OVBlogger: Blogging and SEO

If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

clipped from www.searchnewz.com Why is this change going to be so different? In the past, the search engines have incrementally updated certain aspects of their algorithms to improve the quality of their SERPs, for example, eliminating the positive effect of Meta tag keyword stuffing which was being abused by spammers. Anyone who has been in the SEO industry for more than a few years probably remembers the chaos and panic when the major search engines stopped ranking websites based on this approach. This time around though, were looking at something much more significant than simply updating an algorithm to favor particular factors or discount others. We are looking at not only a completely new way for search engines to assign value to web pages, but more importantly, a new way for search engines to function.

Scary? Shouldn’t be, if you’re not using Black Hat techniques. Wall sees Google penalizing for paid linking on both sides of the equation and duplicate content becoming invisible. He also goes on to say that local search will become more important as will plain old quality, unique content.

So, is SEO dead? Wall doesn’t think so, and neither do I. Just as with any other change that Google has made, we’ll have to learn to adapt.

This shouldn’t be too tough, if you’ve been putting the good silver out, instead of the every day flatware. Serving our clients and readers well is what it will probably be all about, according to Wall.

And shouldn’t it be, after all? Who wants to search for something and find the same damned thing over and over again on the page? The more I thought about the Howie Schwartz method of just blasting things out into Web 2.0, the more I realized that it’s a huge time sink. It may work now, but I wonder how long the effects will last?  If you’re doing throw-away campaigns, I guess it works in the short-run. But…

I encourage you to read the full article to see what Wall sees as Google’s next evolution.

Popularity: 23% [?]

I have a new system that I’m testing.

I’ve been following Matt Bacak’s plan of writing an article, turning it into a Power Point, making a video from that, writing a press release and sending that off, and on and on… If you don’t know the system, Matt sent it in an email, but I know it’s on his blog: “Slap Google Like a Ragdoll.”  I think it will be quite powerful, and well, if Matt said it works, I’m sure it does.

So, how do put yourself on the cutting edge? That’s the deal, right? You need to be on the ball with the fastest and the mostest.

Do it all. Set up a routine where you do specific tasks each day. Like

• Monday, I do the Power Point and video.
• Tuesday, I distribute it with Traffic Geyser and write a press release.
• Wednesday, I distribute the press release, and get the video or the article into Squidoo.
• Thursday, I work on some blogs.
• Friday, I do the content sites, Tumblr, Gather, Ning, and PBWiki.

And all of it gets bookmarked.

Just started the system a few weeks ago.

Let’s see how it works.

Popularity: 27% [?]

Have you ever been to an Internet Marketing conference?

If not, you’re wasting valuable time. Attending conferences and meeting people in this industry is very, very important. You know how it is…

People hear your name or see your website, but you’re still only pixels on a screen. You aren’t real to them. They need to see your face, shake your hand, and get to know you, if only just a little. Believe me, it makes all the difference in the world.

Last weekend, as you know, I went to a conference, and what I took away was invaluable.  I took away relationships with Baby Boomers, who are trying to make it online. There was a whole room full of them! In fact, the absence of younger folks was noticable.

That’s not to say that there aren’t plenty of younger folks online.  All of the people I work with are nearly half my age, but I was suprised to see how many people my age were there. It seems we’re getting ready to retire or have already done it, and just need something more to take us into our golden years that we can’t expect the world to provide for us. It’s a very scary time in the world right now. Anyway, I was very encouraged to see how many people my age were in that room. It didn’t used to be that way.

So, that’s what I took away. A bunch of new friends and a new respect for my niche. Many of them don’t even know how to turn a computer on! But for those of us who do, there’s still plenty of time and plenty of hope for a rosier future.

Workin’ on that.

Popularity: 22% [?]

This was totally cool! Check it out… I’m a “star.”

Popularity: 28% [?]

Another interesting day.  The ever fun and friendly Jeff Wellman started off the day and it’s always great to shake his hand and I love listening to him. Jeff is just so real. One of the good guys. Actually, I think of Keith Wellman as his kid, whereas people usually think of Jeff as Keith’s dad.  It’s amazing to see that a dairy farmer can make it, too. Pretty sweet. He’s just such a nice guy that he totally deserves all the success he’s achieved.

Drew Miles was up next, and whoa. He’s full of very cool ways to save you tax money. Did you know there is a better kind of corporation that you can form? Who knew?

Matt Bacak gave his formula for making money. Really simple stuff, but he did give a nugget that I plan to use.  Yahoo, Matt.

And now, Keith Wellman is on. He’s giving out some cool stuff, but one thing he said really hit home, “People buy from leaders,” which he attributed to Gary Ambrose. Never quite thought of it that way, huh? Be a leader in your niche and people will buy from you. Pretty simple.

But he’s saying that you should get your competitors to be your JV partners. That’s great, except if you don’t have a list over 10,000, you won’t get very far with big-name marketers. Here’s my take (which I learned from Tellman) is to find JV partners with lists of similar size.  They can be just as valuable if you work your launch right. Ah, wait. i typed too soon. Keith is giving this same info now. Good on him.

I have no idea who’s coming up next. We registered so late that we didn’t even get an agenda. Oh, well. It’s been surprising. That’s the best!

Popularity: 29% [?]

So, I’m here sitting at Michael Penland’s JV & Internet Marketing Super Conference listening to Howie Schwartz. I remember him from GDI days when I didn’t know what an upline sponsor was. He’s come a long way.

But what’s making me pleased right now is that he’s talking about what I do. SEO, Web 2.0 and such. Here’s something I already knew… Page Rank means bupkiss.

Here’s something else I already knew… Web 2.0 is where it’s at. He says that someday Google traffic will be Bonus traffic, meaning Web 2.0 will rule, and search is just gravy. Hmm… What I’ve been saying for the past 6 months or so.

Content sites, bookmarking sites, Facebook, Twitter… It’s all good, people.

But here’s something interesting. He says that duplicate content doesn’t matter. That’s new. And I’m guessing he’s right because of something I saw on Social Marketing Central  a few weeks ago. Someone said that he’s been putting dupe content on like 10 blogs and all of them are being ranked.

What’s that say?

Only matters if it’s on your own website. I know that’s true because our position dropped like a stone on one site because someone had posted the same articles I was writing on the blog to the front page. BOOM! Gone in sixty seconds, and as soon as I nuked the dupe stuff, we came back to #3.

Interesting. Very interesting.

Popularity: 60% [?]

If you’re new to marketing, like most of my clients are, when somene mentions “keyword density,” you may freeze like a squirrel in the headlights. It’s kind of scary. I mean what the hell is it? Right?

OK…

Here’s the deal…

Keyword density means how many words are your keywords when compared to all the words on the page, in the article, the press release, etc.

If I wrote an article that was 100 words, (yes, pretty crappy article, but stick with me here), and two of the words in that article were my keyword, then there would be a 2% density because 2 ÷ 100 = .02, which is 2%. Right?

Easy.

But what if you have 725 words and 14 of those words are your keyword but some of them are keyword phrases, and you aren’t sure how that works out. Well, there’s a place you can go to make it easy!

Live Keyword Analysis.com (http://www.live-keyword-analysis.com/). It’s totally one of the best sites online, and not even monetized. There are no pop-ups, no banner ads, just a great tool. Here’s how it works:

You wrote an article in a text editor like WordPad or TextPad (my particular favorite), and you used your keywords, hopefully to just the right amount. What is that? Oh, around 2% is optimal.

So, you select the article, including the title, and you go over to Live Keyword Analysis, where you can plug that baby into the text box. Above that, you can type in the keyword phrase or phrases and BAM! You get the keyword density instantly.

How cool is that?

If you find your density is too low, see if you can add a keyword to make the density better. If you find that your density is at 3% or above, remove a keyword or however many you need to to make the density more reasonable. Search engine spiders will think a very high density is spamming.

On the other hand, you have to keep your readers in mind. Don’t sacrifice readability for keyword density. Nobody wants to read anything that repeats the same words over and over where they don’t belong. That just sucks.

Anyway, as you’re making these changes, Live Keyword Analysis will give you the results instantly. That’s darned cool. And it’s free.

Yep. It’s a great site and one you should use. Well… Unless you just like doing the math.

Popularity: 24% [?]

So, tell me…

Are you on Twitter? I mean, ON Twitter. Do you get updates continually from your friends? Do you follow the gurus to see what they’re typing? Do you have a secret account under an assumed name, where you can be weird as you want?

There are all kinds on Twitter, after all.

But I really wish that Twitter would employ the Facebook ability to tell you who you might like to be friends with.  I mean, there are so many people in this Internet business industry, it’s hard to remember who might be cool to follow, right? Oh, I’m so lazy. I could look in my Inbox and pull those names out, but who has time?

Facebook is defnitely a timesaver. Some might say total time waster, but it’s not. I’m going to another conference this weekend because I’m a friend of the promoter on Facebook. It’s sweet! Plus, I’ve done some JVs and made money. I’ve done ad swaps and made money. And it’s because of Facebook. Not a time waster at all.

So, you see, social marketing rocks. It’s not just lucrative, it’s fun! Why not have fun working? Otherwise, it’s not something you should do at all. Life’s too short to be stuck in a job or lifestyle you hate. Facebook makes it fun. Twitter really makes it fun.

Follow me: patm7

Hmm…

If Jimmy Buffet fans are “Parrot heads,” what are we? “Tweety heads?” Yikes! When you think about it, that translates to “bird brain.” Scratch that.

Popularity: 24% [?]

If you’ve been reading my blog for very long, you’ll know that I’m an inveterate theme changer.  I can’t help it. I see something new and shiny and I just run for it. Colors and images totally turn me on.

My whole family are artists, so it’s no wonder, eh? It’s on my side and my husband’s side, too, so my daughter lucked out with the best art genes from both sides. I just like pretty shapes and colors. Oooh… Ahhh… Drool.

So, when I see a theme that just grabs me… I grab it.

The one I have now isn’t quite my cup of tea. It’s OK, you know. Businessy and such, but it’s really not me.

And you probably feel the same way about your theme or that ubiquitious Kubrick theme that everyone starts out with. You don’t have to be stuck with that!

There are a couple of three or four ways to change it.

You can go into your Design tab and mess with the header colors. Just making them a little different is good. And if you’re not very techy, this is a way you can go right away with no tech acumen whatsoever. You can also have headers made by a graphic artist and just swap out the header image, too. That’s pretty easy to do.

But finding and uploading a new theme is just as simple, really.

Go to http://wordpress.org/extend/themes/ and find a new one that you like and that suits your purpose. You can afford to be a little quirkier with a personal blog, or if your niche is a little quirky. For business blogging, think clean and bright. No black. I know this now, as my friends gave me the smackdown about my last <sigh> really favorite theme.

Once you have the theme, extract the files, and upload it via ftp to your blog’s wp-content/themes folder. Once you have done that, it will appear in your Design area. One really cool feature about WordPress 2.6.x is that it allows you to preview the theme before you actually let it go live.

The only thing about changing your theme that you probably won’t like is that some customizations will have to be re-done. Your widgets should still work, unless you’ve gone from a three-column template to a one-column template, but then, it’s only a matter of rearranging. So, that’s cool.

But if you’ve added any social networking buttons, as I have AddThis, for example, they’ll have to be re-done. Kontera is something else you’ll have to reload into the template. But if you haven’t done any of this stuff… you’re probably good to go.

I know WordPress just keeps making things better and better and they totally rock! But here’s something for my wishlist: When someone chooses a new theme, can’t you magically just make it appear on my blog without having to make all those customizations all over again?

That would be sweet!

Popularity: 24% [?]

It’s a Friday silly day. Of course, it is!

Well, I have something for you today that’s not silly at all. Want to measure how your site is doing? I mean, what people are looking at when they come to see your website or blog?

Like over the past week, I see 831 visitors and 160 clicks. Not a record load of traffic, but it’s building and it’s mostly coming direct or from search. Watch out Shoemoney. Ha!

Everyone clicked on different things, but mainly the AddMe button for bookmarking, which is very cool. Thanks to those who took the time to do that.

I got 27 optins. Welcome, friends!

And 9 people were interested in my “About Me” page.

This is totally cool stuff to know, right?

But… you also get a heat map. This shows you plainly what people are looking at when they come to your site. My brightest lites were subscribe to my list and my RSS feed. Not bad.

And then… you also get a “confetti” report. These are colored dots of light and when you click on them, you can see how the person got to your blog or site, how long they spent, what browser they used, and what operating system they have.

Whoa.

And all that for free. Go check this out. It’s an incredible tool, and I just gave you the highlights.

http://crazyegg.com

Popularity: 25% [?]