periscopeUP To Speak At DAASN’S Inaugural Social Networking Event

Dan Kaplan, co-founder of periscopeUP will speak at “ Learning How To Merge Your Networking and Social Media Together For A More Profitable Return.” Dan is the Baltimore SEO expert on the panel and will be discussing the impact of social media on search engine optimization.

Date: October 20, 2009
Time: 7:30 am to 12 noon
Place: Sheraton Baltimore North, 903 Dulaney Valley Road Towson, MD 21204
Phone: 410.321.7400
Price: $65

Click here to register.

Event Description: Panel discussion from an expert panel of top Baltimore Executives in Search Engine Optimization, Offline Marketing, Online Social Media, Web Development, Internet Marketing and how to tie this all together. Attendees will  have the opportunity to discuss and interact with presenters in a Q & A session.

Here’s a flyer with more information (pdf).

On Page Optimization Checklist

At periscopeUP, we love search engine optimization checklists, which help us make sure all our work is done properly. We try to keep our checklists short and sweet.  This checklist is for our writers, who revise the on-page copy after we’ve identified the target keyword(s) for the page. (We have a different checklist to write pages optimized for people, but that’s the stuff of another post).

Unlike Stoney deGeyter’s optimization checklist, this optimization checklist is used only for the content re-writing process, not for the entire SEO process, and it does not include technical tasks such as robot.txt files, W3C verification, etc.

Feel free to use or adapt for your own uses.

periscopeUP Writer’s On Page Optimization Checklist

• Title
• URL
• Keyword Tag
• Description Tag
• H1
• H2
• H3
• H4
• First paragraph
• B and Strong
• Img alt tags
• inbound links
• outbound links

Briefly, we’ll explain how we use these items on this page you’re reading now. Take a look at the source of this page to see how we’ve done it.

For the sake of this simple illustration, the keyword phrase we’re targeting for this page is “On Page Optimization Checklist”

Title

• Be sure the title of the page includes the phrase, or at least all the words in the phrase.
• Simply using only the keyword phrase as the title may get you a penalty for keyword stuffing if you do it across your entire site.

Here’s this page’s title tag:

<title>On Page Optimization Checklist</title>

URL

• Be sure the URL includes your target phrase.:

The URL for this page is good to go: http://www.periscopeup.com/on-page-optimization-checklist/

Keyword Tag

While the keyword tag isn’t as important as it was in 1995, we use it to keep track of what we optimized each page for. We include one to 5 terms per page. Avoid stuffing all your keywords into this tag. Use unique keyword tags on each page.

This page has a simple keyword tag is:

<meta name=”keywords” content=”On Page Optimization Checklist” />

Description Tag

Be sure the keyword phrase (or if possible, phrases) appear in the description. Remember  the description tag sometimes appears in search results under the title tag, so use this tag to entice users to click on your search results.

Here’s this page’s description tag:

<meta name=”description” content=”An effective and useful On Page Optimization Checklist we use when optimizing web pages for SEO.” />

H1, H2, H3, and H4 Tags

Be sure your H1 tag is the first header tag on the page and that it includes your search term. Use the term(s) in other headers as well.

Here’s the h1 tag for this page:

<h1>On Page Optimization Checklist</h1>

Here’s an H2:

<h2>periscopeUP Writer&#8217;s On Page Optimization Checklist</h2>

First paragraph

Your first paragraph should inlcude your primary target search phrase. Preferably the phrase is used as first word of the first sentence, or at least use it in the first 100 words.

Our first paragraph has a portion of the target search phrase:

<p>At periscopeUP, we love search engine <strong>optimization checklists</strong>…

B and Strong Tags

There’s some debate in the SEO community regarding which tag to use for emphasis: the < b > or the < strong > tag. We use both! Make sure your target search phrase is bolded at least once on the page, preferably twice.

Note our first paragraph (code above) and our bolding the keyword phrase “On Page Optimization Checklist” above.

Img alt tags

Make sure all images use the alt tag, preferably (if it makes sense) include the search phrases in your image alt tags. Here’s an example:

Here’s what the image alt tag looks like for the image above:

<img title=”OnPageOptimizationChecklist” src=”http://www.periscopeup.com/wp-content/uploads2/OnPageOptimizationChecklist.gif” alt=”On Page Optimization Checklist Image” width=”151″ height=”148″ />

Anchor Links

Make sure anchor links are optimized so the link text displays the search term. For example: view the bolding of our “On Page Optimization Checklist” above.

Outbound Links

Outbound links should be natural sounding while including the search phrase as the link text. Refer to our link to an optimization checklist in the second paragraph of this post. The URL looks like this:

<a href=”http://www.searchengineguide.com/stoney-degeyter/the-best-damn-o.php” target=”_blank”>optimization checklist</a>

Inbound links

Now, the off page optimization can begin. How to optimize inbound links from other websites, will have to wait for another post.

Please comment below and let us know what you think of our checklist, and feel free to use it  if you want.

Increasing Website Traffic

Time for some shameless self promotion with proof that SEO really works!

Increasing Website Traffic by 435.94%

After just three months (one spent optimizing the site, and two spent building quality links), our client FMI has seen a 435.94% increase in their website traffic.

Increasing Website Traffic By 435.94%

Read more

Redesign!

Sneak peak of our new design for this site, due out by the end of August: Read more

Niche SEO

Here’s a good example of how small, niche sites can profit from Optimizing for Search and People.

One of our clients, FMI, has a very unique product offering: medical silicone. They make ultra clean silicone molding for medical implantable devices like pacemakers. Their engineers can coat the smallest of micro parts with sterile silicone rubber. Amazing work, for a very small market of high end medical device manufacturers. Read more

The Russian Playground

This is very cool example of how you can use business to advance the causes you believe in.

Two months ago, periscopeUP helped out Alex Griffith, an Eagle Scout with his website. The website details his Scout project and quest to bring a playground to the orphanage where he was born, in Krasnoyarsk, Russia. Read more

periscopeUP shoutout in DM News

Yield software went live today. periscopeUP was one of their beta testers, and we love the software, one of the best in our toolkit! It allows search marketers to better optimize and track  paid search campaigns, on page SEO, and landing pages. Read more

Mommy Bloggers

Stephanie Azzarone wrote a great article in MediaPost, where she argues that “Bloggers can promote products or services more credibly than companies can on their own.” Here’s some stats: Read more

WordTracker unveils new Keyword Research Tool

It’s hard to find information on frequency, competitiveness and commerciality when researching keywords on multiple sites. WordTracker  today unveiled a new Read more

Dan's Review of President Obama's Recovery.gov Site Appears In Today's Baltimore Sun

Hey all,

Last week, I was interviewed as Baltimore’s SEO expert by the Baltimore Sun. Several Baltimore web consultants and I critiqued the Obama administration’s Recovery.gov website. The article appeared in today’s print and online editions (March 10, 2009). Overall the site got pretty good reviews from some of us tech geeks in town.

Here’s the Baltimore Sun review of Recovery.gov.

Dan