Twitter is a popular social network and micro blogging platform with great importance on online marketing practices. It enables its users to send and read short messages of up to 140 characters. Twitter users can and receive tweets via web, SMS, and custom applications.
Twitter can help your business in several ways. It can be used for building brand awareness, providing news and update information, even online support. It can also be used for surveying people opinion, getting real time news and reactions, keeping track on latest trends.
Twitter as a promotion tool
Building brand recognition will add an important value to your business relationships. You can use Twitter to provide information, news and updates to your clients. You can give some inner information, ask your employs to have twitter accounts and share some thoughts, and add some spicy content. Giving some preliminary information to your Twitter followers can start a buzz.
Twitter as a research tool
You can use twitter to participate in conversations in your niche. You can ask people for opinion on products, feedback for services and even advices. This can help you to build better relations with your clients. Searching for terms or just following the daily trends can keep you up to date with latest news and reactions.
Twitter as tool for getting traffic
Providing a link at the end of your news tweets can lead many visitors to your website. You can offer an option for your visitors to share or re-tweet the articles they like. One good article or information can be re-tweeted more than thousand times and reach enormous number of people.
Micro blogging can be a great tool for growing an online business. Using services like Twitter can help your business to get known and valued.
Dec 23, 2009
Dec 15, 2009
What do you need to know about links?
Q: What I need to know about hyperlinks?
A: A link is a reference to a document that the reader can directly follow. A hyperlink is marked with an anchor element, here is its most usual syntax:
In the above example we have an element anchor - "a" with "href" or hypertext reference to our document – in our case – this blog. The text in the link tells the viewer or the search engine what document the anchor links. It is an optional text and can contain anything.
An anchor element can have several attributes:
A link with all this stuff will look like this:
nofollow
Nofollow is an attribute used to instruct the search engines that the hyperlink must not pass any value to the linked document. This hyperlink must not affect target's ranking. It is used mostly for blog comments or bookmark websites, where the site owner has no way to track all linked resources. Example of nofollow usage:
To check if a website links properly to you, you must see the source. Your hyperlink must have a href attribute with your site in it and without a nofollow attribute.
A: A link is a reference to a document that the reader can directly follow. A hyperlink is marked with an anchor element, here is its most usual syntax:
<a href="http://bestseostrategy.blogspot.com/">SEO blog</a>
In the above example we have an element anchor - "a" with "href" or hypertext reference to our document – in our case – this blog. The text in the link tells the viewer or the search engine what document the anchor links. It is an optional text and can contain anything.
An anchor element can have several attributes:
- href– points to link destination.
- title – link title.
- id – the element id.
- target – this attribute is used mostly for creation of new browser window so the visitor won’t leave the current page. This is achieved through target=”_blank” or target=”_new”. It can be used also for opening documents into another frame.
- class - this is not interesting from a SEO point of view. The class attributes says what CSS class to be applied on the corresponding link element.
A link with all this stuff will look like this:
<a href="http://bestseostrategy.blogspot.com/" title="SEO strategy blog" target="_blank" class="CSSClass">SEO blog</a>You can use images in the link or combine different html elements – for example:
<a href="http://bestseostrategy.blogspot.com/"><img alt="SEO Strategy blog" src="our_banner.jpg"></a>A link can have an empty href, or use "#" in the place of href location (href="#"). Most of the time, these links are used through JavaScript and can’t be crawled by the search engines.
nofollow
Nofollow is an attribute used to instruct the search engines that the hyperlink must not pass any value to the linked document. This hyperlink must not affect target's ranking. It is used mostly for blog comments or bookmark websites, where the site owner has no way to track all linked resources. Example of nofollow usage:
<a href="http://bestseostrategy.blogspot.com/" rel="nofollow">SEO blog</a>Q: How to check if a link is correct?
To check if a website links properly to you, you must see the source. Your hyperlink must have a href attribute with your site in it and without a nofollow attribute.
Dec 9, 2009
Link building is not that easy anymore
You Should Have Seen it. The link building process becomes increasingly difficult. Most of the good, old strategies don’t work any more. You see your traffic going down and wonder what’s happening? Maybe all your SEO efforts are in vain?
Social bookmarking, is it still working?
Social bookmarking sites and web directories are main tools in link building campaigns. But lately, most of them add almost no value to my SEO campaigns. Yes, if you manage to land your article on the first page of the big guys like Digg, you will get a lot of visitors.
For a day or two. But that’s all folks.
Most of these sites use some sort of third party advertising to generate revenue. And most of these advertiser networks have strict rules against links to dangerous websites. The social bookmarking sites can’t afford to check every link because they receive thousands per day. Solution for them was to add nofollow to some or even all outgoing links. Some of them get even further with cloaking links. Now webmasters submit their links, visit the SB websites, link to them but in return, they get nothing. You can submit your article link to hundreds social bookmarking sites and get no visitors and no links at all.
Blog commenting?
With mass usage of nofollow, you’ll only lose your time.
Forum posting?
The same thing. Some forums don’t add nofollow, only until they get enough visitors.
Creating blogs or random pages on the net won’t help you, because they are pages with no value. You must work on any of them to become popular – does it worth its time?
What will be the next, successful SEO strategy?
I don't know. Do you?
Social bookmarking, is it still working?
Social bookmarking sites and web directories are main tools in link building campaigns. But lately, most of them add almost no value to my SEO campaigns. Yes, if you manage to land your article on the first page of the big guys like Digg, you will get a lot of visitors.
For a day or two. But that’s all folks.
Most of these sites use some sort of third party advertising to generate revenue. And most of these advertiser networks have strict rules against links to dangerous websites. The social bookmarking sites can’t afford to check every link because they receive thousands per day. Solution for them was to add nofollow to some or even all outgoing links. Some of them get even further with cloaking links. Now webmasters submit their links, visit the SB websites, link to them but in return, they get nothing. You can submit your article link to hundreds social bookmarking sites and get no visitors and no links at all.
Blog commenting?
With mass usage of nofollow, you’ll only lose your time.
Forum posting?
The same thing. Some forums don’t add nofollow, only until they get enough visitors.
Creating blogs or random pages on the net won’t help you, because they are pages with no value. You must work on any of them to become popular – does it worth its time?
What will be the next, successful SEO strategy?
I don't know. Do you?
Dec 6, 2009
Best free ways to promote a blog?
There are many different ways to promote a blog and drive traffic. Here is a list of things I do for promotion. I hope it will help you.
Social media optimization works best for my blogs. Use sites like Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, Digg to promote your content. Create a community, join similar communities in your niche, participate in events and you will get people attention. Groups and communities in your niche work best. Also social media sites in you niche may bring you more visitors than big, global SM sites. For example, for one of my coding blogs I get tons of traffic from DZone – social bookmarking site for developers.
Offer social bookmarking buttons to encourage your readers to share what they like. Tweet and retweet buttons also can bring you many new fans.
Link building.
Link building is an essential part of a SEO campaign. Don’t skip it. Join the majority of blog directories and especially the ones in your niche. Share some personal information and write something interesting as a description of you blogs.
Press Release Sites – write a press release and send it to some of the biggest press release sites. If you have a specific niche like gaming – send your press release to the biggest news sites in your niche.
Register to search engines. It may sounds trivial but this may help you a little.
Run contest or offer something for free. You can offer an e-book, website template, or blog theme. Freebies tend to bring a lot of new visitors.
Forum posting and blog commenting.
Prefer forums and blogs in your niche. It would be better if they don’t add nofollow to your link.
Social media optimization works best for my blogs. Use sites like Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, Digg to promote your content. Create a community, join similar communities in your niche, participate in events and you will get people attention. Groups and communities in your niche work best. Also social media sites in you niche may bring you more visitors than big, global SM sites. For example, for one of my coding blogs I get tons of traffic from DZone – social bookmarking site for developers.
Offer social bookmarking buttons to encourage your readers to share what they like. Tweet and retweet buttons also can bring you many new fans.
Link building.
Link building is an essential part of a SEO campaign. Don’t skip it. Join the majority of blog directories and especially the ones in your niche. Share some personal information and write something interesting as a description of you blogs.
Press Release Sites – write a press release and send it to some of the biggest press release sites. If you have a specific niche like gaming – send your press release to the biggest news sites in your niche.
Register to search engines. It may sounds trivial but this may help you a little.
Run contest or offer something for free. You can offer an e-book, website template, or blog theme. Freebies tend to bring a lot of new visitors.
Forum posting and blog commenting.
Prefer forums and blogs in your niche. It would be better if they don’t add nofollow to your link.
List of useful social bookmarking sites - updated
Social Bookmarking websites are easy way to get many visitors and quality links. Here is a useful list with social bookmarking websites.
This list will be continuously updated.
- digg.com
- buddymarks.com
- spurl.net
- linkagogo.com
- a1-webmarks.com
- diggyourpost.info
- savethislink.net
- newsmarked.info
- ebaumsworld.com
- seedz.org
- tungaw.com
- bookmarkglobe.com
- iorkut.net
- starton.us
- bookmarkplace.com
- gyach.com
- cmymark.com
- tedigo.net
- websapiens.net
- justpoint.org
- totalpad.com
- mysitevote.com
- maple.nu
- dzone.com
- blurpalicious.com
- socialogs.com
- spotback.com
- svejo.net
- hitmarks.com
This list will be continuously updated.
Dec 5, 2009
How to get indexed faster - for blogspot blogs
Google indexing is often crucial for any website or blog out there. Sometimes your content gets indexed fast and sometimes it takes a week or even more to appear in the result pages.
There are some things you can do to make Google index your articles faster.
There are some things you can do to make Google index your articles faster.
- Publish your full RSS – these days Google prefers to index blogger blogs RSS feeds rather than the full pages. The crawler may visit your blog once in a while but if you publish your RSS, Google will index your new content in a matter of minutes. You can try and publish only short snippets but then your full post will be indexed rarely.
- Get links from big and hourly updated websites in your niche. Your links must be regular, not marked as nofollow. High quality links will make the search engine pay more attention to your content.
- Update often. Google likes the fresh content and will index your pages faster if you update them often enough. Even now you can see traffic bursts after posting new articles. Make schedule and post daily.
- Quality content. I may repeat myself but quality content will bring you success. Satisfied visitors will link back at you and will share your link with friends. Your backlinks count and popularity will increase.
Dec 4, 2009
List of top webmaster, seo and blogging forums - updated
- forums.digitalpoint.com – Digital Point, very popular forum with good and helpful community.
- sitepoint.com – SitePoint – another very popular forum.
- webmasterworld.com – WebmasterWorld News and Discussion for Web Professional
- warriorforum.com – Warrior Forum, internet marketing forum.
- forums.searchenginewatch.com – SEO oriented forum.
- forums.devshed.com – Web development forum.
- www.dnforum.com – Domain forum.
- forums.blogflux.com – Blogging forum.
- webdeveloper.com – Web development forum
- ozzu.com – Webmaster forum.
- kirupa.com – Web development forum.
- v7n.com – Webmaster forum.
- webmaster-talk.com – Another webmaster forum.
- www.webworkshop.net – SEO forum.
- www.bloggerforum.com – Blogging.
- geekvillage.com – SEO forum.
- googlecommunity.com – And another SEO forum.
- webtalkforums.com – Webmaster forums.
- forum.authorityblogger.com – Blogging forum.
- seo-guy.com – SEO forum
This list will be continuously updated.
Dec 3, 2009
Dec 2, 2009
How to make your blog a money-maker?
Your first task is getting enough traffic. But traffic is almost never enough. So getting traffic. You can achieve this with various SEO techniques like link building, forum posting, on-site optimization. Traffic can be obtained through social media networks like digg, twitter, facebook.
Let’s assume you’ve finished the first part and now you have a decent blog with many visitors. Now you need to monetize your traffic.
First and one of the most widely used – PPC and CPM advertising networks. The profit of PPC advertising depends on many things but mainly your income will be according to your traffic, CTR and CPC. CTR stands for click-trough rate and it depends on the ads position and visibility. CPC means cost per click and depend on your niche. There are niches with high CPC like finance, mortgages, SEO. CPM advertising networks are relatively similar to PPC ones, but your income will depend on page impressions. Gaming and lifestyle niches tend to perform well.
You can make money through affiliate marketing. Many companies offer affiliate programs for people to sell their products. You can even join an affiliate network like ClickBank or Commission Junction.
Other way to make money from your blog is selling ebooks or other digital products. There is a big market for WordPress and Blogger templates.
Let’s assume you’ve finished the first part and now you have a decent blog with many visitors. Now you need to monetize your traffic.
First and one of the most widely used – PPC and CPM advertising networks. The profit of PPC advertising depends on many things but mainly your income will be according to your traffic, CTR and CPC. CTR stands for click-trough rate and it depends on the ads position and visibility. CPC means cost per click and depend on your niche. There are niches with high CPC like finance, mortgages, SEO. CPM advertising networks are relatively similar to PPC ones, but your income will depend on page impressions. Gaming and lifestyle niches tend to perform well.
You can make money through affiliate marketing. Many companies offer affiliate programs for people to sell their products. You can even join an affiliate network like ClickBank or Commission Junction.
Other way to make money from your blog is selling ebooks or other digital products. There is a big market for WordPress and Blogger templates.
Nov 26, 2009
Chrome OS or what is all the fuss about?
Few days ago Google led live webcast of the update on Google Chrome OS.
First what is Chrome OS?
Google Chrome OS is a lightweight operating system, under development, intended to be fast, secure and web oriented. It targets mainly netbooks and even a new term was created – chromebook.
You can learn more from the Official Google Blog here and this Google video:
And Google Chrome OS Demo:
Security principals
chromebook is a term I found on Matt Cutts blog here. It sounds kinda cool.
First what is Chrome OS?
Google Chrome OS is a lightweight operating system, under development, intended to be fast, secure and web oriented. It targets mainly netbooks and even a new term was created – chromebook.
You can learn more from the Official Google Blog here and this Google video:
And Google Chrome OS Demo:
Security principals
chromebook is a term I found on Matt Cutts blog here. It sounds kinda cool.
Content
Articles Content
SEO and marketing basics, first steps
SEO basics - start here if you are newbie
What are SMO and SMM?
SEO and Ethics
Nofollow
Backlinks
Good on-site optimization
Basic SEO resources
How to get indexed fast
Use keywords in titles
SEO campaign
SEO with blog
SEO for a country
Getting traffic from your images
SEO career
How to learn SEO - top three ways
After publishing new article
How often to post?
Blog planning - how to strart a popular blog?
The basic SEO rule
SEO errors during website development
Canonical link element
Landing page
Blog comments
What to do when somebody steals your content
Blogging tips
Viral Marketing Intro
Sitemaps basics
Press Release Intro
Blogging
Twitter
How to successfully market on Twitter?
Getting traffic and quick lists
How to get traffic through forum posting
42 tips to get more traffic
10 easy ways to improve your traffic
15 easy and free ideas to get more traffic
Link building
Link building strategy
Abstract view on link building process
Link building - good vs bad web directories
Link building - the right way
Link Building - how different link types can affect ranking
Make money online
Worst blog niches for making money with PPC
Make money blogging
How easy making money online is?
Lists and resources
Top social bookmarking list
Top SEO forums list
Free directories list
Tools
Google Friend Connect
JavaScript
JavaScript and SEO
Fun
Meet our team
For SEO clients
How to choose the right SEO expert
SEO and marketing basics, first steps
SEO basics - start here if you are newbie
What are SMO and SMM?
SEO and Ethics
Nofollow
Backlinks
Good on-site optimization
Basic SEO resources
How to get indexed fast
Use keywords in titles
SEO campaign
SEO with blog
SEO for a country
Getting traffic from your images
SEO career
How to learn SEO - top three ways
After publishing new article
How often to post?
Blog planning - how to strart a popular blog?
The basic SEO rule
SEO errors during website development
Canonical link element
Landing page
Blog comments
What to do when somebody steals your content
Blogging tips
Viral Marketing Intro
Sitemaps basics
Press Release Intro
Blogging
How to successfully market on Twitter?
Getting traffic and quick lists
How to get traffic through forum posting
42 tips to get more traffic
10 easy ways to improve your traffic
15 easy and free ideas to get more traffic
Link building
Link building strategy
Abstract view on link building process
Link building - good vs bad web directories
Link building - the right way
Link Building - how different link types can affect ranking
Make money online
Worst blog niches for making money with PPC
Make money blogging
How easy making money online is?
Lists and resources
Top social bookmarking list
Top SEO forums list
Free directories list
Tools
Google Friend Connect
JavaScript
JavaScript and SEO
Fun
Meet our team
For SEO clients
How to choose the right SEO expert
Nov 19, 2009
Blogger tricks - limiting the posts shown per tag page
Blogger is quite useful and configurable blogging platform but most of the users simply don’t pay enough attention to it. Users have the freedom to change a lot of stuff on their blogs.
I’ll share some tips I find useful here and in some future posts.
How to limit the post count shown at a tag page
The tags are useful in order to maintain your content but the tag pages are too big – the default 20 posts may take too long to load even if your blog don’t have many images or videos. If you have a gaming blog with screenshots – the loading process may look insane.
How to solve this issue?
The solution is simple but first – back up your template.
If you don’t know how to back up it, here is the path:
Go to your blog’s layout page and select the Edit HTML tab. You will see a link – Download Full Template. Click it and save the file on your local disk. Voila, you have your template saved if you mess something later.
If you fail later, use the Upload template form to restore your template from you local hard drive.
Limiting the posts on a label page
What we need to achieve?
Ok, let’s look at a tag page. For example:
http://bestseostrategy.blogspot.com/search/label/blogging
We need to set the variable max-results to something appropriate – let’s say 5. So we must add ?max-results=5 to our url.
http://bestseostrategy.blogspot.com/search/label/blogging?max-results=5
One way is to hardcore the tag urls but this requires too much efforts. The other way is to change the blog template.
Again go to the Layout – Edit HTML tab. Check the Expand Widget Templates checkbox. Now, you can see the full source code of your template.
Find the text
expr:href='data:label.url'
and change it to
expr:href='data:label.url+ "?max-results=5"'
You may find it multiple times, depending on your template. Fix it everywhere. Save the template and try your tags. They must work fine, now.
If you meet some problems in the process, revert back to your original template and try again. I wish this tip will help.
I’ll share some tips I find useful here and in some future posts.
How to limit the post count shown at a tag page
The tags are useful in order to maintain your content but the tag pages are too big – the default 20 posts may take too long to load even if your blog don’t have many images or videos. If you have a gaming blog with screenshots – the loading process may look insane.
How to solve this issue?
The solution is simple but first – back up your template.
If you don’t know how to back up it, here is the path:
Go to your blog’s layout page and select the Edit HTML tab. You will see a link – Download Full Template. Click it and save the file on your local disk. Voila, you have your template saved if you mess something later.
If you fail later, use the Upload template form to restore your template from you local hard drive.
Limiting the posts on a label page
What we need to achieve?
Ok, let’s look at a tag page. For example:
http://bestseostrategy.blogspot.com/search/label/blogging
We need to set the variable max-results to something appropriate – let’s say 5. So we must add ?max-results=5 to our url.
http://bestseostrategy.blogspot.com/search/label/blogging?max-results=5
One way is to hardcore the tag urls but this requires too much efforts. The other way is to change the blog template.
Again go to the Layout – Edit HTML tab. Check the Expand Widget Templates checkbox. Now, you can see the full source code of your template.
Find the text
expr:href='data:label.url'
and change it to
expr:href='data:label.url+ "?max-results=5"'
You may find it multiple times, depending on your template. Fix it everywhere. Save the template and try your tags. They must work fine, now.
If you meet some problems in the process, revert back to your original template and try again. I wish this tip will help.
Blogging, technically
Blogging may look very easy but creating a high-quality, money making blog requires a lot of efforts. Just posting content won’t make you rick. Your blog will need a lot of maintenance and technical work.
In order to grow a money-making blog, there are several things you need to know. Here I’ll generalize the basics.
Blogging is a serious occupation and money-making through blogging is a serious business. If you want a success there you need to approach every part carefully and plan your strategy in advance.
In order to grow a money-making blog, there are several things you need to know. Here I’ll generalize the basics.
- Select a blogging platform
Part of the planning process is the selecting of a blogging platform. Here you must answer to several questions. The first and most important of them all is – do you have an initial capital? If the answer is no or you have a limited budget I’ll recommend a free blogging platform. There are several large scale and professional blogging software available for free. The same question is in force for the blog hosting. If you want to spend some money you better go for a free blog hosting.
- Know your platform
The next part of a planning process is getting to know your blogging platform. Start with reading the available documentation, license, user agreement. You better know what to expect because changing the platform or even the service later will be painful.
Some experimenting with your future blog will help you solve some future problems in advance.
- Help and Support
Find if your selected platform or service have some support. Search for user feedbacks and opinions. Be sure you can relay on a professional help when needed. Check the community forums and read the newbie and tutorial section there.
Blogging is a serious occupation and money-making through blogging is a serious business. If you want a success there you need to approach every part carefully and plan your strategy in advance.
Nov 17, 2009
Link building – how different link types can affect ranking
SEO optimization of a website consists of two main parts – on-site optimization and off-site optimization. On-site optimization is the process of improving your content and your site accessibility. Off site optimization is the process of link building, marketing and so on. They may seem not related but it is not exactly true.
Quality content can bring you a lot of good and high quality links. People will link naturally to your website and your inner pages. Off site optimization is the way to speed up this process. Doing SEO on a meaningless content is a waste of time.
How important are the quality links?
The links from a high traffic and trusted sites can bring you more value than a high number of low quality links. Links from authoritative sites in your niche are the best. The thought behind is that if a trusted site links to you, you must be a trusted site, too.
How important is the quantity of the links?
People tend to overestimate the value of the links but links from a website not related to your niche or with no search engine value won’t help you to rank well. They can even harm your ranking for a while. Even building them too fast can be suspicious and some of the search engines can mark you as a spammy content.
Relevant links
Links relevant to your site topics are better than ones that are not even if they are not high ranked. Unrelated sites won’t bring you targeted visitors or search engine ranking. There is no point of building them.
Link position
Links from the main page of a website have more value than links from the ‘Links’ or ‘Friends’ page. The number of links is also important for the value it ads to your site. If your link is at a position 100 in a list of links it won’t bring you much attention.
Reciprocal links
Many search engine optimization experts think that the reciprocal links are ranked slightly lower than normal, one-way links but I haven’t seen a confirmation of this statement. Most of the sites with two-way linking strategies have a lot of outgoing and ingoing links and my personal opinion is that harms their ranking more than the two-way links.
Outgoing links
Outgoing links can help you rank better or can hurt your ranking badly. If you link to related, trusted websites in the niche of your articles you will gain only profit. In other hand if you link to a low quality websites – your ranking will go down. Also big number of outgoing links can rate down your website.
Quality content can bring you a lot of good and high quality links. People will link naturally to your website and your inner pages. Off site optimization is the way to speed up this process. Doing SEO on a meaningless content is a waste of time.
How important are the quality links?
The links from a high traffic and trusted sites can bring you more value than a high number of low quality links. Links from authoritative sites in your niche are the best. The thought behind is that if a trusted site links to you, you must be a trusted site, too.
How important is the quantity of the links?
People tend to overestimate the value of the links but links from a website not related to your niche or with no search engine value won’t help you to rank well. They can even harm your ranking for a while. Even building them too fast can be suspicious and some of the search engines can mark you as a spammy content.
Relevant links
Links relevant to your site topics are better than ones that are not even if they are not high ranked. Unrelated sites won’t bring you targeted visitors or search engine ranking. There is no point of building them.
Link position
Links from the main page of a website have more value than links from the ‘Links’ or ‘Friends’ page. The number of links is also important for the value it ads to your site. If your link is at a position 100 in a list of links it won’t bring you much attention.
Reciprocal links
Many search engine optimization experts think that the reciprocal links are ranked slightly lower than normal, one-way links but I haven’t seen a confirmation of this statement. Most of the sites with two-way linking strategies have a lot of outgoing and ingoing links and my personal opinion is that harms their ranking more than the two-way links.
Outgoing links
Outgoing links can help you rank better or can hurt your ranking badly. If you link to related, trusted websites in the niche of your articles you will gain only profit. In other hand if you link to a low quality websites – your ranking will go down. Also big number of outgoing links can rate down your website.
Nov 11, 2009
Press Release Introduction
Press release is a message, written communication (or some other form like video, audio, etc) oriented towards the news representatives like newspapers, websites, magazines, Tv Stations or even bloggers.
Press releases are used to announce some sort of information as products, release dates, researches. Press releases can be mailed to different medias or stored on the announcer’s website as an electronic press kits.
A press release usual format is an article but it can be in a form of screenshots (game publishing) or a short video.
Press releases are common source of information for newspapers, news websites, magazines, radio and television stations. A lot of websites and blogs exist publishing only press release information from different sources. This is a common phenomenon in the gaming, software and hardware niches but it also occurs in several other topics.
Publishing your own press release will help the news media to discover your product. Press releases usually bring back good brand awareness and excitement. Press release can bring you a lot of attention, backlinks or even new customers.
Choosing press release format
The form of your own press release must depend on the type of information you want to announce. The basic written article stile is good for announcing some basic information and it is easier for publishing on almost all kind of media. Your final audience must be a considered too.
Press releases are used to announce some sort of information as products, release dates, researches. Press releases can be mailed to different medias or stored on the announcer’s website as an electronic press kits.
A press release usual format is an article but it can be in a form of screenshots (game publishing) or a short video.
Press releases are common source of information for newspapers, news websites, magazines, radio and television stations. A lot of websites and blogs exist publishing only press release information from different sources. This is a common phenomenon in the gaming, software and hardware niches but it also occurs in several other topics.
Publishing your own press release will help the news media to discover your product. Press releases usually bring back good brand awareness and excitement. Press release can bring you a lot of attention, backlinks or even new customers.
Choosing press release format
The form of your own press release must depend on the type of information you want to announce. The basic written article stile is good for announcing some basic information and it is easier for publishing on almost all kind of media. Your final audience must be a considered too.
Nov 9, 2009
Sitemaps basics
Sitemap is a special page on a website that contains information for the accessible pages of a website. Sitemaps help visitors and search bots to find pages. The sitemap is important for SEO of a site because it ensures that all desired pages can be crawled. Even if your website navigation uses JavaScript, your pages will be crawled if they are correctly described in your sitemap.
Sitemaps are very helpful if you have pages on your website that aren’t discovered by the search engines.
Sitemap formats
XML
The most widely used sitemap format is XML. Google first started to use sitemaps in 2005 and later most of the big search engines announced support for the protocol.
The XML sitemap format is relatively simple. The document must consist of these XML tags:
Feeds
Site feeds can be used as sitemaps in most of the search engines. In fact Google uses the site feeds to crawl blogs hosted on blogger. This method has some drawbacks but in most of the cases it is pretty convenient.
Text file
You can use a text file for your sitemap. It can be any extension you like but the best way is as a .txt file.
Submitting Sitemaps
Most of the search engines offer a way for webmasters to submit their sitemaps. For Google you can use Google Webmaster Tools to submit your sitemap.
Sitemaps are very helpful if you have pages on your website that aren’t discovered by the search engines.
Sitemap formats
XML
The most widely used sitemap format is XML. Google first started to use sitemaps in 2005 and later most of the big search engines announced support for the protocol.
The XML sitemap format is relatively simple. The document must consist of these XML tags:
- urlset – the base tag. All other tags must be parts of this one.
- url – the base url tag
- loc – the full url of the page
- priority – the priority of the page relevant to other pages of the site
- changefreq – How frequent the page changes
- lastmod – last modified
Feeds
Site feeds can be used as sitemaps in most of the search engines. In fact Google uses the site feeds to crawl blogs hosted on blogger. This method has some drawbacks but in most of the cases it is pretty convenient.
Text file
You can use a text file for your sitemap. It can be any extension you like but the best way is as a .txt file.
Submitting Sitemaps
Most of the search engines offer a way for webmasters to submit their sitemaps. For Google you can use Google Webmaster Tools to submit your sitemap.
Nov 5, 2009
Viral Marketing Intro
Have you heard the term Viral Marketing? Ever wonder what is it exactly? Why people pay so much attention to it?
What is Viral Marketing?
Viral Marketing is a marketing technique that uses word-of-mouth and social networks to achieve its goals and reach wider audience. It can be used for many marketing goals like increasing brand awareness or sales.
Tools of Viral Marketing
Many new technologies can be used in a Viral Marketing campaign. For example videos, flash games, software and e-books are very common.
High-tech social networks like Twitter, Digg, YouTube are common tools in many campaigns.
Very popular approach is the viral video method. In it a video (usually a fun video) is spread all over the internet through services like YouTube, blogs, instant messages. Have you ever received a fun video from a friend? Some people tend to send such links to all their contacts without even a vague idea for their role.
Viral Marketing relies on the sharing instinct of the masses. It is considered for one of the Internet wonders.
With the increasing number of online communities the viral market became easier and cheaper to achieve. More and more big companies turn their sight on it. You can see their profiles on Twitter and other similar services - Google, Yahoo, Microsoft.
The future
If you thing this is too much, be prepared for the future. Many marketing specialists tend to say that Viral Marketing is going to play larger and larger role on the market.
What is Viral Marketing?
Viral Marketing is a marketing technique that uses word-of-mouth and social networks to achieve its goals and reach wider audience. It can be used for many marketing goals like increasing brand awareness or sales.
Tools of Viral Marketing
Many new technologies can be used in a Viral Marketing campaign. For example videos, flash games, software and e-books are very common.
High-tech social networks like Twitter, Digg, YouTube are common tools in many campaigns.
Very popular approach is the viral video method. In it a video (usually a fun video) is spread all over the internet through services like YouTube, blogs, instant messages. Have you ever received a fun video from a friend? Some people tend to send such links to all their contacts without even a vague idea for their role.
Viral Marketing relies on the sharing instinct of the masses. It is considered for one of the Internet wonders.
With the increasing number of online communities the viral market became easier and cheaper to achieve. More and more big companies turn their sight on it. You can see their profiles on Twitter and other similar services - Google, Yahoo, Microsoft.
The future
If you thing this is too much, be prepared for the future. Many marketing specialists tend to say that Viral Marketing is going to play larger and larger role on the market.
Oct 27, 2009
How to create SEO-friendly JavaScript menus
JavaScript is not SEO friendly.
You can find this statement all over the web.
What does it mean and is it really true?
I’ll try to answer.
What SEO-friendly means?
SEO friendly or Search-engine friendly website is a website which is easily crawled by the search engine robots. JavaScript in page navigation can stop the crawlers from accessing some pages but this doesn’t mean you can’t use JavaScript in website menus. As long as you have anchor links your pages are accessible.
For example you can have a list with your links animated as a drop-down menu. You must have
<a href=”http://mysite/my_inner_page” >menu item</a>
in your list items and your inner pages will be easily accessible by all web crawlers.
So, JavaScript can be used in optimized websites and if it is used cleverly it won’t harm the SERP results.
You can find this statement all over the web.
What does it mean and is it really true?
I’ll try to answer.
What SEO-friendly means?
SEO friendly or Search-engine friendly website is a website which is easily crawled by the search engine robots. JavaScript in page navigation can stop the crawlers from accessing some pages but this doesn’t mean you can’t use JavaScript in website menus. As long as you have anchor links your pages are accessible.
For example you can have a list with your links animated as a drop-down menu. You must have
<a href=”http://mysite/my_inner_page” >menu item</a>
in your list items and your inner pages will be easily accessible by all web crawlers.
So, JavaScript can be used in optimized websites and if it is used cleverly it won’t harm the SERP results.
Oct 24, 2009
10 reasons to use blogger
Blogger is a popular blogging platform used by many people.
Here are the reasons I use and like blogger.
Here are the reasons I use and like blogger.
- It is free.
You don’t have to pay for domain name or hosting. You don’t have to pay for support. Of course you can use your domain, but there is always an option to make your blog totally free. The possibility to minimize the costs is very important for new internet businesses. And you have the freedom to experiment and learn without paying anything. - It is easy.
It is very easy to use. You don’t have to read long tutorials or boring documentation to do something with your blog. For example you can change your template with only few clicks. - It is customizable.
You can change almost anything to better represent your ideas. - There are many templates.
Blogger offers its own template API and a page with lots of templates. You can also download a template from many websites that offer free blogger templates. Just type “free blogger templates” in Google and you will find countless websites.
Editing your template is not hard either. You can code it from PSD with almost no efforts. You just need to know basic html and read the help page. - It is SEO friendly.
Your blog will be SEO friendly without any efforts. You don’t need to do or install anything. - It is professional.
Your blog can look professional and high quality if you provide good content. Yes, it is a free service but people choose it because of its quality. You don’t have down time or problems and its support and security are at high levels. - You can make money with it.
You can use Adsense or other network to make money. You have no restrictions as long it is legal and it complies with its terms of use. - It is multi-language platform
You can work with it on your own language. - It has many add-ons.
You can add many different gadgets with only few clicks. You can add search box, adsense widget or even a poll. - It is fun!
Oct 22, 2009
Remove URL from Google
I find this video by Matt Cutts very useful and decided to share it with you.
And one more talking about robots.txt file.
And one more talking about robots.txt file.
Oct 20, 2009
How to get traffic through forum posting
Maybe you have heard that forum posting can bring you traffic and you wonder if it is true. The answer is – yes, it is true for people who know what they are doing. Here is a simple tutorial on how to get targeted traffic from forums.
First things first – start with a plan. Examine your site and select few good looking pages for landing pages. Or create some. Landing pages are important because they create the first impression. If you want an action make sure your message is clear enough.
Next, find a list of forums in your niche. It would be best if they are sorted according to their page rank. Filter the ones who don’t allow forum signatures. In the matter of facts you can try them, create account and make few posts but you won’t get much traffic from them. Don’t forget to add your site in your profile details.
Now you must have a list of niche forums. It is not a problem if they don’t allow sig during the first few days or posts. Register in all of them and visit their hello section. Say hello and few details about yourself. For example if you have a gaming site and you are a girl don’t forget to mention it. Use humor, people like funny things.
Make a posting schedule. Try to post regularly and in all forum sections. When you have something like fifty posts – do your hit. For the time you spend on the corresponding forum you must know which topics are hot and create big buzz. Create a hot topic. You can use even a linkbait style. After few posts or pages submit this page to digg and some others social websites.
Continue to post even after the initial success. New posts will bring new visitors. And you get more incoming links. Keep up with your posting schedule or hire someone to do the work. If you use a freelancer to make forum posts for you – make sure the posts are quality enough. Just spamming will bring more harm than benefit.
Forum posting is an easy way to get targeted traffic, links and brand awareness. Forum can help your business grow but you must take the work seriously. Even if it looks like free time it is a job and you must do it careful and with a lot of thinking.
First things first – start with a plan. Examine your site and select few good looking pages for landing pages. Or create some. Landing pages are important because they create the first impression. If you want an action make sure your message is clear enough.
Next, find a list of forums in your niche. It would be best if they are sorted according to their page rank. Filter the ones who don’t allow forum signatures. In the matter of facts you can try them, create account and make few posts but you won’t get much traffic from them. Don’t forget to add your site in your profile details.
Now you must have a list of niche forums. It is not a problem if they don’t allow sig during the first few days or posts. Register in all of them and visit their hello section. Say hello and few details about yourself. For example if you have a gaming site and you are a girl don’t forget to mention it. Use humor, people like funny things.
Make a posting schedule. Try to post regularly and in all forum sections. When you have something like fifty posts – do your hit. For the time you spend on the corresponding forum you must know which topics are hot and create big buzz. Create a hot topic. You can use even a linkbait style. After few posts or pages submit this page to digg and some others social websites.
Continue to post even after the initial success. New posts will bring new visitors. And you get more incoming links. Keep up with your posting schedule or hire someone to do the work. If you use a freelancer to make forum posts for you – make sure the posts are quality enough. Just spamming will bring more harm than benefit.
Forum posting is an easy way to get targeted traffic, links and brand awareness. Forum can help your business grow but you must take the work seriously. Even if it looks like free time it is a job and you must do it careful and with a lot of thinking.
Oct 16, 2009
Short list of useful blogging tips
Blogs are taking over the world. They are everywhere and about everything. Everyone can have a blog. And people make money from their blogs. You can see good blogs and bad blogs, seo blogs, entertainment blogs, personal or even an autoblogs.
How to create a popular blog? It is not an easy task and many people start and then give up.
Here is my list of advices for beginner bloggers:
How to create a popular blog? It is not an easy task and many people start and then give up.
Here is my list of advices for beginner bloggers:
- Establish a blogging schedule
- Write good content
- Don’t copy blog posts
- Copy successful bloggers
- Use common sense
- Offer useful information
- Get cool and easy to understand blog theme
- Have simple blog navigation
- Select a niche and stick on it
- Comment on other blogs in your niche
- Participate in comments discussions
- Participate in forums
- Create videos
- Use photos
- Drink your morning coffee before posting
- Think before posting
- Use twitter to promote
- Use sense of humor
- And have fun
- Learn SEO
- Read blogging news
- Be creative
- Create goals
- Follow your goals
- Analyze, analyze, analyze (your visitors, traffic, achievements)
Oct 10, 2009
Stolen content
These days I found the articles from one of my blogs on an unknown website. Obviously, my content was stolen. Later I found some more websites with my articles on them.
Several sites were using its RSS feed to publish my articles without link or mentioning, stealing my traffic and Google SERP. In fact my site got penalty for duplicate content. My own content!
So I did a little research what to do when site content is stolen.
How to find stolen content?
If your search engine traffic is going down no matter what you are doing or you don’t receive any visitors for your new, fresh and good articles, check for scrapers. The fastest way to find stolen content is to run a search with some specific text from your article in quotes.
What to do when your site content is stolen?
The first thing to do is to contact the scam site owner to remove your content. This part can be easy if he have a proper contact form or email on his site. In my case both sites hadn’t email or contact form. So I used WHOIS service to get their owners details. I got anonymous mails and I mailed them. No response.
Let’s see what Google says.
I found a post in Google Webmaster Central Blog - Duplicate content due to scrapers and this one on Google Adsense Blog - My content, your content, other people's content.
In short you can use this link https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/spamreport to report spam site. If you have problems with your traffic, you can try and ask for reconsideration from Google Webmaster tools. And you can fire a DMCA. Here is detailed information on how to do it - http://www.google.com/dmca.html.
You can contact the scraper’s hosting company and try to ask them for action.
In some of the above links I found one very useful advice. Always include your full link in your posts.
Stolen content is a very sensitive topic. It is not always easy to defend your work from cheaters. Most of the time search engines filter scam sites correctly but there is noting perfect. If you find your content stolen don’t panic and take the right actions.
Stolen Content on my SEO Strategy Blog.
Several sites were using its RSS feed to publish my articles without link or mentioning, stealing my traffic and Google SERP. In fact my site got penalty for duplicate content. My own content!
So I did a little research what to do when site content is stolen.
How to find stolen content?
If your search engine traffic is going down no matter what you are doing or you don’t receive any visitors for your new, fresh and good articles, check for scrapers. The fastest way to find stolen content is to run a search with some specific text from your article in quotes.
What to do when your site content is stolen?
The first thing to do is to contact the scam site owner to remove your content. This part can be easy if he have a proper contact form or email on his site. In my case both sites hadn’t email or contact form. So I used WHOIS service to get their owners details. I got anonymous mails and I mailed them. No response.
Let’s see what Google says.
I found a post in Google Webmaster Central Blog - Duplicate content due to scrapers and this one on Google Adsense Blog - My content, your content, other people's content.
In short you can use this link https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/spamreport to report spam site. If you have problems with your traffic, you can try and ask for reconsideration from Google Webmaster tools. And you can fire a DMCA. Here is detailed information on how to do it - http://www.google.com/dmca.html.
You can contact the scraper’s hosting company and try to ask them for action.
In some of the above links I found one very useful advice. Always include your full link in your posts.
Stolen content is a very sensitive topic. It is not always easy to defend your work from cheaters. Most of the time search engines filter scam sites correctly but there is noting perfect. If you find your content stolen don’t panic and take the right actions.
Stolen Content on my SEO Strategy Blog.
Oct 7, 2009
Optimize your blog for search engines and human visitors
Blogging is a popular way to express your self and share your thoughts with the world. With the invasion of PPC services blogging became a way to earn a living. This is the reason for increasing number of blogs in any niche.
Getting new visitors become harder and harder in this competitive environment. Many niches became saturated.
Every blog needs more visitors despite the reason it’s created. To draw more visitors you need to put in some efforts.
Content
Have you heard the phrase “Content is king”. It’s a controversial phrase but not fully true or false. Good content will bring you loyal visitors. Good content can make your loyal visitors to share your blog with their friends. And search engines like what people like (most of the time).
You need to update your content regularly to get the attention of the search engines. The biggest ones give most credits on new and regularly updated content so if you want to go up in SERPS update, update, update!
Links
Link building is very important for your SEO campaign. You need quality links from prestigious websites with high PageRank.
Of course you can start with submitting your website link to many blogging networks like TopOfBlogs, BlogCatalog. Find a list of dofollow social bookmarking sites and submit your post links to them. Create both regular and deep links.
Submit your blog to general and niche link directories.
Forums
Find a list of forums related to your niche and start posting in them. Create fun signatures with your link in them. Post controversial topics and use linkbaits. Forums can bring you readers and links so don’t forget to write quality posts.
Platform
Best blogging platforms by my opinion are blogger and wordpress. There are many pros and cons to use either of them but I won’t discus which is better here. Both are well optimized and you won’t have many SEO problems with them.
Design
You need human and SEO friendly design. To be SEO friendly your site needs to satisfy several requirements. Here are some of them:
Social Networks
Join Twitter, Digg, FaceBook and start to make friend and followers. Select your best posts and share their links with few words of explanation. Write tweets and posts with 20% to 50% general talk, 30% your niche information and 20% with your links. Don’t spam with links cause people tend to unfollow persons with such behavior.
Work regularly. Don’t stop to improve your blog. Learn from other bloggers and don’t be afraid to experiment. Many successful bloggers have published their stories on internet – read them and find your inspiration.
Getting new visitors become harder and harder in this competitive environment. Many niches became saturated.
Every blog needs more visitors despite the reason it’s created. To draw more visitors you need to put in some efforts.
Content
Have you heard the phrase “Content is king”. It’s a controversial phrase but not fully true or false. Good content will bring you loyal visitors. Good content can make your loyal visitors to share your blog with their friends. And search engines like what people like (most of the time).
You need to update your content regularly to get the attention of the search engines. The biggest ones give most credits on new and regularly updated content so if you want to go up in SERPS update, update, update!
Links
Link building is very important for your SEO campaign. You need quality links from prestigious websites with high PageRank.
Of course you can start with submitting your website link to many blogging networks like TopOfBlogs, BlogCatalog. Find a list of dofollow social bookmarking sites and submit your post links to them. Create both regular and deep links.
Submit your blog to general and niche link directories.
Forums
Find a list of forums related to your niche and start posting in them. Create fun signatures with your link in them. Post controversial topics and use linkbaits. Forums can bring you readers and links so don’t forget to write quality posts.
Platform
Best blogging platforms by my opinion are blogger and wordpress. There are many pros and cons to use either of them but I won’t discus which is better here. Both are well optimized and you won’t have many SEO problems with them.
Design
You need human and SEO friendly design. To be SEO friendly your site needs to satisfy several requirements. Here are some of them:
- Use regular links for menus.
- Use tags and categories.
- Don’t use JavaScript for menu navigation.
- Your main content must come before the sidebars.
- Use SEO-friendly urls.
- Optimize your images.
- Don’t create deep navigation trees. Every article must not be further than three clicks away from your homepage.
Social Networks
Join Twitter, Digg, FaceBook and start to make friend and followers. Select your best posts and share their links with few words of explanation. Write tweets and posts with 20% to 50% general talk, 30% your niche information and 20% with your links. Don’t spam with links cause people tend to unfollow persons with such behavior.
Work regularly. Don’t stop to improve your blog. Learn from other bloggers and don’t be afraid to experiment. Many successful bloggers have published their stories on internet – read them and find your inspiration.
Oct 3, 2009
Google Wave
Currently, a new wave of talk shows on internet. Bloggers make a lot of buzz about this.
Google Wave is a new communication tool presented by Google. With it people can interact with one another in real time. Wave can be used for work and free time as it can work with maps, rich text, images, videos, and so on.
I wasn’t surprised to see Google Wave as trending topic in Twitter for some time.
As a communication product Wave looks very promising. Google Wave API makes possible for webmasters to embed Google Wave in their website or write bots for automated tasks.
Links:
Google Wave
Google Wave API
Google Wave is a new communication tool presented by Google. With it people can interact with one another in real time. Wave can be used for work and free time as it can work with maps, rich text, images, videos, and so on.
I wasn’t surprised to see Google Wave as trending topic in Twitter for some time.
As a communication product Wave looks very promising. Google Wave API makes possible for webmasters to embed Google Wave in their website or write bots for automated tasks.
Links:
Google Wave
Google Wave API
42 tips to get more traffic
- Use high quality content.
- Keep adding content on a regular base.
- Use SEO friendly URLs.
- Use keywords in page titles.
- Use linkbaits.
- Use pictures.
- Use videos.
- Use presentations.
- Be creative.
- Be unique.
- Write about hot topics.
- Write controversial posts.
- Do a keyword research.
- Tag your content.
- Remove broken links.
- Study your logs. Value what visitors like.
- Build a brand.
- Write press releases.
- Post to related mailing lists.
- Invite guest bloggers.
- Be a guest blogger.
- Do offline advertising.
- Make lists like this one.
- Submit to directories.
- Submit to social bookmarking sites.
- Write articles and submit them to article directories.
- Use trackbacks.
- Comment on other blogs.
- Use your links in forums signatures.
- Run contests.
- Give away freebies.
- Join Twitter and make a community.
- Tweet regularly.
- Join Digg and make a lot of friends.
- Join SpicyPage.
- Join MyBlogLog.
- Join Blog Catalog.
- Create MySpace page and make some friends.
- Answer questions on Yahoo answers with link to your blog.
- Use StumbleUpon.
- Add your blog to Technorati.
- Use viral marketing.
Oct 2, 2009
How easy is making money online?
Is it easier to make money online? Can I make money online fast and without efforts?
No. The answers of these questions are no and no. Money from internet aren’t easy, most of the time working online is even harder than a regular job. In your regular job you have a job description, you have a schedule and you don’t have to work fast and have overtime. There are regular jobs with a lot of stress but it all depends on your decision and state of mind. Overworking is relatively rare.
In other hand working online is not scheduled. You have to do many different kinds of work. Communicate with clients, hire professional or do something specialized yourself. You don’t have to work eight hours every day, sometimes you have to work more than 12 hours daily to make a living.
Working online requires knowledge in many different fields – marketing, SEO, web design, client management and much more. If you sell products online you have to study your products and their market. Research their target audience.
Of course, you can hire experts to do every specific task but most of the online businesses start with few or even no initial money.
Yes, online you can make money. But forget the fast part. Only scam businesses promise to make you rich fast. Every online business must start with building a community. You need to earn your clients trust and this is a slow process.
Don’t get me wrong. There are a lot of pros to make money online. The feeling that you depend only on yourself and your skills is irreplaceable. Your efforts are not in vain and the key decisions are all your doing. To grow a business is something that can inspire almost anyone. If you a good enough you will eventually get more money than your regular job.
Making money online is not easy. You need luck, you need knowledge and you need to work hard sometimes more than 10 hours a day, 7 days a week.
No. The answers of these questions are no and no. Money from internet aren’t easy, most of the time working online is even harder than a regular job. In your regular job you have a job description, you have a schedule and you don’t have to work fast and have overtime. There are regular jobs with a lot of stress but it all depends on your decision and state of mind. Overworking is relatively rare.
In other hand working online is not scheduled. You have to do many different kinds of work. Communicate with clients, hire professional or do something specialized yourself. You don’t have to work eight hours every day, sometimes you have to work more than 12 hours daily to make a living.
Working online requires knowledge in many different fields – marketing, SEO, web design, client management and much more. If you sell products online you have to study your products and their market. Research their target audience.
Of course, you can hire experts to do every specific task but most of the online businesses start with few or even no initial money.
Yes, online you can make money. But forget the fast part. Only scam businesses promise to make you rich fast. Every online business must start with building a community. You need to earn your clients trust and this is a slow process.
Don’t get me wrong. There are a lot of pros to make money online. The feeling that you depend only on yourself and your skills is irreplaceable. Your efforts are not in vain and the key decisions are all your doing. To grow a business is something that can inspire almost anyone. If you a good enough you will eventually get more money than your regular job.
Making money online is not easy. You need luck, you need knowledge and you need to work hard sometimes more than 10 hours a day, 7 days a week.
Sep 21, 2009
Keywords tag and Google
Google announced – they don’t use the keywords tag in their search engine. Here is a video explaining why:
Keywords tag is meaningful only in the world of search engine optimization. It tells the search engines – "hey, this site is related to these words". Some webmasters use tons of incoherent and misleading keywords to get more traffic so most SE drop it some years ago.
Further reading:
Matt Cutts: Google doesn’t use the keywords meta tag in web search
Google Webmaster Central Blog: Google does not use the keywords meta tag in web ranking
Keywords tag is meaningful only in the world of search engine optimization. It tells the search engines – "hey, this site is related to these words". Some webmasters use tons of incoherent and misleading keywords to get more traffic so most SE drop it some years ago.
Further reading:
Matt Cutts: Google doesn’t use the keywords meta tag in web search
Google Webmaster Central Blog: Google does not use the keywords meta tag in web ranking
Good on-site optimization
What is on-site optimization?
On-site optimization is the SEO process of improving the quality of a website for better position in SE. If you want more traffic you need to work on your site optimization.
Basics of the on-site optimization:
Search Engine Optimization is a constant process. You need to update, optimize and analyze your site constantly. SEO successes are result of many efforts.
On-site optimization is the SEO process of improving the quality of a website for better position in SE. If you want more traffic you need to work on your site optimization.
Basics of the on-site optimization:
- Title tags
Optimizing the title tags is the most important part of the on-site optimization. Make sure your title tags are context-related, short and meaningful. Use unique title text for each page. Include one or two related keywords with high search volume near the beginning. (Don’t confuse keywords with high search volume with high paying ones) - Page content
Focus to have high quality articles designed for human readers. Keyword stuffing isn’t good idea. If you want returning visitors make useful content. Optimize the articles with bold text, H1, H2, H3 titles, lists and so on. It must be easy for the reader to find, what he is searching for. Don’t use Frame and iFrame tags for your text and articles. - Site architecture
Use SEO oriented website architecture. Each article must have its own page with optimized and relevant title and URL. Use tag clouds and categories. Use shallow link trees – every page must be maximum three clicks away from your primary one. - SEO friendly URLs
The URLs must be as optimized as possible. The category and article link must be meaningful. It is better to use http://website/seo than http://website/category3 . The same is valid for the articles’ URLs. - JavaScript, Flash
JavaScript and Flash are bad choice for menus and navigation. Web robots are not good enough in working with them. Some Search Engines can crawl Flash content in a certain extent but don’t rely on that. Optimization for a Flash website is very hard work. - Links and Menus
Use meaningful text with keywords for your menus and links to inner pages. Use full URLs to your inner pages rather than short ones. For example it is better to use href=http://website/books/fantasy.html than href=”books/fantasy.html”. Many web designers use the second because it is easier for their work. Insist on having the full URL in all your inner links. - Images
You need to optimize your images to get traffic from image search engines. Keywords in image URL and alt text are the basics. - robots.txt
Robots exclusion standard or in other words robots.txt file tells the crawlers which pages to include and which to omit. It’s important to have correct robots.txt with the desired information in it. Consider that some bots ignore it. - sitemap.xml
Create a sitemap.xml file and submit it to the biggest search engines. You can submit your sitemap to Google here and to Bing here. - Custom 404 page
Create custom 404 (not found) page with link to your main page. - Google Tools
Use Google Webmaster Tools, Google Analytics and Google Keywords Tool to optimize and validate your site and to track its stats and traffic. - Fresh Content
Don't forget to upload new content daily.
Search Engine Optimization is a constant process. You need to update, optimize and analyze your site constantly. SEO successes are result of many efforts.
Sep 20, 2009
Make money blogging
How to make money online? How to make money from my site? Can I earn from my blog?
Internet is a great place to make money. You can meet different people and make deals without leaving your home. There are many ways to earn money from a website. I’ll try to systematize the basics in this list.
Ways to make money from website or blog:
Details:
Internet is a great place to make money. You can meet different people and make deals without leaving your home. There are many ways to earn money from a website. I’ll try to systematize the basics in this list.
Ways to make money from website or blog:
- PPC advertising
- CPM advertising
- Selling links or banner space
- Affiliate Marketing Programs
- Paid blogging
- Donations
Details:
- PPC and CPM advertising
PPC stands for Pay per click. It is an advertising model, in which publishers get paid only when an ad is clicked. The ads are served depending on the website context. The advertisers usually bid on specific words called keywords. The ads on your site appear according to your site context and keywords.
There are many PPC networks available. Some of the most popular are: Google Adsense, Yahoo! Publisher Network (YPN), BidVertiser, Microsoft adCenter.
CPM stands for Cost per thousand impressions. It is similar to PPC advertising, the difference is that the advertiser pays for impressions not for clicks. CPM advertising is suitable for popular but low paid niches or image hosting websites.
Some CPM advertising networks: Adsdaq, Right Media, Tribal Fusion, Value Click Media.
- Selling links or banner space
You can sell banner space to advertisers directly. It is one of the easiest ways to make money from your website. The biggest pro is the direct contact with the advertisers, without the middleman.
- Affiliate Marketing Programs
Affiliate Marketing is a marketing practice in which you earn money through other people’s products.It is a common way to earn money online.
Affiliate Programs: Commission Junction, Azoogle, Pepperjam, Amazon, ClickBank, Chitika.
- Paid blogging
Many bloggers write sponsored reviews to pay their hosting fees or earn some fast money. On the other hand paid blogging is considered relatively bad way to make money online. Again you can contact advertisers directly or join an advertising network.
Popular networks for paid blogging are PayPerPost, Sponsored Reviews, BlogVertise.
- Donations
Don’t be shy, ask people to donate small amount of money. If you work on a popular product or open source software, donations can be your gold mine.
Sep 15, 2009
How to get more traffic – 15 easy and free ideas to drive targeted traffic to your site
Getting more and more traffic is the main goal for every webmaster. Getting enough real traffic sometimes is very hard to achieve. Your niche may be overpopulated or not so modern any more. Anyway there are people who need your information and services; you just need to find them. Here is a short list of ideas how to get more targeted traffic.
Related posts:
- Submit your site to search engines
- Submit your site to web directories
- Write articles and submit them to article directories
- Write press release
- Make a blog and post regularly with reviews of latest updates
- Update your site regularly - search engines like regular updates
- Make promo videos and submit them to YouTube and other related services
- Make cool channel with many related videos on YouTube
- Participate in social media websites like twitter and facebook
- Participate in Digg, Del.icio.us and other social bookmarking and voting services
- Use email marketing
- Comment in blogs in the same niche
- Post in forums in the same niche
- Make freebies and give them away
- Make a contest related to your site
Related posts:
Sep 7, 2009
Landing page – how to create and optimize them
What is a landing page?
The landing page is the page that appears first when a person clicks and follows an advertisement. As such it has great importance for the visitor impression and further actions.
The landing page is critical for an advertising campaign conversion. Even if you spent a lot of money and time in advertising your product, if your landing page is poor, you won’t receive much profit of all this.
Several tips for better landing page:
Further reading:
Wikipedia article - Landing page
Google Landing pages guidelines
The landing page is the page that appears first when a person clicks and follows an advertisement. As such it has great importance for the visitor impression and further actions.
The landing page is critical for an advertising campaign conversion. Even if you spent a lot of money and time in advertising your product, if your landing page is poor, you won’t receive much profit of all this.
Several tips for better landing page:
- Make your landing pages easy to navigate. Make sure your visitors can easily purchase the offered product or do the required action without any complications. There is no point to have fancy and complicated landing page where no one can do the required action – purchase your product or service, register for your newsletter or anything else.
Make your landing page fast enough – don’t put big images or other media that will slow the page loading or load it gradually. Your landing pages must load fast or your clients will got bored and will navigate away. - Provide enough information for your product either by information on the landing page or link to the information page for it. Be creative when describing the product and don’t forget that people hate to read long, boring documents.
- Use images to describe your product. The first thing people see on a new web page are the images. Choose appealing images of your product or people enjoying it and you will be the winner.
- Hire a professional designer to create your landing page template. First impression is very important when you work with people. Your landing page template must be good enough to ensure that you are serious enough about your product, service, etc. Don’t dirty your landing page with popup windows. Focus the visitor’s attention at one point – your offer.
- I’ve met some landing page tutorials that suggest you to remove the navigation from your landing page. The idea behind this is that your visitor won’t have options to navigate away from it and will do de required action. By my opinion it is a little harsh – people can always close the browser window. It is better to offer full and reliable information rather than removing the navigation.
Further reading:
Wikipedia article - Landing page
Google Landing pages guidelines
Aug 25, 2009
Meet our team
So who are we? Here is a photo of our team:
Here are the sales manager Anna, the webmaster Diana, and part of the PHP developer Kleo.
And me, the youngest SEO expert here:
Here are the sales manager Anna, the webmaster Diana, and part of the PHP developer Kleo.
And me, the youngest SEO expert here:
Aug 23, 2009
Link building – are you doing it right?
Link building plays very important role in every search engine optimization campaign. Quality links bring traffic, reputation and rank to your site. Many webmasters spend hours every day submitting their links to various web directories, search engines, forums, blogs, social media websites. These efforts are not always rewarded. Do you spend a lot of time link building without effect?
What are the steps for successful link building? Some basic rules:
The results won’t come always fast. Patience is also very important. Don’t give up because things don’t occur with the speed you want.
What are the steps for successful link building? Some basic rules:
- Article submission. Select good and popular article directories. It is better to post less quality articles to few high traffic article directories than spam with many low quality articles directories with no or low page rank and few visitors.
- Social bookmarking. Make respectful accounts in some of the best social bookmarking services. Bookmark your links together with some other high class sites.
- Forum posting. Select few popular dofollow forums in your target niche and mix with the crowd. Make creative topics and help people with advices. Use keywords for your signature links, not just the usual click here.
- Blog commenting. Again, it is important to select dofollow blogs. Good comments can even bring you loyal visitors.
- Link exchange. Many search experts say that link exchange any more but I’ve seen it actually works pretty well.
- Link directories. I’ve made a post Good and bad link directories – it’s about the quality of the link (if there is any).
- Spamming won’t help you. Just posting your link over and over again to forums and blogs won’t rise your site pagerank. It even can damage it.
The results won’t come always fast. Patience is also very important. Don’t give up because things don’t occur with the speed you want.
Aug 22, 2009
Link building - Good vs Bad web directories – how to tell them apart
Many SEO experts spend hours every day submitting links to web directories. Web directories are easy way to build your site rank or many people think so.
Where is the catch here?
Not all link directories are the same. From good web directory to bad web directory – there is a huge difference. The good one will help your site rank, while the bad one will lose your time and eventually get your email.
How to distinguish them? What is bad web directory?
Some webmasters offer not so SEO friendly web directories. You can never get a link from them. It looks like link to your site but it can be a JavaScript or link to their own website with an id – they simply redirect the viewer to your page but you don’t get a link. Search engines can’t find you. The other way is to simply add nofollow to the link – the either way you won’t increase your website rank.
So the good web directory is the one that helps you with quality link to your website. You can check the link for any attributes or scripts.
Of course this article is totally centered at link building. On the other hand - there are some web directories focused on live visitors. They often include nofollow or other trick to prevent simple spamming but it don't make them waste of time. Contrary, they can help you with quality and well targeted traffic.
Where is the catch here?
Not all link directories are the same. From good web directory to bad web directory – there is a huge difference. The good one will help your site rank, while the bad one will lose your time and eventually get your email.
How to distinguish them? What is bad web directory?
Some webmasters offer not so SEO friendly web directories. You can never get a link from them. It looks like link to your site but it can be a JavaScript or link to their own website with an id – they simply redirect the viewer to your page but you don’t get a link. Search engines can’t find you. The other way is to simply add nofollow to the link – the either way you won’t increase your website rank.
So the good web directory is the one that helps you with quality link to your website. You can check the link for any attributes or scripts.
Of course this article is totally centered at link building. On the other hand - there are some web directories focused on live visitors. They often include nofollow or other trick to prevent simple spamming but it don't make them waste of time. Contrary, they can help you with quality and well targeted traffic.
Aug 17, 2009
Don’t comment with "cool blog" style phrases or again for comment spamming
You know – my email is full of spam. So is my regular mail box. People got tired of spam long ago. More than 80% of internet is spam so don’t produce more. Comment spamming can frustrate many bloggers.
On the other hand link building is important for every starting web business. You need some initial amount of links to be discovered by readers. Popular SEO advice is to post comments on blogs in your niche. You’ll see this advice in many "top 10 link building tips" posts. And it is not so bad to use it. Just don’t post junk content. If you intend to post something like "Cool blog", "Very good post", "Good point" or etc please stop. Your comment will be deleted from almost everywhere. Posting such comments doesn’t pay back – you will lose your time and won’t get anything back.
Comment only if you want to say something about the post/blog topic. Say something interesting, not just crap. Cool comment on a popular blog can bring you tons of visitors.
On the other hand link building is important for every starting web business. You need some initial amount of links to be discovered by readers. Popular SEO advice is to post comments on blogs in your niche. You’ll see this advice in many "top 10 link building tips" posts. And it is not so bad to use it. Just don’t post junk content. If you intend to post something like "Cool blog", "Very good post", "Good point" or etc please stop. Your comment will be deleted from almost everywhere. Posting such comments doesn’t pay back – you will lose your time and won’t get anything back.
Comment only if you want to say something about the post/blog topic. Say something interesting, not just crap. Cool comment on a popular blog can bring you tons of visitors.
Aug 14, 2009
How to successfully market on twitter
What is twitter?
Twitter is a popular social networking service with tons of fans. People all over the world use twitter to blog their actions, ideas, jokes. Many marketing experts take advantage of its popularity to market their services and products. Twitter is an easy way to reach your end clients and to freely communicate with them. People are more likely to adopt an idea received from a fun service like twitter rather than simple advertising on a TV.
Why should I market my website or service on twitter?
If you don’t like the idea – you shouldn’t. Try twitter, make some friends and start to update regularly. When you grasp people’s attention – ask yourself – “Is this a suitable way to market my business?”
Twitter is an easy and fun way to pass a message to the masses.
First steps
Make an account, customize it to better express your personality and start micro-blogging. You have a simple question to answer – “What are you doing?”
Follow people
Follow interesting people. Twitter is just about that – follow and be followed. More of the people you follow will follow you back so go for it. Grow your community. Feed it with regular and fun thoughts, even politic comments are ok. Share what is on your mind. If you are original enough your community will grow fast.
Be careful not to add people automatically or too fast because this may get you banned.
Follow popular trends
At the time I write this article people, several crazy trends are getting popular on twitter. For example – today is Friday and people are writing on the #Follow Friday topic. It’s on the first page of course. Keep track on popular words or trends and use them. Write an interesting message to get attention.
Promote your site
Be careful when promoting. People are tired of spam. They get spam everywhere, don’t throw junks at them. Use your site to share something valuable with them. Don’t use phrases like “Visit my website”. Send your message in an appropriate way – write something that will intrigue your readers.
If you market a service – offer some promotion to your followers. Make something free for them. Give them a reason to like you and they will become your loyal clients.
Be original
I know that it is very hard to be original among thousands of people like you but please try. People prefer to read something new. Or if it is not exactly new, tell it in a different way. Its half of the work.
Twitter
Twitter got popular because people want to communicate. It is a service that offers people an easy way to shout what is on their mind. It can be a good place for marketing if you make it the right way.
Twitter is a popular social networking service with tons of fans. People all over the world use twitter to blog their actions, ideas, jokes. Many marketing experts take advantage of its popularity to market their services and products. Twitter is an easy way to reach your end clients and to freely communicate with them. People are more likely to adopt an idea received from a fun service like twitter rather than simple advertising on a TV.
Why should I market my website or service on twitter?
If you don’t like the idea – you shouldn’t. Try twitter, make some friends and start to update regularly. When you grasp people’s attention – ask yourself – “Is this a suitable way to market my business?”
Twitter is an easy and fun way to pass a message to the masses.
First steps
Make an account, customize it to better express your personality and start micro-blogging. You have a simple question to answer – “What are you doing?”
Follow people
Follow interesting people. Twitter is just about that – follow and be followed. More of the people you follow will follow you back so go for it. Grow your community. Feed it with regular and fun thoughts, even politic comments are ok. Share what is on your mind. If you are original enough your community will grow fast.
Be careful not to add people automatically or too fast because this may get you banned.
Follow popular trends
At the time I write this article people, several crazy trends are getting popular on twitter. For example – today is Friday and people are writing on the #Follow Friday topic. It’s on the first page of course. Keep track on popular words or trends and use them. Write an interesting message to get attention.
Promote your site
Be careful when promoting. People are tired of spam. They get spam everywhere, don’t throw junks at them. Use your site to share something valuable with them. Don’t use phrases like “Visit my website”. Send your message in an appropriate way – write something that will intrigue your readers.
If you market a service – offer some promotion to your followers. Make something free for them. Give them a reason to like you and they will become your loyal clients.
Be original
I know that it is very hard to be original among thousands of people like you but please try. People prefer to read something new. Or if it is not exactly new, tell it in a different way. Its half of the work.
Twitter got popular because people want to communicate. It is a service that offers people an easy way to shout what is on their mind. It can be a good place for marketing if you make it the right way.
Feb 28, 2009
Canonical link element?
What is canonical link element?
This is a new, optional directive, that helps to specify the original url of a page.
How it works?
For example, let’s have a page with parameters like this:
http://www.mywebsite.com/index.php?param1=aaa¶m2=bbb
Parameters can be session id or anything else. If their value is not relevant to the page we can specify our original (canonical) url in the head section of the page:
<head>
…
<link rel=”canonical” href=”http://www.mywebsite.com/”>
…
</head>
We can specify canonical url to a section/page:
<head>
…
<link rel=”canonical” href=”http://www.mywebsite.com/somepage.php”>
…
</head>
In short - canonical link element helps identify different links to one page.
More
More about canonical link element can be found at Matt Cutts blog here. And here is Google help information about it.
This is a new, optional directive, that helps to specify the original url of a page.
How it works?
For example, let’s have a page with parameters like this:
http://www.mywebsite.com/index.php?param1=aaa¶m2=bbb
Parameters can be session id or anything else. If their value is not relevant to the page we can specify our original (canonical) url in the head section of the page:
<head>
…
<link rel=”canonical” href=”http://www.mywebsite.com/”>
…
</head>
We can specify canonical url to a section/page:
<head>
…
<link rel=”canonical” href=”http://www.mywebsite.com/somepage.php”>
…
</head>
In short - canonical link element helps identify different links to one page.
More
More about canonical link element can be found at Matt Cutts blog here. And here is Google help information about it.
Jan 4, 2009
SEO errors during web site development and design
Many companies consider redesign or redevelopment of their website to attract and impress new clients. They contact with web development company and purchase a fancy web design and somewhat functional CMS.
Nowadays no one underestimate search engine optimization any more. Almost every business considers hiring a SEO company or expert to do the optimization part on the ready website.
Where is the error here?
Search engine optimization is a complex process. Basically it can be divided into two parts – on-site optimization and off-site optimization. Doing on-site optimization on a non-optimized, fully-developed web site will cost a lot of efforts. To cut short the costs, search engine optimization must be kept in mind during the website development and design.
For example flash menus can be good looking but the search engines still can’t handle them. The same goes for JavaScript menus and navigation. The overall site usability must be approved by a SEO expert.
There are many requirements for a site to be SEO friendly – different titles and meta tags for different pages, articles, categories, etc. Search engine friendly urls also must be considered.
I won’t list all the necessary stuff, because this post will become too long.
What is the solution?
A good SEO expert must participate in development process. Developers and designers must be in touch with him from the planning point of the project. There are some web development companies that offer a complex solution – web design, CMS development and SEO optimization. Anyway consider consulting more than one SEO expert and ask about the reasons for every step with suspicion.
Nowadays no one underestimate search engine optimization any more. Almost every business considers hiring a SEO company or expert to do the optimization part on the ready website.
Where is the error here?
Search engine optimization is a complex process. Basically it can be divided into two parts – on-site optimization and off-site optimization. Doing on-site optimization on a non-optimized, fully-developed web site will cost a lot of efforts. To cut short the costs, search engine optimization must be kept in mind during the website development and design.
For example flash menus can be good looking but the search engines still can’t handle them. The same goes for JavaScript menus and navigation. The overall site usability must be approved by a SEO expert.
There are many requirements for a site to be SEO friendly – different titles and meta tags for different pages, articles, categories, etc. Search engine friendly urls also must be considered.
I won’t list all the necessary stuff, because this post will become too long.
What is the solution?
A good SEO expert must participate in development process. Developers and designers must be in touch with him from the planning point of the project. There are some web development companies that offer a complex solution – web design, CMS development and SEO optimization. Anyway consider consulting more than one SEO expert and ask about the reasons for every step with suspicion.
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