Fast Five in Search – Week 10, 2013

fast-fiveHi folks, once again this week’s Fast Five includes a couple of gems worthy of bookmarking for later. Enjoy!

1) 3 Ways to Make Your SERP Listing Stand Out by Sujan Patel                                    Ever wondered why some sites get their internal pages listed in SERPs, or a picture of the site owner with a byline? Sujan explores three effective ways to influence what Google displays when your site listing appears within search results.

2) SEO Friendly WordPress in 12 Steps by Matt Morgan                                   WordPressers will love this one, it’s definitely bookmark worthy. Matt provides great insight into how ‘out-of-the-box’ WordPress themes can be adjusted for SEO, including useful PlugIns and Widgets. From adjusting Permalinks, to Optimizing your Robots.txt file, this is a comprehensive guide to WordPress SEO.

3) SEO Without Borders: A Guide to International SEO by Nick Paterman                     Have you ever wanted to know the specifics on how to market your site internationally through multiple country-specific search engines? From basic SEO best practices to more technical situations, Nick covers every step of the process.

4) Case Study: How Keyword Research Works in the Wild by Beth Hayden                   This well-written post tells the story of a business owner called Sarah who embarks on a keyword research mission to promote her small business. Step-by-step we can learn via Sarah’s process, including links to keyword research tools, how they can be applied and to what effect.

And finally for a bit of fun, ever wondered how to explain exactly how Google works? This is a great post to refer clients to…

5) Google Releases Interactive Infographic “How Search Works” by Danny Sullivan       The process of GoogleBots crawling pages has always been shrouded in mystery – along with their mechanism for returning matches in response to a search query, or identifying spam. Danny discusses Google’s response to these mysteries via the release, last week, of their new scroll-down interactive infographic on “How Search Works”.

Happy reading!

*Image courtesy of Threadless

Q and A: Do I have to learn HTML before learning SEO?

QuestionHi Kalena,

I’m looking to take your SEO starter course and your site says you can recommend tutorials for learning HTML.

From what I am reading, I think I need to learn that before I take your courses. How can I take that tutorial to prepare for your courses? What is the procedure to get to that tutorial?

Thank you
Larry

————————————-

Hi Larry

Thanks for your question and your interest in taking our Search Engine College courses.

Just to reassure you, knowledge of HTML or programming is not a pre-requisite for taking any of our courses. Having said that, if you wish to take an online tutorial in HTML before enrolling with us, you can find some here:

W3Schools HTML Tutorial

HTML Code Tutorial

Dave’s Interactive HTML Tutorial

Getting Started With HTML

Hope this helps!

 

Search Industry Job of the Week – Search Engine Optimization Specialist

Job Title: Search Engine Optimization Specialist
Job Reference: unknown
Position Type: full time
Name of employer: VOCAL Technologies, Ltd
Location: Amherst, NY United States
Date Posted: 26 February 2013
Position description:

VOCAL Technologies, Ltd. are looking for self-motivated candidates to be responsible for the optimization of their website content for maximum visibility and ranking the major search engines.

SEO Responsibilities

  • Develop and implement SEO to ensure that traffic and ROI goals are met and exceeded
  • Optimizing site architecture, optimizing URL structures and patterns for maximized indexing and keyword relevancy
  • Link Analysis: including opportunities, broken links, redirects, cross linking
  • Improve inbound linking
  • Conduct competitive analysis in order to learn from competition
  • Monitor day-to-day activity in order to optimize keywords and ads
  • Provide recommendations for landing page updates in order to better integrate with keyword campaigns

The candidate qualifying for this role will possess the following required skills:

  • 3+ years experience in search engine optimization and working on websites
  • Proven success in raising website visibility in the Google search engine
  • Proven track record of ranking and maintaining target keywords on the number one spot in Google
  • Clear understanding of Google Algorithm updates and how they alter the landscape
  • Experience with analytics/reporting tools such as Google Analytics
  • Experience with leading search engine ranking, traffic and analysis software
  • Experience with social media marketing
  • BS Degree in Computer Science, Engineering or Information Technology required
  • Demonstrated ability to manage details, efficient work habits, and overall flexibility
  • Self-starter approach to work, with a desire to consistently meet and exceed objectives and take on more responsibility
  • A self-starter with an ability to work in a fast paced, dynamic environment
  • Should be familiar with HTML and JavaScript
  • A background in online marketing and/or website development is preferred

Salary range: Unknown
Closing date: Unknown
More info from: www.vocal.com
Contact: Send resumes to: [email protected]

For more search industry jobs, or to post a vacancy, visit Search Engine College Jobs Board.