SEO Tip : Set up a sitemap for your site

One of the best ways to improve SEO is to make sure that your website gets fully indexed. You can accomplish this by setting up a sitemap that the search engines can use to quickly, and easily find all the content that should be indexed in the search results.

A sitemap is a separate HTML page that you can use to form a directory for your website. Since each page is listed as a hyperlink on the sitemap, it allows the search engines to quickly locate each of your internal pages. This is not only a great way to increase your SEO, but it also can serve as a way to help your visitor find the content that is most relevant to them.

For all you wordpress users out there, you can find a great wordpress plugin to set up your google sitemap on arnebrachhold’s page > GO GET THE PLUGIN. You can see how the plugin is being implemented on this blog by checking out my sitemap that i created with the plugin.

Here is another resource for non wordpress users on building a sitemap.

Once you have built your sitemap, be sure to go to google webmaster tools and inform google of where they can find your sitemap. If you dont have a google webmaster tools account yet, you can set one up here.

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Great free wordpress themes

If you like to blog, and you use wordpress, then I found a great site today that has a bunch of amazing free wordpress themes that you may or may not have seen before!

If you are at all like me, then you have probably spent (wasted) more hours of your life than you care to admit looking for high quality free wordpress themes. It’s ok though.. you are not alone, all you really have to do is run a google search for “free wordpress themes” and you will see how there are enough sites out there to confuse just about anyone that is looking for good blog themes.

Well, on smashingmagazine they have a nice article that lists 83 free wordpress themes that they consider to be worth checking out. I went down the list rather quickly and saw several that I had seen before, but also ran into a couple of really nice wordpress themes that I had not seen before. Later I will do a more in depth look at what themes they have to offer… but if you are looking to upgrade your wordpress blog with a new theme, then be sure to head over to smashingmagazine and see what you can find… you may find exactly the wordpress theme that you were looking for!

If you do, be sure to come back here and let us know which theme you selected and post a comment linking to your blog so we can all check out you new theme

Enjoy

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SEO Tip : Place keywords in your title

One of the best ways to start to improve your search engine rankings is by making sure that you always include keywords in your blog title. Search engines just love it when you let them know what you are writing about!

Google in particular really seems to pay a lot of attention to the titles of your blog entries, so if SEO is a concern for you, then make sure that you give the google bot what it is looking to see. A lot of bloggers try to come up with cute, or overly clever titles to their entries, but you would be well advised to avoid this, and just get straight to the point. If you are writing an entry, for example, about using keywords to boost your SEO, then make sure you state that clearly in your title.

Think about your habits when you go searching for something. What are you usually typing into the search engines? Names and things. You are not alone, and research shows that this is pretty universal for internet users, so make sure that you pay attention to this when you are writing your blog posts.

Don’t waste your time writing about George Bush and his politics, and then title your post “One man against the world“. Maybe the title more refelects your thoughts on George Bush, but its not really something that a user will look for. Make sure you are clear about what you going to blog about in your posts.

Make sure you don’t go crazy though and try to stuff 10 or 15 keywords into your title. Keep it simple, and keep it clean, and you will start to see more hits from the search engines.

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Pirate Bay launches uncensored blogging network

The guys over at The Pirate Bay, arguably the net’s largest torrent site, have announced the launch of their own blogging network, Baywords.

Many blog networks out there highly censor their user blogs, and often shut them down for what they deem to be offensive or inappropriate material. Well, the boys of Pirate Bay have never been prone to bowing down to the man, and they promise to give their users the same chance… with completely uncensored blogs. The only exception being that it will remove any blog that violates Sweedish laws, those seem to be the only laws that Baywords will not allow its users to violate.

Right now, don’t expect to see too many bells and whistles on the site. It is run by a pretty minimalistic wordpress multiuser blog platform. There are a couple of your expected wordpress plugins, such as the “all in one seo pack”, but don’t look for too much else at this time. The themes also leave a little to be desired.

I signed up to see what they had going on, and they had around 15 themes, none of which really jumped out at me as anything special. But don’t take that to mean that big things are not coming, after all, it did just launch this week, so you can’t expect a great blog network to be born overnight!

If you are looking to start a blog, or even if you currently have your own blog but want somewhere to write more sensitive type material, then check it out, just don’t expect too much just yet.

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SEO Tip : Build traffic by using your tags

A great way to help boost your sites SEO is through the use of tags on your blogs. Tags are often viewed as just another form of using categories, but they can definitely add value to your site.

I found a great article on dailyseo.org that discusses all the benefits from using tags on your blogs.

Here are a couple of the benefits that your blog will get from using tags on your posts that I picked up from dailyseo website:

1. Increase number of pages. This is because everytime you put a tag on a post, your blog will automatically create a page for that tag. For example you can see my tag page for blogging. This way you can limit the number of categories that you apply a post you, and just add your keywords into your tags and create the same effect
2. Improve your users experience on your page. Users like to see tag, so feed them what they want

But when you start to use tags… make sure that you are getting the most from your usage. Remember, by using your tags, you are able to keep your category list small. Tags should be used to compliment your category list, not serve as a duplicate (although sometimes I do duplicate mine).

For example… on this post you are reading now:

here are the categories = blogging and SEO Tip of the day
here are my tags:  blogging,tags,seo,tips,traffic,webmasters,blogs,marketing,wordpress

Blogging gets duplicated, but the others are merely compliments to the categories.

Use them wisely, and they will dramatically improve your web presence. You can find more ways to successfully use tags on the problogger.net blog.

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The Do Follow Blog

This entry is in follow up to my earlier post about converting your blog entries to remove the rel=”nofollow” links.

I stumbled across a blog today where the user has decided to create a list that he will update that list blogs that he runs across that have removed the nofollow feature from their blogs in order to give their users more link juice when commenting on their pages… the Do Follow List.

As I mentioned in my previous post on this subject… I am in no way promoting comment spam, but for serious bloggers this is a way to find some blogs that may be relevant to your pages that you can comment on and get the credit you deserve.

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SEO tip #1 : Quick way to start to build incoming links

One of the first steps in developing your web presence is to search out some pages where you can get links to your site. For many webmasters they get frustrated early with the whole “how do I get links?” question. Me too. But here is something a beginner loger may overlook.

1) Link to the blogs you read

2) Leave comments

Link to the blogs you read:

Don’t so so focussed on your own blog that you forget to visit other peoples blogs and engage in their discussions as well. Let’s not forget, that is a big part of the blog community. A sharing. Remember…. every blog loves to see people making useful comments on their page. People will notice, and be sure that the majority will come visit your site, gaining you a valuable allie and a someone that is much more likely to reference you in their blog, giving you some quality links.

In addition, many blogs have the trackback feature you can use. By referencing their post on your blog, and linking back with the trackback link you will get some good links coming back to you as well. Not all sites automatically allow trackbacks, but some do. Regardless, if you take a minute to say something original in your blog 99% of blogs will approve you and give you a link back.

Granted, I admit that earlier we discussed the problem that many blogs have rel=”nofollow” links. In this case you don’t really get the “link juice”, but you are still putting your name out there in front of people that would otherwise not even known your blog existed. And by the way, if you use wordpress, and would like to remove the nofollow, it is pretty simple, I have done it for my page, and it took 30 seconds. You can see here how to remove rel=”nofollo” from your wordpress blogs.

Leave comments: 

If you stumble upon a blog you like and you enjoy what the author says… leave him a comment. You accomplish a few different things here

1. Give the other blog’s author the url of your blog for him to go visit. You never know, maybe he will love what you are doing too, and mention you on his page
2. Put your views in front of his audience. This way you will benefit in the future as you fellow blogger grows his site too. FREE MARKETING. Just don’t spam, no one likes spam

Really, that is the very, very basic beginning to getting your blog out there and noticed.

Sadly, as this is my first blog I’m really trying to build.. this is my current level. But I’m learning. And every night you can get a new SEO tip of the day.

Be sure to share you tips too! In case you couldn’t tell (assuming you are still here reading this) is that I love getting comments.

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Getting rid of Nofollow from your wordpress blog

Yesterday I was discussing with a friend of mine how frustrating it can be to post a comment on someone’s blog only to find out that the blog is defaulting to show links as rel=”nofollow”. If you are using wordpress, then this function is automatic by default, and it really penalizes your users that post great content on your sites.

This is basically something that wordpress set up as a default in order to prevent comment spamming. The reason behind this is that the links don’t get the “link juice” from nofollow links, and the sites page ranks are not effected. Of course spammers could care less about their page ranks, but most serious webmasters do (although the benefits of page rank are highly debatable).

Anyway, my friend sent me a great link today on douglaskarr’s marketing technology blog about how you can hack your wordpress code to get rid of the rel=”nofollow” default and start to give your readers the benefit that they deserve for commenting on your site.

Read the full explanation here

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Use trackbacks to give your traffic a boost

A couple of days ago I wrote a post giving you a couple good references to use if you want to start to monetize your blog, well, today let’s take a quick look at one easy way that you can actually start to pull some extra traffic into your blog…. by using trackbacks.

Using trackbacks is something that a good friend of mine recently suggested I start to try, and I must say that I have seen some extra traffic already starting to come into my blog from the few trackbacks I have given over the past week. He also has some other nice tips for anyone using wordpress as your blogging platform. Check out his site for a nice list of useful wordpress tools that will really give your blog a boost.

Coming from a background where I have been blogging for a major site, bloggingstocks, I have never really had to think about gaining traffic, I have only had to focus on actual content, so actually trying to build traffic is challenge that I look forward to learning.

Regardless, my friend suggested that I start to cite other people’s blogs that I like using trackbacks and in return could not only boost my quality of writing, but also give my site a little extra traffic. Well, obviously, as I have learned, this is a very widespread tactic that a lot of successful bloggers use, and I found a great example of another blogger writing about his experience on balkhis.com where he showed a couple instances where using trackbacks really led to some good traffic for his blog.

Basically, when you come across a good blog article that you like, be sure to cite the post, but look for the trackback link and use that as your link to the cite to get your blog post listed in their comments. In many cases wordpress is smart enough to give you the trackback even if you use the regular url of the post, but to be safe always look for the trackback link at the end of the post and use that.

It is a good technique to help build up your blogs readership, and gives you a little more authority. Hope you found this post useful, if so, be sure to take my advice and trackback to this post

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Healthy Blogging

Did you catch the recent article about how bloggers appear to be on the path to a very unhealthy life? Apparently us bloggers seem to be writing to the point of where we are in danger of having heart attacks due to weight gain, lack of sleep, stress, and many other ailments that us bloggers are vulnerable to.

Well, I must admit that since I started professional blogging a couple years ago I have gained weight, I have seen my sleep pattern severely altered, but, I can’t really say my stress level has increased. Regardless, I understand what the article is trying to say.

We spend a LOT of time in front of our computers. Looking for news, looking for related sites, searching for links… blah blah blah. On top of that, many of us have so many blogs that it you can just multiply the impacts by the number of active blogs you maintain.

So what? So we are slaves to the computer. In my book, it still beats working a 9-5 in an office… but that’s just me.

Anyways, I ran across this article on blogstorm that gives a couple good tips for all you bloggers out there to keep you work up, while keeping your health in check.

Happy blogging out there!

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