Joel Krigsman and I have been talking about anchor text for a while.  Yes he has no girlfriend and I have no life. But seriously we have been talking about how Google registers anchor text in sites.  We know that Google crawls the web via links and rewards sites with lots of good links and can penalise a site with too many bad links.

 The test comprises of the following:

• This page on this blog aaatestaaa
• Links off this page to
  •  a page on a partner site dddtestddd
  • a pdf hosted on this site eeetesteee
    • the pdf also links to the page on the partner site

We are using and stuffing keywords in all these pages phrases that currently don't rank in Google Australia Search (pages from Australia).  We will report further on this test in the coming weeks.

Server Hosting

I have been thinking lately of changing my server arrangements.  I would be very interested in anyone opinions on the following suppliers: Web24 and WebCity

Its not that I am unhappy with my current arrangements in fact the prices are fantastic, but I think I need to experiment a little more with CPanel and the like so I can become more proficient in its use.

Maybe a reseller account where I can have multiple sites on the same account, any thoughts??

U2 YouTube Live Webcast

This week on the U2 YouTube channel they performed a live webcast for their fans around the world.  We discus this and the archived copy of the video.  We discuss more broadly the benefits of live streaming versus on-demand video.

Online Video Production

Ranking for Online Video production is proving more difficult than I thought it would. I am not getting any traction at all.  In the Mill Park Beautician challenge the Digg that I submitted ranked very early and continues to rank quite well. The two Diggs I did for this challenge are not ranking in the top 200 for the phrase online video production.

Interestingly though the site and the optimised pages have now been indexed by Google they still dont rank at all.  It funny really because if this blog has any themes at all they would be "video" and "online".  Clearly Google though doesn't see this site as an authority on these matters at all.

One possible explanation of not ranking could be the confused linking structure I embarked on when I started this particular campaign and the "back-dating" of content as I wrote four articles all on the same day.  I will expand on this confused linking structure in a later post but hopefully the linking of this article will help boost this flagging experiment, trying to rank for Online Video Production.

Beautician Mill Park

Just a quick update on the ranking success of Mill Park Beautician, the dig link I submitted ranks 4 in google.com.au (pages from the web) and the root directory of this blog ranks 6 for Mill Park Beautician. In (pages from Australia) search the root directory of this blog ranks 5.

I expect that once the internal pages get indexed that this site will capture two positions and eventually the target page will rank well for Mill Park Beautician.

Bassane

In this previous blog about Basane I noted that the company ranks for their business name and how they promote this on their front window.  I commented that they don't rank for the  misspelling Bassane.  This blog post is an attempt to do just that!!  We will have to wait and see if these few words are successful but in the meantime I would like to suggest a better way to use the search engines to promote your business.

A quick look at the website tells me that Basane is a Tanning and Beauty Salon.  Ranking for phrases such as "mill park tanning salon" or "mill park beautician" (which they dont rank in the top 20 for incidently) would be far more significant. Customers looking for this service would be presented with this company at the point of research.  Returning a result for Basane for one of these phrases would re-enforce the branding statement that is made by having your shop in a highly trafficked area of the suburb.

The most profitable real estate is actually the front page of Google.  This is the heart of an SEO campaign, ranking high for searched for phrases that will deliver traffic (and sales) through your website.

Absolute Legend Luke Holt from the Morning Wake-Up on Melbourne radio station Light FM has been challenged by his collegues to rank for the phrase "absolute legend".  He has been working to improve the rankings for lightfm.com.au and has been implementing quite a bit of SEO work to make this happen.

I am happy to say that after implimenting SEO to his Joomla site he is starting to rank for alot of additional content on the site.  Previous to his campaign he only ranked for phrases related to the company name and not for internal content.  He is also getting all the shows to write content with more descriptive titles creating more phrases to rank for.

So lets hope he can meet the challenge and rank for absolute legend. He has made one error that I have told him about and by the time you read this it may have been changed.  He used the anchor text "Absolute Legend Google search challenge" in the footer of the whole site and as such ranks 4 & 5 in google au search for this phrase.  It shows the importance of choosing your anchor text, and for the matter <h1> phrases, correctly and loading them with the phrases you want to rank for.

Searching this phrase again today I have found that, rightly, Buzzbee Homes now ranks for the phrase "Buzzbee Homes". Number 3 in fact, one above my site.  Interestingly this only happened after I referenced them in my blog
"Buzzbee Homes - Why they can't be found in Google" with a link titled Buzzbee Homes.

I think this is more than coincidence. Google always preferences sites with the search phrase or keyword in the URL and of course Buzzbee Home website is at www.buzzbee.com.au.  Previous to my rants Buzzbee Homes didnt rank and it was probably that way since the site went live, after my rants there it is!

In my previous blog about Buzzbee Homes I mentioned that I would begin to explain why I think Google cannot find them. As you may be aware Google uses a range of factors to determine a sites "relevance", while some of these are well known others are guessed at and some factors are rumoured to gain better SEO results. I am settling into my new role at StewArt Media I am researching and finding out more and more about these factors and how they affect a sites ranking for a particular phrase.  StewArt Media has procedures in place that they have proven over the course of optimising numerous sites to be successful in causing a page(or site) to rank.

While not breaking any commercial confidences I thought it would be an interesting exercise to demonstrate why Buzzbee Homes doesn't rank for even their own name let alone relevant key phrases related to the products and services they sell.

This article by Phil Cooke confirms what I have experienced with creating video for the online and mobile market.  Attention spans are shorter online.  You need to grab your audience early and keep the video interesting so people wont click away.