OVBlogger: Blogging and SEO

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You know, there is no better search engine spider bait than good content. It’s like their sustenance, their mana, their raison d’etre.

But I’m talking good, relevant content, not crap that you throw together, swipe elsewhere, or buy rights to. I mean good, unique content that teaches, explores, reviews, or entertains. You need to learn either how to make this or how to acquire it, if you want to rank in the SERPs (search engine results pages).

Blogging is awesome, of course, or I wouldn’t do it almost every day. It’s a great way to communicate with the people in your niche. Hopefully, some of them are on your list or even better, if they aren’t, you have a lovely big optin box in the topmost widget of sidebar.

But there are other cool places to put content that can give you great spider juice because you’re making incoming links from high-ranking websites.

We all know about article directories, right? The premiere directories are, of course, Chris Knight’s Ezine Articles. It’s just the best. And then, there is Go Articles, also good, and if you want to distribute, just to get traffic (because dupe content won’t really help your SEO cause), there’s iSnare.com, where you can pay $2 and have your article distributed all over the Web.

But what about the Web 2.0 content sites? Do you know how many of them there are, and how awesome they can be?

We’re talking…

Scribd: With a page rank of 7, it’s a heavy hitter. Just never, ever put a link in there or your entire IP address will be banned. I’m back in their good graces as an author, and that pleases moi.

HubPages: What a cool site. You can be commercial there all you want, even add modules from Amazon and eBay.  Page rank: 5

Zimbio: You can upload your blog feed articles and have them distributed to different Wikis. I would allow the spiders to find the content on my blog first, though. You’re serving dupe content. So, check the cache date of your blog first, then Zimbio the stuff. Or, better, just write something new. Page rank: 6

PBWiki: Create your own Wiki free. You can add articles, videos, press releases, or whatever. You can link pages together. Like if you’re writing an article about Web 2.0 content sites, you could link the Zimbio and HubPages pages together. You can categorize posts. And anyone who want to can add to your wiki.

Ning: Create your own social network around your Niche. Very neat. You can add video, audio, pictures, make blog posts, and so on. Nifty.  Ning is a PR 7, but you’d have to build your own page rank there by building up your membership. Not hard to do when you’re offering cool, free information.

Tumblr: Much like Ning in its composition and what you can add. Yet, this is strictly NON-commercial. If you put a link to an affiliate site into Tumblr, they’ll just suspend your account without warning, and all your hard work will be for naught. So, instead, link to another of your Web 2.0 properties, right?

Squidoo: This was probably one of the first, if not THE first Web 2.0 content site. Squidoo is tons of fun and they have plenty of different modules you can add from RSS feeds to polls to pull quotes. It’s a blast.

Gather: This is a great site and it promotes the group atmosphere. Each time you submit something there’s the ability to send it to whatever groups you belong to. Pretty sweet. Of all the sites, this is definitely one of my favorites.

But there are many more content sites in the Web 2.0 arena, and they’re all great. The only thing you need to remember, if you’re a marketer, is to read the terms of service first and see what each site will and won’t allow. There’s nothing worse than having your site yanked from under you, especially when you’ve spent time building it up.

I try to add something to each of my content sites every week. Over time, you’re really building a body of work. If it’s good stuff, it’s not only the search engines that will notice, but people in your niche will notice, as well.  When they like your stuff, they’ll join your list and the bigger your list, the more you’ll make from it.

There are all kinds of reasons for wanting to put as much cool, unique content out there as possible.  The most important of them is that you’ll start to be noticed. With all of the gazillion bloggers, article writers, and Twitterers there are online, you need something solid to give you a leg up.

Popularity: 22% [?]

I just finished writing a post over at the Conquer Your Niche forum about directories and thought I’d share:

Actually,

Google specifically isn’t really counting links from many directories. DMOZ.org, Yahoo, or Joe Ant are quality listings in their eyes. A plain old “link farm” directory won’t get you anywhere.

What they’re concerned about is that the directory makes sense. If you’re listed in a golf directory for an Internet marketing information product, it won’t help a bit.

Also, if the links aren’t reviewed and validated by humans, you won’t get any link juice, either, because that’s one of Google’s requirements for a “quality” directory.

I wouldn’t waste too much time on directories.

My advice is to apply for a listing in DMOZ at http://dmoz.org, which is free. Yahoo’s directory is $299 a year, so unless you’re making the income to justify that, it’s probably not going to work for you. But…

Joe Ant.com, (http://joeant.com) for example, is like $40 one time and it will get you the kind of backlink you want. Not a bad investment, IMO.

Articles work much better. Plus, you can turn around and re-purpose them for your blog. Of course, you don’t want to use the same article in your blog that you post to Ezine Articles or Go Articles or another quality directory. You need to rewrite the whole thing so that it’s at least 60% different so that you don’t run into the “duplicate content” issue. You won’t be penalized, but you won’t benefit, either. Google may decide that some other site gets credit for your work, as they tend to pick only one site to credit for a particular piece of content.

Directories aren’t even as powerful as blogging. Writing in a blog everyday will get you far more traction with the search engines, however Google does love itself. A DMOZ listing is just as good as ever.

Does anyone ever get DMOZ listings? I’m not sure. I placed links about two years ago that still haven’t shown up. But then, I didn’t become an editor, either. I hear that’s a quicker road to success there.

Bottom line? I wouldn’t waste too much time with directories. Concentrate on other stuff that works much, much better–articles, press releases, social bookmarking, and so on.

And of course… my favorite… blogging! It totally rocks.

Come to my telseminar series on blogging with some of the biggest names in the IM world… Call tonight!

Popularity: 31% [?]

I joined Scribd last week because of watching the Stomper Videos. I thought that would be really, really cool as a professional writer. So, I went in and added a couple of articles for myself.

Then, I decided it would be a cool place to add some articles for Tellman, too. So, I put one up. But I made a horrible, horrible mistake. I should be tied to a stake and whipped. Gasp! I added an author’s resource box.

I’ll admit it was a really dumb mistake. It was already on the article and I think it’s the only one I have in the 280+ I’ve written over the past 20 months that has one. But I was in a hurry and didn’t think about it. My bad. My very, very bad.

It had a link.

The following day, I get this email from Scribd telling me that I was banned and so was my IP address (!!!) because of breaking their TOS, that a whole bunch of uptight Scribd users complained. Oh, bad, bad me. It was my fault. But they said I did it “repeatedly,” which was a bunch of B.S. because I had only submitted ONE article. I wrote to them and explained that it was a stupid newbie mistake and swore an oath that I would never do it again. And of course, I wouldn’t, but they don’t know me and have no reason to trust me, evil person that I am. I mean, I should be drawn and quartered, too.

But then, I got another email, and it basically told me that because all of us slimey SEO types (my words, not theirs, but that was the gist) trying to put stuff into their database they have a ZERO tolerance policy. Apologies aren’t acceptable and basically, I’m screwed.

So, I wrote back and asked what about other people (meaning me personally) using Scribd at the same IP. Should they be penalized for a dumb mistake, too?

I just got another email.

Tough shit is what it said. (Again my words, not theirs, but that was the gist. Oh, it was very polite, don’t you know.) To quote: “We can only ban the IP address that the router shares with the Internet, even when it affects otherwise innocent people.” So, that means that if you work in an office somewhere and some guy on the 4th floor does something that Scribd doesn’t like, WOE BE TO YOU.

That’s pretty anal. Isn’t it?

So, beware. Don’t do one single thing that Scribd doesn’t approve of–like ever–or you’ll find yourself out in the cold. Banned for life.

I don’t think that’s at all fair. But it’s their site and they can run it the way they see fit.

However…

Scribd can kiss my SEO…

heart.

Popularity: 31% [?]