We’ve hit the point where you need one of two things – ultimate value or an amazing product. Doing what everyone else does and hoping that people like your product, in my opinion, isn’t a viable business model. A perfect example (although I’m a little bias) is Calle Arco. We’ve been working with Thomas and his team since the middle of last year on what has been one of the most challenging projects I’ve ever had the pleasure of being involved with. It’s infinitely complex due to the sheer number of books (upwards of 10 million) and systems that we need to work with, which also has huge SEO implications that we’re just starting to break the back of.

The site itself allows you to buy a personalised book, customised to whatever spec you want. The whole Harry Potter series in pink leather with a personal dedication on the inside? No problem. A diamond encrusted version of Winnie the Pooh? Not so easy, but through their bespoke service it can still be done. There’s also the option to buy a standard book, or even to get one that’s out of print sourced and bound just for you.

Having a great product is one thing, but getting in front of the correct audience is another. Standing out isn’t just about selling – it’s about offering something more. If you’re a dog trainer, start a blog that will help people train their canine companion at home. If you’re a content writer, try offering tips to those who want to do learn to write better. Go out, guest blog, get involved with your industry on Twitter and become a leader – not just someone who sits there and does the same as everyone else.

Social Profiles

One of the main methods most commonly used in reputation management relies heavily upon social networking and retaining an active presence on sites such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, however, to enhance where your created social profiles appear in search engine rankings for your brand name it may be necessary to apply search engine optimisation both on-site and off-site.

Using your relevant keywords in updates and posts from your profile can help search engines to relate the profile to your search term. It will also help if your social network pages are linked to from, or have widgets placed on your official website(s).

Articles

When writing and submitting an article to a directory with the intention of actively enforcing online reputation management it is good practice to have your target brand name keyword mentioned at least once in the title of your article, and also to include it multiple times within the body of the article. This way the search engine will associate the article with your company name and therefore increases the chances of it ranking for the term.

Videos

Both the actual videos and your profile have the ability to rank on video directory websites – which is one thing to bear in mind when optimising as part of an online reputation management campaign. Some of the methods used to rank videos for brand names can include the mentioning of company names in titles, descriptions and keyword sections of videos.

Social Media

Having a presence on blogs and other social platforms is highly recommended, mainly because the root domains of such sites offering the ability to sign up and post are often regarded in high authority. When posting to these sites it is important to remember that there is more than 1 place to mention your brand name keywords, examples of this can include the blog title and description, post titles, categories, tags and inside the content.

With all of the methods mentioned in this guide, off-site SEO is also a necessity; links can be obtained from many different sources, such as guest blogs, forums, directories, partner sites and articles.

If your business has received bad press that it shouldn’t have, or you are tired of losing visitors due to un-related or neutral listings appearing within the search engines for your brand name keyword, then applying the methods within this article will help to ensure that your brand is protected online.

Some of the valid options include the standard searches for your competitors URL in Google but who really wants to go through all that data and who really has the spare time?  This is even more apparent for campaigns that shake up to be competitive battles for local traffic.  With so many tools using the Yahoo Site Explorer as the backbone of its services where does the average webmaster turn?

The Best SEO Tool Options

The best options out there are (link data sources) tools that were initially designed as search engines and aren’t using data from random search engines or third party tools.  Those tools that combine information from other tools won’t be covered here.  If you’re like me, you’re looking for something a little more serious.

One option you may want to explore is Majestic SEO.  They were initially designed as a search engine and they claim to have billions of URLs in their index along with stating that they have “the largest Link Intelligence database on the planet.”  Being that their index updates several times per day, that means fresh linking data and more up-to-date results.  Let’s be honest, link building doesn’t stop if you’re campaign is a serious one.  You can read more about their link intelligence tools here.

Another option for your linking data that more SEOs tend to be familiar with (good marketing) is Open Site Explorer.  It’s part of the SEOMoz tool suite built on their LinkScape index.  They refer to it as the search engine for links, and that’s exactly what will give you serious results.   You can read more about their SEO tools here, included with paid access to Open Site Explorer.

The newest on the market is Ahrefs.  They look to have a substantial amount of data for a company that just registered their domain name at the end of 2010.  Nonetheless they are keeping track of algorithmic changes like Panda with their Serps Analysis Tool, some really good stuff.  They claim to crawl billions of pages per day and update their index every thirty minutes.

These tools can be Key for competitive SEO campaigns.  If your competitor is kicking your butt sometimes you need to mimic what they’ve done and then surpass those efforts.  Some of the time it’s the key to outranking your competition.  These tools can help you achieve your goals.  So… where you linking at?  An even better question, where is your competition getting their links?  What is your experience with these tools?  Right now they’re the closest things we have to an inside-look at the competition’s Webmaster Tools accounts.

St. Louis SEO provides organic St Louis SEO services.  Specializing in helping others understand the basics of search engine optimization and the benefits that come from implementing a well drawn up SEO plan is the company focus.  The author’s SEO company offers organic SEO services, website design and development.

Win-Win Situation

It seems like a win-win situation right?  The original author gets credit and a link, while you get content for your site.  The only problem is you aren’t the only one using this content.  Everyone who is utilising that article directory is going to have access to the same content as you, and will be under the same restrictions for use.  This means that potentially thousands of other websites will be publishing the same article you are and if there is one thing that will hurt your search rankings it is duplicate content.  Not to mention that your site will just look bad and you will appear lazy if you are just recycling articles.  This can hurt your Google ranking, as well as affiliate link conversions.  This “free” article could cost you a lot more than you think.

Why Duplicate Content Is Bad For SEO

Think of duplicate content from a user’s perspective.  When you go to your search engine of choice and look at a list of results for your search, and the top ten listings are ten identical sites with the same content on each one, how likely will you be to visit that site?  Not to mention Google is actively penalising “content mills” and the sites that recycle duplicate content to make the experience better for their users.  If your site is full of duplicate content from across the web, it will never rank very highly in Google’s search results.  They are going to give more authority and search ranking weight to sites that have completely original and unique content.  If the goal is to get your site to the top of the search rankings, then you better make sure that your content is original, or with all the different sites out there you will get lost in the shuffle and end up back on page twenty.

So Why Does This “Free” Duplicate Content Still Get Used?

This is a tough one to answer.  Some webmasters might simply not care, and just think it is a way to make some quick money and just want to fill their site with something, anything as long as it is content.  I think a lot of webmasters simply don’t get just how important having a website with unique content is.  They could just be getting started and think it is the best way to get rolling, despite the negative impacts it will have in the long run.  It’s true writing unique content can be hard, and it might seem like you can’t afford to employ a writer to provide you with unique content, but the question you have to ask is can you afford not to?

If you’re struggling to write unique content and need someone to help you, why not hire an SEO copywriter?  Not only can a true professional write content your readers will love but they will write content the search engines love too!  Now that is win-win!

In this post we look at five styles of leadership. These are not exclusive and most leaders take elements from each.

Autocrat

I.e. Steve Jobs, Former CEO of Apple

The flamboyant face of a business, autocrats are the leaders that appear in the media the most and are usually entrepreneurs with a colourful life story.

Autocrats often succeed when others tell them they will fail and this gives them the confidence boost to believe they are capable of anything.

Because autocrats are so convinced of their skill, they want to control every aspect of a business. This can work for small businesses but become unmanageable for large organisations.

Problems also arise when an autocrat leaves an organisation as there is no one capable of filling the power vacuum. An example of this is Steve Jobs’ tragic death; Apple were faced with the impossible task of replacing a leader with almost God-like status. In Apple’s case, Jobs’ autocratic leadership style is responsible for their success but there are many businesses where a leader’s short-sightedness is responsible for many bad decisions.

Technocrat

I.e. Lucas Papademos, Greek economist and newly appointed Greek Prime Minister

Technocrats (also called Bureaucrats) thrive on stable environments. They don’t feel the need to be the face of a business and prefer instead to keep the machine of business well-oiled. Often liked within a business for their stability they rarely appear in the spotlight and are sometimes usurped by other leaders with more ambition for change and risk.

Risk is the last thing on a technocrat’s mind – they are more interested in ensuring a business is always making enough money rather than taking big risks for big payoffs. Technocrats are often brought in to make up for the mistakes of a kleptocrat.

Aristocrat

I.e. Most VPs of major corporations

Aristocrats are more interested in their title than what they do. When asked what their job is they will reply with ‘I am vice president/ manager/ director at…’ before telling you what their company does.

A bit like the kleptocrat, aristocrats are only in business for their own personal gain – to make money and join executive clubs. They don’t care who they work for as long as they have the potential to earn more.

The eventual aim of an aristocrat is to earn huge amounts of money while doing very little work. They very rarely damage a business because they don’t actually do anything. All decisions are made by managers below them so the only downside to an aristocratic leader is their pay and the chance they will appoint the wrong person to power. However, they would normally ask somebody else to make that decision so it’s not usually a problem.

Aristocrats are unconcerned about who they lead or which company they head as long as they have an executive position and get to sit in first class.

Democrat

I.e. Many of the most popular politcal figures – inc. Bobby Kenedy

Democrats combine the best aspects of the autocrat and the technocrat. They make decisions that benefit the business and their employees instead of themselves.

Democrats usually work their way up from the bottom of an organisation at the top which makes them a well rounded leader. Having done the lowest paid job and having worked alongside all levels they are aware of problems through the company and how to deal with them.

This makes democrats the best to work for. They know the company inside out and have combined people management skills with practical work skills.

Kleptocrat

I.e. Fred Goodwin, blamed for the downlfall of Royal Bank of Scotland

Kleptocrats are bad for business. They often make themselves a lot of money while ruining companies in the process. These are the sorts of leaders that award themselves $1 million bonuses in the same year they lay off 10% of staff and freeze pay rises. People often mistake making money with good business.

Kleptocrats survive by showing off how much money they have made and equate this with being successful leaders. The bankrupt businesses and jobless employees left in their wake certainly would not call them good leaders.

If the head of an organisation is thinking more about their own bank balance than the business accounts then they are not a good leader.

This article was written by Silicon Beach Training. Our Leadership Skills Training course in Brighton provides delegates with a best-practice approach to leadership so that they don’t fall into the same traps as above. We also offer a range of other management courses include IOSH Managing Safely Training.

Connecting to a Server:

On windows you’ll want to run cmd.exe and if you’re on a Mac, open up Terminal (use spotlight if you can’t find it). Once that’s done just type:

ssh yourUserName@yoursite.com

You’ll then probably see an alert asking you if you want to add the server’s RSA key… just type yes and hit return. All you’ll need next is your password – type it in, hit return again and you’re done. The connection to your server is now open, meaning you have access to all of the files and folders.

Moving around your directories:

These will probably be your most used unix commands as they allow you to navigate around your file structure. This is just like clicking on icons, except you’re doing so by typing in the location that you’re trying to get to.

pwd – Show the current directory (“present working directory”).
cd /directory/to/change/to – takes you to the specified directory.
cd subdirectory/of/current/location – missing the first / means that you go to a subdirectory. cd .. – Change current directory to the parent directory of the current directory.

Listing directory contents:

Again, these commands will be used a huge amount. Until you can remember the structure of your files and folders you’ll end up changing directories, listing the contents, and then navigating. It’s a little slow going at first but once you get used to it you’ll fly around

ls – show any files and subdirectories in your current location.
ls -l – as above but with more detailed information.
ls -lh – detailed information in a more readable format.
ls -a – includes hidden files (can be used in conjunction with the other commands – ls -lha).

Changing file and folder permissions:

Particularly useful when working with WordPress sites, log files, etc. One of the most common reasons for changing folder permissions is when a script is trying to write to a file (ie. uploading an image to the uploads folder) but isn’t able to do so. In that instance you’d use -R and set the permissions to 777.

chmod 755 file-name – change the file permissions of the specified file.
chmod -r 777 uploads – allow writing of the uploads folder and any files or folders inside it.
chown matt file-name – Makes user matt the owner of the specified file.
chown -R matt dir-name – Makes matt the owner of the directory and its contents.

Remember, you must have write permissions for the file or folder that you’re trying to change – if not, these unix commands won’t work.

Copying, moving and renaming files or folders:

Working with files is really simple – there are 4 basic commands for creating, copying, moving and removing files or folders. Think of it as cut, copy and paste but faster and
more powerful.

touch file1 – create file1 in the current directory.
cp file1.ext file2.ext – copy file1 and create a duplicate as file2.
mv file1.ext newname.ext – rename or move file1 to newname.
mv file1 .. – move file1 into the parent directory of the one you’re currently in.
mv file1 /full/path/of/folder – move a file to the specified folder.
rm file1 – delete file1
rm -r dir1 – delete the specified directory and ALL of it’s files and folders.
rm -fr dir1 – the same as above, but doesn’t ask you to confirm deletions. Be careful with this one
mkdir dir1 – create dir1 as a subfolder of the current path.

Viewing a text file

There’s huge debate about which the best text editor is but I personally like nano. It’s really say to work with and gives you the ability to navigate through and change text files really quickly. ‘tail’ is also really useful, particularly when viewing log files.

nano filename.ext – open filename using nano and view its contents.
tail -100 filename.ext – view the last 100 lines of the specified file.
head -100 filename.ext – like tail, but shows the first 100 lines of the specified file.
grep string filename – searches a file for a given string and outputs the matched results.

Searching for files

There’ll be times when you’re trying to find a certain log file or hunting for a script that you’ve moved somewhere safe. Again, this is really fast and easy.

find . -dirname logfile.log – searches the current folder and all of its subfolders for logfile.log.
find / -name lostfile – searches for all files named ‘lostfile’ anywhere on your system.
find /sub/directory -name "*wildcard*" – searches /sub/directory for all files that contain the string ‘wildcard’ anywhere in their name.

I need help

Finally, if you’ve forgotten how to do something, or just want to find out more you can use ‘man’. This brings up the manual for any given command:

man ls

Hopefully that’s enough to get started with basic unix commands – just learning these will easily give you the ability to navigate your system and play around with files and folders. There’s not too much that can go wrong – just be careful when moving or deleting entire folders… One they’re gone, that’s it – no turning back

In everything we do there are always people who talk about being great but never quite get around to it. Planning on giving up your job, making a go of it on your own, or doing things differently is one thing but actually going ahead and making the break is another. As the old saying goes, “It’s easier said than done”.

I’m in the fortunate position where, for the last few years, I’ve been able to work for myself. Not having someone to tell you what to do takes a lot of getting used to, but once you are you’ll never want to go back. Strangely though, in 2011 I kind of did end up back there – working, again, on client side projects mean that I’ve once again had someone to answer to. Whether it’s running a PPC campaign, Web Build, or making sure that the people who work for Electric Dialogue are happy, moving from running a few Facebook App to actually doing some work has been tricky. And I’m still getting used to it.

Fortunately the people around me are great at what they do, which is the key to anyone’s success.

Nicola – the better half – runs Pet365 (our retail site) on a day to day basis and doesn’t complain. Actually, that’s a lie. She does complain, lots. But that’s fine – she has to put up with complaining customers, boxes that need packing and couriers that don’t turn up. All I have to do is chat to bloggers, and write about being an SEO geek. At the same time, everyone at Electric Dialogue is ultra-committed to making the business work in the long term. Our clients get a service that most agencies would never dream of offering. 9pm phone calls, PPC campaigns being checked on Christmas Day and sites hosted for ex-clients that haven’t yet got off their bottoms to sort a new host out are just a few examples.

Anyway, there’s no real point to this other than that you shouldn’t make resolutions. Just get on with things, surround yourself with the right people and do what you want to do. Not what you think you should.


$xml = simplexml_load_file("http://api.semantichacker.com/"
. $YOUR_API_KEY ."/signature/odp_2010_categorization?uri="
.$URL_TO_CHECK ."&showLabels=true");


This gives you a big list of semantic keywords for any given URL. So, for example, if you ran a check on dogster.com you’d end up with things like ‘dogs’, ‘pets’, etc. There’s plenty of irrelevant stuff in there too but, thankfully, it’s all weighted to show how important the keyword is to any given page.

But why is this useful?

As a link builder, I often have a huge list of URLs that I know competitors have gained links from… running a bulk check via TextWise on all of these is a great way to work out which are relevant and most important. Combine this with the SEOMoz API to do a check on page authority and you’ve got a really quick way of working out which targets to go after first.

Have fun!