A Blog For Bloggers
YouTube recently added the Interactive Transcript feature, which uses speech recognition technology to automatically generate the transcript.
This is a easy clue that, Google would use this data to list videos for the keywords used in the video.
Though the transcription isn’t accurate, it surly helps in SEO, if done correctly.
This is a guest post by Jeff Gross. If you want to guest post on this blog, check out the guest post guidelines.
If you are putting content on your blog to build traffic and authority, SEO needs to be calculated into your effort. It does not matter if you put out 150 word blurbs on social media sites, full websites, or blog posting. SEO is the primary way the usefulness of information posted is interpreted. Therefore, it is logical to conclude that anyone wanting to be found would want to enable search engines to make that interpretation easy.
The Finer Points of Blog Content SEO
Many of the tactics from building SEO friendly websites hold true on a blog. Appropriate use of keywords will provide the markers that spiders need to accurately interpret the work. A blog post that is overly long will actually be more of a hindrance than a help. There ends up being too much other text that ends up getting into the mix that the spiders can interpret as relevant even if it is not. Other points to consider are…
400-500 words is a good target length. Readers are not interested in encyclopedic blog posts. If the subject is bigger than that, simply turn it into a multi-part series.
Appropriate density of any keyword falls between 2% and 3%. Try to avoid saturating the text with buzzwords or industry-speak to broaden your appeal and keep the text readable.
Your title needs to command attention while being descriptive. It should also include keywords relevant to the text. The first sentence is important in that regard. It should also contain any keywords important to the text.
Blogging software packages will often allow you to add relevant tags to a piece of work. This is useful for using additional terms without saturating the work. For example, how would a blogger who doesn’t know anything about SEO locate this post? They may search up a phrase like “how do I get a bigger audience for my blog?” Even though terms like “bigger audience” aren’t used in the text, you can still aim towards that individual through appropriate tags.
The Quest for Greater Authority
The most useful goal you can pursue for your blog is establishing your authority. Prove your blog is giving good information and it will take hold and spread from there. Easier said then done though, right? Any good approach is going to take time. However we can hasten that process by keeping a few things in mind.
If you post junk posts, that’s how your blog will be viewed. Your blog should be used to demonstrate your unique perspective on the relevant interest. A writer that does not have the time to sit down and proof-read their work, spell-check, and make sure it’s readable will not be getting their work read. If you do not have that kind of time, take advantage of a ghost-writing company to generate solid work for you.
Depart from how the rest of the world is portraying a topic. Sometimes, it’s impossible to do. However, when you can, you want to take advantage of your unique experience, perspective, and knowledge to make your work stand out from the crowd. No one is going to take the time to read the piece if it is just a rehash of 50 other posts. Huge blocks of text are an instant turn off to readers. They will close the window.
A blog is one of the greatest marketing tools that is available at the moment. It is a great way to create a personal, memorable experience between your business and a customer that is often lacking on the internet. Be sure to keep SEO in mind while you flesh out your strategy to build traffic and authority to your blog.
Author’s Bio
Jeff is a professional internet marketing and blogging consultant. He writes mostly about blogging, internet marketing, Pay Per Click Strategies and Search Engine Optimization techniques and best practices. Jeff is also a consultant and content contributor for NY condominiums community.
I don’t know, whether Trust is one of the factors in getting the results up in the Search Engine Results Page, but I certainly know that Trust will help you get more traffic even from Search Engines.
Benefits of building Trust
Building Trust helps in making people to act. The desired action might be:
1. To subscribe to your blog updates.
2. To subscribe to your News Letter.
3. To purchase your ebook or print book.
4. To make a sales (affiliate link or any other kind of sales).
5. To make them share the article link with their friends and family members.
6. To make them link to your article.
7. To make your brand name stick in their minds.
8. Build authority.
9. Show your passion.
10. Get their feedback and to get their opinion on any issues (make them comment on your blog and to learn from your visitors). Etc etc etc..
So with this Trust factor, you can build readership and you all probably know that, it brings in repeat visitors to our blog. Hence, increase in traffic.
But this Trust can boost Search Engine Traffic too. Its been working all these years, but most of us might not have noticed it. Here is how it works with me:
Google ranks websites based on its algorithm and no one outside Google probably know all about the algorithm.
Google is famous for its testing, like A/B split testing, change of background colour of Sponsored ads, change of width of Search result page and search box etc. And usually Google shares many of the test results with its users, in the form of reports.
And it is known to most of us that, the result shown in the first position of the result page gets more attention and click, than that present in 3rd, 4th, 5th and so on positions. And the results in the latter pages get least clicks.
But if you have seen a blog and Trust that blog, then you are more likely to click on it and go to that blog for information, then that ranking much higher.
Looking at the above image, you may be thinking Sony Ericsson is a bigger brand than fonearena. But if you have been reading fonearena for quite sometime, I bet you would click on it for reading the review before making a purchase.
So branding and Trust can increase the Search Engine visits too. You may be thinking it takes a lot of effort to get a small amount of traffic. Yes, it takes a lot of effort to build such Brand and Trust, but once done, you will get a lot of traffic. Its all about Trust, even if you are not a big brand yet, you can build the brand with the trust factor, which will have a long lasting effect on the minds of internet users.
Do you think, its late to join the bandwagon of building Trust? Might be a little late but better late than never 🙂
This is a video + presentation from Matt Cutts at WordCamp San Francisco 2009.
Matt Cutts is the head of the webspam team at Google where he specializes in search engine optimization (SEO) issues.
Matt Cutts blog is a number one source for many webmasters and SEO guys. Hope
This is a video + presentation from Matt Cutts at WordCamp San Francisco 2009.
Matt Cutts is the head of the webspam team at Google where he specializes in search engine optimization (SEO) issues.
Video:
Matt Cutts blog is a number one source for many webmasters and SEO guys. Hope this video and presentation from Matt helps.
Source:Mutt Cutts blog
Mani Karthik is a professional blogger and SEO Consultant from Cochin, India. And he had previously worked in a full time job, as a in-house SEO Specialist with an MNC for 5 years.
He has worked for many big companies so far, to help them optimize their website. You can see the list of them, in the about me section of DailySEOBlog.com, which is his primary blog.
Now without hurting your curiosity, here is the interview:
Satish: Please introduce yourself and about your online ventures, to our readers.
Mani: I’m an SEO / Social Media Consultant and a professional blogger. So that means I earn a living out of blogging and helping people sell things online with the help of SEO.
Satish: When did you start blogging seriously? What motivated you to choose internet business?
Mani: Started off back in my office days where I was working as in house SEO consultant. Started blogging as a part time fun thing, but it soon grew on me. Made many mistakes, and ultimately settled down with my blog dailyseoblog.com, for which I’m known today.
Satish: Do you have any other day job (9 to 5 job)?
Mani: No.
Satish: With a popular SEO blog, you might be a busy man. How does your day look like?
Mani: Starts off with my regular work out, then scanning through emails and rss feeds, then blogging, tweeting, then SEO work, project reports , client calls and meetings. Then I hop on to social media and pretty much remain there till the end of day. I do keep a schedule and try to remain as organized as possible, but I also love it when I’m having a handful to deal and is overwhelmed with it.
Satish: 3 things that you consider a waste of time, which you do.
Mani: Nothing at the moment, but as I find something I’d be quick to quit it.
Satish: From your experience, what do you think are the 3 most misunderstood SEO myths?
Mani: The myths about link exchanges, meta information and page rank.
Satish: Your best 3 SEO tips ever.
Mani:
1 – Build content that will force people to link to you.
2 – Build your brand on the Internet that your target audience won’t miss seeing.
3 – Develop authority to your domain.
Satish: With all these years of SEO consultancy experience, what are the common mistakes that you see your clients making on their blogs or business websites.
Mani: Lack of content. And sometimes people expect results to appear over the weekend. Also there are people who approach me after having done all possible black hat stuff and expecting a come back.
Satish: What’s your take on Twitter? Many people say that it’s a good marketing tool, while many others dislike calling Twitter as a marketing tool.
Mani: Its unfair to label twitter, because it has developed (by users) over the time into many forms starting from a simple communication device to many different uses. Like once the mobile was, its a communication tool for many, while some use it for tele calling, some even use it for texting, while some use it as a device to browse the web. Similarly Twitter is different things to different people.
For me, Twitter is a great tool to communicate and connect with like minded folks. And the good thing about it is that it isn’t complicated like many so called social networking sites.
Satish: Digg, StumbleUpon, Reddit, Delicious, Yahoo Buzz! etc — Order them according to your priority ?
Mani: Digg > SU > Mixx > Delicious > Reddit – But they are not on the same stage. Each of them have different character and uses, its just that I use one more than the other according to my preferences.
Satish: What are your 3 main strategies for blog promotion?
Mani:
1 – Content.
2 – Brand.
3 – Communication.
Satish: What repels you the most from a blog/website(animation at your face advertising etc)?
Mani: Stale content.
Satish: Your tips, advice for newbie bloggers/webmasters.
Mani: Keep consistent, dont lose your cool. On the internet, success doesn’t happen overnight, its a gradual process. If you’re looking for making money overnight, try stock trading.
Satish: One more question of my personal interest.. I have heard the podcasts on your blog, they are really of high quality. What devices/hardware do you use for the purpose?
Mani: Skype and some free sound editing software like Audacity. I record all the podcasts/ video / talks from my Mac.
Satish: Your Personal hobbies and interests?
Mani: Movies, music, and traveling.
Satish: Life before blogging, blogging life, where you want to see your blog in next 5 or 10 years time? And how do you feel about it.
Mani: After 5 years, I want to be doing the same thing as today and earning five times as of now. Honest.
Satish: Some of your life’s ambitions?
Mani: Setting up my own publishing agency.
Satish: How does your family and friends react when you say “I am working in Internet, from my Home!”
Mani: The reason I’m working from home is my family. I don’t want to be feeling guilty staying away from them, working for someone else. So they’re cool, in fact they help me very much with their support. Friends mostly don’t understand the idea except for the Internet savvy ones.
Satish: Please tell something, to all your fans and followers ..
Mani: Feel free to add me to your social networks. 🙂
We take this opportunity to thank Mani Karthik for the interview. And wish him a greater success in coming years.
Hope you have all enjoyed the interview and would practice, some of the practical things shared by Mani Karthik. Hope to hear your thoughts in the comment section.
Mani Karthik has moved his blog to a brand new domain called DailyBloggr, to focus on a broader topic. Make sure you visit the new site.
I know this is a small thing to many people out there, but I am writing about this for the beginners. I had also faced lot of problem in changing the permalink, when this blog was hosted in Yahoo! server.
Permalinks are the permanent URLs to your individual weblog posts, as well as categories and other lists of weblog postings. A permalink is what another weblogger will use to link to your article (or section), or how you might send a link to your story in an e-mail message. The URL to each post should be permanent, and never change — hence permalink.
To change the permalink structure, first you need to grant permission, to access the .htaccess file(It should be in writable mod). To do that, log into your hosting account using any FTP software...we recommend using "FileZilla". As it is a FREE software and a good featured one and yet so simple to use.
Ask for the host name to your hosting support team or search in their blog. Username and password will usually be the same as the username and password of your hosting account cpanel.
After logging into your Hosting account through “FileZilla”, goto the folder, where you have installed your wordpress theme, select .htaccess and index.php files and then right click and select “File Attributes”..Now change the Numeric value from 644 to 666. This would grant the writing mode to those two files.
And there is a .[dot] in the beginning of the file name .htacess, that file many not be visible. In this case change the settings to show all the files. or you can ask about it to your web host support team.
Now you can simply log into your wordpress account and then click on the “settings” tab, and then click on the Permalinks tab.
There choose which ever format you want your permalink to be.
If you don’t like any of those, then select the “Custom Structure”, as shown in the above image. Now specify whatever structure you want…
Make sure to end your permalink structure with either %post_id% or %postname% (e.g. /%year%/%monthnum%/%day%/%postname%/) so that each permalink points to an individual post.
Now choose any one of these or the combination’s of these and put it in the “Custom Structure”, and make sure to end your structure with either %post_id% or %postname% .
Ex:-
/%day%/%postname%/
Now press “Save Changes” button. Thats it. You have setup the permalink structure of your choice. Congrates!
And now don’t forget to change the file permission of .htaccess and index.php files to 644 again, for security purpose.
If you still face any problem with this, then it would be better to contact your hosting provoider.
And you may also feel this plugin interesting to redirect the older permalink structure to the new one’s without any hassle.
For more details about this click here.
You could also be interested in reading Permalink contribution for duplicate content.
Here is a checklist of the factors that affect your rankings with Google, MSN, Yahoo, Ask! and other search engines.Most of the factors in the checklist apply mainly to Google and partially to MSN, Yahoo!
1. Proper URL, which includes the keywords of the post.
Ex:- If you are writing about money making through Internet topic, then your URL would be http://yoursitename.com/money-making-through-internet/
Here the keywords money and internet are important, as these words will be displayed in the SERP (Search Engine Result Page).
And writing a post about Vegetables and fruits at your place and giving a URL like http://yoursitename.com/this-is-my-second-post/ will surly harm your serp.
2. Have proper, relevant key words in your title.Because this is displayed in the SERP with your site link.Keywords that relate to the post.And having a good title also helps people to know what they can expect after clicking the link.The example at point one also holds good here.
3. Keywords in headings (<H1>, <H2>, etc. tags) has more weightage in Search engines, so be cautious while choosing them.(This is also very important for those who are using AdSense, to get more relevant ads).
4. Keywords in <alt> and <title> tags of images(<img>) are very important. Search Engine Spiders can’t read images but they do read their textual descriptions in the <alt> tag, so if you have images on your page, fill in the <alt> tag with relevant keywords about them. In this case, the keywords should be about the image and not about your blog or blog post. And some of the browsers don’t respond to this <alt> tag, so you can use the <title> tag. This will get you some traffic from Google image search, if your images are listed in Google Search Engine.
5. Keywords in meta tags — Now a days it is said that, search engines no more use your websites meta tags. But I have observed that, search engines do consider them in the beginning, and after they have indexed your pages deeply, they will just discard the keywords in your meta tags. Anyway,filling these tags properly will not hurt, so do it.
Remember, not using meta tags would be better than using them to trick Search Engines. If you have irrelevant keywords in your meta tags, then you will surly be penalized by search engines.
6. Use short descriptions near images — this would help search engines to index the images properly, thus your website will be more SEO friendly.
7. Incoming links — Though not in our control, it is important if the site that links to you is a reputable one or not. Generally sites with greater Google PR are considered reputable. And the longer the link stays in the site, the greater will be its value.And the links from similar niche sites would have higher priority.
And if your blog is related to technology, then the blogs should link to you with proper keyword related to the technology and not simply like click here. Because your site is not about click here!
And the site page that links you must not have many outgoing links or just outgoing links. If your site URL is the only one outgoing link from another site’s article, then it would suggest the search engine that your site is of more importance. Thus will get more search juice.
Links from .edu and .gov sites are also said to be more reputable than .com. .biz, .info, etc. domains.And its the hardest to achieve.
8. Unique content — This is the key. You should have very good quality content and something original to say. And, if all the contents in your blog is concentrating on particular niche, then your search engine ranking would be higher.
9. Have comment section in your posts — This would make the contents of the page to get updated whenever there is a comment left. And search engines like to fetch more of those updated contents.
10. Have frequent posts — This will keep Search Spiders busy in your site and coming back more frequently and like a scheduled way.
11. Keyword formats — Change the front size, bold, italics etc of certain keywords to highlight those keywords.
12. Duplicate content in our own site — this also hurts our ranking. You must see whether your site is accessible by these two URL http://yoursitename.com and www.yoursitename.com . If this is true, then as soon as possible contact your domain registrar and ask them to redirect it to any one URL.Making your own website (the same website) accessible from two URL will confuse the search engines and there is high chances of getting penalized.
And make sure that, your contents are only at one single place(URL) and not in many places like tags, homepage, archives page etc. Let there be only small excerpt of the post and in all other places other than the main post, and let all other things link to the original article.
13. Have a well designed, well coded website. Search engines see the HTML codes while indexing and not the regular pages, as we human visitors see. So if they find some badly coded things like irrelevant tags, opening tags which are left without closing tags(missing tags) etc will surly contribute a lot to bad search engine ranking.So take care about the designing very much in the beginning itself.
14. Illegal Content may kick you off the SERP.Websites containing porn contents, copied contents and some other contents which violet the search engines polices may get penalized.
15. Black hat techniques to get to the top of search engine rankings will make your site to lose the race in the long run.And if detected by Search Engines, your site will be penalized and in worst cases your website will be removed from the SERP.
16. Choose the domain name very consciously.Include some keywords of your niche in it to get better ranking.
Use hyphens, if you have 2 or 3 keywords to be included.Hyphens are said to be search engine friendly.But note that, use of more than 3 hyphens may confuse your real visitors and finally endup losing your regular direct visitors, who may not comeback as they can’t remember the site URL.
17. Downtime and restrictions — Many web hosting companies have downtime now and then, this will surly make the site not accessible to search engine spiders.And using password protected pages, restriction from robot.txt will make the crawling more difficult or sometimes impossible.
18. Sitemap — It would be a very good idea to have a site map.Let the site map be a old fashioned plain HTML sitemap or the special Google sitemap format, keep the Sitemap updated always and submit it to search engines.This would ensure that you are in the list of search spiders.
19. Site age — The older the site is, the higher the chances of getting higher position in SERP.
This may be because, an established site is more trustworthy, as they have been around from long time.Search engines hate fly-by-night kind of sites.
20. IP address( Static or Shared IP Address? )
This could matter only for shared hosting or when a site is hosted with a free hosting provider, when any one IP addresses in the Shared hosting is blacklisted due to spamming, adult contents or any other illegal practices then all other sites with same IP address will get affected.
21. And don’t have the wrong notion that, you will be ranked high, as you are a AdSense or/and AdWord customer.This has nothing to do with SERP. It may just boost your earning and not the ranking.
22. Do not sell text-link-ads.Use of nofollow is advised.
23. Have a custom error page…to tell the visitors that, they have typed a wrong URL. Do not just redirect them to the page that matches the keyword they typed.Just display the relevant topics under that page, and let your visitors decide and navigate to whichever post they like.
24. Do not use any keywords just for the sake of Search Engines, like creating links which matches the background of your site(Which are hidden or invisible for the real visitors). This would also be considered as Black Hat technique.
25. Do not end the URL with
.dll
.bin
.exe
.tar
.0 (this is being accepted by Google recently, but still not an ideal choice.
Just go to Google and use this query “[filetype:exe]” (Without cotes) to see whether the file types are being indexed by Google or not.
26. Do not have the link to the same article in the post title in the single.php(in the main post page). It is OK to have link in the title, when we show excerpts somewhere else in our blog(ex:-in homepage, Archives etc).
27. Put the NoFollow attribute to your Feedburner Feed Links, as search engines see same content in your feed content as well as your blog contents and penalize for duplicate contents.
28. Finally, build the site keeping your visitors as your primary importance.Because, Search Engines are always in search of good contents, to give to its users while they search. So follow some basic rules listed above and have a very good, valuable content, and you will see your site ranking going up over time.
Now you must take a look at, Jefferson Graham interviewing Google engineer Matt Cutts on how to get your site to the top of Google with 5 basic, common sense SEO tips…..(don’t miss it)
Please share your knowledge about SEO and share some of the missed out points from the above list, in the below comment section…