I’m a big fan of simplicity when it comes to SEO. I am not into following every latest trend or trick. I think far too much detracts from the most important part of blogging - writing.

Therefore, when I work with my bloggers, I keep it simple.

TOP 10 SEO TIPS:

1. Set out strong categories. It’s a very basic step, but often not considered effectively.
   • Keep it simple
   • Research - know your top search terms, and compare like searches
   • Emphasize your keywords, even if it requires repetitiveness (like celebrity names or show names used in various ways)
   • Organize - I have moved towards using category hierarchies on almost all our b5 blogs in order to increase the number of categories for SEO while also maximizing navigation ease for the readers
2. Name your images. This populates greater keywords into the post, and also promotes Google Image traffic
   • image-name-01.jpg where "-" is a space and numbers are used for multiple images
   • "Image Description Text" in Title / Alt Text areas
3. Use effective titles. Short, with strongest keywords first.
4. Use text effects (bold or header code) - also good for readers on longer posts
5. Use bullets and other lists, when appropriate - they tend to lean towards search friendly phrases
6. Use tags - both general tags (which lend themselves well to general searches) and specific tags. As many as appropriate.
7. Promote yourself - use services such as Digg, Reddit or Stumbleupon, as well as forum participation, to promote your posts
8. Participate on other blogs - leave useful comments on other sites. In many cases, this becomes a link back, and in best cases, will lend to those authors noticing you and linking to you in future
9. Watch your text length - don’t let images or video clips live on their own. Describe them in enough text for search engines to appropriately identify your posts.
10. Use Pages to summarize and link to important posts
    • Depending on your setup, these can be more optimally positioned for SEO as they will usually be blog-name/page-title.
    • Effective pages will give you the opportunity to highlight your most popular content - to link to many posts on your site. Examples include Top 10 lists, Popular Post excerpts, TV Spoilers, Celebrity Biographies

SEO does not have to be complicated. The best SEO tips are things you can do every day to make your site better.

At b5, I can skip past one important area (posting regularly), because of our contract & topic areas, but for many sites, this should not be overlooked.

Tags: seo, seo tips, top seo tips, top 10, search engine optimization, search engine, traffic

The NY Times did a spread on blogging as a career entitled "Can Blogs Become a Big Source of Jobs?". b5media is heavily featured in the article. And I get my own little feature in there too, although they didn’t use my name. I’m clearly the "entertainment writer, who is also an editor", and can even say that I’ve pulled in figures this past month a few hundred thousand pageviews higher.

It would have rocked to be named in there, but it’s still great to have the reference. I think the article does a good job making the blogging-for-a-living concept realistic. It can be a great career, but as yet it’s not something you can just "jump into" and expect a full-time salary. Although many jobs are now being posted for corporate bloggers, as yet this is still usually not a full-time gig, but rather a part of another job title.

That said, companies like b5 are giving people opportunities to make money from blogging much easier and faster than before. The "network effect" means that new blogs and bloggers grow much more quickly, and you reap the rewards from your effort much more quickly than you would on your own. Couple that with not having to fuss about technology, and the benefits of being a part of a community there to support you and help you excel, blogging becomes much more of a feasible job opportunity.

Tags: professional blogging, pro blogging, blogging, blog job, job trends, b5media

John Wesley did up a web comic on his blog, Pick the Brain, on ‘Ways to Get Attention Online’

This was a very cunning way to generate traffic. The topic is one a lot of people are interested in, but he makes fun of it in a way. The comic did not need to be well done artistically, as its merit lay in its creativity of idea.

Such outside-the-box thinking always leads to success online.

Tags: generating traffic, creativity

Wordpress 2.1.1 has been hacked. There is an emergency upgrade notice out.

Upgrade to 2.1.2 here.

Luckily, all our sites are still on the 2.0 series, not the 2.1 series, so this does not affect us.

Thanks to technosailor.com

Duncan shot me out an interview on professional blogging a couple of days back for 901am.com.

It was an interesting experience to re-evaluate questions I have been asked before. I am much happier as a "pro blogger" now than I ever have been, but the answer as to why might surprise you.

Go check it out  :)

Tags: 901am, duncan riley, professional blogger, professional blogging, blogging, business, business title, job satisfaction, arieanna, arieanna schweber

On Friday, Google announced that it would now be reporting on subscriber figures.

Since then, bloggers around the ’sphere have been reporting their findings.

• Small Business Trends is reporting tripled subscriber numbers with Google being the #1 reader
• Stowe went up 34% in subscribers, with Google also being #1
• Darren took a large spike in figures with Google also #1
• Personally, Google products account for at least 10% of my readers on each blog. Nothing major (yet).

So, have you checked your referral stats, gone into Feedburner, and been surprised at how many Google subscribers you have? How does Google play in your stats?

It seems, for large sites, Google is most likely to dominate, especially in a business or technology niche. Overall, it may not mean much in terms of how many readers you have - they didn’t really jump, but were just reported on - but it will give you more powerful insight into what your readers are interested in (if you use a tool such as Feedburner.

Tags: google reader, feedfetcher, google feedfetcher, feed subscribers, feed stats, rss readers, feedburner

I noticed a new Amazon affiliate notice in my account today for AmazonUnbox Video Downloads. Basically, it’s a service like iTunes for downloading videos for a fee. As an affiliate, you can earn a percentage rate on video downloads, as well as products now.

Amazon Unbox allows you and your site visitors to purchase or rent your favorite movies and TV shows to download and watch on your PC – all in DVD quality…

Associates are eligible to earn 10%, a full 1.5% above the highest earnings tier, on all Unbox referrals (up to $1.50 per item). There is no limit to the number of items on which referral fees are earned.

The Unbox page leverages the information held in Amazon - sales, clicks, etc - to configure popularity recommendations and increased downloads. I have not tried the video quality, nor will likely, but it could conceivably be an alternative for many to the iTunes distribution model.

(aff)

Tags: amazon unbox, amazon, unbox, video downloads, amazon affiliate

YouTube has announced today that it will be enabling a revenue share system:

"Chad Hurley, co-founder of YouTube, said Saturday that the wildly successful site will start sharing revenue with its millions of users.

Hurley, who along with the site’s co-founders sold YouTube to Google for $1.65 billion in November, said one of the major innovations the site is working on is a way to allow users to be paid for content.

‘We are getting an audience large enough where we have an opportunity to support creativity, to foster creativity through sharing revenue with our users,’ Hurley said at the World Economic Forum. ‘So in the coming months, we are going to be opening that up.’ " [Source]

Does this have something to do with the YouTube deals? (Google, Warner Music, Verizon, NBC, etc) How content will be syndicated? To identify material that is copyright? Or to simply bump up the marketing hype and make YouTube even more viral than it already is.

So, my question, being in the Entertainment industry - what constitutes original content? What is the line for ‘parody’ or fair use? I know already networks take different stances on it. I’ve even been thanked by the WB for my videos, while had one from another network stripped. So, how will this change the system?

Via digg ; Tags: youtube, revshare, rev share, revenue share, revenue sharing, video, video blogging, video blog, youtube money, youtube deals, making money online

Google is expanding its video advertising testing with new ads from BMG and Warner.

According to the article, Google announced today that it will work with these two major music labels to embed video advertisements over the next 4 week test period on a select set of websites.

"Over the past few months, we have run tests to figure out how we work with our partners and advertisers to combine high quality video content with ads and then distribute them (over) the Google AdSense network," Google said in statement.

The test with the two music labels follows an earlier public trial of Google’s video advertising system with Viacom’s MTV Networks, which provided music videos to run on a select number of Web sites running Google ads…

As a example, Warner Music has defined multiple video channels along themes like "rock music" or featuring the "Divas of Pop Music." A Web site owner can select a video channel and embed it on a section of the site dedicated to running Google AdSense ads. Visitors then can click to watch ad-supported videos within the video channel on sites running the ads.

Tags: google, bmg, warner, music labels, video, video advertising, google adsense

I’ve been prowling around Squidoo for a few days and one lens I popped across is a perfect Blog Primer. It’s a Blogging Starter Checklist.

The list contains things to put on your blog (like search, contact, etc), non-blog things that need to happen, registries and directories (very thorough), a whole series of posts that might be relevant to newbie bloggers, checking all your rankings, blog awards, and books that might be relevant.

The steps are well organized and have valuable links.

Tags: blog checklist, blogging, blog, blogger, new blog, how to blog

Tony Hung, while guest blogging on ProBlogger, wrote a great and thorough piece titled ‘How to Market your blog in 2007′

There are dozens of tips on Getting your House in Order, Getting the Word Out, Connecting, and using Social Media

Go check it out! Great work Tony!

Tags: blog, blogging, blogs, blog marketing, social networking

Text Link Ads (aff) are now available for Blogger sites (latest version of Blogger).

I have been extremely happy with TLA for the many months we’ve been with them on our Wordpress blogs, and they are likely to see quite a large increase based on the availability to Blogger blogs.

Tags: text link ads, blogger, blog advertising

Google’s blog service, Blogger, now offers support for custom domains. Plus, they’ll host it - free - and redirect your old URL for you.

Blogger added a new feature: Bring your own domain. All you have to do is buy a domain, anywhere, at any price you can find, set up your Blogger account and point your DNS at Google’s server at ghs.google.com, and viola*! Now your Blogger blog appears at its own domain name, and all you had to do was pay less than ten bucks a year for the domain. You don’t need hosting, because Blogger handles all the traffic, you just bring the domain. [InsideGoogle]

Of course, you’d still be stuck with the Blogger platform, which is quite the chore to muck around with. Even free hosting won’t tempt me over to use Blogger. Wordpress is still my choice, hands down.

Via duncan ; Tags: blogger, google, blog software, google news

Toby over at Diva Marketing has a great post on Blogger Relations / Blogger Relations Programs.

She goes over bloggers vs journalists, bloggers as influencers, and the different expectations of bloggers when being approached by journalists or companies.

Bloggers are not set against partnerships or sponsorships or anything of the sort, for the most part. We just have different expectations in the way in which we are pitched.

Toby then outlines the essential elements to a Blogger Relations Program, as follows:

• Build on the values of social media
• Establish credibility and trust by creating relationships
• On-going informal conversations - comments, email, phone, face-to-face
• Position (you/company) as resource that can provide value added information
• Develop long-range programs that engage and develop the relationships
• Provide "special blogger only something" - TBD by strategy and needs
• Bring bloggers together to discuss related issues
• Include bloggers in customer feedback circles
• Respect bloggers’ time
• Courtesy and appreciation - thank the blogger for her participation and help

Hop on over to Diva Marketing to participate in the discussion.

Tags: blogger relations, blogger relations program, blogging, pr, blogs, marketing to bloggers

Clearly identifying your RSS feed with Feed Icons is important. The standard for a web feed icon is this:

The color is irrelevant, although orange is mostly used. I like the blue version, personally. Regardless, using this feed icon helps create a web standard that anyone can recognize.

To further make subscribing easy, you can use this generator for RSS buttons such as this one:

Tags: feed icons, rss icons, rss feed icons, blog, blogging, blogs, rss, marketing