One important thing to consider if you’d like to blog professionally is the platform you’ll use. There are many free and paid options out there, but for a number of years now, WordPress has been the platform of choice for professional bloggers. Six Apart is trying to change that with the recent release of it’s very own Movable Type Pro, which mixes blogging, content management and social networking. And did I mention that it’s free? (more…)
There’s one thing you must admit if you want to have a stickier blog or site: most people don’t have the patience to read large blocks of text.
Pay attention to your own online reading habits. How do you react when you see long paragraphs? Don’t you feel discouraged to read on? Don’t you prefer reading shorter paragraphs? Even if you do feel comfortable reading long blocks of text, keep in mind that you’re the exception. The general Internet audience has different tastes. And in order to succeed as a webmaster or blogger, you must take into consideration the browsing and reading preferences of your visitors. (more…)
It may sound like a phrase taken out of Stephen Hawking’s books, but “infinite space” on the web is simply defined as “very large numbers of links that usually provide little or no new content for Googlebot to index.” Needless to say, it’s a bad thing, and can lead to bandwidth congestion issues, or worse – Googlebot may not be able to index your site’s content completely.
A good example are calendars, which usually have a “Next Month” link. Since time is (almost) infinite, it’s possible to crawl through these links successively, onto a faraway future date, without much usuable content getting indexed. In effect, the search spider got trapped in “infinite space” instead of getting on to index your other content-filled pages. Now, Googlebot is smart, but apparently not smart enough just yet. It can figure out some of these types of URLs on its own, but it has its limits, and therefore needs human intervention some of the time. (more…)
Preserving your site or blog’s credibility is much easier than you may think. I’m going to illustrate this with two personal examples:
1. After writing my recent article on StumbleUpon traffic, I took the time to review it and compare it to the sources of information it was based on. I thanked myself for doing this: I quickly spotted some inaccuracies in my post. All I had to do afterwards was to correct the wrong bits of info, rebuild some sentences and add a few others. Of course, I took these simples measures before hitting the “publish” button. Then I reread everything again and compared the fixed article to my sources one more time. I only published the post after making sure that there wasn’t a single piece of info in it that I couldn’t claim to be true to the best of my knowledge. (more…)
Not long after WordPress 2.6 came out, the talk of version 2.7 going public either in late September or early October has surfaced. For bloggers, it can be a challenge to keep up with this pace, and sometimes it just boils down to appreciation of the new features.
Here are the proposed changes for WordPress 2.7 taken from the WP Codex. Of course, we’ll have to wait for the final release to know which among these actually got in, but by just looking at this list, do you think it’s worth the trouble to upgrade? Or rather, what would it take to get you to upgrade your current WordPress installation? (more…)
You may be saying now: “Of course it’s SEO! There’s no such thing as SEOProc.”
Are you sure?
I’m going to show you that while most webmasters dream of reaching the SEO King/Queen status, many of them are in fact moving towards SEOProc stardom.
See if you recognise any — or all — of the following symptoms:
1. Spending time in SEO forums and blogs is essential. You read as many posts and comments as possible, trying to distinguish valid pieces of information from the useless ones. Eventually, you get confused and tired… and move on to the next forums and blogs.
2. Split testing is important because it helps you detect SEO techniques that truly work. For several times you’ve been about to run your own tests. But then you say to yourself: “Why would I want to do this anyway? There are already so many SEO specialists doing this. I’d better wait until they publish their own tests’ results.” And this is exactly what you decide to do.
3. Keyword researching is an absolute must-do for all webmasters. With this fact in mind, you research keywords all the time. You hardly — if ever — put your research’s resulting data in use, but that really doesn’t matter. At least you’ve taken the first and most important step in your SEO strategy and this is what counts.
4. Installing SEO plugins on a WordPress blog is easy. You often find posts listing such plugins. You love reading and bookmarking those articles. After all, by reading them you’ll be able to choose the right SEO plugin… someday. There’s no hurry; new plugins are released all the time and you prefer waiting for the perfect one.
If you relate to the list above in any way, beware: Search Engine Optimisation Procrastination — aka SEOProc — will hinder you from achieving web success. Unless you stop procrastinating and start taking action now.
Can you think of any other SEOP symptoms? Share them by leaving a comment.
We all need web hosting whether our sites makes $100,000/day or $0/month, however, we don’t always have to pay full price for it. Now I know there are several hosting companies offering such low hosting plans that some people might feel that it doesn’t matter if they pay or not but I will assume you are not one of those people since you have continued to read past the title of this article :-).
A common misconception with hosting companies is that they will only offer deals and discounts on their small hosting plans, this is not true. Hosting companies are in business to make money just as most of us are and they weight the Pros and Cons of business arrangements just as we do. If something makes sense to them then there is a high chance that they will do it whether it be a budget hosting plan or a top notch dedicated server.
How does this work? Well, it is very simple really, all you need to do is contact your web hosting provider, try to speak with the person in charge of business development or billing and let them know that you are currently hosted with them and would like to know if they would be interested in a barter arrangement where you add “Your Site Name hosted by Your Host Name” with a link to their website on all pages of your website.
This can be a very attractive offer to a host since a referral from a website that is currently being hosted by the hosting company is far more convincing than many of the alternatives such as searching through web hosting directories or using search engines. If you have loyal followers of your site then the “hosted by” message becomes even more powerful as a means to provide additional business to your host.
Have a few bits of information on hand when calling your host:
If your host seems a bit reluctant to go ahead with your offer you can suggest a trial period during which they can track the results and see if the deal will infact be beneficial to them.
As simple as this strategy seems the beautiful thing is, it works! So give it a shot and let it work for you. Good luck!
Why writing for the Web is different than in print
As you sit down and start thinking how you are going to write the content for your new website, or if you are contemplating a complete redesign of your existing site, there are a number of important things you need to know, before you even start writing.
If you have never written for the Web before but if you have plenty of experience writing for print, there are in fact a number of things here that may even shock you. To be really successful on the Web, you may even have to ‘relearn’ a few things.
The exact way you do this will have a direct and long-term impact on the overall ranking features of your website in the major search engines. So if you want to succeed at this task, and if you want to significantly increase your site’s ROI from the search engine’s generic (organic) results pages, listen up.
First, what do search engines need to index a page?
To begin with, the only thing search engines are interested in is text, and lots of it. The more text you can place on your pages, the better. To be properly indexed, any Web page needs a minimum of 500 to 750 words on it. Make it less than that and you are seriously compromising your chances at good rankings.
I often have to work with writers that have lots of experience in print advertising, but know very little about the correct way to write for the Web. In fact, there are still many that tell me our finished copy has more than one word repeated a few times on the same page! I smile every time I hear that of course, since it is an important part of the SEO process in itself!
Don’t get me wrong here: if a Web page ‘sounds’ like you are repeating your keywords or key phrases over and over, you should review it carefully, since this is not the intent of SEO. To be real effective, a properly optimized page needs to read well and ‘sound natural’ to your visitors, and it must convey a message that your content is professionally written.
At the same time, you also need to get the right keyword density and keyword frequency that is all so important, as far as the search engines are concerned. Neglect either one of them and you won’t end up with the results you had hoped for.
Just how much is enough?
So some of you may ask: when do we know how much is enough, without repeating our keywords too many times? I have been optimizing pages and websites for the past seven years, and I can honestly tell you that, for a typical page with about 700 to 750 words on it, your keywords or key phrase for that page needs to be written at least three to four times, in order to yield their maximum ranking effects in the search engines. Less than that would not be enough, and more than five times would be too much.
Avoid the error of ‘going off on the deep end’ by repeating your keywords 10 times or more, like I have seen on some sites we had to redo, since they were hit with the Google OOP (Over Optimization Penalty), either in November of 2003, or two months later, when Google did their ‘Austin’ monthly update in January. These sites were ‘over-optimized’ by either ambitious SEO’s or by people that lacked the experience or the knowledge to ‘know when to stop’. Too much of a good thing is never good.
What else is there to know?
While utilizing the right techniques in writing for the search engines is extremely important and can vary a lot than writing for print, there are other important considerations to evaluate and implement. Such considerations as the correct way to write your title tags and your meta description tags are equally as critical.
Also, depending whether your site caters to your local market or to an international audience, the proper linking strategy of your site can have a dramatic influence in the overall rankings features of your site in the search engines.
Additionally, before you even start writing your text, you need to carefully research your real keywords that people type in the search boxes of the search engines. Depending on the exact products or services they are looking for, the keywords that you might think they are using are often not the same keywords at all they are typing, in order to find your site.
I see this over and over. Even if you have been in business for 20 or 30 years, the words people type in search engines to find businesses like yours will surprise you more than once! The only way to effectively determine and accurately identify these correct keywords or key phrases is to use the facilities of Wordtracker.
Optimize a site for the wrong keywords, and you will end up with enquiries or questions for products or services your company may not even sell! Not only that, but you will seriously undermine the ranking characteristics of your site at the same time.
Conclusion
Writing for the Web is significantly different than writing for the print media. To be real effective, a site needs to be written for its human users: the real people that will visit your site. At the same time, consideration must also be given to the search robots that will crawl your site at regular intervals.
Search engine optimization (SEO) need not be boring, nor should it ever be systematic. Write in a compelling fashion that will truly add credibility to your site’s image. Important words such as your main features and benefits, the many reasons why a person should do business with your company, your store hours, etc. can go a long way in fully realizing the true potential of any website, large or small.
With all else being equal, generic or ‘organic’ search results pages usually carry a significantly higher value. Additionally, unless there are serious problems in the overall structure of your site’s design, they will also deliver a better conversion rate, while at the same time offer a higher ROI, provided the optimization was done correctly.
Author: Serge Thibodeau of Rank For Sales
Enhance your site with a Yahoo-style directory
Does your website have a links/resources page?
Do you exchange reciprocal with other websites to help boost your targeted traffic and search engine rankings?
Do you believe that a relevant, yet comprehensive resources page provides tangible benefits to your site’s visitors?
If you answered “yes” to one or more of these questions, then you should consider adding an inexpensive (or free!) Yahoo-style Directory to your website. A quality Directory script will add an air of professionalism to your website and provide valuable content for your users.
A quality Directory script:
* Gives your website a professional “look and feel”. You can eliminate those bloated, unattractive links pages that might brand your site as a “link farm”.
* Allows your visitors to search for sites of interest in your directory using keywords.
* Allows you to display banner ads on your Directory pages (including the search results pages). With the best scripts, the search results pages will even display different banners according to the search terms used. This allows you to sell advertising targeted to specific keywords!
* Encourages other webmasters to exchange links your website. You’ll soon have webmasters standing in line to exchange links with you.
* Automates the link exchange process to a large extent without all of the negatives that can get a website banned by the major search engines. A quality Directory script will handle everything related to adding a link to the database, yet still allow you to manually approve the link!
There are many good directory scripts available on the web. Just do a Google search for “CGI scripts”. Add a quality Directory script to your site today and you can take your web presence to an entirely new level!
Author Bio:
Rick Rouse is the owner of RLROUSE Webmaster Resources and the author of “Super Webmaster SEO Toolkit” which gives step by-step instructions for getting a top 10 listing in Google & Yahoo. Visit his web site: http://www.rlrouse.com/SEO.html
What Is RSS?
By now you have probably heard lots of talk about RSS news feeds or XML news feeds. In fact, if you look at our home page you will see that we offer a link to our own XML news feed. So you’ve probably been wondering – what the heck is an RSS news feed?
Quoting the official RSS v1.0 specification: “RDF Site Summary (RSS) is a lightweight multipurpose extensible metadata description and syndication format.” And in case you are wondering, RDF is short for “Resource Description Framework – a metadata standard.”
So what does this mean? Well, take a look at our XML feed. If you open it in your browser, it doesn’t make much sense. Unless you have a browser capable of displaying RSS you won’t see too much that is interesting. But, if you have a program which can display the feed, it does look much better.
Take a look at a flash application I found which displays XML properly. On our site, I built a sample page which displays the feed. What this handy little application does is display the feed according to the parameters I specify. I tell it how many items of the feed to display, as well as whether to display the title and description, or just the title. Depending on the application which you use to display the feed, you can control many other elements including the font size and color, whether to put boxes around the text, even what color the boxes should be.
So by now you are probably asking yourself “that’s kinda cool, but why would I want to do that?”
Well there could be many reasons. Primarily it is a way to increase traffic to your site. Since it can be difficult to spread your message, consider how much easier it is if someone else displays your feed on their site? Now you can spread your message more effectively by letting other sites display the feed for you. Many sites (like Yahoo!) offer their users the ability to display RSS feeds on their home page. On my Yahoo! home page, I have a couple RSS feeds linked, so that I can see what’s new on other sites.
There are also sites out there to which you can request that your feed be added to their database of feeds. That way you can make your feed available to millions of other web users who may be looking for information on topics on which you are an expert. One such site is called Syndic8. Here you can find thousands of feeds. Imagine getting your site listed here and having others freely display links to your site via the feed.
Also, search engines are getting into indexing feeds. Yahoo! for example has indexed the feed from searchengineposition. Now when we are found for our keywords, our XML is also listed in the results, increasing the chances of other sites using our feed as a source of information on their site. Some applications also have the ability to display XML feeds. Microsoft Office 2003 for example can import an XML feed into Excel.
And maintaining the feed is quite easy. I simply open it up in notepad and edit it whenever a new article is posted. It takes me about 30 seconds to update it, and it is instantly updated on any site displaying our feed. And since we control the output of that feed (because it resides on our site) we don’t have to worry about anyone changing it to suit their needs. Sure they can change the number of items displayed but they can’t change the wording in the feed. That’s the beauty of this format. You can control what is seen. The more compelling your articles (or whatever you are supplying via the feed), the more likely that someone will click on one of your links. Maybe you are starting to see why this could potentially be a good source of qualified traffic?
It takes a little getting used to the format of an XML feed – there are very specific rules one must follow to ensure that the feed is in the proper format – but once you get used to it the update process is very smooth. There are also free tools out to help you validate your feed to ensure it will work properly. Feedvalidator.org is one I use occasionally if our feed doesn’t display properly.
So if you have ever wondered about XML or RSS feeds or were considering employing them on your site, I hope I have provided you with some more information to help you make the decision.
Author Bio:
Rob Sullivan
Production Manager
Searchengineposition.com
Search Engine Positioning Specialists
