5 Blog SEO Tips To Start Your Week

I figure most of us dread Monday mornings…the commute, the traffic on the commute, the people…ughh. I’d be willing to bet that Monday is our least productive day next to Friday. But why not start the week with a few little steps that us bloggers can take to better our SEO and start ranking higher in the search engines? They don’t take that long to implement, and once you do, typically you won’t have to bother with it anymore (unless you change themes..but more on that later). So take notes, because here we go!5 Simple Blog SEO Tips

1. Keywords - Have you really sat down and thought about how you want people to find your blog in the search engines? So, so many bloggers start up a blog based on a central topic, and they think targeting “dog training” is enough. WRONG! First of all, the odds of doing well with a highly competitive keyword like that is slim in the beginning anyway, so you need to take a look at some good keywords with less competition. How many of you have a list of keywords saved somewhere that you want to work on? I’d bet some of you don’t. Well, how about you take today to sit down and write out 20 phrases (go for 3-5 words) that you think match your site. There are a couple benefits to this, as you’ll see on paper what your overall theme is about, and you’ve also effectively just made 20 blog post titles that you can (and should) write an article on! Once you have all of these down, head over to this free keyword tool, start inputting your keyword phrases, and see what kind of a search volume each one commands. Look, even if you chose one that gets only 20 searches a day, that’s fine! That means you have a chance at ranking high for that phrase, and also, you stand a chance of gaining an additional 20 visits to your site a day for life! (In theory, of course). Again, write a nice 300-500 word article for each keyword, make sure not to use the keyword too much in the article (use it only in relevant sentences, or it will look like spam), and post it up! You’d be surprised at how much you can benefit from this, and I will cover keyword targeted articles in the future, as there is much more to be said…but this is a start.

2. Sitemap - Although a nice sitemap doesn’t have a direct effect on your rankings, it has a major indirect effect, as it helps the major search engines crawl your site more efficiently and makes them aware of all your content in one nice little file. I’m surprised at the amount of bloggers that don’t have a sitemap, as bloggers tend to have large amounts of pages indexed. Why not make it easier for the search engines to find you? Here is a nice sitemap generator plugin that you can upload, activate, and configure in seconds. It will generate a very well organized xml-sitemap that you can submit to Google webmaster tools (if you haven’t already). Take the time to do this if you haven’t already, it’s very easy, and can help you out tremendously for the long run.

3. Anchor Text - Search engines place a high value on proper anchor text when counting a backlink to your site. If your site is about “car sales”, you want people linking back to you with proper anchor texts with a relevant keyword like “car sales”, or “auto sales”. What I mean is, don’t ever, EVER use “click here” when linking to someones page. I dare say that if you do that, you may as well not link to them at all, because it’s not helping much. So get in a good habit of using relevant and related anchor text when linking out, because not only does it help them, it also helps you! Search engines will find your link much more interesting if it’s properly anchored. If you see that someone used “click here” to link to you (or something equally lame), don’t feel bad in sending them a quick email asking them to change it to a better keyword. It’s beneficial for both parties, and the other webmaster usually won’t mind at all.

4. Clean House - If you’re serious about ranking well for your keywords, pay attention. Google and friends rank your page based upon many factors, some we know, and some we don’t. What we do know is that one factor is the way your code looks on the back end. Search engines do not like dirty, cluttered code, and it can honestly hurt your rankings by having a mess of unorganized code behind that beautiful blog of yours. I know, most people don’t have a clue how to clean up code (me being one of them), but there are many, many people on popular webmaster forums that would happily clean it up and optimize it for you for a small fee. Hire a trusted forum member who happens to be a code monkey to take a look and see what he/she can do for you. This may cost anywhere from $10-$50, so be sure to negotiate the price, and get it over with. Again, if you don’t plan on changing themes any time soon, you won’t have to do this again for a while, and it can reap great rewards as far as your rankings are concerned.

5. ALT Tags - Did you know that whenever you post an image to your blog, that you are given an option to name it, in case the image fails to load? That way, if someone loads your blog, and an image is broken, they can still see what the image was (assuming you named it correctly). It’s called an ALT tag, and it looks something like this:

<img src=”boat.gif” alt=”Big Boat” >

A lot of folks don’t take the time to take advantage of the alt tag text, or they name it something irrelevant. But wait! Did you know that there are SEO experts that have confirmed a slight boost in rankings by naming your ALT text with the relevant keyword? Pretty cool, eh? Now, they’re not saying that it’s going to get you to number one if you use good ALT tags, but it just may give you an edge over your direct competitors. Mainly, the ALT tag is great for image SEO, so make sure you name it what it really is. The above is a good example of how you would name a picture of a big boat. That way when people search for “big boat” in a search engine’s image search, you have a chance at showing up. So start taking advantage of the ALT tag, and when you get the time, you should go back to each and every image in your site and ALT tag them appropriately. You can thank me later.

Just How Useless Is The Meta Keywords Tag?

Depending on who you ask, you’ll probably receive several reasons why the Meta keywords tag is of almost no value to your website (with a few minor exceptions). However, as much as the experts bash the lack of importance of the meta keywords tag - you’ll often hear them say something along the lines of, “But just in case, we put it in a clients site anyway”.That’s huge, because even though the general school of thought across the SEO industry is that Meta keywords simply don’t matter anymore (besides the occasional remote search engine), there are reasons that you should consider including it in your website. I think Russ Jones summed it up best when he said:

“…but two pages with gibberish for content, one with a real keyword in a meta keywords tag, the other without… The one with the keyword will rank above. Which weigh’s more, an anvil, or an anvil with a feather?”

I love that comparison, and it’s exactly the reason why I still recommend to clients/friends that they go ahead and slap a Meta keywords tag in there just in case it comes down to a neck and neck situation in the rankings and you’re looking for every possible advantage you can use (even if it’s exceptionally insignificant).

Another interesting view on the use of keywords in the Meta keywords tag is something that Elisabeth Osmeloski mentioned during a “survey of the experts” at SEOMoz:

“I do believe it is spot-checked for matching up with a page’s content or other SEO elements”

I think that’s a very interesting observation, and who knows, it just may have some truth to it!

Including Meta keywords in the Meta keywords tag was often a way (back in the late 90’s) to influence your ranking for pretty much anything you wanted. Webmasters realized that if they stuff in things like Buy Viagra, Cheap Viagra, and similar spammy words - that it would help rank their spam pages. Of course, I don’t believe this lasted very long, as the search engines wised up to it pretty swiftly for the most part.

That’s why the weighting isn’t worth much (if anything), because it’s just too easy to manipulate. Again, I think the main reasons most webmasters still include it, is because in the construction of a well organized site, it’s kind of “expected” to be there. Like I said before, why not include it? It’s just another way to ‘possibly’ help you out, and it certainly doesn’t hurt anything. Just make sure that you use actual relavent keywords, and not spamwords - because then you may risk getting flagged.

Bottom line - Use the Meta keywords tag properly. It’s considered good practice, and definitely can’t harm you.

Link Building

A great post I came across last week was Neyne’s post about unconventional link attributes. He discusses the temporal element of link value and illustrates this with the results of an experiment he performed. Although it’s (like Neyne states as well) not a sterile experimenting environment, the graphs are pretty interesting to see.

Another great post is Derek Edmond’s recap of Eric Enge’s link session at the SEO meetup in Arlington last week.This post offers a few great tips that you can use to improve your link profile, such as 6 tips to personalize your link request.

And also:

• David F. listed .
• Eric Ward asks himself (and others) if linking experts should go underground.
• Tim Nash dives into link bombing and Google bombing.
• Chris G provides some excellent tips on how to get more bookmarks and better links.
• Have you ever wondered how you can measure the result of a linkbaiting campaign? Use these 5 metrics provided by Chris Winfield.
• David Wallace explains how you can check if a directory listing will have any value.
• Li Evans asks if Google can FINALLY come up with something official about nofollow.
• Building links for a B2B site? Justilien has some great tips.
• Michael Martinez talks about linking theory axioms.
• Aaron Wall shows how you can determine the effectiveness of your internal link structure.
• And the last one is Eric Enge’s interview with Adam Lasnik (which is mainly about links).

Two New Projects!

We have been hard at work on a few new project blogs… I thought I would share them here with you all!

The Fallen Ones Film Blog is a new film news and review site. Our panel of expert reviewers will post weekly reviews of the films as we get them. Please take a trip over to the site and let us know what you think.

Our second new project…. Great American Music Blog is a great friendly site for all things music… from the musician, to the promoters for concerts, and for the fans. News, reviews, and tidbits can all be found here.

Frustrated by search?

Irritated with irrelevant results?

There maybe a better albeit still imperfect way. Metasearch.

Metasearch engines combines the results from multiple search engines in order to give searchers a better look at result sets.

Searching for a term on any of the big three search engines (Google, Yahoo, MSN) will yield results that are different. There may or may not be some overlap. A metasearch engine aggregates the results from all three (and sometimes others) and attempts to provide a better list of relevant results. The goal of any search engine is to provide answers to a searcher’s questions. The metasearch engine has the advantage of pulling those “answers” from multiple sources. In the process of combining results, the better metasearch engines will eliminate duplicates. The best ones will allow users to view the results in comparison mode. A column is displayed for the results from the metasearch engine, then a column from Google, Yahoo, MSN, etc. By giving searchers not only their own aggregated results, but also the comparison results, meta engines provide a far greater ability to find answers to questions.

Metasearch engines should be called a Searcher’s Search Engine because they are geared towards helping the searcher. There is another kind of search engine called the Marketer’s Search Engine which I discuss in a separate article. These kind of search engines, while still helpful to searchers, are more heavily helpful to marketers.

Remember, the goal is to find answers to questions. Having the ability to see all the relevant data, instead of one slice of the data, will help users find the answer(s) much more quickly.

There are two metasearch engines that I would recommend.

Dogpile is probably the most well known of the metasearch engines. Myriad Search is little known tool used mainly by a small niche of people. However, both are helpful in seeing aggregated and comparison results.

Reasons to use metasearch:

*find answers to questions from a broader base of results
*find better results
*make searching easier
*understand the big three search engines
*compare the big three search engines
*use big three analysis to improve SEO

Saul Flower writes and maintains Recommended Web Tools, an online resource for web development beginners.

Tags: search, search+engines, google+search, web+tools, metasearch

Start Driving Qualified Traffic Using Online Directories

Start Driving Qualified Traffic Using Online Directories

Directories are web sites that categorize links into specific groups. Directories are designed to provide visitors with easy access to the best web sites in a specific category.

Directories can be a very useful resource for shoppers and companies. They can drive targeted traffic to your web site, increase your link popularity and raise your Page Rank. This can translate into better sales. Learn the what you need to know before you submit to a directory.

There are three different types of directories that one should submit their web site to. Each type is listed below, along with examples of directories that I recommend.

Free Directories Requiring No Reciprocal Link

These are the easiest directories to submit a link. They require no payment or link back. All you have to do is fill out the form and submit your information. These directories are great because they take very little time and cost nothing. However, they are also the most risky because they can easily turn into link farms. Make sure the site has a high Page Rank and looks like it has restrictions on what types of sites it accepts.

Free Directories Requiring Reciprocal Link

These types of directories are very controversial. Only brand new websites should consider these directories because they are a good way to raise your link popularity up from zero. They are not very useful for established sites though because better link partners can be found. If you own a brand new site and plan on submitting to these directories, it is recommended that you create a “partners” page to keep your links manageable and off of your index page. There is a fine line between reciprocal directories and link farms, so be sure you do not cross that line. As always, be sure the directory is reliable and has a good Page Rank before submitting.

Paid Directories

Most people cringe when they think of paying for marketing and promotion. However, a site is worthless if it has no visitors. Paid directories are a great way to build your link popularity on very respectable sites. Some of these directories also have a reciprocal link option. Although these directories do cost money for inclusion, they normally pay off the best in the long run.

Getting listed in directories is almost as important as a good search engine ranking. This is because these directories are moderated by real live human beings who look at the content of websites that are submitted and place them in the relevant categories.

Also search engines usually spider directory listings, so this is a good way of getting your site indexed on the search engines. This helps to reduce the amount of spam found on the normal search engines.You should try and get your site listed at such places like Yahoo.com, ClearChoiceDirectory.com or some other active directory.

Some education is essential to enlighten you about this form of interactive marketing. Directories aren’t Search Engines; they are web sites or information portals which use analysts on staff to review submissions from companies who want to be listed in their Directory.

Here are some tips

1. Directory listings are a great value, do your homework and find one you like, they provide a long-term listing, unlike Search Engine rankings which are much more volatile.

2. Be patient when submitting to Directories, as most are getting thousands of submissions per monthly - some list you immediately while others will take 30-90 days to actually get listed. Keep an accurate record of sites you have listed on.

3. Never submit a site unless it is ready for primetime, with no broken links, under construction pages, incomplete text, graphics that aren’t loading properly, etc. Indexers are very busy, once they see a site which has problems they will click to the next entry on their list and your hard work is to no avail.

4. Be prepared with the proper marketing materials for this type of a campaign, including a working title for your site which is 6-8 words.

5. Part of the required expertise involved in this process is in the actual category selection - carefully select which category or categories where you think your site fits by looking at others in this category to determine if you fit into this classification.

6. Be aware we are seeing a shift to fee-based submissions to shortcut the process - Yahoo started the trend over a year ago, now LookSmart and other top tier Directories are starting to do the same as well as ClearChoiceDirectory.com which is a popular search engine, shopping portal and Business Blog all in one. The tradeoff is of course minimizing time to market.

7. Want to know if this process has actually done anything for you? Check your log files or web site analysis software and look at where your traffic is coming from.

8. If you are getting significant traffic from a small list of Directories you may want to go back to their web site and pay for their premium listing services to drive more traffic. These enhanced listings services typically enable you to post to a featured listing or add your company logo which enhances your position on the directory, usually only for a few hundred dollars per year.

Recommended Directories-

Yahoo.com ($299 per year)

ClearChoiceDirectory.com ($245 per year with included logo)

Thoughts on Google PageRank

There has been quite some debate in certain circles of the blogosphere with respect to what has been happening with Google’s PageRank (PR). Some websites have experienced a significant drop in PR, some claim that bloggers who make earnings through paid postings have been penalised, some even think that Google, as a monopolist, is censoring a segment of the Internet. One cannot deny that the PR values for a number of websites have changed, but people must also realise what PageRank really is.

For those unfamiliar with the term, PageRank is the heart of a trademarked algorithm that Google uses to power it’s search engine. It’s a link analysis algorithm that is based around gauging the “importance” of a web page by how many other web pages link to it. Not only does it take into account how many pages link to the page in question, but also, their own rank and the number and relevance of pages that link to them. A few years ago, Google made the decision to expose this Page Rank figure to webmasters and users around the web, probably to help them optimise their sites and understand their placing in their index. And this is what is the cause of the problem today.

See, a whole industry has been spawned around PR. If you search for the term in Google, you will find hundreds of websites and companies claiming to be Search Engine Optimisation experts who can help you increase your Page Rank. Not only this, but in the absence of any decent metrics for site comparison, Page Rank has become the cornerstone of all “paid blogging” efforts and people selling space on their website.

And this is a problem. In a pure sense, the PR of a website is no indication of the quality of a website. PR can be manipulated, PR can be bought and sold and website owners, particularly bloggers run the danger of forgetting that what really draws people to the website is the quality of the content there. PR is no measure of “value” that a website brings to the Internet, it’s simply Google’s internal metric which it uses to tailor it’s search results.

I especially find it interesting that people claim that Google is “censoring” the Internet, that it is being “anti-competitive” and that it’s ruining their websites. Page Rank is a comparative index and most of all, the index actually belongs to Google. Your PR may have changed, but does it mean you can no longer find your site when you search for it in Google? Has it actually changed the number of page hits your site gets? Does it make your content less relevant?

My advice to everyone out there is this: Stop worrying about your PR and focus on producing some real, genuine, valuable content. This is what brings people to your website and gets them to come back again. If Google decided to set everybody’s PR to 0, or to stop publishing it altogether (it’s certainly their prerogative to do this), what would this really mean to you, your business and the people who visit your website? Focus on your content, whatever Google does to Page Rank, the market will adjust.

Tags: pagerank, PR, page+rank, links, text+links, google+ranks