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

Darren has written one of the most important blog strategy posts you’ll ever read:

How to Optimize Your Blog for Search Engines

The post includes how to garner incoming links of good value, how to optimize your content, focusing your content, and much more. It’s a very comprehensive post with many links to read up on for more.

Great work Darren!

Tags: seo, blog seo, search engine strategy

If you noticed a traffic change (up or down) about two weeks ago, near the end of January, there is a reason for it. And it’s not your fault.

Although Google has not released a PageRank update, they did update in some fashion.

I have noticed a large change on some blogs. Some of my blogs without PageRank dropped traffic to about half what it was before. These, in particular, are the ones in my Entertainment Channel at b5. Most of the blogs in the channel experienced the same drop.

Some of my blogs, however, have not had any traffic changes - up or down.

I’d really love a way to get my traffic back up while we wait for the PageRank update. In the past, we were slowly nudging up on many search terms, but perhaps we’ve dropped down now. Given the additional annoyance that Technorati stopped tracking our tags about a month ago, it’s been frustrating watching the growth pattern get set back, even if it is only a bit and only temporary.

Did you notice any changes in your own traffic?

Tags: google update, seo

Gotta love it - a new PageRank has just come out. We’re up across the board - Blogging Help is now a 6, and some of my newest blogs jumped from nothing to 4, which is not a bad start.

That said, the biggest jump was again Cooking Gadgets - up to 6 from 0!

I was just writing up another post, and came across this paragraph that I just had to share about the nature of the blogosphere:

weblogs are part of an ecosystem (sometimes annoyingly referred to as the Blogosphere). This means that whatever good postings exist are promoted through links from other sites. More reader/writers see this good stuff, and the very best then get linked to even more. As a result, link frequency follows a Zipf distribution, with disproportionally more links to the best postings. - Jakob Nielsen

I think this is a really good way to explain the social nature of the blogosphere to a business person. I studied business for many years and I know from experience in classes and in reading case studies that explaining something statistically adds power, and sometimes understanding, to a statement.

What I see here is something with descriptive power. If you are trying to explain why trackbacks and permalinks have value, and how they relate to SEO and creating dialogues between bloggers, this is the most simplistic and powerful statement I’ve ever come across. To say that, simply, “good stuff” gets “promoted through links” and then follows a distribution where some things get relatively more interest than others… this has intuitive power.

Great observation Jakob!

Not too long ago, I had a spike in traffic on b5. And the other b5 bloggers wanted to know how to get the same spikes, and also to maintain a steady growth incline. So, I shared some tips, and I thought I should share them here too:

-Write 25-40% original content. For some blogs this will mean reading news feeds, as well as other blogs, to catch news first. You can also consider non-RSS content research to find items or to connect the dots between topics.

-Use pictures. They draw the eye. Look on Flickr or Google Images. Take what is Creative Commons, but be liberal with your link of thanks. Ask when unsure.

-Know your area bloggers and link to them. Make sure to comment too.

-Send emails to big blogs in your area. Pitch a story, write something interesting about your blog, and make that link prominent.

-Break up paragraphs and use text effects - bolding, underline, etc.

-Use comments to start new threads.

Have fun!

It’s a week for blog traffic to escalate, it would seem. Early on in the week, one of my b5 blogs, Cooking Gadgets, received a link from Gizmodo (thanks to an quick email note to them) and was a featured blog of the day on Yahoo for Computers & Technology, and Food & Drink. I didn’t ask for the latter one - they supplied the directory information themselves, no less.

Well, the week of positive traffic has increased. Not long after that 4000 influx of visitors, Cooking Gadgets popped out of the Google Sandbox. She Knows Best is still stuck in, probably for at least another month, but that’s not the best of it. My other blogs, which have been quietly developing, all received the approval of Google too.

I have experienced the Sandbox up close & personal so many times now - it was the longest with Blogaholics, but all subsequent blogs have been in for shorter and shorter periods of time. It’s incredibly satisfying to wake up one day to more traffic, and more clicks. Even a PageRank of 0 is far better than one of N/A because it means you actually come up on some search terms.

I have one niche blog, from the bunch that are now out of the sandbox, that I knew was going to make a splash. And I was right. The CPM I already considered above-average has gone way up, with a CTR that I can only hope continues to be that high!

This has been a good week, and I love Google.

Technorati Tags: google, sandbox, b5, traffic, blogs, blogging

Lee Odden gives some excellent suggestions for ways to mine your own content to improve your ranking. This advice is for business blogs who think, incorrectly, that they have nothing to write about.

Here are the suggestions:

* Archive your newsletters

* Archive and syndicate your own press releases and media coverage

* Add syndicated news

* Add press releases content syndicated from other sources

* Use articles open for re-use from article directories

* Use Yahoo Creative Commons search to find available content

* Publish a glossary

* Publish client testimonials

* Publish product/service demos

* Publish a Q & A and/or FAQ

All great suggestions. Once you get in the flow of it, you’d be amazed how much more you have to say than you think you did. As Lee so correctly mentions, creating a content strategy is more than just a short term SEO approach. It is an approach that optimizes you for the long-term.

Technorati Tags: blogging, seo, business, writing, content

Darren Rowse takes an in-depth look at PageRank on ProBlogger

So is Page Rank important?

I would argue that it is on some levels. I can’t see that Google would keep it going as a system if it were not. Their PR updates come every couple of months usually and must take significant energy and resources for them to do. I doubt they’d do this just to keep us believing they still used it. It must have some usefulness to them.

I keep an eye on my blog’s page ranks because it gives me some sort of indication as to how important Google thinks they are. It may not be directly linked to traffic but it gives me an indication if I’m on the right track to improving quality which I believe eventually leads to more traffic.

PR is also important to me because it also helps me monetize my blogs. On a number of my blogs I sell text links to other site’s operators. One of the few ways that seems to be used to judge the worth of a site for such purposes is Google’s PR. As a result if I see one of my blogs promoted from one level to another it’s a cause for a mini celebration. I guess in addition to this it’s good for the prestige and reputation for your site to be highly ranked.

I agree that PageRank has its place in our set of tools to understand our blog, our readers, and our profitability. It plays a good role in determining your search engine placement, which is important to drive traffic to your blog. But it is only one factor involved in this placement. So, as Darren suggests, use PageRank as a guide to how you are doing.

Another great value in PageRank is what it can offer to people who sponsor your blog with text links or banners. The link back to their own site is valuable for their own PR. As I move closer to this attempt myself, I look forward to offering an ever improving PageRank as a benefit to advertisers.

Technorati Tags: pagerank, google

Darren Rowse talks about what to go by when choosing a profitable blog. Before deciding you want to blog and make money, make sure you choose a topic also that will be enjoyable to write - unless you have content that has value, spirit and authority, you will find it more difficult to post and to make money (at least I think so).

So, here are the tips from Darren as well as some commentary of my own:

1. Topic Popularity - it’s the old supply and demand theorem. Choose a topic that is in demand by a lot of readers, and where you meet that demand because the supply of other blogs is either low or not well done for one reason or another.

2. Topic Competition and Narrow Niches - most topics you can think of already have blogs. Some, however, are underserved. Maybe they don’t post much, don’t add commentary, or simply leave something to be desired. You can also choose to make your blog more narrow - by decreasing the span of what you write on you can carve out your own very specific and informative niche. The more narrow you are, the likelihood is that it may take longer to gain profitability (decreased audience size).

3. Availability of Revenue Streams - some topics on Adsense or similar revenue programs simply don’t pay as well. More competition between advertising companies usually leads to higher click payouts. You need to balance this with point 2 above. You can also seek out different advertising revenue such as sponsorship or various affiliate programs.

4. Availability of Content - if you are going to write often, and in detail, on something, you’d like it to be as easy as possible to get right to it. You can write from knowledge for only so long - and research is time consuming. Services such as PubSub and Technorati let you subscribe to words or phrases - you can pull in information easier this way from many blogs, especially those whose topics are diverse and whom you may never read again. You can use other services such as Topix.net to pull in news information that may or may not be blog related.

5. Measure your Energy, Passion and Interest - motivation for money can only take you so far. You need to like what you are doing, as I noted in the preface.

6. Pull it all together - if you can meet some of these factors, go for it! The mixture of these will determine how much you make and how quickly - but it does not mean that you cannot be profitable. Most blogs can achieve a good level of revenue, but you’ll need many months of dedication to get there. At the same time, you may see an opportunity for a blog that may not last forever - Darren started an Athens Olympics Blog, for example. Great way to build a ton of traffic for a while, and then you can simply let it go after. Maybe leave it online just for passive revenue. But you’ll need to be well prepared for it!

Thanks Darren once again for some great advice. It’s something I’ll be taking to heart, along with some ideas of my own, as I start out on some new blogging ventures soon.

Technorati Tags: problogger, professional blogging, commercial blog, adsense

A PageRank update has just taken place. If you’re lucky, your Google PageRank will go up. If not, you may find it has stayed the same or gone down.

The updates don’t seem to happen often. Every couple of months it would seem.

Anyway, our sites have all gone up, and that is a token to what we do. :)

Technorati Tags: pagerank, google, seo

The AdSense interface has been modified. It is much cleaner and more straight-forward.

You will need to review the new agreement and change your bookmarks. The old bookmark no longer functions (if you had it bookmarked with a password save). - /reports-aggregate is now report/overview

The new interface makes it much easier to navigate your reports - which makes it much easier to spot patterns for optimization.

The basic interface has an overview of content vs. search and quick links to the most popular advanced reports. I am not sure if there are more substantive changes - I have not noticed them - but I think this could be a great step forward to understanding and maximizing Google AdSense potential.

The changes also mean that the AdSense Notifier plugin for Firefox is broken. Hopefully a new release will come up soon to fix it.

Research out of Forrester is showing a growing interest to place advertisements on blogs and/or in RSS feeds. This should be no surprise, given the mainstream business coverage of blogs that has issued recently.

Of those surveyed by Forrester, 64% would be interested in advertising on blogs, while 57% would be interested in advertising through RSS. Both these figures represent more interest than advertising on mobile devices - this just shows which way the industry is set to grow.

Forrester estimates that total online advertising and marketing dollars will reach $14.7 billion for the 2005 year - that’s 23% more than in 2004. Banners/sponsorships will grow 11% per year to $8 billion by 2010. We’ll also see a large increase in spending for search engine marketing over the next few years, up to $11.6 billion by 2010. Online marketing spending is the only area of growth in advertising spending as a whole - so interest is definitely present.

By 2010, however, online marketing will only represent 8% of total ad spending. This is not to say that there will not be a lot of online marketing going on, but perhaps just that online marketing is less costly - an ad online will not run you into millions such as television would.

So, advertisements on blogs and in RSS represent a significant growth opportunity in the market. The also represent a very relevant opportunity to bloggers who want to monetize their blogs. As a recent professional blogger, this is something I’ll be seeking for myself, as well as for others through my services.

Via ZDNet

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Blog taglines are important. I have read this and learned this over and over. But I was reminded also by a post by Darren to maybe rethink my own. I know he recently upgraded his from “ProBlogger” to “Blog Tips - ProBlogger”

Now taglines are important for many reasons. They tell readers what to expect, and they are highly looked at and considered in the whole SEO process. I also realized, upon Darren’s change, that it could also mean how soon you are read by your readers.

Ok, imagine this. Most people don’t organize their feeds into folders. They just drop them all into their Bloglines or NewsGator. So, when reading, most people go top to bottom. It’s the way we read. So, when Darren went from being at the “P” section to the “B” section, he was more likely to be read first.

What could being read first mean? Well, it could mean that you get readers before they are tired. More likely to comment. To reblog. And simply more likely to read and not just clear away.

So, maybe the first letter in your blog name should be important as well. I guess “Blogging Help…” is not doing so bad there.

Anyway, I thought I’d open up to discussion our own blog tag:

“blogging help - blog consulting by professional bloggers Arieanna & Ianiv”

I recently put that new tagline up there. I wanted the keyphrase of ‘blog consulting’ to be in there, as well as our names. Our names were coming up in our search logs, so I figured it wouldn’t hurt. As well, I wanted to use the term ‘professional blogger’ - this is where I came to a stumble. We are a plural group here: bloggerS. So, I chose to be grammatically correct rather than just putting in the keyphrase. Was this a good idea? Opinions?

Technorati Tags: blogging help, blogs, blogging, SEO, taglines

I’ve been running a little experiment using AdSense. We tend to see some improvements from moving around where the ads go, but one thing that’s always bugged me is the content of the ads. It’s not always relevant.

Relevance has a couple of points. First, relevance to your content. Second, relevance to your readers. So, if I talk about a new blog innovation here or over on Blogaholics, we’ll get all the ads to start your own blog, write content, etc.

However, experience and knowledge has shown me that a good many of my readers here, and most on Blogaholics, are sophisticated bloggers already. Or, at least, already have a blog. So, these ads are relevant to the content I am writing about, but not to my readers.

So, my solution was to watch daily for those ads and to block them using the Competitive Ad filter. Yes, this is not the purpose for the filter. And perhaps would annoy some advertisers. But, seriously, they were not getting clicks anyway.

So, the result? A large improvement in CTR. Clickthroughs way up.

It is an interesting study that I suggest you try.