I used my time without the hard drive to do a little research to try and find out if there was any explanation for why it would not boot into the hard drive without the USB drive. My research uncovered a couple of possible causes. One possibility was that it could be related to the size of the hard drive. Some people indicated that if the hard drive was partitioned more than 1 TB in size then it could cause some boot issues. Another possible cause of the problem was that it is a green hard drive. Several people indicated that they had issues with a Western Digital green hard drive. Even though my hard drive is a Seagate green hard drive, I still thought that it was reasonably possible that this could be the cause of the problem.

Once I received the new hard drive I got back to work on the project. Another thing I discovered while waiting on the new hard drive to come in from Newegg is that my SATA 3 ports are not Mac compatible. Therefore, I connected the hard drive to the SATA 2 port, but this did not solve my booting issues either. I went into disk utility and formatted the hard drive again.  This time I decided to partition the hard drive in 2 to 750 GB partitions rather than a single 1.5 TB partition. I also chose to install from a time machine backup. However, once I completed this process the results were the same. I was still unable to boot into the hard drive without USB. I spent quite a bit of time on both the OSX86Project.org forum and the TonyMacX86.com forum and tried various workarounds, but I never could get the hard drive to boot without the presence of the USB stick. So I finally came to the determination that the cause of the problem must be related to my green hard drive. I thought about sending the hard drive back and getting a different hard drive, but I got such a great deal on the hard drive I don’t think I could find a better deal on another one. (I got it for $69.99 on a day after Thanksgiving sale).  So I decided to go ahead and see if I can get everything else working properly and to be content with having to first boot into the USB before booting into the hard drive. To me this seems like a reasonable compromise since I can easily replace my USB drive and I have plenty of USB slots on my motherboard. (My USB drive will have to permanently reside plugged in to my Hackintosh so I’ll have to buy another one for day to day use)

The next thing I tried to do was work my way through the various functions of the computer to determine what was working out of the box and what was going to need tweaking. The ethernet was working perfectly. However, the audio and video were not working properly. I decided to tackle the video issues first since they were affecting my screen resolution and, frankly, the poor screen resolution was driving me crazy. It showed that I had two displays that were available and all of my programs or Finder windows that opened would open on the second display which is not a real display and I couldn’t see them. This was extremely frustrating but I finally temporarily resolved the issue by mirroring the displays. This did not fix my screen resolution, but it did allow me to see the Finder windows that were being opened and it allowed me to begin troubleshooting the problem.

The best screen resolution I could get was 1024 x 768. It showed my video card as a Radeon 5000 series which was correct, but it still would not give me the full resolution that my graphics card and monitor are capable of. I did some looking on the forums and found that other people were experiencing the same problem. However, none of the solutions I saw on the forum seemed to fix my problem. This became extremely frustrating and I spent several evenings working on it with no results. I finally decided to move on to a different issue and come back to this issue later.

I decided to move on to the audio. I tried several of the kexts that are included with MultiBeast, but could not get the audio to work. I finally discovered that my problem was that I had actually installed several audio kexts and, therefore, the computer did not know which one of them to use. I uninstalled all of the kexts, then reinstalled only the ALC 889 kext, and my audio worked perfectly!  I then got back to work on my video issues. I wish I knew what I did to finally fix the problem. I know that I tried using some of the older legacy kexts that are included with MultiBeast even though those are intended for the ATI 4800 series and I have the ATI 5000 series. However, just as you might expect, these did not fix my problem. All I know is that at some point I was able to go in to my System Preferences and adjust the display screen resolution to 1920 x 1080 and my display was no longer being mirrored as if there were two displays present. Once I had that working properly I decided to see if I could get my HDMI working. Much to my delight and surprise, it worked the first time I tried. I was then able to go in to my System Preferences and adjust the display screen resolution to1080p and run full HD on my monitor.

This was a very exciting day for me. I now had the Hackintosh booting into the USB and then into the hard drive (which I had already decided was going to be a reasonable compromise). Once I was booted into Lion, my networking, audio, and video were all working perfectly. It was now time to start looking at some of the peripherals I had purchased such as my DVD drive, bluetooth adapter, and webcam. Fortunately the DVD drive worked perfectly out-of-the-box and no other tweaks were needed. I then started working on the bluetooth adapter but could not get Lion to recognize it was even there. After doing some research on the forums, I realized that I simply made an error when I purchased this particular USB bluetooth adapter. Yes, there were a few people who were using that particular adapter, but the vast majority of people who had tried that adapter did not have success. Therefore I decided to cut my losses and return the USB adapter to Newegg and purchase a new USB adapter. I found a USB adapter that both InsanelyMac.com and TonyMacX86.com said would work perfectly out-of-the-box. However, this adapter was no longer being produced. I was able to find a refurbished adapter on Amazon and ordered one. I will update this entry as soon as it arrives and I have had time to test it. I will be surprised if it does not work out-of-the-box. UPDATE: The D-Link DBT-122 Bluetooth adapter arrived and works perfectly out-of-the-box with no issues at all!

The webcam I purchased worked out-of-the-box with no problems at all except that it seemed to be dropping a lot of frames and the video was very choppy. After doing some research, I discovered that Newegg head incomplete information on their website. Newegg stated that the camera would get 1280 x 960 pixels at 15 to 30 frames per second. However, Rosewill states on their website that 1280 x 960 will only get 5 to 9 frames per second. This was simply unacceptable to me I need a camera that hsd a better performance. Therefore, I located a new Logitech C510 and ordered it from eBay. I also returned the Rosewill RCM 2655V back to Newegg. The Logitech C510 arrived a few days ago and it is working perfectly. I have a demonstration of it in the video below.

Once I got everything working I decided to run the Macintosh through its paces and through several benchmark tests. I also did this for my iMac and I’ve included the in-depth analysis in a lengthy video attached below. In case the video is too long for you, I’v also included some screenshots below which will show you a side-by-side comparison of the performance of the two computers. I understand that this is not an apples to apples comparison (no pun intended) . However, it is the best comparison that I can do.

I understand that the hardware of the iMac is inferior to the hardware of the Hackintosh and, therefore, it will not perform at the level of the Hackintosh. However, this is not just a comparison of hardware, this is also a comparison of value. The iMac was purchased about six months ago on eBay for $800, used. The Hackintosh was built with brand-new hardware for $1100. So one must simply decide if a used iMac is worth saving $300 over a brand-new Hackintosh, and one must also consider if the headache and hassle of trying to get everything to work on the Hackintosh is worth the time. As I pointed out a previous post, to build a brand-new Apple computer with the same or very similar specifications as this Hacintosh, it would have cost me between $2800 and $4500. Yes, this did take much more time and lost of frustration, but I enjoy that sort of thing and find a lot of satisfaction in troubleshooting and solving these problems. I look at it as if I spent a couple of weeks working on a pet project, and at the end of the project I got to keep a really powerful computer. I also got that computer at a much cheaper price than I would have if I had ordered it directly from Apple.

There is no question if you look at the side-by-side comparisons in the videos or the images, that the Hackintosh video performance is far superior to the video performance of the iMac. I’m able to run my live podcast at full 720p streaming video and not even come close to maxing out the graphics card. The iMac could never even dream of giving me that type of capability with my video. As you can see the demonstration video, if I even attempt it on the iMac, the video is extremely choppy and cuts out frequently. Not to mention that it was putting the computer in danger of shutting down or causing damage because of the demand that was being put on the graphics card.

So now it’s time for you to give me your thoughts. Do you think was this a worthwhile process and did I did get a good value for my time and money?

As I mentioned before, the Silencio 550 computer case that I chose has a reputation for having restricted airflow so as I put all the components together, it was really important for me to take my time and route all the cables so that they did not restrict airflow and open up the case is much as possible.  As you can see by the pictures I’ve attached, I think I did a pretty good job of keeping everything clean and neat inside the case and allow plenty of space for clean air flow. I also removed one of the hard drive racks to open up space inside the case even more and allow for complete unrestricted air flow. You may also remember that I chose to replace the stock fans of the computer case with some higher RPM fans and that I think was a good decision.  The fans I purchased are a little bit noisier, but the computer is operating at very cool temperatures and it is still within the noise specifications that I needed for my studio. The motherboard came equipped with all of the documentation that I needed to know where to attach the components, and the zip ties that came included with the computer case allowed me to manage all of the cables and keep them out of the way of air flow. It did take me a little bit longer to assemble the entire computer than I originally thought that it would.  This was in part due to the CPU cooler assembly. It is made to work with either Intel or AMD processors so I had to go through the instruction manual carefully to make sure that I used only the pieces that I needed for my processor and that it was assembled correctly.The end result is a very clean computer interior that has great airflow and delivers excellent performance.

After the assembly was complete, it was time to start installing my legal copy of Lion that I purchased from the Mac App store. I followed the guide found here from TonymacX86.com and used a legal copy of lion that I purchased from the Mac App Store. Before I started the actual installation of Lion, I went to Disk Utility and formatted the hard drive as a single 1.5 TB partition.  The first time I installed Lion I clicked on the Utilities menu and then chose “Restore System From Backup.” My Time Machine backup is over 400 GB in size, so this took a couple of hours to complete. After it was finished, all my programs and information were transferred accurately.  However, the hard drive was not booting into Lion without first booting via the USB, so I used the EasyBeast Install found in MultiBeast to try and fix this. Unfortunately, this still did not allow the hard drive to boot without first using the USB. I spent quite a bit of time on this and never could get it to boot properly. I finally decided that the problem might be related to my Time Machine backup, since it contains information from a non-Hackintosh machine. I decided to do a clean installation of Lion and I re-formatted the hard drive once again.

Lion was successfully installed in about 15 minutes. At the completion of the installation, it asked me if I wanted to “Transfer Information To This Mac.” I chose the “get info from Time Machine” option and the installation of the Time Machine backup took a couple of hours just asked before. I then went into MultiBeast and installed EasyBeast, but, once again, I could not get the hard drive to boot without the USB. I double checked and triple checked all of my settings on my BIOS and I tried several of the other options in MultiBeast including Chimera and UserDSDT Install. I also tried Repairing Permissions afterward.  After having no success, I decided that perhaps the Time Machine backup was still the problem, and I decided to once again format the hard drive, do a clean installation of Lion, and try to get the Hackintosh working without my Time Machine backup in the picture.

However, this time when I tried to install Lion, Disk Utility said that there was no hard drive available. I then rebooted the computer and this time it DID see the hard drive. I started installing Lion but after about 10 minutes the installation quit and it said that there was no hard drive. I then tried reformatting the hard drive again and was successful. However, this cycle of not seeing the hard drive, rebooting, seeing the hard drive, and the installation failing, continued to happen over and over again. Since the hard drive was still under warranty. I returned it to Newegg and they shipped me a replacement. However, this meant that I was not able to work on the project for a full week. To Be Continued…

My search started by finding out what others were doing to build silent PCs. I found a couple of GREAT resources for this: Silent PC Review and and TonyMacx86. Fortunately, not only is TonyMacX86 a great silent PC site, it is also a great Hackintosh site. As I mentioned in Part 1, InsanelyMac is also a great Hackintosh site. I came to the conclusion that there are two main ways to keep your computer quiet; use as few fans as possible, and use a sound dampening computer case. There are also other strategies employed such as using a liquid cooling system and using a power supply that is designed to be used in a silent system.

My original budget was set at $800. I came up with this number based on what I thought I could get for my iMac. I knew I wanted a Core i7 processor, and I new I needed a reasonably powerful graphics card. I don’t to a lot of gaming, but I do edit a fair amount of video and I stream a lot of video. During the course of my research, I had a check come in for a website I recently built. I decided to use this extra income to beef up my budget if necessary or to get a nicer component if I felt it was worth it. My new goal was to keep the build under $1100, including a new LED backlit LCD monitor.

Here are the components I chose. I’ll explain my choices afterward.

Case: Cooler Master Silencio 550 ($99.99)
Case Fan: Scythe SY1225SL12M (3 @ $13.99 each = $41.97)
Motherboard: Gibabyte GA-Z68XP-UD3 ($109.99)
CPU: Intel Core i7 2600k 3.4 GHz ($314.95)
RAM: Corsair XMS3 4 GB x 4 (16 GB Total) ($67.98)
Video Card: AMD Raedeon HD 5670 with 1 GB DDR3 SDRAM ($42.99)
Hard Drive: Seagate Green SATA 3 1.5 TB ($69.99)
Power Supply: Antec Neo Eco 620c 620 Watt ($34.99)
CPU Cooler: Xigmatek Gaia SD1283 ($4.99)
Web Cam: Rosewill RCM-2655V ($14.99)
DVD Drive: LG GH22NS70 ($20.99)
Network Card: Rosewill RC-401-EX ($19.99)
Bluetooth Adapter: Asus USB-BT211 ($7.99)
Keyboard: Used Apple Keyboard with Numeric Keypad ($39.95)
Mouse: Used Apple Magic Trackpad ($48.00)
Monitor: Asus VS247H-P 24″ ($159.99)

Legal copy of OSX Lion from Mac App Store- $29.99

Total Build Cost: $1129.73

Compare this cost to a comparable iMac at $2,799 or a comparable Mac Pro at $4,474. It isn’t quite possible to get these exact specs on an iMac or Mac Pro, but the prices I’ve listed are as close as I could get without over stating the price of the genuine Apple machine. For example, it is not possible to get a 1.5 TB hard drive from Apple. So in both the case of the iMac and the Mac Pro, I quoted the lesser expensive 1 TB hard drive rather than the more expensive 2 TB hard drive.

Also in the case of the Mac Pro, I quoted the 3.33 GHz Xeon “Westmere” processor. Keep in mind that the Xeon and the i7 are brethren. They share nearly identical architecture and perform nearly identically when only one Core i7 is compared to a machine housing 1 Xeon processor. (Xeon processors are designed to run with multiple Xeon processors in the same system where Core i7 processors are not) I realize that although the Xeon and the Core i7 share similar architecture, they do not share similar price tags. Thus the iMac is a closer representation of the value of this build.

I definitely wanted a case with noise dampening. This generally means that the front air fans and the sides of the case have noise dampening foam, and the power supply mount, as well as the hard drive mounts have rubber pads to counteract vibration noise. I narrowed my choices down to the Antec P183, NZXT H2 and the Cooler Master Silencio 550. The Silencio 550 does not seem to have quite the air flow as the other two cases, but it has an SD card slot at the top of the case. I use the SD card slot a LOT so this was an important feature for me. I think that my choice to upgrade the fans and add a CPU cooler will offset the less than optimal air flow. I hope this strategy pays off.

I chose the AMD Radeon HD 5670 because Apple added these drivers in 10.6.7 which means it will work natively within OS X. Ideally I would have purchased a video card that did not have an on board fan so that the machine operates as quietly as possible. However, since the Silencio 550 has less than stellar air flow, I thought I’d go ahead and get a GPU with a fan. Several reviews on this card stated that the fan was very quiet.

Gigabyte motherboards have an excellent reputation for being Hackintosh compatible. It’s hard to go wrong with a Gigabyte board, but I still made sure I purchased one that had been used successfully by several people on InsanelyMac.com and TonyMacx86.com. I also learned from TonyMacx86.com that LG and Sony optical drives have a good reputation for working natively on Hackintosh builds. Therefore, I picked one that others had used with success.

I wanted my Hackintosh to have all the features of my iMac. This meant that I needed to add a webcam and bluetooth to my build. Both of the ones I selected have been used with success from other Hacintosh builders. I had a really difficult time finding a hard drive at a price I was comfortable with. I finally found a deal at Newegg that brought me a SATA 3 drive that has a quiet design. The trade off is in the drive RPM speed. It’s a 5400 RPM drive instead of a 7200 RPM drive. But the slower speed gives me quieter performance. I hope that the SATA 3 speed will help make up for the RPM speed loss.

I REALLY like the quality of the screen in my iMac. I did NOT want to sacrifice this quality. I currently have the late 2009 21.5″ iMac. Apple states that this display has a rating of 320 cd/m2 and a resolution of 1920 by 1080 pixels. The monitor I purchased has a rating of 300 cd/m2 and a resolution of 1920 by 1080 pixels. I really hope I’m as impressed with it as I am the iMac. Since it is the same amount of pixels spread across a somewhat larger screen (21.5″ vs 24″) I suspect it won’t be quite as crisp. However, the screen will be bigger, so I think I’ll like the slight trade off.

I worked really hard to find compatible parts at a good or great price. I really doubt I could have built this computer at these specs for this price had I not done my research and been prepared to purchase when Black Friday came. I was able to spot good deals when I saw them and act quickly before the item sold out. I was able to score Black Friday deals on the RAM, GPU, Power Supply, Hard Drive, Monitor and CPU Cooler. Because I had done such a good job (at least in my mind) of finding great deals, I went ahead and splurged on the genuine Apple keyboard and Magic Trackpad-but I did save a few bucks by getting them used.

One final note. I went ahead and purchased a separate network card even though the motherboard comes equipped with Gigabit LAN. I did this because I had network connections with my last Hackintosh build. If the ethernet port on the motherboard works like it should, then I will return the extra network card to Newegg.

All of the parts should arrive over the next 4 days. Once they all arrive I’ll do some unboxing videos and document the build experience. I will also run benchmark tests to compare my current iMac to the new Hackintosh build.

A Hackintosh is a custom built PC that is able to run Apple’s OS X. Since Apple started issuing computers with Intel processors in 2006, building a Hackintosh has become relatively simple. It is a process that must be approached with care, but if you are willing to put in the time studying forums and researching PC parts, then you can be rewarded with a great performing OS X computer for a fraction of the price that you would pay Apple. Of course, you will be giving up some of the sleek, sexy styling that Apple packs all their computers into.

My first Hackintosh was based on a Shuttle SP35V2 barebones system. I added a Core 2 Quad Core Q8400 2.66 GHz processor, 1.5 GB of RAM, an ATI Radeon HD 4550 graphics processor with 512MB of DDR3 SDRAM and a 320 GB hard drive. Some of the parts I used were ones that I had on hand already, so I’m not sure how much it actually cost me to build it. I think it was about $350. It went pretty smoothly except for some frustration trying to get the ethernet and sound working properly. But a few helpful folks over at the InsanelyMac forum helped solve those issues.

I continued to use the Hackintosh through June of 2011 and update it with Apple’s software updates with NO issues. My only problem with the Hackintosh was the noise. The Shuttle system I based my build on was known for great air flow. But this came at the cost of having very noisy fans. The fans might not have been so bad, but my Hackintosh sits in my recording studio. Unwanted noise is not welcome in my studio. I don’t know if anyone else could hear it in the background of my podcasts, but I could, and that was enough. So in June of 2011 I decided to shop around on eBay and see if I could find an iMac at a price that fit my budget. After a few weeks of looking, I finally found one and purchased it. I LOVE the iMac. In fact, I’m writing this blog post from that iMac. It’s sleek, quiet and does almost all that I need it to. That’s right, ALMOST.

It’s a Core 2 Duo 3.06 GHz with 8 GB of RAM and a NVIDIA 9400M graphics processor with 256MB of DDR3 SDRAM shared with main memory. The processor is a step down from my former Hackintosh, but I got a big boost in the system RAM so it actually out performs the Hackintosh in audio editing speeds. But my Hackintosh had a 512 MB graphics card and the iMac just hasn’t performed up to my needs in this area. Unfortunately, this is not something I can upgrade on the iMac, so I had decided to be content with the less than desired performance.

That is, until I ran across an article on how to build a silent Hackintosh! Believe it or not, there is a whole sub-culture of silent PC enthusiasts out there that I never knew existed. After doing some research, I decided I would try and come up with a silent Hackintosh build that would have LOTS of power and still be quiet enough to reside in my studio. Well, I wouldn’t be writing this if I hadn’t decided to build a silent Hackintosh, so I must have found what I needed, right? I’ll cover my research and the components I chose in Part 2.

Moving from one house to another house is never easy or fun, but if you properly prepare, the transition can be made smoother. And if you label everything carefully when you’re packing, when you get to the new house everything will be unpacked easily and put in it’s proper place. Moving a website to a new home is very similar.

Here are some tips to help make a smooth transition to the new domain. First, you need to set up 301 redirects for every single page, post and link. You want to set the 301 to link to a specific page on your new domain.  Do not set them all to simply redirect to the new homepage (MyNewExample.com).  Set the 301 to go to a very comparable page on your new domain. If that page does not exist, it’s probably worth creating. I don’t think it’s a big deal if a few of the 301 redirects point to the same place on your new domain, but try to make it as much of a 1:1 transfer as possible. If you’re using WordPress, a great redirection plugin is called Redirection by John Godley.

You’ll probably want to plan on keeping your current domain (www.Example.com) up for 120 days or so. This will give ample time for all the 301 redirects to really take root. Once all of your 301s are set up, sign in to Google Webmaster Tools and fill out a Change of Address Form. It’s under the Site Configuration section of your Dashboard.

One other thing I would suggest is contacting the people that link to your current domain (www.Example.com). You can find a list of links to your site in the Google Webmaster Tools dashboard too. Look through it, and if you see a lot of links from a site, contact them. Thank them for linking to your site and let them know that you want to make sure they’re providing the most up-to-date and accurate info to their visitors, and tell them what the new link should be. They just need to change their URLs to the new one. No 301 is necessary.

One final suggestion. Create new content on your new domain that is rich with the keywords you want to rank for. The fresh content will go a long way to giving you the rank you need. This is similar to what I suggested above, but make this content fresh and unique from the content you copied over from your current site. This step is not necessary if you did a fresh rewrite of the content you bring over from your current site. But if you do a straight copy of the content, make sure you write some fresh stuff too.

Good luck with your move!

The Podcasting 101 class will teach you what a podcast is and help you get started in podcasting. Topics covered include: How to choose a podcast host, choosing the right equipment, setting up an RSS feed, installing the proper podcast plug-ins on your WordPress site, getting your podcast submitted to iTunes & podcast production tips.

The class will be held on October 4th at 6:30 PM at The Div in Edmond, OK. More info about The Div can be found at The Div Website.

How do you choose the best SEO keywords for your site? Choosing the proper keywords for your site my seem overwhelming, or it may seem easy. If you’re feeling overwhelmed, don’t fret. If you think you already know the best keywords for your website, you may be very wrong. This post will show you how to take advantage of one of the best keyword resources on he Internet. The best part: it’s FREE!

The tool I’m talking about is the Google Keyword Tool. The Google Keyword Tool is a feature included in the Google AdWords program. While it does cost money to run Google AdWords, it is free to join the program, and you don’t have to spend money to use the Google Keyword Tool.

Once you’ve signed up for a free Google AdWords account and sign in, you’ll arrive at the Dashboard. Click on the Reporting and Tools tab and select Keyword Tool. Find the box labeled Word or Phrase and type in the keywords you think are best for your site. Find the box labeled Website and put in the URL of your site (optional). Once you’ve completed those steps, click on the Search button.

Now you will see two sections. The first section is labeled Search Terms and gives you information about the specific terms you typed into the Word or Phrase box. The second section is labeled Keyword Ideas and lists Google’s suggested keywords. Next to each keyword you will find a green bar that shows how competitive that keyword is in the AdWords market. This gives us some insight into how many people are bidding on that keyword. However, it does not give us a full picture of how many people are optimizing their websites for that term. In other words, if I own a pet store I may optimize my site for the keyword “Dog Collar,” but that does not mean that I’m also paying for the AdWord “Dog Collar.”

The next column is labeled Global Monthly Searches, and it is very helpful. This tells you how many times that keyword is searched for on Google. You can click on any of the column headers and sort that column in ascending order. Click the column header again to sort it in descending order.

This tool is great because it helps you figure out what people are searching for. Let’s look back at our pet store example. Let’s say that I own a pet store and I don’t call it a collar, but a restraint. Restraint is what it is called by pet industry insiders, my vendor calls it a restraint, and the packaging even calls it a restraint. So when I start making a list of keywords for my site, I might naturally choose the keyword “Dog Restraint.” However, the Google Keyword Tool tells me that there are only 4,400 monthly searches for that term. It turns out, most people actually use the term “Dog Collar,” and the Google Keyword tool tells me there are 673,000 monthly searches for that term. With those facts in mind, which keyword should I optimize my site for? Dog Collar, of course!

You may think that this is over simplifying an obvious search term, but I can tell you from experience that you will not choose the best keywords for your site without the Google Keyword Tool. Recently I was working on a site and input a list of keywords into the tool. It turns out, one of the words at the top of the list was not a very popular term. After going through the list of Keyword Ideas, I found a keyword that was being searched several hundred thousand times more per month, AND it had very little AdWord competition! I never would have found that valuable keyword without the Google Keyword Tool.

Here’s one final reminder. As I mentioned in a previous article, do not try to make every page rank for every keyword. The goal of this exercise is not to overload a page with every search term that receives a lot of monthly searches. You must still choose your keywords carefully.

1. Google Webmaster Tools-This is an invaluable resource.  If you have not yet signed up for Google Webmaster Tools, stop reading and go sign up right now! Once you get your site set up, you’ll be able to track many useful insights such as Google +1 Metrics, Crawl Stats, Link to Your Site, Site Performance and MUCH, MUCH more! In addition to this page, there is a Google Webmaster Tools Help page that is also invaluable. At the very least you should download and read the Google Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide.

2. Another great SEO Tool from Google is the Google Webmaster Central YouTube Channel. Here you will find hundreds of videos filled with tips, insights and listener-submitted questions. Each video is hosted by Google Search Engineer, Matt Cutts.

3. One last very helpful SEO Tool is the website SEO Book. SEO Book has more SEO resources than any other website I’ve found. The information at SEO Book is very well organized and easy to understand. They do have a paid service, so most of the information at SEO Book is not free. However, there are still some VERY useful videos, blogs, and training resources available at no cost. At the very least, make sure you visit the SEO Book Tools page. It provides several valuable resources such as the SEO Toolbar for Firefox, Rank Tracker Firefox extension and SEO for Firefox extension. These three tools are free and provide much of the insights provided by expensive SEO software.

There are many other great SEO Tools out there, but these three are a great starting point. Go check out these SEO resources and you’ll be learning how to improve your website’s SEO in no time!

How did Dramatic Traffic earn a top 11 ranking in Yahoo in just 2 days? We did it by making sure we built our site and subsequent pages with good SEO techniques. Does this mean that we (or you) will be able to replicate these results for every keyword? No, but that does not mean we shouldn’t try, right? Here’s what we did to get such a high ranking:

1. We made sure that the Title, Meta Keyword and Meta Description contained the keywords we were MOST interested in ranking for. We did not overload these fields with keywords. We focused only on the ones that mattered most to us.

2. We made sure there was original written content near the top of our home page that repeated those keywords.

3. We wrote a blog post that was about a specific keyword we wanted to rank high for. Let me repeat that. The blog post focused mostly on a single keyword. We’ll write other blogs about other keywords, but we wanted to rank high for that specific keyword, so we made sure that the blog post had that keyword mentioned several times. This ensured that the search engines would know that the keyword was very relative to the content on that page.

4. We made sure that the Title, Meta Keywords and Meta Description fields were focused on that keyword. Does that sound redundant? Yes, but that’s the point. The blog post was written with the intention of being a resource for those needing information about that keyword. By making sure the keyword was mentioned in the blog title, blog content, page title, meta description and meta keywords, the search engines had no problems recognizing what the article was about.

Let me also mention that the blog post not only contained the keyword multiple times, but it mentioned it early (within the first sentence) of the article.

Following these practices will get your website improved ranking in Google, Bing and Yahoo…guaranteed. Will it deliver results as quickly as this did for Dramatic Traffic? Sometimes. Will it get you on the first page or two of the search engines? Eventually. However, success like this is not often achieved by a single blog post. Many times you will need to continue to keep adding strong content to your site before you’ll get the ranking you desire. And that is exactly what we will keep doing.

Good Luck!

I recommend building your website using WordPress. I realize that WordPress will not work for all website needs, but it is a great platform that will more than meet the needs of most websites. Dramatic Traffic is built on WordPress, using the iThemes Builder platform. Even though I do know how to code websites, this entire site was built without me ever writing even a single line of code. I also recommend using HostGator to host your website. They have a great support staff, and installing WordPress requires only a few simple clicks. If you need more info about using or installing WordPress, contact me using the Contact slider on the left side of your screen. I will have future blogs and videos that cover WordPress details.

Once you have WordPress installed, click on Plugins, Add New, and search for XML Sitemap. I recommend the plugin called Google XML Sitemaps by Arne Brachhold. Go ahead and click on the orange Install button and then activate the plugin. Once it is activated, look for the XML-Sitemap link in the Settings section of your admin control panel. A page will pull up that shows various customizations that can be made to your sitemap. I don’t recommend changing any of the default settings. Instead, look near the top of the page and you will see a link to create your Sitemap. Simply click on that link and, voila! Your sitemap is done. The plugin will handle all the sitemap updates automatically, and it will even tell Bing, Google, and Ask.com when you add any content to your site!

If you are not using WordPress for your website, there are still some very helpful resources that help you create a sitemap. Google even has a Sitemap Generator that you can find here. If you need more resources, Google provides a Wiki of various Sitemap Generators. You can find those resources here.

Once you’ve created your XML Sitemap, you need to submit it to Google and Bing (unless you use the WordPress plugin I recommended above). Google and Bing both have Webmaster tools that are free. The tools at each of these sites are very helpful and should become a regular part of your data analysis routine. Once you have created an account at each site, you will see a button in the middle of the screen to add the URL of your site. You will then need to verify your site, using one of several methods they provide. Once you have completed that step, you will be able to submit your sitemap. On Google, look for a section on the lower right side that says Sitemaps. Then follow the directions to add your sitemap. For Bing, look for a section at the top of the page called Crawl. Click on it and you should then see a section labeled Sitemaps. Click on the link and follow the directions to add your sitemap.

As you can see, there are many resources at your disposal to help you get a sitemap added to your website with little or no pain. Take a few minutes right now to create your sitemap and submit it to Google and Bing. You’ll be glad you did!