SEO Dance

Be aware of the April Fools Prank. It might seem like a cute idea to post something outrageous on your blog. It is likely to increase traffic and attention to your website. However, thanks to search engines, the joke of the day will last a lifetime on the Internet.

If you don’t want to be bombarded with comments, emails, and backlash, then make sure to make it clear after April 1st that it was indeed a joke. This way when people find it six months from now, they will know that it was all in jest. Remember on the Internet information is always fresh. That’s why I still receive email forwards that first surfaced in the 1990s. New people will find it, take it for fact, and then act accordingly. Sure, everyone loves a good joke. It’s just harder to make sure everyone ‘gets it’ through this new media.

April 1st has already begun in some parts of the world. Several bloggers have posted their pranks and many have fallen for it. Some have even blogged their response to their “news” only to have to later retract everything. Jokes are fun but just remember that the audience will be reading it long after April 1st, so make sure that after April Fools has past to edit your article.

There are a lot of people that will tell you that linking to your own articles in a blog post is a good thing. It will help to garner views for your other posts. But too much of it can be a turn-off to some readers. Here’s why.

A lot of readers look to weblinks in stories as reference citations. It’s like proof of the idea you are talking about. If you constantly link to your website as proof, then you can lose credibility with some readers. We’ve all known people who will give their opinion as fact. If they only cite themselves, then they can possibly lose readership since some will not respond well to that.

We can apply the saying, “everything in moderation” when it comes to linking to your past stories. A little self-promotion is fine but going overboard might send the wrong impression.

For the past week, I’ve been using Twitter a lot more. It’s fun and almost like a message board but with only people you choose to read their comments. Twitter can also be a great way to update followers when you have a new post or information you want to share.

I’m not following that many people right now. Mainly those that I’ve either heard of through message boards or the Internet in general. A few are some recognized names in the world of blogging like Darren Rowse and Robert Scoble. It’s a lot of information and quite frankly hard to process it all. But with each day, or even hour, there is new content and new opinions to read. I love it but it makes it hard when you run across a great idea or something you want to explore a little more to have time to do it.

I can’t count the number of ideas I’ve had for my blogs this past year or even just this past week. Sometimes I’m on fire with ideas. The sad part is that at least half never make it out of my head.

The really good ideas, though, always come back. Most fall by the wayside but those that stay with me are the ones I develop into content. I think this same philosophy can be applied to SEO practices. You have to vigorously pursue those methods that feel right to you. Using keywords might not be a talent you have. Keywords aren’t everything when it comes to SEO. Find those traffic building and promotional methods that really set you a blaze and pursue them to the fullest. Let those other great ideas of the moment fall by the wayside. If an idea stays with you for a few days, then take notes because it could be something big and well worth doing.

Something just struck me as I just finished a post on another blog. I finished the post with a question, which hopefully some readers will feel inclined to answer in comments. It made me think that when I read a post with a question, I feel the need to answer even if I don’t normally comment on the blog.

Some bloggers thrive on comments while others don’t really care about them. If you are wanting to see more comments on your blog, then engage your reader. Leave them with a question. They have come to your post to read. Now leave them with something to think about.

By ending your post with a question, then the reader will hopefully want to start a conversation through comments. It at least works on me, and I’m willing to guess that other feel more like posting comments when asked a question.

Have you ever written a post and thought about changing the wording just because Google ads will pick up on a keyword then display inappropriate ads for your website? Sometimes I will shy away from using some words just because I don’t want to be indexed for certain phrases as people who are searching for those terms will be sorely disappointed to read it in context of my blog. But sometimes those keywords are highly searched, so there is temptation to just go ahead and use them!

Of course, sometimes those ‘out of place’ ads are the most intriguing to click. Still sometimes these ads can be so out of place on a website that they might be offensive to readers. Sometimes it’s hard to get your exact point across without using a certain word or phrase.

When setting up Google ads, you can filter out certain ads. This might be time consuming but can hopefully ensure to turn off certain ads associated with keywords to your website. I have never personally used this option but have heard that it has it’s problems as sometimes the ads you are trying to block still come through.

Keywords are how people find our websites and blogs. Sometimes those keywords we are indexed for can be odd because we have used a phrase or term that best fit the content of the sentence but really isn’t what our website is about. I find it amazing to see just what search terms my websites rank high in. It might be a phrase or a series of words I use in a post that will skyrocket my web page to a decent ranking. It’s a little frustrating to rank well for a keyword accidentally and not rank well for terms that you have applied good SEO practices to try to improve ranking.

I guess it’s best just to be glad to rank well for something, even if it’s keywords that possibly aren’t suited for your website that wil display all types of crazy Google ads.

You have a new phone and a new address but the old information is scattered throughout the Internet. How do you get that information updated?

Do a search for your old information on the top search engines. Contact the top search results webpages and let them know the webpage that needs to be updated on their website and include new information. This might work well. It just depends if the website is still being updated or how the information is given to the website like a directory listing.

Also include a webpage on your website that doesn’t have to be linked from your main website but should include your old address along with your new address. For your business name and location your website should have a good search engine ranking. This way by still having the old address you can get listed in the search results for it while also pointing surfers to the new information.

It will probably be nearly impossible to have all old references removed but making sure to include both old and new on your website will help keep your search rankings for the old information.

I’m terrible at organization and sadly it spills over to the World Wide Web. After reading a tip about the usefulness of subdirectories for SEO and organization, I am now convinced that taking the time to get everything in its proper place will be worth the effort.

Giving your subfolders relevant names will not only help jog your memory as to the content of the folder but will be indexed by Google for that keyword. Sub directories can be very useful to not only organize your content for your website but to be helpful in search results. Just like the name of the webpage is important for search results, the name of the sub folder is equally important. Naming a folder ‘pets’ that holds pet articles will could potentially increase search traffic and better placement in search results. I write about a lot of games, so I could make a folder for each video game console. This will help to keep images and articles organized, something my websites desperately need.

So, not only can I organize my content by subject but I can possibly help better the search placement of those web pages for those keywords.

Ask.com has been tracking football-related searches for the two weeks prior to the Super Bowl. It’s no surprise that New England as well as keywords surrounding the Patriots(Tom Brady) were more popular searches than keywords having to do with the New York Giants.
With the Giants win, I’m sure this week there will be a little more interest in the team and their quarterback Eli Manning. Here is an article on more of the search results.

How often do you update your blog sidebar? I have to admit that I don’t update mine that often. Usually it has the same boring content on it each day. Why let this piece of prime real estate just stay stagnant when it can be a great spot to really showcase what your site is about.

First things, let’s clear anything off the sidebar that could be put somewhere else.

- Make a page for your archives.
- Trim that blogroll or move it to its own page.
- Meta information can be removed altogether. Bookmark your admin login page if you can’t remember how to get it to and delete it from your sidebar.

Here are some suggestions sidebar content:

- Use tag clouds for your categories as it is visually more appealing.
- List most popular blog posts.
- Show a list of the last comments received. This will help spotlight those posts that are worth discussion.

Take a few minute to look at your sidebar and see just what should stay and what should go. A few minutes of web housekeeping can make a huge difference in the appearance of your sidebar.

My husband gets a lot of his news from Slashdot. It seems that every story he tells begins with, “This story on Slashdot..”

He was telling me about the tags on Slashdot. Apparently registered users can tag stories with their own tags. Registration is free. What was interesting was some of his favorite tags.

He really likes the “whatcouldpossiblygowrong” and the “goodluckwiththat” tag. After checking it out myself, there are keyword tags of stories, too. These longer tags are almost user categories. These longer tags that are practically(or could be) sentences really pique the reader’s interest. I am curious to know which stories earned a user tag of “goodluckwiththat” as it does sound like it could be a good story or at least thought provoking.

Such long tags are really more part of a particular community and not necessarily something that would work randomly on other tagging-enabled websites. Still, I’ll be on the lookout for those more inventive tags from now on. It might lead to something very interesting.

While I was searching for more information on a particular topic, I was surprised that Mahalo turned up in the first page of search results since this was a very specific search, and I was looking for up-to-date information. I decided to click on the link just to see exactly what Mahalo had in the way of information.

Mahalo touts itself as a search engine but it’s more accurate to save it’s a search directory. What makes it special is that all entries are done by people. Each search page is maintained by someone who updates it with new information.

The Mahalo results for my particular search were pretty accurate and up-to-date, something I hadn’t expected from the website. I feared that since it was manually updated then that would mean delays in current content being added to search pages. Now that I see this is not necessarily the case, Mahalo might become an alternative to other search engines for me.

When Mahalo first launched back in the summer I have to admit that I was underwhelmed with it. It seems like a good idea to have someone edit each entry so that links and information are relevant and useful. But just from the sheer amount of information on the web seems like an impossible task. Besides web surfers have grown accustomed to search results that might not fit their criteria, so they adapt and try different wording on their new search.

After seeing that pages are kept very current with Mahalo and since relevant information is presented on one page, it will be easier next time to trust their search results.

Technorati Authority is a number ranking given to blogs. It is determined by links to your blog. From looking at my authority, I would wager that a ‘vote’ from a higher authority blog carries more weight in determining your blog authority.

So, links are key to getting a higher authority. There are plenty of ways to get links from blogs. Take part in link exchanges, hold a contest, or take part in contests to get incoming links to your blog.

I took part in a blog project with my new, un-publicized photo blog. Everyone was given the results of the contest to share, if they so wished, on their blog. Several people did. This generated a lot of backlinks to my little photo blog that now has an authority of 11. While 11 is still very low, this blog project has been my only real contest I have done using this blog. Imagine taking part in something weekly just how that authority could grow over time.

Getting links is paramount to a good Technorati authority. Using contests or other social-type postings can make it easy to receive many links fast.

Writing for others is a good way to make a little extra money. If you’ve been practicing writing with keywords in mind, why not take that new found talent and turn it into some cash?

There are plenty of SEO companies that hire writers to write articles on various subjects for their clients. Pay varies but probably won’t be enough to ‘quit your day job’ but should provide some nice spending money.

The best way to find reputable jobs is through a referral. Check with your network(message boards, bloggers, etc) to see if there is anyone who is doing this type of writing. They can provide some valuable information for anyone just beginning to do this type of work.

One company that I worked for that I enjoyed was Articles and Content. They changed their policy and started charging writers to find work through them. The first rule of working from home is to never pay someone for an opportunity. Even though I would have easily made the nominal ‘fee’, I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. Once I started blogging, I just haven’t had much time to find any new SEO companies to work for so sadly I’m out of the loop when it comes to writing SEO articles. I do know that there are still plenty of companies who offer this service and are always looking for writers.

Using keywords in copy can not only be good for your own website but can earn you a little extra cash.

The weekends have always been my “catch up” time. No matter if it’s laundry, cleaning, reading, or something else, my weekends are usually full of small tasks.

I do quite a bit of writing on the weekends, too. I try to catch up on blogging and other on-going projects. Not only do I like to do extra posting on the weekends, I like to use the time to do a little web housekeeping. My blog New Year resolution is to try to comment on all comments. The weekend will serve as a great time to carry out this.

It’s also fun to play with new themes but can be time consuming since I’ve added widgets and other code to my current templates. It takes time to copy and paste, making sure the new template has all the modifications.

Doing small tasks on the weekend can help keep your website streamlined and up to date. It just seems easier to do some of those tasks on the weekend. This weekend I plan to catch up on writing since Tuesday was a holiday, and I didn’t get much accomplished on Monday.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! May all of your keywords be top search engine results in 2008.