I’m all for contextual advertising. I think it’s a great method of matching buyer and seller. Google’s sponsored links are a great way to target business. So you can understand why I got a little offended by the latest sponsored link in my Gmail account. I know it’s been a long winter and I’ve grown some additional “cold weather protection” but it’s a little disheartening when you see this:

I just got that extra push to get to the gym today

Okay so it’s been a few days since I started tracking my rank. I made a few changes:

1. I built a site map

I downloaded a plug-in for WordPress. An XML file that creates an index of all my blog posts. It’s intended to make it easier for search engines to crawl your content.

2. I changed my blog naming convention

For my blog postings from something like “id=p23″ to “blog-seo-part-2″ - Simple change in the WordPress options (I can’t figure out why this isn’t the default)

3. My last post about “Sean Landry”

Since those key words are now relevant and were present several times I gained points in the relevance category. It’s important to note you’re posts can be considered SPAM if you load them with keywords.

As of January 20th I’ve moved up one spot! I’m #2 now ahead of the basketball Sean Landry

I’ll keep digging up new methods and post them as I move up or down.

Okay I admit it. I “googled” myself (Sean Landry) the other day. I know I’m not alone here. However, I found something unexpected, my page rank. I was way down at #3! There are two other Sean Landry’s out there in the world ranked ahead of me.

#1 - Sean Landry’s Page on 1UP.com

This is a free Blog site for anyone who registered. Not exactly the most popular one out there but I started to investigate. The other Sean Landry had only one Blog post and way back in 2005? So not exactly showing relevance or activity of any sort.

#2 - University of Manitoba: Bison Men’s Basketball Sean Landry

Landry was a member of Mount Royal Cougars 2006 ACAC Championship team. In his first season with the Cougars, Landry registered a 4.1 points per game average and 3.3 rebounds per game in 17 games. He shot a 41.3% field goal percentage during the championship season.

So other than playing good basketball for the University of Manitoba in 2006 why is he #2?

#3 - Sean Landry

That’s me! Number three? I have Sean Landry in the URL, in the title and all over the site and I post frequently.

I’m on a quest to climb to #1. I’m digging up as many SEO tips and tricks I can find. As I find them I’ll post them here and hopefully I’ll show progress! If you’ve got any good techniques I’d like to hear them.