Apple SEO Software Tools and Tips For Mac

Google's SEO Slaughterhouse : Dying Below The Fold

2012-02-17T00:03:00.000-08:00

Take a look at the screenshot below - And get used to what you're seeing: Google search results "Above The Fold" that for all practical purposes really don't show organic test SERPS anymore - at least on my laptop computer. Great if you're in the #1 position, but it leaves room for nothing but despair for affiliate internet marketers trying to succeed in popular product categories.

In an SEO world where searchers - or even visitors to your site - are increasingly unwilling to SCROLL DOWN to see more, this is the death knell for SEO As We Knew It. In ever more searches, particularly for consumer products - Big Brand and Online Store links are literally displacing ALL but the #1 search for an ever growing number of items.

Woe to you if you're an Affiliate Marketer running a product review site. Because the average searcher is now HALF as likely to even bother scrolling down to see the full text results. If your site traffic has been decimated by Panda - this is one of the reasons why. Just CLICK ON A PICTURE of what you want to consume - and you don't even have to be bothered with seeing more or reading icky, boring old text.

Product images and Brand links aren't 'new' to Google results. But what is changing is how many MORE product types and categories are given this preferential treatment for high-volume product search queries. And There Isn't A Damned Thing You Can Do About It... Except try to live in the ever-growing shadow of Google's power, in the ever-shrinking noose of website visibility for all but the biggest players and properties on the internet. Get used to it - its another deepening, bitter taste of SEO in 2012 and beyond.

SEO FOOD FOR THOUGHT : Imagine you're trying to tackle this niche and this is what Google displays. If you want to survive: Pray to gawd you're doing well with Bing/Yahoo, Tweet your head off and leverage FaceBook, blogging and articles the best you can - cuz really there's only a DRIBBLE of organic Google traffic to be had...

Mac Spinner? Best Article Spinner For Mac Webmasters

2012-02-02T21:58:00.000-08:00

At some point in your internet marketing efforts you're going to come across the need for SPINTAX - the horrible, painful way to mix and vary Titles, Descriptions or Articles by using {Brackets and Dividers|Dividers and Brackets|Geeky Symbols} to create the spun content.

Yes you can do it {manually|by hand}, but its slow and error-prone and most of all a productivity time-pit. So Spinners - Spintax generation programs or services are the smart way to go. Personally, I find SpinRewriter - an Apple webmaster friendly Mac article spinner tool to be simple, elegant and most of all - highly intelligent to produce clean, readable content that is NOT an embarrassment to have posted about the internet.

Although other spinners exist, SpinRewriter is head and shoulders above most others in the clean output it produces, and because it is a SAS - Software As A Service - any Mac website owner can access it with Safari or Mac FireFox browser. A free trial can get you started, with very affordable monthly subscriptions for your ongoing Article Marketing needs for well-spun, unique content from your seed articles.

Dirt Cheap Free Directory Submitter For Mac Web Masters

2012-01-22T21:04:00.000-08:00

SEO types might argue the current 'value' of free directory submission done in bulk to the thousands upon thousands of 'SEO Friendly' directory sites out there. With few REAL HUMANS visiting them - besides other desperate website owners looking for a place to get a backlink - most directory links don't lead to much if any meaningful site traffic you can build a business model around. In this ever-tightening noose of Authority, Social Media Whos-Who Participation, Authorship, and Realtime Sharing - older link-building methods just don't carry a fraction of the weight they used to.

Directory backlinks DO have a bit of SEO value remaining however, particularly in high competition niches where you are slugging it out against competitors with very high numbers of backlinks overall. Directories can still help with anchoring your top money keywords across a broad range of IP addresses and geographies - and sort of play the role of 'backfill' reinforcing and balancing what is hopefully a diverse range of link types with far higher authority that you've already built elsewhere.

The best free directory submission tools or services allow SPINNING TITLES to create the most anchor text diversity during the submission process. ESPECIALLY IF YOUR SITE IS LESS THAN A YEAR OLD and doesn't have much of a backlink profile -- It's just outright dangerous to a young site to dump a large, bulk directory submission on a single keyword unless your domain has the age, authority and resilience to handle a rapid burst of backlinks that bulk directory submission often results in. For YOUNG sites that are still vulnerable to Google's SandBox and Penalties, I only recommend SMALL batches done over time, perhaps outsourcing gigs every few months with different or spun Titles and Descriptions along the way in a slow, more 'organic' process. Otherwise, your initial link building efforts on a new domain should always focus on QUALITY Blog, Contextual, Press Release and Article links from authoritative sources first!

That said: For more Advanced and Aggressive link builders, one of the most affordable and best directory submitter tools for Mac site owners who want to do a single blast to nearly 700 directories anchored with a single keyword and description may want to check out Auto Directory Submission for a highly affordable way to nail a single key phrase title and get on with other SEO - SEM tasks. With a submit as low as $2 per site when credits are purchased in quantity - it's dirt cheap, lets you submit to directories with Safari or FireFox Mac and takes only minutes. Most directories won't need email verification, but it's smart to: 1. Choose your single, Anchor Title Keyword WISELY. 2. Use a 'junky', secondary email address in case of spam - and 3. Review your inbox for confirmation emails to help improve directory inclusion rates.

Impossible SEO - The Wall Of Google Authority and Age Metrics

2011-12-31T22:22:00.000-08:00

Below is a good example of Keyword and SEO Competition analysis in Market Samurai that should make affiliate marketers think twice about going after certain niches.

(Click to expand image)

There's a few standout things about the above example to give you pause. Overall, just look at how Black and Dark Gray the majority of fields are. In fact, EVERY ROW has black entries. In many ways they form a dense visual blockade that at-a-glance tells you how tough getting onto Page One of organic search results would be. Even the 'weakest' site shown here (the Neat document scanner company) in position #8 has a backlink profile it might take a year or years to catch up with. When evaluating possible niches to go after in MarketSamurai - look for far more 'open', lighter-colored rows that might be slots you could go after - and displace the currently weak site holding those positions.

The average DOMAIN AGE of these is 13-15 years! And sadly that's the one SEO metric that you CANNOT change, compensate for, manipulate or alter. Even if you bought an exceptionally high aged domain in this niche - there's no guarantee that it's backlink profile would be worth anything - ANTHING at all to ranking your new content!

ALL sites listed are BIG retailers or the product manufacturers own websites. No Forums, no Niche Affiliate sites, no Answer sites, no Blog posts, no EMD - Exact Match Domains hoping for this precise target phrase squeezing into the Top 10 either.

Also note nearly every site listed has a DMOZ and Yahoo Directory entry (most of these obtained YEARS ago when actually getting listed was EASY and not the cruel, nearly hopeless joke that it is today.) These directories matter less than you think. Just ONE or TWO links in thousands that give a site strength and some degree of authority. They 'help' slightly, but are NOT a magic bullet.

Interestingly, for all the hoopla about PageRank - note that many of these pages simply have PR0 - and yet still make the Top-10 of SERPS because they have huge backlink and domain authority. This is a HUGE hint to STOP caring about Page Rank Google shows us and focus on RDD (Referring # of total links) and BDD (Backlinks to domain) in any way you can. For all the bull that Goog would like you to believe, without (minimallly) hundreds of VERY high quality backlinks or TONS of low-quality ones, you don't stand a chance.

Note also how trivial EDU/GOV (BLEG) backlinks are in the big-picture view. Forget the SEO hype that these are somehow 'Miracle Backlinks' that will skyrocket your site to the top of SERPS. What's nice about, say, EDU links for example -- is that you MIGHT get thousands of Faculty and perhaps tens of thousands of students possibly seeing a link to your domain somewhere. Ditto for .GOV domains.

Lastly, even if you resorted to literally NUCLEAR WAR tactics with Black and Gray Hat software like SENukeX or Xrumer and others in an all-out KRAP-LINK ASSAULT, you'd be hard pressed to even get to Page 1 - let alone stay there for any meaningful length of time. You could write a zillion ARTICLES and distribute them widely - and NONE of them would ever get past Page 2 even under the best of circumstances.

All in all, the real value of Market Samurai is how it can QUICKLY help you discern things like this hopeless niche in only a few minutes - and help you target other far, far less competitive niches where you DO stand a chance of ranking well, getting traffic, and make money online.

Why Google Should Rename Panda Algo To PIRANHA

2011-12-23T21:37:00.000-08:00

"My heart felt as though it had dropped out of my chest - onto the floor."

If a picture's worth a thousand words - and several thousand less website visitors a day - you're looking at it in the graph above. Just a sampling of rather random sites that got WHACKED by Google's mid October 2011 Panda update.

It doesn't matter how strong or weak SEO wise any of these 2-3 year old sites were, nor how strong their backlink authority was. ALL suffered traffic loss in what really was just broad-based fatal blow across an empire. Those hardest hit set traffic levels back to where they were a year or two ago. Smaller, lower-traffic sites have less to lose (relatively speaking) so fell less dramatically.

Visually, it's a word of warning to any and all Apple Mac webmasters, affiliate marketers and those out to MMO - Make Money Online. Cuz a good chunk of your dreams for sideline income or financial independence can VANISH in a single day.

A few things to ponder:

To a great degree, I don't feel these sites were directly 'PUNISHED' - Many just fell out of the top 1-5 keyword positions to spots further down Page 1 of SERP results. Had to make room for the big Holiday Retailers doncha know...

It appears VERY OLD Domains displaced these sites: That's common during the Holiday shopping season too - when, as in year's past - Google seems to temporarily favor highly aged domains of 5 or 10+ years or more. At other times of the year, Google seems to allow more 'little guys with high relevance' to squeak onto an extra slot or two on Page One when warranted.

Lastly - notice the FLATLINE trend moving forward... As I've tried to compensate for the traffic loss - I've noticed NOTHING, NOTHING SEEMS TO HELP MUCH. Normally some strategic internet marketing, upping on-page quality and link building efforts can get a site on an upward trajectory again. But Page 1 results seem largely "FROZEN" until the next update rolls around in the 2012 New Year?

Touche' Google : May I suggest your buzz-marketers make sure next year's algo tweaks get branded as 'PIRANHA 2012' to replace 'Panda' cuz your warm little fuzzy algo has clearly grown some SHARP TEETH in the past year!

Tecnorati Blog Claim for Mac SEO Tips - GVW2YSVY7H8Y

2011-12-14T01:38:00.001-08:00

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Pretty GEEKY, huh? But submitting your site to BLOG DIRECTORIES is a smart thing - and something many blog owners fail to do. Some of these highly specialized directories for Blogs ONLY are an untapped source of potential traffic that can help get a categorized, permanent link back to your blog.

Registration and setup can be a bit tedious as many Blog Directories require a CHICKLET - a small graphical, reciprocal link that you need to place (and KEEP) in your sidebar to retain your blog listing. In a way that's a good thing since it keeps mass/spam submissions from overwhelming their directories.

In Technorati's case (The biggest and most powerful of them) you need to 'Claim' your blog by temporarily posting a Claim Code and then Verifying it to get it active.

Hello Bing Webmaster Tools For SEO - R.I.P. Yahoo SiteExplorer

2011-12-10T22:40:00.001-08:00

With the shuttering of Yahoo's SiteExplorer for easy backlink checks, all Mac website owners should shift their attention to Bing Webmaster Tools - An Alternative to Defunct Yahoo SiteExplorer. Recent improvements to Bing's Webaster services now include more extensive and downloadable backlink lists - per site or per page.

Mac Webmaster Tools : Article Samurai Reopens For Subscriptions

2011-12-08T12:50:00.000-08:00

The guys at NobleSamurai - makers of the world class Mac SEO software Market Samurai continue evolving its Mac compatible article submission and content distribution network service, Article Samurai. Selling out literally within MINUTES - the first round of beta testers got an opportunity to subscribe, and now two months later, another limited opportunity for the next wave of subscribers has been offered.

Clearly the folks at Noble Samurai are deliberately creating a MARKETING SQUEEZE limited-time opportunity, cuz if you weren't one of the "LUCKY" ones to pay for their $97+/mo content distribution service, you'll get another "HURRY UP AND JUMP ON IT" chance to subscribe again.

Article Samurai ain't the only game in town, and they're up against other proven players in the field. And so far, the first wave of subscribers hasn't led to concrete proof or definitive reviews that their blog and article network system is head and shoulders above any others. After all a link is a link is a link, and either sends link juice and eyeballs your way - or not.

Ultimately, I think Article Samurai is perhaps right for SEO Firms, the Fortune 5000, Big Players with allocated or outsourced staff and time to generate article after article of well-spun content. For us Little-Folk, check out Fiverr.com for opportunities to submit a few articles of your own for $5 to let someone who ALREADY HAS SUBSCRIBED to Article Samurai run a few jobs through FOR you.

R.I.P. Yahoo SiteExplorer - Backlink Checks Just Got A Lot Tougher

2011-12-04T08:06:00.000-08:00

Last month Yahoo officially turned off it's SiteExplorer API which was always an Apple webmaster's best friend for fast and easy backlink checking - Well, at least from Yahoo's perspective. Though by no means exhaustive, SiteExplorer did tend to show links Yahoo's bot 'Slurp' knew about - and most importantly - showed them in order of page strength. You always knew your strongest back links were from sites at the top. And - downloadable .CSV files of your links made it easy to feed them into a backlink indexer tool for that extra bit of link juice love.

So many other backlink checker websites and SEO tools for Mac and PC pulled link data from Yahoo's API. Now many, many sites are broken or SEO tools non-functional until they find alternate sources for link profile data.

For example the honorable SEOQuake Safari SEO Toolbar now just shows "N/A" for Yahoo's link numbers.

The biggest (albeit temporary) loss to Apple webmaster productivity is in Market Samurai for Mac > SEO Competition module. I've really come to rely on Samurai's PageRank and Anchor Text backlink data to validate my link-building efforts - so the fix they're working on can't come soon enough.

As an alternative: MajesticSEO, AHrefs, and SEOMoz are now my top 3 quick-n-dirty backlink analysis sites to get at _some_ of your link graph data for free. In another post at macseotips.blogspot.com I'll explain why you'll want to become better friends with Bing Webmaster Tools to pick up some of the pieces from the loss of Yahoo SiteExplorer's decommissioning.

Website Traffic Starvation 101 : Working Through The Google SandBox

2011-11-20T23:20:00.000-08:00

When websites are in their infancy (and to Google that generally means ANY site less than a year old) - it can be rough going traffic-wise as your site ages and you struggle to build a quality back link profile. Maybe you initially got a bit of Google love that first month - and then found all those delicious keywords you ultimately want to rank for totally disappeared off of Goog's radar. Welcome to the sandbox that's NO FUN to play in!

Well there you have it: A Mac website owner's harsh day to day reality. Any traffic from Goog is utterly dwarfed by the daily dribble of Bing-Yahoo organic search results. You may actually find you're ranking well - on Page One of Bing-Yahoo - but the VOLUME of search from them (sadly) is... depressing.

Your website's lifeline may exist largely in that "(No referring link)" catch-all for many months to come. In an ideal SEO world, you should be striving to grow and build that No Referring Link traffic to the greatest percentage possible. Not all traffic passes referrer info to your website stats! This traffic can be real people directly typing in your URL, or those returning to your site from a bookmark, etc. It's your Safety-Net from the whims of organic search, forming a base level of traffic.

Hopefully, further down your Traffic Sources list you'll see at least some results from other blogs, forum posts, Squidoo/HubPages, Stumbles, Article distribution efforts etc. And the more of these the better. Cuz that SandBox isn't something you can 'decide' to get out of. It's depth and duration is controlled by Google - and your 'release' may occur in stages - or a single day.

It isn't fun waiting 3mo, 6mo, 9mo, a full year to begin to see a site's TRUE traffic potential with Google. You really can't 'backlink your way out' (Although it is an essential way to try to invite others INTO your sandbox to keep you company in the meantime.) Some claim you can 'Post your way out' by the sheer volume of long-tail keyword verbiage you might be able to generate. Well-written content certainly will serve you well over the long haul, regardless.

Some interesting points about the SandBox: Certain data centers or Countries may allow a bit of Google traffic to come through. Or ONLY really, really obscure, bizarre long-tail keywords may show up. Hence the occasional blip of Big G traffic that serves to remind you They Know Damn Well Your Site Exists - But they don't really LIKE YOU - YET.

Black Friday - Cyber Monday SEO and Mac Webmaster Marketing Tips

2011-11-20T22:04:00.000-08:00

If you're a smart Apple web master - AND - an affiliate marketing desperado, you've been scrambling to maximize site traffic and potential revenues that Black Friday, Cyber Monday and Holiday shopping season implies.

If you've neglected your Twitter account - get out there and judiciously, sparingly - Tweet some links morning, noon and night. BUFFER is one of my favorite Mac Twitter tools to line up a days Tweets.

If you don't have one, get one: A PING.FM account and link some of your 3rd tier blogs and status sites to join in on distributing content across the Social Media conversation any Macintosh website owner needs to be participating in.

It's not too late: A long list of your money making URL's pasted into a backlink indexing tool to drive rapid link juice your way can help keep your site in the game. Alternately, a high-quality Social Bookmarking service can get a controlled, steady flow of backlinks dribbling out steady through the shopping season ahead.

Lastly, some last-minute Blog Posts and an immediate OnlyWire kick in the pants can give you the FRESH - FRESH - FRESH content Google's most recent November Panda update is looking for. Stay on top of your game! This isn't the season to hope and wait for MMO monetary rewards. Put your hand on that SEM lever and push - gently - to MAKE it happen.

How To Get - And Keep - Website Backlinks Indexed

2011-10-30T21:11:00.000-07:00

Quality, SEO optimized content goes a long way on its own two feet. Whether it's static website content, blog posts or article submissions - an Apple webmaster can get a lot of organic search engine love from Yahoo, Bing and Google simply with flawless content. By that I mean carefully crafted, keyword-loaded titles and content with good grammar, zero spelling errors, and proper sentence structure. Depending on your niche, authority, and SEO competition levels, that may be enough to get those pages and posts crawled, and keep your content indexed in search results.

However, when that isn't enough, using one of the better engineered backlink indexing services can transform your online web business - or at least get incremental gains in traffic or site profitability wringing out the most link-juice from your existing back link and online content marketing efforts.

Many web marketing newbies struggle with the where, what, why and hows of promoting a website - and verifying if and where worthwhile link-building efforts are even paying off. Even seasoned SEO's struggle to stay ontop of 'What works well - NOW?' in an ever-changing internet landscape. As your linking skills grow with time, it's natural to look for the Next-Level of refined site promotion tactics.

Fortifying your existing back link profile is that next level. Highly-contrived SEO 'schemes' such as Link-Wheels and Pyramids are one method of architecting quasi-authority and the flow of link juice. But it doesn't have to be that way. Assuming you already use a wise, diverse set of site promotion sources from directories to social bookmarking to articles and press-releases -- and participate in the realtime Social Media sites - there's already a very organic and loose interconnected web of links ALREADY at your disposal. So why not leverage the far more natural, random and untapped power of your existing internet authority infrastructure? The key is finding ways to automate creating links to your back links using some simple tools and processes to find your existing links and feed them easily into a distribution and posting system that does the heavy work for you.

There are many free backlink check tools online to help: Most notably Yahoo Site Explorer, Bing Webmaster tools and particularly Majestic SEO for copying or downloading lists of your sites known links. You may find the best quick extraction is done in Market Samurais SEO COMPETITION Module and copying the URL column from a spreadsheet after downloading your site's .CSV file. Paste those URL's into BackLinksIndexer's queue, click 'ADD', and let it do it's thing - driving even more link power to those you've worked so hard to build.

October 14th Google Panda Update : The Fatal Blow

2011-10-24T23:31:00.000-07:00

By midnight Saturday, October 14th 2011 - umpteens of thousands of website owners didn't know - or didn't know YET what had hit them. But something was terribly, terribly WRONG. Website traffic for many was off, WAAAAAAAAYYYYYY OFF, but no one was sure why...

Google twiddled the knobs on it's mindless Panda algo again. And I can personally attest to traffic losses nearly across the board of 40% or more to my sites just from this search ranking adjustments.

From my observation - this update wasn't primarily about sites being 'Punished' or Google 'Hating' their keywords or on and off-page metrics. (And I think it's unfortunate that far too many SEO's, bloggers and Social Media whores apply such human, emotional terms to purely mathematical algorithmic shifts..) What quickly stood out to me was it was more about what 'Trusted Authority Sites' got SHOVED UP TO THE SWEET SPOT. God bless good ol' consumptive consumerism cuz by golly, Amazon.com (and other greedy for Xmas profits retailers, so let's reward them): Apple, BestBuy, PC/Mac Mall, NewEgg, eBay and many others just floated up to the top of literally any commercially viable product query JUST LIKE THAT...

When the searcher's INTENT is shopping, Googles use of BRAND links and product images above the fold can decimate site traffic, even if you're in the Top 3 positions. This isn't new - nor unique to Panda - but as more and more products and categories are deemed worthy of these, expect your related site to be under a LOT more competition for eyeballs.

If you witnessed and suffered from the change this past week: STOP! Your instinct might be to scramble and start 'fixing', 'updating', 'de-over-optimizing', 'over-analyzing' silly notions like WHAT YOU DID WRONG TO BRING ON GOOG'S WRATH. And well, on some level -- there may be nothing you really CAN DO if you already were doing well somewhere on Page 1 of SERPS. You just got shoved down - or worse, shoved off onto Page 2 to temporarily make room for The Big Box Big Boys of Retail celebrating the blessed words of the Profit$. And you probably aren't going to (ahem) outrank them during Christmas anyways - cuz Google won't let you.

This Oct 14 Panda Slap was a TSUNAMI of pain to many, many product review and affiliate site owners. From what I'm reading across the forum-blog-o-sphere it's swift and deep. And even Google may be realizing it tweaked one of those Panda knobs a bit too far... for Search visitors who don't need, say, Amazon showing up as #1 result for EVERY product known to man... Trust me, we know how to find Amazon, BestBuy, WalMart when we need 'em.

Matt Cutts won't tell you: "Sorry, I RUINED your Christmas - and your website business." Cuz it's probably only temporary. Why I can already feel it -- That predictable 2012 Mid-January Google update that changes the rules and SERPS once again, that helps some and anguishes others. And so it goes.

Keyword Tools For Mac SEO

2011-09-04T15:04:00.000-07:00

There's two kinds of keywords: The one's you got right that help your website get traffic traffic - and those that you forgot to use that's helping SOMEONE ELSE make a killing online.

What You Don't Know - Can Hurt Your SEO

Game-Changing Mac Compatible SEO Software

Sure, I'd poked around with Google's Keyword Tool, and Trends, and various other online keyword tools trying to synthesize the right 'vocabulary' for a niche site. Bit it wasn't till I sat down with the free trial of Market Samuari on my MacBook that a much clearer sense of keyword phrases that I ought to be targeting became clear. Not just keywords that had an adequate search volume - but in particular the amount of SEOTC - SEO Title Competition that MarketSamurai made clear.

If you're sharp (and the SEO software can help filter this with Rules) you'll start to see keywords that have decent moderate traffic - but FEWER PAGES Titled and addressing that keyword than others. Conversely - and somewhat surprisingly - you'll also see keyword phrases that A LOT of people are targeting and writing about that really don't get searched on as much as you'd think. And most importantly, words a new site really doesn't stand a chance on - at least until your site gains some age and authority. With some great, short training videos online, I learned how to use MarketSamurai and it's Keyword Module, and wised up fast. And with a few judicious keyword changes to existing site page Titles, Descriptions and Body Headers - they started getting the traffic and traction they deserved.

Outsource Article Samurai Submissions : Mac SEO Tips

2011-08-07T06:40:00.000-07:00

Well that didn't take long. Of the few hundred people who got in on Noble Samurai's submission service and subscribed to ArticleSamurai article marketing software for Mac (and PC) - a few have already offered outsourcing on Fiverr. Depending on the gig ordered, they may want you to provide somewhat PRE-SPUN articles and Author/Resource boxes. That's in your best interest so you can precisely control the ANCHOR TEXT of the links in the content you'll be outsourcing.

For those Mac web masters that can't justify or afford an Article Samurai monthly subscription, this may be an opportunity to get your articles distributed out on their network and test the SEO value for yourself at $5/article distributed.

Particularly if you have a brand new domain or parked site you've yet to build links to: These can be good test-beds for the effectiveness of backlink building strategies. They can also provide clues as to sites, strength, indexation and Page Rank of various Blog and Article Networks - provided you have a 'clean', empty backlink profile to start with. If you missed out getting in on the now-closed ArticleSamurai service at $97/month, this is a chance to test the SEO value of the content distribution service until it reopens again at thier projected $197/month full subscription price.

Article Samurai For Mac - Power - At A Price

2011-07-29T18:33:00.001-07:00

The folks at Noble Samurai launched a new Article Submitter For Mac (and PC) Webmasters - Article Samurai. It's more than just a program to write, spin and submit articles. It's a monthly SUBSCRIPTION SERVICE tied to the software. At $197 per month, it's not for the weak-wallets among us. But if you can spin and slam QUALITY articles out one after another - it's tie-in to a Article Directory and Blog Network of thousands of potential sites is likely to make ArticleSamurai a killer SEO tool for Apple web masters running a fleet of sites and out to make money online.

For those OSX webmasters who prefer to dabble: This Article Submitter for Mac Safari or Firefox users let you test the waters of Article distribution at no cost.

2011-07-15T14:07:00.001-07:00

Build an internet empire! Top Mac web design software tools for OSX - http://bit.ly/macweb

Automated Link Building - Networks and Blogs

2011-07-14T15:54:00.000-07:00

I fired up Safari and noodled around doing a bit of site competition analysis at compete.com just looking at some of the Mac friendly, browser-based link building automation tools that Apple website owners might be interested in:

Of the monthly subscription based offerings, its interesting how there's no real standouts traffic wise, all generate realtively equal interest. SocialMonkee's recent launch and marketing push gives it a recent traffic edge, but it's winding down. Wish I could go back more than a year to see how these have fared long term.

A favorite of mine - TextLinks.com has been around a long time and offers the widest variety of link placements: Blog sidebar & footer, mini-article posts, contextual links and anchored comments. Others like SocialMonkee - and another favorite: SocialAdr have a Set-It-&-Forget-It social bookmarking focus, IMAutomator has finally pulled together a Swiss-Army knife RSS, Directory, Article and Social submitter I wish I would have locked in at $25/mo, but now it's $50. Lastly for a strict, very high PR and quality Blog Network, Build My Rank is a hybrid Article post and thorough Indexing network that gets clean, original and well-written UN-SPUN articles indexed and ranking like few others do.

None of these are be-all end-all SEM tools. But combined form a formidable arsenal to help those Mac web masters with multiple sites dominate the internet. When time is money, and as your MMO empire racks in the profits, these Apple compatible link services can free your time for more important tasks, and are worth every cent.

Why Google HATES Your Website - Some Of The Time

2011-07-06T11:10:00.000-07:00

It's a LOVE-HATE relationship many webmasters have with Google. You're hot. You're not. With no rhyme or reason. If your web site's relationship with Goog is more like getting FELT-UP in the back of a car and then DUMPED, you know what I'm saying. Yes we'd really rather be riding in a limo on to our wedded bliss with Google's daily devoted love... But it's just not in the cards for the time being.

Here's an interesting site traffic graph that may seem all to familiar, ALL-OR-NOTHING traffic. The big spikes are when a site typically has gotten one or more high-traffic keywords onto Page One of SERPS. The bottomless pits are when you slide back onto Page Two of Google - or worse.

Also telling is how low the lows are. For this niche, Bing and Yahoo and all my Web 2.0 back-links just don't give much of a 'floor' for this site to survive on. It's really feast or famine.

There's a coupla reasons for this: High-Competition for Page 1. Weak backlink building which means more social bookmarking, article writing, directory submissions, Hubpages, Squidoo Lenses, Tweets and Blog posts are needed to even begin to keep a steady level of traffic when Google doesn't love me. Lastly, this site still isn't a full year old. So the ups and downs have alot to do with the site lacking age and authority... yet.

There's hope tho: Every time you get a blast of traffic and rank high for some keywords - each of the search engines note that - and your top keyword stats will start to tell you more clearly EACTLY what the top money phrases are. And what you can (albeit) briefly COMPETE on. You may also see that when you do get traffic each spike may last longer and hit new peaks. Here, I've gone from 3 day romances to week-long love fests. That's actually a good sign that your site IS MAKING PROGRESS for the long-haul - no matter how painful it may be day to day.

Apple SEO - Bookmark Automation : Too Much Of A Good Thing?

2011-07-05T16:52:00.000-07:00

Smart Mac website owners actively promote and push their sites to online visibility using a variety of SEO tools and tactics. Establishing a Brand, Name or Persona across the Social Web sphere is a critical part of that, ideally on as many high-ranking Web 2.0 sites as possible.

Once you have Web 2.0 profiles in place (i.e. Twitter, FaceBook, Last.fm, Wordpress, Blogger, Identi.ca, FriendFeed, Posterous, et al..) there's ways to LINK PROFILES AND ONLINE ACTIVITY so that one action is posted ACROSS ALL your accounts. Some popular services that do this are PING.FM, AMPLIFY and ONLYWIRE.

Very powerful indeed. One of the problems tho is duplicate content getting shoved out to potentially DOZENS of sites at once. Or little micro Tweets and status updates ending up as unwanted 'Blog Posts' on blogs that need more content. Sometimes individual accounts can get shut down, blocked or banned for 'Spamming' if you're too active - and too good - at social marketing with your Mac. Some services are more unforgiving of using your account for commercial purposes than others. (Identi.ca, Free WordPress accounts in particular...)

By all means, visit PING.FM or ONLYWIRE to get an idea of WHERE you should have accounts set up to leverage the power of Social Media. But tread lightly, if you automate bulk-posting and always whore your own links - do so prudently and intermittently. These Social Accounts have real SEO value - but can become worthless if YOUR accounts are terminated. (Which may be a good reason to outsource some link building tasks - I personally use Social Adder to leverage bookmarks made with OTHER PEOPLE'S ACCOUNTS - and not the ones you rely on directly for your business or personal brand.)

Browser Based Social Bookmarking Tools For Mac

2011-07-05T16:34:00.000-07:00

Manually slogging from site to site to socially bookmark your content is tedious and time consuming - though it does have a few advantages: You're far more likely to vary the content, Titles and Tags as you bookmark your pages and posts for a far more natural and organic backlink profile.

Particularly for a new site - or one that's lagging and needs a boost - I'm fond of Social Maximizer for the opportunity to craft multiple titles and descriptions and more importantly - Lets you target only a PR3 and Pr4+ social bookmarking batch of sites. Normally, I don't like paying 19 cents per bookmark submission, but for about $5-12 you get DIRECT CONTROL over every Title, Sentence and Keyword and pound some important stakes in the internet's turf.

Automation services or outsourcing that doesn't let you directly vary Titles or spin your bookmarks basically dump alot of duplicate content. That isn't necessarily harmful - it just often isn't helpful. Sites succeed in the long-haul because they target a handful of high-traffic money keywords, not just a single 'magic'keyword!

Social Maximizer is only one part of the puzzle to building backlinks, but I find it helpful. Sometimes I'll run a second batch a week or two later to only the high-PR sites for a DEEP-LINK inner page or post URL to give added site strength beyond my root domain URL.

Best Web Hosting For Mac?

2011-07-04T17:47:00.000-07:00

Most hosting companies offer two types of hosting plans: FrontPage or Linux. Oddly, Mac owners should opt for the latter: a Linux plan to be compatible with Mac OSX web design software and FTP programs like Transmit, CyberDuck etc. FrontPage is only right for Windows users.

Apple web masters intent to Make Money Online should opt for Unlimited Domains and Bandwidth packages so that you can build as many sites or blogs as you want - and not worry about traffic levels.

Rather than putting all my domains on a single IP shared hosting plan - for more IP diversity I host handfuls of sites here and there. I still like the world-class phone support and usability of GoDaddy Hosting. With online coupon codes I save a bundle on every upgrade, renewal or registration and I've had zero regrets with GoDaddy as my primary provider. Perhaps the lowest-cost hosting with a free domain is at iPage.com - tho it took some time to get used to it. Most recently I set up some new sites at HostGator.com which uses the industry standard C-PANEL interface: Its insanely feature rich - and well documented. All seem to behave and interact well in Safari or Mac FireFox browsers.

Regardless of which company you choose - it's always smart to think ahead. PRE-PAY for a full year of hosting up front (rather than month-to-month) and you'll cut your overhead and be that much closer to website profitability. I'm also fond of GoDaddy's BULK registration that saves a ton of money and offers a free initial year of Private Registration if you order up 6 or more domains.

The SEO Waiting Game : Domain Age, Authority, and the Long-Tail

2011-06-17T20:05:00.000-07:00

As a Mac webmaster you can do 1001 things right: Find a good, high-traffic niche, get a keyword loaded domain, build a multipage site with diverse and strong On-Page keyword usage, and promote it with a diverse set of backlinks. And yet your site may still just flat-line and not respond to your best efforts. Or so it seems...

Pictured above: An example of what happens when Goog finally lets a site out of the 'sandbox'. Sometimes it happens as it crosses the 3/6/9 month - or 1 year mark. In this case; a site for Apple compatible printers for Mac and iOS devices. For a _full year_ this site has struggled to rank for anything but an Exact Match Domain keyword: 'Mac Compatible Printers'. Bing & Yahoo have ranked this site well for a long time, but Goog just never allowed ANY other exact match keyword or phrase-match keywords onto Page 1 - for a full year. Until today, when the floodgate of keywords opened and traffic exploded. From a few dozen hits - to hundreds upon hundreds - on one magic day.

Will the new traffic and Page 1 rankings for more long-tail phrases last? Ya never know. Sometimes Goog will 'open up' to your site periodically, sample it, but then send your traffic right back down after a week or so. But in the process, you'll often settle down to slightly HIGHER levels than before the jump. And that's a good thing: MORE of your keywords have worked their way to somewhere on Page 1. And once you do get there, the additional traffic will tend to KEEP you there.

The takeaways from this example: 1. Time is your (somewhat painful) ally, just keep relentlessly improving your site in the interim as the site ages. 2. Trust your keyword and traffic research and keep writing about what you KNOW people want. 3. You often won't truly know a sites FULL potential until it's at least a year old. 4. Keep building backlinks! Keep blogging, commenting, Tweeting, submitting to directories, social bookmarking, writing articles... These will provide a sustainable 'baseline of traffic' that's free from the whims of search engines like Google.

One last notion: Going after the general notion of 'Printers for Apple Computers' may ultimately be simply TOO COMPETITIVE of a market to go after - slugging it out with HP, Canon, Lexmark, Best-Buy, Amazon and Buy.com for Page One ain't an easy thing. But ask anyone who's succeeded in going after things like 'Weight Loss' or 'Mortgage Refinance' or 'Nintendo Games' whether the long, slow struggle was worth it. Sucessful SEO and Internet Marketing demands patience, hard work, faith, and time. If your niche has a big audience - you WILL be rewarded as long as you don't give up.

SEOMoz Poll in 2011 : Google Ranking Factors To Be Aware Of

2011-06-10T17:03:00.000-07:00

A very interesting survey of some of the top SEO Gurus done recently by SEOMoz can be very helpful to Apple website owners looking to get the almighty Google Love their sites deserve.

On it's simplest level (and we agree) just getting On-Page keyword factors like finely crafted Titles, Descriptions and H1, H2, etc right in your domain and page content decides well over a FOURTH of your site's success in the Search Engines. That's been true a long time, and still applies today. The important take-away from this is that you can fix, improve and upload changes for the better within minutes. You needn't feel a 'victim' of Google's whims in this aspect.

Off-Page - Backlinks still matter as much as ever. But note: A sharper focus AUTHORITY, BRANDING, FRESHNESS, and REAL-TIME SOCIAL has got to be on your SEO radar in this decade. The internet continues to move towards a far more DYNAMIC venue than the dusty old library/repository of its early days. The Zen of participating in the 'Be Here, Now' has an ever-increasing weighting.

Few of us are deep-geek statisticians or data analysis geeks. A more approachable take on On and Off-Page site ranking factors culled from this survey is digested over at iEntry.com and Web Pro News. Very much worth a read to help you better understand the world of Search Engine Optimization and Internet Marketing.

Mac SEO Outsourcing - On The Cheap

2011-05-11T17:32:00.000-07:00

If you have more than a few sites or blogs, you'll quickly hit a point where managing them becomes an increasing challenge. Any webmaster's top three challenges are going to be:
1. Creating new content
2. Monitoring stats, traffic and keywords
3. Relentless backlink building

Unless you're an exceptionally disciplined SEO, we all often take a rather scattershot approach throughout our marketing and optimization work-hours - juggling this, twiddling that, checking, checking - and often get sidetracked, distracted and derailed from our internet marketing tasks.

Some of the most tedious aspects of website promotion and content generation can be easily - and cheaply outsourced. Lately I've been dabbling alot at Fiverr.com - especially in the SOCIAL MEDIA section to find folks who'll do some SEO - SEM jobs for me for a mere $5. I've snagged some truly effective Account Creation and Backlink Building jobs there. Some were an incredible time-saver, others largely a waste of $5 - or perhaps more accurately - just didn't get me the site traffic boost, or visible and 'sticky' permanent backlinks I'd hoped for.

Five bucks ain't much to risk. And some gigs have been real gems that saved me a TON of time - and a great deal of my sanity. If nothing else, it's an affordable entry into the world of outsourcing - and forming partnerships with people who can help get your site seen and reaching your target market.

Social Bookmarking Software for Mac

2011-04-05T19:40:00.000-07:00

Building a website on your Apple Mac is one thing. Maintaining and updating your site content is another. But the bulk of your time and work need to go into Internet Marketing and website promotion. There's some great Macintosh friendly IM - SEM tools you should know about. One I really like:

This FREE Mac compatible social bookmarking software - and I use the term 'software' loosely - is completely web based and lets you submit social bookmarks directly in Safari - or even easier, using the SocialMonkee FireFox Mac SEO toolbar plug-in. SEO on a Mac doesn't get much easier than this.

Bookmark Smart: Use the Title and Description spinning feature to target your TOP 3-5 performing or targeted Keyword phrases. Its easy to use 'Spintax' can help you produce a more diverse and natural set of back-links.

Quickly Make Money Online - MMO The Mac Way - With RapidWeaver

2011-03-24T13:09:00.000-07:00

Few web authoring programs for OSX are as affordable, elegant, approachable and easy to use as RapidWeaver for Mac. You can literally whip up a multi-page Static site or a quick Blog in a half hour or less, monetize it and have a new site up and running - QUICK!

With a decent selection of bundled customizable templates and a handful and then-some of different types of pages - You can add Styled or HTML pages, a Blog or Movie and Photo Galleries - and more to your liking.

RapidWeaver4

It's important to grok RapidWeaver's SITE SETUP dialogs. So much of the On-Page SEO details of Title, Description, Keywords, Page Header and Footer Text happen there. Load these up with your primary keyword phrases - and you have a strong foundation for ranking well in organic search. Site Setup is also where you'd add Google Analytics or other Stat Tracking code to monitor your site's progress.

With a healthy amount of help and online resources: Whether it's RealMac's online support forum, YouTube tutorial videos, and others - some of the finer points of leveraging RapidWeaver's abilities are within reach of any Mac webmaster.

Killer Mac SEO : Why I Use StatCounter Website Statistics

2011-02-13T20:33:00.000-08:00

This Mac webmaster is a huge fan of StatCounter.com - for one primary reason. Free, REAL-TIME website stats that can show you activity to your site(s) as it happens. (And that's ontop of all the juicy Top Keywords, Came From and other statistical goodies it reveals.)

Contrast this with Google Analytics, which only updates once a day in the middle of the night. And likely provides Google with MORE information about your site than they provide YOU! Personally, I don't want Analytics Code to give them THAT much site metric info to reward or punish my site with - at least not most of them. So I rely and trust StatCounter for my primary stats, but Goog for only some of them.

Mac SEM Tips : Website Safety Through Diversity

2011-02-12T21:36:00.000-08:00

The steady trickle to flood of traffic from getting several to dozens of your website's top keywords to Page 1 SERP listing on Google is a great thing to have. But there's no guarantee they'll STAY there. Some may slide off to Page 2 or worse - and can decimate your efforts to MMO - Make Money Online.

Diversification can be your site's salvation. And that means paying attention to Bing-Yahoo-Ask rankings as some kind of baseline or floor to protect you from Googles daily or weekly oscillations. And Google traffic swings can be severe - especially if your site is young.

But more importantly: Think beyond Organic Search at all the Engines - to the many other SEO sources of visitors and traffic that add to your website's stability and income sustainability. Building backlinks and submitting Articles, Web 2.0 Bookmarks, Directory listings, RSS feeds to and from here, there, everywhere - no matter how trivial - does add up to incremental gains in traffic, keyword diversity and safety.

Tip: Imagine a world - and business model - where you produce a sustainable living online with your Mac, even if Google never sent you one iota of search traffic. Strive to diversify your traffic sources so that you could keep your face fed without Goog -- and you can FREE yourself from its iron grip.

Free Article Submission Software for Mac OSX

2011-02-10T21:34:00.000-08:00

Using cross-platform Adobe AIR - this free Mac compatible article submitter software can help you get the job done. Some built-in spinning options as you step thru helps provide more unique content. You'll want to set up accounts at the top Article sites first. Then the rest is easy.....er.

Killer Mac SEO Tips : Think Keywords First - Numbers Second

2011-02-09T20:26:00.000-08:00

With billions of web pages, and millions of registered domains - you might wonder how you can make money online and survive all the truly ginormous competition out there. Well, it all starts with finding your NICHE. And then learning the Top-10 keywords associated with that niche and going after them with a vengeance. You have to know those keywords dead cold: Title with them, Anchor links with them, Tag with them, Tweet with them. Relentlessly using WORDS to establish your authority and relevancy.

It's too easy to get lost in SEO NUMBERS: Google Analytics and Stats, Backlink counts, Keyword frequencies, conversion ratios, site response times, bounce rates, etc, et. al., ad infinitum. They are important to watch and monitor - to keep mental notes of - to see correlations - to spot strength and weakness. But ulitmately it all starts and ends with words that matter, words that can compete, words you know attract eyeballs and words that you FORGOT to include that can take your site traffic to the next level. Get the words right -- and the numbers (and dollars) will take care of themselves.

Mac Webmaster Tips

2011-02-08T22:13:00.000-08:00

Here at http://macseotips.blogspot.com we'll share some SEO tips, webmaster tools and search engine marketing tactics for Apple website owners.

Apple Computer's exploding market-share is creating ever greater legions of Mac web site owners needing powerful and effective SEO software for Mac OSX, and helpful ideas and tools to improve their site's search engine rankings and optimization. The right combination of knowledge, Safari SEO extensions and toolbars, some key web-browser based SEO and SEM tools - Macintosh webmasters can leverage organic search and Social Web 2.0 to effectively promote their sites.