Recently in White Hat SEO Category

There's no learning like experience. I'm serious. Go out and try things, like search engine advanced syntax. What I find SEO-type people miss when they rely on too many tools (and the like), are what they can get from the actual source: The Real Deal.

Why people put their heads in the sand on real source material in favor of second rate data amazes me. Don't be fooled. The best data for research on rankings in Google, is Google itself et al. The efficacy of third party tools that crawl and collect other data is weak.

View your indexing. There's so much more too. I'm building it into my software. The world of advanced syntax is lying in wait for you. Just use it. The handier you are with the tools of the trade, the better you can build a case for search business. Or just use my tools. Fancy a bookmark? Your very own Web crawler?

The SearchReturn SEO spider for iPad and iPhone works on other browsers too.

Stay tuned!

Powerful words must be in your copy. Make it real copy. Use subject matter that you get to write about authoritatively. Speaking of subject matter and good writing, one fascinating thing about how we grow as people living the cultural life, wherever we are, is that our use of language shapes the very essence of our being. Words are that important.

Language affects the attributes of our life skills. Choose good words. This should come as no real surprise. That is why there is no glory in being proud that one can't write or spell correctly. It amazes me that that has any cache, especially in an industry that is so strongly tied to business success as online writing and marketing. It's the very unruly nature of the Web that allows for this.

The power of the medium actually allows people with little to no writing skill to write and appear authentic or smart, no matter if they really are. Don't get caught in the trap of playing along, silly. It's short lived success with a glass ceiling at best.  Be authentic without showing off any inability to spell correctly, not without true wit. It does not come across well to the right sort who can see through it.

Words are seriously powerful. They can affect how you live your life. Words have already probably shaped how you are. In a Newsweek article, I read about evidence that our language has an influence on our very abilities, our skills with living in this world. That means the higher the language abilities that you can attain, the better odds you have for achieving greatness.

Don't shy away from learning to write better. Read from those whose prose speaks to you. It'll help define you and your style. If your style is about celebrating the heights that you can reach, versus cashing in on darkness and deceit (as search marketing is so often accused of doing), then you can operate on higher levels and succeed while enjoying the good life.

Stay tuned.

Last night, I spoke on air at Webmaster Radio (dot) FM about the imminent Microsoft Bing and Yahoo! Search deal. As expected, this morning (about 30-minutes ago), Bing announced on Twitter, linking to the official news that Microsoft Bing will power Yahoo!, and that Yahoo! will leverage its considerable relationships with major search advertisers to exclusively handle the advertising side. The deal is reputedly worth guaranteeing advertising dollars for Yahoo!, as Microsoft can easily afford to sweeten the deal that way.

Microsoft will also compensate Yahoo! from traffic and revenue resulting from traffic that originates from Yahoo! sites and affiliated network at a share of 88% over the fist 5 years. Panama and Search seems to have been given over to favor Microsoft Bing Search and Advertising platforms. That appears to be an admission by Yahoo! that Panama just failed to compete.

Paid Inclusion could lose its value when the switch to Bing happens. Unless Yahoo! can insert the feed somewhere with Bing search volume, there's no telling what will happen with inclusion deals past and present. It would be insane to leave that rich content, even when paid, on the table. That's literally leaving money on the table. Either Microsoft or Yahoo! will likely figure out a way to benefit by Paid Inclusion advertisers.

The key to making Paid Inclusion work, is understanding how it might not fit into Bing at all. If not, then finding search volume somewhere down the chain. Popular affiliated sites could make sense as a destination for the feeds. It's just that without being part of Bing, the value of Paid Inclusion is practically lost. Will Yahoo! control the first listings in Yahoo! Search? Or is it wholly over to Bing? Only time will tell what they decide to do. It's looking pretty bad for Paid Inclusion.

In the mean time, there's plenty of time. There needs to be regulatory approval of the deal. I said last night that I expect this would pass with government regulators. After approval, Yahoo! would make the transition within two years. That buys a lot of time for current Paid Inclusion deals to ponder the next strategy. Paid Inclusion will at least be as valuable now as it was yesterday until the deal is approved by government regulators. Even after that, the technical transition could take some months but no longer than two years. If you're an advertiser, plan ahead for this.

The things that are exciting about this news, is a rejuvenated platform to compete for search with Google. Whether that comes from Yahoo! past, Microsoft Bing's future, there's never a good reason to have just one search provider. As is the case with Microsoft's browser division for Internet Explorer, the company relaxed after winning dominant market share leaving room for new upstarts like Firefox. Google's search quality has been in a steady decline since it's wide appeal began in earnest (back in 2002).

Google's search quality has had to endure being the top search provider, and what that means in terms of commercial noise (spam) targeted specifically at undermining their search quality. Big online ecommerce over the last decades have proven that website owners and big box merchants alike will do practically anything to gain top search engine rankings. For the past 7 years, that has meant Google alone, and not Yahoo!. Commercial sites now have to plan for a strong likelihood that Yahoo! Bing will become a contender again.

Yes, Yahoo! could have been a contender. It flippantly dismissed the search back in 2002 when it saved a small fee for Inktomi powered search, and offered Google instead. Google capitalized precisely as Inktomi had warned Yahoo! they would, by just growing their site into the behemoth that it is today. Google's world changed from being a small upstart search engine based on hypertext analysis to a major software provider that competes with Microsoft. Microsoft is now in real danger that Google will make them less and less relevant.

That's today's thriving competitive search marketplace making its way into all sorts of industries. In my opinion, that's the real story here. Google has Android, Chrome OS and cloud computing with applications that traditionally were Microsoft's bread and butter: Office. Google has the online worldwide audience captured by their free offerings including Maps. This is threatening the very core of Microsoft's business in all ways except gaming and their XBox. Microsoft has not done very well with Windows Mobile or Zune.

The XBox, however, is a popular gaming console. During the next 10 years, the period that will coincide with this search deal, search will find its way into every conceivable device and access point across the globe. Apple just rejected Google Voice for the iPhone App marketplace yesterday. Microsoft is already poised as a player, poised as the player that Google must take on directly without flinching. There is room for both which makes the competition even more fierce for dominance in these down stream marketplaces. Just imagine the whole competition.

Stay tuned.

One of the last coffees I had the chance to enjoy before hitting the road back in May, bound for Portland and Bend, was at Intelligentsia. I had the chance to meet at the cafe with SearchReturn link builder Sophie, who is working on two of the most important link building projects. Her rate is consistently over 10% acquisition. She has scored as high as 16% links from high quality webmasters. No reciprocals needed.

When I met with her, we had a coffee. Whenever I get the chance to have a great coffee where they style the top, like they do at Intelligentsia, I take a photo. I have one or two other pictures I took before heading to Portland, Bend and then Seattle, which I'll feature in more posts. Here is a picture of that coffee I had with Sophie back in May.



Sophie is the staff member with the most experience using the link building application. She has been working with the program since it was first developed. Her feedback has become part of the application. We've adopted one or two features based upon her direct suggestions. Sign up for link building, and chances are you'd have Sophie helping with strategy and potentially link building. Her success rate with clients is high.

Stay tuned.

It's been a while since I last optimized my Tweets. It was back in February when I needed some fast rankings for Disa Johnson. I recall looking at the current rankings for my name, noticed rankings appearing quickly for a negative blog posting about me, I immediately commenced my reputation management campaign using Twitter.

It only took hours for Twitter to rank above the blog post that attacked me. Not bad at all. I recorded everything from then on to document the entire process. The thing I didn't like was my Tweets weren't all that natural anymore. I wanted to stop tweaking them for my name. Above all, you have to be authentic in Twitter.

In an interview I gave last Friday, I stressed the authenticity factor for success with Twitter above all others as the most important thing. Sure, there are ways to get your message in. It falls on deaf ears though, unless your Tweets are natural and authentic. Then you can succeed, like I am succeeding.

After I got top rankings by changing my name at my company site Search Return LLC, and I got this 'Disa Johnson' blog started, (started unexpectedly for Reputation Management needs, can you believe it?), then I started another personal blog and a Disa Johnson Bio site. I populated every profile that was ranking in the top 30.

It all worked perfectly. I no longer had to juice my Twitter profile with Disa Johnson. I was ranking perfectly well and basically legally flooding Google, which was the only place the negative post appeared top 10. It's still in the top 10 results but is now slipping again with Twitter. The more the guy writes about me anymore using nasty headlines the more a fight will continue.

Luckily for me, it would now be a fight where the purpose has been successfully usurped by me. The more attention the matter gets from now on, the more my real story gets out in the face of his false facts and hate speech. As long as there is no fight, then I get to make it just a sidebar issue in my life, and simply refer to it for fun every now and again.

To me? That's perfect Reputation Management. I sustained the onslaught of personal attack by a blogger and his fans. I survived intact, lived to tell the tale and at my own pace. Is there a negative ranking? Yes. It's slipping away into the past. Maybe soon it will only surface top 10 using advanced search.

Who knows? Who really wants to promote falsehoods? I'll just point it out where people do, including the original post itself without promoting it in search engines. I think it's become a nasty little liability for the author, not me. That suits me fine. What was strange for me today, was noticing the Twitter ranking is number one again, just like before I changed my name at my company site. Twitter is beating us all on my name even after I started flooding.

I'm not the only one who noticed this new Twitter ranking power. I thought it was just me yesterday when I recorded the ranking change for my own purposes. Then I noticed this Tweet from @ogletree and realized that it isn't just me. That's an interesting development, but not one of great consequence (except a positive thing for my little campaign). It's great for me.

Stay tuned.

I've known Daron Babin of Webmaster Radio for over a decade. I've had the pleasure of being on many shows from hosting the Daily SearchCast (when Danny was unable to make it), to various SEO RockStars shows and appearing on the original RainMaker - (the very first show).

It's usually the case that I'll get a call from Daron or one of the fine WMR folks (Brandy, Brasco or Eddie), and jump on air with them live totally impromptu. I love supporting my friends, and they fully support me back. It's great to have such awesome confirmation.

When I made my announcement about Disa Johnson (Detlev 301 redirects to Disa Johnson) it caught many by surprise (including Daron). He sat for a minute or two and then came back immediately with the most awesome, the warmest welcome I could imagine. Special thanks to Oilman. I come on air 45 minutes into that show. Brandy also rang me up and she is just really fabulous for it. Thank you!

For all this time, since that original RainMaker episode, Daron and I have talked about doing a show. I was hesitant for reasons that the whole '301 redirect thing' was personal, and there's no need to drag my friends through it in a more involved way than it needed to be before now.

So, now that I'm Disa Johnson - @AirDisa - on yesterday's SEO RockStars about a major Pagerank update, Daron and I got all fired up and raring to go. I have worked incredibly hard on my transformation, looking after my reputation along the way and at the same time delivering those important results for clients. All this while I've been confirming really exciting guests for the new show.

We have a serious line up that includes the best names in search and beyond. Operative word: Beyond. In fact, last night I was so excited and happy about the Chicago scene, music, art and online, that after I got home from the office, I took a picture of the Chicago night sky to commemorate the feeling I had after confirming a special guest (that I can't wait to announce).

It's going to be fun, really fun.



It's exciting. Seriously. Want to be on air with me? Get in touch. If you pitch something interesting, you could be featured on an episode and or extended versions of the audio tracks. If you like just lurking, then listen in live and use chat with us when we're on the air. Or just lurk completely and have fun in your own way! I have other announcements regarding what the show will include - coming soon :)

Stay tuned.

Disa Johnson is fondly recalling her trip to the Dark Side of SEO, and Chicago politics. While we now have a president in office from Chicago, (which is fantastic!), we also have a rather frightening history of the gang known as the Chicago Outfit. They were brutal, and members have recently been sentenced by the Justice Department's Operation Family Secrets. Some of the characters, and the most violent scenes in the movie Casino were based on real events and people from "The Outfit."

Chicago, famous for crime is also famous for having corrupt officials. Purely for tongue-in-cheek fashion, I'm going to point to this post on our disgraced Illinois governor that said amazingly naive things on television. He lived just outside Chicago and will eventually have to settle in a cell. Even after such amazing hubris on the air, the fellow still has fans! Remember though, it's the quality of what you write in a blog that matters if you want your stuff to last more than a day (or less than a day as in last week's attack).

This entry is not something worthy of submitting to Sphinn. It's not meant for Digg. There is lots of material out there from bloggers that really isn't worth promoting - oh, but they do! It's stunning to me that people can continue to be fans of someone like Blago. Just remember, free speech is a guarantee that you can speak up about whatever you want. You are free to write things that are pure speculation so that you can create Digg or Sphinn worthy entries for traffic and hits. Social Media optimization has its brutes. Don't promote everything you write automatically just because you can.

This isn't an entry for Sphinn. For me, the Disa Johnson "Chicago Outfit" is something I want to associate with something entirely different than bad behavior and character assassination. I want to write about fashion! So, of course, I'll weave some of that into AirDisa. Search Return is all business, AirDisa is more like Danny Sullivan's Daggle in that AirDisa is purely about Disa Johnson. I also plan to write about the whole transition process (for those who are interested and care about that stuff) but not here. I have more domains coming online.

With respect to my Reputation Management campaign, incidentally, it's going extremely well. I secured my place at the top with the first true number one on Saturday (first time I know of that anyone but a volleyball player named Disa Johnson has had it). Just between you and me, I'm happy to promote her for Disa Johnson, aren't you?

Some got caught up in a series of personalization confusion and pathetic speech against me last week. It's all recorded for posterity (and as a fascinating case study on the matter). Watching this unfold was none other than Fantomaster of course! After my visit with him and Disa Johnson's Trip to The Dark Side of SEO, Fantomaster was witness to events as they unfolded. Fantomaster and I, we know our SEO. A blogger like Blago is allowed to write a title with anything in it to bait readers and get hits. It's done on purpose.

So, what would Disa Johnson write about style? Well, I'm officially the newest Chicago Fashionista! Look for upcoming  material - Disa's got plans. I expect I'll write about the Chicago Outfit. My gang here isn't violent, we're not into character assassination. You'll find no cheap thrills here. We're into style! My style, what Oilman calls my "snappy" style, is my initial Chicago Outfit Disa Johnson put on display in Santa Clara at SMX West. Look for the next physical installment in June at SMX Advanced.

I have goals and inspiration to make them. I'm diligent about recording things accurately. I've recorded my weight loss on a daily basis since last July 2008, and recorded my caloric intake everyday. I've charted it all, and my physical trainer has started to record my workout progress since last January. I weigh less than I did at anytime in my thirties. I wrote some Excel Macros that calculates the amount of caloric intake I can have in any given day. I track the whole thing start to finish, just like I record rankings (sans personalization). Who says search marketing skills don't come in handy for your personal life?

Stay tuned.

Well, Disa Johnson is just going to get on with it now, and act like the Queen of Cool whatever may come next. Things are looking good today. I applied some pressure that resulted in a targeted edit, even if more blight was added. It didn't last an hour. My SERPs are safe enough to just fill them up with Disa Johnson ad infinitum. Interesting stuff about me and SEO on the way. It's too easy when you are a smart enough SEO to choose a field of battle and mind your own business just kicking ass. I can relax now and just succeed with text.

So, people have asked me about the name Disa Johnson. It's true, they do! Well, let me tell you. The name Disa originally is a heroine of Swedish legend. I do herald from (northern) European descendants with a bit of Scottish tossed in for good measure. There is also a Disa Orchid, and I find it rather fun to read about them. Anything new that comes along which I discover, either on Disa the legend, or the Disa Orchid, I promise to make an entry.

Both of these references can be found searching Wikipedia. I just thought I'd include links above for your convenience. Sure, it'll influence AirDisa in Google search for Disa Johnson. People who want to search Google and navigate to learn more about me, or someone else that carries the same name, they might want to know more about the origin of the name itself. For me, I own the name. So I can write about it authoritatively. My own bio can be found at Disa Johnson (.com).

This is how you do legitimate SEO. When appropriate, you can write about the keyword you're interested in ranking for. Just start by writing well and doing what comes naturally. If I have a bona-fide interest in the subject, as I have a bona-fide interest in my name, I can write about Disa Johnson all day long. In fact, the word: blog, (short for Web log) is meant to be rather like a journal. I can journal ad infinitum and I don't always have to refer to my name. It's the quality of writing, the intent of an entry, and moderating comments that can make a blog outstanding.

So, there you have it. Disa Johnson: Queen of Cool. She's smart, dresses smartly (or is a snappy dresser according to Oilman) and tries to keep her smart ass in check when under duress. It even sometimes works. Disa Johnson has the courage to continue, stand up against naysayers to make it to SMX Advanced in Seattle no matter what happens next. I am working hard towards looking my best when I'm there and putting my best foot forward.

I have always been open and free with my SEO expertise, offering my help in conference settings for a decade now. That's how people know me, respect me and they count together as reputation equity. Whatever happens from here, I intend to continue to thrive with dignity. You should want that too. You should want that both for yourself, and perhaps wish it for me here and now. That would be good.

Stay cool.

After Disa Johnson's Visit to the Dark Side of SEO, as the warm embers of our fire fade to gray ash, after the phantom stories of last night's dream, after our slumber from night, and as the sound of the dawn's innocence begins when we waken - I beckon you for a walk in the fresh air. Let us visit our little Link Building garden to see "The Bookmarklet and the SQuiD" grow.

There are any number of ways to spot, nurture and protect sprouting new link targets, and most of these methods result in the need of great care and management. Our gracious gardener is none other than Eric Ward. He has carefully planned, planted and nurtured our bed of multi-colored roses and our row of Daffodils. He has trimmed our hedges and he has minded the grass. The fresh scent rises now, as the morning glow begins to heat the earthbound treasure of fresh links coming up out of the ground.

Before the day begins. Before the week's busywork ends in forgetfulness for yet another weekend of fun. Before the malaise of our mind-numbing commitments, and our deadlines are sure to hastily expire, (they will expire whether you keep them or not), suspend for now these things on your mind and pick up for a walk in the Link Building garden green.

How do you set about keeping track and reporting to your clients? Take a brisk tour of The Bookmarklet and the SQuiD this morning, provided by our tour operator and the developer lead on the SQuiD project: Jake Scruggs. His is a developer's view. In turn, Eric and I will provide further assistance to users. There's something nicely hidden in the obvious that makes this application special.

The Bookmarklet feature briefly mentioned towards the end of Jake's 10-minute tour hints at things to come that will allow search engine optimization expert users the opening of new doors into ways of doing things in SEO never before possible. That will be thanks to special Javascript written by our very own Fred Polgardy. This all comes with a management application for the most important job you can do to achieve rankings the correct way: Link Building.

So, take a little tour, see what we have growing in our Link Building Garden Green. Maybe, if you set about the safe and proper way to build links to your site, and your clients, you will come to like having a management tool at your finger tips that helps you keep track the way we do. SQuiD helps you manage large lists of pages and it has built-in search capabilities with reporting features you can use with your clients.

You can look forward to forthcoming information, tutorials and guides by the brightest minds in Link Building and SEO. You can especially look forward to the neat little Bookmarklet branching off and thriving, as it grows with fruitful new features and supplies magical benefits to you and your organization. Welcome to the Link Building "Garden Green" with The Bookmarklet and the SQuiD.

Stay tuned.

One of the newish services that I hadn't much experience with was NaymZ. I had some colleagues that sent me invites to connect with the service, and I had taken the time to visit the website but not yet decided to spend the time necessary to complete yet another personal profile.

I understood what NaymZ was trying to do, and I knew that I could always create a profile if it ever achieved critical mass. When the whole reputation management on queries for my name raised it's ugly head, I went about doing the sorts of things that would populate my listings as much as possible, with profiles that I maintained.

The most successful thus far has been Twitter, followed by Facebook, LinkedIn and so on. I got advice from a friend (thank you Rhea!) that NaymZ also seems to rank very highly in Google (the one engine where this issue is nastiest). So, I set about marking up my NaymZ profile.

It took a little while to connect it with various other profiles, and the UI had browser issues on some occasions, (the very reason I resist spending time with newish sites). You know what? It worked like magic. The NaymZ profile debuted at number 8 in Google. That's a pretty good sign that the profile will stick around in the top 10 for as long as I keep it fresh.



So, what do I think you should do? I think you should follow my friend's valuable advice and create a NaymZ profile page to protect and or repair anything from appearing top 10 for your name, (at least for as long as Google is a profile cowboy). The reason these profiles rank so well quickly, and without too much bother, is that you don't have to worry about link building.

Search Return is fairly solid top 10 on the name by itself, but there really aren't that many links relating to my name yet which point to Search Return. I have already created a SQuiD account, and achieved at least one new link through my own Link Building application. The number 8 or 9 Google ranking for Search Return at this time is practically only due to the HTML.

Link Building for Search Return is my long term plan for getting close to number one. In the mean time, I needed to act quickly. Thus far, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Plaxo and now NaymZ have all had varying levels of success with top 10 Google rankings. They all make up the quick 'damage control' plans. AirDisa (this blog) is my interim plan, succeeding at debuting and moving up to page two within two weeks.

Search Return figures into my end game.

Stay tuned.