Got another case study for an SEO project, trying to improve the search engine ranking for the website BankruptcyHome.com with the keywords below.

Bankruptcy is a very difficult choice for many Americans. Last year, over two million people in the U.S. filed for personal bankruptcy. BankruptcyHome can help you decide whether bankruptcy is the right move for you, and provides valuable information including:

• the difference between Chapter 7 bankruptcy and Chapter 13 bankruptcy
• how the process of filing bankruptcy works
• how to stop foreclosure on your home

From the case study, here are the rankings:

As of today (5/7/08) here are the results for bankruptcy:

• Google: #6 of 51.7 million pages
• Yahoo: #28 of 176 million pages
• MSN: #3 of 32.9 million pages

Here are the results for filing bankruptcy:

• Google: #5 of 1.9 million pages
• Yahoo: #4 of 45.3 million pages
• MSN: #1 of 7.6 million pages

Here are the results for how to file bankruptcy:

• Google: #4 of 2.3 million pages
• Yahoo: #178 of 56.4 million pages
• MSN: #1 of 14 million pages

Here are the results for file bankruptcy:

• Google: #7 of 1.8 million pages
• Yahoo: #3 of 45.1 million pages
• MSN: #2 of 14.6 million pages

We get alot of accounting and MBA students searching for homework help at our site. Whether the textbook is confusing or the case notes are incomplete or they just need some extra help, we have a bunch of resources to help accounting students get the homework help they need:

Try our resources and you'll find getting better grades in less time isn't that hard!

We get alot of students searching for homework help at our site, that are having trouble with business math. Whether the textbook is confusing or they just need some extra help, we have a bunch of resources to help students get the business math homework help they need:

Try our resources and you'll find getting better grades in less time isn't that hard!

Every day, bunches of economics students searching for homework help because they're having trouble with economics end up at College-Cram.com. Sometimes the textbook is confusing and other times they just need some extra help, but either way we have a bunch of resources to help students get the economics homework help they need:

Try our resources and you'll find getting better grades in less time isn't that hard!

We get alot of finance and MBA students searching for homework help at our site. Whether the textbook is confusing or the case notes are incomplete or they just need some extra help, we have a bunch of resources to help finance students get the homework help they need:

Democrats raised holy hell back in the presidential election of 2001, where voting irregularities in Florida were cited as evidence that not all votes were being counted. It's somewhat ironic that the same issue has once again raised its ugly head in this year's primary season, only this time it's Florida and Michigan voters that are being disenfranchised. The main difference, of course, is that a large portion of the Democratic faithful (those who pull for Obama) are the ones being accused by a different large portion of the Democratic faithful (those pulling for Hillary) of ignoring the will of the people.

Amidst this ongoing tempest, it's interesting to see that in yesterday's Guam primary the difference between winner Barack Obama and loser Hillary Clinton was a scant seven votes. SEVEN. That's like a few friends who decided to vote before going to a movie.

I guess every vote does count, as long as you don't live in Florida or Michigan. 

We get alot of students searching for homework help at our site, that are having trouble with algebra. Whether the textbook is confusing or they just need some extra help, we have a bunch of resources to help students get the homework help they need:

Try our resources and you'll find getting better grades in less time isn't that hard!

Last month I blogged about an SEO project on the keyword phrase "Real Estate Investor Tools" where I was trying to move it up from its Google position of #284 of 33 million pages.

"My 'regular' job is working for a company that does web development with CSS (cascading style sheets) and SEO work (search engine optimization) for their own websites and for their clients. We're working on one website in a particularly challenging and competitive SEO area -- real estate investor tools. There are lots of websites out there all fighting for high rankings with various keywords, and the client has select some they want to conquer.

So here's what I'm doing. I wrote up a case study of what we're up to with trying to improve the search engine rankings for the website MyTurboBidder.com with the keywords below. I've included the latest rankings, and will update things as the project progresses."

Since then, Google has gone through its periodic housecleaning/reshuffling of search results for real estate investor tools. The rankings initially dropped to #472 but after the dust settled began surging upwards again. At today's review, the results are pretty impressive for the big three search engines:

Anyway, here are this week's updates for Real Estate Investor Tools:

• Google: #48 of 2.4 million pages
• Yahoo: #2 of 37 million pages
• MSN: #1 of 4.2 million pages

Updates for Real Estate Investor Tool:

• Google: #29 of 13 million pages
• Yahoo: #1 of 43 million pages
• MSN: #1 of 4.3 million pages

I read an interesting article this morning on the UW Oshkosh website entitled "Publishers: Professor Drive Up Book Prices" that had me laughing out loud.

A regional manager from a major textbook publisher claimed that "the high cost of paper and fuel also contributed to a rise in text prices but said millions of dollars in profits are lost because professors practice book buying." Now I know this manager -- she's a very nice person, but I can't believe that she really believes the profs are at fault here.

A bit of background... A typical sales rep calls on hundreds of professors over the course of a semester, which is probably way too many to give each of them really good sales service and attention. So, the industry practice is the begin the semester selling season by shipping out thousands -- yes, I said thousands -- of free textbooks that their profs might be interested in. These are books that the profs probably haven't asked about, or for. They're just shipped out, thousands of books for free, so the sales reps can subsequently contact the prof and fish for the sale.

The cost of shipping these free books (called desk copies) is factored into the initial pricing decisions. In other words, the textbook publishers know beforehand that they will forego hundreds of thousands of dollars in sales by sending these textbooks out for free.

Now comes the fun part. The prof, who never asked for the book to begin with and may not even think it's any good, gets asked by a third-party book buyer if s/he has any textbooks they want to sell. When was the last time you were in a prof's office? It isn't like they have lots of room for these unwanted books, so they say sure. (They were probably going to be thrown out anyway.)

So suddenly the professors are at fault for cleaning unwanted, unsolicited textbooks out their office?

One of the things I learned in business classes is not to blame your customers for your own problems. It doesn't help you solve anything, and you run the risk of alienating your customers. Perhaps the textbook publishers ought to refresh their business sense with one of their own textbooks.