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This is a guest post from Kristi Hines . It is part of The “Bad Ass” SEO Guest Blogging Contest.

There are many SEO tips that are not only good for search engines but they are very helpful for people looking for and perusing through your website. Here are nine SEO tips you can do to help search engines and visitors love your site.

1. Keywords and Research

If you choose the right keywords for your homepage and your internal pages, blog posts, etc., you will be helping visitors find what they are searching for easier. The best way to do this is to think of a keyword that fits your page, then a 2 – 3 word phrase that fits including that keyword. It’s really as simple as that.

Keyword Resources

• Google Adwords Keywords Tool
• Google Insights (plus ideas on how to use Insights)
• Microsoft Advertising Intelligence plugin for Excel (plus how to use it)
• Popular Searches
• Anchor text

2. Titles

The title tag is important because it is the heading for search engine listings and it is usually the anchor text when people bookmark your homepage, blog post, or single page on your website. The easiest way to create a title for your page is to include the keyword phrase you thought of during keyword research and include it in the up to 70 character description of your page.

Title Resources

• Title tag best practices
• Creating Killer headlines
• All in One or Platinum SEO for WordPress

3. Meta Descriptions

The meta description is essentially your sales pitch for your page when it comes up in search engines. It is also usually the description that is picked up when people bookmark your site socially. To create a good meta description, create a short sentence or two under 155 characters that includes the main keyword phrase for your page.

Meta Descriptions Resources

• Ultimate guide to meta descriptions
• Meta description best practices

4. Header Tags

Header tags break up your page into easily digestible sections to help readability. Think of your page’s content in outline form – the header tags break up each main section of your text. Header tags should include keyword phrases you would like your page to rank for.

Also, note that the text right after your header tag can play a significant role. For example, I had an H3 header in one of my recent posts that said Most Valuable Guides (not the best keywords, but bear with me). In search results, without any other optimization, link building, etc., search engines pick up that phrase as follows:

So needless to say, header tags are valuable and need to be optimized as well as careful consideration given to the first sentence after the header tag as well.

5. Images

<img src="seo-optimized-image.jpg" alt="A SEO Optimized Image" title="A SEO Optimized Image" />

To get the most out of your keywords and help break up text for visitors with something eye catching, be sure to include an image in your post with keywords in the filename, alt text, and title.

Where does the alt tag come into play outside of SEO? If you were visually impaired and using a screen reader, the alt text would be read to you by your program.

Image Resources

• SEO optimizing images.
• Creative Commons and Flickr image search
• Image copyright laws
• SEO friendly images WordPress plugin

6. Internal Linking

Once people get on your site, you want them to stick around and find more relevant content. Using internal linking will help them learn more about what your site has to offer, especially if you are using the right anchor text as a guide.

Internal Linking Resources

• Never use nofollow on internal links
• SEO Smart Links WordPress plugin

7. Link Building

So what benefit does link building have to offer potential visitors without mentioning any SEO benefits? When I am seeking out link building opportunities, I find that pages already offering their visitors resources for a particular topic. Link building is simply offering another site’s visitors more resources to choose from for more options.

Link Building Resources

• Top 100+ link building resources.
• Link building for beginners.

8. Social Media

Social networking allows you to really connect with your website’s audience, which helps you learn more about their needs and create content, product, and services that will really appeal to them.

In link building, even though Twitter, for example, only gives you nofollow links, someone who sees your link through Twitter may like it so much that they link to it in their blog or elsewhere on their website, which essentially means that nofollow social media link turned into a dofollow one.

Also, it’s not just the social networking you do – it’s the social sharing you make possible. Installing buttons or widgets to make your site more socially sharable makes it easier for your visitors to tell the world about you!

Social Media Resources

• Top social media blogs
• Social media snapshot series: your hub, content, network, and impact, plus creating a dashboard on a spreadsheet.
• Add This, Add to Any, and WordPress plugins

9. Guest Blogging

Last but not least is the ever popular guest blogging. If you have expertise that others would benefit from, then guest blogging will help you share that knowledge with an even wider audience. If your visitors are also bloggers, you can even help them by guest blogging on their site, sending some of your visitors in their direction. The benefits to doing both of these (the right way) are really exponential in helping establish yourself as an authority in your industry.

Guest Blogging Resources

• My Blog Guest
• How guest blogging gets subscribers, links, and even a better Google ranking
• A comprehensive guest blogging guide

Your Thoughts on Search Optimization for Visitors

What ways do you optimize for SEO with your visitors in mind, and what tools and resources would you suggest to help other website and blog owners to do the same?

Yes, you read correctly, it’s time for The Bad Ass SEO Guest Blogging Contest. For the next month, I’ll be accepting guest posts right here on my blog. As you can see below, the top guest bloggers are eligible to receive cash prizes (current pot is $2100.) cash and there are a couple non-cash prizes.

To clarify, you don’t have to actually be a bad ass SEO (although it wouldn’t hurt) to enter the contest. The general theme is SEO and the contest itself is bad ass since we have several generous sponsors that put up cash and a few other prizes.

What is the Bad Ass SEO Guest Blogging Contest? Blogging is always fun, but it’s even more fun when there is cold hard cash involved. Starting today (August 2nd) until September 2nd, you can submit guest posts to my blog. I’m pretty flexible as far as acceptable topics as long as they fit within the general theme of this blog. So, anything from SEO to blogging to social media will do.

How long does the contest last? The contest starts today August 2nd and ends September 2nd You must submit your post between these dates in order to be eligible to win. The winners will be announced 15 days after the contest ends. This will allow us ample time to publish any remaining posts and to judge all contest entries.

What can you win? Take a look at all the sponsors, cash and other prizes!

$200. Prize Sponsors

Daniel McGonagle Link Building

BestTravelWebsites.com Best Travel Sites

ArrangeYourVacation.com Vacation Rentals

$150 Prize Sponsors

Candy Store

$100 Prize Sponsors

Alisa Bowman Marriage Advice

Internet Marketing Services

SEO Software

SEO Ottawa

Virtual Assistants

Hesham Zebida Thesis Skins

Gerald Weber Houston SEO

Toni J Young Network Marketing Training

Quillcards Distinctive Ecards by Quillcards

Ghostwriter Dad Ghostwriting services

$50 Prize Sponsors

Whitney Segura Whitney Segura’s Internet Marketing Blog

James Brown James Brown

Raxa Design Houston web design

Eric Brantner Freelance Copywriter

The Servant Media Houston Business Development

Ana Hoffman, Traffic Generation Cafe Increasing Targeted Website Traffic

The Lane Real Estate Team Kennewick Homes

Other prizes: Non-Cash Sponsors

Hostgator.com 1 year Business Hosting plan. Includes toll free phone number and SSL $179.40 value Business Web Hosting

David Harry A full years membership at SEO Dojo, a value of $250.SEO Training Dojo

Link-Assistant.Com SEO PowerSuite Enterprise (max. functionality license) $599 worth with a life-time Live! Plan subscription. SEO tools

Special thanks to the contest media partner: My Blog Guest. MyBlogGuest.com is the free guest post exchange community where users meet to exchange guest posts and network.

What are the rules?

1. Register for a user account with SEM Group so you can submit your post for review. Please fill out all of your profile information and if you don’t have a Gravatar please get one. You may have up to 3 links in your bio.

If you have already published a guest post here in the past there is no need to register. If this is the case and you aren’t sure about your login just send me an email and I’ll let you know your login credentials.

2. You must submit your post by September 2nd 2010
3. Your article must be original content, and it must be written by you.
4. On the day your post is published, you must write a post on your blog about the contest that contains a link to the official contest post and links to all of the sponsors using the correct anchor text. Also these links must remain do-follow. You can get the code to link to all of the sponsors here
   ^?View Code HTML

   <p style="text-align: center;"><strong>$200. Prize Sponsors</strong></p> <p style="text-align: center;">Daniel McGonagle <a href="http://linkvanareviews.com/">Link Building</a></p> <p style="text-align: center;"><img src="http://sem-group.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/besttravelwebsites.png" alt="" title="besttravelwebsites" width="391" height="90" class="alignleft size-full wp-image-1575" /></p> <p style="text-align: center;">BestTravelWebsites.com <a href="http://besttravelwebsites.com">Best Travel Sites</a></p> <p style="text-align: center;"><img src="http://sem-group.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/arrangelogo.png" alt="" title="arrangelogo" width="100" height="100" class="alignleft size-full wp-image-1576" /></p> <p style="text-align: center;">ArrangeYourVacation.com <a href="http://arrangeyourvacation.com">Vacation Rentals</a></p> <strong>$150 Prize Sponsors</strong> <p style="text-align: center;"><img src="http://sem-group.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/bestcandystore1.gif" alt="" title="bestcandystore" width="200" height="39" class="alignleft size-full wp-image-1509" /></p> <p style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.bestcandystore.com">Candy Store</a></p> <p style="text-align: center;"><strong>$100 Prize Sponsors</strong></p> <p style="text-align: center;">Alisa Bowman <a href="http://www.projecthappilyeverafter.com/">Marriage Advice</a></p> <p style="text-align: center;"><img src="http://sem-group.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/New-Logo-with-White-Space-350.jpg" alt="Vertical measures" width="350" height="50" /></p> <p style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.verticalmeasures.com/">Internet Marketing Services</a></p> <p style="text-align: center;"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-1438" title="sheerSEO_banner" src="http://sem-group.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/sheerSEO_banner1.gif" alt="" width="120" height="60" /></p> <p style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.sheerseo.com/">SEO Software</a></p> <p style="text-align: center;"><img src="http://sem-group.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/logo_with_border1-150x150.jpg" alt="" title="logo_with_border" width="150" height="150" class="alignleft size-thumbnail wp-image-1499" /></p> <p style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.seo-writer.ca/">SEO Ottawa</a></p> <p style="text-align: center;"><img src="http://sem-group.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/logo.jpg" alt="" title="logo" width="334" height="43" class="alignleft size-full wp-image-1591" /></p> <p style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://offshoreally.com/">Virtual Assistants</a></p> <p style="text-align: center;">Hesham Zebida <a href="http://www.thesisawesome.com">Thesis Skins</a></p> <p style="text-align: center;">Gerald Weber <a href="http://sem-group.net">Houston SEO</a></p> <p style="text-align: center;">Toni J Young <a href="http://www.tonijyoung.com/">Network Marketing Training</a></p> <p style="text-align: center;">Quillcards <a href="http://quillcards.com/">Distinctive Ecards by Quillcards</a></p> <p style="text-align: center;">Ghostwriter Dad <a href="http://ghostwriterdad.com/">Ghostwriting services</a></p> <p style="text-align: center;"><strong>$50 Prize Sponsors</strong></p> <p style="text-align: center;">Whitney Segura <a href="http://www.whitneysegura.com/">Whitney Segura's Internet Marketing Blog</a></p> <p style="text-align: center;">James Brown <a href="http://www.jamesbrownmarketing.com/">James Brown</a></p> <p style="text-align: center;">Raxa Design <a href="http://www.raxadesign.com/">Houston web design</a></p> <p style="text-align: center;">Eric Brantner <a href="http://ericbrantner.com/">Freelance Copywriter</a></p> <p style="text-align: center;">The Servant Media <a href="http://www.houstonbusinessdevelopers.com/">Houston Business Development</a></p> <p style="text-align: center;">Ana Hoffman, Traffic Generation Cafe <a href="http://www.trafficgenerationcafe.com/">Increasing Targeted Website Traffic </a></p> <p style="text-align: center;">The Lane Real Estate Team <a href="http://www.joelane.com/">Kennewick Homes</a></p> <p style="text-align: center;"><strong>Other prizes: Non-Cash Sponsors</strong></p> <p style="text-align: center;">Hostgator.com 1 year Business Hosting plan. Includes toll free phone number and SSL $179.40 value <a href="http://www.hostgator.com/shared.shtml">Business Web Hosting</a></p> <p style="text-align: center;">David Harry A full years membership at SEO Dojo, a value of $250.<a href="http://www.huomah.com/dojo/">SEO Training Dojo</a></p> <p style="text-align: center;">Link-Assistant.Com SEO PowerSuite Enterprise (max. functionality license) $599 worth with a life-time Live! Plan subscription. <a href="http://www.link-assistant.com/">SEO tools</a></p> <p style="text-align: center;">Special thanks to the contest media partner: <a href="http://myblogguest.com/">My Blog Guest</a>. MyBlogGuest.com is the free guest post exchange community where users meet to exchange guest posts and network.</p> <p style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://myblogguest.com/"><img title="myblogguest" src="http://sem-group.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/myblogguest-125-30.gif" border="0" alt="" width="125" height="30" /></a></p>

5. You can be either a sponsor for the contest or you can compete in the contest. Unfortunately you can’t do both.

Post Guidelines

1. Guest posts must be at least 450 words, not to exceed 1000 words.
2. You may have as many links as you wish in the body of the content. However, please limit links to your projects or websites to your bio. Absolutely no affiliate links allowed.
3. Your bio must have a Gravatar. Please use a picture of yourself and not a logo.
4. Keep your post relevant to the overall theme of this blog. SEO, link building, internet marketing, pay per click, social media, blogging tips are all acceptable topics.

How to win

1. Write a post about the contest to help spread the word in the blogosphere. Your post (contest submission) will be judged First on quality of the content and style of the post.
2. Add Sponsors links to your post using the correct anchor text and make sure the links are do-follow. This is extremely important and your post won’t be eligible to win if you haven’t fulfilled this requirement. The sponsors are the ones making the cash prizes possible, so show them some link love.
3. A high value is placed on the number of and quality of comments received on your guest post. Also, be sure to interact with and respond to your commentators. This will help you win! Ambiguous and/or spammy comments will not help you.
4. Spread the word about your post through all your social media channels: Twitter, Facebook, Sphinn, etc. A high value will be placed on number of Tweets and overall social media promotion.

Keep in mind, the sooner you submit your post the more time you’ll have to promote it. So the early bird gets the worm!

Also feel free to use the donkey image in your post. You can get the code here

<img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-1397" title="badd_ass2" src="http://sem-group.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/badd_ass2.gif" alt="" width="450" height="300" />

Also feel free to upload the image to your server if you like.

IF you have any questions feel free to contact me. Also you can contact me on Skype, I’m searchengineguy.

Let the blogging begin! Woot!

Whenever we talk about guest blogging, the conversation usually focuses on the link building benefits of guest blogging. And while this is certainly one of the best reasons to guest post, I’ve personally found that the increased exposure and the ability to position yourself as an expert in your niche are the most profitable effects of guest blogging.

Let me explain.

I’ve been fortunate enough to guest post on several popular marketing blogs throughout the internet. At first, the only reason I was doing this was to get quality back links to my website. But as time went on, I started realizing that I was getting far more from my guest blogging efforts than some good link juice.

Suddenly, I was getting contacted by readers of my guest posts who were interested in becoming clients. I was also getting contacted by other bloggers who wanted me to contribute a post to their blog as well.

But I’m not the only one this happens to. Even in the comments of the post I linked to earlier, Ann Smarty admits

“The most recognition, client work, business contacts came from guest posts. I think I owe my whole marketing career to just a few awesome pieces I posted elsewhere.”

Why does this happen when you guest post? For a few reasons:

1. You’re reaching a new audience—No matter how much effort you put into growing your own blog, any time you guest post, you’ll be reaching some new people. Guest blogging is a great tool for building your network. To get the most from your guest blogging efforts, make sure to respond to all comments left on your post. And don’t just respond with a “Thanks for leaving a comment.” Instead, take the time to push the conversation forward by truly engaging with the commenter. This helps you build relationships with this new audience.
2. Guest blogging positions you as an expert—Being seen as a thought leader in your industry certainly has its advantages. As an expert, you’ll attract the top-shelf clients who are willing to pay more to get the services of an industry leader. You’ll also have an easier time earning the trust of new customers, a challenge for all online businesses.
3. Guest posts act as an endorsement from the other blogger—Think about it. If another blogger allows you to write a post on his or her blog, that’s their way of saying “I endorse this blogger, and I think he has something of value to share with the community.” It’s like whenever a President endorses someone running for Congress. The endorsement builds your credibility and name recognition.

Tips for Guest Blogging Success

• submit your best content. This is your one chance to make a good impression on a new audience.
• Interact in the comments to build relationships
• Always look for guest blogging opportunities, even outside of your niche
• Use MyBlogGuest to find the latest guest blogging opportunities

Do you guest blog on a regular basis? How has it helped you? Share your experiences by leaving a comment.

As a search marketer I have long been looking for an ideal link building model: where everyone’s happy, Google can ban you for selling or buying your link authority, quality wins over quantity and there’s no room for manipulation (note: as a marketer I am well aware of the fact that there’s nothing perfect under the sun. But I wanted something at least better than what we have now).

Currently, the most popular (and the easiest) link building method is still paying for a link (paid reviews, paid editorials, sponsorships, etc). Still, two main reasons why I try to avoid link buying includes:

• Paid links are almost impossible to camouflage: a website selling links has obviously sold quite a few of them, so it is very likely to be flagged for selling links. By buying several links here and there, you are much likely creating a pattern and Google most probably already knows you are doing that (so this is either non-effective or even dangerous);
• The affect from paid link campaigns is somewhat lopsided: you are only paying money for possible ranking increase. A paid link is unlikely to promote your brand or generate you some good, targeted traffic.

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