However, since it is so easy to solve I have always recommended using hypens and not underscores as seperators. If you use WordPress it automatically uses hypens as it’s main separator so you can let it build your “slug” for you.

Here is the latest video I could find of Matt Cutts explaining it again. And I think he does a great job of not only explaining how it works, but why it works.

Underscores vs. dashes in URLs

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Using the term mechanic invariably brings to mind a car mechanic, and a website mechanic is very similar. If you want your car to look better you take it to a body shop, but if you want it to run better, tune it up, or fix something you take it to a mechanic. And that is the same situation here. If you want graphics or a slick looking website, I should not be your first choice to help you. However, if something is not working right, or you want to tune it up, I can usually help you.

In just the last week I have converted a couple of static sites to WordPress, repaired a slow loading blog, fixed a site that was not loading properly and several other small “mechanic” tasks for others. I also do a lot of custom stuff. Here is a good post from WayneJohn explaining some Twitter API work we were both involved in.

Remember, there is nothing wrong with needing help. A lot of the people who call on me are excellent bloggers and designers, but we each have our skill set and we need to know our limitations. Trust me, if I want some hot graphics I am going to call on someone else to help me out.

A key to success is being able to know when you need help and utilize other peoples skills to advance your work.

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With over 80 sites generating traffic there is no way I could do this on all my sites, but it is interesting and helpful to run on sites where I am trying to get a better feel for the incoming search traffic on a real time basis. I also dump the results to a file to review later, which would be easy to adapt for other things utilizing a database.

Doing a quick search I found this article with a complete tutorial that outlines doing the same. Search Terms Extractor : Statistics and Demographics

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One thing I have noticed is that you can not have Google Instant turned on and set your default setting to display more than 10 search results at one time. I have had mine set to 100 search results for as long as I can remember. The settings page will let you select 100, but when you turn on Instant, the page will only show 10.

Google Instant does not really impact most of my searches since I typically do not load the Google home page to search. I do most of my” googling”  from the address bar within Chrome. And it will be interesting to see if they change this functionality.

It will also be interesting to see how it changes the search terms that people use. There are already a lot of conversations about Google Instant killing SEO.  I certainly think it has the capability of changing SEO dramatically, but, as long as there are search engines, there will be ways to optimize for them.

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I have found it extremely beneficial to use a text browser to dissect a web page. Google recommends this approach on their Webmaster Help site under Webmaster Guidelines.

Try the Lynx text browser, and remember it is not about viewing pleasure, it is about testing a page. Although I remember the days where this is how we saw information, argghhh…..

TIP : One very helpful way to use Lynx is to put it on a thumb drive. It will run directly from there and you can take it with you to help your clients, friends and family with their sites.

VORD Web Design has a very nice Lynx download page to help get you started with Lynx, just follow the simple instructions and start seeing your pages in a whole new (old) light.

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This experiment lets you influence your search experience by adding, moving, and removing search results. When you search for the same keywords again, you’ll continue to see those changes. If you later want to revert your changes, you can undo any modifications you’ve made. Note that this is an experimental feature and may be available for only a few weeks. – Source : Google Experimental Search

If this experiment works, it could mean a whole new level of thinking in the SEO world. Getting a top ranking for any keyword may just be a thing of the past. This would seem to be ushering in a new era for Google where bogus search results will easily be washed out by the people doing the searches, however, as we have seen in the past with things like Google Bombs, it may also open up a new problem for them to combat.

There is also a great video that goes along with Google’s announcement that explains the SearchWiki

What do you think?

EDIT: Follow along on Twitter!

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The KISS Principle should also be modified for the Internet, here are some examples:

• Keep It Simple Social (Networking)
• Keep It Simple SEO
• Keep It Simple SEM

One of the things I have noticed over the last few years is how so many people have complicated things, especially in the SEO and SEM markets. It is not rocket science, Keep It Simple works!

Some of the most popular destinations have a very simple design. Sure its cool to have videos and flash and all the latest widgets, but there is a fine line that can cross your site over to a cluttered mess.

The ironic thing to me is that some of the worst designs are those of the MSM (Main Stream Media). They are trying so hard to give you everything on the front page it becomes a useless mess of content that is not navigable.

Keep It Simple,  be social, leave comments, make organic links to things that are relevant to what you are discussing.  If you are concerned with SEO, start with a basic design, the more elements that have to be crawled through, the more chance you have of having searches miss the important content that you spent your time developing.

KEEP IT SIMPLE !!

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The problem is usually that people see a hot topic and decide that is a great keyword. The most popular keywords are not always the best to use though. Sometimes it is better to dig a little deeper and find keywords that may not have the same volume of searches, and therefore do not have the high level of competition. It is very difficult to compete with keywords that get a million searches a month with the amount of other sites competing for the same keyword.

There are a lot of ways to go about digging up the best keywords. The manual process can be very time consuming. One of the tools I use is Micro Niche Finder (and yes that is an affiliate link).

Find what works for you best and stick with, but you can be sure that guessing is not the way to go.

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This is the theme I am running on this site.

I added a YouTube video hook on the Single post page. Instead of using a WordPress Plugin that would be an additional step I took my AJAX API Video plugin and incorporated it into the Functions file. Thanks to Chris Pearson for the inspiration for this idea.

By using the function file there is no need to have an additional Plugin to install. Whenever you write a post the single post page will automatically search YouTube for videos that match the title and put them in a horizontal bar under the post. These videos will play dynamically on the given page utilizing the Google AJAX VideoBar.

The Minimal WordPress Theme is excellent on Niche sites that focus on Search engine traffic. CelebrityRamble is one site that is already using the theme.

Make sure to change the Adsense to your account, and you can move the YouTube videos by relocating the ajaxapivideos() call

EDIT : This theme is also Widget Ready.

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A little over a year ago I was  just cruising along in my own little corner of CyberSpace, doing what I called “Flying Under The Radar”. Working on a few sites and blogs, making pretty good income and minding my own business. Then I started reading a lot of Internet Marketing stuff about how you need to do this and that to make the big bucks. Sure enough I got sucked in to the Internet Marketing Vortex.

Now let me be real clear, I have some good friends that are great at Internet Marketing. There is nothing wrong with it for the most part (depending on the marketer of course). The key element is knowing how things fit in with your own style. Being a programmer and a former salesperson it seemed like something that would fit me, but it doesn’t.

For the last 12 months I have basically worked twice as hard for about the same results. It’s not really a wasted time, just an educational process and one that will stay with me.

If you are interested in a couple good Internet Marketers to pay attention to I would recommend, Garry Conn and Josh Spaulding.

If you are looking for tips and help with more of the technical and programming aspects of blogs and websites, stick around, sign up to my RSS and/or my new Newsletter!

Posted by email from CyberCoder (posterous)

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