• All in One SEO – This is the most common SEO plugin for WordPress, and for good reason. It quickly and easily allows you to customize your title tags and meta descriptions for each post and page that you create.
• Custom Permalinks – This plugin allows you to completely customize the URL of your blog post or page on a case-by-case basis. From an  SEO perspective, this means that you have the opportunity to create keyword rich URLs  instead of the dynamically created URL that WordPress creates by default.
• Google XML Sitemaps – This plugin will generate an XML and .gz sitemap file for your site and automatically update it every time you add new content to the site. The only thing left to do is go to Google and Bing Webmaster Tools and notify them of the URL of your sitemap.

Note: This is the opinion of Highly Relevant, an Internet Marketing Company in Los Angeles.

Anytime Google launches a new service, the Internet is alive with speculation on how it will affect SEO and the Internet in general.

I want to be the first to predict that the new “+1” feature will be another failure for Google in the “social space” because of two fundamental problems:

Problem #1: Launch Strategy

The first issue is the launch strategy.  Since the “+1” button for websites will not be available for several “months not weeks”, users are left to “+1” content in search results.

I cannot remember a time when I thought to myself, “That is a fantastic Meta description. I like this site already!”  Do they really expect me to return to the search results after making that decision to show my approval?

I don’t think so.  Something else interesting has already popped up on Twitter or another one of my social networks, and I am on my way over there.

People do not have that kind of Internet attention span.  In the months that it takes to get the +1 button out to webmasters, the Google social “haters” (apparently myself included) will be piling on about another colossal social failure by Google, making the release of the button much less significant.

In the meantime, every SEO in the world will be creating hundreds of Google accounts and “+1-ing” all of their clients.  (In fact, that might be a good short-term business opportunity.  Is there part of the algorithm that accounts for reciprocal “+1-ing”?)

Problem #2: The Fundamental Reason Google Cannot Do Social

The second reason that +1 is doomed to fail is that, fundamentally, Google cannot do social.  From their blog post announcing the new feature…

“When you do a search, you may now see a +1 from your slalom-skiing aunt next to the result for a lodge in the area.  Or if you’re looking for a new pasta recipe, we’ll show you +1’s from your culinary genius college roommate.”

The problem is that I’m not connected to my slalom-skiing aunt or my culinary genius college roommate on Gmail.  I’m connected to them on Facebook.

Email is not “social” anymore.  It is for business.  The people that I am connected to on Gmail are my co-workers and clients, and they do not necessarily provide the same value of “liking” information that my friends on Facebook would.

Conclusion: Time to Let It Go

Look guys, Apple couldn’t even pull it off.  The new “social” is not going to come from a corporation.  It will come from a bunch of college kids eating Ramen with the audacity to turn down the millions that you, Facebook, Myspace, and everyone else will throw at them simply because they are crazy enough to believe that they can change the world.

Until then, Google, you need to keep working on Facebook to get a similar deal as Bing, and keep working on cars that drive themselves.  That’s what we really want from you.  (Just please let me know next time you are in LA.  The human drivers around here are scary enough.)

Too harsh on launch day?  Maybe.  I am ready to eat my words, but I have history on my side.

Here’s how you can get started with +1-ing search results:

Log into your Google account, go to http://www.google.com/experimental/ and click “Join This Experiment” (next to the +1 Experiment).  At this point, the feature will be activated in your search results when you are logged into your Google account.

+1 buttons will be available to put on websites, next to the Facebook “Like” and Twitter “Tweet“ buttons in a few weeks.

It is too early to tell if – and exactly how – this new feature will impact the search results.  My speculation is that in the short term, +1-ing a site (someone needs to come up with a good verb for this feature) will only affect your personal search results.  In the long term, however, +1 will likely have a far-reaching impact on SEO (assuming that it’s much more successful than Google Buzz).

What is certain is that +1 represents the most definitive social media and SEO mash-up to date.

Why it will not be successful… Google + 1 = Fail.

mozBar

Anyone that has spent time doing SEO should know about SEOmoz. They are one of, if not the best, resource for all things SEO. Accordingly, they created a fantastic tool bar that includes Page Authority, Moz Rank, links to the site, and short cuts to many of their invaluable pro membership tools.

Rank Checker

This tool does exactly what it says. You input a list of keywords and a domain, and it will tell you what page, and where your site ranks for those keywords. This tool will save you hours of scouring search results looking for your site. One word of warning though, the ranks are not always 100% accurate. However, most of the time they are very close and serve as a good estimation of where your site ranks.

X-Ray

This tool overlays the HTML tags on the site. This is a great tool for both developers and SEOs alike. If you’ve ever wondered whether the headline of the page is an <h1> or how another developer created an element on the page, this tool will allow you to see without digging through source code.

SEO Quake

This is one of the most popular toolbars for SEOs. Not only is it a toolbar that displays PR, internal links, external links, links to the domain, Alexa Rank, a link to Whois information, Delicious Bookmarks of the page, and the number of pages indexed in Google and Bing, it also adds that information to your Google Search results. This tool is one of the most comprehensive SEO toolbars available. A word of warning though, when you are not using it, it is best to turn it off. Due to the amount of information that the toolbar gathers, sometimes Google will not return search results because you are running too many automated queries.

Firebug

This is more of a developer tool, but it can be very useful for SEO as well. This tool allows you to hover over elements on the page and see the corresponding code that created them in a window at the bottom of the screen. It is useful for seeing whether elements are created using CSS or HTML, or debugging a website that you are developing.

Update: Watch Video Below!

Below is information on what we learned.  Check back on Monday to see the video of the event in its entirety.

1.     It’s easy, 5-minutes easy, to setup Google Analytics – As John Shiple mentioned…it’s easier than going to your local café and ordering coffee.  Many content management sites such as WordPress and Blogger make it so easy to track the behavior of your visitors by allowing you to copy + paste a tracking code in the headers or footers of your site.  You’ll be collecting analytics data in no time!

2.    Having the Right Goals in Mind – Many people focus their energy towards driving large volumes of traffic to their site, which is great, but what you do with that traffic is even more important.  Is your bounce rate high? Are you experiencing a drop-off on certain pages? Google Analytics tracks all that.  By making your conversion goals more deliberate and spelled out such as “collect an email”, “add an item to shopping cart”, “spend X dollars to buy my product”, and “confirm sale” , you greatly improve your metrics  and are more enabled to make more informed decisions to improve your company’s online marketing campaign and overall bottom line.

3.    Tracking Inbound Traffic – Learning where your traffic came from and how they got there is just as important as what they do once on your site. So make sure you code your links to be human-readable.  Use us for example; we over here at Highly Relevant like to comment often on interesting social media blogs found on Mashable as well as other blogs regarding online reputation management. In this case, of commenting on Mashable we would use the http://www.highlyrelevant.com/social-media-marketing.html as s opposed to http://www.highlyrelevant.com/online-reputation-management.html.

This helps online users on Mashable know we are part of the social media community plus it also helps us determine where most of our traffic is coming from – social media blogs or online reputation management blogs.

4.     Need Help? Don’t fret.  GA help is Everywhere – The panel members provided the following resources:

• Avinash Kaushik – the GURU of Google Analytics has a blog on the subject:  Click Here.
• Google’s Conversion University has a bunch of training guides.  Here’s the link:  http://www.google.com/support/conversionuniversity/
• Google Analytics works within Facebook.  See this link:  http://www.webdigi.co.uk/blog/2010/google-analytics-for-facebook-fan-pages/

5.    Creating Funnels –Funnels are great (and illustrative) tools for building the steps towards your company’s goal.  They also show you how to identify your user drop-off rate at each step.  Essentially, if there’s drop-off for every step you will want to limit and simplify the number of then in order to successfully convert into sales.

A special shout-out to the very informative speakers– You guys were great!

Check them out on twitter to see what other projects they are working or if you have any questions.

Serena (Host): @serena
Erica: @SnowboardWomen
Alex: @aybecker
Andrew:@andrewhahn
John: @FreelanceCTO

Check out Google’s video demo:

The two core philosophies behind Google Buzz, as described by Bradley Horowitz, vice president for product management of Google, was people’s fondness of sharing life experiences and being able to do so in-real time.

Todd Jackson, product manager for Google Buzz, began his demo by logging onto his Gmail account, which captured plenty of interests because of the curious splash page introducing the company’s newest release. He described it as, “an entire world within Gmail” and that is exactly what it is. Whether Gmail users want to be part of another Social Network or not, one thing is certain and that is for Google to create a seamless transition between email, social networking, and sharing media.

Some of the main features showcased were Google Buzz’s ability to allow users to autofollow, share rich content (in private or publically), all at a fast rate and within a newly integrated inbox decked out with plenty of new press-of-a-button shortcuts. For instance, in the same way that users press “C” to compose an email, they will now be able to press “R” to comment/reply to a buzz post. Picasa, Twitter, Flickr and plenty other sites will be aggregated and allow for one-site access.

Additionally, Google is implementing a system in which they will email you about any updates on comments you or others made, much like Facebook, but with media attached to it so you won’t always have to log-in to see all the buzz you’ve created.

Google Buzz will be rolled out on mobile web via Google’s Mobile website, of course Buzz.Google.com, and from Google Mobile Maps whenever you “buzz” in from a certain location. Like any major release similar to this, it is being done in phases so expect Google Buzz to eventually become part of your life—willingly or not.