Dec 22, 2008

The basic SEO rule!

Search engine optimization is a relatively complex business. Many people start working on it and give up after a while, thinking that they are not suit to do it.

Really, SEO needs a lot of work and knowledge. Any SEO master must know in depth many technologies like marketing, internet marketing, search engines, web design, some programming languages, etc.

Often, people start doing SEO without any knowledge, hoping that they will get it after some practice. Of course, large number of them fail. But there are few that succeed even without knowledge, support or investment.

So what is the basic rule of success in SEO?


It is simple - just never to give up. Yep, the success is not related to any knowledge, the most important thing is the wish for success. It is easy on words but after few months of hard work people tend to give up.

It is hard to continue working when you are disappointed of your achievements.

The cure for this state of mind can be a large vacation away from work and a strict schedule after it. This works for me pretty good, maybe it will work for you. And don't forget that you may be only one step away from the big SUCCESS!

Dec 13, 2008

Blog planning – how to start a high-traffic, high-paying blog?

After reading about a SEO experiment in DP, I gave a serious thought about what is the best strategy to start a blog. What is the best planning? How to attract more visitors? How to get maximum revenue? How to make people remember you?

I am not exactly a SEO expert, it is more likely that I am a SEO enthusiast. I am not interested in making money from SEO, my money source is programming. But for the past two years I do (and experiment on) search engine optimization for some sites. It is not a complete service and only small part of them are mine. I have some sites in high competition niches and some in low ones. And I make tests on different types of blog/website monetizing.

So what I have learned till now. The basic is – you have no guarantee in anything related to search engines. Two websites with no duplicate content but identical in niche/ marketing/ optimizing will have very different performance. This is not a rule of course but it happens most of the time. And all of this is just my opinion and analysis, I don't pretend to be fully right in anything.

I’ll make a simple plan for starting a blog, according to what I have learned till now. I choose a blog, not a website because it is a little more complicated for a website.

  1. Initialization
    This is the research part. If you haven't selected a niche for your blog - now is the time to do so. You must select a niche where you can provide quality content. If you are not a pro in writing consider hiring a professional writer. Make a deep research on your target niche. Analyze your competitors, niche forums, social sites, trends, keywords, etc.
    Spending a little more time on this first part will help you to solve many problems of the future.
  2. Actions - any of this step may be not appropriate for your niche, make the final decision what to do in a clear mind


    • Make minimum 20 posts before doing anything else with your blog. Maybe this advice is not suitable only for political/ civil/ spicy blogs.
    • Make gradual link building campaign – too fast link building may put you in a sandbox
    • Make minimum 3-4 posts per week for the first 3 months
    • Active membership to some related forums and communities – minimum 3-4 quality posts per forum per week
    • Make 30 or more directory submissions per week – prefer high rank directories

  3. Goals
    Define your goals depending on the niche popularity in a monthly rate:

    • Unique visitors expectations
    • Performance
    • Revenue

    Keep in mind that in a high competition niche your blog will need more time and efforts to become popular.

    I usually start to monetize my blogs after 3 months starting period. It is better to set goals according to the niche for the expecting revenue. Don’t aim too high because one disappointment at the beginning may be critical.
    Selecting the type of revenue program is also a very complex task. I’ll live it for another post.


Dec 10, 2008

Posting - how often?

How often I need to post in my blog to get on the top of the search engines?

This is a question that many newbie (and not only) SEO experts ask all over the net. And the truth is that no one can tell you the answer of this question. The answer is different for different blogs - for some people posting four times a week is the best, for other this doesn't work at all.

Some experts says - the more often, the better. I am not exactly convinced in this logic. Of course more posts will help in getting traffic and if they are with good content they will grab the readers attention to the blog. But not all of us have enough time to write cool, long post every day.

So for me works another tactic. I think that it is better to test for periods of one to two months with different frequency. You will find the best solution for your target market without spending too much time writing and wondering on the next topic.