A couple of weeks ago, I was featured on the digital marketing blog OneDegree.com. I discussed SEO Don’ts Myths and Scams, the panel I will be speaking on at Search Engine Strategies Toronto on June 17-18. Hope to see you there - here is the interview.

One of the biggest myths I’ve encountered since day one is unsolicited emails praising their site’s great PageRank ranking and what a great partnership a link exchange can be. The worst are the emails that are so obviously form letters. Just yesterday I received a link exchange request for my SEO blog (www.lyndseo.com) explaining how important PageRank is, and would I add their “Plus Size Dresses” site to my site? Don’t get me wrong - links are what make the web go round, but accepting every link exchange request from unrelated topics aren’t going to do any good for your site.

One Degree: How much can implementing an SEO “don’t” penalize a site? Is there an example you can share?

How much a “don’t” can penalize a site depends on the “don’t” being implemented. At a previous employer, I saw hours of work and thousands of dollars poured into an automated linking scheme that would take hundreds of microsites and interlink them in a “random” way. The problem is that anything automated is never random. The only penalty this company faced is the loss of that time and money - generally linking schemes like the one I’ve described don’t result in a search engine penalty - they just aren’t given any weight at all.

One Degree: Are there some search engines that are pickier than others about SEO “don’t’s”? If you’re following the rules for one, is it safe to assume you’re OK for others?

No search engine has the exact same algorithm, so it’s natural to assume that some are pickier than others. I would suggest Google as the pickiest and it shows in the quality of results. In my experience, I have found MSN’s Live Search to be least picky, at least when it comes to launching a new site. Sites seem to get indexed faster with Live, but the traffic isn’t quite there.

When optimizing a web site, especially a new site, it’s important to follow the Webmaster Guidelines set out by the search engines. One can follow a set of principles set out by one search engine and have success with any. Generally it is the “don’ts” that have different effects on the different search engines.

One Degree: “My friend who has a friend who works at Google said” … What is your advice to SEO marketers on how to identify myths or bad SEO advice?

My number one piece of advise to SEO marketers is to remember who the site is there for - the visitors! You can develop a web site that’s great for the search engines and ranks well - but if a person clicks on your link, will they find what they’re looking for? If not, what’s the point of ranking well? The key is to find a balance between search engine bots and visitors. For example, a person may be very excited to get a PR 5 link from a craft site on his sports site, but will any visitors be interested in that link? Probably not. And because the two sites are relevant, it won’t do any good for the search engine either.

If I may offer one other piece of advice, it would be to remind SEOs to optimize for a PAGE, not necessarily for a site. PageRank is assigned to a PAGE, not the entire site. If you’re looking at a link exchange with someone else, don’t necessarily look to see if the sites are relevant - look at the page instead. If your link is going to be listed on a page with hundreds of other links, and no content, it’s not worth it.

One Degree: What are your three favourite resources for reliable, trustworthy SEO information?

Only three? I’d have to say WebmasterWorld is fantastic, especially for the more “techie” SEO like myself… and PubCon (WMW’s conference) is extremely valuable! I also love seeing what Rand and the gang are up to at SEOMoz, and Search Engine Land always has articles of interest on a broad variety of topics. As a “bonus” resource, I have come to rely on Twitter to find out what’s hot up to the minute!

In the past, I haven’t done anything overly complicated with robots.txt, and I have a situation I need a little help with.

I have a directory I want to disallow, with the exception of a select few files in that directory. Is there a way I can say “disallow all but “?

Your help is appreciated!

On the weekend, I placed an order from Hershey’s for our wedding. I’m certainly not in a rush for is as the wedding is still 81 days away. Anyhow, to my surprise, DHL’s tracking said that it’s out for delivery today.

When I got home, I see that the status has changed to “delivery attempted; recipient not at home”. Hmm, weird, seeing as how my fiance works from our apartment. He said there were no calls from anyone other than his work stuff. Okay, fine, maybe something’s up with the buzzer (which I doubt since we had pizza delivered last night and it was fine then).

So I hop online, find a 1-888 number which I try and cannot get through. So then I try their online chat, nice guy named Samuel. I explain to him the situation and he looks it up. Tells me that delivery was attempted but no one was home. Duh. I already know that’s what their system says. He gives me a 604 number (Vancouver). Yeah, I live in Calgary. I try not to be annoyed that I have to call long distance, since I have digital phone and it’s not an issue.

But the chick that answers the phone! Wow! Attitude city. I tell her that I understand that delivery was attempted but my fiance was home all day and there was no attempt - there was also no slip left with notification. She then (very snotty) asks: “well then how did you know they attempted delivery?” Uh, your tracking web site dear. I know Call Centres and web teams are often far removed, but don’t tell me you don’t know there’s a tracking site. She puts me on hold and again tells me what I already know.

The kicker is that each time I said “my fiance was home all day” she says “okay so I have down that your parents were home all day”. THREE TIMES that happened. Fiance and parents don’t exactly sound the same. I know I sound young, but come on.

So the call ends with her filing a complaint (which I said I didn’t want to do - I just wanted to know where my CHOCOLATE is, hope that it’s not melting somewhere) and she tells me that their tracking department will call me back.

Wow. I don’t think I’ll EVER voluntarily use DHL. UPS does just fine for me.

I would like to congratulation my friends Joseph Morin and Juan Prado on the launch of their product placement advertising site, storybids.com.

Story Bids is a place where advertisers can bid on content submitted by media creators for top product placement. The site is easy on the eyes and very user-friendly.

Whether you’re looking for product placement advertising or looking to sell your best creative ideas, take a look at StoryBids.com to make it work for you.

I signed up for Twitter a few weeks ago, but I’ve really been getting into it these past few days. Unfortunately, I don’t seem to get updates on my phone, but I’m a big fan of TwitterFox.

If you’d like to follow me, I’m @lyndseo.

See ya around tweets!

Thanks to @Bloggeries for letting me know that there actually IS an airport out there that offers free WiFi!

Of course, you’d have to go to St. John’s, Newfoundland to get it. And hey if you’re going to go to St. John’s International Airport, you might as well fly WestJet!

I know I don’t post often, but I promise, it hasn’t been since 2006 since I lasted posted.

I’m having some database problems.  Hope to have them resolved soon!

Seriously.

Okay I work for an airline, and I’d say I fly anywhere from 6-10 times in a month. Most of the time that’s standby so I do a LOT of airport waiting.

You’d think airports might take into consideration that travellers are often tired, and possibly stressed or irate because of flight delays, cancellations, etc.

Right now I’m sitting at the Buffalo International Airport, thanking the good Lord that I found an unused plug and can just work with my headphones on. Why? Apparently someone decided it would be a good idea to have ALL the carts that have to drive through the terminal have a constant “BEEEEEEP BEEEEEEP”, like a reverse indicator. Really, wouldn’t a horn suffice? Just use it as needed.

Here is my list of airport “must-haves” and the airports that succeed in that area (of course, these are just airports I’ve visited):

WiFi
For heaven’s sake, why ANY terminal wouldn’t have WiFi is beyond me. Such a huge percent of air travellers are flying for business, so why not make it easy to work while you’re waiting for your flight?
Airports that do this well: Calgary (YYC), Winnipeg (YWG), Toronto (YYZ Terminal 3 - although they didn’t get it until late last year!), Buffalo (BUF)

FREE WiFi
Maybe a pipe dream. Okay, probably a pipe dream. Why would any company give up changing for a service with such a huge return on investment?
Airports that do this well: None that I know of!

Lounges
When I started commuting from Winnipeg to Calgary every week, I made use of the lounge in the Winnipeg Airport. For just $15, I have access to a nice quiet area, uber-comfy couches and chairs, plus for my laptop, free continental breakfast and best of all complementary WiFi!! WestJet has lounges in three other cities - Vancouver, Calgary, and Ottawa - but none have the bang for your buck that Winnipeg does. Sure, there’s no hot buffet like Vancouver… no great view like Calgary… but it’s cheaper and you get the Internet. And that’s what does it for me. Actually, Vancouver has WiFi too. But it costs more. Oh how working for a low-cost airline has been driven into my head.
Airports that do this well: Winnipeg (YWG), Vancouver (YVR)

Boarding Gates
So you don’t want to hang out in the lounge. Fair enough, you could miss important pages about your flight, since those pages aren’t heard in the lounges. But do you really want to sit and wait on a plastic bench with a little padding? No. Wouldn’t you like something not so hard on your back? I sure do. And that’s why when I’m at Calgary’s airport, I stalk the nice comfy leather chairs that some gates have… waiting for one to open up and I grab it. Calgary’s the only airport I know of that has a comfortable seating option that’s open to anyone, just not special assistance guests.
Airports that do this well: Calgary (YYC)

Well I think my long lost flight to New York City has arrived so I will be logging off now. Any comments or suggestions for my list, let me know!

It’s about time for me to order business cards again, and this time I want to stray from my OFFICIAL title of “Web Business Coordinator” and go with something that better describes my actual role with WestJet, which is Web Analytics and SEO Coordinator.

Here’s my thing.  That’s a long title if I spell out “Search Engine Optimization”.  Web Analytics and Search Engine Optimization Coordinator.  Or Search Engine Optimization and Web Analytics Coordinator.

So if I go with “Web Analytics and SEO Coordinator”, will people know what SEO means?  When I think back to who I’ve given my card to in the past year, most were at conferences I’d say.  But am I just confusing those who don’t know the lingo?

I don’t know, what do you guys think?