OVBlogger: Blogging and SEO

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If you’re into stats and analytics, like I can be, you probably should know about Hit Tail.

You can get some pretty cool long-tail ideas from it to use in posts, web pages, articles, whatever. My most searched phrase happens to be “how to embed video” in various combinations, like “on Blogger,” “on My Space,” and in “WordPress,” of course. That’s pretty neat to know.

So, how can I use that?

I’m going to produce a video soon to go along with the article that I wrote here a few months back: “How to Embed Video in a WordPress Blog,” and I’m going to put it up in all the usual places. I mean, it’s so simple to do, it’s ridiculous, but people who don’t know how to do it are obviously looking for the “how-to.” Cool. Hit Tail told me so.

It also tells me what keywords people searched for to get to my blog today, like “netslingers,” “seo matrix,” and “scribd ban.” Hmm… other people must be pissed about that, too. But I know what they’re interested in learning more about. Also cool.

Sub-domains, Ross Goldberg Call, StomperNet videos, and How to Blog course are my “suggestions.” Great. I have a How to blog course at http://Blogging4Boomers.com. Check that out.

But you see how valuable knowing this kind of stuff is? I look at it periodically to see what interests people most. I can use the information in so many different ways that it really makes sense to have such an account, right?

The basic account at Hit Tail is free but for an upgrade, it’s only $9.95 a month. Check it out, and I’m sure you’ll see the possibilities in having this very cool and basic information.

Popularity: 62% [?]

Isn’t that just like Web 2.0? Constantly changing and morphing into something we want it to be? Well, my theme wasn’t behaving like I wanted it to and…

The pink theme was “pretty” someone told me. Well… It was too girly. I guess I’m a girl. Well, last time I checked, eh? So, now, it’s down to bidnez.

I’d worry that I’ll confuse readers, but I know a) that my readers are really smart and b) oh well. The other theme just wasn’t working with WordPress 2.3.1 and there’s another update that my web host doesn’t have yet. When I change that, things may go all kaflooey again. Who knows?

But thanks for putting up with me. I figure that if Jack Humphrey can change things a lot, well, so can Pat Marcello. Of course, Jack has way more blog traction than I do and he’s way more famous than little me, but heck. Follow the masters, right? Isn’t that so, Jack?

What’s on the agenda today?

Long-tail keywords. I just wrote something about that for Tellman’s blog (http://listbuildingblog.com) and I mentioned that they work, and they do. I’ve used them for Tellman’s sites and for outside clients and they will pull in some traffic. You just have to be aggressive in using them.

But never use any keywords, unless they make sense. Don’t ever try to stuff in keywords and make your writing sound silly. People hate that, and so do search engines.

So, I digress…

Nancy Andrews has a video that says long-tail is B. S. that you can rank without using long-tail phrases and says she does it all the time. I agree with that, too. If you have great backlinks out the wazoo like she does, then you’re bound to do better than a site that uses long-tail keyword phrases without great backlinks.

I say it’s a combination of both. If you go to SEO Digger at http://seodigger.com and plug in “InstantADDSuccess.com” you can see how many keyword phrases we rank for, and many of them on the first page. Do those keywords get any traffic? Some of them do, yes, and it’s the combination of hits from various keyword phrases that get us on page 1.

We don’t have a lot of backlinks, but we do have some that are good. I worked on that for a long time, too. So, what works?

Whatever works for you. I say a combination of things. Long-tail and not long-tail keywords; getting one-way backlinks, especially from quality directories; articles using your keyword phrases; and blog postings using the keywords, too. You just have to keep the system going.

Even when you get on page 1, guess what?

There’s another SEO trying to knock you off.

So, keep on keeping on. That’s about all you can do.

Popularity: 54% [?]