I’m turning 20!

By Rajab Bader on May 14, 2008 | 0 Comments

Friday, 16th of May is my 20th birthday. Thanks to my cute friend Jossette as she was the first one to send me happy birthday wishes.

Although I’m happy that now I’m turning 20 and that I will able to do some stuff , I hope that I’m actually 18 and stay 18 till I die, because this period of one’s age is exciting, funny and adventurous.

If I’m going to turn 21, I hope I will be living in Italy by that time.

18 Till I Die lyrics - Bryan Adams:

I wanna be young the rest of my life
never say no - try anything twice
til the angels come and ask me to fly
I’m gonna be 18 til I die - 18 til I die

can’t live forever that’s wishful thinkin’
who ever said that must of bin’ drinkin’
don’t wanna grow up I don’t see why
I couldn’t care less if time flies by

18 til I die - gonna be 18 til I die
it sure feels good to be alive
someday I’ll be 18 goin’ on 55! - 18 til I die

anyway - I just wanna say
why bother with what happened yesterday
it’s not my style I live for the minute
if ya wanna stay young get both feet in it - 18 til I die

a ‘lil bit of this - a ‘lil bit of that
‘lil bit of everything - gotta get on track
it’s not how ya look, it’s what ya feel inside
I don’t care when - I don’t need ta know why

18 til I die - gonna be 18 til I die
ya it sure feels good to be alive
someday I’ll be 18 goin’ on 55! - 18 til I die
ya there’s one thing for sure - I’m sure gonna try

don’t worry ’bout the future - forget about the past
gonna have a ball - ya we’re gonna have a blast
gonna make it last - 18 til I die

WordCamp Italy in Milan

By Rajab Bader on May 7, 2008 | 0 Comments

Just knew, and I feel bad that I can’t attend. I really would love to interact with other bloggers and possibly meet Matt, but I still have some stuff here to get done. It is also pity that I won’t be able to attend SES (Search Engine Strategies) as it is in May too (right?).

Anyway, for those who can attend the WordCamp it is on 10th of May so get ready and blog about it

How To Get Hired For a SEO Job

By Rajab Bader on Apr 28, 2008 | 0 Comments

If you know me, then you probably know that I’m coming over to Italy during the next couple of months to study at the University of Perugia. Honestly, I’m thinking of moving there to have better education and so I’ll need to set up myself and get a job.

I have passion for SEO and have been doing it for two years and seven months and have learned a lot during this period. However, I’ve never worked for a company - just have worked for people and myself but not for a company so I e-mailed my friend Rand Fishkin of SEOmoz and asked him how do I got about preparing to be hired for a SEO gig.

I contacted Rand because I trust him very much. Also because he is a CEO of a well-known SEO firm and has hired a lot of people.

Generously, he answered my question in SEOmoz’s “Whiteboard Friday - How To Get An SEO Job“.

He outlined some great points there and I found them very useful. The readers’ comments are also invaluable and are great advice. I recommend you check both the video and the comments section.

Last but not least, If you are in Italy and work for a company as a SEO Manager or you yourself own a SEO firm and hiring, please contact me.

How do you explain SEO to your friends & family?

By Rajab Bader on Apr 4, 2008 | 3 Comments

The nice thing about the ordinary gigs is that everyone knows about them. If you are a doctor or lawyer, people won’t stare at you when you tell them about your job, but if you are an SEO or a Blogger, you will probably have troubles explaining your gig to them.

This is what I experience most of the time. At college, when somebody asks me about what I do, and I say “I’m a Search Marketing Consultant” (I don’t even say I’m an SEO because I don’t want to confuse them more) they just stare at me and say “what the hell is that”?

So I just start explaining the whole thing and most of the time they don’t understand it. Is it because SEO is so geeky or just a weird job? Some of my family members think that I work for Google which is really funny.

Is it about the concept of SEO? The acronyms and terms? Or it is just because our job is not classified as a job in the first place?

Google Update?

By Rajab Bader on Apr 3, 2008 | 0 Comments

I have been seeing some radical changes in Google’s serps since last week. Search Engine Journal reported that other people are seeing similar changes as well.

One of my website has dropped in rankings and I guess it is just because of this update. I monitor a few keywords daily and I see old & authority sites being out-ranked. I feel these are signs for a Google index update.

Have you seen any changes?

Wordpress 2.5 has been released

By Rajab Bader on Mar 29, 2008 | 0 Comments

While surfing Wordpress.org today I noticed that their design is not as the old one and it turned out that they have released the new version of Wordpress - 2.5

I like the new color scheme and how the Dashboard is organized. Also, tons of new features have been added.

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Yahoo Announced They Are Updating Their Index

By Rajab Bader on Mar 4, 2008 | 0 Comments

Yahoo’s search blog has announced today that they are updating their index with changes to crawling, indexing and ranking algorithms.

We’re in the process of rolling out some changes to our crawling, indexing and ranking algorithms. While we expect the update will be completed soon, as you know, throughout this process you may see some ranking changes and page shuffling in the index. To share your thoughts on this with other Yahoo! Search users, please visit the Site Explorer Suggestion Board.

Hope their search technology will improve and we’ll see better results

5 Funny SEO Myths I Used To Believe In

By Rajab Bader on Mar 3, 2008 | 0 Comments

I was a victim of those SEO forums in which you ask a question and you get dozens of wrong answers and people claiming to be SEO experts. I have nothing against forums (I actually own one), but they are not always the best place to learn stuff and find the correct answers to your questions.

I just thought I would share with you the five funny SEO myths/tips that I used to believe in.

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Choosing brandable domain names is not easy, but crucial

By Rajab Bader on Mar 3, 2008 | 0 Comments

During the last few months I had to rebrand a well-known online community and come up with a nice name for my blog. Coming up with a domain name for your website is really crucial and can have a direct effect on your site’s success or failure.

I started digging in Google search results and I found several articles about how to choose brandable and good domain names. Rand Fishkin has an articled titled “12 Rules for Choosing the Right Domain Name“. Also, Darren, the ProBlogger, has an interesting article on brandable vs keyword-rich domains. I recommend you read both of them, and here is my two cents on choosing domain names.

1- If possible go with keyword-rich domains. Having your targeted keyword in your domain name will increase your chances of having relevant anchor texts and people who hear about your site will directly associate it with its content.

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The comprehensive guide to forum SEO

By Rajab Bader on Mar 3, 2008 | 4 Comments

Forums and communities are an aspect of the internet and are a tool that people use to share ideas and experiences. However, to most webmasters, starting and promoting online communities is a hard task and SEO can play an important role in growing forums in any niche.

In this post, I’m going to share my experience with Vbulletin, the most popular forum software on the web, but you can also apply these tips to any other forum softwares just with more thinking and work.

On-Page Optimization

Duplicate-Content
Duplicate-content is a serious issue and often neglected by many forum owners, and therefore their sites may struggle to rank in the search engines.
The problem is that your threads are accessible both to search bots and visitors by different links. While users might be fine with this, search engines are not, because they want to keep their index clean and only have one original version of each document.

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