Posts Tagged ‘blogs’
October 6th, 2010 | 
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The author is a copywriter with SEO Technologies, a bourgeois of world wide web marketing in Houston. Learn more at: http://www.websites-marketing.net/Texas/Houston.aspx
One of the hardest parts about learning search engine optimization is knowing where to start. The field is always changing, and its prominent experts often preach conflicting advice.
To that end, I have prepared a list of SEO blogs I trust and enjoy reading. Even if I occasionally disagree with a post, I come back day-after-day to these blogs. Whether you are new to SEO or experienced in the field, they can help you make the most of your world wide web marketing.
Search Engine Land (http://www.searchengineland.com) – This is the mom of all SEO websites. Founded by search engine expert Danny Sullivan, it features news, tips, view pieces, and learning resources. The website features columns devoted to link-building, local business search marketing, business-to-business SEO, and other specialties. Readers will enjoy tips from some of the ideal known SEO leaders and regularly updated links to other blogs and resources.
SEOMoz (http://www.seomoz.org/blog) – While not as expansive as Search Engine Land, the SEOMoz company blog is useful for just about anyone in the field. I love to keep up with them for in-depth insights into search engine and world wide web marketing trends. Their ideal feature might be the “Whiteboard Friday” series of videos, which can be as irreverent and personality-driven as they are informative.
SEO Book (http://www.seobook.com/blog) – This brilliant blog is the brainchild of Aaron Wall, a fiery-tongued SEO who is not afraid to raise agitating questions. While he offers excellent tips for practitioners, his lengthy essays on marketing ethics and the search industry are the crown jewel of his writing.
SEO by the Sea (http://www.seobythesea.com/) – This is a relatively new discovery for me. Author Bill Slawski’s specialty is presenting and examining search engine patents. Keeping up with this blog helps me comprehend the search engines themselves in greater depth.
Local SEO Guide (http://www.localseoguide.com/) and Understanding Google Maps and Local Search (http://blumenthals.com/blog/) – These two excellent blogs wage news and tips for local business SEO, local directories, and search engine maps.
Occam’s Razor (http://www.kaushik.net/avinash/) – Google Analytics evangelist Avinash Kaushik offers in-depth tips for understanding website analytics and using them as tools to improve your online marketing performance.
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If you’re blogging on the Wordpress platform, I’ll bet my entire life savings that the first thing you ever did was try to install a new Wordpress theme. I’ll bet my future earnings that even this day you’re still occasionally changing themes and wasting a lot of time doing minor modifications that when summed up merely distracts you from blogging itself.
Yet, it’s simple to comprehend why themes beg for so much attention. With the correct theme, you can accommodate all the nifty tiny widgets and codes, and might also mean superior search engine rankings and tons of fresh traffic each day.
So what factors do you need to think about to make this whole theme-hunting business easier? Here are five important ones:
1) Theme Width and Columns
Typically, Wordpress themes come in 2-column or 3-column formats, with widths ranging from 500 pixels to 960 pixels wide. If you’re blogging for non-profit purposes, a 2-column theme can look more compact and reader-friendly. Since you have less images of products or links to other sites to display, you can focus exclusively on the content without leading readers away from your site.
On the other hand, if you’re blogging for profit, you might want to think about a 3-column Wordpress theme that will be healthy to accommodate your Google Adsense, Chitika and Text Link Ads codes comfortably without squeezing everything in the content area. 3-column themes grant room for expansion, but in the event that you’ve filled up all acquirable space with ads, then it’s time you removed the non-performers and use only the advertising services that work for that particular blog.
It is becoming more common but the huge question I get when speaking to people is “Why use a blog?”.
Off the top of my head I can think of 5 major reasons.
A blog is:
• Easy to update
• Easy to get started
• Liked by the search engines
• Creating feeds automatically
• Allows people to interact with you
Before I begin let me take just a minute to define the term blog. The following is quoted from Dr. Mani one of the early marketers to embrace blogs.
“A blog is short for “web log” a sort of online individualized diary where “anyone” can reveal his/her innermost thoughts, feelings, desires, dreams, ambitions, fears, hopes … you get the meaning.
Yes, it’s a website. With one small difference. It lists posts ordered by date in a individualized journal format, and is easier to create than a website – just involves typing into a form and actuation the PUBLISH button”
The assist of near button publishing of most blog platforms make them one of the easiest web sites to update. On most platforms you don’t need to know HTML though it does help. If you can create a word document you can update a blog.
