I don’t think so…

Directory submissions is live and well.  Lately, many webmasters have been denouncing directory submissions as if its the wrong thing to do.  Directories don’t give you any click value, no one is browsing directories and checking out all the spam.  Directories also are not for Google.  Google doesn’t put too much weight on directories…but they may one day!  If you notice Google devalues many community sites — blog hosting sites took a big hit, article syndication sites took a big hit, forums took a big hit, and directories took a big hit — all of these community or public type sites have lost a lot of page rank value in the last few years.  Why?  Because they have become vastly inhabited by the web zombies!  Webmasters, SEO’s, marketers, etc.  We’re like the night of the living dead trolling the world wide web and destroying anything in our path.  What’s next??  Social media sies or press release distributors?

But if you remember classified sites took a big hit with Google back in the day!  But, today classified sites are making a sneaky comeback.  Everyone forgot about classified sites because the value in it was tarnished but now they are coming back, slowly but surely.

The lesson is, don’t deny directories.  I’d suggest you just be selective about your directory submissions, look for the long term success and you’ll make the right decision.

Another reason why I still submit to directories is because Yahoo! still seem to value those links.  So, if I lose one way then I still win another way.

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You’re an SEO and you find it hard to find an SEO Job, SEO Project, or SEO Clients.  I guess the real question is “ARE YOU REALLY AN SEO?” — Isn’t it your job to make people find your website, if you can’t make people find your website then how are you going to help expose client websites???  This is something you should ask yourself!!!

Well, I am not here to badger you, but it is a question which needs to be answered.  Anyway, I am here to help you find the SEO job you’ve been looking for.  Below is a list of places to go to find SEO jobs, project, and clients:

1. Ant Onaf SEO Job Board
2. SearchEngineJournal Job Board
3. Elance SEO Freelance Projects
4. GetACoder Search Engine Optimization Jobs
5. Scriptlance Jobs
6. RentACoder.com Search Engine Optimization Projects
7. Stuntdubl SEO Job Board
8. Indeed SEO Job Postings
9. Marketing Pilgrim Job Board
10. GetAFreelance Freelance SEO Jobs
11. Craigslist SEO Jobs 
12. Google Base SEO Jobs
13. Dice SEO Jobs
14. Oodle SEO Jobs
15. Monster SEO Jobs
16. Careerbuilder SEO Jobs
17. HotJobs SEO Jobs
18. OhSoHandy SEO Jobs
19. Jobster SEO Jobs
20. Cyber Coders SEO Jobs
21. Simply Hired SEO Jobs
22. OASEO SEO Job Board
23. JuJu SEO Jobs
24. FlipDog SEO Job Search
25. LinkedIn Job Board
26. Jobs Just Posted SEO Job Search
27. Odin SEO Job Search
28. Guru.com Web Design & Marketing
29. SEOMoz.org SEO Marketplace
30. Marketing Sherpa Online Marketing Jobs
31. SEMPO SEO Job Board
32. iFreelance SEO Jobs
33. Sologig SEO Project Search
34. SEOConsultants Job Board
35. Webmaster-Talk Freelance Jobs
36. Onward Search
37. MySpace SEO Jobs
38. Kijiji SEO Jobs
39. Vast.com SEO Jobs
40. ComputerJobs.com SEO Jobs
41. oDesk Search Engine Optimization Jobs
42. NerdLance SEO Jobs
43. Freelance Project Updates SEO Jobs
44. AllFreelance Freelancer Job Boards
45. JobInSearch Search Engine Jobs
46. MSN Live Expo SEO Jobs
47. ClickZ Job Board 
48. Search Engine College Job Board
49. Naymz SEO Job Search
50. OLX SEO Jobs

The list above contains many SEO related jobs, some of the jobs are repetitive due to the fact some of the sites use common or cross-platform job boards.  Regardless, the list above gives you an outlet for finding your SEO jobs, projects, and clients.  If you can’t find and land a job after going through the list above then its either 2 things…you didn’t try hard enough or you need to change careers!

Search engine optimization & marketing is in high demand and it the demand is growing rapidly.  SEO/SEM will always be a high demand industry due to the fact that there will always be much more websites than there are SEO (especially good SEO).  If you can prove yourself in the industry and build your brand then you are pretty much set.  My suggestion to you is that you study your craft, pick up a few SEO projects to expose your talent (don’t worry about pay in the beginning), and once you have built a portfolio and client list of at least 3-5 clients shop your resume and cover letter (letter of interest) around to prospects and employers.   Land your job!

I’m personally not interested in working for a company as an employee, I will only take on projects and/or jobs as an SEO consultant.  I have to be able to set my own hours and work at my pace.  I may one day decide to get back in the workforce, but that is not my goal or plan (especially at this point in my life when things are looking up for my business), but I never say never!

As you can see from the list above there is always plenty of prospects looking for SEO services, so you should never have to resort to sending emails to potential clients (or spamming).  Even when the list above doesn’t work out, you still have direct mail marketing, door-to-door marketing, telemarketing (not sure of the laws surrounding that), or vertical marketing.  Vertical marketing is where I would say its “okay” to send emails.  Basically, when I speak of vertical marketing it is aligining yourself with other markets who are closely related to your industry but are not direct competitors, this would be companies which perform web design, web development, web hosting, etc.  Many of these type companies receive request for SEO services, but have to turn them away because they do not offer such services nor do they have any reputable businesses to send the client to. Most of these companies will be happy to swap referrals, resell your services, or refer clients to you. The worst thing is turning a client away because you can’t perform what they need or don’t have a relationship with a company who can provide what the client needs. Same with SEO, if you don’t provide web design you will get request for web design and will need someone to refer your clients to, use this leverage in your sales pitch to your vertical markets.

Now go find your SEO Job! Good luck to you.

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Google AdManager has quitely hit the scene and is in Google’s famous BETA mode, by invitation only.  If you sell or publish ads on your website then you probably know how invaluable this ad serving platform can be.  The basis of AdManager it will be a platform similar to OpenX formerly OpenAds and then formerly PHPAdsNew, in any event OpenX is a popular “free” ad server platform currently installed locally on your machine.  It allow webmasters to manage, host, and publish any ad format and ad types.  As being one of the most popular and most used ad server platforms it is suspectible that Google will diminish the use of OpenX or any other ad server software. 

Google AdManager has some very cool features and the best part is that it will likely stay FREE.  Another good thing is that Google more than likely make it available for an unlimited amount of websites under one account.  Additionally, more than likely you will be able to get very good ad analytical data from Google analytics.  The bus doesn’t stop there, you will be able to provide your direct advertisers in-depth reports supplied by Google pertaining to their ad campaigns on your site. 

These are definitely exciting times and Google owns the web.  Once Google has established its footing and taken its products out of BETA mode, I can’t see why anyone wouldn’t have their own website.

Google Page Creator — create your HTML web page with Google online WYSIWYG editor and get free hosting on googlepages.com
Google Analytics — track your website pages and analyze your web data
Google AdManager — manage advertisements and ad zones on your website
Google Adwords — market your website and get quality traffic
Google Adsense — sell ads on your website and get paid

The only thing Google doesn’t have which you need for your web experience is top level domain (TLD) web hosting, but I can see that changing once they release Google GDrive.

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I know everyone has their quirks about their clients, but I would rank SEO as having the worst clients, mainly because of the disconnect.  Most clients seeking SEO don’t have any true understanding of SEO and what is involved, sure some clients can throw around some buzz words and have the jargon down pact but they still don’t have any true grasp of the business.  Most clients are use to paying for a service and getting in return a satisfying result, while with SEO clients don’t understand they are not paying for results they are paying for effort, because there is a chance that the SEO strategy will not bring results.  That is why AntOnaf.com practice satisfying results, we basically continue working (at no additional cost to you) until the site/project gets satisfying and deserving results for our clients.  We also outline in detail for our clients the strategic approach and plan of attack!

With this said, we still have some clients who are from Mars.  Here is my top 7 list of why our SEO clients are from Mars.

1. Unrealistic Expectations.  I will pay you $150 to rank my website #1 on all major search engines for 20 extremely broad keywords in 30 days.  If ranking on the search engines was this easy and this cheap then there wouldn’t be big corporations throwing millions a year at search engine optimization.  Also, if it was this cheap and simple there wouldn’t be a need for my services.
2. Mid-Project Change Request.  Hey I know you already started the campaign and we are seeing ranking improvements for the 20 keywords I supplied you 20 days ago, but I have a new 20 keywords which I think is better suited so let’s stop worrying about the previous 20 and work on the new 20 keywords.  Oh! And remember you have 10 days left!
3. Show me sites you have worked on so I can do nothing!  If you don’t plan on verifying the previous clients of an SEO then why bother asking for sites the SEO has worked on, because if its a shady SEO then that mean the shady SEO will tell you anything to get your money, even tell you he/she did SEO work for a website that they never did SEO work for.
4. Day Two - Where’s my ranking.  I hired you to get my website ranked, it is day two already why isn’t my site getting butt loads of traffic?  There is a big disconnect when clients think that their website will rank in record breaking time (well I know a way to get a site ranked in 12 hours, but there’s some rules to it).  If you are paying for a overnight get rich quick scheme then good luck with that because any true website (business) takes time to grow sometimes years.  It is best suited to go in with a plan and realistic expected duration.
5. Is 30 days too long?  30 days is only 1 month and one month of SEO is not going to cut it these days , especially since most SEO do not work on your website 24/7, you’d be lucky if you get 10 strong and dedicated hours a month.   Being realistic you should expect to build a SEO campaign for no less than 6 months and this in many cases is too little.
6. I own you, I am your only client, and I am all you think about!  Hey we need to talk now it can’t wait!  Hey it’s 15 minutes later, I need to talk to you again!  Hey, I’ve been waiting a whole 20 minutes, we need to talk!  Okay, 30 minutes has passed, I’m coming over so we can talk!  It’s an hour later…I have your firstborn and you can’t have them back until we talk.  Have you ever had a client (or maybe you were the client) who constantly call, visit, email, IM, etc., just worrying about little stuff that can either wait or have no relevance to the project or they are just log hogs while monitoring their logs they see a small negative such as less visitors today than yesterday and this throws the SEO client into a tailspin worrying you to death!  This is the worst thing SEO clients can do, family time is already hard to come by and a worrying client makes it even more scarce.  Definitely ever client has the right to have concerns about their business and website — that’s what they are paying for right??  But, there are limitations.  In the first month a client shouldn’t really expect much (even though I tend to show improvements within 15 days — toot! toot!).  The client should start to expect rank increases within 60 days of the project, this is a realistic expectation if by 60 days you haven’t seen improvements then I’d suggest worrying.
7. Finally got my SEO done, now its time to change my website.  How many times have you seen this happen?  You perform some of your best work on a website and then a month after you are complete the site has been redesigned without keeping your SEO mods in tact.  Sure, its no concern to you because you already got paid and completed your task, but the client doesn’t realize they have lost all of their SEO power.  It’s beneficial to contact the client and let them know, but the client may want you to redo your work for free — talk about a rock and a hard place.

With all the above said, it’s not really the fault of the SEO clients, it’s the fault of SEO.  Just because SEO is second nature and common sense to us, it doesn’t mean the client has that same understanding even if they make the claim.  It’s like when you take your car for repairs, you try to go in with as much information as possible, as you don’t want to portray that you don’t know anything about cars.  For one mechanics tend to talk as if things are common sense and you should know what a common auto part is and what it does.   But the second most important reason you would tend to act as if you know a little about mechanics and cars is that you don’t want to be taken for a ride or taken advantage of by the mechanic.  The same applies in the SEO world.  You have some upstanding and honest SEO (like myself) and then you have the shady overcharging SEO. 

So, previous SEO providers are to blame for my bad encounters with (some) SEO clients…

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If you haven’t heard about Google Docs then its time you get on the bandwagon.  It’s the new way of doing things.  It’s the answer to Microsoft Office products.  It’s basically an online Office application which allows you to create, share, and publish documents and spreadsheets online.  The convenience of creating documents and spreadsheets online is that you can access it anywhere without the need of having your personal laptop or computer.  If you have internet access then you are able to access your files. 

Okay, we have the explanation, so let’s get on with it.  Google Docs is the perfect solution for creating PDF files.  If you write eBooks or have a need to create PDF files then Google Docs is all you need.  I was searching for a free PDF converter that perserve anchor links but couldn’t find a free PDF converter that would do it.  Every free PDF converter I came across simply did not support the option of clickable anchor text links (i.e. Ant Onaf), they only support clickable hyperlinks (i.e. http://www.antonaf.com).  This to me is not acceptable because sometimes I use long URL’s which I can’t show the raw URL string due to the long length.  So, my quest for a PDF converter that I feel is useful led me to Google Docs.  I always knew about Google Docs, but I continued to use Microsoft Office, I guess I am use to it and I haven’t warmed up to the idea of having all my docs online yet, especially with the prying eyes of Google — cause you know they love to track user behavior and crawl content.

Creating a PDF file in Google Docs is simple, here is what you do:

1. Select NEW
2. In the drop-down choose DOCUMENT
3. Write your document
4. Click FILE
5. In the drop-down choose EXPORT as PDF

That’s it!  And with Google Docs PDF converter your anchor links and hyperlinks are perserved and clickable as they should be.  Going forward I think I will use Google Docs a lot more and it may become my default ebook creator.

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Google Adwords is a powerful marketing tool that if stroked correctly it will make your cat meow purr!  — did I just say that –

You can spend your money wisely and receive targeted traffic that convert or you can stick to using old methods that don’t work anymore.  It’s your choice!  Either way I am going to tell you what works in Adwords today!  Remember its about quality over quantity.  Google has developed a system which they refer to as Quality Score, this quality score system goes through some checks and balances to be sure your landing page meet certain standards.  The quality score was put in place to ward off Google Arbitrage.  Google Arbitrage is basically you having a Google Adwords campaign with landing pages pointing to affiliate ads and paid advertisement pages (such as Google Adsense or other third-party affiliate ads), in retrospect the affiliate ads and paid advertisements payout is enough to cover the cost of the low cost pay per click — well those days are over!  No more playing dirty, but you can still win!  You just have to play fair nowadays.  Here are a few tips that can help increase your Adwords conversions:

• Do not place Google Adsense (or other third-party ads) on landing page.  Some people can’t fight the feeling and its a must they have ads on the landing pages, in this case I suggest moderation, but having too many ads may trigger an Google Abitrage alarm and lower your quality score which means you will ultimately have to pay more per click. 
• Connect Your Keyword Bids to Relevant Landing Pages.  Match your keywords with relevant landing pages.  Your destination URL should point to a sub page, product page, features page, service page, etc. 
• Optimize Your Landing Pages.  If you can’t do anything else at least optimize your landing page.  The target keywords of the Adwords campaign should be the keywords used in your optimized pages.  Optimize your page title, meta description, meta keywords (optional), page content, alternate text, and internal link anchor text.
• It is all about the TITLE.  If you fail to capture someone attention with the TITLE then you may just fail!  I’ve found that putting prices in the title works best when you’re selling a product.  Someting like “Earn $999 in 14 Days” looks more appealing than “Earn Money Now”, plus it keeps freebie seekers away which is the plan.  Why would you want a freebie seeker to waste your money by clicking on an ad that doesn’t interest him/her.
• Add negative words to your campaigns.  Adding negative words can help you drill down into your targeted audience.  You can add words such as “free” to your negative keyword list, this will stop your ad from appearing in any searches containing the word free, this will include keyword combinations with your other targeted keywords.
• Track Your Campaigns.  I had a campaign which had a 100% bounce rate from every other country except the U.S. where the bounce rate was 12%.  I stopped targeting all countries and strictly focused on my country (USA) and my conversions went up almost instantly.  With me putting Google Analytics on my pages and tracking my data I was able to save myself quite a bit of wasted clicks and headaches. 
• Engineer Your Adwords Campaign.  You no longer need a super long list of keywords.  This is not the way to do it anymore.  No need to have 500 keywords in one single campaign with all keywords pointing to the homepage, we’ve graduated.  Iinstead separate campaigns by keywords - separate keywords by landing pages - separate landing pages by pay per click ads - etc.

If you are struggling with your current Adwords campagin then you may want to try some of the suggested advice above, it may help you recover from a failing Google Adwords campaign.  If used properly and wisely you can make your adwords campaign pay for itself by saving money with improving your quality score and increasing sales with higher conversions.  Good luck to you!

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For most businesses, especially brick and mortars local search is important.  Local search should not be underestimated because sometimes it can be the push you need to expose yourself to the local market. Think about how you find local businesses and services.  Have you ever needed to find a car repair shop in your local area?  What was the first thing you did?  Went online and did a search either through a local search engine or online yellow pages.  Did you put much thought into the search results or did you just select (and trust) a provider listed on the first page, like most individuals?

It is time you begin tapping into the gainful local market and excel your business with local exposure and notoriety.  Here are the top 10 ways to improve your local search results:

1. Add your business listing to Google Local
2. Add your business listing to Yahoo Local
3. Add your business listing to MSN (Live) Local
4. Add your business listing to local business directories
5. Add your business listing to local online yellow pages
6. Sign up for Google Adwords and create an ad campaign to target your local area
7. Create a Google Local Business Ad to get top exposure in Google Maps
8. Sign up for Yahoo! Local Sponsored Search and create an ad campaign to target your local area
9. Create an SuperPages.com pay per click account to get top exposure in MSN Maps
10. Give your customers/clients incentives for writing a review for your local listings

The above 10 items will get you the local exposure you deserve.  There are some other things that can be done to get local exposure, such as pay-per-call advertising, local link exchanging, and local link building.  Other things that can be done is traditional marketing, such as local print advertising, local broadcast advertising, and local seminars, expos, and business conferences. 

You will not understand the power of local marketing until you have gone down that road.  If you provide quality, professional, and fairly priced services or products then your local customers/clients can take you worldwide with word of mouth referrals.  Everyone starts somewhere, why not start local?

Do you have other ways to improve local search results?  Please share.

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