Many of you may hear a buzz this weekend about Google's "PageRank update," so I wanted to clear up some misconceptions so that you don't lose focus on what's important. PageRank (or PR) is a measure of the link weight pointing to a page. The more links you get from pages that have more links to them, the higher your PageRank. PageRank is just one of more than 100 variables that determine where Google ranks a page in the search results. ... Keep reading »
We all know that search engines can bring us free traffic, so last week we covered the basics of how to SEO a blog. That's where you should start if you haven't already. The next step, though, is to start ranking well for terms that you already rank for somewhere in the results. Pages in the top 3 results can get ten times as much traffic (or more) than ... Keep reading »
A month ago yesterday, I made a open attempt to start ranking for "Tattooed Mountain Women and Spoon Boxes of Daghestan" as part of an example of how important <title>s are. Well this morning I discovered that that was an even better idea than I thought it was. Not only am I now ranking fourth in Google (as of this writing), but 14 of the last 100 visitors to ... Keep reading »
You've probably heard many times about all the free visitors you can get from search engines. Well SEO, or search engine optimization, is the science -- and art -- of getting a site to rank well in order to get as many of those visitors as possible. The great thing for you as a blogger is that you don't have to been an SEO expert to see quite a bit of search engine traffic to your site because most blogs are tailor-made for ranking well in search engines. Just take a look at the top ten search engine ranking factors and notice how many are naturally inherent in blogs. I count seven to nine, depending on how strict you want to be. Since blogs are almost always text-heavy, very community-driven and interlinked heavily, it's hard to find your blog not ranking for lots of things if it becomes popular. However, there are a few easy things that you do need to do to ensure that you're set up for search engine success. The basic principle behind all of them is that SEO, first and foremost, is about so much more than your homepage. Especially with blogs, you'll find that most of your search engine visitors come in on anything but your homepage. So almost all the basic SEO for a blog has to do with your individual pages. Keep reading »
So you've got a great blog with great content -- only no one knows it yet. Not a problem, because getting visitors to great content is one of the easiest things you'll ever do. Here's how to get started. Take Advantage of Your Network If you've been actively getting out and meeting your neighbors, you've built up a pretty good network of blogging and website-owning friends. Drop them an email to let them know about your new blog ... Keep reading »
Thank you, James Taranto for giving me the title for this post. I had started it without a title, knowing I needed something interesting and offbeat, but couldn't quite come up with anything. Then later that day, Tattooed Mountain Women and Spoon Boxes of Daghestan just leaped off the page :D (Tattooed Mountain Women and Spoon Boxes of Daghestan is one of the finalists for oddest book title of the year, not surprisingly.) So what is the world ... Keep reading »
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