Oaseo Blog

Indeed.com provides some great insight into the increase of job postings on the Web for search engine optimizers:



Considering the fact that the skills and experience needed to become a professional optimizer grows more and more difficult, while the demand remains on the rise, I expect this uptick - along with rates and salaries - to continue.

Labels: SEO

Did you hear Google's going to buy Oaseo?

Well, OK, it's not true, but if it were, I could expect a huge increase in backlinks and organic ranking improvements.

This past week, Microsoft was rumored to buy Yahoo! and Google was rumored to buy vertical job search engine Simply Hired. And true or not, the backlinks are flowing. Simply Hired has seen hundreds of new, quality links in the past week.

Yep, I smell a new SEO category: Gossip Management.

Labels: google, SEO, simply hired

There was a time when hyphenated top-level URLs ruled. It enabled publishers to easily plug-in keywords into their top-level domain, which carried a lot of weight with the engines. Well, as you can imagine, that technique was overdone and lost its effectiveness. Do a search for just about anything competitive on Google and you will see few, if any, hyphenated URLs such as www.your-domain-name.com. (This, however, www.yourdomain.com/this-is-ok, is OK.)

That's why I'm always surprised to see new startups go live with a hyphenated domain. One could argue that enough backlinking juice would cure any URL issues, but why start out in the hole. There's a good change that you're starting out with a penalty out of the gate, just for your domain choice. Not good.

In addition to hyphenated URLs being a bad choice, unless you have an exact-match domain name, it looks like you could pretty much pick anything and start from the same line. Who knows? Maybe having something totally unrelated to your market is a great choice. Craigslist, Monster and Indeed all have nothing to do with job search, yet each is a top brand.

I know a lot of people who are ga-ga over URLs. In some instances, I see the attraction, but in most, I don't. Most should agree, however, that no matter what your domain of choice is, it shouldn't have a hyphen. SEO is too challenging as it is.

Labels: SEO

Are you a recruiting firm or job site looking to build more traffic to your site? Well here's something you may be interested in. It's called the Poor Recruiters Guide to SEO. It will tell you how to build targeted quality traffic to your website. For free. Download it here (pdf) or read the online version of recruiting seo.

Labels: Link building, SEO

Use AllStarJobs.com for a quality, targeted inbound link to your site.

AllStarJobs.com is a directory of employment related job boards and other web sites that is great for link building. You'll have to reciprocate with a link back to them but over the years they have been "berry berry good to me" and my sites for link building purposes.

To add a basic listing, find the section on our directory that you feel best matches where your site should be added. Then, choose 'Add Link' on the top right corner of that page.

This is free to employers, employment agencies and non profit organizations. Services such as job banks, resume writing services require a one time $39 payment.

Labels: Link building, SEO

I'll preface this post by saying, "I love Google." Without Google and search, I don't get to do what I do for a living. And it's arguably my generation's most successful company.

However, it's become boring of late.

• SEO. I've been a search engine optimizer for about 5 years now. And although I still learn something new all the time, particularly during updates and such, I think I have enough of a grasp that the time of discovery has passed. Granted, with behavioral and localized targeting, that's sure to change, but for now I feel like I know what I need to know to be successful.
• Blogs. I get feeds from tens, if not hundreds of search-focused blogs. It's all becoming white noise, with just a few that are truly must reads.
  
• Game over. History teaches us that the search game is over. Google won. No matter what Yahoo! or Microsoft or anyone else does, Google = search, and it always will. As a result, focusing on competitors is only mildly interesting anymore.

I'm certain to be in the minority here, but my daily doses of search are looking more like vegetables than dessert.

Labels: SEO