February ABCs of Web Design Newsletter

Your Moderator Theresa Wilkinson

(theresaw@columbus.rr.com)

In this month’s newsletter –

*Introductory comments

*Question of the month

*Wrap up

Introductory comments

My latest article just came out called The "Right" Keywords and I am busy writing my next article on SEO spam. It truly amazes me how many people do this and the companies who promise top positions or guarantees for top positions. In order for these companies to get these positions as quickly as they promise – they are using SEO spam. So if you decide to use one of these questionable companies, be careful because YOU and your site will pay the price for their blatant disregard for the rules. If you do SEO the right way – it really does not take that long for your site to start grabbing the top positions – in my experience it is only a matter of weeks. On to the question…

Question of the month

Question: I get asked a lot about how I stay up on all the SEO changes in the industry so I thought I would tackle that one for this month’s question.

Answer: I thought I would list the sites that I frequent the most for information on SEO (most of these are also listed on my resources and I am in the process of overhauling this page to add even more useful sites):

Search Engine Marketing Forums – I visit this site almost daily. I always find great information here and it is by far the best SEO forum I have found. What I like best is the variety of info, from SEO 101, Webmaster info, SEO contract work, to database management – you can find almost anything here.
ClickZ Today – This site has really improved over the last two years in my opinion. Granted they have more SEO articles on here now but they also have a column dedicated to improving web site conversion (though it could be more helpful than it is). But like I said before – the SEO information is now really good.
Traffick.com – When I want the real dirt on an SEO rumor floating around the forums, I come here to get the real deal. This site has great, up-to-date information on the ever changing world of SEO.
Google – Yes, believe it or not, I actually do come here and check and see if anything is new or updated -- seems logical to me to check here since this is the number one search engine in the world!
I also subscribe to a several SEO newsletters -- probably the most useful one I have found is High Rankings Advisor.

Wrap up

Luckily I like to do research and I usually do my homework on any project first until I do enough to feel really comfortable. For example, I will be starting a Google Adwords campaign very soon so I started frequenting the SEO forums on that subject to read about issues other SEOs are experiencing. I also purchased Andrew Goodman’s “21 Ways to Maximize ROI on Google Adwords Select.” An Excellent resource too! Now I am now busy gathering the keywords I think I can get good traffic for and writing the ads I think people to click on.

One of the things I love about working in the Internet industry is the fact that things do change so quickly and you are forced to stay on top of this ever-changing work. To me, that is what makes it fun – but then I do like to learn things and I definitely love challenges. Thanks for reading my newsletter!

Please send all questions to theresaw@columbus.rr.com.

To see the articles from my print web column, go to http://www.w-edge.com/articles.htm

Feel free to forward this email in its entirety to anyone you feel might be interested in it.