Blog Marketing Tips
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October 28, 2007
- Getting Indexed By Google
Unless your blog get's indexed by the search engines, Google or otherwise, you're not in the Internet Marketing game.
There is a lot of talk online about the recent Google shakeup and the fact that Google re ranked all sites in the last week and some siteowners discovered that their page rank had actually been reduced - in some cases by 2 points.
Now, the intention of this blog posts isn't to talk about the Google shakeup because whilst there is speculation as to the reasons why, no one knows for sure. And whilst Page Rank isn't the most important element of making money online, one thing is for certain …
If the search engines are not visiting your site to index it,
you are not in the gameNow, indexing does not mean giving your blog a page rank or a rating, but it does list you in the organic searches and this is important if you want to be found by people other than those you notify that you exist as well as enabling you to benefit from getting free traffic.
June 8, 2007
- Is The Google LSI Myth or Fact?
It's crawling the web and it's the LSI explosion.
After making my last post, I received this email from Michael Duz about Google Latent Semantec Indexing (LSI), and I think it's worth reading and worth taking a look at, but I stress, there are many, many other and easier ways to get traffic to your blog, so I wouldn't focus on LSI (whether you believe it to be fact or myth) as a strategy for getting "brownie points" with the Google.
I'm posting this comment because I made reference to it in my previous post and, because I want to discourage you from focusing on it.
Enjoy!
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Your recent post 'Write Better Blog Posts' came onto my horizon and I have a couple of suggestions for you, hope you don't mind?
You say "Google now uses something called Latent Semantic Indexing (LSI) to match phrases on a page…." which I am afraid to say is completely untrue.
May 24, 2007
- Write Better Blog Posts
One of the questions I'm frequently asked is "how do I write a blog post so it gets noticed?"
The first thing to consider is that when you are writing your blog posts, you have to please both the search engine spiders as well as your human visitors, but there are ways of creating great blog posts so you please both.
The second thing to consider is that no matter how beautifully your blog posts are written - they could sound like prose from Shakespeare - if they are devoid of keywords, you'll find it harder to get free search engine traffic. Google for example thrives on keyword focused content that is relevant to the reader, but without stuffing your posts with keywords that make it look and sound artificial.
Google now uses something called Latent Semantic Indexing (LSI) to match phrases on a page or post to determine it's relevancy and with over 600,000 phrases used to compare against your blog posts, I would say the days of keyword stuffing are truly over.
April 19, 2007
- Is Reciprocal Linking A Thing Of The Past?
Do the search engines give any credence to exchanging links?
Well, this depends on who you listen to. Some search engine optimizers will tell you that you're wasting your time with reciprocal linking strategies since backlinks are king Others will tell you that reciprocal linking is a thing of the past and then there are those who suggest it's about striking a balance.
So, why link to other websites in the first place?
I think this is the question that needs to be answered before determining whether a) it's worth linking to other websites at all and b) what kind of links the search engines prefer. And in my view, the undisputed reason for linking to other websites is to generate more traffic so you sell more of your products and services.
More links, results in more traffic, more traffic means more sales and more sales means more money in the bank right? Right! So the whole purpose of reciprocal linking is more than just "link popularity" so you get indexed by the search engines. But there are a few things you must be aware of when developing your link exchange strategy and you must first of all be aware that …
March 15, 2007
- Is SEO Relevant to Your Blog?
And how much SEO do you need to know?
A blog is differenent to a conventional website in many ways, but the truth is how you market them is no different.
But there is a difference in how they are found by the search engines …
This is what happens when you blog:
- Once a Blogger publishes his blog, a 'ping' message is sent to the 'Aggregation Ping Server,' telling them that the blogger's site has been updated.
- Search engines like Google as well as RSS specific services like, Technorati, and Feedster periodically asks the Aggregation Ping Server to let them know which sites have been updated.
- Since the Blog sends pings when the site is updated and has an RSS file as well as being updated frequently, a blogs search engine rank is usually higher than a conventional website. I say usually because a stagnent blog is no differnt to a static web site in terms of being found and indexed by the search engines.
Compare this to a conventional website:
February 13, 2007
- New Look Blog And New Blog Focus
Are blogs really wanted by independent professionals?
For many months now, I have been helping independent professionals get their business online and whilst they're keen to learn, in almost every case, we've ended up with a blog. Why?
Blogs are quick and easy to set up, they require relatively little 'techie' knowledge compared to putting up and marketing a static website, you don't need a webmaster or designer and, you can change the look and feel in just a few minutes… as I did this evening!
So whilst I've enjoyed putting up webpages, I'm finding that less and less of my clients want a static website. They want a blog because of it's low cost and easy to maintain attributes so they can focus on marketing their business and not having to learn how to keep their websites updated and master the art of search engine optimization - SEO - techniques to get traffic to their website or, having to rely on Google Adwords.
October 25, 2006
- Research Before You Pay For Advertising
If you pay for advertising, ensure you do your homework!
I had a telephone call today from an Internet business directory services company who specialize in providing promotion services for small to medium enterprises in the UK. I'm not going to name and shame the company since this isn't the objective here.
The objective is warn you that if you receive these unsolicited phone calls from advertisers telling you they can get you 30 calls per month, do your homework before you say yes!
I'm not suggesting that every advertising company out there will hype up sales and your return on investment but my conversation today proved that the big advertising companies do it and there may be nothing but fluff behind their promises! Lets face it though, someone has to pay for their TV, Sky and other media advertising campaigns.
Anyway, here's what happened…
I received the call from a very nice young man who told me he could almost promise me a top position in Google. When I challenged him, he gave me the search term "search engineering" to type into Google.co.uk so he could prove his point. Uh Oh! The company he was trying to find with this search term was no where to be found and after 7 pages, I gave up.
