Archive for November, 2010

If you have hung around the internet and gotten a little whiff of the SEO updates, you would have already gathered that if you have your website optimized, you stand the chance of getting better hits and more profits and ranking on the search engines. However, it might seem like something unattainable since you might not have any idea of how you can get the necessary optimization for your blog.

At first, most bloggers are often undecided on the kind of software that would be ideal for their blogging enterprise, but with time, they come to settle on the WordPress option.

However, I am always amazed when I discover that many people who make use of WordPress do not actually know anything about WordPress SEO. They have basically no knowledge of the workings of the SEO tips and training that is imperative for their online success. I do not advise you to ignore that WordPress SEO training as you would be doing yourself more harm than good. Once you make a wonderful combination of SEO and WordPress, you would be amazed yourself at the possibilities that could result from such a combination. Trying to effectively tap into the wonders of SEO without using WordPress is essentially like trying to fill up a Jacuzzi with a basket.

Basically, I can tell you of two WordPress programs that would achieve the desired effect for you. I know that there are many people out there who would smile at the prospect of making money, but are decidedly hesitant about spending some investment along the way. For these people the WordPress SEO training would be quite good, since this affords them the opportunity to make money without spending any of theirs.

I am sure you are not disputing if I tell you this: WordPress is the best blogging platform. It has its reasons too; it is easy to install, free of charge and a very good friend of google. Here are some ways you can use in optimizing your blog for better visibility on the search engines.

Step 1: Keyword research. You see, the keywords are the main things that would determine how far you would go in the SEO soup. It is therefore important for you to have a well composed list of your keywords. However here is a little tip for you; the best free tool you can use for your keyword research is the Google keyword research tool.

Step 2: customize your WordPress blog for Google SEO. First of all, of course, you should log on to your dashboard, go to settings and permalinks. Once there, alter the default structure of your blog. Click on the radio button with the “custom” header and insert /%postname%/ in the box.

Step 3: Write content. Also, do not forget to write regularly. Don’t be irregular in your writing, and make sure your articles are quality, since there is nothing a search engine loves more.

You can add Google Analytics to your site by adding a small snippet of code provided directly before the closing tag of each page. If you’re using a CMS like WordPress, there are free plugins that will do this for you automatically. Otherwise, you will need to work with the your web designer to have the code added manually.

Once installed, Google Analytics collects data continuously though the reports are only updated every 24 hours. After logging in and selecting your site, the first screen is the Dashboard. The simple interface belies an extremely powerful reporting system capable of crunching a large amount of data. Covering every feature would take an entire book, but here are the major parts for beginners.

Dashboard

The dashboard contents can be customized by dragging panels around or deleting them entirely. The default setup includes:

• The date range, which can be changed to show any period since Analytics starting collecting data for the site.
• Visits: measures the total number of visitors to the site each day. Clicking the drop-down allows you to graph one of 5 other measures represented in Site Usage below, or compare two measures against each other.
• Site Usage: shows visits, total page views and pages per visit. The bounce rate indicates the percentage of visitors who left the site after viewing only one page. The average time on site excludes bounces since there’s no way to measure the time spent if a user left immediately. New visits shows the percentage of visitors who had not visited the site previously. You can click any other of these six measures to drill down into more detail.
• Map Overlay: illustrates the geographic source of the visits. Click ‘view report’ to drill down further, showing state and city-level visitor information.
• Traffic sources: breaks down the visits into Direct (the URL was entered directly), Organic (it was followed from a search engine result), and major referral sites that have links to your site. The full report shows referral sites in more detail.
• Content overview: shows the most popular pages at a glance, based upon the number of pageviews.
• Export/email: here you can export reports or send emails either on a once-off basis or scheduled at regular intervals.

Visitors menuClick Visitors on the left to open the submenu of options. There is a considerable amount of data here with some of the main highlights including:

• Technical information: the usage of different browsers, the connection speed of your users, their operating system, screen resolutions and support for features such as Java and Flash.
• Benchmarking: illustrates how your site compares to sites of a similar size.
• Trending and loyalty: over time this builds a picture of whether measures are improving or not, while loyalty shows the number of visitors who have visited n times, their length of visit and the depth of their search (how many pages were viewed).

Content menuThese reports are a gold mine for SEO opportunities, directly linking search terms with landing pages and user behavior. Some important parts include:

• Top content: the pages receiving the most number of pageviews.
• Navigation summary: how visitors moved around your site, where they came from and what they did next. There is also an entrance path analysis which shows the same for each page.
• Top landing pages: while most visitors likely arrive at the home page, high-ranking pages within your site will attract their own visits from organic search results (these are called landing pages).
• Top exit pages: discover which pages are making visitors leave the site. Ideally, an order confirmation page should have a high exit rate, while a shopping cart summary would be low.
• Entrance keywords: the most popular keywords and phrases that drew visitors to your site or specific webpage. The most successful phrases may not have been one you were intentionally targeting.
• Site Overlay: shows your site’s home page and overlays click percentages, indicating which hyperlinks visitors followed.

Unlike any other analytics package, Google Analytics also provides deep integration with Google AdSense. This means you can incorporate cost-per-click pricing into this data, helping to produce an extra layer of information in calculating the return on investment for paid search. In other words, putting together the cost of getting a click with what the visitor did after arriving on your site.Once you get started with Google Analytics, the features are practically limitless – A/B testing (showing different content to different visitors and comparing results), goal setting and intelligence reports and just some of powerful tools that give you an comprehensive insight into your web performance.

For an indepth view of Google Analytics, I’d recommend reading Google Analytics, 3rd Edition.

Accomplish a top ten Google ranking for your website in a short amount of time without a dime spent, and in essence, get a high Google ranking for free. I’m not claiming to be an expert webmaster. I do not build websites for a living. However, I did follow the advice of others who know much more than myself, and I produced in just a couple of months a top ten Google website using major keywords. Maybe you can do the same and climb the Google rankings. Just learn from my research and do what others have implemented, and it can be done.

Again I am not an internet guru, and at best an amateur website builder, who has spent most his life practicing law. Well, how did I get indexed and get a high Google page ranking so quickly. I will outline below what I did to get the high Google rankings on my first website, and which rankings I have had for a number of weeks and counting. Hopefully, you can try some of the same things I did and find some success, getting your website indexed and get a top page ranking with Google in short time. It can be frustrating, but research and a little work makes it possibly.

In essence, use Google search. At every step in the process I Googled the questions I had on the subject in the process of getting my a website up and running. I studied several informative articles from my Google searches at every step of the process. First, I Googled how to create a website. There are many articles on this subject and many sites allow you to open and be hosted by their website free. Most free web building sites have a novice friendly format that even a beginner like myself can hardly go wrong implementing. Many have some nice Google widgets you can add to enhance your site, and most offer good support for free.

After you get an idea for your site (for example-a trader of collectible sports souvenirs), then Google the words a sports souvenirs collector might Google searching to buy or sale his products. It is there you will learn the magic of key words in your title and text. It is keywords that attracts the Google search engines, and they must be relevant to the website’s subject matter. Also Google terms like- increase your Google website ranking, and follow the advice of others on this subject, and all articles discussed the importance of keywords.

Keywords in my opinion are critical. You want to have valuable and unique text within your site page. However, the Google search engines want to see and touch those key words. Have you noticed how I have incorporated key words into this article. For example, Google rankings, Google search, Google indexing, etc. Find out what key words the successful sites use on your subject and do it better than them. Key words should be in your title, your description and sprinkled within your text. Be sure not to add too many keywords, and offend the Google robots. How much is too much I do not know. However, in my opinion, try to create over a thousand words of good relevant content in your text, including the keywords Google likes. Some say no more than five percent of your text content should be keywords to be safe.

You will hear about getting Google ranking with backlinks. I believe backlinks are very important for a top Google ranking. However, a handful might suffice and they are not too difficult to get. My understanding of backlinks is that they are links from other indexed sites that have linked in one way or the other to your site. In other words, someone can click on your link from their site to get to yours. Back links can come from web directories, preferably on your subject ( do not miss Google’s, DMOZ), and you need to submit to as many directories as you can. Backlinks also come from articles you have written that include your website url in the text. I have written articles for the main article players, EzineArticles, GotoArticle, HubPages,etc.

I have also written blogs. Digg, Blogger, Blogspot, WordPress, etc are notable blogs. I have included my site url within my text or attached my link somewhere on the backlink blog. For some reason Google especially likes EzineArticles and WordPress. EzineArticles are in a class by themselves and very selective. My submissions have done well on these sites in the Google searches. The published articles and blogs with your url in the text or attachment will in my opinion get you indexed quickly and increase your rankings as much as anything you do. Articles give you backlinks. Articles and blogs give you material for your website. Many of my articles themselves got top Google rankings and provided, in essence, a referral to my site.

Obviously, be sure to begin your indexing by submitting your link directly to the main search engines such as Google, Bing, Yahoo,etc. To submit a site to Google, just Google: submit site to Google, and it will take you right to the submission pages. One thing I did that was free upfront was incorporate an AdWords campaign with Google. It is a pay per hit on your site advertisement and you set the price. I set my cost extremely low and it is not very expensive.

Again, I’m not a website builder for profit, having built just a single website. However, if your are just at the point of wanting Google to index your own website, then do all of the above and you should get indexed at the very least. If you want a top Google ranking try what I have suggested, it just might work. Have fun.