You’re targeting the right keywords. You’ve got links pointing back to your site. All the SEO basics seem to be covered. Now what? How do you get that extra bit of traffic?

Check out our small business news site.

Update: Based on some excellent feedback in the comments (Seriously, thank you everyone!) I have updated the post with some clarifications and more added data. Specifically, I added a diagram of the page setup and removed a confusing comment I made about Javascript links.

As a result of this shift, we have been running more tests and analyzing more data. Before I get into the topic of our latest test results, let me provide some important points to establish context.

1. There is overwhelming evidence that from a "ROI on time spent working" perspective, there is much more value in link building and creating content that is link-worthy than obsessing over search engine algorithm fluctuations like PageRank sculpting. Link building is human oriented and thus more inline with the long term goals of the search engines. Links also have the added bonus of being easy to measure and thus easier to prioritize.
2. We can’t directly measure how PageRank flows so we can only infer results. This needs to be acknowledged when interpreting test results. That said, we also can’t directly measure objects outside our solar system and this solution of inference has become the basis for modern Astronomy. (If it is good enough for NASA, it is good enough for SEOmoz ;-p)

The Experiment

We chose the following five PageRank sculpting methods to test:

Rel=‘nofollow’ - The standard mechanism for nofollowing a link. <a href=’http://www.example.com’ rel=‘nofollow’>example</a>

Link Consolidation – Consolidating low priority pages. You can read more about link consolidation here.

Iframe – Include a standard link in an iframe that is blocked via robots.txt or meta robots so engines can’t follow it.

Javascript – An external Javascript file (blocked from robots) that inserts links into divs when the page renders.

Control Case – Null test with standard links.

Page Setup

We then built five standardized websites that used these different methods (one used iframes for its test links, another one used Javascript for its test links, etc..) and included one normal link with the anchor text of a phrase that was completely unique on the Internet.

Each website in the experiment used the same template. Each keyword phrase was targeted in the same place on each page and each page had the same amount of images, text and links.

The standardized website layout contained:

1. Four pages per domain (the homepage and the keyword specific content pages)
2. One internal inlink per page (Links in content)
   1. One inlink to homepage from third party site
3. Six total outbound links.
   1. Two "junk" links to popular website articles to mimic natural linking profile (old Digg articles)
   2. One normal link to keyword test page
   3. Three modified links (according to given test) to three separate pages optimized for given keyword
4. Links to internal pages only came from internal links
5. The internal links used the anchor text (random English phrase) that was optimized for the given internal page
6. Outbound links (aka "junk" links) used anchor text that was the same as the title tag of the external page being linked to (Old Digg articles)

Example Test Website

Please note that the above example was NOT actually used. I provided a fake example to maintain the integrity of the testing platform for future tests.

The experiment variables were:

• links (based on experiment type)
• colors
• photos (although alt text was standardized)
• text (randomized text based on proper English grammar using a standardized word-set)

We then did everything we could to make sure that all of these pages received the same amount of link juice from external sources.

The null result would be a random assortment of experiment types ranking in the SERPs.
The alt result would be one experiment type outranking all of the others.

Redundancy

We then duplicated this experiment eight times in parallel. This meant 40 different domains, 40 different IP addresses, 8 different WHOIS records, 8 different hosting providers and 8 different payment methods. (We then went outside and drank)

We ran this test for 2 months.

The Results

As you can see, the nofollow method ranked an average of 1 place higher (0.7) in the SERPs than the control result. This is significant when you realize the total is out of 5.

It appears that the iframe method and link consolidation were slightly effective but the margin was so small that they could be contributed to error.

The Javascript method did not work at all.

The Bottom Line

Despite what the search engine representatives say, nofollow is still an effective way for sculpting PageRank. If you have nofollow sculpting already installed, don’t remove it. If you don’t have it installed, implementing it probably won’t make a drastic change but we encourage you to test this when it is responsible to do so.

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The tool should be used for on-page analysis as well for educational purposes (to see which sites are introducing new HTML elements and microformats, for example).

Here are the elements the tool supports:

Semantic HTML4 elements

• Shortened words: <abbr> and <acronym> (by the way, if you are wondering about the difference, find it here);
• Headings: h1-h6;
• Quoting: blockquote, cite (more info can be found here)
• Lists: dl, dir, menu (more information here, the latter two are deprecated)
• Emphasis tags: <em>,<strong>
• More elements: code, dfn, address, legend, samp

Semantic HTML5 elements

For all those interested, here’s a cool list of HTML5 tags. The tool supports the following ones:

• Sections: article, aside, header, footer, nav;
• Content, media, data etc tags : figure, mark, meter, audio, video, progress, time, command, datagrid, details, datalist, keygen, bb, outpu, ruby
• Input-attributes: datetime, datetime-local, date, month, week, time, number, range, email, url, search, color

Microformats

• hCard, hCalendar
• rel-license, rel-nofollow, rel-tag
• Vote Links

Now let’s try to use the tool at a number of popular web pages.

Twitter Profile:

Facebook Group Page

Stumbleupon Favorites Page:

My verdict:

I liked the tool for the following of reasons:

• It’s a great way to track new HTML elements and microformats being implemented;
• The tool can also be used for on-page diagnostics (to analyze headers, nofollow attribute, etc);
• The addon is quite invisible: it won’t bug you until you click it.

Note: huge thanks to Webnauts for sharing the tool with me.

The tool was reviewed under SEJ policy.

Check out the SEO Tools guide at Search Engine Journal.

Analyze HTML Elements & Microformats w/ Semantic Checker

January

In January, Twitter announced that it hired Kevin Thau as Director of Mobile Business Development, and that he would be working on a variety of different fronts as Twitter’s "first official business development guru." LinkedIn introduced a new Polls feature, and launched a bookmarklet for IE. MySpace Music made deals with Nettwerk Music Group, INgrooves, IRIS Distribution, and RoyaltyShare to bolster its catalog by hundreds of thousands of songs. YouTube expanded its e-commerce platform and started letting people delete their own comments. Digg launched the "People who Dugg this also Dugg" feature.

February

In February, LinkedIn launched a set of HR Tools and launched a German version. MySpace launched a mobile redesign, and Digg updated its algorithm. Facebook introduced polling ads, changed its terms of service, made some design changes to profile pages for businesses, opened its corporate blog to comments, introduced the comments box widget, and launched the "like" button. Google introduced the Social Bar and launched Friend Connect integration with Blogger.

March

In March, Twitter brought its search box to most people’s Twitter home page, and changed the "replies" tab to the "@username" tab. Twitter also adjusted the title tags for member pages. Where they used to go "Twitter / username" they would now go "User’s Real Name (username) on Twitter". Mahalo CEO Jason Calacanis offered to buy a spot on Twitter’s Suggested Users list.

Facebook launched a redesign, started including updates from Pages in the news feed, changed pages to operate like profiles, and changed the status box to the publisher box. They launched the ability to let users chat within apps, added ad spots to Pages, relaunched Facebook Marketplace to be powered by online classified service Oodle, launched Facebook Connect for the iPhone and iPod Touch, launched some new ad targeting options, and enabled Page owners to let people sign up to become fans via text message.

Google began implementing Portable Contacts, launched the Friend Connect API, blended user-generated content into search results on Google Maps, made Google Reader more social with commenting, allowed for richer Gmail messages, and started its own Twitter accounts.

YouTube changed the name of some video sections, LinkedIn did some redesigning of its own and enhanced Direct Ads, and MySpace was stamped on a credit card.

April

Google launched an event gadget for Google Friend Connect, the Digg-like "What’s Popular" gadget, and the "Get Answers" gadget for Friend Connect. Google also gave profiles vanity URLS and started putting profiles into search results.

Facebook made it easier to organize friends, opened its stream up to third-party developers, added electronic signatures for public pages, worked with the blind on accessibility, began making app recommendations, and readied its next steps in governance.

Twitter started integrating search into its interface more, and CNN showed that you can buy/sell a Twitter account. Scientists created a brain-Twitter interface.

StumbleUpon broke away from eBay and enhanced its "web stumbling." Digg launched the controversial DiggBar. Reddit launched a video site, AOL launched SocialThing, and Yahoo shifted its focus to social altogether. YouTube launched the beta version of YouTube RealTime. MySpace got some new management.

May

In May, Yahoo 360 went away, Digg dropped shouting, LinkedIn upped usability on the Action Bar, the Wall Street Journal gave its employees social media rules, and the Interactive Advertising Bureau released its social advertising best practices and social media ad metrics.

Google introduced Google Wave, launched a recommendation gadget for Friend Connect, launched comment translation for Friend Connect, and added more social features to Google Reader. Twitter launched full two-way SMS support for Telus, Virgin Moible, and Koodo Mobile, making it available on every major operator in Canda. Twitter also changed how users view replies.

Iran lifted its ban on Facebook, and Facebook rolled out real-time streams, announced an app directory overhaul, added pop-up notifications, and linked accounts with Gmail. YouTube launched a new way for brands to engage audiences, and began letting you log-in with your Google account.

June

In June, Facebook began offering keyword suggestions for advertisers, simplified the inbox, began letting users get friends’ updates via text message, and launched the Live Stream Box.

YouTube launched a page for movie trailers, FriendFeed added file sharing, LinkedIn got a new CEO and updated its search tool for recruiting, MySpace cut a big chunk of its staff, StumbleUpon launched a URL shortener, and Digg started showing Digg Ads.

July

In July, Google launched its Facebook page, MySpace launched its email service, and LinkedIn introduced custom profiles for companies. YouTube launched its 3D experiment, doubled the size limit of uploads, and gave users the ability to share YouTube Insights stats.

A Twitter documentary was announced, and Twitter itself gave businesses a new resource and started making hashtags link. Facebook addressed privacy and photo use for ads, gave businesses a way to increase their Facebook fans, and added the ability to create events from the publisher.

August

In August, Facebook was readying a new ads manager, made subtle changes to its design, announced plans for privacy improvement, started integrating directly with Twitter, launched its own real-time search, implemented restrictions on sponsored status updates, updated open stream APIs, acquired FriendFeed, and began letting developers sell physical merchandise for virtual currency.

Twitter quietly took a step toward security, and announced plans to launch a feature that makes the service location-aware. Izea launched "Sponsored Tweets," and Tweetmeme brought analytics to retweeting.

Google reader got more social features, YouTube placed more emphasis on search and launched its own AdSense-like promoted videos. Delicious showed off new features for sharing, search, and its homepage. StumbleUpon made some big changes to its toolbar.

September

In September, Google turned the whole web into an exclusive social network with SideWiki. Yahoo launched a new contacts API, Yahoo profiles became social media profiles, and the company launched the Twitter-like Yahoo Meme in English. Microsoft added MySpace activity updates to Windows Live, and Bing announced it was readying sharing features for search results.

A sick poll was discovered on and removed from Facebook, and Facebook announced its translation plans, and that it had roughly the same amount of people as the entire U.S. population. Facebook also added tagging from status updates, and launched Facebook Lite in the U.S. and India.

MySpace Music launched in Australia, and Myspace users started being able to sync updates with Twitter. LinkedIn made profile organization easier, a record label was launched for YouTube stars, and YouTube began readying a friend-finder feature.

Pizza Hut and other brands used Twitter to help feed the hungry, Digg made changes to its nofollow policy, the Washington Post’s leaked social media policy faced criticism, and real-time search engines Collecta and OneRiot launched APIs.

October

In October, Bing scored deals with Twitter and Facebook, while Google scored one with Twitter. Mozilla shared its plans for integrating social media and email into one inbox, and Twitter partnered with its first charity. LinkedIn announced that it surpassed 50 million users.

MySpace introduced new music features, StumbleUpon launched a new design with more of a search focus, YouTube got real-time search for comments, and the only known video footage of Anne Frank appeared on YouTube.

Facebook confirmed testing of a new design, made share buttons more useful, gave groups walls, tried harder to get page owners to verify, and presented new obstacles for application developers. They also launched the Create Application API.

November

In November, Google eased the retrieval of SideWiki entries for entire sites, Google Wave got a feature for following, and Google launched some new features for Google Friend Connect.

Facebook tested new design changes, and continued work on privacy changes. Facebook and Twitter both made their way into dictionaries and onto video game consoles.  Twitter made geotagging tweets possible, and talked about plans which would make its suggested usres list more like Twellow’s. Twitter also changed launched Twitter Lists, gave apps access to people search, rolled out the controversial retweet feature, and changed "What are you doing?" to "What’s Happening?".

LinkedIn opened up its platform to developers, Yahoo began showing tweets for news results, MySpace launched new music charts, Salesforce announced its "Facebook for the enterprise," YouTube connected news outlets with citizen reporters, PayPal launched new APIs to take over mobile and social apps, Microsoft launched a big redesign of MSN, Opera launched Opera Unite, Digg launched Digg Trends.

December

In December, Google, Facebook, and YouTube all got new URL shorteners. Twitter continued expansion into new languages, and announced plans for business features. Google launched real-time search in the search results.

LinkedIn began testing a new design, and launched faceted search, Facebook began giving translators awards, adjusted privacy controls, and formed a board for online safety, MySpace launched new APIs, upgraded users’ mobile experience, and acquired iMeem, Bing launched new maps with apps, and Yahoo deepened its integration with Facebook. Digg released a new version of its API. Also, the new FTC guidelines went into effect.

Wrapping Up

Of course, there has been much more that has happened over the year in social media. I think it might be close to impossible to cover every single thing. Were there things that happened that you think should have been included here? Add them in the comments. That will only serve to make the piece more comprehensive for future readers.

Over the past 12 years consulting on web marketing  I have answered countless questions but one question I receive often stands out from all; how to remove a Google penalty. The following is an example of a question I received in the past from a person named Patrick:

PLEASE HELP! For the last 8 years we were #1 for a ton of search terms but then my site got penalized by Google because we had overused some keywords. We fixed the issue months ago but my top rankings are all still over the place. Sometimes we get back into the top 10 and we all breathe a sigh of relief, then just a few hours later we are on page 5. What is going on and how can I correct this? We are beyond frustrated!

First, Some Research

In order to answer Patrick’s question I needed to find out a couple of things about his website to make my answer more accurate:

• His site has excellent content right now and when I looked at past versions of the site I see the content was still great but definitely had keyword stuffing problems.

  Key finding: his site is really well done so I can see why it had top rankings before.

• I took a look at competitors found in the top 10 under several keyword searches that were obviously main targets for his website. After reviewing the backlinks for each competitor’s sites I could see they were all very well entrenched but their content was not up to par with Patrick’s site. I reviewed Patrick’s backlinks and was surprised to find that he had very few. 

  Key finding: his competitors have a lot of backlinks than Patrick’s site does.

• An SEO Tool Note: I use Yahoo Site Explorer for cursory examination of backlinks for my clients and their competitors. For more in-depth research I use OptiLink by Winrose Software which provides excellent statistics that are very useful for analyzing the quality of backlinks among other things. Here are more recommended web marketing tools.
• I checked the server headers for their home page and other key pages to make sure nothing was outwardly wrong with their server configuration; everything was fine.
• I took some time to surf through Patrick’s website and discovered that not all of the keyword stuffing had been removed.

  Key Finding: Google may still feel his site deserves a penalty because it is not 100% clean.

My Answer to Patrick

First I will layout why it seems your site did so well to begin with. Your website has very few backlinks in comparison to your competitors who have significantly more. So, as near as I can tell your top rankings were so high because you had built an awesome reputation with Google by providing unparalleled content; I can’t find a single competitor that can match the quality of your content. For a long time you managed to stay at the top of your marketplace by continuing to provide great content. Unfortunately, you were over-optimizing the content by adding too many incidences of the same keywords (keyword stuffing) and Google took a disliking to it.

So why is it so hard to regain your ranking stability? Your site lost the glue that kept it competitive when Google penalized it. The glue, in this case, was your site’s reputation that was created based on your content which lost its stickiness due to Google’s penalty for the keyword stuffing. Without your content advantage your competitors have leaped ahead of you because they have far more links than you have and no ranking penalties (that we know of). Without links and with the Google penalty applied to your site your content hasn’t the power it had before so your rankings will fluctuate for an indeterminate amount of time; there is no sure time limit on a Google penalty.

My Recommendation for Removing the Google Penalty

1. Remove all of the keyword stuffing on your website. I know it is a large site and this is no small feat but it needs to be done. With your site cleaned and nothing remaining but quality content there will at least be an end in sight to the Google penalty and your site will also benefit from being more readable and usable to a visitor.

2. Begin an ongoing link building campaign now – there is no time to delay. Links are another path to building credibility for your website which it sorely needs right now. There is also a good chance that high quality incoming links will act as additional entry points to your website for Google to index your newly revised site and reconsider the penalty.
3. Review Google Webmaster Tools and attend to any errors/alerts/warnings that Google has provided. Also make sure to submit a fresh sitemap once the site is cleaned so that Google takes notice of any content that may have gone unnoticed and/or new content.
4. Freshen content on key parts of your website with rewrites or additional articles. This will provide positive activity that Google will not deny adds value to its index.
5. Bolster your Pay Per Click campaigns so they can bear some of the burden during this dry spell of low organic rankings.
6. Be patient. If you do everything I have noted above you are in a great position to succeed and your site will be stronger than ever before.

By applying these recommendations you will very likely discover that the Google Penalty was more a blessing than a curse because your site will come out stronger than ever before.

Check out our small business news site.

This post was originally in YOUmoz, and was promoted to the main blog because it provides great value and interest to our community. The author’s views are entirely his or her own and may not reflect the views of SEOmoz, Inc.

In late October Forum One Networks put out a white paper titled "Online Community and Social Media Compensation." I applaud their efforts, but, I think they create an unrealistic view of the job space in online media.

 One, I think the surveyed companies over-represent corporate jobs.

Answers Corp., Autodesk, Avid, Best Buy, Cartoon Network (Turner), Consumer Reports, Electronic Arts, hi5, IBM, KaBOOM!, Nokia, Quest Software, Sage Software, Seesmic, Sony Online Entertainment, The Knot, and Yahoo!

Their average respondent is in a department of 9-people and have at least one sub-ordinate. I suspect the truth of the job landscape is that there are far more web jobs (social media, web design/development, SEO, PPC and web analytics) in small business than in large corporations.

Two, they fail to address critical issues like education, work experience and job duties.

Forum One claims that in social media the average woman makes $75,624 and the average man makes $86,644. I feel simply looking at the averages is too shallow to make a good argument about compensation.

So, I am doing something about it. I think the SEOmoz community has a wide range of people and will contribute a broader, and more realistic, perspective on what jobs on the web really look like. I put together an 18-question anonymous survey (it will take less than 5 minutes to complete) to create a better look at salary and compensation on the web.

Once I collect the data we will make all of the findings transparent, free to download and creative-commons so you can use the data freely. Help the community by creating better data resources.

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Shameless plug: If you like, vote for me, I may have the most hats on that list:

Barry Schwartz of Search Engine Roundtable, Search Engine Land, RustyBrick (@Rustybrick)

If you do not like me, then vote for another SEM. Keep it in the family!

Forum discussion at Sphinn.

(1) You can use page trackers instead of an RSS reader to monitor new front page stories;
(2) You can track Digg category pages to watch the dynamics;
(3) You can track Google “Past 24-hours” results to monitor your competitors, etc.

This post lists 3 handy FireFox addons that will help you monitor any page and notify you of changes in various ways:

Follow2 Notifier

Follow2 Notifier is a FireFox add-on that allows you to get real-time updated content notifications to your status bar from any website / page.

It installs a nice icon in your browser status bar called f2 which works the following way:

• Click it once you land on a page you want to track;
• The page will be added to the tracker;
• Once the page it is updated, you will see an update alert in the status bar (if there are many alerts, you’ll see a scroller to list the notifications):

From there you can:

• Click the notification to load the updated page;
• Right-click on the icon to be able to load your site list:

SiteDelta

SiteDelta notifies when websites are changed and highlights the changes since last visit. The addon icon (also added to the status bar) works similarly as the similar one:

• Click it to add the page to the tracker;
• Right-click on a tiny notification icon next to it to open the most recently-added page or all pages in different tabs;
• When on page again, click the icon to highlight the actual changes:

• Right-click on the icon to access many more handy options:

Page properties:

(1) See the page information: the text version of the page and when you last visited it:

(2) Set the tracking preferences: scan the deleted content, image addresses, ignore cases, ignore numbers and backup changes:

(3) Set the scanning frequency:

Backup current page version or see previous backups;

Track only some portion of the page (or ignore some area of the page):

Open only changed pages

See all your tracked pages in the sidebar (red color means there’s an update):

Update Scanner

Update scanner mainly works via the sidebar: the icon is only used to open that sidebar.

All the tool does is basically the following:

• Notifies you of any page changes;
• Highlights changes:

The most useful feature of the tool is that it can be configured to ignore minor changes (the feature available from “Edit properties” link on a page saved copy):

Check out the SEO Tools guide at Search Engine Journal.

3 Tools to Monitor Any Page or Site Changes

While Michael Jackson topped Yahoo’s overall searches for 2009, actress Megan Fox landed in the top spot of mobile searches.  Those were the only search terms to make it into both the top 10 mobile and PC searches.
 

The NFL was the most popular sport search term for 2009, outpacing both the NBA and NASCAR.

 Here are the top 10 mobile searches and overall searches according to Yahoo:

1. Megan Fox
2. Mobile Games
3. Michael Jackson
4. Movies
5. Rihanna
6. Mail
7. Lady Gaga
8. NFL
9. Ringtones
10. iPhone

Here are the top 10 overall searches for 2009:

1. Michael Jackson
2. Twilight
3. WWE
4. Megan Fox
5. Britney Spears
6. Naruto
7. American Idol
8. Kim Kardashian
9. NASCAR
10. Runescape

Related Articles:

> Yahoo Releases Top Searches Of 2009

>Yahoo Survey For Holiday Online Retail

>Yahoo Showing Tweets For News Results