If your problem is you need a quick and easy way to analyze the keywords a competitor website is using, read on!!

1. Login to Google Adwords. (Do not use/bother to try the free Google public keyword tool here.)

2. Click on the Opportunities tab.

3. Click on the Keyword Tools link on the left side of the page.

4. Be sure you are using the older version of the tool, by clicking on “Previous Interface” on the upper right.

5. Click on the “Website content” radio button on lower-left part of the page.

6. Enter in the URL of your competitor’s sitemap.xml file.

7. Click on the “Get keyword ideas” button.

8. After you get results, Change “Match Type” to “Exact Match” to see actual searches and volume for specific phrases.
7. Voila!! You have some awesome competitor keyword data for your own analysis and optimization tasks.

Now,  if you get stuck figuring out the actual url of a sitemap.xml file, I will blog on figuring out if they have one and what its url is, next week.

Great Businessweek article of SEO power of Video Content

Now, are the claims in this article about the power of video in SERP ranking true?
Oh Yes.

Is video expensive to produce?
No. Some of the best videos I have seen lately are recorded Powerpoint or Keynote presentations with a voiceover all put together with Camtasia Studio.
Video production: Cheap, Easy Quick.

Will people actually watch the video?
Some of the B2B clients of SEO Practice are seeing the Video presentations are the highest traffic on their sites.

If this sound good to you, give us a call.

I learned about this great organization from DK at Purpose, Inc., SEO peeps who know some real San Diego Magic.

I will be hanging with Pubcon folk tonight at this Paaartay:

-Dave

This free tool gives a 30,000 foot SEO view of a given web site. Simple, Quick and Free.

It distills what it is able to find via crawling a site down into a numeric score on a scale of 0-100. This is called the SpyderRating.

It also uses a distinctive radar graph showing some dimensions of optimization. It has been useful to turn a web site owner loose with this information as an introduction to basic SEO. I have seen some prospective clients improve their score 20 points or so, and then call us back in a few days and ask: “Hey, what’s next?”  Its like seeing a kid who doesn’t read well get turned on to the Harry Potter books.

A big public thanks to the folks at www.mentormate.com for creating this cool tool and the resulting enthusiasm among those we show it to. Below is a sample SpyderRating for a project I worked on in August and a SpyderRating for a blog I admire.

As I embark upon my new career in SEO and Online Marketing I thought a blog to share those “Aha” SEO moments was just what was needed.  Unlike a lot of SEO’ers, I am on a long term sabbatical from the web site hosting industry and love all things web server-ish. So I love server-side SEO issues and best practices. Yes, yes there will be plenty of off-page SEO tricks and tips and copious link building ideas and tools to share with you as well. More to come tomorrow and for the next few days!

-Dave