» Fringe Blog – Writing on Film, Culture, and Things on the Fringe

Total Search Engine Domination – Step Two

jelewis8 — Thu, 27 Sep 2007 23:03:53 +0000

The other day I wrote about patience as the supreme SEO virtue. Waiting for search engines to catch up to the optimization work you’ve done is paramount. But today, I’m going to tell you one of the ways in which you can achieve Search Engine Optimization Domination that will shake your SEO worldview.
You ready for it?
Pursue Local Search Engine Optimization with extreme vigor.
What does that mean, exactly?
Your industry may be local, it may be regional, it may even be international. But you can always break it down into its basic parts. For local search engine optimization, pages must always be given a local focus. If you’re based in Wabash, Indiana, you must define your local search around those keywords. Rotating keywords and metatags, as defined by your keyword optimization report, will create an ever shifting page profile in the search engines, so you’ll be found for multiple combinations of keywords plus location.
If you are database driven or on a blog, you can easily set up custom title and metatags that reflect this. Static pages built manually are just as easy to edit, if a bit more time consuming.
As part of your overall Local SEO tasks, you’ll need to generate local links. Search for local blogs and personal sites of people in your area or region who might be interested in writing about your site, specifying the deep link with targeted contextual anchor text, or at the very least, linking to your main site.
You can also write articles about your local area and submit to popular article sites such as EZineArticles. Include a linkback to your local area in your resource box–it’s a free link back and may bring some site traffic your way. If you use AIM or MSN Messenger, send your links out to contacts and ask them for links to your homepage.
There are many ways to market your local search results and get them higher coverage by the search engines. Utilize the power of Google Maps and verify your business location. If your company is big enough or has enough political clout within the city or area you’re located in, try and get the name of the street your business is located on to be some keyword combination for which you might be found. Place your address on your local search page. Hell, become a sponsor on a major piece of real estate.
All these are ways in which you can dominate your local search market, and they’re just the tip of the iceberg, because the methods for achieving notoriety and keyword search recognition is now available through an almost infinite number of ways.
Stay tuned for Part 3 on how to achieve Search Engine Optimization Domination!

Jeremiah Lewis is the Search Engine Optimizer for BreastImplants411.com, a dominating force in marketing plastic surgeons and breast implant specialists across the globe. He especially hearts Newport Beach breast surgeons.

Site Wonkiness

jelewis8 — Thu, 14 Jun 2007 05:03:57 +0000

Sorry for the wackiness with the blog. I'm trying to determine why CSS can be so wonderful one minute and so mysterious another, and then evil even later. It's a case of floats, I am sure, but until I can determine the exact issue, please excuse the mess.

Update: Fixed the problem, which was an errant div enclosure. Thanks for your patience.

Beltway Traffic

jelewis8 — Thu, 23 Dec 2004 19:46:12 +0000

I was traveling to Baltimore-Washington Airport yesterday to pick up a friend when something with the potential to spoil my holiday cheer occurred: I got stuck in Beltway traffic. A variation on the old Sisyphus curse, with a little Tantalus thrown in for good measure, every mile I creeped forward seemed only to add to the burden of waiting. Each new mile marker indicated I was closer to my goal, but with no end to the horrible trail of tail lights that winded forever on 495, my despair grew, and I wondered if I would ever arrive at the airport, much less on time. Things were so bad at one point I was clawing the ceiling of my car in an effort to restrain myself from jumping out of my car and just running the rest of the way.
I have little patience for traffic that has no physical reason for being. This is Beltway traffic in a nutshell. There doesn’t have to be a reason for someone to put on their brakes–they just do it because it pleases them, like the gods of old. An operative word here would be capricious. Here is a list of the “causes” for the phenomenon known as the Capricious Braker:
1. Flashing lights – It doesn’t matter what colour, size, proximity, or frequency of flashing. Sometimes people mistake the glint of headlights on metal signs or car bumpers for flashing. Helicopters and planes with flashing lights can also set someone off. Flashing lights trigger the Po-Po Alert System, which in turn causes the right leg to distend and apply pressure to the brake pedal instead of the accelerator.
2. Slower drivers – In the world of the interstate, there are fast drivers and there are slow drivers. Slow drivers cause fast drivers to slow down, since fast drivers are in perpetual fear of being caught speeding. Slow drivers trigger the faux logic part of the fast driver brain that says, “That guy must be going slow for a reason” and then an exclamation point pops up and the criminal part of the brain says, “The fuzz!” For this reason, highways and interstates need to have a lane designation, with special ratings that correspond to your particular driving style. But I’m getting ahead of myself here.
3. Construction – Any kind of construction, from Highway Maintenance picking up carcasses to engineers laying caissons to surveying to construction of a new Chunnel. People are imminently respectful of the Double Fines for speeding in a construction zone. This produces what is called the Speed Inversion Syndrome, whereby drivers will halve their speed, inversely proportional to the Double Fine, “just to be sure”. Construction often entails flashing lights (see point 1).
4. Actual police or emergency vehicles – One of the more bizarre relationships is the civilian driver-police/emergency relationship. The entire construct is a fragile bond, an agreement that both parties will leave each other alone as long as the former is not driving in a manner that will attract the latter’s attention. However, the problem arises when one evaluates the strength of this bond–it’s hardly a persuasive measure in most cases, and as the ratio of the former to the latter is quite high, most civilians hold little love for “The Man”, and when alone, will usually skirt the boundaries of said agreement. However, this produces high-guilt tension in the civilian, who feels instantly culpable when in the presence of “The Man”, and will overcompensate by reducing speed to sub-molasses velocity.
One set of brake lights illuminating during rush hour can spawn an entire horde of brake-obsessed drivers who freak if they come within fifty yards of the car in front of them. God forbid they not heed the warning lights ahead of them! Defensive driving has ruined the 5pm-8pm time slot.
Fear not, friends. Fringe has devised a lane system that would, at the very least, make mincemeat of my own personal problems with rush hour traffic jams.

This is why I get paid the big bucks.
Anyway, two days to the big day. If you’re traveling at all around this time, please be safe. And don’t, please don’t, use your brakes.

The System is Down

jelewis8 — Sat, 13 Mar 2004 19:46:08 +0000

Currently down:

Archives
Search function
Trackbacks

I’m restructuring the archives file system, so I’ve blocked access to them at the moment. Search function currently tries to implement an IP-based search instead of a domain-based one, so bear with me there.

I know Trackbacks work on this server, but I need to configure their look before I start throwing around Trackback links and such. Again, bear with me.

Appreciate your patience while I complete my move over to the new host.

UPDATE: The Archives should be back up and running completely. There may be some broken links here and there from link rot, but all the links from the main Archives page should work, as should all the backward/forward links on each individual or monthly page. Monthly and Category archives should list as excerpts with a [Go to full entry] link. Please tell me if you catch any evil behaviour among them by emailing fringe @ fringeblog.com.

Comments and Trackbacks popups have not been configured graphically, but they should work. Again, let me know if you see a Jabberwock.

Still working on configuring the search feature, which is being a pain. Also, I’ll be modifying some of the style sheets for the “extra” pages (like “Mastheads” and “Movies & Music”) to better offset them from the main page. Images are fine, but links are all the same colour. Gotta change that.

LotR Characters and Personality Disorders

jelewis8 — Tue, 09 Dec 2003 18:53:12 +0000

From Ipse Dixit, I saw a link to another Which X Are You quizzes, which I won’t link to, but Dodd’s Lord of the Rings Character and Personality Problem was quite amusing:

You are…
MERIADOC BRANDYBUCK
and his insatiable bloodlust
You may look sweet and innocent on the outside, but deep down you’re a coldblooded killer. You manage to hide your appetite for destruction and mayhem until you’re out in the woods with your trusted confidante Pippin and a bunch of trees, but then you start the warmongering full-force. Patience, little hobbit. You’ll get to get in on the violence eventually.

That’s good stuff.

Water, Water Everywhere

jelewis8 — Fri, 17 Oct 2003 00:00:01 +0000

Concerned about the appearance of disarray and feuding within his administration as well as growing resistance to his policies in Iraq, President Bush – living up to his recent declaration that he is in charge – told his top officials to “stop the leaks” to the media, or else.
News of Bush’s order leaked almost immediately.

All’s I can say is, Bush better get a handle on his administration or he’s going to be heading back to Texas next year.

“This isn’t as bad as [George] Shultz vs. [Caspar] Weinberger, is it?” [Bush] asked, referring to a legendary Reagan administration rivalry between secretaries of state and defense. One top official reportedly nodded and said it was “way worse.”
The infighting has strained Bush’s patience.

As well it should. He’s got enough problems on his hands, what with everybody on the Left side of the friggin’ world wanting to skewer him. The Big Four need to convo with some serious rearrangement of their particular beefs. Solidarity is the only thing that’s going to keep this administration together. A house divided, and all that.

Hat Tip: Ipse Dixit

Middle East Map

jelewis8 — Sun, 22 Jun 2003 14:06:50 +0000

I thought it would be interesting to remind folks of just what Israel is facing in this so-called “Roadmap to Peace”. Check out the map below or go here.

If your eyes are good enough, you might be able to spot the tiny plot of ground called Israel. It’s been their land “officially” since 1948, but indeed the Jews have occupied that ground for thousands of years.
Now look at the number and size of the nations around Israel. Curiously, the land-to-religio/ethnic ratio is something like 97% Muslim/3% Jewish and 98% Arab/2% Hebrew.
Now, I understand that the issues behind the current struggle for peace in that region are more complicated than just land and religion, though I would say those are two of the biggest issues. Nevertheless, I am amazed at the Arab insistence at the obliteration of the state of Israel and Israel’s unbelievable patience and persistence in believing that such a peace can be achieved. Time and time again the Arab nations have proven their hatred of Israel and the Jews, and somehow Israel still believes peace is possible.
I wish I could say that peace in the Middle East is a real possibility, but at this point, knowing what I know about the Arab mentality, I do not believe it will happen any time soon. Any accords are bound to fail because there is simply too much anti-Semitism in that region. Sooner or later, it will fall apart.