14 WordPress Plugins For SEO And Marketing

"As a web developer, possibly the most common request I get from clients is that they want to be number one on Google. While this is not impossible, it’s a pretty huge undertaking that will take months of very active work. However, if you just want your website to be more search engine friendly, well that’s a different story, especially on WordPress. There are tons of plugins that will help you with both your SEO and SEM game. Let’s take a look at some of my favorites.

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Search Engine Optimization

In order for search engines to find your site and associate it properly, you need to make sure your site’s code is up to snuff as far as search engines are concerned. The following plugins will make sure your site is optimized for search engines by fixing up titles, building keyword lists, and talking directly to the search engines.

WordPress SEO by Yoast

This one just might be my favorite because of how much it lets you do. For starters, you can set title and description templates for each type of page (post, page, archive, etc.) and set indexing rules for each type of page. You can also customize the keywords, descriptions, and titles for each individual post or page, as well as preview how that page or post will show up in a Google search. There are settings for internal linking, breadcrumbs, permalinks, RSS, and more. This is a definite necessity in your SEO/WordPress arsenal.

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All-in-One SEO Pack

Much like WordPress SEO by Yoast, All-in-One SEO Pack allows you to customize the titles of all the template pages, define a list of keywords, and adds a custom box to each post page. It will also dynamically create a list of keywords for you from your tags and categories.

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Google XML Sitemaps

This plugin builds a sitemap that makes it easier for search engines like Google, Bing, and Yahoo! to crawl the site. It will also update automatically when you add a new page or post, notify search engines, prioritize your content in the sitemap, and let you choose what content to include or exclude.

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SEO Ultimate

This plugin has a set of modules that will help search engine optimize your site. Some of them will allow you to monitor your 404 Error log, create canonical links, tweak your permalinks to remove things like “/category/” or the date, add share buttons, automatically link certain words (which is awesome), and insert code into various parts of your site.

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Google Analyticator

There are a ton of plugins to help you add Google Analytics to your site, but this one does a bit more. On top of adding the actual code, there are a bunch of customizable settings giving you the ability to include or exclude logged-in users, or even specific user roles, turn on loading speed tracking, monitor outbound links, monitor adsense, and more. It also comes with a stats sidebar widget.

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Google Analytics Dashboard

This plugin will help you monitor how well your site is doing by connecting right to Google Analytics and adding your stats right to the WordPress dashboard. You’ll be able to choose from any of your Analytics profiles, create customized labels for your goals, and choose which logged in users will be able to see the stats. You will also be able to see stats for each post, right on the Edit Posts page.

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Smart SEO (from CodeCanyon)

This is a simple plugin that scores your posts based on a list of SEO criteria. You can set a number of rules for keywords in titles, posts, and more. The score is displayed in a beautifully designed box and updates every 25 seconds as you edit your post. This is incredibly helpful if you’re trying to improve the SEO of individual posts. Price: $20

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SEO Helper

Not quite as nice looking or feature rich as Smart SEO, but a great free alternative is SEO Helper. This plugin will look at your drafts and make suggestions on how to improve your post for better SEO results. It will pull from your list of keywords (that you added manually or using a plugin) and check them against the title, permalink, and body of the post. It will also check a few other things, including whether or not you’re posting during a good time of the day.

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Search Engine Marketing

The other side of the SEO coin is the more active side- search engine marketing (SEM). The following plugins will add functionality to your site to make it easy for people to share links and discover more from your site.

AddToAny

This plugin makes it incredibly easy for your users to share posts on whatever social sharing site they choose. Boasting over 100 social sharing sites including Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Digg, Delicious, email, print, and more, you can neatly display these buttons anywhere you’d like on your site (through settings or manually adding the template tag), and customize the look and feel through a number of button and CSS options.

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Twitter Tools

This robust plugin completely integrates Twitter into your WordPress site, allowing you to display your tweets in a sidebar widget, automatically tweet posts once you publish them (with a bunch of settings to customize the tweet), and create a daily digest post of all of your tweets for the day. It even integrates the bit.ly API, if you’re a bit.ly user. The set-up for this plugin is a little long because of the authentication required, but the functionality is great and well worth it.

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WPBook

WPBook allows Facebook users to add your blog as a Facebook app (this requires you to set-up a Facebook app). Doing so will allow them to read your blog right in Facebook, as well as make comments in Facebook which are then synced with your blog. It will also automatically add new posts to your wall, or to a page you’re the administrator for.

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MaxRef-Widget

Full disclosure: I worked on this plugin
This plugin was designed to generate more cross-linking on your blog. You have the ability to customize and display a list of posts in the sidebar based on a list of criteria, including the number of posts, how to sort them, which category to pull from, display options, and more.

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Digg Digg

One of the many social button plugins for WordPress is Digg Digg. What makes this plugin unique is the ability to add the buttons to the left of the post and have them scroll along with the user, a la Mashable. This is only one of the display options, as this is a pretty customizable plugin, and even allows you to manually place a template tag into your theme.

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SexyBookmarks

Rounding out our list is another social sharing plugin that cleverly displays the buttons. With this plugin, the social sharing icons are mostly hidden, and pop up when the users scroll over them. I’ve included this here because I think it’s a very eye catching way to include social media buttons and that’s incredibly important in order to get people to use them. SexyBookmarks includes all of the major social sites, as well as some other buttons, include Evernote, Netvibes, Hotmail, Yahoo!, and Read It Later.

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Conclusion

This list obviously just scratches the surface, as there are tons of SEO and SEM plugins for WordPress. Most of these are one I use on a regular basis, or keep bookmarked for when the time comes (I’m looking at you, SexyBookmarks). What are some of your favorite SEO/SEM plugins? Let us know in the comments!"

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Posted in: SEO,WordPress,WordPress Plugins

Up Your SEO Game with SEscout

Up Your SEO Game with SEscout: "
As a web developer, a common request I get is, “I want my website to be number 1 on Google.” While this is an admirable goal, it’s a difficult one to attain for a few reasons- the competition you face for your particular keywords is a major one. An even bigger reason, however, is the ever changing landscape of search engine ranking algorithms, as well as the ever changing landscape of the Internet. Search Engine Optimization and Marketing is a full time job and there are lots of companies dedicated to it. Luckily, SEscout is a tool that aims to make the job of a Search Engine Optimizor, or really, any website owner, a lot easier.

SEscout Homepage

SEscout is a well designed, easy to use, and powerful search engine rank tracker (SERT). The best part- it’s web based (which they claim is the first of its kind)! SEscout allows you to add websites to track, and then keywords for each website so you can see how each keyword is performing. On top of that, they give you rankings for Google, Bing, Alexa, and charts and reports galore.

The Basics

Price Plans for SEscout

There are several different pricing structures, from Free to $99.97/month. The most notable difference in the packages is the amount of sites and keywords you can add. The free account will get you 10 sites and 10 keywords, and the most expensive account, Elite, will get you 1500 sites, and 1500 keywords. Other added features for the paid accounts include notifications, scheduled reports, white-label reports, and more.

I found this a bit strange, but the number of keywords is total, not per site. This means if you have the max number of sites on your account, you can only have 1 keyword per site.

When you sign up, you automatically get the free account, and you can upgrade once you get a feel for the app. However, the best way to feel for the app without waiting over the course of a week or two is through their free demo. In the demo, they list a couple of groups with a few major sites in each group. The demo will be the basis of this review.



Before we get to adding sites and keywords, I should mention Groups in SEscout. You have the ability to organize your sites into groups, or categories; in the event that you do have several dozens (or even hundreds) of sites, you can quickly find a particular one. While the demo has groups “Social” and “News,” I can easily see myself breaking my sites up into groups by personal sites and client sites, possibly even giving some clients their own groups based on the number of websites they have.

Adding a site and keywords is incredibly simple. Just click “Add URL” from the dashboard, add any number of domains (up to your limit) and press “Submit.” Adding keywords is just as easy. Select one of your sites, click, “add keyword” and add your list. Then, select the country you want those keywords to be associated with, and press “Submit.”

Add Keywords

Gathering Information

The main function of SEscout is to gather information on your domains and keywords- rankings, backlinks, traffic, etc.

Charting Information for a keyword

For each domain, SEscout tells you your PageRank, the number of Backlinks on the domain, the Alexa ranking, the domain’s all-time top ranking, and the biggest change in it’s ranking, starting from the day you add the domain to your dashboard.

For each keyword, it tells you the current ranking in Google and Bing relative to that domain, the change over the last day, week, and month for both search engines, and the amount of traffic that keyword garners overall for searches. Depending on what plan you have, this information is updated either hourly or daily.

SEscout also charts this data over weeks for both Google and Bing (when available). You can see how well your keywords rank your site, on a scale from your best search results ranking to your worst.

All of this information can be especially helpful to those in the SEO/SEM field who can use it to focus on certain keywords based on their performance.

Report Generation and Notifications

SEscout also gives you the ability to generate reports and receive notifications. For reporting, you can generate a PDF, CSV, or Email reports of the keyword information on a domain.

PDF Report

While the PDF and Email reports are basically screen captures of the SEscout website at on that particular day, the CSV info can be very useful for generating your own charts as they provide all of the keyword info on a domain for each day since you added that keyword. This is your best bet for tracking historical data and really running some nice analysis on your keywords.

If you’re using the free account, the reports will be branded by SEscout, but if you have a paid plan, you can have white label reporting- brand it however you’d like!

Another very nice perk about having a paid plan is getting notifications for changes in a keyword’s ranking. You can choose to have email or push notifications (to your PC, Mac, or iPhone) or both, with the ability to customize when you get those notifications.

Notification Options

The notification customizations are pretty nice- not only can you choose from any rank change (which they warn can get annoying), change to or from #1, or change to or from Google’s top 10, but you can choose specific ranks that you to be notified about. This is especially nice if we have websites that don’t rank in the top 10 for certain keywords.

For example, if your site is currently ranked 32 for a particular keyword, you can choose to be notified when it enters the top 30 or 20. You can change this as your website’s rank changes.

Conclusion

SEscout is an incredibly well designed, easy to use, powerful web app that can be a great tool for tracking and improving your search engine rank. My overall experience using it was a great one, and my only requests as far as features go would be:

• To add text notification for those of us who don’t have an iPhone but still want to get mobile notifications (actually, an Android app wouldn’t be too bad either ).
• More historial data included in the PDF and Email Reports. If I want to give a client a month’s worth of data, I don’t want to have to get a PDF report sent to me every day.

I should also note that while the free account will give you a decent idea of how the app works, I think if you want to get any real mileage out of SEscout, you will need to pay for it. This might not necessarily be a bad thing if you’re in the business of SEO/SEM, as SEscout will probably do a good amount of heavy lifting for you.

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Posted in: SEO,Showcase,Web Application

Over 50 Free SEO Tools and Much, Much More about Using SEO Techniques

Over 50 Free SEO Tools and Much, Much More about Using SEO Techniques: "
SEO tools are something that every freelancer with a website or blog can use. A proper understanding of SEO techniques can provide greater exposure for your business by increasing the traffic to your website.

In this post, I’ll touch on some of the basics about SEO (or search engine optimization), share a few basic techniques, and provide a list of over 50 free tools that you can use to analyze how well your freelance website is doing in the search results.

What is SEO?

For those of you who are not familiar with SEO, the term stands for search engine optimization. It refers to statistics and tools that you can use to analyze how a website indexed by the major search engines such as Google, Yahoo, Bing, MSN, and others.

Ranking well in the search results can be important for a business because most people turn to the search engines when they are looking for a product or service. However, few people look at the results that appear after the first few pages. This means that if you are a freelance web designer and your web design site appears on page ten of the search engine results, prospective clients using a search tool are less likely to find your website than if your web design site appears on page one of the search engine results.

The matter is made even more complex by the fact that many search engines, such as Google for example, have recently started to personalize their search results to the individual user. For more details on this change, Danny Sullivan discusses personalized search engine results in detail at Search Engine Land.

In fact, search engines frequently tweak and update the algorithms that they use to determine search results. They do this so often that a whole field of SEO specialists has formed. Those who are really serious about getting the best search engine results or about understanding how their website is currently doing in the search engines should consult a specialist. (Personally, I’m not a SEO specialist, but I do think that most freelancers can benefit from using a few basic SEO techniques).

There are two areas that most freelancers will want to think about when considering SEO for their freelancing website–their website design and their content.

SEO in Your Website Design

There are some strategies you can use when you design your freelancing website to make sure that it is search engine friendly. We’ve covered a few of these strategies before in our post, 10 SEO Techniques All Top Web Sites Should Use, but in case you missed that post here those points are again:

• Pay attention to the title tag
• Make use of the description and keyword meta tags
• Include alt attributes on images
• Use title attributes and descriptive text on links
• Create a sitemap
• Publish content that is relevant to your site’s purpose
• Link out and receive links in from reputable sites
• Use social media
• Don’t use Adobe Flash or splash pages

A change to our original advice is that the Google and Yahoo search engines apparently no longer use the keyword meta tag. However, thinking through the process of what search terms (key words) might apply to your site is not a bad idea. It’s also important to remember that other search engines may still use the keyword meta tag.

SEO in Your Content

If you’re a freelance writer, you’ve probably been contacted at least once by a client or would-be client who has asked you to pack a piece of web content with an exact phrase, or phrases. The request can make for very awkward wording and, in a worst case scenario, make the content virtually unreadable.

The phrases or words that search engine users are likely to search for are referred to as keywords. The reason that a writer may be asked to repeat a certain word in an article or blog post is because the client may be hoping to achieve a certain key word density. Keyword density refers to the number of times that a keyword appears on a page. Theoretically, if a keyword or keyword phrase is used just enough times, the page in which it appears will rank higher in the search results. That is why some clients request web content that is packed with certain words or phrases. Using your keywords in the title of your page and in internal headings will also help your page range better for that phrase.

However, using a keyword excessively in web content is known as keyword stuffing. Those who use keyword stuffing mistakenly think that they are improving their rankings in the search engines. Actually, the practice can harm your search engine rankings. Even worse, keyword stuffing can frustrate your readers and cause them to mistakenly believe that your site is a spam site.

Many SEO specialists are now also recommending that content be optimized for something that they are calling social SEO. Social SEO simply means that your content is written with social media sites (such as Facebook and Twitter) in mind. It’s important to consider social media sites because more and more users are using these sites to discover content. If your freelance business blog ranks well in social media, it makes it that much easier for your clients to find you.

A Few More Words About SEO

Once again, it’s important to remember that search engines are constantly changing and evolving to meet the needs of their users. Google, and other search engines, update their search algorithms regularly in order to improve the quality of the information that their engine returns.

Search engine optimization techniques that worked well a decade ago may not work well today. Likewise, search engine optimization techniques that work well today may not work well in a decade.

Over 50 Free SEO Tools

Now that we’ve discussed SEO theory, it’s time to share some free SEO tools. Keep in mind that most of the organizations that offer free SEO tools also offer paid SEO services. Some of these tools may represent trial offers, so read the fine print before downloading any tool.

As I stated earlier, if you are serious about using SEO for your freelance business website or blog it is not a bad idea to get a consultation from one of these companies. If you decide to get some help with SEO, remember that not all companies have the same level of expertise, so make your selection carefully.

Here is the list of over 50 free SEO tools by source (in alphabetical order by the site where they are found):

PR Search

1. Link Popularity Checker–Shows inbound links for Google, Yahoo, MSN, AltaVista, Allintheweb & HotBot.
2. MSN Position Search–MSN Search for up to 15 keywords on one domain.
3. Page Rank Search–Google search results with PAGE RANK bar and inbound links.
4. Yahoo Rank Position–Shows Yahoo rank position, number of entries indexed.
5. Google Rank Position–Shows Google rank position, PAGE RANK, number of entries indexed, DMOZ and Google Dir status.

SEOBench

1. Google vs Yahoo Graph–Graphically shows the top 50 in Google and Yahoo linked.
2. Keyword Density Analysis–Determines density of one, two, and three word phrases.
3. Multi Datacenter PageRank Checker–Checks page rank values across all Google data centers.

SEO Book (You must register to use these tools.)

1. Rank Checker–Checks the rank of your site on Google, Yahoo, and Bing.
2. SEO Toolbar–Allows you to view SEO data as you browse.
3. SEO for Firefox–Adds SEO information to Google and Yahoo search results
4. Myriad Search–Meta search that examines Google, Yahoo, MSN and Ask Jeeves.

SEOMoz (You must be logged in to use these tools.)

1. Open Site Explorer–View site’s analytics on custom API.
2. Linkscape–Professional inlink tool.
3. SEO Toolbar for Firefox–Linkscape as a toolbar for Firefox.
4. Term Target–Examines a specific page to see which keywords are used.
5. Popular Searches–View the most popular sources for a specific date on a number of well-known sites including Technorati, Flickr, Del.icio.us, Yahoo Buzz, Google Hot Trends, eBay Pulse, AOL Hot searches, Lycos, Ask, and Amazon.
6. Trifecta–Provides an estimate of the importance of a page, blog, or domain.
7. Term Extractor–Analyzes a page and shows keywords.
8. GeoTargeting Detection–Checks to see if your website is set up for geo targeting searches.
9. SEO Toolbox–Includes many free SEO tools.

SEO Toolset

1. SEMToolBarTM–Downloadable toolbar lets you view SEO information as your browse.
2. Search Engine Optimization/KSP Tool–Provides Google and Yahoo search engine statistics for specified keywords.
3. Check Server–Looks for issues that prevent your site from being crawled by the search engines.
4. View Page Source–Shows the source code of a URL.

WebConfs

1. Domain Age Tool–Determines the age of the domains entered.
2. Domain Stats Tool–Enter domain and find out domain age, number of pages indexed, and number of backlinks.
3. HTTP/HTTPS Header Check–Lets you examine the HTTP headers from the web server after you request a URL.
4. Search Engine Friendly Redirect-Enter URL–Checks your redirect to see how SE friendly it is.
5. Website Keyword Suggestions–Provides keyword suggestions along and keyword traffic estimates for the entered website.
6. Backlink Anchor Text Analyzer–Blacklink analyzer that shows URL and anchor text.
7. Check Yahoo Page Rank–Allows you to check the Yahoo WebRank of up to five URLs at a time.
8. URL Rewriting Tool-Creates Mod–Rewrites rules to convert dynamic URLs to static looking URLs.
9. Search Engine Spider Simulator–Displays page content minus code.
10. Similar Page Checker–Compares pages for similar content.

Webmaster Toolkit

1. Keyword Research Tool–Tool returns similar keywords found in the meta keywords of sites searched by your choice of nine search engines.
2. Link Appeal-Enter UR–Rates for link appeal.
3. Link Popularity Checker-Enter URL–Displays backlinks on five search engines.
4. Search Engine Position Checker-Enter URL/Keyword–Displays top 50 for nine search engines.
5. HTML Header View–Shows HTTP headers the web server is sending.
6. Web Page Analyzer-Enter URL/Keyword–Checks copy for optimization.

WebSeoAnalytics

1. WebSEOAnalysis–Comprehensive website analysis. (Exclusive)
2. Keyword Battle–Shows how your site ranks for a particular list of keywords (Exclusive)
3. Keyword Analyzer–Allows you to determine the percentage of keywords in a particular page.
4. Duplicate Content–Lets you compare content between two URLs.
5. HTML Validation–Determines whether a list of URLs are valid according to W3C standards.
6. PageRank Check–Lets you check your site’s page rank.
7. Multi DC PageRank–Lets you check your site’s page rank across multiple data centers.
8. Indexed Pages–Shows which pages on your site are indexed in Google, Yahoo, and Bing.
9. Link Popularity–Shows the number of incoming links to a URL.
10. Reputation Tracker–Tracks recent social media mentions of your site.
11. Domain Info–Provides the current status of your domain name.
12. Site Submitter–Allows you to submit your site to major search engines and directories and includes recent traffic statistics.

What About You?

We’ve provided some basic information about search engine optimization. We’ve shared some SEO techniques. We’ve also listed some free SEO tools for you to explore.

Do you use search engine optimization for your freelance website or blog? What tips do you have? What are your favorite tools?
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Posted in: SEO

Top 15 SEO Blogs To Follow If You Want To Brush Up Your SEO Knowledge

Top 15 SEO Blogs To Follow If You Want To Brush Up Your SEO Knowledge: "

For all we know, Search Engine Optimization, better known as SEO, is used for obtaining the right keywords when we search for something on the internet. But only few of us know is that SEO is used in obtaining rankings for a site under relevant keyword phrases.

SEO has several uses not only in business, but also in making research at school, or at work. Admit it, if this was not invented, you would really be having difficulties in searching and of course, a good SEO means, you won’t be having difficulties and the saves you time looking for what you want.

Following are some of SEO blogs that I consider in the top 15 of my list. And after you go through with them, the more you will appreciate about SEOs.

Seomoz

Seomoz is a website that offer tons of SEO tools and information. Some of the tools are free, and some of them require premium subscription. Their SEO blog is updated frequently and you will always find quality articles over there.

Seobook

SEO Book is not only a blogging site, but also offers certain training programs, not only to web professionals, but also to marketing professors. It also offers exclusive community forum as a value added service. Try this out!

Small Business Search Marketing

This Small Business Search Marketing site is designed for small businesses that want to compete with big businesses in terms of advertisements and promotions of their products and services at low costs. So if you’re one of those beginners, this is really helpful to you.

Bruce Clay Inc

Bruce Clay Inc., offers different kinds of SEO services such as trainings and consulting services. It caters not only to small and medium businesses, but also to large multi-national companies. You can check this one out to find out more about this site.

TopRank

Top Rank Online Marketing Blog has introduced search engine marketing and optimization since December 2003, together with other digital marketing and public relations topics. This site has been promoting and giving tips for certain SEO topics that can help you in improving your own businesses and can compete with other competitors.

SEOchat

SEO chat has forums and chat tools, that will guide you for more information how to configure your websites and learn new ways in configuring your website. From this, you can also interact and join with the forums that you are interested in.

Cre8pc

This site is not only in specializing SEOs, but is also relating it to other website-related informations that will optimize and improve your website. This is a very useful tool so check this out!

SEO by the sea

In SEO by the sea website, not only this offers Search Engine Optimization services, but also Internet Marketing, Consulting and Research services. If you want to improve and make your website look professional, this website is the one that you need! So try it!

Mr-seo

This is one of the best Search Engine Optimization websites that will help you in improving your website. It offers articles, tips, and strategies of online marketing. You really have to see this!

Phoenixrealm

Phoenixrealm is not only an SEO informative website but also a web design news for begginners and intermediate web designers. In this website, you will find informative and useful tips and informations for Search Engine Optimizations that will be very useful for you.

Neuromarketing

This is one unique website where not only does it talk about web marketing, but also about sciences, particularly brain research and ethical dilemmas. Check this out and see for yourself!

Best SEO Blog

Best SEO Blog is a latest search engine marketing website with new tactics and techniques in making your website marketable. This website has great authors who have been writing articles about Search Engine Optimizations. See it for yourself!

Quantum SEO Labs

Quantum SEO Labs is a simple website for Search Engine Optimization for serious webmasters and designers. When you open this website, you will notice that it talks more about business, and when we say business, that includes marketing your website and making profit out of it, right?

Search Engine Roundtable

With Search Engine Roundtable, you will find the most interesting topics about Search Engine Marketing that will help you save time in looking for what you really want to find. See for yourself and you would know that this is one of the best SEO blogs you’ll ever know of!

Traffick

Traffick’s first name was “PortalHub” and as it grew to reinvent, it changed its name to “Traffick”. This started as a hobby only and became a more useful website helping businesses to earn more profit and be competitive in the search engine market.

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Posted in: SEO