Quantcast Top 10|Social media|How to|Blogging & Resources|Guides: November 2010

Sunday, November 28, 2010

A Complete Guide: How To Download Books From Google In PDF Format

Google Book Search has thousands of books, magazines, and documents available for free for the public. You can read them online, but what if you want to read them offline? Google should have a build-in feature to download books since most people are not always connected to the internet. What if I want to read a book while traveling and there is no internet connectivity? Google Book Downloader  a handy tool which you can use to download books directly from Google and save them directly in PDF format.

Here is how it works, you have to provide the book code in order to download it. But where exactly is the book code? It is given in the URL, the screenshot below will make it more clear to you.

google book id


The book code is the set of different characters after ‘id=’ and before ‘&’. In my case the Book code is ‘_kYBqLc5QoQC’. Now enter this book code in the tool and press Check.

melon google books downloader

It will begin retrieving data page by page, once the process is complete, click Download all. This will download every page of the book one by one which will take some time, you can see the status in the progress bar.

google books download status

Once the progress is complete, click Save Entire Book as button and save it anywhere in PDF format. It’s that easy. Enjoy!

Update: If you are one of those people who are having problem using this method, you can try an alternative method. If you are using Firefox browser, download the GreeseMonkey add-on and grab Google Book Downloader script. Now you will find the download button whenever you browse a book in books.google.com. :)

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Wednesday, November 24, 2010

How to write blog post titles while keeping SEO in mind

How many times do you happen upon a post written by a fellow blogger whose title makes you wonder what the post will actually end up being about? Note that many times that you do run across these posts, they do not have a high PageRank or get very much traffic unless they have been Dugg, etc. And even if they do, could they get more traffic if their post title was optimized?

When I first starting writing for my blog in March of this year, I didn’t even know what the term SEO meant and hence wrote post titles that would make a seasoned blogger cringe! Even though I have read it over 100 thousand times, it seems that a lot of bloggers out there still don’t understand how important it is to write a good title for each post.

And what’s more baffling is that everyone intrinsically knows how important titles are because each person reads a newspaper on a daily basis. For example, if you were to whip open the New York Times web site right now, the top headline is as follows:

New Stem Cell Method Could Ease Ethical Concerns
Now that title makes sense! It’s also very search engine friendly since it’s short, yet has enough keywords that it would show up in a long tail search. Now consider what you would think if you were to read the following headline:

“Medical Ethics”

If that were the title for the above article, do you think it would be as easily searchable through Google as the first title? HELL NO. And you may read this and laugh and say that “Awww come on man, that’s retarded, that title is not even close to being a short form of the original title, it’s not close at all!” Well I would agree with you, but that’s a major problem with many blog post titles, they have nothing to do with the content!
As a technology blogger myself, I find this issue to be even worse among our niche because most bloggers are writing about software, computers, technology, and other items whose names don’t have anything to do with their ultimate purpose. 

For example, here’s a couple of blog posts that I feel are really bad post titles because they lack keywords, do not describe anything, and are just plain useless to the search engines.

Bad Post Titles

Unlocker for Windows” – This blogger is writing about a piece of software that you can use in Windows to get past errors like “Access is Denied” when trying to delete or move files. Does anyone search on Google for UNLOCKER FOR WINDOWS? Of course not, someone is searching for “cannot move file” and “access is denied”. A better title for this would be “How to unlock a process for access is denied errors in Windows” or something similar. 

“iConcertCal”This article was Dugg, but still who is ever going to find this product with this kind of title? The software monitors your iTunes library and lets you find concerts in your local area. A good title would be “iConcertCal – Find local concerts in your city via your iTunes libarary”.  At least write something!

HeatEatReview” – This is a great site that reviews all kinds of frozen dinners, etc so that you can buy the best stuff from the store. But who the hell is going to search HeatEatReview! Even some simple text after the name of the site will be much better.

Joox.net – Can you guess what this site is all about? No idea? Well obviously since Joox is not even a word! This site allows you to watch some old and new movies in DivX quality. Would it not be better to write something like “Joox.net – Watch Hollywood DivX movies online for free”???
So what is considered a good title? Well, you’ve probably seen most of those already, but I thought I would mention a few anyway.

Good Post Titles

Stage6 – Upload video clips, share, watch, download videos” – This site is similar to the Joox.net site mentioned above, but look at how much more descriptive the title is. It has all the keywords that it wants to rank on included in the title. No one knows what Stage6 means and nor do the search engines!

Photojojo – The best photo tips, DIY projects, and gear in the whole wide world’Can anyone possibly be confused by what this site is all about? Not even a search engine! Good keywords and pretty straight forward.

“Dealing With Website Plagiarism: When Someone Copies Your Blog Content”If someone were to steal your blog content, what would you search for first? Probably something like “blog plagiarism” or “blog content stolen”, etc. This article will probably show up higher since the keywords will match in the title.

Conclusion

So when writing post titles, always try to think from a searchers perspective and what they would type in if they were looking for this product or service. Yes, backlinks and the content of the post matter a lot and I’m not denying that, I’m just saying that if ALL OTHER FACTORS WERE EQUAL, the post with the better title would win out.


Also, I’ve noticed that if someone is not paying attention to writing correct post titles, they are probably also missing important keywords in the body of the content. If you’re not sure what keywords to use, check out keywords tools such as Google’s Adwords tool or Keyword Discovery.

Any comments or thoughts? Post a comment! Thanks! 

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Sunday, November 21, 2010

50 Self-Reflecting Questions To Ask Yourself As A Blogger

This is something I have been wanting to write up for a while without it sounding too cliché. This is not a post full of questions to ask yourself before starting a new blog, but a post to reflect on your current blogging habits.

What I want you to do is just go through this post and read all the questions either out loud or in your head.

Then, simply answer them. Now, I am not asking you to share these answers with anyone else if you don’t want to. I’m not even asking you to share your answers, period. What I am asking you to do is be as honest as possible in all of your answers. Don’t answer questions like #13 with a lie, because then you will be missing the whole point of this post.


I want you to really reflect on the kind of blogger you are, and lying won’t help you do that. The reason for this is because some of the questions I came up with will really cause you to think about your actions and motivations as a blogger. With those thoughts in your mind, it can really help you make the changes needed to become a better blogger.

If you have any questions, or need clarification, just comment. I respond to all comments, so I will be more than happy to explain anything left unclear. :)

50 Questions To Make you Think

  1. Is it okay to be hypocritical in your articles?
  2. Do you think you owe someone for commenting on your blog?
  3. Do you define your blog as a success if you [intlink id="2270" type="post"]make a lot of money[/intlink] from it and get a lot of comments per post?
  4. Are you a conformist, or an independent?
  5. Is anything you write truly a great piece of writing without some lies or a little over exaggeration?
  6. Is it better to get facts from someone else, or conduct your own experiments for results?
  7. Is everything a “guru” says always the right solution for you?
  8. Do you truly think PageRank is worthless?
  9. How would you honestly feel with a PR0 blog?
  10. Is it worth replying to comments on your blog knowing that most of your replies will never be responded to or even read again?
  11. Do you think your blog will still exist next month? 2 months? 3?
  12. Have you discovered that writing your post first will help you write a better post title?
  13. Are the links you include in your blog posts really meant to help other people, or are you just trying to sell an affiliate product or drive traffic to another website?
  14. Are you really blogging to help others, or just to make profit?
  15. Have you ever thought of not approving a comment because it is negative knowing nobody will find out?
  16. Is it wrong to comment on your blog under a different name?
  17. Do you plan for the future, or for the present in regards to your blog design?
  18. Is it worth emailing larger bloggers knowing they probably won’t get back to you or even read your message because it doesn’t “meet their standards of being replied to”?
  19. Are you ever willing to edit an image you use in your blog post to make it look more appealing and eye catching?
  20. Are the images you use in your blog posts have a literal or metaphorical meaning that relates to your article?
  21. Do you think people who comment on your blog with keywords in their name are worth being replied to, or even acknowledged in your blog?
  22. Are you a “thinker” and “planner” instead of a “doer”?
  23. Have you realized from experience, or by seeing that list posts are not as hard to make as they seem to be?
  24. Do you think it is beneficial to make a change to your blog that your readers will like, but you may not be fond of?
  25. Is there something you have been wanting to change/add/remove from your blog, but haven’t gotten around to it?
  26. Do you value every comment you get on your blog the same, regardless of the content of the comment?
  27. Do you ever leave out information in your posts and try to let your readers fill it in in the comments section?
  28. How many times do you think about your blog when you’re away from the computer?
  29. Do you avoid posting controversy on your blog because you have none to post, or you’re afraid someone might disagree with you?
  30. Are you easily discouraged?
  31. Do you think that hard work now will pay off later, even after months of hard work and no results?
  32. Do you avoid trying to create relationships with other bloggers because they have a larger blog, or are more well known than you are?
  33. Are you making the best of your social network/media profiles?
  34. Do you ever add personality into your posts (ex: smiley faces, jokes, etc.)?
  35. Do you add “friends” on social network/media sites because you want them to read you blog, or because you actually want to become friends with them?
  36. Would you feel more accomplished if you got 20 comments from “regular” bloggers, or just 1 comment from a highly respected “famous” blogger?
  37. Are you being as personal as you can with your readers (picture of yourself, small bio, etc.)?
  38. Do you believe comments on your blog with more writing should be valued and rewarded higher than comments with less writing?
  39. Are you more embarrassed when someone points out a spelling/grammar mistake, corrects wrong information, or when someone strikes down your article?
  40. Do you think your posts should be concise, or filled with extra information?
  41. Do you make the title of my posts clear so the reader understands what the article is about before jumping to the content?
  42. What do you think when a post you put less effort into gets a bigger response than a post you put more effort into?
  43. Does it bother you to see someone younger than you have a more successful blog?
  44. Are you afraid to make an investment in something that could help your blog substantially because you’re afraid it won’t work?
  45. Do you add a fresh perspective to a subject, or just regurgitate it?
  46. Do you tend to cut out some information that could be useful to some people because you don’t want your post to be “too long“?
  47. Look at your blog articles. What is the ratio of pillar articles to regular articles?
  48. Have you kept up with posting consistently over the last month? If not, why?
  49. Are your blog posts full of information that will remain relevant over a long period or time, or for a shorter period of time?
  50. Are you afraid to ask questions to your readers that you don’t know the answer to?

No More Questions!

I know there were a lot of questions, and I hope you didn’t feel overwhelmed. Hopefully this post has helped you figure out and come to terms with the kind of blogger you are. Let me know what you thought of this post. These questions weren’t the easiest things to come up with as I wanted to go a little deeper than most bloggers would.

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Friday, November 19, 2010

How to Write Magnetic Headlines

Your headline is the first, and perhaps only, impression you make on a prospective reader. Without a compelling promise that turns a browser into a reader, the rest of your words may as well not even exist. So, from a copywriting and content marketing standpoint, writing great headlines is a critical skill.

Here are some interesting statistics.

On average, 8 out of 10 people will read headline copy, but only 2 out of 10 will read the rest. This is the secret to the power of your title, and why it so highly determines the effectiveness of the entire piece.

Remember, every element of compelling copy has just one purpose — to get the next sentence read. And then the sentence after that, and so on, all the way down to your call to action. So it’s fairly obvious that if people stop at the headline, you’re already dead in the water.

The better your headline, the better your odds of beating the averages and getting what you’ve written read by a larger percentage of people. This 11-part series will provide you with concrete guidance that’ll have you writing better headlines in no time.
  1. Why You Should Always Write Your Headline First
  2. The Cheater’s Guide to Writing Great Headlines
  3. Do Key Words in Post Titles Really Matter?
  4. How to Write a Killer “How To” Post That Gets Attention
  5. 7 Reasons Why List Posts Will Always Work
  6. Why Some People Almost Always Write Great Post Titles
  7. 10 Sure-Fire Headline Formulas That Work
  8. 9 Proven Headline Formulas That Sell Like Crazy
  9. 7 More Sure-Fire Headline Templates That Work
  10. Warning: Use These 5 Headline Templates at Your Own Risk
  11. The Art of Writing Great Twitter Headlines
For the other fundamental elements of writing great copy, check out Copywriting 101.

BACKLINKCLICK HERE

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Sunday, November 14, 2010

30 Real Ways to Make Money Blogging

Looking for ways to make money with your blog can be frustrating.  Either you don’t have enough traffic or you are not sure what to do.  That is why I have put together this list of 30 Real Ways to Make Money with a Blog“.

This post isn’t your average directory of money making tips either, it has summaries for what each element is, how to use it, and where to find resources.  The blog earning tips are also divided into Beginner, Novice, and Problogger based on the differing qualifications and needs of each.


Making money online is mostly about customizing a monetizing formula for your blog.  Depending on your skill level, network, and current traffic levels your blog has a variety of options.  So find your blog’s formula below to maximize your earnings.

 

Beginner

You know who you are… Low levels of traffic, relatively new blog, little or no internet experience, no design or seo skills, and probably a sense frustration over the lack of earnings.

Some of the options in this section are better then others and matter of fact all of them can be used no matter what level you are currently at.  Novices can use any beginner level monetization methods and Probloggers have the luck of using everything and anything they see fit.

PPC – Pay Per Click is an advertising program in which ads are placed on your blog and you are paid whenever your visitors click on the ads.  It is the most common method bloggers use to make money online.  It involves almost no effort and is so incredibly easy that many blogs have too much advertising on them.   Money is maximized as traffic levels increase.

 Resources: Google Adsense Chitika Yahoo! Bidvertiser Adbrite

CPM - Cost Per Thousand (“m” is roman numeral for thousand) is an impression based advertising system.  This means advertisers place ads on your blog and you are paid based on how many times the ad shows up.  This can be profitable for blogs with big traffic, and can start to bring money to even the smallest blogs.  All you need is pageviews to increase this monetization method.

Resources: Value Click Tribal Fusion

Money Widgets -A very simple advertising system is easily integrated into your blog’s sidebar with widget advertising.  Just embed the widget into your sidebar and watch the ads begin.

Resources: The Newsroom WidgetBucks ScratchBack SmartLinks

In-Text Ads – You know what these ads are.  You have probably seen them all over small blogs and websites on the internet.  They are links with double-lines below them.  While sometimes useful for blog owners pockets, they eventually irritate and annoy most readers into leaving the blog and not returning/subscribing.  In-text ads should be used with caution.

Resources: Kontera Vibrant Media

Parked Domains – Have a few domains you are planning on using soon but are not ready to start?  Parked domains serve the purpose as advertisement and traffic redirection.  This is perhaps the easiest way to make money, although in small doses, online.  Just get a domain name and use the very easy parked domain programs.

Resources: Parked Google Parked

Donations – We have probably all seen the little button that says “donate” in someones sidebar.  It is an easy and perhaps out-of-date way to try and earn some revenue. Many programmers use this still, but very little revenue is earned through the donation feature.  For example have you ever donated?  But still it is simple and if you don’t mind the button then go ahead and try.

Resources: Paypal – it really is the only major ‘donate’ resource around!

Affiliate Marketing – Perhaps the most lucrative process for earning money online is by using your blog to recommend useful and relevant products to your readers.  The best examples are seen by the many bloggers linking to different themes, ebooks and other products.  The best thing about affiliate marketing is that you are only marketing the product and not selling it.  Just make sure the product is relevant and not over-used.  Read more.

Resources: ClickBank Commission Junction Azoogle Ads Link Share

Text Link Ads – As your blog builds reputation and traffic your posts/pages become great places for links.  Many people will even pay you to put their link on your website or page.  While it has earning potential, be leery of this form of revenue as it may be detrimental to your blog in Google’s algorithm.  So study it out before you make your decision.

Resources: Text-Link-Ads Text-Link-Brokers

Feed Ads – An easy way to increase the advertisement on your blog is by adding them to your rss feeds.  The simplest way is to get Feedburner and set it up for your blog.  Once you have done that then click on the monetize tab and Google Adsense will be added to your feeds in almost one-click!

Resources: Feedburner BidVertiser Pheedo

Paid Surveys and Polls – It is just what it says it is.  You fill out surveys and polls or place them on your blog for others to fill out and earn money.  In doing this option be careful to find survey or poll companies that have credible backgrounds as this is a source for scammers.

Resources: VizuAnswers

Pop-up Ads – These pesky and annoying advertisements may be great for some of your niche blogs or sub-domains.  Not worth putting on blogs you actually want to build a community on, pop-up ads offer decent revenue to blogs looking to exist but not grow significantly.  But be aware that it is annoying to the reader.

Resources: Adbrite Tribal Fusion PayPopup PopupAd Adversal


Audio Ads – “You are a winner”, “You may have just won a free Ipod”, etc. These audio ads can be very targeted to your traffic and very successful or completely useless.  For instance, many surfers do not even have their sound on while they surf to avoid such advertisements.  I would recommend not using this sort of advertisement for long-term projects.

Resources: NetAudio

Article Marketing – A two-edged sword.  You get both quality backlinks to your blog and its posts while also creating earning potential.  I use Squidoo and Associated Content personally and earn enough money to support my blogging efforts and some advertising.  It’s also very easy through the simple resources available to you.  Using this blogging income source is both potentially lucrative and excellent marketing.

Resources: Squidoo Hubpages Associate Content

Novice

Now that you are novice you have more experience and a lot more traffic.  Because of the increase in visitors the potential to earn more is also greater.  Here is a few extra things you can include into your earning formula from the beginning level.  Again, make sure to find what is right for your blog.

Direct Banner – With ppc and cpm advertising there is potential to make money, but direct banner ads bring advertising on your blog to a new level.  It takes a little more work but you can find yourself making much more money and doing it pretty quickly.  I use OIOPublisher and it is a premium plug-in that completely rocks.  It even offers affiliate incomes to others who will try to get advertisers for your blog.
  Read more.

Resources:   OIOPublisher , Ad Rotator Plug-in

Premium Content – Great example of premium content is SeoMoz.  They have lots of great content on seo for free, but to get the ultimate seo resources you have to pay a monthly fee.  To make premium content on your blog just creat a post or page usign WordPress.  Then in the publish toolbox click on “edit” on the “visibility” option.  Then choose “password protected”.  Set your password and publish.  The only to do then is create a lead page that explains the premium content and allows people to pay, using paypal or another source to get the password emailed to them.

Resources: WordPress, Paypal

Sponsored Reviews – These are reviews of products through direct contact by the product owner or through a review site.  A good example of a product review is WP Content Robot.  It is easy and you usually get to try out some pretty cool products for free.

Resources: ReviewMe Sponsored Reviews

Sponsored Post -  Like a sponsored review these are posts paid for by others.  What this usually looks like is a post created about a specific website or allowing the post to link to another blog with very specific and targeted keyword links.

Resources: PayPerPost

Theme or Template Sales – To get this money making product going you first need some serious design skills or the money to pay for someone to develop it.  Once a unique design is created premium themes can go from $19 -$200.  There is great earning potential in creating themes and another very advantageous bonus.  When you create your theme a link is put into the footer of the theme with your blog’s url.  So the more themes that are used the more backlinks to your blog.

Resources: StudioPress DIY Themes


Private Forums – Creating a private forum is a great way for bloggers to capitalize on their contacts and build a tight-knit and motivated community.  Some of these communities can be used for social media manipulation and many other “secret” and “exclusive” means.  You can make the fee yearly or monthly if you wish and start to build a steady income through member participation.

Resources: vBulletin Simple Machines Forum phpBB Vanilla

Site Flipping -  The process of site flipping usually involves the creation of design, content, and some traffic to then go and sell the blog.  The easiest way to do this is by forming a partnership and getting someone to design the blog while the other writes content and markets it.  For more about Site-Flipping.

Resources: Digital Point Sitepoint (both are great for selling your site)

Plug-in Sales – Warning: programming required!  If you can develop or know someone who can develop a plug-in for wordpress then you have the potential to make and sell premium plug-ins.  The first step is to find something extremely useful and unique.  Then create an affordable plug-in to assist bloggers in their task to rule the blogosphere.

Resources: How to Create a WordPress Plug-in

Email Newsletters – These are becoming extremely popular.  The purpose of the email newsletter is to build up a mailing list of email addresses and then use the emails you send to drive traffic, sales, or income in a variety of ways.  Creativity is the best way to use this revenue source.  Additionally it is important to start building your email list as soon as possible.  But be warned that most newsletter services of any value cost money (but not a lot).

Resources: AWeber PHP Autoresponder MailChimp

Ebook Sales – Writing an ebook is a great way to establish credibility and expertise in your niche while also providing a handsome income.  The way it works is that you provide a very useful resource – like an electronic book and then others buy it.  The best way to understand the process is by learning how to write an ebook and then how to sell it.

Resources: E-Junkie WP E-Commerce (2 great ways to sell your book)

Freelance Work – Once you have established yourself you can start consulting, writing, designing, and offering other services through your blog.  I have had a lot of experience with consulting and it is a great income and a lot of fun. So use your blog to showcase your skills.  Blogs are the ultimate portfolio.

Resources: Paypal WP E-Commerce (ways to sell your services)

Membership Site – If you have the drive to make great lessons, tutorials, classes, or other content worthy of a membership site then you should definitely do it.  They are all the rage right now and show a great way to earn a regular income.  With new products online, the set-up has never been easier.  I would definitely check out the resource if you have ever thought about a membership site.

Resources: Wishlist 

Problogger

So you are an expert at getting traffic and building your blog.  The next thing you need to do is apply all the right things from the list above and use your traffic to leverage the new moneymakers below.  You’re the expert so get started!
 

Job Boards – Big blogs and bloggers have realized that there is great money in job boards.  A great example of this is Problogger’s job board.  He gets a monthly fee just to post the job opportunity and creates a lot of buzz for his blog with it too.  When you become the place for people in your niche to come to, start a job board.

Resources: JobThread Web Scribe Job Board SimplyHired Job-o-matic Jobbex

Event Sponsors – Having events on your blog is a great way to get more traffic and revenue.  For example hold a blogathon (blogging marathon), contests, featured story, giveaways and other events to bring traffic and get sponsors to pay you for.  A good example would be to have a webinar that is extremely publicized and then to get a relevant company to sponsor the event.  Thus you are getting more traffic and money in one big hit.

Selling or Renting a Single Page – Doing this is difficult but far to under-utilized.  The process invovles building a great blog with good traffic and especially good pagerank and then selling internal pages/posts to anyone willing to pay.  They get a sales page or whatever on a great blog and you get an income.  A good example of this is Pagerank10

MarketplacesSitepoint is the best example of a marketplace.  It is just like it sounds, a place for everyone to sell products, sites, domain names, services, etc. on your site.  You get the traffic and links along with commission in many cases while the user gets to buy or sell.  Traffic or a very unique niche is a must to succeed with this income earner.

Hardcover Book - After you have established yourself in your niche as a leading authority you can now publish a book on your topic of choice.  Some publishers even go from blog to book with almost no effort.  So if you are interested in seeing your book in the flesh (paper flesh) then look into these resources.

Resources: Blurb Lulu Self Publishing iUniverse WordClay

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Wednesday, November 10, 2010

45 Link Building Tips To Help You Promote Your Blog

In an ever changing approach by bloggers to keep up with the Google SERP algorithms, many of us get carried away with our “SEO Techniques.” It’s not a surprise nor a shame, because without this experimentation, we are bound to hit a plateau in progress.

Unquestionably, even here at Blogussion – we try many new things, in combination with the old to help build on the traffic from search engines. Whether it be validating the site using the W3C Markup or just typing a new category-description, Search Engine Optimization is a never-ending process that evolves on a regular basis and it is our duty to keep up with it.

However, in trying new things – we shouldn’t forget that some techniques will never die out and must be practiced as regularly as possible. I would just like to outline 45 tips that will help you build quality back-links to your site, with minimal to no costs!

Quality back-links serve two main purposes. Firstly, it helps crawlers find and locate your site. Once this is accomplished, the search engine crawler goes about indexing your site. The next purpose; back-links help crawlers identify how important your blog really is.

The first purpose obviously only applies to new blogs, but the second one will still be valid even 10 years down the track. These back-links also help the Google Crawler to assign your pages with a Google PageRank. Simply to put, the more authoritative websites that are linked to your site, the more important it is perceived to be.

List of 45. Starts Here.

Getting Links for Writing Content

1. Write content that is useful – Writing resourceful content will always attract links, hands down. If you write an article that is overflowing with useful and resourceful information – people will link to it.

2. Don’t forget trackbacks – This handy feature for WordPress can be great way of returning the compliment for a dedicated link.

3. Remind your readers to link to you – After each posts, just throw in a quick reminder that your article can be socially bookmarked or linked to.

4. Make a Top “X” List – Alex’s post on “100 Lists To Become A Better Blogger” is the most successful post on Blogussion, to-date. This just goes to prove how much people love “lists posts” such as your “Top X [Something]”

5. Debunk a Myth – There’s only one thing better than coming up with an idea, is to prove someone else one wrong. People love opposition and to see a debate bubble up, so don’t be afraid to challenge other people’s opinions.

6. Write with a touch of conspiracy – Just reinforcing tip #5. If you can create that atmosphere of retaliation, it will always raise a few eyebrows.

7. Spread the Love – Dedicate a post or two per week to link to other blogger’s posts that you found useful. More often than not, they will tell their readers “Mr.X linked to my post, how cool!”

8. Trade articles with webmasters – Similar to guest posting, just swap articles with a fellow webmaster.

9. Release a Press Release – This guide shows you how to write + submit a good Press Release.

Freebies/Giveaways for Link-Baiting

10. Hold a contest with an incentive. Contests are great for link-baiting because when people talk about it, there will always be “Check it out here” tagged along with it.

11. Release a free design. If you can make/buy a custom WP-Theme then release it for free to your guests, you can really kick off on a viral market. Just don’t forget the “Designed by [YOUR LINK]”

12. Release a free plugin. This serves a similar purpose as a design, but not so much with a direct back-link. Instead, if your plugin is useful, the incoming links will just grow exponentially.

13. When running a contest, reward your referees that bring the most referrals. This will encourage them to blog about your contest.

Connecting With Communities

14. Become active and post on relevant forums

15. Become active and comment on relevant blogs.

16. Try not to forget your signature on forums, otherwise the whole thing is an epic fail.

17. When commenting on blogs, try to use post URLs instead of just your Blog URL – This can help regulate your links evenly amongst your blog, and not just solely to your front page.

18. DON’T spam communities with your links to your site, offer a reason for them to visit and contribute with a purpose.

19. Submit your blog to directories – These are still helpful when it comes to getting indexed, especially these directories listed here.

20. Search up DoFollow Blogs/Forums – These will carry the most significant back-links.

21. Browse Craigslists and they can provide you with a free or cheap link.

22. Build on your Technorati Profile

23. Become a Sponsor – Whether it be a theme, whole website or a small project; the sponsors always get mentioned.

24. Run for Charity, and request others to help spread the word.

25. DON’T spam. This tip cannot be reinforced enough. A deleted comment will server no purpose.

Directories, Social Bookmarking + Discussion Groups.

26. Write content for Article directories – Publish content for directories such as eZineArticles, GoArticles or iSnare. In the “About Author’s” area, you can leave a link to your website.

27. Build a Squidoo Page – It’s easy and if you have the time to develop it, it can be very authoritative. If you don’t there’s heaps of services out there to help you out.

28. Join Discussions over at Yahoo! Answers – Providing useful answers, along with a link is an easy way to earn a back-link.

29. There’s also Google Groups – It’s almost the same as Yahoo! Answers, but owned by Google.

30. Submit your voice on Digg – First build a solid profile, where you have a network of loyal diggers. If you can hit the Digg front page, you are likely to get linked to by a lot of web-masters.

31. Build on your Twitter profile then link to your site using your “Bio Area.”

32. Tweet about your posts using Twitter, then request retweets from your followers.

33. Offer a “Tweet This Post” link on every post your write, this will make Tweeters easier to tweet about your article.

Direct Link Building

34. Contact your fellow bloggers with a personalized email – asking for an reciprocal link exchange. However, keep this to a minimal and be very selective in who you choose to trade with.

35. Post around on forums asking for reciprocal link exchanges, but yet again be warned on your selection.

36. If you are a part of organizations, clubs or schools – Ask them if they can link to you, because these types of websites are more often than not; authoritative.

37. DON’T ask Darren Rowse, ShoeMoney, Matt Cutts or Yahoo, MSN and Google for back-links. It’s just a waste of time, especially the last three “contacts”

Paid Link Building

38. Buy a Review – Most sites that offer reviews will naturally link to the reviewed product/site.

39. Many webmasters buy links on popular blogs for authority, even though it’s against the Google TOS (Use at your own risk)

40. Rent links from others website – Text-Link-Ads is most likely your best option.

Using Blogussion for Link Building

41 Leave a comment – All our comments are do-follow, so the link you chose as your URL will get link-love automatically.

42. Top Commentators  – As you can see on the sidebar, we use this awesome plugin. Every month, our most contributing members will be rewarded with a link.

43. We use CommentLuv – Every comment you post, will carry a link to your latest blog posts.

44. Link to our posts – We utilize the uses of ‘trackbacks.’ Hence any links to our posts, will automatically be rewarded with a back-link to them! So, Why not share this post with your readers and followers?

45. Buy a Paid Review – We link to our reviewed sites/products.

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Friday, November 5, 2010

Cheap Search Engine Optimization

Before you hire an “SEO specialist” to optimize your site, make sure you’re doing all the quick and easy fixes that make for cheap search engine optimization.


Search engine optimization isn’t an exact science — at least not to site owners. Google wants to display the most relevant content to the given search. Bloggers simply want the traffic from showing up high in the search engine results pages (SERPS). And sometimes those two goals are at odds with each other. Google doesn’t publish their results algorithm and they change it often both to make it better and to keep people from gaming the system. So search is mostly a matter of trial and error and experience. And there is always ongoing debate about what works and how important it really is.

But there are some basic steps you can take to ethically increase your chances of showing up in the SERPS for relevant searches — snd most of them occur while creating each post. In my experience, the following 10 SEO tips are the easiest, most basic, and cheapest methods of optimizing your blog posts for search engines.

 Do Keyword Research

What search terms will be used by those looking for this blog post? While I’ll admit that keyword research is actually a huge, complex topic, you can at least begin to think about what readers will be looking for and try to focus your posts on phrases that might be used to search for them.

Since basic SEO depends upon having a solid understanding of what keywords are and how they work, this is the place to spend some time. The best tool I’ve found for this is Market Samurai. It’s easy to use and reliable and you can download a free trial. (It’s available on both Mac and PC!)

The free tutorials are very helpful for beginners and really explain in depth what to look for in quality keywords.

 

Use Keywords in the Title Tag

Once you know the keywords you’re targeting, use them in the post title.

 

Use Keywords in URL

Formerly called the “post slug,” simply use more of the same keywords in the end of the URL.
Thesis makes this simple. Just enter the words you want to use in the Permalink field just under the title field. I like to use the main keywords separated by hyphens, leaving out common words like “the” or “and.”

 

Focused & Updated Content

Your content shouldn’t just be about the keywords, it should contain the keywords. Try to use variances of the keywords to total around two to three percent of the content. Keep posts on topic and related when possible.

Download a free report explaining how to create compelling content that ranks well in search engines. Read it. Follow it.

Regularly updating your blog with quality posts will teach the search engines that they need to crawl your site regularly for new content. Keep them coming back!

 

Use Keywords in Categories

Keywords used as category names reinforces the keywords.

 

Use Keywords in Tags

Always tag your posts and include important keywords. This also makes it easier for browsers to find something they are interested in.

 

Use Meta Descriptions

In the Edit Post window in Thesis, there is section just below the content field called SEO Details and Additional Style.” This optional area has great stuff. The custom title tag will show up as the linked title in SERPS and the meta description will be the descriptive paragraph after the title in Google. Put keywords here and a great descriptions to draw readers in.
[Note: I haven't bothered with Meta Keywords for years now. Google stopped using them in it's algorithm due to abuse, so I don't think it's worth your time. Instead, spend an extra minute writing good content.]

 

Use Header Tags Appropriately

Your title will be given an H1 tag. Use other tags (H2, H3, etc.) to appropriate subdivide your post. In the “visual” content input method, this is done easily with the Paragraph drop-down menu. The words in the titles and subtitles are deemed relevant and important to your post.

 

Internal Links

Link to your posts — using keyword anchor text — from other posts on your blog. Interlinking old blog posts not only helps with SEO, but helps readers find other posts on topics they are interested and keeps them on your site longer.

Note that Day #8 in the 31 Days to Build a Better Blog is all about internal linking!

 

Create a Sitemap

A sitemap is simply a list of accessible pages on a web site. Back in the day, these had to be created manually and were time consuming and easily outdated. Now, they can be created automatically. I use a free plugin called Google XML Sitemaps that makes it easier for search engines to crawl your entire site.

Good luck with managing basic SEO functions. This is the first step to getting the results rank that will get your traffic flowing.

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