Welcome to the end of another week...and another issue of the SEO Chat newsletter! One of the exciting things about this week, of course, if you're into technology, is the Consumer Electronics Show. If, like me, you couldn't make it out to CES in person, don't worry; there has been plenty of coverage of it in the press, especially at eWeek. If you're thinking about a notebook for purchase, you'll want to check out this slide show. The big thing in laptops these days is small, and everyone seems to be climbing on board the netbook bandwagon. But don't take my word for it; click over there yourself!

You'll also want to check out the other articles we published for you this week on SEO Chat. Those of you who blog will definitely want to read our most recent article; we give you an SEO-related checklist for your Blogspot blog. If you're looking for help with your traffic, it's all here. Speaking of traffic help, if you want to rank high in the SERPs (and who doesn't?), you'll definitely want to read the two-part article series we kicked off on Tuesday. Somebody leaked the guidelines used by Google's human quality raters for web sites. Read this, and you'll know what Google is looking for in a quality web site...which should give you a nice edge. On Monday, we finished a two-part review of Yasni, a people search engine based in Germany that just entered the US market.

We know you're looking to expand your SEO education even more, so we've highlighted some of our favorite SEO-related tutorials from Tutorialized. You'll find an excellent assortment of how-to videos on a wide range of technology subjects, not just SEO. And if you want to share your expertise, you'll also find directions for uploading a tutorial of your own.

Another great place to learn about SEO is in our forums. You can gather a lot of information by reading answers to other members' questions, to say nothing of what you learn when you ask your own. The question asked in the thread we're highlighting this week concerns the issue of doing SEO for your website yourself or hiring a professional. Be sure to stop by the thread and share your experiences!

Finally, in our Spotlight, just for readers of our newsletter, we discuss some serious changes on the horizon for the way we do SEO. Yes, Google seems to be changing its algorithm yet again and at least one observer thinks these changes could spell the end for matters such as where your page ranks. Could it be true? Or are there some things that will never change? Scroll down to the Spotlight to find out.

As always, thanks for reading.

Until next time,
SEO Chat Staff

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So you started a blog on Blogspot, but you are not seeing the level of traffic for which you had hoped. Are you going to have to give up your dreams of blogging for a living, or at least making a nice side income from your writing? Maybe not. This article will show you a few ways to improve your visibility in the search engines, and hopefully your traffic.

You can easily get a blog from www(dot)blogger(dot)com, popularly known as "Blogspot." It is the most famous blogging platform. No wonder most blogs are using the Google blogger platform; it is very easy to set up and free!

With a free account comes one weakness, however: the default blogger is highly unfriendly to search engines. If you are a blogger reading this article, it will help you to address the SEO issues of your blogs. Being highly unfriendly to search engines means low ranking = low traffic = low blog income.

Read Blogspot SEO Checklist: The Practical Way to Improve Rankings

Google`s Quality Rater Guidelines Leaked
by Ivan Strouchliak
2009-01-13

Someone at Google has leaked quality rater guidelines. The document is full of information that is highly desirable to anyone trying to rank a site high in Google results pages. This article will take a close look at the guidelines and cull the most important points for your use.

The document circulated on private forums but was made public by Search Engine Land.

Download leaked Google quality rater guidelines (44 pages)

This document details how Google quality raters score pages, treat spam and classify search queries. It has screen shots of Google "raters hubs" and forums, some of which we will feature here.

This is a review of the most crucial and useful points from this document. If you are in the SEO game I highly recommend that you download this file, put it into a safe place and read it at your own pace.

Read Google`s Quality Rater Guidelines Leaked

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Consider the bar raised

Last week I introduced you to Yasni, which bills itself as the most popular people search engine in the world. It offers some good figures to back up that claim. It is based in Germany; is it ready for a US audience? Is it worth registering to use? That is what we are about to find out.

We left off last time with my registering with Yasni by giving them my name and email address, and clicking on a link in an email to confirm. That is hardly enough to create a profile. There is an option on the home page when I am logged in now for me to extend my profile, and I will do that in a bit. Right now, since my lack of knowledge of the German language kept me from using Yasni before I became a registered user (and thus got access to the English version of the web site), I am going to show you what Yasni returns when you do a people search. Hint: it may actually be worth the effort to register.

To give you a better appreciation of how much you get, I am going to show you a full screen shot, and then close-ups of some of the important sections, with explanations. Keep in mind, I was not able to include the portions you would have to scroll down to see; Yasni gives you long pages when it delivers results. So here is what I got when I entered Judith Bemis, the name of a close friend of mine:

Read Yasni Puts the People in People Search

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If you're a web site owner, should you do your own SEO or hire a professional? That question comes up often in our forums, and the answer depends on many factors. Here's the latest iteration. Be sure to stop by the forums and share your opinion!

DIY or Outsource SEO?

I'm starting up a new business in the UK and the website is going to be my main communication tool with potential customers.

It's going to be a site similar to travel agents (only for stag and hen nights or weekends), hopefully with a 'build your own' capability.

Anyway, I'm wondering whether I should attempt the SEO myself (I've been doing it for the company I work for, mainly through link building, directory submission, search engine submission, adding links from forums/blogs, social networking and on-page optimization) or hire an SEO professional to do it.

Is there much more that can be done legitimately or without my SERP suffering?

I obviously want the site to be listed near the top of the first page, first for when the word Scotland is included, and then for the whole of the UK for several key phrases.

What are my best bets?

Like most business questions it boils down to two specific things: ROI and opportunity cost.

Thus you are the only person capable of answering your own question. An experienced SEO will probably cost you a minimum of around $10,000 to capture a specific market (ballpark figure). Is this the best way you can spend that money? Will the estimated return if you capture the market make the investment worthwhile? What else can you do with that money? What else can you do with the time it would take you to do it yourself?

Without knowing anything about you, your market, your skills, you resources, your competition, your ability to learn, etc., I don't think you are likely to get the answer here.

Best of luck...

Hi Ryan,

Being a Scottish web company I may be better able to advise:

Only 188,000 competitors for "stag parties Scotland" and only 54 inbound links needed for first page results.

Clearly, do it yourself.

Follow all your own advice PLUS add content, LOADS of it. Maximize you number of pages. Target the long tail.

Hope this helps.

Posts from this thread may have been abridged or removed. Forum members are responsible for the content of these posts.
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Page Ranking: Not Quite Dead Yet?

Back in mid-December, Randy Eagar published an article titled Page Ranking is Dead. The gist of it was that Google is making some sweeping changes to its algorithm that will drastically alter the way SEO should best be done. Among other things, it said that Google would be looking more closely at the user's experience within your site, taking into account factors one can discover through site analytics: bounce rates, what content users interact with, and so on.

Eagar also said that Google would be taking a look at the type of content you provide for your visitors (such as videos), where you are located based on your IP, and so on. Google will be taking a closer look at the user's intentions when they search, making every search experience more personalized. What this means, in theory, is that no two users will have the same search experience; therefore, where you rank for certain keywords will actually vary from user to user. So your rank in the SERPs will not be meaningful anymore; the only things that will matter are the number of visitors you attract, your conversion rate, and the variety of content you offer your visitors.

As you may expect, the article caused quite a bit of comment in our forums, especially with its conclusion that page ranking and by implication, a certain major way of doing SEO is dead. Forum gadfly fathom noted that Some day the gas combustion engine will be found only in museums...I'm sure SEO will have the same fate...but likely not in our lifetime in either instance. Respected forum member EGOL simply noted that the changes coming will actually make things better for those who build good sites while making it harder for low-skill SEOs to earn a living.

They're both right, of course. There are some consistent factors I've seen in the few years I've been covering the SEO industry, and in the longer time I've been covering the Internet and technology in general. The biggest, of course, is change; that will always be with us. But the most important one is the need to give quality to your customers. Those who build web sites with the real wants and needs of their site visitors foremost in mind, will always do better than those who do not. Whenever Google revises its algorithm, it does so with one goal in mind: helping the searcher find the quality web sites they want.

Building good web sites keeps getting easier which means that building a truly outstanding web site keeps getting harder, because the bar keeps rising. But the main goal remains the same: give your users the content they want, in whatever format they want. Do that, and you've taken a good first step. Keep it up, and you may never have to worry about becoming obsolete or lost among the searches. Good luck!

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