Getting a Job in SEO/PPC (obviously this could be different between employers) : This will be difficult (not impossible) if you don’t have any experience under your belt. This is because there is still no definative “cookie cutter” way to achieve success in SEO/PPC. While there are the basic techniques of SEO, successful SEO needs to have elements of uniqueness, creativity and good troubleshooting. These all need to apply to the specific client/project you are working with (relation to industry, competitors, etc…). Being able to sell yourself as a successful candidate for a job, means demostrating to the employer that you have these traits and that you know how to apply them. You will also need to demonstrate that you have kept up with the latest trends. SEO never ends because tomorrow a new competitor will arise.

Start off with these 8 simple steps:
1) Learn the basic rules of the major 3 search engines (Google, Yahoo!, MSN). Google has one of the best knowledge bases for this: http://www.google.com/webmasters/
http://help.yahoo.com/l/us/yahoo/search/basics/basics-18.html
http://webmaster.live.com/

2) Know the basic processs of SEO/PPC. Here’s a good article that outlines a pretty decently 10 Step process. Note: as you become more knowledgeable, you will likely develop your own process.
http://www.webpronews.com/expertarticles/2008/04/10/seo-step-nine-of-ten-conversion-optimization

3) Subscribe and Read up on some of the top SEO/PPC blogs:
http://www.seomoz.org/
http://www.mattcutts.com/blog
http://www.seobook.com/
http://www.searchengineland.com/
http://www.searchenginewatch.com/
(many more, but those should give you a good start…)

4) Try out all the PPC tools from the major 3. You need to know your way around (Adwords, Omniture, and adCenter). Try to find a friend who has a business and offer your service at a very low price to get them involved in some basic PPC campaigns.

Bonus: Get involved with forums (and possibly social networking). Start networking…

5) Start searching for jobs… Once you start networking, this should come easily.
Ex: http://www.seomoz.org/marketplace/jobs
http://www.stuntdubl.com/seo-jobs/
http://www.seobook.com/free-seo-sem-job-boards

Bonus: Look at university job listing sites. You’ll find some of the best there.

6) Before the Interview: Research the company’s website and industry.

7) During the Interview: Personality is key – be loose and be yourself! Don’t BS – be honest and don’t act like a “know-it-all”. Truth be told – Nobody knows it all; it’s an iterative learning process. Ask about their goals. Call out some things (related to SEO) you notice that could be improved on for them.

Seal the deal…

Related Links:

• Whiteboard Friday -How to Get an SEO Job (SEOmoz)
• Search Engine Marketing Jobs (SEMPO Job Listings)

OK, so now that that’s out of the way, it’s time to create an xml sitemap. This can easily be done in notepad if you have a site with a small amount of pages (50 or less). You just need to follow the correct protocol (syntax). On the other hand, if you’re working with a site larger than 50 pages, then you may want to consider a sitemap generator. Google provides a long list of third-party recommendations. My personal favorite is www.XML-Sitemaps.com. It’s as simple and inserting your domain and letting it take care of the rest. Depending on how big your site is, you may need to wait for a bit. Once finished, it will spit out a fully formatted and compliant sitemap in several different formats of your choosing (up to 500 URLs). Go ahead and check it out!

Sitemap Generator – www.XML-Sitemaps.com

Related Links:
Google Sitemaps
Yahoo Sitemaps
Sitemap Protocol
Third-Party Sitemap Tools

If you’re promoting a real estate website, then search for real estate questions. Then get ready to roll-up your sleeves and dig into the questions. If you find something where your website could provide a credible solution, then throw your link up there along with a decent description describing it. You’ll be amazed how quickly the visitors will start rolling in.

After installing Wordpress, download and install the following plugins:

• Google XML Sitemaps – to auto-generate XML sitemaps when new content is created.
  
• All in One SEO Pack – automatically optimizes your blog for search engines.
  
• Category Base Killer – removes the “category/” base text from the URL string.
• Wordpress.com Stats – quick and simple stats that are important to your blog.
  

Contributing factors:

• .htaccess: force the www rewrite for your website so all the urls.
  #Force www domain
  RewriteEngine On
  RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^yourdomain\.com [nc]
  RewriteRule (.*) http://www.yourdomain.com/$1 [R=301,L]
  #End force www
• XHTML/CSS: Develop a wordpress theme that has clean XHTML with semantic tags and clean CSS.
• Robots.txt: identify your sitemap and make sure your content is crawled correctly with the robots.txt file. Be sure to disallow the “wp-admin” directory.
• Permalinks: set to custom use %postname%. Ultilize keywords in your URL.
• More Tag: utilize the more tag so your entire post doesn’t show up on your homepage and it’s own page.

Useful Links and Resources:

• Wordpress SEO Checklist (SitePoint Forums)
• Ultimate Wordpress SEO Guide (ToddW Blog)
• Pushing Wordpress SEO Boundaries (Andy Beard)

HTML Redirect

<html>
<head>
<title>301 Moved Permanently</title>
<meta http-equiv=”refresh” content=”4;url=http://www.yakiji.com/newpage.html”>
</head>
<body>
<h1>301 Moved Permanently</h1>
This page has moved. You will be automatically redirected to its new location in 4 seconds.
If you aren’t forwarded to the new page,
<a href=”http://www.yakiji.com/newpage.html”>http://www.yakiji.com/newpage.html</a>.
</body>
</html>

ASP Redirect

<%@ Language=VBScript %>
<%
Response.Status=”301 Moved Permanently”;
Response.AddHeader(“Location”,”http://www.yakiji.com/newpage.html”);
Response.End
%>

ASP.NET Redirect (without tracking)

<%@ Page language=”c#” %>
<script runat=”server”>
private void Page_Load(object sender, System.EventArgs e) {
Response.Status = “301 Moved Permanently”;
Response.AddHeader(“Location”, Link);
}
</script>

ASP.NET Redirect (with tracking)

<%@ Page language=”c#” %>
<script runat=”server”>
private string Link = “/newpage.aspx”;
private void Page_Load(object sender, System.EventArgs e) {
lb01.Text = “This page may be found at <a href=’” + Link + “‘>” + Link + “</a>”;
}

protected void FinSet() {
Response.Status = “301 Moved Permanently”;
Response.AddHeader(“Location”, Link);
}
</script>
<html>
<head><title>301 Moved Permanently</title></head>
<body>
<script src=”http://www.google-analytics.com/urchin.js” type=”text/javascript”></script>
<script type=”text/javascript”>_uacct = “UA-XXXXXX-X”;urchinTracker();</script>
<h1>301 Moved Permanently</h1>
<form id=”Form1″ method=”post” runat=”server”>
<asp:Label ID=”lb01″ Runat=”server” />
<% FinSet(); %>
</form>
</body>
</html>

IIS Redirect

• In IIS, right click the file or folder and select properties
• In the Directory tab, selec the “A redirection to URL” radio button
• Enter the URL to the location of the redirect in the “Redirect to” textbox
• Selection “A permanent redirection for this resource” checkbox
• Click “Apply”

PHP Redirect

<?php
header( “HTTP/1.1 301 Moved Permanently” );
header( “Location: http://www.yakiji.com/newpage.html” );
exit();
?>

htaccess Redirect

• Create an .htaccess file in your root directory
• Place the following code in the file

RewriteEngine on
Redirect 301 /oldpage.html http://www.yakiji.com/newpage.php

Javascript Redirect

<html>
<head><title>301 Moved Permanently</title>/head>
<body>
<h1>301 Moved Permanently</h1>
<p>Moved to <a href=”/newpage.php”>http://www.yakiji.com/newpage.php</a></p>
<p>Please change your bookmark or notify the page that linked. Thanks!</p>
<script language=”javascript” type=”text/javascript”>
window.location.href=’http://www.yakiji.com/newpage.php’;
</script>
</body>
</html>

Coldfusion Redirect

<cfheader statuscode=”301″ statustext=”Moved Permanently”>
<cfheader name=”Location” value=”http://www.yakiji.com/newpage.html”>

Ruby on Rails Redirect

def old_action
headers["Status"] = “301 Moved Permanently”
redirect_to “http://www.yakiji.com/newpage.html”
end

Perl Redirect

#! /usr/bin/perl
use cgi;
my $q = cgi->new();
print $q->redirect(
-location => ‘http://www.yakiji.com/newpage.html’,
-status => 301,
);

Useful Links

• SEO Friendly Redirect Checking Tool (Webconfs.com)
• URL Redirection (Wikipedia)
• Redirects Using Scripting for SEOs (Mcanerin)
• How do redirects work with websites (Jab Web Solutions)
• How to redirect a web page, the smart way (Steven Hargrove)

Thanks Google!