Originally SEO covered a lot of unknown territory and it was all experimental trial and error. We'd try everything, across many site, and hone in on...
Originally SEO covered a lot of unknown territory and it was all experimental trial and error. We’d try everything, across many site, and hone in on what worked and eliminate what didn’t. There were many experiments and many failures. We would sometimes just wing it and hope for the best, always taking notes though and analyzing results over the months ahead. It was a crazy time and the work was nothing short of hectic. Clients thought it was all voodoo or smoke and mirrors and the engines, well, they caught on quickly to everything we had for ideas, and when we really got a piece of the puzzle in place. Time have sure changed and things are no where near clear still, but if anything has come to the forefront about SEO, it is that there are certain things that need to be done, and things to be had, like links, and that covers the whole gamut … soup to nuts!
Way back when I started to SEO the term hadn’t even been coined yet. I found that if I added the keyword I wanted to get listed for one more time than the current #1 site I would take over that position. Google wasn’t even around, I imagine the Google gurus were in high school still. Times were exciting and the internet was the new frontier … just waiting to be conquered. Search engines were using the meta tag information to rank sites. So if you had your keyword in your meta keywords tag you would rank for it. Well, actually if your competition used it twice they would rank, so you would want to use it three times. It was really that simple at first. Nothing was impossible, so it seemed, and making money online because a simple task of setting up a site and doing this optimization thing to it.
We learned back then that the title tag was also important and things like this began to be some of the work we always had to do. The meta tags fell to the wayside eventually because it was such an abused system. Search engine algorithms had to become more sophisticated and find some other method to figure out what your site was about, and which out of all the sites was the most important one. To further complicate things the ‘net was growing in leaps and bounds and sites were popping up like kernels of Orville Redenbacher popcorn. There has been no more exciting, captivating and eye opening time of life for me since the sixties, which is when I grew up. Woodstock and everything!
When it was realized the optimization of a site was required if you wanted to be a successful business the whole idea of SEO, or optimization, was just starting to take shape. Frankly, I had no idea what to do to approach these new requirements that the engines had, and of course, they didn’t let you know what they thought was important! Slowly, by trial and error and gains and losses, we all began to figure out which things we could do that would help a site. A lot of common sense went into all this research and trial and error. We also discovered things that we definitely did not want to do.
Times have changed and come full circle. It is no longer necessary to hire on high priced SEO consultants and gurus to get your site optimized. See, along the way over the past years everything that has to do with optimizing a website has come out into the open. Today you can learn how to optimize your own website, and do it well, all on your own. How you learn is up to you. You can frequent all of the blogs and forums and absorb everything that is being tossed about. You can also take a structured course in how to optimize your own site. Either way, today learning how to optimize a website is a simple matter of training yourself in SEO … and it is very possible for anyone to do themselves.
There are quite a few ways for you to learn SEO today through online tutorials and courses. Be sure to choose a SEO tutorial that will show you the coding changes to make as well as provide information about inbound linking and how to begin generating these valuable backlinks to your site. Today, it’s all a matter of learning what SEO is and then getting the job done … it’s no longer a specialty field that you need to hire a technical guru for. SEO has settled down and become a standard part of web development.
Robert (BK) Kelsey runs Ethical SEO Service and offers as an affordable introduction to SEO (enough to optimize any website), as well as an .
People are creatures of habit, as I’m sure you’ve heard many a time. However it is an even truer statement that they are creatures of entertainment. People need to be entertained. People need to have things be exciting and capture their attention. How does all of this pertain to article marketing, website development and online business? Read on.
When what we want is to have someone read our web page, article or other content, we need to approach people in a way that will indeed captivate them. The title is where you want to get this job done. Use your keywords but do not forget to use words that will make people want to continue reading. Asking a question that begs to be answered is one example. This makes people want to continue reading.
With web pages you often get to have your title tag show up in the search engines results. Most of the major engines use the title tag, or part of it, in their results pages. Grab peoples attention here with a well written, keyword rich and entertaining tag and you will get that traffic. Use wording that spurs action to get them to click on your link. You can get them to your site even if you are #5 with this method.
Any title needs to be thought of in this way, not only the title tag on a web page. No matter what you are writing you need to get your readers attention. You want them to continue to read, or even to start to read, whatever it is you have put down into the written word. In article marketing this will be the title of your article. In content on a page it will be the headings and sub-headings of the content. Use the heading tags here, H1 and H2.
There can be a bit of a twist for a web page title. We need to have our keywords in it. We need to engage our readers so that we have their attention too, and that is generally not going to happen by keywords alone. Action words can help and get that person to click. Here are some very important words to use within titles you, results, health, guarantee, discover, love, proven, safety, save and new. Experts say the most important power words are you, free, new and how.
Robert (BK) Kelsey runs Ethical SEO Service where Training in SEO is offered both through an and an . Robert will also optimize your site for you with a typical monthly SEO Campaign.
What is pay-per=click advertising? This is question that has become very popular among many people who are interested in one of the latest forms of internet marketing. It is a process in which advertisers pay for internet traffic with the expectation of boosting sales within their business, and this is achieved by someone clicking on an ad that is related the their search on the internet. This method of advertising is designed with many perks; not only is it profitable to the advertisers business, but on a personal scale, it is also beneficial in helping to generate what could become an amazing source of supplemental income or even primary income.
This system, which is commonly referred to as PPC is comprised of many different levels; however, the truth is that although it carries many advantages, there are disadvantages just as well. To the untrained and unsuspecting individual, this technique can become very costly, very quickly.
With PPC advertising, the paid listings are located on the right hand side of the search engine followed by two maybe three ads which are located on the top page of the search engine as well. This system could be better understood as an auction for keywords; there is a lower level that ascends to a higher level which is predetermined by the amount that was bid on.
To draw an illustration, lets consider an example of a block with seven levels. At the bottom of the block, there is a person bidding for keywords at thirty cents per click and at the top of the block, someone is bidding for the same keywords at thirty dollars per click. The person who pays the higher amount will have priority with their listing being at the top of the search results.
The most important factor with PPC advertising is relevancy. When the keywords that are being probed are relevant, the chances are better of the ad appearing. This system can be somewhat difficult as it is not for everyone. The whole purpose is to secure as many economical clicks as one possibly can and to accomplish the goal; new comers will often start in the wrong direction with their bids being set at too low of a cost. This is counterproductive because the end result will take longer to generate.
A person who is wondering, “What is Pay-Per=Click Advertising?” will find that there are many answers to this question. However, to be successful at it, it is necessary to set the initial bid higher, then, as the Click through Rate (also referred to as CTR) raises, slowly begin to lower the bid (literally) by the cents. The CTR is the number of clicks the ad receives compared to the number of times it is shown. The bottom line is, obtaining education and information about any business venture is necessary for anyone who desires to be effective in it.
Terry Riordan is a twenty year business professional who writes extensively on online business topics including and
The most important part of a landing page or even an article is to have a compelling headline, because it is the headline that people see first and will read further based on the interest generated because of the headline. You might find the following tips helpful in making a powerful headline:
1) Before coming up with ideas for your headline you first have to determine what it is you are attempting to accomplish on the page or article where you will be placing it. Are you looking to make a sale, build your credibility up, or just share some solid information you think your readers would find useful? Knowing the purpose of your page will make it loads easier to come up with an effective headline that gets the job done.
2) What problem are you hoping to help your prospects solve? Keep in mind the only thing your prospects care about when they hit your page is their problem so be detailed as possible when defining the solution you have for them.
3) Write around four to five different headlines based on the above two steps. Then try to find which one of those will best impress a customer. For example, instead of “Introducing Weight Loss Pill…”, you can have a headline like “Lose Weight in 30 days with new weight loss pill”. Other ways will be to arouse the customers curiosity with a topic like “Seven secrets that top internet marketers wont tell you”.
4) Address the user directly (by using the word ‘You’) in your article or sales letter so that it can better connect with the user.
5) Always include words that inject emotion into what you are writing. To do this try to step into your readers shoes for a moment and empathize with them. For instance you could try a headline like “Are you sick of all the bogus make money quick scams you see online?”. Your site visitors who have been scammed in the past would undoubtedly find that headline appealing.
Matt LaClear is an Internet marketing enthusiast who absolutely loves sharing his knowledge with others. He also works full time as a copywriter for a Michigan SEO company where he specializes in teaching business owners the .
You check your traffic every day but all you find are tumbleweeds blowing across the landscape of your blog. Well, there’s a reason you’re not building readership. Your blog sucks. Most do, and all for the same reasons. The same 7 reasons.
1. Your articles are boring – Remember that thick book we all have to go through during high school? Hint: Textbooks. Aren’t they the most boring thing we ever come across. Why? There’s no life in the writing. It’s robotic. Write like you talk or you’re going to make your readers fall asleep. Yep, just the same way we did back then.
2. Your blog revolves around you – Unless you are a celebrity, no one cares about what’s been going on with your life. Instead of personal ramblings, you’re way more likely to gain loyal readers by sharing tips that can help solve their problems.
3. You’re repeating what others are saying – So what’s the whole point of reading your blog? I’m not saying you shouldn’t gain insight on what to write by reading other blogs, but always make sure to put your OWN two cent on the matter. Not a blatant copy paste of other peoples work.
4. Oh no, not your favorite music on auto-play! – So as soon as I access your blog, the ukulele string quartet starts playing? I’d rather hear an accordion band. Don’t add music to your site. Half the people won’t like it and the other half will find it’s a distraction.
5. Nothing but a wall of text – I’ve written many articles on what makes a good articles. Not once is this point missed out. It’s that important. And remember to put some relevant pictures to go along with your articles. It may take some time to find one, but it’s well worth the effort.
6. You post once a month – If you are serious about blogging, you should at least post thrice every week, for the first half a year or so. This is the bare minimum, I would say. Big blogs have multiple posts every day. Now I’m not saying you should do the same, but at least you should keep your posting schedule tight until you build a substantial amount of audience.
7. Your blog design is lame – I’m sure you heard of the importance of having a good first impression. That applies to blog, unfortunately. If your design is unprofessional and clumsy, chances are, they are not going to read what you have to say. It’s sad, I know.
Good news is, its never too late to correct these mistakes.
Nik Imran is the writer of IMakeABlog, a blog that provides guide on . If you have no clue as to what constitute a blog, you can check his article where he answers the most basic question in elaborate fashion. ?
One popular post can bring your more traffic and links than a month’s worth of your usual content. In this post, I want to set you a challenge with the potential to launch your blog into the stratosphere. So make sure to use these tips and make the next post you write your most popular post ever.
1. Time is more important than talent – Work on something for eight hours and you can bet it will be good. Spending more time on an article means you can refine, format and fill your post with more values. My advice is, take the time to really craft your content. It will show in the finished product.
2. Use your best idea – A post will never become wildly popular unless it fulfills a need, and does so emphatically. To generate ideas, there are lots of questions you can ask yourselves. For example, what is something your niche wants but hasn’t got yet?
3. Use formatting to your advantage – These days, a post can never become popular without the help of social media. However, social media users are notoriously spoiled for choice. Use formatting to emphasize the best aspects of your post. Hone in on your funniest lines, your most profound bits of advice, your best resources. Make them stand out.
4. Brainstorm headlines – Headline is important as it serves the purpose of drawing attention of readers to read your articles. If a headline does not instantly give an indication – i.e., an idea or hint, not the entire story – of not only what the page is all about but also the reasons why people should read further the moment they read it, it will actually deter prospects. So make sure to take some time to brainstorm your headlines.
5. Examine what worked before – Study your most popular posts so far. What’s common about them? Why did they work? What needs did they address? In creating your most popular post, it’s important to learn by example and build on what has worked for your blog in the past. Another good idea is to analyze the most popular posts on other blogs in your niche. Why did they work? What’s remarkable about them? You can transfer those qualities over into what you write.
6. Utilize your network – If you want people to Digg, Stumble or Reddit your post, there’s no reason why you need to sit back with fingers crossed and hope it happens. Ask them. Your loyal readers like you. You entertain them, or teach them, or help them. If voting is a simple matter of clicking a link they’ll be more than happy to do so. Ask for votes in your post and email readers and social media influencers. In most cases you will need to get the snowball rolling. After that, others will do most of the work for you.
7. Proof-read for typos and glaring grammatical errors – You wouldn’t go out of the house with dirty hair or missing a sock, so why would you publish spelling mistakes? Respect your readers by polishing up your stuff.
Nik Imran is the author of IMakeABlog, a blog that provides guide on . You can check out his guide on .
I’m sure you have heard that blogging takes time to take off. Yet I have seen many bloggers who make the mistakes of giving up early when the matter of fact is, they are on the right track. So how do you tell?
1. Growing subscriber count – If your blog’s subscriber base is growing, even slowly, you are making some progress. Gaining trust and subscribers is not easy, so try not to get your expectations unrealistically high. If you have realistic goals for subscriber growth you will more likely be able to feel good about your progress and stay consistent with your blogging.
2. Increasing Numbers of Inbound Links – For bloggers, incoming links are also representative of how well you are known in your industry and your number of links will grow as you start to become recognized as an authority.
3. Increasing numbers of valuable comments – The more comments you have, the better. If you are seeing an increase in the number of comments in your blog, make sure to participate in the discussion as well. If you have little to no comments, try commenting on other blogs for starters. This way, other bloggers will be aware of your blog. If they find your blog interesting, they would usually leave a comment.
4. Increasing visitors and pageviews – Many bloggers are stats junkies. While growth in traffic isn’t always representative of meeting or surpassing your blogging goals, it certainly isn’t a bad thing. There are many channels for you to market your blog and increase your visitors. Guest posting and making use of social media is some of the ways to reach out to new readers. If you make use of these channels, over time your blog stats will increase as more and more readers visit and subscribe to your blog.
5. Consistent posting – Consistent posting is perhaps one of the most important element to blogging success. For new bloggers, in order for your visitors to pay attention to your blog, it’s vital for you to provide new articles for them to read. If your blog looks dead, the chances are, they won’t subscribe. If you are posting consistently, you’re already one step ahead of the vast majority of bloggers.
6. Improving quality of articles – Though this may be a subjective issue, but I think most bloggers can make good comparison through going through their older posts. If the quality of your articles improves overtime, which it should, you’re on the right track.
7. An increasing network of bloggers – Networking is crucial. Look at it this way; bloggers support each other. Instead of seeing other bloggers as your competitors, try to see them instead as your partner. By networking with other bloggers, you are more likely to get links, guest blogging opportunities and comments.
Nik Imran is the author of IMakeABlog, a blog that provides guide on . If you are interested in building your own blog, check out his guide on .
Blogging is a bandwagon that took off with startling speed, one that all and sundry wanted to get on. Most did get on the blogging train, but there were very few who tasted the kind of financial success that they dreamed of. Below is the list of things you should keep in mind before starting your blog.
1. Be realistic – Don’t expect overnight success. It hardly happens. Of course there are few exceptions, but you don’t want to compare to them. These people not only have the skills and knowledge, but also got the timing right. It’s better to set a more realistic goal, break it down into stages and work on your plans.
2. Don’t quit your regular job – The blogosphere is full of enthusiastic people. The promise of financial success can lure people to make silly decisions, like quitting your day job to focus on your blog. This is a big mistake. Blogging takes time to take off. If you quit your day job, you’re putting yourself into a big risk, when you don’t need to. Sure, sometimes this risk pays off. But it doesn’t happen to everyone. A better option is to spent a few hours each day on your blog, after work.
3. Be passionate – If you write on topics that you are passionate about, you are most likely able to stick to it and make it work. Your passion will really show in your posts, through the details information provided, along with the consistency in your posting frequency.
4. Focus on a niche – Blogs that focus on a niche tend to do better than those that just prattle on about any random topic under the sun or those that are more personal in nature. So choose a niche that you enjoy and one which you can portray creatively so that other people will be interested in reading what you have to say. This way, they will know what to expect from your blog, and may choose to subscribe if the topic of your blog interest them.
5. Know that patience pays – One thing you must remember when beginning a blog is that you must be patient in order to see even a modicum of success. It takes a long time to popularize a blog, and even when that happens, it may be some more time before you start to see monetary results.
6. Spend some – It’s undeniable that blogging is cheap. You don’t even need to spend a dime if you don’t want to. There’s free hosting and do-it-yourself design options that is enough to start with. Though, I would recommend to at least get a self hosting option, if you are serious about blogging. This is to show professionalism to your visitors, which is important if you want people to subscribe to your blog.
Blogging is not hard if you know what you’re talking about. The learning curve is not steep, if at all. It does however, takes some time to take off. So don’t make the same mistakes others make, and success will eventually come to you.
Nik Imran is the writer of IMakeABlog, a blog that provides guide on . If you are interested in building your first blog, you can check out his guide on .
When I started blogging, I always remember what has to be done. Overtime however, these things are often forgotten. I’m pretty sure I’m not the only one here. I hope this post will serve as a healthy reminder for us bloggers.
1. Backup your blog regularly – I don’t think I can stress this enough. If there is one thing you should take from the tips listed here, it’s this one. And I speak from experience. Waking up early in the morning only to find your blog crashed and you have no backup data, is like having your soul mate killed right in front of you, and there is nothing you could do about it.
2. Link to older posts – Linking to older posts can increase your traffic and search engine rankings. Additionally, it can also give more information for the readers that want to go deeper into certain subjects. If you have been blogging for months already you probably have a vast and rich archive, so use it.
3. Network – Ask 10 successful blogger and at least 7 of them will answer you this; “The key to blogging success is networking with other bloggers”. Sometimes, who you know is more important that what you know. There are many ways to network. Things like commenting on other blogs, guest posting and befriends them in social media.
4. Proofread – If you browse around the blogosphere you will notice that the vast majority of the bloggers do not proofread. Confusions with its and it’s, your and you’re, and their and they’re are very common. So the next time you finish writing a post or article, remember to proofread it.
5. Answer to comments – You just started blogging not too long ago and few comments comes in. You got excited, and you answer each of them. Usually, this is the case. However, over time, when your blog has become more popular, it’s easy to start neglecting the comments. Although it can be very time consuming to reply all the comments, at the very minimum you want to answer the people that post direct questions to you.
6. Answer to emails – Depending on the size of your audience it might become cumbersome to answer to all emails, but you should try nonetheless. It might be the difference between an upset visitor and a faithful reader.
7. Upgrade WordPress – Common sense, yet many bloggers are reluctant to upgrade their WordPress software. Some people deliberately choose to use older versions. That could be possible if you know what you are doing (i.e. if you know to patch the security holes).
Nik Imran is the writer of IMakeABlog, a blog that provides guide on how to . If you are interested in creating a blog, be sure to check out his guide on how to .
It’s the goal of every blogger to have a large number of readerships. And the best way to determine this is through the number of subscribers the blog have. Make use of these tips to increase your subscribers today.
1. Have clear focus on your blog – In order to build a good blog, your blog should have a clear focus on the topic. You don’t want to confuse people on what to expect from your blog. Specialize in a topic and slowly build your authority is a better way to do it.
2. Write valuable content – Do your article offer value to your readers. Internet lurkers don’t waste time reading articles that do not offer any value to them. To gain subscribers and grow your blog, your article should offer values that they are looking for.
3. Publish new posts frequently and consistently – So here’s the deal. People don’t subscribe to dead blogs. If your blog is post regularly and consistently, this will indicate that your blog is active. This way, more readers will subscribe to your blog.
4. As few steps as possible – If you want higher subscriber count, you want to make the step convenient for your visitors to subscribe. People are lazy. It’s true. The easier it is for your readers to subscribe, the higher you chance to gain subscribers.
5. Encourage readers to subscribe at the bottom of every post – Apart from having an RSS icon and email subscription form above the fold, it is also important to place them below each single post. Why? Because right after people finish reading your articles, they will look for something to do next, and subscribing to your blog is a good option. Additionally, if the article they just read was really good, they will be on the right mindset to subscribe and receive more of your articles in the future.
6. Use an email subscription form – For most bloggers, an email subscription form will convert better than a simple “Subscribe via email” link. That is because Internet users are used to seeing those forms around, and typing their email address there is quite intuitive. The top of your sidebar is a good spot to place one.
7. Run a contest – Contests are very popular on the blogosphere. If you have a somewhat popular blog, in fact, it is not difficult to raise some prizes and create one. By making subscribing to your RSS feed a requirement to participate, you could quickly boost the number of subscribers that you have. If you want to control who is going to take this action, use the email subscription method.
8. Display the RSS icon on every page of your blog – When I started blogging I did this mistake. Only my homepage used to have an RSS icon. As soon as I added it to every single page on the blog, the number of subscribers jumped.
Nik Imran is the writer of IMakeABlog, a blog that provides guide on . If you are interested in creating a blog, be sure to check out his guide on .
