SEO Blog
I’ve converted, but my first experience with Google Chrome occurred about a year ago and it was not a positive one. It was disappointing and frustrating. However, after fighting with Firefox, which crashed many times daily and demanded updates that slowed browsing and constantly interrupted me, I gave Chrome a second chance.
My biggest concern was the lack of extensions (”plugins” for Firefox users), but after about an hour on the Google Chrome Extensions site, that was no longer a problem. So, I’ve compiled a list of the best Chrome Extensions for SEO and a few other can’t-live-without extensions (in no particular order).
1. Chrome SEO
Includes page, backlink, traffic and rank stats, and more.
2. SEO Site Tools
Includes internal and external page data, social media stats, server information and more.
3. Google Similar Pages beta (by Google)
Shows pages similar to the Web page you’re currently browsing.
4. Domain Details
Shows domain, website and server details at a glance.
5. PageRank
Shows Google PageRank on your toolbar.
6. SeoQuake
Appears to be based on the Firefox plugin (currently in beta).
7. Speed Tracer (by Google)
Shows page performance data.
8. Ultimate Chrome Flag
Get domain, page and server data as well as PageRank and the hosting country’s flag icon.
9. SEO Playground
Shows great on-page content information.
10. Whois+
Get Whois, DNS, Email and Ping information for the current domain.
11. Firebug Lite
Great for front-end inspection of the Web page you’re browsing.
12. Pendule
Web developer tools for Chrome.
13. IMG Inspector
Converts image links to a full gallery with thumbnails. Lightbox-style.
14. Image Preview
Replaces image and video links with a lightbox preview popup.
15. IE Tab
Display web pages using IE in a tab.
16. MeasureIt!
Draw a ruler to measure any Web page element.
17. Web Developer Mini
Web developer tools. This is a miniature toolset. Pendule has more functionality.
18. ProxyThisPage
Load the page through a proxy.
19. Switch HTTP Proxy
Switch proxy setting with one click.
[download & install now]
20. Session Buddy
Chrome session management.
21. Session Manager
Save sessions of your opened tabs to quickly re-open whenever you like.
22. ShowIP
Displays your current IP address.
23. AutoPagerize for Chrome
Auto-loads the next page as you scroll through a Web page. For example: Google SERPs, Delicious bookmarks, etc.
24. Evernote Web Clipper
Save interesting stuff you see on the Web into your Evernote account for use on the Web or mobile.
25. My Shortcuts
Quickly access your Google Apps, or custom URLs, that you frequently use.
26. Resolution Test
Test web pages in different resolution settings or set your own resolution.
27. FlashBlock
Block all Flash on all pages or use the whitelist manager to allow certain pages to display Flash.
28. Docs PDF/PowerPoint Viewer (by Google)
Preview PDFs, PowerPoint documents and other docs in Google Docs viewer.
29. WOT (Web of Trust)
A safe browsing tool that warns of malicious sites.
30. AutoPager Chrome
Automatically loads the next page for multi-page sites by just scrolling with your mouse.
31. html2pdf
Converts HTML pages to PDF with one click.
32. Auto Copy
Highlight text and it’s automatically copied to your clipboard.
33. Chrome Gestures
Create mouse gestures to perform certain tasks.
34. Clickable Links
URLs and Emails displayed in text will be automatically converted to a link.
35. Tab Switch Plus
Find tabs in this vertical tab list and easily switch to new tabs or close immediately.
36. Xmarks Bookmarks Sync
Backup and sync your bookmarks across computers and browsers.
37. Translation Bar
Translate Web pages into your language of choice.
38. Autocomplete = on
Use to remember your passwords. Can be turned off.
39. RoboForm Online
Manage your passwords with RoboForm.
40. LastPass
Manage your password with LastPass.
41. RightLink
Right-click on links will automatically open the link in a new tab.
42. goo.gl URL Shortener
Shorten URLs with goo.gl
[download & install now]
43. StayFocusd
Limit the amount of time you spend on certain sites so you can focus.
44. New Tabs Always Last
Always opens new tabs to the far right of your toolbar. The default in Chrome is to open new tabs directly to the right of the current tab.
45. Search Box
Easily search in multiple search engines.
46. Feedly
Organize your feeds into a magazine-style start page.
47. Search the Current Site
Performs a site search for the current domain rather than just a page find search.
[download & install now]
48. SendTo Extension
Send current Web page to several Internet services: Gmail, Facebook, Twitter, Delicious, Wordpress, PDF Online, etc.
49. RemindMe
Set yourself reminders that can be synced on multiple machines.
50. Tabs to the Front!
Opens new tabs and brings them to the front for immediate attention.
51. Aviary Screen Capture
Take a screen capture and edit it immediately with Aviary tools.
52. Picnik Extension for Chrome
Capture a screen image and edit immediately using Picnik tools. Also pulls images from online at Flickr, MySpace, etc.
53. Pixlr Grabber
Grab the entire page or just a section and save it to your desktop or edit using Pixlr tools.
54. Webpage Screenshot
Capture the whole page or sections of the page in a JPG format.
55. Zemanta
Support for many blogging platforms: Wordpress, Blogger, Typepad, etc. Associates images, video and other content to be inserted into your blog post as you write.
56. Bit.ly
Easily shorten and share links with Bit.ly.
57. Twitter Reactions
Shows tweets about the current Web page.
58. Shareaholic for Google Chrome
Share the Web page on your favorite social network.
59. Digg for Chrome
Easily Digg the latest story and find out what is being discovered at the moment.
[download & install now]
60. StumbleUpon
Manage your Stumbles and discover new pages.
61. Del.icio.us Extension
One-click submission to bookmark your current Web page.
62. Delicious Tools
Manage your Delicious account, use a pop-up window for tagging and keyboard shortcuts are available.
63. Chromelicious
Easy access to your tags, bookmarks and Delicious account management.
64. My Alerts
Receive alerts for Twitter, Google, Backtweets, etc.
65. Facebook for Google Chrome
Quickly post status updates and view your wall and news feeds.
66. HootSuite
Manage your Twitter accounts easily. Based on the Firefox plugin.
67. Yelp Mobile for Google Chrome
Manage your Yelp account.
68. Auto HD for YouTube
Will automatically redirect to the HD version, if available, and play as normal.
69. Incredible StartPage
Customize your start page to include shortcuts and recover closed tabs. Also take notes as you browse.
70. Chrome Reader
Subscribe to feeds, in Google Reader, from the address bar.
71. BetterPandora
Who says you don’t need music to do SEO and blog?
During the writing of this post, I had several windows & tabs open with all of these extensions and more running simultaneously. I installed plugins and managed to tweet through Tweetdeck as well. Nothing slowed down. Nothing froze. I experienced no problems. That’s huge compared to Firefox or IE.
I’m sure I’ve missed more than a few so please comment with your favorite extensions to share with everybody.
** Be aware that extensions are not always published by the brand represented (e.g. Flickr, Delicious, Yelp, etc.).
If you want a blog that you can be proud of, you need to do some heavy lifting. These SEO tips can help you trim the fat and build up your SEO muscle. Think of me as your personal trainer, prepare yourself to sweat a little, and you will have Blog Posts of Steel in no time.
1. Drink Link Juice.
Link building and link bait should be critical to any blog. Try to get links to and from your blogs and include internal linking (linking to previous posts you wrote or other pages withing your site).
2. Cut Unhealthy Habits.
Edit your posts in the same way you would nix donuts from your diet. Others will catch your mistakes and will likely let you know about it. Also, do not use two words when one will do, as we all like short workouts.
3. Spotting is Necessary.
If you want to drive traffic to your blog, you need to do something for others, too. Comment on their blogs, but make sure your comments have substance. Support your fellow bloggers, tweet other blog posts, and they will be more inclined to return the favor. Be sure to follow up with comments on your own blog. This is like wiping down the equipment after using it. The people who comment before and after you will be grateful for your attention to detail.
4. Wear Proper Attire.
You want your blog to look good. Use flash sparingly (it’s not good for search engines), and make sure your blog posts are scannable (easy to read). Use bullet lists when you can, and do not use large blocks of text. It hurts our eyes, much like neon spandex that some feel is okay to wear to the gym. It is not, by the way.
5. Have a Regimen.
Be consistent. Whether you post once a day or once a week, you will increase traffic when you post regularly. This is where you will start to see results. Also, be consistent with your style. If you break form during a workout, you can hurt yourself. With SEO, it is your rankings that will be sore in the morning.
6. Eat Healthy.
Be careful of the words you take in on your blog posts. You want to use rich keywords, but if you litter your post with them, you will have a cumbersome blog that will alienate your readers. And remember: there are not many healthy diets out there that include SPAM.
7. Stretch.
Try new things and don’t be boring. With this in mind, do not go outside your limits and try to lift 100 pounds when you have been lifting 10. If you blog about business, but randomly decide to post about your cat Kibbles, we will not be amused (unless you can somehow relate cat kibbles to business success).
8. Don’t Sing Along to the Songs Over the Speakers in the Gym.
Ok, so this isn’t related to SEO or blogging. But it’s in good taste. Please, I beg of you.
Did I miss any healthy blogging tips? Let me know!
On March 25, some of college basketball’s best teams will compete in Salt Lake City for a chance to play in the Final Four. But before they tip off, smart marketers will assemble just up the road at the SEO.com headquarters for some March Madness of their own.
We’re hosting our third free workshop. And it’s going to be a barn burner full of SEO, PPC and social media marketing genius; networking opportunities with some of Utah’s brightest minds; and, of course, some great game-day snacks. And we’ll be evaluating two random attendees’ websites on the spot. You’ll be raising the roof, guaranteed.
Here’s the quick skinny:
What: March Madness Rankings Workshop
When: Thursday, March 25 from 2-5 p.m.
Where: 14870 Pony Express Road, # 100 in Bluffdale, Utah — just off I-15 at the point of the mountain
Topics: Pay-Per-Click Advertising, Search Engine Optimization, Social Media Marketing, Website Review
Cost: It’s free, but space is limited so reserve a seat by filling out the form on http://www.seo.com/march-madness/
Companies are putting more and more $$$ toward online marketing. eMarketer.com says $23 billion will be spent online, half of that in search engine optimization. This workshop will show marketers how to maximize those marketing dollars by mixing smart SEO, PPC and Social Media strategies to gain traffic and drive sales.
As usual, we’ll have presenters for each subject followed by a Q&A session. But this time, we’ll be doing something different. Attendees will compete in a short shooting competition to have their websites reviewed on the spot by our trio of all-stars: CEO Dave Bascom, VP of Client Services Nelson James, and the Director of SEO Ash Buckles.
So, before you check out the NCAA Tournament on the 25th, make sure to stop by and get some tips to bring your website more traffic. For more information, to reserve your spot, or to see the list of presenters, go to http://www.seo.com/march-madness/ .
You have trained hard and optimized your content for keywords (SEO basics). You’ve gained respect from your peers (link building), and have battled your competition and fought your way to the top of the search results (queue 80’s training montage). Now comes the championship fight – but it’s not against your top competition. It’s to convert those hard won visitors into customers.
So how do you convert visitors into customers? Make use of the AIDAS formula. There is nothing revolutionary about this age-old idea (it was conceived by psychologist E.K. Strong way back in 1925). There’s a reason it’s still around – because it works. AIDAS is best shown as a funnel:
Attention: Attract the customers’ attention.
You will only have a few seconds here. Having strong headline copy with an appropriate design emphasis or an intriguing image is most effective.
Interest: Get the customer interested.
Sell the benefits and advantages that the customer will enjoy with purchasing your product and or service. Include features if needed but make them less prominent in the design.
Desire: Make them want it.
Tell the customer how it will solve their problems or how it will make them feel.
Action: Tell them how to get it.
Provide clear calls to action and make it easy for the customer to purchase, signup, and or donate.
Satisfaction: Make those customers happy.
While this doesn’t directly increase conversion rates, it is vital for your business. Provide stellar customer service and two things will happen: the customer is much more likely to become a return, and they will recommend your business to friends and colleagues. Provide poor customer service, or worse, make them angry enough to share their bad experience. “Hell hath no fury like an angry customer with a Twitter account.”
AIDAS example in action:
The Mission Bicycle Company’s website is a good example of the AIDAS model in action.
- Attention: A well photographed, interesting image with their product dead center grabs visitor’s attention.
- Interest: A strong headline details why you should care about their product, and lets them know that they can afford it.
- Desire: Showcases recent custom bikes to inspire potential customers.
- Action: Lets the customer get started designing their own bike.
- Satisfaction: Lets customers provide feedback, suggestions, ask questions and lets general visitors see how satisfied their current customers are.
Obviously every product and service is different and will require a unique application of this formula, but remember this is the Web. You can easily test variations to see what will be most effective for your business. Google even provides a multivariate testing service for free.
The search engine optimization company blasts away the pounds in a fitness competition to claim coveted tech prizes.
SEO.com salesman, Dale Nguyen, sits in a Bod Pod to discover his total body fat percentage.SALT LAKE CITY – It doesn’t take much to get a team of tech-savvy geeks to trim down and shape up – just a few, sweet tech prizes.
“Mention ‘iPad,’ or ‘Dell Mini 5,’ and then mix in a little friendly competition, and the employees here will do the rest,” said Dave Bascom, CEO of SEO.com, a search marketing firm.
To improve the fitness and the overall health of his employees, Bascom is awarding the person who loses the highest percentage of body fat by June 1 a $500 prize of their choosing.
SEO.com as a whole may benefit in multiple ways with the competition. A study done in 2005 by the American College of Sports Medicine said workers who regularly exercise are more productive, managed time better, and worked better with their co-workers. Studies also show that employees who exercise regularly have fewer sick days, and less health-related expenses.
“If nothing else, we’ll all be a little healthier in 90 days after doing this for three months,” Bascom said. “And the In-N-Out Burger that just opened up by our office may not get as much business for awhile.”
Early on, the competition is already heating up.
“Nothing’s keeping me away from that iPad,” said David Malmborg, senior SEO specialist.
“I don’t want to win just for the iPad,” said Tyson Hymas, senior SEO specialist, “I want to win to beat Malmborg.”
SEO.com employees are coming up with different strategies to lose body fat. Hymas will be following the P90X exercise program and the diet Brad Pitt used to get in shape for the movie, “Fight Club.” Tiana Smith, a copywriter, will be following a routine set up by her personal trainer. Others have more creative tactics.
“You have to have a strategy for yourself; then you have to have another strategy to sabotage the competition,” said Scott Cowley, SEO manager. “I’ve used my social networks to find recipes for innocent looking, but highly fatty treats, which I will be putting around the office.”
About SEO.com
SEO.com is a search marketing firm that makes its clients money by driving traffic to their websites through aggressive search engine optimization, pay per click management, social media marketing and other search engine marketing services. SEO.com then turns those visitors into sales through search-optimized Web design and conversion optimization. Clients range from small startups to Fortune 100 companies.
Baidu has been making key changes to their pay-per-click (PPC) system, which has made the search engine more user friendly and more similar to Google. If you want to optimize your PPC on Baidu, take note of these changes:
As of Dec. 1, 2009, Baidu has retired their old PPC auction system, the Classic Edition. Now all PPC keyword bidding is done through their new system, Phoenix Nest.
The Classic Edition system was not convenient in managing large campaigns with thousands of keywords or more, because the old interface was not user friendly. The old way of keyword bidding was mainly based on keyword cost-per-click (CPC). The new Phoenix Nest system looks and operates more like Google Adwords; the interface is more user friendly and is very suitable for large campaigns.
The keyword bidding system in Phoenix Nest is now based on Baidu PPC keyword quality. Users should focus on optimizing their Baidu campaigns to maximize keyword quality, in a similar fashion to Google Adwords keyword quality optimization. However, there are no significant changes in the display of Baidu Search results. Here is how the display currently looks:
Search results on high traffic keywords:
Left side:10 PPC ads, then 10 organic search results
Right side: 8 PPC ads
Search results on long tail keywords:
Left side: 3 PPC ads, then 10 organic search results
Right side: 8 PPC ads
Search results on keywords with low traffic:
Left side: organic search results
Right side: 8 PPC ads
Baidu has also launched its PPC editor, Baidu Editor 1.0, which is similar to Google Adwords Editor. This tool enables advertisers to create/edit campaigns, ads, ad groups, and keywords offline. Baidu Editor is very beneficial to Baidu advertisers that manage large campaigns.
These two significant upgrades to the Baidu PPC system are going to help Baidu greatly in maintaining their market share in the ever-competitive China search advertising market. Combined with the resignation of Google China President, Lee Kai-Fu, who was mainly responsible for the increase in search market share for Google China, it will be very interesting to see how the battle for the China search market pans out.
Dave Bascom is selected for his overall leadership and guiding his SEO company to record numbers during the recession.
SALT LAKE CITY – Utah Business magazine named SEO.com president, Dave Bascom, among its 2010 Forty Under 40, a distinction recognizing top Utah “business leaders, tech gurus, professionals and entrepreneurs” less than 40 years old.
“I can’t think of anyone who deserves this recognition more than Dave does,” said Nelson James, vice president of client services. “He has put countless hours of blood, sweat, and tears into this company and it shows in our growth, success, and the success of our clients.”
“As his first employee,” James continued, “I’ve been with him from the beginning and can say that his unique understanding of both business principles and the search industry, his unfaltering integrity, and his concern for the future of this company and its employees makes him a worthy recipient of this award.”
The Forty Under 40 was selected by an independent judging panel of Forty Under 40 alumni. Utah Business will present the awards Feb. 25 at The Grand America Hotel in Salt Lake City.
With innovation and persistence, the 34-year-old Bascom led his company to record growth and profits during the recent economic recession. Just a few years ago, he started his company in his basement. In the last year, the search marketing firm has grown from 12 employees to more than 60, moved to a larger office in Salt Lake County, and increased monthly revenue by more than 300 percent. In 2009, SEO.com has been named as one of the top 10 SEO firms in the country by PromotionWorld, one of the top 25 fastest growing companies in Utah by the Utah Valley Entrepreneurial Forum, and among the Emerging Elite by MountainWest Capital Network.
“It’s been a great ride this year, and a lot of fun to see all the hard work pay off,” Bascom said. “To look back at where we came from, as a tiny start up, is quite satisfying.”
Bascom credits his positive attitude, ignorant youth and perseverance for his success.
“I believe that if anyone combines hard work with a good attitude, and a strong belief in yourself, you can be successful,” Bascom said. “Starting out, I was probably too naïve to realize how difficult starting a business can be. And that’s probably a good thing.”
About SEO.com
SEO.com is a search marketing firm that makes its clients money by driving traffic to their websites through aggressive search engine optimization, pay per click management, and social media marketing. SEO.com then turns those visitors into sales through search-optimized Web design and conversion optimization. Clients range from small startups to Fortune 100 companies.
Search SEO.com
