I was reading Open Call for SERPs that Need Explaining at SEOmoz and decided to do a Google search (notice I did not say “I Googled”) for “SEO” to see if I get the same results as Randfish.

I don’t (my #5 result was his #1 result - another reason why you can’t bank on search engine rankings as metric for your website) and my results are ugly!

I have a combination of Sponsored Links (AdWords), subscribed links, perhaps a Google Finance result? and then organic listings.

See the picture for yourself.

I was just reading Danny Sullivan’s blog post entitled The Joy of Vacation Rentals Searching on the Web (not) and couldn’t help but feel sorry for him - we’ve all been there - looking for travel information on the web and being faced by spammy sites and otherwise difficult to navigate sites.

Danny’s post reminded me of a previous student in one of my Search Engine Marketing courses who had a vacation home available for rent in South America I believe it was. It was almost impossible to achieve top 10 rankings for her targeted keyword phrases due to the amount of competition for those phrases by directories who have tons of vacation rentals available.

My philosophy to her was if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em - pay the money to get yourself listed in the top directories and if there were too many directories, making the task too costly, choose the vacation rental directories that offered visitors the best bang for their time - lots of stock, well organized and a credible appearance.

By the same token, one cannot just submit to vacation rental directories and wash their hands - you must continue working at your site to ensure it has a credible look to it and offers a good user experience in terms of navigation and finding relevant information.

Read Danny’s post about SEO warning flags going off while perusing the content of a website and then take a moment to ask yourself if these flags are going to go off when an SEO looks at your website.

Even if you are low in the search engines, visitors can find you. If you offer a better user experience than the top 10 websites, you may end with more customers than the top sites end up with. It’s all about user experience.

Robert Half International has written an article for Career Builder entitled “Four Jobs on the Cutting Edge“.

One of these jobs is “Search Engine Optimizer” :-) The goal of an SEO? “Search engine optimizers (SEOs) increase a firm’s Web site traffic by improving its search-engine page rankings.”

The article goes on to state “Most are self-taught, learning the trade by researching trends, attending conferences and seminars, participating in discussion forums, and experimenting with their own sites.”

And that “Because of a shortage of experts in this relatively new area, many top SEOs receive multiple job offers.”

We can certainly attest to the fact that most SEO’s are self taught…the multiple job offers though really depends upon the city you live in and if you are willing to move for a job. Here in Canada, Toronto appears to be the hotspot for SEO jobs these days, whereas Vancouver was the hotspot (and may still be) a couple of years ago.

On that note, DriveTraffic would like to take this opportunity to let you know that we are looking to grow our family by adopting an intern who desires to learn everything there is to know about search engine marketing. We don’t have a job description in place yet but if you are interested, visit our website and drop us an email.

The Official Google Analytics Blog announced yesterday that they have removed the wait to receive a Google Analytics account. Now anyone with a website can obtain a Google Analytics account for free by simply by visiting google.com/analytics or by clicking on the “Analytics” tab within AdWords.

All those website owners who are not tracking their website traffic should get themselves an account - no excuses now as it is free :-)

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Johnson and Johnson is entering the blogosphere with a blog directory service, designed to be an easy way for moms to find and connect with other moms.

From their site:

We want to help more mom bloggers reach more readers (and get more traffic). And if you don’t have a blog, it’s a great place to start one. We want to help moms join the conversation.

Interesting idea for sure and I somehow feel it will be successful. The success could be tied to the big brand that will be running the directory and the domain it is on as well as the concept of a place for mom’s. What makes one site more likely to succeed in this sphere? I would say it depends upon the measure of success - in this case Johnson and Johnson have a vehicle for branding their various baby products in front of a targeted audience and being a big brand, would have experience in media buying, etc. that they could bring to the directory as well as potentially allowing mom’s to be affiliates and promote J&J products.

Read the full article at Clickz