Learn SEO | Search Engine Optimization Tips and Techniques

This is an SEO campaign that was very successful. The world of BBQ is full of fanatics and they criss cross the country seeking out bbq festivals and competitions. BBQ-Festivals.com was started a little more than 2 years ago to provide an online community for barbecue fans who compete and for those who just like to go and have fun at these cook offs and the many festivals that take place yearly.

Here are the search return rankings for Google which is where 90 percent of my traffic comes from:

• bbq festivals – number 1
• bbq cookoffs – number 1
• bbq competitions – number 1
• bbq teams – number 2
• bbq associations – number 2
• bbq restaurants – number 10

• barbecue festivals – number 1
• barbecue cookoffs – number 1
• barbecue competitions – number 2
• barbecue associations – number 6
• barbecue restaurants – number 14

There was no magic bullet or super secret software. I used the same techniques for the SEO of this site as I did for TruckerHub.com. ( See “How I Went From 600 to 14 on Google in 100 Days” video )

PS… If you are a barbecue fan and you know of a great barbecue restaurant, a barbecue festival or competition that isn’t on our site, be sure to email that info to us and we will add it.

What are your SEO success stories?

If you have been a follower of JohnChow.com for any length of time you know that Google has slapped John Chow for some of his money making efforts. It appears however that Cuil.com doesn’t have a problem with showing JohnChow.com some love.

Go to Google.com and search “Make Money Online” and JohnChow.com comes up for me at number 55. Do a search for “John Chow” and I can’t even find him.

Cuil.com is a lot nicer to John.  The search “Make Money Online” puts JohnChow.com right there on the front page as does the search for “John Chow”

Apperantly ex-Google employees who started Cuil.com don’t have the problem others at Google had.

PS….don’t do what I did and transpose letters……..  Culi.com is definitely NOT SAFE FOR WORK.

Yes it is possible to have a successful SEO campaign without using social media sites, excessive comments and paid links. If you watch my video “How I Went From 600 to 14 on Google in 100 Days” you won’t hear mention of social media sites such as Digg, Stumbled On or any of the others. I did not leave excessive comments on other blogs, in fact in the case of TruckerHub.com I don’t recall leaving any comments on blogs of that industry. Paid links were not used either unless you call Yahoo Directory, V7N and BOTW paid links. 

Personally I stay away from social networks………  what happens if they go away??? Someday social networks may not be as in vogue as they are today. Good old fashioned natural one way links from other websites that believe your site has something to offer their visitors will always be around.

Quality content on a regular basis and following the basic rules listed here will result in a successful SEO effort.

1. Thou shall not use the same page title more than once

2. Thou shall not stuff your title with keywords

3. Thou shall keep your page title relevant to the page content

4. Thou shall use alt tags on all images and graphics

5. Thou shall not engage in link exchanges with websites outside of your industry

6. Thou shall not engage in three way link schemes or use link farms

7. Thou shall not use duplicate content nor shall thou steal content from other sites

8. Thou shall not use text that is the same color as  your background

9. Thou shall carefully plan the navigation routes of your website

10. Thou shall keep your website current with fresh unique content.

If thou wilt follow these simple commandments, then surely thou shall see your website prosper and move up the search engines.

So let it be written – So let it be done

I got a little curious today about the top bloggers first entries – Yaro Starak, John Chow, Jeremy Schoemaker and Darren Rowse.  It is kind of interesting to see the diversity of each of their first blog postings. I thought is was a great coincidence that Jeremy Schoemaker referenced his first posting today…….

First up was Darren Rowse of ProBlogger.net in  Sept 2004 – The blog title was “Get to the Point” and talked about what length a blog posting should be. This blog started out from day one giving information on how to blog.

Number two was Yaro Starak of Entrepreneurs-Journey in Nov 2004. – The blog evidently had a different name and focus at that time. The blog title was “Welcome to the BetterEdit Blog” and was a record of the growth and changes of BetterEdit.com which sometime along the way was purchased.

In August of 2005 Jeremy Schoemaker arrived on the scene with Shoemoney.com and a simple blog post titled: “Hello World“.

In December 2005 John Chow started rambling at JohnChow.com with his first blog post called “Welcome To The New JohnChow.com”

Blogs provide an interesting snapshot in time of what was on the mind of the writer and what topics they started out with.  What was your first blog post about? Does anyone know who claims to have the first blog? That is something I would like to see. ( maybe it was Al Gore ?????? – after all he did invent the Internet )

( Please note:  I used each blog’s archives to try and determine the first blog posting of each. If they are not correct please forgive me….)