OK, so let’s build some links (backlinks)! One of the easiest methods of building links for your seo off page optimization is the old school method of visiting one of the major search engines (preferably Google) and searching for your targeted keywords you would like your site to rank high for. Now visit some of these sites that rank well for your keywords and attempt to contact them either via email, contact forms or phone and ask them if they will consider exchanging links with your site.

Be prepared as many of these site owners will not want to link back to you unless your site is relevant and has something of value to offer such as high quality pages with great content. You may need to explain that your current ranking is low but your website team is actively working on several projects to improve website traffic and relevant backlinks over the next few months and we fully intend to improve our rankings in all the major search engines.
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Ok I admit it, this is just a test. We just wanted to see if we used Jessica Alba’s name what kind of traffic volume we might get on our site. Does it have anything to do with SEO? probably not. Does Jessica Alba like SEO? She probably doesn’t care. So let’s talk some seo, besides seo is what this site is all about right? Kind of easy to get off track from seo when there are so many other topics like blogging tips and web 2.0 and other fun stuff to blog about. So here are a few tips on seo. Link popularity is a huge factor in off page search engine optimization. Yes, it can be a bit difficult and time consuming, but getting good links is essential to building your website page rankings and getting your key words and phrases to list higher in the SERP’s (Search Engine Results Pages).
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Let’s face it, if you loose your entire blog, you will be kicking yourself to Kansas, because you didn’t take the time to backup your blog database. So take action now and go directly to http://www.ilfilosofo.com/blog/wp-db-backup and download and install the latest version of the WordPress Database Backup Plugin, currently version 2.1.2. Also, watch this awesome video: Essential WordPress Hacks - Database Backup
Don’t let your blog go up in smoke, back it up on a regular basis.

Take your blog to the next level by customizing your permalink structure for more search engine friendly permalinks (your blog post URL’s). This is assuming you have a WordPress blog on your own domain. The out of box WordPress setting for permalinks is set to default. This setting will create permalinks with the ?P=123 type structure, this doesn’t help give you a competitive edge with the search engines that a custom post name structure will give you. A custom post name structure will utilize the title post name for your URL’s. Your post titles normally include your keywords. This in turn will help your cause for better page rankings with the search engines. The following site: tubetorial.com has a real cool video tutorial on making this permalink change. It’s called “How to Get More Search Engine Traffic With One Simple Tweak”

CAUTION: This permalink structure change is intended for newly installed WordPress blogs with little or no postings and is not recommended for well established good ranking blogs. The owner of a well established blog would have to setup many 301 redirects in order to avoid getting “Error 404 - file not found” errors and possibly loosing hard earned SERP’s and page rankings.

Here are a few SEO key terms defined:
CMS = Content Management System
SEM = Search Engine Marketing
SEO = Search Engine Optimization
SERP’s = Search Engine Results Pages
SES = Search Engine Strategies

So you want to be a social media marketing specialist but you’re working 40 to 60 hour weeks at your regular full time job and all these accounts like: digg, stubmleupon, newsvine, del.ici.ous and the hundreds of other web 2.0 sites, are just too time consuming for you keep up with. Here are a couple of must have tools to give you a fighting chance at keeping up with this social media marketing madness while still leaving you time left over to spend with your friends and family.

1. Web2Submitter - This is a first of it’s kind tool developed by Jack Humphrey and Brandon Hall over at ACS (Authority Site Center). This tool is going to save you a bunch of time helping you organize and submit your articles to the major social marketing sites in a very concise and efficient way. Check out this video (Web2Submitter Video) and you will quickly see that this is a must have tool at a generous price.

2. RoboForm - I log in and out of over a hundred different sites daily. RoboForm makes it so easy and fast to securely log into sites and fill out forms. You will be kicking yourself if you don’t already utilize this timesaving tool. Check out our quick video on RoboForm.

I sincerely hope this information and these tools are helpful in your own efforts with web 2.0 and social media marketing.

Regards, Jared Blake