If you really want to get into DMOZ - here’s a tip

Let me start off by saying I’m not a fan of DMOZ at all, I wont go in to details but look at some of my previous posts regarding seo. Anyway, back on topic, to my surprise I have actually had a website listed in DMOZ and it only took a few months. For the past few years I have submitted numerous websites to DMOZ, contacted and had conversations with editors, been told that “data has been lost” or “your website doesn’t have enough good content” - how rude don’t you think?

So out of the array of websites I thought maybe SeoUnique may get the nod or perhaps one of my other 2 year+ domains with a bag load of content would finally get included? No. A website I developed well over a year ago and haven’t touched since the initial build. I won’t say which website in particular it is but all I can say is that is has something to do with take-away menus.

So how did you finally get listed on DMOZ without spending a qwertillion bucks?

Well I can’t take the credit for it as it was actually a method I got from another website and as I actually didn’t think it would work I didn’t bother to take down the address. What I did, exactly:

1. Choose your home region or registered address of business
2. Find a category that is in the same kind of ball park (still under region)
3. Enter nothing but your company name for title and one short sentence describing your business
4. Submit

It was apparently that easy…

I will try with another site and report back in 3 months time but I am really weighing up if its worth my valuable 2 minutes or not.

I have always promoted stumble as much as possible because I do honestly think the traffic good quality. The bounce rates are low, you always receive good friendly reviews and you generally get a good vibe, something that I honestly feel is lacking from Digg, Reddit and other social bookmarking sites.

The second wave

This is from my personal experience, when I initially make a stumble I usually expect to see a traffic range from 100 – 5000, depending on the topic of course. A lot of other people have also seen these kind of figures from a simple click of a button. However a lot of people believe that stumble traffic is a one time affair and dies out pretty quickly, this is not true. There seems to be a “second wave” of stumble traffic that occurs around 40% of the time when my site is stumbled.

This usually happens a week or so after the initial stumble and can produce some good numbers once again. This seems to be cause by a high ranked stumbler giving the thumbs up to one of your submissions. Once again the bounce rates are low and the traffic is again of good quality.

What about after the “second wave”?

Well personally I continue to get between 10 – 100 hits per day on this blog, from various other stumbles made on the site. So to answer the critics, stumble traffic is not a one time affair and is well worth pursuing.

I manage a range of websites in various industries including some personal websites of my own. For clients I follow the basic rules of seo down to a T, as I know from past experience that these methods work best to achieve good SERP positions. Now to my own personal shame I run a website promoting unsigned music for artists and fans.  The website was not designed by me (thank god) and I haven’t even attempted any seo as its a maze of random code and bad practice design. So the Google update happens, and currently I have all the following issues going against the site:

1. The titles and Meta’s are the same throughout the entire site
2. There is a huge flash image at the top of the site (making the initial part of the page unreadable)
3. The site sells advertising space (quite clearly)
4. The url structure is not seo friendly
5. The site architecture is horribly confusing
6. The homepage size is over 75kb in size and takes a while to load
7. Backlinks are not high
8. Anchors for the backlinks are not at all relevant to keywords
9. The site uses Text-Link-Ads
10. Sitemap inaccurate and contains an error in Google webmaster area
11. Very few site updates, although new pages added by users
12. No RSS feed

So with all these seo basic being blatantly ignored I expected a boot in the rear from Google on the update.

WRONG

1. The website has moved from a PR 3 to a PR 4
2. The SERP positions have steadily climbed to a point where I am top 5 of Google for multiple strong keywords in the music industry
3. Traffic has increased to well over 30,000 a month and still climbing
4. No penalty for selling links

So why, after so many reports of good quality seo friendly websites being penalized by Google does this sorry excuse for a site continue to be loved by Google? Who knows, but this isn’t the first time Iv’e looked on Google and see poor “seo” websites maintain high SERP positions. I’m not entirely sure but I will investigate further and see if any pattern emerges. I will continue to use the basics of seo as standard as it helps for site usability as much as anything. If anyone knows of any similar sites, please let me know.

The seo industry is a fast moving, thrill seeking adrenalin roller coaster for die hard search engine junkies. Opinions can change by the hour, discoveries can be made known within minutes and discussions can last months. So who works in this madness we call search engine optimization?

Personally I have worked online for years and specifically in seo in the last few, but I have noticed some of the online attitudes of fellow junkies who like me are after the thrill and excitement. However not everyone in this industry are bunny rabbits and smiles, this is where the seo life cycle comes into effect.

From my experience in real life and online the seo life cycle seems to play out like this:

1. You are born - you learn for the first time that search engine optimization stands for seo.
2. You learn to walk - you read books from the library or articles online, not all of it true but you don’t know any better.
3. You try to run - you think that after a few weeks of reading “John blogs blog” that you now a trained seo engineer and you can do it all.
4. You fall hard and graze your knee – you realise that after changing some titles, Meta keywords and descriptions you are not the all knowing genius you thought you were.
5. You go to school – You start learning about different techniques because your resources online have opened up, you make friends and enemies but start to progress through the ranks of seo skills.
6. You start collage – You know your stuff in seo, you can optimise a page with some varied results, you start to try new things and experiment with unknown substances.
7. You fall in love – You quickly start realising that you are spending way too much time on the internet, checking you “site stats” as much as possible, making sure your website is being fed enough fresh content as possible.
8. You buy a car – You realise you need some capital to start either your very own PPC campaign or you buy into some crazy new “web technology” in the hope of finding the next best thing that can take you to new places. As it’s usually your first purchase it’s never as easy as other people say it is and you usually fail or crash.
9. You get your first full time job – Whether it’s for a digital company or you decide to work for yourself you start a real job in the seo sector. You quickly realise that all the information you’ve learnt in the last few years is only the tip of the iceberg, your theories are quickly dismissed as “fun” and you start back at square one.
10. You get a promotion – After collaborating with like minded seosters you start understanding that seo is so varied and vast that you are never going to know everything. Your “fun” ideas are now recognised as proper methods of seo.
11. You buy a house – Feeling confident in the industry you now work in you start looking at the bigger picture in seo, you become more valuable to the industry and you start looking at “strategies” more that the actual seo itself.
12. You get married – You settle down and get set in your ways. You get in a comfortable position, hand out sound advice and get paid well for it.
13. You have a kid – Your industry requires you to bring in extra workers, people that are of the “new” era, people who can think outside of the box, they are young but they will learn. (sorry star wars fans, just had to)
14. You learn from your kid – Because you have been comfortable in your ways for so long you are reluctant to listen to “possible new seo methods”, you keep up to date with all the latest blogs, if there’s something new on the horizon you would have heard about it first, or would you?
15. You get old – You are a respected individual in the industry but times change and all of a sudden there is a new method or marketing tactic that you have only just started to understand, but 12 million people have understood it before you.
16. You have a decision to make, to die or to be re-born – Not very nice I know but someone or something decides that seo will move in another direction, less emphasis on what you are good at, there is a major shake up, you need to go back in time and start your seo life cycle again.

As seo is a constant moving industry it’s important to stay in touch with “what’s new” in seo. So I have put together a list of list of sites I visit like clockwork, every morning.

1. Seomoz – I recently wrote a blog piece criticizing some of the recent blog posts not being relevant but after a response from the Seomoz team it made me think I rely on their posts a bit too heavily. They do however provide good quality findings and it’s 100% worth 10 minutes of my time in the morning.
2. Sphinn – The social bookmarking website for the seo users and webmasters, providing quality and humorous posts about the seo world and any new developments. If an seo blogger finds something worthwhile within the community you can guarantee it will be on the front page of Sphinn by noon. I can spend up to 30 minutes reading stories on Sphinn.
3. Digital Point – I’ve been a member on this site for quite some time now and it does seem recently that a lot of spammy posts are being created but occasionally you will find some juicy story on there. You might find a nice domain name on the cheap or even a site to buy in your niche. Another 10 minutes of my life every day is spent on this site.
4. Digg – I know the majority of stories on digg are meant for entertainment but again you will find an seo or web related gem, add another 5 minutes to the clock!
5. Matt Cutts – I will check every day to see if there are any new Google developments, spend around 2 minutes perhaps if Matt isn’t too busy.
6. Search Engine Journal – Have some good relationships with key figures in the world of seo, if there’s a new discovery related to a search engine you can guarantee it will be posted within minutes – 2 minutes more (not long left to go in my busy morning)
7. Andy Beard – Nice blog to finish off my hour of seo news in the morning, usually something worthwhile being posted on a daily bases – the final 1 minute.

That’s how I spend each day of the week to keep me up-to-date with seo, I would love to hear some more suggestions to take up more of my valuable time in the morning.

Thanks