1. Is your website text too complicated for your website visitors?

Are you sure that your website visitors understand the text on your web pages? If your web pages are difficult to understand, you might not earn as much as you could with your website. The readability of your web pages influences your sales Many websites use technical language that is very difficult to understand for the average web surfer. In addition, some webmasters like long and complicated sentences. Long and complicated sentences are not a sign of professionalism. They just show that the author of the sentences doesn't care about the readers. The more complicated the text on your web pages, the more likely it is that a web surfer leaves your website. Web surfers are impatient people. If they have to labor to understand your web pages, web surfers will go away to find an easier site than yours. How to check the readability of your web pages There is an official standard that you can use to specify the readability of your web pages. The Flesch Reading Ease test is a United States governmental standard to determine how easy a text is to read. It measures the approximate level of education necessary to understand the web page content. Higher scores indicate that the text is easier to read, and lower numbers mark harder-to-read texts. You can use IBP's Top 10 Optimizer to check the readability of your web pages. In addition to many other factors, IBP calculates both the Flesch Reading Ease Score and the Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level. A high Reading Easy Score means that a text is easy to understand. The Grade Level shows the number of years of education that are required to understand the text. Make sure that your web pages are easy to understand. Do not require too much work from your website visitors. Make it easy to understand your web pages, make it easy to navigate them, make it easy to buy on your website. The easier your website is to use, the more you will sell.

2. Search engine news of the week

Google releases a robots.txt generator "[Google's generator] is designed to give you an easy and interactive way to build a robots.txt file. It can be as simple as entering the files and directories you don't want crawled by any robots." Google uses massive amounts of data to combat fraud "Fraudsters know that clicking on a certain ad will create anomalies in the data that will trigger further investigation of their IP addresses, methods, or the targeting of a particular advertiser's ads. So they try to 'even out' the anomalies by creating more impressions to balance out the clicks, and other attempts to make the fraud seem more 'real.' But all this does is dig them in deeper, creating other anomalies." Will you be sued over your ad copy usage? "There are ads running on Google right now using the exact trademarked term. In fact, a substantial number of ads use various trademarked terms. From the people I talk to, the vast majority of them rely on Google to tell them which words they should not use. This case could set a dangerous precedent of advertiser suing advertiser and ignoring Google's trademark complaint process." Search engine newslets The IBP manual is now available in Spanish. Google Calendar outages anger users. Google's Asian homepages. Google still doesn't know where to place related searches. Google throws $1M at Comsenz to dominate Chinese market. Google ad viewership up 3 pct on comScore.

3. Articles of the week

Where do people go after visiting Wikipedia? "Wikipedia ranked as the 13th most visited website in the US last week, accounting for about 1 in every 200 US Internet visits. The website is hugely popular and with so much traffic going through the site, it is important to think about where all that traffic goes." Google: No kids allowed "Google's terms of service, while ignored by the vast majority of users, contain a pretty shocking clause: Under 18's are not permitted to use any of Google's Web properties. That's right, kids--no search, YouTube, Gmail, news, or images." Google's Gamble "Can fewer clicks on its search ads lead to more revenue for Google? That is the question investors, analysts, and the company itself are trying to answer."

4. Success stories

"Results took only a couple of weeks and sales continue to increase." "I have found IBP an important part of our web promotion strategy. Our focus is on customer service and I do not like to spend a great deal of time with web promotion. IBP has helped tremendously with this. Time has been saved AND improved results noted for all of our sites, particularly our main site. As a non-computer expert, it was surprisingly easy to use and apply. Results took only a couple of weeks and sales continue to increase. My company, Orman Institute for Active Wellness is sold on this software for the life of the company." Dr. David Orman, hghplus.net

Stop trying to get a link from everything and start adding something of value to anything and you’ll be way ahead in the online marketing game. <<<<<< quote for the day

The year was 2002 and in just the previous 12 months or so Google had become the global SEO obsession. Every update from shift to shineola was affectionately given a pet name like it was some webmasters first car. Mine was named Shasta. Shasta have gas, Shasta have oil, Shasta have tires, Shasta have lights, new seat covers, horn, turn signals, -----

All of sudden Yahoo’s directory listing stopped being the holy grail of traffic generators and now webmasters couldn’t click fast enough to download the Google toolbar and start tracking EVERYBODY’s PR. Handing over info you wouldn’t disclose to your mother about every site you worked on when and how seemed a cheap price to get to dance at the Google Linkers Ball.

I wasn’t the first guy to pimp link love but I did pretty much give birth to a cottage industry of link brokers, fantomaster.com. A few savvy serp jockeys had already been selling it, buying it, trading it and living off of it when a lawsuit was just a glimmer in the eye of this litigious linkdemon, but I became as blinded by the green bar as anyone and saw it as a way to raise desperately needed capital when I read a post on webmasterworld, ( http://www.webmasterworld.com), by fellow Old Fart SEO, Brett Tabke,(http://www.searchnengineland.com) assserting that a link from a PR 8 site was worth a quarter of a million bucks, http://searchenginewatch.com/showPage.html?page=2165111).

Yowza! That’s enough to make anyone a believer!

Back then, one link from a PR 9 brought your site to a PR8 within 2-4 weeks tops. A 6 gave you a 5 and an index page with a 5 gave almost all your interior pages a 4. Easy peasy. Algo busting wasn’t too tough because it wasn’t hard to figure out that in the serps, a 9 beat an 8 and an 8 beat a 7 and so forth. Man, the PR gold rush was on!

Well, it didn’t take long to see that the complexity bar had to be raised before every porn, pills and casino site had a PR 9. And rise it did. That coupled with the FUD being propagated and paid for by Google in various forms including, but not limited to, the legal bitch slapping given to yours truly, it did little else other than to increase demand. So I guess I can’t actually claim that I started the link brokering cottage industry. Google did a much better job of promoting the value in that industry than I ever did.

That was over 5 years ago. I was just a pup back then. Young, dumb and full of people willing to pay $800 for a single link from a PR8, (for some crazy reason, they’re still out there).

That was then, this is now.

When I’m hired by clients, they’re the boss. I never argue or even try to change their minds unless they specifically ask for my advice. I assume these are intelligent businessmen, (or they wouldn’t be calling me right?), and they know what they want. If a client pays me to secure a PR 8, then I do my best to secure a PR 8. However, due to my experience and my ability to articulate the intricacies of premium organic search engine placement, most clients simply want increased visibility and traffic and are happy to let me select the best way to achieve that.

Chasing and paying for links just because they have a high page rank is NOT the way to increase visibility in the organic results anymore. Well maybe I need to re-state that because links, virtually all links, do have some value. Maybe a more accurate statement would be,” chasing and paying for links just because they have a high page rank is NOT a smart investment of time or money”.

I’d like to offer a little collateral evidence for the purpose of illustration. While the evidence I offer here may be only circumstantial, it is certainly more substantiative than pure conjecture and mere opinion stated as fact which makes it considerably unique.

A PR 9 Link for Everyone with $1500 Cash

Back in 2002 one of the first PR9 sites to jump on the hey-we-can-make-a-boatload-of-money-fast-off-our-page-rank bandwagon was a site that to this day has some 2,700,000 inbound links. Link pimps lined up to gladly pay $1500 a month for every 3 -5 word text link they could peddle. Within 60 days, this site had over 300 completely, totally, glaringly obvious, take-anyone’s-money-who’ll-pay-us text links enhancing the quality of this popular site.

It ran the gamut of morally motivated editorial review from A to B. There were no links with any of the 7 words you can’t say on TV, (http://www.lyricsbox.com/george-carlin-lyrics-the-seven-words-you-can-never-say-on-tv-268qwb7.html), but outside of that, it looked like pretty much anyone with 1500 bucks passed this crews censoring policies.

I’m referring to a site anyone in this biz as long as I’ve been, (if there is such an animal), would recognize from WMW. I’m talking about Wunderground! http://www.wunderground.com

Today it sits at a lowly PR 5, (which pretty much illustrates the usefulness of todays’ toolbar PR with the 2,700,000 inbounds it has), which even after all the SEO bitching and bashing discussions seems to still be high enough to generate revenue from some 30+ ROS text links. These are of course much more relevant to the theme of checking global weather conditions than they used to be back then. Such as the plastic surgery ads because of course if you are going to the Bahamas you may wish to take some new tits with you. I can see that.

All the vacation and travel stuff makes sense too as does the internet service providers and the VoIP ad ------ I gueeeessssss they are targeting people who are preparing to travel to the Amazon and may want some new fangled mobile technologies to take with them as they paddle a log dugout into the rain forest. Sure I can see that.

But I struggled a little with the bankruptcy attorney ads and the tax preparation stuff until it dawned on me that someone may be wanting to skip the country without paying their taxes or ex-wife and while checking the weather predictions in Costa Rica why not give them an opportunity to check out some good deals on financial services. Yeah, that’s it. That’s the ticket. Targeted ads, yeah.

Well, it doesn’t work like it used to. Today, you can check all the text links off the page and struggle to find a PR 4 from the juice being squeezed out of the pr5 of the wunderlink. PLUS I took a few of those sites at random and they must all be getting good traffic from such targeted placement because I didn’t find a single one in the top 10 for a search for the anchor text of the links to justify paying for the link.

I didn’t check them all and you’re free to check for yourself but I checked enough that I’m convinced whether you are or not, that was then and this is now and it’s a whole new ballgame being played in the old link stadium today.

The dirt Guru, get to the dirt!

Nowadays, blog posts and authorities sites will rarely give links to ANYBODY because links are now internet gold. Emailing reciprocal link requests nets about one link from spam sites for every 30,000 emails, so what's a webmaster supposed to do? If directories have been devalued, article directories are busted and we can’t buy text links unless they have a no follow tag what's left?

The answer is so simple you are going to hate it. You are going to struggle hard to resist accepting that improved serp positions could be so easy. But it is.

I’m going to tell you now EXACTLY how I have trained my staff to get virtually any keyword target to move up fast and dramatically.

I wrote a blog post recently titled

Squeezing The Juice Out Of The Low-Hanging Fruit

In that post I said:

As long as a web page, any web page, is being spidered, given sufficient time and motivation, I can generate CONVERTING TRAFFIC to a target web page for ANY keyword or phrase with nothing more than search engine placement. WITHOUT PAYING FOR LINKS!

In that article I wrote that nothing I did you could not do as well. Mind you I did not say you will rank #1 for hosting or home based business. If that is what you think I said and you intend now to run out and get rich from ranking top 5 for hosting there is only one conclusion I can make with one of two possible outcomes.

Either you’re an idiot and you are going to get your ass kicked and lose a lot of money until you quit

OR

You’re an idiot and you are going to get your ass kicked and lose a lot of money until you learn what you’re doing.

I said I could generate converting traffic without paying for links and so can you!

Today I’m going to give you the secret which like most things SEO is really no secret at all. It's just work.

It involves nothing more than accepting two broad concepts, a simple procedure and a guiding philosophy.

Concept #1 – Personal Rank

Page Rank has long ago shifted more to trust rank and now we are seeing it shift to personal rank. What that means, in a very broad sense, is that a link from Mrs. Consumer on her favorite forum or among her circle of friends wherever she hangs out can move a specific url for a specific term faster and farther than a high PR link from an authority site for specific people searching for specific terms.

You still want those authority links because it is in the process of changing but authority links still carry a lot of weight. It’s just that they are getting so difficult to get that sometimes just getting them can attract suspicion. They are getting so difficult to get that getting them is in itself a little unnatural.

Try to think like a search engine for a moment. Why would a 7 year old authority site with a PR 7 give a link to a site that is less than a year old with a PR 2? Maybe it’s perfectly 2 legit 2 quit but maybe it’s worth taking a look. See what I mean?

So how do get Mrs. Consumer to give you that link? Well, I don’t mind telling you where I think the gold is but you’ll have to do your own digging. BUT, it is no more difficult than it was getting those links from an authority site last year and the year before.

Concept #2. - Eliminate the Toolbar

The little green bar means noting in terms of placements or in terms of establishing value for a website’s juice. Plus the fewer people you tell about where, when and how you get your links the better off YOU are.

I make sure that when my people start a linking campaign, (without specific instructions from the client and even then it is only a select few top people who undertake those tasks), I take extra steps to make sure that they do it without benefit of toolbar.

I realize this is a tough one but it really is important enough that you should try it at least on a few links. Remember the toolbar doesn’t tell you anything about context, bad neighborhoods or whether the target site has any placements. You’re used to looking for that kind of stuff without the toolbar anyway, or at least you should be unless you’re one of those people still willing to pay big money just to get a link from a PR 8.

Finally, to discount any page just because it has a PR 0 or even an N/A is a mistake. I look at probably a thousand searches/webpages a week and have for a LOT of years and I can guarantee you that a link on a page with a PR0 that makes sense for your link to be there, can move your page up in the organic results. If you are stressing out over whether this page is linked to a bad neighborhood or is passing PR, then you are not putting your time and efforts to the best use. For one thing, almost EVERY site has links to something somebody wouldn't like. I know, I've looked. And for another thing if the page looks and feels like spam crap then it doesn't make sense for your link to be there in the first place and you're already blowing it.

Procedure – Keyword Plus

We’ve come to the part you’re really going to hate. It is so simple it’s hard to accept that it works so well.

If you are like most people you’re just trying to get a break and run your business. You have read and followed so much advice from so many posts and threads and tweets and diggs and stumbles and crapnoratti that you have downloaded, uploaded, autogenerated submissions to 40,000 directories and paid for classified blasters, forum bombs, blog busters and joined networks, web rings, friends dingers, power pingers, traffic masters, marketing maidens, co-op builders, PR networks and friends helping friends until you have forgotten to just slow down and think for yourself.

All of that stuff has been done to death and if you’ve done it and you’re not getting any traffic, then do us all a huge favor and try something else for a change.

Go to any search engine you like and type in your keyword + directory

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=educational+toys+%2B+directory&btnG=Search

There is 464,000 pretty good shots at getting a link that will move your site up in the Serps for that term

(at least for some people)

or keyword + article submission

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=leather+furniture+%2B+article+submissions&btnG=Search

There is 151,000 pretty good places to look for a link

Or Keyword + forum

570,000 hot spots.

I could go on but I’m guessing you get the point.

I bet you’re saying DUH! We all know that Guru.

Ok, fine so you already knew that huh? If you were happy with your placements, you wouldn’t be reading Ask the SEO Guru blog now would you?

Kids you don’t have to believe me but I’m telling you the truth, stop trying to get a link from everything and start submitting something of value to anything and you’ll be way ahead of the game.

And now to the final piece of the entire puzzle. The Guiding Philosophy that brings it all together.

Guiding Philosophy – – Put Your Link Where it Makes the Most Sense for the Most People

When do other people WANT to accept your link request, publish your article, run your press release or accept your submission?

When it does something for them.

Either it makes them money, saves them time, provides added value to their visitors or they believe it makes them look good or smart or benevolent to their visitors, their peers, their friends, their relatives, to the search engines, award sites or just about anyone that can make them a buck or stroke their ego.

So, the absolute best chance you have of getting that link is to cover as many of those bases as possible at the same time. When you can satisfy some need, want or desire of the webmaster, the visitor to the hosting site and it makes the search engine look smart, BINGO. You just hit the SERP buster hat trick!

Hitting any one of the bulls’ eyes will usually do the trick. Hitting two out of three will bring you double the response from just hitting one and hitting the hat trick can bring close to 90% success.

Don’t take my word for it. Try it yourself and THEN tell me I’m wrong. The next time you get ready to hit the button on another 500 “personalized” emails all saying, “I’ve been to your site {insert url here}, stop and take just the first one and THINK about what you could say that would illustrate real value to THEM if they placed your link. If you find even one real benefit to them,(assuming they even open your email of course), you will start seeing about a one out of 4 success ratio as opposed to 1 out of 4000 {insert url here} emails .

Take the exact same approach when you submit to directories, or submit articles, or any other technique you choose to use to secure links. The site giving you the link wins, the visitor to the hosting site wins and the search engines win by looking smart. But the big winner is YOU!

You’ll get the most links by slowing down and thinking of ways to give the most value to the most people every time.

Related suggested reading.

Thanks to Ann Smarty of Search Engine Journal for the inspiration. She’s one smart cookie. Hey, I just got that one.

http://www.searchenginejournal.com/natural-seo-reciprocal-linking-and-interlinking/6533/

Stoney DeGeyter get the Guru's viote for blog post of the week! Good job SG preach on brother.

http://www.searchengineguide.com/stoney-degeyter/think-beyond-the-link-how-exposure-build.php

SEObook is always a safe bet but ironically enough, this just got posted yesterday.

http://www.seobook.com/personalized-free-professional-help

Debra Mastalers post here
http://community.seobook.com/link-building/538-tnx-net-whats-your-opinion.html

NOTE
{you may have to be a member to read the community.seobook.com page. If you're not already a member you should come join us. It's well worth the investment because that's where we tell you the REALLY good stuff !}

Is your website nowhere to be seen in Google? It might be that Google doesn't like your website because it looks like spam.

Check the following list to find out whether your website might look like spam or not.

1. Domain name factors that can indicate a spammy website:

The domain names of spammy websites are often very long and contain many hyphens. Those domain names often contain commercial high value keywords (the keywords for which you receive lots of spam messages that we don't want to mention here).

Spammy domains are often registered by people who own a very large number of domains. The more domains a person owns, the more likely it is that the quality of a single domain isn't high. Spammy domains are often very young and have a short registration period. Low quality domains also often use .info, .cc, .us and other cheap top level domains.

Spammy websites often have many keyword-stuffed sub domains.

2. Content factors that can indicate a spammy website:

Spammy websites often show very many ads. They also often contain high-commercial keywords. The keyword density and the keyword frequency on low quality websites is often very high.

Spammy websites often have duplicate content and content scraped from other websites. Low quality websites usually don't have unique content.

Low quality websites usually don't contain a privacy policy, a copyright notice page and "Contact us" page with a full address.

3. Link factors that can indicate a spammy website:

Spammy websites often have many links to other spam and low quality websites. Low quality websites aren't likely to have links from trusted sites.

4. Technical factors that can indicate a spammy website:

Spammy website often use redirects (JavaScript, MetaRefresh, etc.) from landing pages. Spammy websites also often use cloaking. Of course, other spam elements such as hidden text also cause problems with search engines.

If your website uses many of the elements mentioned above then it could be classified as spam. In that case, you should consider a redesign of your website.

Search engines will regard your website as a high quality website if it has high quality links and useful content that can easily be parsed by search engines. Avoid everything that could look like spam and make sure that your web pages contain the right keywords in the right elements in the right density.

2. Search engine news of the week

A new tool from Google alarms sites "[Google] introduced a search-within-search feature that lets users stay on Google to find pages on popular sites [...] The problem [...] is that when someone enters a term into that secondary search box, Google will display ads for competing sites, thereby profiting from ads it sells against the brand." Google adjusts search box for longer search queries "If you entered long queries in a Google search box, you would notice that it's difficult to edit them because Google optimized the size of the box for short queries. Things have changed and now you can [enter] much bigger queries and Google will adjust the search box's size after you perform a search." Google is testing autocomplete feature in default search Google is testing Google Suggest like features on Google.com on some users. This feature is already implemented as a default on other non-U.S. based Google home pages. Both Yahoo and Ask.com already offer search suggestions as you type. Search engine newslets Is Twitter the new Google alternative? Google AdWords: demographic bidding now available. Court: use of trademark in AdWords copy is an infringement. Add videos to your Google Local Business Center profile. Google wants TV 'white space' for Wi-Fi Spectrum auction: Google wins by losing. Yahoo Local full of affiliate spam. LinkedIn adds company directory. Search engine Retrevo closes $8M financing. MetaCarta GeoSearch News is a new geographic news search engine. Quaero gets off the ground to challenge Google.

3. Articles of the week

Where's search heading? Ask Yahoo's chief scientist

"For the past 10 years, most search engines have relied heavily on analyzing anchor text, links, and content to determine relevance, he said. Recently, research by the top search engines has looked at other signals, such as user clicks and engagement [...]"

What Google could do to stop negative SEO

"Perhaps you've heard about 'Negative SEO' or 'Google bowling,' where your competitors use spam techniques seemingly on your behalf to knock down your site. [...] Google has choices and we need to scream that they make some better ones."

Microsoft & Yahoo: would teaming up even help?

"In February 2008 both Microsoft and Yahoo lost ground to Google, who continues to widen its lead. [...] Based on the latest comScore results, Yahoo doesn't look like Microsoft's silver bullet in the battle against Google."

Search engine news of the week

Check Wikipedia traffic statistics
Wikipedia now enables you to check the traffic of Wikipedia pages. That allows you to get an idea of how many visitors you'd get if your website was #1 on Google.
For example, the Wikipedia page for "Asia" is the first result on Google for the keyword "asia". According to the traffic check the Asia page gets about 6,500 visitors per day.

Searchme: a new visual search engine
"Sequoia Capital, which has been a key investor of search giant Google (GOOG), as well as Yahoo, will unveil its latest investment in search, a visual search engine called: Searchme.
Searchme does look good, resembling a mashup of Google with Apple's popular Cover Flow three-dimensional graphical user interface used on its iTunes service, with a little of Ask.com’s categories thrown in."

Google to unveil a new ad service for web publishers
"Google Inc. plans to announce a new service that Web publishers can use to manage their online ad sales and serve up ads each time a consumer pulls up a Web page."
Search engine newslets

Yahoo acquires Israeli Foxytunes.
Vivisimo raises $4 million for Enterprise Search.
Google makes DoubleClick employees apply to keep their jobs.
Imagine there's a MicroHoo (it’s easy if you try).
Yahoo to move European headquarters to Switzerland.
AOL acquires social network Bebo.
Guilty until proven innocent.
Google Sky is now available for web browsers.

Articles of the week

Eric Schmidt: MicroHoo deal could 'break' the Internet
"In what has to be one of the weirdest Q&As we've read in a long time, Google CEO Eric Schmidt tells Portfolio's Russ Mitchell that a Microsoft-Yahoo deal could 'break the internet.' Was he kidding? Apparently not."
Related: Microsoft, Yahoo execs finally meet, Yahoo showing signs of life, albeit too late
Google Ad Manager: It’s bigger than it looks

"Google Ad Manager is one critical piece in creating the open network of networks where any site can take any ad and any marketer can advertise on any site. When that day arrives, we all become atoms that can attract to one molecule or another, no longer locked into one network."
Related: OpenX vs Google Ad Manager, Google’s Trojan Horse: let the free ad serving begin
The price of coddling Google - how Yahoo lost its way

"Almost eight years ago, Yahoo decided to lend a little start-up a helping hand, featuring its search technology on the Yahoo home page and giving it money at a critical juncture. [...]
The start-up was Google, and Yahoo's generosity helped launch the most formidable competitor it had ever encountered."

If you find that your per click prices are going through the roof while your conversions are going down you should check your AdWords strategy.
In addition to the keywords that you choose for your campaign, your landing pages are a very important factor. The landing pages that you use with your pay per click ads greatly influence both your conversions and the per click prices.
The following two strategies are often a quick fix for underperforming AdWords campaigns:
1. Optimize your landing pages for your visitors
Attracting customers to your website through Google AdWords is one thing. It is a completely different thing to persuade visitors to your website to fulfill the goal of your landing page, e.g. to buy your product.
Google AdWords cost you money as soon as a potential customer clicks on your AdWords ad. It makes no difference whether your destination URL is up or not, or whether the potential customer leaves your website prematurely because it loads too slowly.
If you want conversions, your landing page must have a clearly defined goal. It must guide the visitor and it must contain a clear call to action. Your website visitors must be able to see within seconds what's in for them when they visit your website.
2. Optimize your landing pages for Google's spider
Google uses the Quality Score to determine the position and the cost of an ad. If possible, include the text of the AdWords ad and the most important keywords on your landing page.
It often helps to optimize the landing page for the keywords with the highest click through rate (CTR). A web page that can get high rankings in the organic search results will also get a high Quality Score for that keyword.
Google's Quality Score also includes other factors. Actually, Google uses four different Quality Scores to determine when and how ads are displayed.
Using tightly themed ad groups with related landing pages is the first step to get better results with Google AdWords.
Further information on how to find the best keywords for PPC, how to save weak campaigns, how to write successful ads, how to write successful landing pages, how to improve the Quality Score, an explanation of Google's different Quality Scores, information on which websites will always get a poor Quality Score and more can be found in our AdWords eBook.

If you find that your per click prices are going through the roof while your conversions are going down you should check your AdWords strategy.
In addition to the keywords that you choose for your campaign, your landing pages are a very important factor. The landing pages that you use with your pay per click ads greatly influence both your conversions and the per click prices.
The following two strategies are often a quick fix for underperforming AdWords campaigns:

1. Optimize your landing pages for your visitors
Attracting customers to your website through Google AdWords is one thing. It is a completely different thing to persuade visitors to your website to fulfill the goal of your landing page, e.g. to buy your product.
Google AdWords cost you money as soon as a potential customer clicks on your AdWords ad. It makes no difference whether your destination URL is up or not, or whether the potential customer leaves your website prematurely because it loads too slowly.
If you want conversions, your landing page must have a clearly defined goal. It must guide the visitor and it must contain a clear call to action. Your website visitors must be able to see within seconds what's in for them when they visit your website.

2. Optimize your landing pages for Google's spider
Google uses the Quality Score to determine the position and the cost of an ad. If possible, include the text of the AdWords ad and the most important keywords on your landing page.
It often helps to optimize the landing page for the keywords with the highest click through rate (CTR). A web page that can get high rankings in the organic search results will also get a high Quality Score for that keyword.
Google's Quality Score also includes other factors. Actually, Google uses four different Quality Scores to determine when and how ads are displayed.
Using tightly themed ad groups with related landing pages is the first step to get better results with Google AdWords.
Further information on how to find the best keywords for PPC, how to save weak campaigns, how to write successful ads, how to write successful landing pages, how to improve the Quality Score, an explanation of Google's different Quality Scores, information on which websites will always get a poor Quality Score and more can be found in our AdWords eBook.

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• A List SEO Blog - This past restaurant industry veteran turned black hat SEO, Mark Laymon, writes uniquely about his approach to SEO, linking and marketing online.
• All Things SEM - Marios Alexandrou titles his blog All things SEM and you’ll see when visiting it’s very much about SEO with posts ranging from the latest updates on Google to Black Hat SEO.
• Altogether Digital - A group blog from the team at London based search marketing agency Altogether, which is a result of the merging of eyefall, DC Interact & Meme, blogs about SEO, PPC and affiliate marketing.
• Amplify Interactive Blog - Ben Lloyd, Christian Bullock and Kristin Wall write about fundamental search marketing tips, SEO, PPC as well as industry events.
• Andrew RH Girdwood - A self titled blog and self described blogger, “digital marketing, search, gaming geek” works for a SEM agency and blogs about Google, SEO, social media and many other SEM related topics.
• Andy Beard - Lives in Poland, runs his business from the UK and blogs about the search industry, blogging, niche and affiliate marketing.
• An Internet Consultant Speaks -Scott Hendison covers a range of topics rooted in SEO but including general web marketing topics to PR to blog marketing tactics.
• Apogee Weblog - Richard Ball of Apogee Web Consulting blogs about search engine marketing, small business growth, web analytics and pixel advertising.
• Apple Pie & Custard - UK based Kelvin Newman, Eloi Casali and Damon Lightley from Site Visibility blog personal and professional insights into SEM, social media and PPC.
• Ask.com Blog - Official blog for Ask.com
• Ask Kalena - Kalena Jordan offers search engine tips and advice.
• Ask the SEO Guru - Bob Massa of SearchKing fame spells it out for you in plain English with comments like, “I don’t do SEO. I do online business development, with traffic generation being one part of that” and content like, “The Basic Concepts of SEO“.
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• Baron VC - Sam Baron writes about social media.
• Beanstalk SEO Blog - Dave Davies blogs about news in the search engine and online marketing industry.
• Beginning SEO Podcast - David Brown and Brian Mark do a podcast talking about the fundamentals of search engine optimization.
• Beyond the Paid - Melissa Mackey who is a Search Marketing Director for MagazineLine and recent winner of a free pass to Search Marketing Expo blogs about search engine marketing.
• BIG marketing for small business - Rajan Sodhi’s fairly new blog on common and uncommon marketing tactics for small businesses.
• Big OAK SEO blog - Shell Harris blogs about all angels of SEO.
• Bill Hartzer - Bill has redone his site and blogs about a wide variety of topics ranging from the search marketing industry to linking to monetizing web site content.
• Billy’s Blog - Billy works at Widemile in Seattle and blogs a lot on the topic of landing page optimization, a/b testing and multivariate testing.
• Biznology - IBM Distinguished Engineer Mike Moran’s blog on search.
• Blizzard Internet Marketing - Group blog and newsletter from the team at Blizzard Internet Marketing.
• Blogation - David Z. Hawk provides unique tips on Google AdWords, Yahoo Search Marketing and affiliate marketing.
• BloggerDesign - Thomas McMahon’s blog (aka TwisterMC) on blog design, usability and marketing.
• BlogStorm - Popular UK blogger Patrick Altoft offers an abundance of tips on internet marketing and SEO.
• BoogyBonBon - Levi, founder of WordZe blogs about making money online and the MyGen simple site generator.
• BPWrap - Barry Welford’s blog about internet marketing.
• Brian Chappell - As a SEM and link building specialist, Brian posts tips, videos, reviews and plenty of Google inspired insights.
• Brian White - Googler on the search spam team blogs personal interests, but mostly Google. Think the Google spam team doesn’t know about the latest paid link schemes? Guess again.
• Britopian - Michael Brito, formerly with HP and now with Yahoo, writes about social media and marketing online.
• Bruce Clay Blog - Lisa Barone performs her blog magic covering the search marketing industry.
• BUMPzee SEO/SEM Community - An interesting community that aggregates the blog RSS feeds of it’s members. In a way, this acts like an aggregator or RSS mashup.
• BusinessOnLine Blog - Ray “Catfish” Comstock and Benj Arriola write a nice mix of SEO tips and industry observations on this company blog.
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• Cam Balzer Web-Cite - Google/DoubleClick/Performics’ VP of Emerging Media writes about 2.0 topics, search and marketing along with a few ranted items.
• Cameron Olthuis - Personal blog with some search and SMO/SMM thrown in.
• Cape Cod SEO - Small business SEO and PPC plus a little about Cape Cod from Derek J Edmond.
• Capture the Conversation - Internet Marketing Methodologies from Room 214, Inc co-founders James Clark & Jason Cormier.
• Cartoon Barry - Barry Schwartz’s pseudo personal blog. Also includes links to posts from his work at Search Engine Roundtable and Search Engine Land.
• Catalyst Search Marketing Blog - Heather Frahm, President of Catalystonline, writes about issues related to healthcare and pharma search marketing.
• Charlene Li’s Blog - Forrester Analyst blog that also covers search marketing.
• cgm - Pete Blackshaw, the CMO of Nielsen BuzzMetrics blogs about consumer generated media.
• Clickfire Blog - Emory Rowland blogs about Google, webmaster issues, SEO and related topics.
• ClickZ News Blog and ClickZ Experts - The newly designed ClickZ web site continues to offer first class coverage of the search and interactive marketing industry as well as insight from leading industry experts.
• Clix Marketing Blog - PPC Expert David Szetela posts a variety of tips and experience based insights on paid search advertising.
• CLM Blog - The folks at Closed Loop Marketing share their thoughts on search marketing, usability and conversion.
• ClearSaleing Blog - I came upon this search marketing agency blog indirectly and found it to be chock full of great posts with practical advice and clear insight from people who know what they’re talking about without all the pomp and circumstance you see on the prima donna SEO blogs. Well done!
• Comparison Engines - Brian Smith’s popular blog on comparison shopping engines.
• Commerce360 Blog - Craig Danuloff posts about search marketing and analytics.
• Compete Blog - Online trends and insightful findings from the team at Compete.com.
• comScore Networks - Feed for comScore press releases.
• ContextWeb Internet Advertising Blog - John Ebbert writes about online and contextual advertising with info for publishers and advertisers.
• Conversion Matters - A new, but very interested student of search marketing, Adam Taylor, shares his opinions and observations about analytics, blogging, search engine optimisation and social media marketing.
• Conversion Rater - Pat McCarthy shows you how to make the web convert for your goals.
• Copyblogger - Brian Clark’s most excellent blog on copywriting and marketing.
• Cornwall SEO blog - Lyndon Antcliff’s SEO & social media blog.
• Cre8pc - The lovely and super smart Kim Krause’s blog on usability and holistic search marketing.
• Cre8tive Flow - Cre8asiteforums group blog.
• Create Business Growth - Christine O’Kelly writes about blogging, copywriting and small business marketing online.
• CrunchNotes - Michael Arrington’s less formal blog as a companion to Techcrunch.
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• Daggle - The man, the legend, Mr. Danny Sullivan: Hero of search marketing.
• Daver’s Blog - Dave Rohrer blogs a mix of personal commentary and online marketing topics.
• David Dalka - Professional conference blogger Dave Dalka blogs a lot about what other bloggers/people say as well as biz dev, marketing, local and mobile search marketing and of course, Chicago.
• David Naylor - DaveN, a favorite UK based search marketer who isn’t afraid of wearing a black hat from time to time.
• Dawud Miracle - Dawud Miracle is a web designer who blogs about, yep you guessed it, web design. But the reason his blog is on this list is that he also touches quite a bit on online marketing including components of SEO such as copywriting, linking, social networking, blog marketing and many other topics which gives a different perspective than most SEO-only blogs.
• Dellanave - With a ton of success doing development and monetizing web sites, Shoemoney associate and fellow Minnesotan Dave Dellanave is making another go of the blogging thing writing mostly about tech but also SEO, SEM and related experiences.
• Did-It Frog Blog - “We’ve got a whole pond-full of experts at Did-It who want their croaking voices heard.”
• Digital Biographer - David Petherick’s passion for social media and web 2.0 benefits us all through his commentary on new social media tools and ways to use them.
• DigiTales Blog - Microsoft’s UK man in the know, Mel Carson blogs for BrandRepublic on all things related to digital marketing. Unfortunately, Brand Republic has decided you must login to see the full posts.
• Diva Marketing Blog - Toby Bloomberg’s blog on marketing with blogs.
• Dosh Dosh - This anime spotted blog written by Maki, a Political Science and Philosophy student in Toronto Canada, is all about making money online and along with that comes posts about professional blogging, affiliate marketing, get-paid-to programs, advertising networks and social media monetization.
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• Earl of Grey’s Blog - Runs syndk8 blackhat SEO forum, Affiliate Earners and probably other things I’ll never know about. Also blogs periodic and humorously sarcastic observations of the search industry.
• eCommerce Blog - Ethan from Baltimore based Groove eCommerce posts on this newer blog about industry and company news followed by topics ranging from SEO to analytics.
• eConsultancy Internet Marketing & News - Group blog from the team at eConsultancy.
• Elixr Systems Blog - James Peggie and Dylan Downhill post about SEO, PPC and online PR.
• E-Marketing Performance - Stoney deGeyter and the team from Pole Position Marketing offer up search marketing information to render your competition powerless.
• Emergence Media - Daniel Riveong’s excellent blog on internet marketing and social media.
• Endless Plain - Here we have the re-branded blog from Nan Dawkins and her team from Serengeti Communications, (previously RedBoots Consulting). The continues to offer a very good collection of practical insight about search, social media and search engine reputation management as well as serving as a lead generation tool for the agency.
• EngineWorks Blog - Here we have a blog with a clean design working seamlessly with the company web site from EngineWorks, a search marketing firm out of Portland Oregon. Posts are for the most part written by Sean McMahon and Kent Schnepp focused on general search marketing topics, news, Google and SEO.
• Enquisite Search Metrics Blog - While this blog name carries a “metrics” label, the past month’s entries have actually been interviews with interesting search marketing people ranging from to Greg Boser to Josh Stylman. The blog is from Richard of Zwicky of Metamend, the company that created the Enquisite free search metrics software.
• Eric Lander’s Blog - A “jack of all trades” in-house marketer for ADP, Eric writes about content monetization and contextual advertising as well as the usual SEO, pay per click and search engine topics.
• Esteban Panzera - At 18 years old and based in Argentina, Esteban is an is a very active blogger writing observations on SEO and Social Media Marketing.
• ExperienceCurve - Karl Long’s blog on marketing, social media and customer experience.
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• fantomNews - A long time blog written by Ralph Tagtmeir who’s known to have some serious black hat, ip delivery (cloaking) skills, also includes a weekly fantOon or cartoon about search marketing.
• Fathom SEO Blog - SEO news, trends & analysis from Mike Murray and the team at Fathom SEO.
• Finding the Sweet Spot - Scott Clark, a web marketer from Kentucky blogs about a variet of personal and professional interests including SEO.
• Flyte Blog - Rich Brooks writes about web marketing for small business.
• freshblog - The team at Fresh Egg, Ammon Johns’ UK search marketing agency post about work, search marketing and industry observations.
• FroggBlog - Not to be confused with, umm ribbit, the “Frog Blog” from U.S. based Did-It, this blog belongs to the team at LeapFrogg, a UK based which aspires to writing opinions, original ideas and personal observations about SEO, paid search and social media.
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• Get Elastic Ecommerce Blog - The team at Vancouver BC based Elastic Path, an ecommerce platform, blog all angles of conducting tansactional business online ranging from general marketing to usability to social media. There’s are also a series of podcasts from last summer worth checking out.
• Google Blogoscoped - Phillip Lenssen’s blog about mostly Google.
• Google Code Blog - Google API’s and more.
• Google Operating System - Ionut Alex Chitu offers uUnofficial news and tips about Google.
• Google Watch - Steve Bryant from Ziff Davis watches Google.
• Google Webmaster Central blog - Posts from the Google Webmaster Central team including wisdom from Vanessa Fox and Adam Lasnik.
• Google’s Blogs ‘n More - Mix of official Google feeds from Google Blogscoped.
• Googling Google ZDNet - Garett Rogers from ZDNet blogs about what Google is up to.
• Got Ads? - John K. blogs about advertising revolving around Google.
• Graywolf’s SEO Blog - Michael Gray blogs about social media and grayhat SEO.
• Great Finds - iCrossing company blog about marketing online.
• Grokdotcom - Group blog from Future Now. Also includes a nifty search marketing blogs aggregator feed.
• Gypsy Bandito - Media maven CT Moore (Chris Moore) posts lots of video and on a variety of topics ranging from PR, Marketing, Advertising and some SEO.
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• Hamlet Batista dot Com - This SEO blog promises a focus on the more advanced search engine optimization tactics drawn from personal experience with SEO consulting as well as affiliate marketing.
• High Rankings Advisor Archives - SEO legend Jill Whalen’s newsletter available via RSS.
• HitTail - Mike Levin blogs about Connors Communication’s tool HitTail.
• Hitwise Intelligence - The HitWise team posts tasty insights about search trends.
• Hobo SEO UK - Shaun Anderson writes about a variety of search engine optimization related topics for his agency based in Scotland.
• How to Rule the World - Long time, self taught internet marketer, Robert Priolo aka “Robbdogg” blogs about his blogging which I suppose is a self sustaining content creation strategy. And there’s a bit of some SEO social media mixed in there as well.
• Hubspot Marketing Blog - The team at HubSpot writes about internet marketing and online lead generation for small business.
• Hybrid SEM Blog - Joe Whyte writes about old school and new school SEO.
• Hyperlink Guerrilla - Orlando based Jim Hathaway provides a shared exploration of culture and business on the web through annotated links posts.
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• Ignite Social Media - Ignite is a social media consultancy with the company web site running as a blog. Topics logically emphasize social media with some optimization flavorings. More information on the post authors and a fix to the 404 on the job openings page would be nice.
• I Hate Google.org - Dan Kramer writes about sSearch engine optimization news and tidbits.
• I’m Not a Doctor - Stephen Peron blogs conversationally about SEO from San Diego and you’ve gotta love the SEO-inspired license plates.
• IncrediBILL’s Random Rants - Bill Atchison on, “Stopping scrapers and spammers and a whole lot more”.
• Industrial Search Engine Marketing Blog - Minnesota based Ecreativeworks blogs about search engine marketing from a B2B, industrial and manufacturing perspective.
• Influential Interactive Marketing - Rohit Bhargava, VP Interactive Marketing for Ogilvy Public Relations on marketing online.
• Inside AdSense - Official blog for Google AdSense.
• Inside AdWords - Official blog for Google AdWords.
• Inside the Marketers Studio - David Berkowitz’s blog on internet marketing.
• Internet Geek Girl - Stephanie Agresta blogs an interesting flavor of personal perspective on internet marketing, social media and “relationship econonomy”.
• Internet Marketing Blog - Chris Garrett of Performancing fame.
• Internet - martinibuster - Roger Montii is back with his hard won wisdom of link building and SEO.
• Internet News - A general internet marketing and search news blog by Gwen Harris.
• IR Thoughts - Dr E. Garcia offers an array of posts covering news, papers, and theses on information retrieval, data mining, and search engine technology with a penchant for dispelling myths about Latent Semantic Indexing promoted by sinister SEOs.
• Irish Wonder’s Black Hat SEO Blog - A blog about blackhat, general SEO issues and other things related to the life on the web.
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• Jaan’s Search Marketing Blog - Jaan Kanellis, aka “IncredibleHelp”, blogs mostly about SEO with a few rants about the industry here and there.
• Jeremy Zawodny’s blog - Famous or infamous? Yahoo employee.
• JLH Design Blog - Fellow Minnesotan John Honeck really wants you to buy him a beer and along the way, this designer blogs advice about search optimization with an emphasis on all things Google.
• John Battelle’s Searchblog - Famous co-founder of Wired magazine posts about the search engine industry.
• Jon Myers Search Blog - Jon is the head of search and Associate Director at MediaVest in the UK writing about his views of the search engine marketing world.
• johnon.com - John Andrews on competitive webmastering and SEO.
• Jonathan Mendez’s Blog - Branding, usability, paid search and analytics.
• Joost de Valk’s SEO Blog - This self titled blog covers web design and SEO from the Netherlands.
• Junta42 Blog - Joe Pulizzi takes his own advice and provides great tips and advice on marketing and retaining customers with content which is really spot on if you subscribe to the “give to get” principles of social media marketing.
• Justilien - Link building guru posts about - link building!
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• Karl Ribas - Blogs mostly about search engine news, pay per click and tools.
• Kelsey Group Blog - For all things related to local search marketing and online yellow pages, this blog is an excellent resource on industry news and observations from the team at Kelsey Group.
• KoMarketing Associates SEM Blog - A group/company blog covering SEO, PPC, events, industry news/trends, tips and a lot of personal insight. These folks are clearly involved in, and have an opinion on, what goes on in the industry.
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• Learning SEO Basics - SEO student and fan of Kalena Jordan’s Search Engine College, Kimberly Bock (aka spostareduro) writes about all the basics of search engine optimization.
• Leveraging Ideas - Sam Huleatt, a Brooklyn-based Internet entrepreneur & strategy guru writes about the social media space, strategies and entreprenuership.
• Lies, Damed Lies - Microsoft’s Ian Thomas, who leads Microsoft’s new web analytics solution effort, blogs about online marketing and web analytics.
• LifeDev - Glen Stansberry blogs about personal productivity, web 2.0 and social media.
• Link Building Best Practices Blog -Link building and site promotion expertise from Vertical Measures is shared in this blog covering a variety of linking and web site publicity tactics.
• Linkworth Blog - Need to know your way around text link ads, paid blog reviews and the like? This blog might be for you.
• Live Search Webmaster Center Blog - Official blog of the Live Search Webmaster Center team with just a little bit of a bias with SEOmoz and Search Engine Land as the only other blogs they link to.
• LocalMN Blog - Paul Jahn writes about local search marketing from Minnesota.
• Local SEO Guide - With Andrew Shotland it’s all about local internet marketing and he blogs it well.
• Lonely Marketer - Patrick Schaber’s blog about being an in-house search marketing manager.
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• Manhattan Marketing Maven - Danny Flamberg blogs about all aspects of marketing including marketing online.
• Manish Pandey - Manish Pandey is an SEO Expert in India with a background in an electronics and communication engineering stream.
• Market Position - A group blog about search marketing from WebTrends, owners of Web Position Gold.
• Marketing Experiments Blog - Real-time data, insights, answers, and advice from Flint McGlaughlin’s team at MEC
• Marketing.fm - Lee Jones Eric Friedman post about online marketing and advertising. Labs.
• Marketing Logic - Matt Bailey, one of my favorite conference speakers, blogs about search marketing, analytics and usability.
• Marketing Pilgrim - Andy Beal’s super stupendous blog on search engine industry news.
• Marketing Profs Daily Fix - With managing editor, Ann Handley, this group blog posts on all things marketing with participants ranging from Eric Ward to Stephan Spencer to BL Ochman.
• MarketingVOX - Previously Marketing Wonk, this post I-Search publication founded by Tig Tillinghast.
• Marketmou SEO Blog - Copywriter and MBA undergraduate Patricia Skinner writes a blog for writers and marketers that want to learn about search engine optimization and online branding strategies.
• Matt Cutts - Google’s famous engineer and search spam fighter dispels wisdom, insight and squashes SEO myths.
• McAnerin Muse - Long time search marketer and ex-attorney Ian McAnerin writes a mix of posts on SEO, China, search marketing conferences, search engines and a bit of philosophy.
• Media Buyer Planner - Online media publication from the same folks that bring you MarketingVox.
• Metamend SEO Blog - Without question, one of the most prolific and talented writers in the SEO space is Jim Hedger who also consults with the Metamend agency in Vancouver.
• Micro Persuasion - Steve Rubel from Edelman PR on new and social media, web 2.0 and marketing online.
• Mike Grehan Says - Old school SEO Mike Grehan blogs about his world travels and the SEO column he writes for ClickZ.
• Mike the Internet Guy - Recent winner of best local search blog, Mike Belasco writes about all aspects of marketing online.
• Mikkel deMib Svendsen - I have no idea what this blog is “really” about because it’s in Danish and my 9 months in Denmark 14 years ago isn’t helping any. What I DO know is Mikkel from many, many search marketing conferences in his signature bright, and I mean bright colored suits talking about some serious online marketing, not just black-gray-white hat search engine optimization. If you do speak Danish, I’m sure you’re in for a treat. Tak!
• Modern B2B Marketing - Jon Miller of marketo blogs about BtoB marketing online.
• MoreVisibility SEM Blog - The team at MoreVisibility cover industry news & events, online advertising, CPC, analytics and updates on the Search Engines.
• Morrison - Observations about the search marketing industry from Liam Morrison in Ireland.
• Mr SEO - Joe Balestrino’s SEO blog.
• MSN Sandbox - Where MSN posts beta applications for testing.
• Muhammad Saleem - Moved his mu life blog over to this new destination writing mostly about marketing with social media.
• Multilingual Search - Andy Atkins Kruger and friends around the world blog about search engines and search marketing news happening outside North America.
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• Nate Moller - Nate, of Prosper, Inc, blogs about ecommerce for small businesses & startup consulting.
  
• Natural Search and Mobile SEO Blog - Get your mobile SEO on with Bryson Meunier from Resolution Media and his Mobile SEO blog.
• Natural Search Blog - Group blog covering natural search engine optimization.
• Neoformix - Jeff Clark does some really interesting work with graphing and illustrating patterns in data. This whole topic presents some very interesting insights, especially if you study the social nature of how language, words (keyword phrases to all you SEOs) and document analysis can be used in social marketing.
• Net Business Blog - Matt Coddington writes about affiliate marketing, CPA, PPC, SEO/SEM, eBooks, domaining and web development.
• NewspaperGrl - Janet Meiners writes about internet and affiliate marketing.
• Nic ‘n Cher - Nicola Young from Scotland and Cheryl Clark from Canada are thoroughly enthusiastic about SEO and PPC and the writing shows.
• Nielsen Technical Services Blog - Another long-time Minneapolis based SEO blogs about the search engine marketing industry.
• NLC Internet Marketing Blog - A light posting group blog from the folks at non linear creations.
• No More Landing Pages - Started as a mock protest of ad:tech San Francisco, Justin Talerico, Scott Brinker, and Anna Talerico blog about landing pages - the good, bad and everything in between.
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• Occam’s Razor - Avinash Kaushik offers quantitative and qualitative insights into online marketing.
• Official Google Webmaster Central Blog - Official blog from Google’s Webmasters.
• Online Business by Brian Mark - Emerging trends & technology for online businesses.
• Online Marketing Mavens - Minnesota based Lisa Raehsler, a SEM guru, and Sarah Zielie, an Interactive Media enthusiast, join forces to study and share insights, secrets, and tips in their respective fields.
• Online Marketing :: Robin Good - What you need to know about online marketing.
• Online Marketing Blog - Lee Odden and TopRank team members blog about search marketing, social media as well as interviews, reader polls, SEO blog reviews, marketing tips, guest posts from industry leaders and SEM conference coverage.
• Original Signal - Transmitting Marketing - A little bit of everything from Peter van der Noord, Patrick Huisinga, Tako Steinz and Gert Goet.
• Original Signal Transmitting SEO - Aggregation of the 15 most popular SEO blogs and web sites ranging from Search Engine Watch to Search Engine Land and TopRank’s Online Marketing Blog.
• Out of My Gord - Gord Hotchkiss of Enquiro blogs about search from time to time.
• Own Page One SEV Blog - Ann Arbor, Michigan based search marketing agency Pure Visibility runs the gamut of search marketing topics on this company blog ranging from PPC to local to SEO and even has a category just for Twitter.
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• PalatnikFactor - Pablo Palatnik blogs SEM. SEO. Social Media. Branding. Marketing and News.
• Pandia - Internet searching blog from Per & Susanne Koch of Norway.
• Pandemic Blog - Founders of Pandemic Labs, Matthew Peters and Brennan White write about their passions: viral marketing and social media marketing.
• Paul J. Bruemmer on Search - The name says it all.
• pepperjamBlog - The team at Pepperjam blogs about search and affiliate marketing along with search engine industry observations.
• Performancing.com - Community site/blog about making money through blogging.
• Peter Norvig - Technical papers, essays and other materials from Peter Norvig.
• Phil’s Blogservations - The perso-professional PR & media blog from Phil Gomes.
• Phil Bradley’s Blog - Internet searching, web design & search engine developments for librarians.
• Pocket SEO - Josh Cohen blogs practical tips about search engine optimization “not covered often (or at all) in other blogs”. This blog is one to watch.
• PPC Advice - Garry Przyklenk blogs on tips and insights into pay per click marketing.
• PPC Discussions - Jeremy Mayes writes about paid search with particular emphasis on Google AdWords and Microsoft adCenter.
• Practical Blogging - Adsense, affiliate advertising & general blogging help from Robyn Tippins.
• ProBlogger Blog Tips - Darren Rowse helps bloggers add income to their blogs.
• Pronet Advertising - Started by Neil Patel and now written mostly by Muhammad Saleem, this blog doles out SEO and social media optimization wisdom daily.
• Pubcon blog - Official blog for Brett Tabke’s WebmasterWorld Pubcon conference.
• PushONline Marketing - Great blog from the UK doing the full social media thing: images, videos, MySpace and some nods to Twitter. Not without a dose of good humor, check out the videos, “Number One on the Google”, or even better, “Bitch Got Wide Feed”. Brilliant.
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• QuickstartSEO Blog - This blog offers everything from SEO and PPC training to link building and Internet marketing tips.
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• Radically Transparent - Andy Beal’s blog for his new book on reputation management with Judy Strauss.
• Ramblings About SEO - I was very suprised to see that Eric Enge’s blog, which covers a wide range of topics related to search engine optimization, was not on our list yet, but that’s fixed now.
• Ranked Hard SEO Comic - Get your funny on with this quality SEO comic about the mythical “Ranked Hard” SEO agency, from folks at Big Oak.
• Raven SEO Tools Blog - Jon Henshaw and Lee Smith-Bryan of Nashville based Sitening blog mostly about SEO tactics along with the ususal fare of search industry topics and commentary.
• Read/WriteWeb - Next generation web technology from Richard MacManus.
• Reel Video SEO and SEM - Need to know about optimizing video for search? This is the place to find tips, tactics and information on all things related to optimizing and marketing video online written by Mark Robertson.
• ResearchBuzz - News about search engines, databases & more from Tara Calishain.
• ResourceShelf - Gary Price & Shirl Kennedy’s observations on news in the information & web industry.
• ReveNews - Publisher Jim Kukral and friends blog about the affiliate marketing industry covering topics from ecommerce to analytics to blogging.
• Rhea Drysdale - A newer blog where you can read all about SEO ramblings and personal entries from monkeygirl herself. I should note that the rumor about Rhea guilting me to list her blog in the BIGLIST is just not 100% true.
• RKG Blog - Alan Rimm-Kaufman of the Rimm-Kaufman Group blogs about various online marketing news items and tips along with his own commentary.
• Rothman Marketing Blog - Israel Rothman writes about internet advertising.
• RSS Ray - Offers articles on internet marketing and also hosts an online radio show.
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• Scoreboard Media - Brian Provost’s fairly new blog covers topics ranging from digg to link building, reputation management and of course, Google.
• Screenwerk Greg Sterling - Greg Sterling’s musings on offline & online media.
• Search Anyway Blog - Chris Ridings? and Sanjay Mayar blog about search and affiliate marketing.
• Search Brains - Excellent “river of news” site on SEO offered by the good people at WebProNews.
• SearchCap: Daily Search Engine News Recap - Search is completely covered by Danny Sullivan, Barry Schwartz, Chris Sherman and Bill Slawski.
• Search Engine Guide Blog - Group blog about search engine optimization.
• Search Engine Journal - Excellent search engine news site by Loren Baker and friends.
• Search Engine Land - Danny Sullivan and friends’ new home to blog about search engines and the search marketing industry.
• Search Engine Optimization Facts - Weekly SEO news from Axandra.
• Search Engine Optimization Journal - With roots in old school direct marketing, Nick Stamoulis has been involved with internet marketing for over 10 years and writes specifically about SEO.
• Search Engine People Blog - Based near Toronto Ontario, the SEP team blog about a wide range of search marketing topics with an emphasis on SEO, social media and opinion.
• Search Engine Roundtable - Barry Schwartz aka RustyBrick and friends cover the search engine forums.
• Search Engine Smarts - A blog about small business search engine marketing for AllBusiness.com.
• Search Engine Tigers - Simon Heseltine’s search engine blog.
• Search Engine Watch blog - Group blog let by Kevin Newcomb posting news from Search Engine Watch and around the web on search engines and marketing online.
• Search Engines - Topix.net - Search engine news from all over the net in one place.
• Search Enginuity - Clay Fisher is the Global Director of Search Marketing at Monster.com and he writes about search marketing industry news as well as paid search and analytics on a very cleverly named blog.
• Search Insider - David Berkowitz, Aaron Goldman, Rob Garner, Gord Hotchkiss, & Bill Wise give the inside of search marketing for MediaPost.
• Searchlight - This is a new SEO blog from Stephan Spencer of Netconcepts as part of CNET’s network of blogs, offering “SEO tools, tips, trends, resources, news and insights.”
• Search Marketing Gurus - Li Evans, Greg Meyers, Dan Kavanaugh cover everything from viral marketing to web development to affiliate marketing.
• Search Marketing Sage - Sage advice on SEO and pay per click from the team at Search Mojo.
• Search Marketing with ventureN - Robert Lawrence’s webmaster’s blog on web design, coding and SEO.
• Search Perspective - tmp directional marketing, the world’s largest Online Search & Yellow Pages Marketing Agency, publishes this group blog focusing on tmp’s “Point of View” as well as SEO, SEM and industry conferences. The blogroll is a bit sparse though.
• SearchQuant - Chris Zaharias writes about the paid search and search engine advertising industry.
• SearchRank Blog - David Wallace blogs about search marketing from Arizona.
• SearchReturn - Detlev Johnson’s revival of the I-Search discussion thread.
• SearchViews - Company blog for Reprise Media.
• Sebastian’s Pamphlets - Sebastian of Smart IT Consulting writes LOTS of great stuff on the technical side of search marketing and SEO.
• Seer Interactive SEO blog - Wil Reynolds at Philadelphia based Seer Interactive blogs the gamut of SEO/SEM and internet marketing subjects.
• SemAngel - Gary Angel, President and CTO of Semphonic, writes about all aspects of web analytics for search marketing. This is a great example of a thought leader and subject matter expert blog.
• SEMpdx Blog - The Portland Search Engine Marketing Professionals group promises to be the voice of the Portland search marketing community and uses the blog to publish association announcements, events, industry participation and observations. This is an excellent example of a Regional SEM Community.
• SEM Blog ineedhits - If you’ve been in the search marketing game for a while, you may remember ineedhits who now online marketing news, releases, industry trends and great DIY tips and advice.
• SEM Clubhouse - Christine Churchill, Jim Gilbert, Mike Churchill & Jeff Martin from KeyRelevance’s blog.
• SEM Hints - Eric Cho’s blog including several contributing writers offering hints, tips and strategies used for SEO, PPC, social media networks and general search engine marketing.
• SEM Recruiter- Harry Joiner is an executive recruiter in the interactive and new media space, which also includes search marketing. In this blog he writes about industry news and topics of particular interest to SEO and SEM.
• SEM Scholar - David Temple of Neo@Ogilvy Asia Pacific promotes the various training programs for search marketing along with industry news and event commentary.
• SEO and Tech Daily - The Daily Scoop on SEO, SEM, PPC Trends, Analytics, Web 2.0 start-ups and more!
• seoaware blog - Freelance writer and web designer Melissa Fach blogs about her thoughts on search marketing and points to many articles of interest.
• SEO BlackHat - Covering blackhat seo, linkbait, & link spamming.
• SEO Blog - Bob Mutch writes about link building through directories and social bookmarking.
• SEO Book - Aaron Wall’s exceptionally popular blog that also offers his SEO book for sale.
• SEO Buzz Box - Aaron Pratt’s blog about SEO when he’s not making rain barrels.
• SEO by the SEA - William Slawski provides Internet marketing & search engine optimization research & services.
• SEO Chicks - Julie Joyce, Lisa Ditlefsen and Anita Chaperon are women, or as they prefer to be called, “chicks” who know SEO and PPC. They decided after a few beers during a London conference that it was time to get some female attitude into the SEO & SEM blogosphere and here they are with lots of great photos from the recent SMX conference.
• SEO Copywriting - Let’s celebrate the launch of SEO and wordsmith guru Heather Lloyd-Martin’s snappy new blog about the magic of writing for users and search engines.
• SEO Design Solutions Blog - You don’t see too many practical tips blogs these days and that’s why it’s nice to see Jeffrey Smith blogging all manner of tips on SEO from WordPress optimization to organic vs PPC.
• SEO Fast Start - Dan Thies’ place to build a network of like minded students of SEO with a handy e-book and an occasional rant on search engine conspiracy theories.
• SEO Home Blog - UK based Gabriel Homer (Gabs) blogs about Google and SEO.
• SEOish - Insight into the world of learning search marketing with a sense of humor by Patrick Sexton, aka “feedthebot”.
• SEOptimise PPC & SEO Blog - Patrick Altof blogs his observations on the major search engines as well as topics related to search engine optimization, social media and PPC.
• SEO Scoop - Donna Fontenot, aka DazzlinDonna, discusses everything seo.
• SEO Smarty - SEO Smarty, aka Ann Smarty, whips up a froth of SEO, viral and branding goodness.
• SEO Speedwagon - Intrapromote company blog about search engine optimization.
• SEO Theory - Michael Martinez focuses on search engine optimization theory.
• seoassassin.co.uk - Brendon Scott, aka “TallTroll” writes negatively on SEO and affiliate marketing.
• seoTunes - Internet marketing pro, Matt Davies gives us a blog title that pretty much explains the content in a nutshell: SEO and Music.
• SEO’Brien - An online marketing blog by Paul O’Brien.
• SEOidiot - Paul Madden is a cartoonist, designer, salesman, blackhat, & SEO.
• SEOmoz - News, tips & highlights from the search marketing industry.
• SEOPittfall - In-house SEO Stephen Pitts writes about a nice mixture of search engine optimization, paid search, social media and blogs.
• SEOptimize - Kevin Gibbons offers a well rounded blog about pay per click and natural search optimization.
• SEO Scientist - Branko Rihtman writes about search engine optimization applying the scientific method to SEO.
• SEOspace - Jody Nimetz of Enquiro thoughts on organic search engine marketing with a B2B twist
• SEO Speedwagon - Intrapromote company blog about search engine optimization.
• SEO Wife’s Blog - More about the SEO industry and people within than tactics, which makes for interesting reading if you’re into that kind of thing. Written by a very nice wife of a very smart and successful and entertainingly irreverent SEO. B or G, if you happen to see this let me know if it’s ok to use your full name.
• Seth’s Blog - Seth Godin’s blog about marketing.
• ShandyKing - Adam Sussman is the obsessive compulsive entrepreneur
• Shaving Occam - The logical principle of Occam’s Razor states that one should not make more assumptions than the minimum needed. Tony Wright uses this principle to get to the heart of a variety of topics focused on Internet marketing.
• Shimon Sandler - SEO, PPC & other Internet marketing tactics
• Shoemoney - Jeremy Shoemaker’s very popular blog about making money online.
• Shoestring Branding - Mario Sanchez blogs about internet branding through blogging and social networking.
• Shop.org Blog - Group Blog from Shop.org
• Shylock Blogging - Alexandru or “Alex” blogs about making money online which means the nitty gritty of site promotion.
• SitePoint’s Search Engine Marketing Blog - company blog for SitePoint.
• SiteProNews Blog - Jerry Bader, Jim Hedger and Kim Roach write on an interesting mix of topics ranging from internet marketing issues to blogs to SEO.
• Skelliewag - Skellie hails from Melbourne Australia and writes about the cornerstone of good online marketing: “creating content your site’s visitors (and search engines) will fall in love with” with a very nice emphasis on creating viral content.
• Skrentablog - Rich Skrenta, co-founder of Topix.net, blogs about industry analysis with a few personal items.
• Slightly Shady SEO - At a sprite 19 years old, XMCP writes about black hat SEO with white hats as the audience on topics that range from adsense/affiliate to cloaking to a curious category called, “Grow Some Balls”.
• Smackdown! - Michael VanDeMar is full of piss and vinegar especially when it comes to Matt Cutts. What this blog lacks in subscriber numbers it makes up for in good humor.
• Small Business SEM - Matt McGee offers insight about search engine marketing for the smaller businesses.
• SmartKeywords - A journal of the search industry provided by Frank Watson.
• Sochable - Another new blog on social media. This one is from James Rucker covering the gamut of Digg, MySpace, YouTube, Reddit, Facebook and more.
• Social Blog Roll - This is a cool tool from Nick Wilsdon of e3internet that enables you to stay on top of what’s happening in the search marketing world by polling the blog rolls of popular search marketing blogs and ranking them based on the number of votes they get.
• Social Desire - Super Sphinner and web designer/master Shana Albert blogs her desire to learn everything social media and web 2.0.
• Social Marketing by Michelle MacPhearson - Michelle explores how web 2.0 tools can be used for marketing and documents her findings, such as the hotly anticipated social marketing checklist.
• Social Media and Green Horses - Jiannis Sotiropoulos discusses the development of cyberspace and therefore many topics (collective intelligence, social networks, participation) but not all, (blogging, Flash, Facebook) are broader than most blogs on our list. Refreshing.
• Social Media Podcast and Blog - JD Lasica blogs about new media, social networks and computing.
• Social Media Group - Maggie Fox blogs about everything from social media optimization to advertising.
• Social Media Optimization - David Wilson covers the gamut of marketing with social media.
• Social Media Trader - Chris_smt from the UK delivers a lot of great information on social media with this resource and insight intensive blog.
• SoloSEO Blog - Michael D Jensen and Aaron R Stewart provide tools & reports to make your SEO more efficient.
• Somewhat Frank - Frank Gruber writes about Web 2.0 applications, technology and a bit about online marketing.
• Sphinn - A true nod to social media, Danny Sullivan’s newest release is already proving to be a very useful resource on topics and discussions related to search and online marketing. This Digg style site based on the Pligg platform, allows readers to register and create profiles, submit, comment and vote on stories. There are abundant community friendly features as well including the ability to “friend” other users, see who’s voted on stories, visited your profile and you can search for other like minded marketers with the Network page. There’s even an industry events resource.
• SpinThicket.com - Scott Baradell created one place to promote news stories related to PR, marketing and more.
• straightupsearch - OneUpWeb’s company blog for anyone in advertising, marketing and pr.
• Stuntdubl - All around SEO guru and independent consultant Todd Malicoat’s blog about SEO, social media and the business of search marketing. Occassional guest posts from “Mr. Ploppy”.
• Sugarrae - Rae Hoffman’s clever blog about search marketing.
• SunTZU SEO Blog - Jeff Hinds blogs about SEO from Kansas City with a great collection of search marketing resources and industry insights on topics ranging from local search to PPC to social media and online reputation management.
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• Tamar Search Blog - This isn’t the superwoman blogger Tamar you’re probably thinking of, it’s the Tamar Search Conversion Agency based in London and Capetown with blog topics ranging from search and social media marketing to usability and conversion analytics.
• TechCrunch - Michael Arrington’s popular web 2.0 blog.
• techipedia: anything tech. - Posts about internet marketing, seo, social networking & more from self-appointed tech geek, Tamar Weinberg
• Techmeme - Gabe Rivera’s software agent that covers all the news in technology in one location.
• Technology Evangelist - A group blog focusing on technology.
• TellinYa - This blog is on because of the interesting design but I’m not so sure about the tactics. Self described as: “Black hat, white hat and shady hat SEO and web design related Elucubrations by 5ubliminal” who is apparently very much against paid links but ok with scraping and other dark art search manipulation.
• The Adventures of PPC Hero - Now here’s a fun blog from Amber, Joe and John of Hanapin Marketing that doesn’t take itself too seriously and covers the realm of pay per click marketing quite nicely.
• The Ask.com Blog - Official blog for Ask.com.
• The Agency Blog - The personal blog of Giovanni Gallucci.
• The Invesp Blog - Khalid Hajsaleh writes about marketing online with a focus on improving conversion rates.
• The Link Spiel - Debra Mastaler’s blog about link building and search marketing.
• The Lonely Marketer - In house marketing renaissance man, Patrick Schaber, blogs about the kinds online marketing done at a small business ranging from SEO to blogs to PPC.
• TheMadHat - Aaron Chronister is the TheMadHatter and make no mistake, his hat is black with forays into all types of Internet marketing ranging from SEO to arbitrage to autogen content sites.
• The PPC Book - Jeff Hudson, who works as a client side search marketer, blogs about Pay Per Click marketing.
• The Pre-Commerce Blog - Corporate blog for Commerce360’s online marketing services.
• The Preston Blog - Preston Wily writes a blog for internet retailers.
• The Search Insider - Not to be confused with MediaPost’s “Search Insider”, this blog from Wpromote’s Mike Mothner provides insight into pay per click and the business of search marketing.
• The Social Media Marketing Blog - Scott Monty’s perspectives on B2B & social media.
• The WebMarketCentral Blog - Minneapolis based B2B marketer, Tom Pick, writes about all aspects of marketing on the internet.
• THINKing - With trends toward media creation, optimization and promotion the thoughts that Harry Hoover, Mark Harrison and Brant Waldeck publish about advertising, creativity, marketing & PR become very relevant for the next generation of search marketing.
• TMA E-Marketing blog - Minnesota search marketing firm blogs about all aspects of marketing online.
• Topix Blog - Topix finds the news you need to know in one place.
• Tradedot - Eddie Choi is a digital marketer that blogs about marketing, technology and entrepreneurial experiences from Hong Kong.
• Traffick - Andrew Goodman writes one of the oldest blogs on search marketing.
• Traffikd - Steven Snell who also blogs at Vandelay Web Design, focuses on practical internet marketing and social media marketing tips and advice.
• Trail of the Fire Horse - Another excellent Canada based search and social media marketing blog comes this time from the very smart/savvy Dave Harry aka “the Gypsy”.
• Treehouse SEM Blog - A newer blog offering a mix of commentary on industry news and original articles.
• Tropical SEO - Andy Hagans starts yet ANOTHER blog. Where does he find the time?
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• UKGimp - Richard Young on search and usability.
• Understanding Google Maps & Yahoo Local Search - The title of this blog by Mike Blumenthal says it all.
• Unofficial Google Analytics Blog - ROI Revolution’s take on Google Analytics.
• Unofficial SEO Blog - Navneet Kaushal posts news about the SEO industry.
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• Vanessa Fox Nude - Gets your attention doesn’t it? This self titled Googler’s blog is about a number of things and yes, SEO topics slip in often enough to be included in our fine list and no, there are no nude pictures. It’s nice to see another webmaster-famous Googler blogging, not that we’re bored with Matt Cutts or anything. Vanessa writes with mixture of humor and just a touch of geek, which is perfect for the SEO loving crowd. Read the inspiration for the blog title from Dave Naylor.
• Vinny Lingham’s Blog - Vinny provides coverage on online marketing & Web 2.0.
• viperchill blog - Glen and the team at UK based viperchill focus on all things to do with search engine optimisation. Yeah, with an “s”!
• Virtual Marketing Blog - Big brand interactive marketing veterans Nial McFadyen and Luke Knowles share internet marketing news, reviews and insights ranging from Facebook to Wordpress SEO.
• VIZION Blog - Search Engine Watch columnist Mark Jackson and his team at VIZION blog about a wide range of SEO topics, worth subscribing to for sure.
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• Web Analytics Book - Daily web analytics news from anonymous, who grew up in Germany and now lives in NYC.
• Web Analytics World - Manoj Jasra from Enquiro shares his wisdom and observations about analytics and search marketing.
• WebConnoisseur - Dustin Woodard’s thoughts on search, web analytics and the web in general.
• Web Ink Now - David Meerman Scott helps innovative marketers use digital information effectively.
• Web Marketing Watch - Sage Lewis provides a daily video web marketing show.
• WebmasterRadio Newsroom - Featured stories from WebmasterRadioFM.
• WebmasterWorld - News and discussions for the Web professional.
• Web Metrics Guru - Marshall Sponder of IBM writes about web analytics and the search marketing industry.
• WebPro Blog - Internet business & marketing trends from WebProNews.
• Website Content Strategy - Sally Falkow blogs about online and new media public relations and search marketing
• Website Magazine Blog - A group blog from the publishers of Website Magazine which covers the search engine industry as well as general topics related to online marketing.
• Web Strategy by Jeremiah - Jeremiah Owyang provides web tools to help connect with customers.
• Web Usability, Experience and SEO Blog - Tanya Vaughan, SEO Global Program Manager for HP.com does a very nice job of posting about HP’s experiences with search marketing intermingled with industry observations. This is a refreshing “total picture” blog focusing on both traffic driving mechanisms as well as user experience.
• What’s Next - BL Ochman’s blog about marketing online and life in NYC.
• WhoisAndrewWee.com - Andrew Wee on blogging, affiliate marketing & social traffic generation.
• Widget Blog - Sexy Widget - Lawrence Coborn’s blog about using widgets to market online.
• Wiep SEO and Link Building Blog - Netherlands based Wiep Knol writes about link building, social media and other link marketing related issues.
• wingedpig - Bloglines founder, Mark Fletcher, blogs about everything from syndication to the web to flying.
• Wingnut SEO - Dave Winget writes about his SEO experiences as part of a mid sized interactive agency.
• Winning the Web - There’s plenty of “make money online” sites out there and some are puff and some offer a few good nuggets. Many search marketers focus on content optimization and links, neglecting the need to promote content. This blog by agency SEO Gyutae Park provides site promotion tips and ideas ranging from contests to usability tips.
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• Yack Yack Long time developer and SEO Rob Watts blogs on a variety of SEO topics.
• Yahoo! Search blog - Official blog about the Yahoo search engine.
• Yahoo! Search Marketing blog - Official blog for Yahoo Search Marketing.
• Yodel Anecdotal - Yahoo! company blog.
• YPN Blog - Official blog for the Yahoo Publisher Network.
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There is no way to get on this list by “submitting” or requesting. I must notice your blog, read it and like it. It’s totally subjective and not an attempt to be a comprehensive resource, but one the we’ve found to be useful at weekly seo news.