on your Ning Page Profile – again with some teaser content.
5. Add the title of the blog post and a few sentence synopsis to your wikipedia page

Forum Postings:

1. FIRST and foremost – NEVER spam a forum with your links – this is the golden rule
2. Spend some time each day, to start, with two to three forums, and read what others are asking and saying.
3. Make sure your personality will fit in with that community before you post
4. Remember most established forums have a hierarchy and if it is a good forum, they will have a “family” sense about them as well
5. Do not butt in and start giving advice immediately
6. Your first post should be an introduction of who you are
7. Establish yourself as someone who wants to participate – DO NOT go overboard with this, otherwise you WILL be seen as creepy
8. Answer questions and give advice where it is fitting, without being very self promoting
9. As you establish yourself as a part of the forums community, trust will be built and you will make “friends” who you will end up joining their social apps and vice versa

I think this is enough to keep you busy for at least a week as of right now, I will add Part two next week…How to interact with your friends and followers…

Affiliate Summit West 2008 – Las Vegas

Rolet Internet Services had our first appearance at Affiliate Summit. And it was Awesome!

Saturday was incredible. We arrived at The Rio shortly after 5pm to our fantastic rooms! They were spacious, and beautiful but missing a very integral part of our lives. No coffee pots. At first we didn’t think this would be to big of a deal as there were two starbucks in the casino. We were WRONG. When your morning ritual revolves around that first cup in the morning, you NEED a coffee pot in your room. Note to self, always ask if there will be a coffee pot in the room…

After settling into our rooms, we hit the IBar for drinks before the Affiliate Dinner. I have been to casinos in Kansas City before, but since this was my first time in Vegas, I really didn’t have any idea of what to expect. The waitresses were very scantly clad. I was sure that our particular server was going to, umm, pop out of her top, that I had to ask her if this had ever occuried. She reassured me that she was taped in there and that there had never been an accident with any of the servers.

Next we attended the Affiliate Dinner, where the theme of the evening was a roast on Brian Littleton, the founder of the ShareaSale affiliate network. (the only network I will run programs on) His employees put together a cute video of him wearing a Donald Duck costume. The best part of the video was the dancing at the end!

After the dinner we decided to go back to the Ibar for a few drinks and networking. We met some really great people while we there and I even got into a fight with a self proclaimed Domain Goddess. That was fun! All in all the first night in Vegas was successful and fun.

Wake up Sunday, need coffee….really really need coffee…shower, dress, makeup, gather all the items we need for our table at the Meet Market, and head down to register and start table set up…..Did I say, I really need coffee???????

After registering, dropping off our materials at our table, we decide we are hungry and head over to the Carnival buffet for breakfast. Yummy crab legs!!!!!! and let me say COFFEE!!!!!!!!

The Meet Market was very successful. For 6 hours our table was full. Having delicious Artiko Chef Yule Log chocolate cake to hand out for free was extremely helpful with that.