A snowy Sunday morning here in the coal region. A good day to be inside and where I plan to spend the rest of my day watching some football this afternoon.
Before that though I have to deal with the white crap and finish up this post. For those that are not familiar with the Sunday Goodies, they are 3 blog posts I found in my travels through the blogosphere that I would like to highlight for you, my reader.
This week there are 2 on SEO and one on guest blogging.
Will start with Tristan at Blogging Bookshelf and his post titled “4 Ways to Show off the Guest Posts You’ve Written”. Has some great ways to promote your guest posts and that is a win win for both you and the blogger who welcomed you as a guest.
The second stop this week is on a topic mostly overlooked that can make a difference in how Google counts your links. It is from Chris Burns at Search Engine Optimization X and titled “How To Make Site Canonical Friendly”.
Now before your eyes glaze over and you start wondering what has happened to the nut that runs this blog the key is to make sure that all your links go to either http://MYBLOG.COM or http://www.MYBLOG.COM and not both.
Title tags are a topic I have ranted on more than once and it looks like they may become even more important to Google than they are already.
That’s it for this week and your input is always appreciated. Take a few minutes and check out each of these and apply some of the tips that will help you.
About the author
Mike Paetzold got started blogging in 2003 and has become an expert on using WordPress. He has become known as The WordPress Guy.
After being an under ground niche marketer using his blogs he has surfaced to share some of the ways he uses blogs to enter various niches profitably.
If you would like help in building your business check out my coaching offer.
Google Webmaster Tools are something you should be using for your blog. There latest announcement adds another reason to make sure that you are using the tools.
The latest announcement “Is Your Site Hacked?” says that they will be trying to notify those sites where they find signs of hacking.
This alone would make it worthwhile but there is a lot more to what Webmaster Tools offer. It will let you see how Google views your site.
You can find out if they are having trouble crawling your site or if they have found problems.
You will be able to see what links they are showing to your site and even the anchor text being used. These is important information you really need to know and a few minutes a week can show you any problems you are having that you may not be aware of.
Finally it is relatively easy and painless to set up. You will need a Gmail account to login as you do with most Google services.
Click on the add site button and fill in the url of your blog.
This will generate a meta tag that you will copy and add to your header file on your blog.
Add it to your header file below the other meta tags and save.
Then click the verify link. This will take you to the dashboard for the site if you have completed it successfully.
The final step is to submit your sitemap If you are using the Google Sitemap plugin this will be yourdomain/sitemap.xml.
Well worth the few minutes to set this up for the information you get and to keep current with how Google is seeing your blog.
About the author
Mike Paetzold got started blogging in 2003 and has become an expert on using WordPress. He has become known as The WordPress Guy.
After being an under ground niche marketer using his blogs he has surfaced to share some of the ways he uses blogs to enter various niches profitably.
If you would like help in building your business check out my coaching offer.
Before I get into the topic today a few notes. Nicole Dean is guesting on my blog Mike Paetzold Recommends and will be a guest all week. Nicole has been going from blog to blog all summer as a part of Nicole’s Summer Rock Star Blog Tour. Her topic is inspiration for your next blog post. Make sure you stop back each day.
Because Nicole is writing these I have had a chance to take that time and go on the road myself. Yesterday I showed up at The Internet Dad, my buddy Chris Morris’ home blog with a post titled “Pillar Posts – The Key To More Traffic“.
I have at least one other stop coming this week (submitted the post but not sure when it will be published.) This allows me to get in front of a new crowd (although no where near the number that Nicole has reached this summer) that may become regular readers.
Now to talking keywords. Keyword research was the #1 topic when I ran my surveys last month.
Understanding keyword research and finding those golden ones is one of the best ways to generate traffic. You can do it using free tools and Steve Roye and I are doing a call to show you exactly how to do that next Wednesday.
There will be a small investment for attending but you will get a mind map and a hand out that you can refer back to or take notes on.
Sign up today for the call at Keyword Call. We have scheduled it for an hour but will continue until all your questions are answered.
Back in March I did a post on the plugins that I use on my blog and it has not changed much. Back then because of the mind map part of it was cut off. The actual settings that I use and tweaks that I make.
This was originally created for my VA to install my blogs in the same manner that I do and the lower portion of the mind map was not shown in the post. I have decided that I will give access to not only the mind map but an 8 minute video explanation of the process that I use.
The cost will be $7.95 and I will be using the same system I learned from my friend Steve Roye at Real First Steps. You will need to be logged in to this blog which means you must register if you have not previously to see the Paypal button.
The original post is quoted below.
“Figured I would take advantage of the things that I am doing that have kept me from posting here. See I am working on outsourcing and have been adding people to my business and this has caused me to have to step back and actually document what I do.
That is one of the reasons that my posting on all of my blogs has been down this week. Yep, sometimes you have to step back to move forward. To do this I have been mind mapping the various processes so they can do exactly what I do. Really should have been doing this for myself before this but a lot of what I do is automatic for me.
You really should be mind mapping your processes and Discover Free Mind is a great way to discover how to do it.
Back to the main point – I just finished going through and mapping out how I install each blog I add. This way I can just hand it ot my VA and let them put up the blog for me.
Here is a copy of what I created.
So there you have the current list of what I add to my blogs. Now there are a lot of other plugins that I may add for specific purposes but that is a good list of what I currently use.”
Here’s the process for getting your hands on the Video and Mind map in the next couple of minutes using PayPal:
1. When you click the PayPal button below, you will have the option of using your PayPal account or a credit card if you don’t have a PayPal account.
2. At the end of the order process, you will be taken to a page with a Return To Merchant button. Click that button to come back to this post and download the video and mind map.
IMPORTANT! If you are using a Fire Fox browser, when you click the Return To Merchant button, an alert like this may appear…
While this looks scary, the information that is sent over an unencrypted connection is the information needed to access the report on this page—NOT credit card info.
So, if you get this alert, just push Continue. Otherwise, you will not gain instant access to the video and mind map and your access will have to be processed manually (this is the opposite of instant access and may take some time).
3. You will be redirected back to this page and the download link will appear in place of the PayPal button below—automatically. You will have unlimited access to the video and mind map.
If you have any difficulty gaining access to the video and mind map, please contact me immediately using the Support Desk.
Copyright 2009 – Mike Paetzold – All worldwide rights reserved
Here are 3 easy ways to improve your WordPress blog and get better search engine rankings for your blog.
There is no doubt that the Big G likes blogs and one of the reasons so many people have switched from static websites to blogs. The interlinking inside of the blog is a great help but there is one thing that has not been addressed even in the latest version of WordPress.
Talk to anyone that does seo and invariably they will all agree that your title tag is the most important part of your on site optimization. (And getting any three seo experts to agree on anything is rare.)
Unfortunately, WordPress by default uses your blog title as the title tag across the board.
So the first easy change is…
Add a plugin to change the title tags. This way each page will use the post title as the title tag and you even can use a custom title tag.
The plugin I currently use for this is the All In One SEO plugin but there are many others. One of the things with WordPress is the constant influx of new plugins so this might change in the future as it has in the past more than once.
The second easy change is…
Your images. Make sure when you add images you are using the alt tags and naming your images with keywords. Since the advent of uiniversal search Google is often showing images in the main results. Not likely to get a click on image12896.jpg but if your image was named keyword.jpg it would be more likely.
The header image is a prime example. Most themes call the header image header.jpg or header.gif or something similar. Why not rename it to one of your prime keywords?
**Caveat – You will need to change it in your css file too or it will disappear and you won’t have a header. Just search your css file for the name of your header and change it each time you find it.
The third easy change is….
Use the built in tagging structure in WordPress. Either display the tags with each post or use a tag cloud in your sidebar or footer. This creates new tag pages on your site and will often result in indented rankings for that topic in Google.
This gives you two listings for the same post inside the search engines.
Now I do like to use the Simple Tags plugin as it allows me more functionality than the native tagging inside WordPress. Again though plugin recommendations are always subject to change because of the fluid nature of their development. The key is that you use a plugin when it will improve the functionality and take the time to tag each of your posts.
You may use and reprint this article as long as it is posted in it’s entirety and all links and the resource box are included. If you are an affiliate for the book you may substitute your affiliate link for mine.
You need to take advantage of the many free services to help get your blog started.
Caveat: The center of your hub should always a WordPress blog or a squeeze page on a domain that you control and own in my opinion.
Now that we have gotten rid of the caveat, lets look at some of the free tools that are available.
Squidoo – my absolute favorite
Hub Pages
Blogger
WordPress.com
MSN Live
For the purposes of illustration we will pick a topic and use a bad word in my vocabulary ass/u/me that you have done the research and found to have profit potential about Turtles. (Turtles are my marketing topic of the daytoday bare with me here.)
You buy a domain, create your blog and start putting content there to draw traffic. You are posting at least daily to get started and more often if Turtles is a very competitive keyword. (Yes, I know I just picked that and have no idea if it is a competitive word. Boo hiss on me.)
Now go to Squidoo and create a lens on your topic. Add your RSS feed to your blog as one of the modules and make sure that use at least 20 tags. (You did keyword research before you entered this market didn’t you?) Add a short text article or two. Grab a You Tube module, a Flcikr module on your topic and add a guest book..
Go to Hub Pages, create a new Hub on your topic and add your RSS feed again. Make sure that you add tags here too. (For both of these you can do a quick re-write of your content to meet the content requirements . Do not use the same content on both sites or what you posted on the blog.)
Create a Blogger blog using your main keyword in the title you sign up with and create a short post about the great article you just found that links to a specific post on your blog with the keyword that post was focused on as your anchor text.
At WordPress.com and MSN Live you will be doing the same basic tasks except you will link to a different post on your blog with the corresponding anchor text for that keyword phrase.
Once a week you will want to add something to each of these sites. When you visit Squidoo you can add a module or just add a few more keywords and re-publish the lens plus the rss feed from your blog will be constantly updated.
Hub Pages will follow the same pattern as Squidoo. I usually add a new content module every other week.
Each week you will link to a new post from each of the free blog services with the anchor text for that post.
This allows you to take 5 minutes extra a day 5 days a week and keep a constant stream of links coming into your interior pages on a regular basis.
Want to take it up another level? Add a commenting and bookmarking strategy along with this you can easily increase the traffic and ranking to your blog quite quickly with very little extra effort. Add in article marketing and you may have to pay more for your server
There are many more of these types of sites that you can use to get even more links. If you have a favorite share with us and leave a comment below.
Tags in WordPress play a huge role in great many aspects and directly influence your blog performance in such important areas as: Search Engine Optimization, Social Networks relevance and Reader Engagement.
And yet, many fail to realize full potential of WordPress tags and their proper implementation. In this article I would like to address that to some extent…
Tags for Search Engine Optimization
Perhaps the most important thing to understand about tags is – What Are They?Tags are keywords that describe your content, simple as that and yet in that description hides the importance of their proper usage. As keywords they become PART of your url and provide huge boost to Search Engine Relevance.
Using a tag cloud on the sidebar with Do Follow attributes sends search engines to links that include content that includes that tag (keyword) and gives them much needed content. Not only do you get better usage of the archived posts but also boost you rankings.
Interlinking of your posts for SEO using tags is extremely simple. As we all know internal links to relevant content counts by Search Engines not as highly as external links but still counts. Why not take advantage of it? After all – it is FREE SEO Boost!
I personally use “Simple Tags” plugin that uses tags to calculate relevance of the posts to each other and gives you options to display relevant posts under each article. Dynamically calculated SEO relevance that is completely HANDS OFF and on autopilot – Are You Using It?
Social Network Relevance
In this case I’m talking about the Technorati. I know… I know… you might say Technorati looses its power and influence but my personal results indicate that if you do it right – you get some traffic! Key here is getting it right!
First and most important step to this process is obviously to register and claim your blog on Technorati, which I will not cover. But second and yet JUST AS Important is to locate tags within Technorati networks that are most appropriate for YOUR blog. Create a list of those tags and make sure to use at least one of them in EACH post on your blog.
But in order for the Technorati to associate your blog post with one of the tags used – you have to tag that content in a specific format that they recognize. Quite time consuming if you ask me and since I love automating these types of tasks – I installed “Technorati Tags” plugin for WordPress. Just add one line of code to your theme and Voila! Your post is tagged for Technorati re-using your blogs internal tags!
Simple? I would say so and if used consistently it will bring you traffic from Technorati, I guarantee it as long as you picked the right tags and used them!
Reader Engagement
Dynamic and dated format of the blog content is its greatest benefit and at the same time its biggest failure! The older your content becomes – less relevant it becomes in the eyes of the Search Engines but what perhaps is even worse – is in the eyes of The Reader!
You are writing for the people. And while we would like to think that people come and see our blog from it’s front page – my stats shows that over 65% of new visitors land on one of the internal pages! Posts that you might have written in a hurry all of a sudden became the face of your blog and reader finds it irrelevant to his needs – he is looking for a way to click away and never come back!
You have only few options to engage them and hope to retain them by providing MORE relevant and recent content!
Option One: using the “Simple Tags” you present them with a list of tags relevant to the current post articles on your blog. In many cases this will draw them deeper into content.
Option Two: Using Most Recent (latest) articles on your blog’s sidebar. This might help you to present your latest content and engage the reader – provide a clickable link they are looking for and yet, retain them!
Option Three: Tag Cloud. Yep, this one is good not only for Search Engine Optimization but also for reader Engagement. People are getting used to the tags on blogs and realize that Tags are keywords! Clicking on keyword relevant to their search will provide them with access to more content they need! Mission Accomplished.
I hope this quick post helps you see some of the usage of the tools built into your blog and available elsewhere. 2 simple plugins you can install can help you greatly enhance your blog!
Alex Sysoef, is a blogger who shares his knowledge and experience on the pages of his WordPress Web 2.0 Guide blog, wrote this guest post. Visit for even more tips and strategies.
A thank you to Alex for supplying some great tips especially the two plugins that are now part of this blog for testing.
As always your questions and comments are welcomed both here and at Aiex’s blog.
If XML-Sitemap gets corrupted, can we delete it altogether (thru cpanel or FTP) and recreate a fresh one without creating any problems? Thanks
Now I have to make an assumption here and we all know what that ass/u/me word does. If you are using the plugin for WordPress here is what you can do with some caveats.
Yes, you can delete the files with either FTP or cpanel. There will be 2 files. sitemap.xml and sitemap.xml.gz.
Then go into your settings – XML sitempa and manually rebuild them.
The caveat and the problem is that once you have deleted them depending on your server settings the folder your blog is in may not be writeable. If you get an error than you will need to increse the permissions of that folder. Click the rebuild link again. Then return the folder to it’s original permissions. Make sure that the new sitemap.xml and sitemap.xml.gz are set to 666 so that the blog can update them each time you post after that.
It is important that you not leave the folder for your blog set to the permissions necessary to write your original sitemap.xml files as this will leave you vulnerable to hacking.
Make sure that you have submitted the sitemap to Google and Yahoo too if you hadn’t originally.
As always your questions and comments are welcomed.
Mike we all know that the headline or title of your post is crucial component for attracting visitors to your site. If I was posting a ‘How to’ post like: How to get bigger biceps, would I want to include one of my top keywords in the title ie: Body Building – How to get bigger biceps? Also wanted to know your thoughts on using “parenthesis” in a blog title that we know people are searching for ie: “How to get bigger biceps”. Will using the parenthesis help you in SE results if someone types in that exact phrase. Thank you
One of the reasons I use a plugin like All In One SEO is because of the importance of a headline. The problem is that you have two constituencies. Your readers and the search engines.
If you have this then you can take care of both by having two headlines. One for your readers – one for the spiders.
Here is an example from my blog at Mike Paetzold Recommends. The post is about Marlon Sanders new product Evergreen Traffic System.If you click that hyperlink you will see that the title of the post is “She’s back and Marlon found her“. That was written for my reader’s to create some curiousity. Check the bar on the browser and you will see a different title – “Evergreen Free Traffic System“. This ranked on the first page of Google for evergreen traffic system on the same day but probably would not have shown up in the top 50 if I had used just the post title.
Now as to your question on quotes.When someone uses quotes in a search query that is to only return results where the words show in that exact order. Not that they are in “quotes”.
The other part of the question is about your keyword choice. You will have a much easier time ranking highly for “bigger biceps” which in a quick check has 41,000 resuts versus “body building” which has 8,900,000 results searching both in quotes. If you start ranking for all those lower keywords you will eventually rank for the more competitive words too.
So to summarize I would probably have used a title like “5 ways to get bigger biceps faster” for my readers and changed it for the title tag to “Bigger biceps – 5 ways to do it faster” for my title tag.
As always your comments and questions are welcomed.
For the purposes of illustration we will pick a topic and use a bad word in my vocabulary ass/u/me that you have done the research and found to have profit potential about Turtles. (Turtles are my marketing topic of the day today bare with me here.)
