Using Twitter to Brand Your Business

September 15th, 2009

When Twitter first came out, most people didn’t see it as a site that would be overly useful for any real business, as the “tweets” that are used are of necessity short and to the point. People were wrong, as it turns out. Twitter is among the most well received and widely used of the social network sites, permitting people (tweeple) to offer small updates about what you or your business are going and what’s keeping you busy.

Twitters can be used now from mobile phones or any computer in the world to offer an update to your users about your ideas, thoughts or company service.

Online companies as well as offline ones are finding it easier than ever to stay in touch with their customers and give them broad reaching updates about their efforts.

When you reach out to customers with your Twitter “tweets” they know what you’re accomplished or whats happening in your company then and there.

Companies who use Twitter range from landscaping, to online writers, to business people, to sports and entertainment businesses, all the way up to the United States government. That’s right, the White House and President Obama use Twitter to keep you informed about their movements, as well as magazines such as “Time”, who gives you a heads up on stories in the news.

Companies such the worlds largest e-commerce stores and corporations have Twitter accounts, as well as celebrities who are trying to get people interested in their lives, their music or their movies. The Twitter pages keep people coming back.

If the Twitter pages are working for them, imagine what they can do for your company. A simple tweet about a new package deal that you’re offer, or a service that you just developed can make a difference in how much it gets used. When seen by this many people and reviewed by all of those who read your tweets, it can make a vast improvement in your page traffic as well as getting people interested in who you are, what you do and how much you charge to do it.

Using Twitter and the other sites for social networking only makes good sense. They can improve your site or blog traffic noticeably, offering you more money to work with and more companies and individuals to serve.

Making your Twitter posts short, to the point, and interesting, informative above all will get you more loyal followers who will build the targeted traffic to your site to the point that your business will be literally booming. Using Twitter is well worth your time if you’re seeking out new ways to make a difference in the volume of business that you do and the number of people who associate you with that business.

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Press Releases - Writing and Benefits

June 19th, 2009

If you are starting a new business, or have released a new product, the best way to advertise about this quickly would be through press releases. A press release is basically some written matter that is announced like a piece of news.

Press releases are distributed with the help of television networks, magazines, newspapers, radio stations and more recently through online resources. This means that press releases can be used for providing both online and offline publicity.

Writing and Building a Brand Name with Press Releases

As people are always on the lookout for some interesting news, especially in the form of a story, they will read press releases. So when you create a press release for your service or product, ensure that it is created like a story and not like an advertisement.

You have to write a press release only if and when you have something news worthy to write about. This is because if you write too many bad press releases, you only end up hurting your repute and find people losing interest in reading the press releases.

Be sure about your main topic and objective and know your readers first. Put yourself in the reader’s shoes and write in a way which you want to read. Point out how you are serving the people and the industry. Write catchy yet keywords-centric headlines and get to the point quickly.

Benefits of Press releases

There are numerous benefits to using press releases like:

  • They bring increased targeted traffic to your site. This is because the press release is written in such a way that the reader reading it will want more information about the product. On clicking on the link, they reach your website and may end up as a prospective customer.
  • This proves that press releases are inexpensive means of getting free effective publicity. You needn’t spend much money for publishing any advertisements; all that has to be done is to write an effective press release and then publicize it. There are many free pressrelease submission website available.
  • Press releases help you build a brand name and popularity for yourself in the minds of your target audience and people who read it. The more times the consumer sees your business name in the press release, the more likely they will remember your name when they or someone they know are in need of your product or services.
  • You gain credibility with press releases as potential customers consider you to be an expert after reading it. They think that you are the person to approach when they are in need of the products you offer.
  • You can get higher rankings, both in regular organic search results as well as search engine news, by writing Search Engine friendly press releases which send you targeted traffic till long time.
  • Press releases provide valuable backlinks to your site from the sites which pick up your ranking and PR.

So you can see that press releases give a lot of publicity to business owners and are one thing that all businesses have to use to generate positive results for their business.

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Tips for Successful Article Marketing

May 2nd, 2009

Many people use article marketing as a favorable means of marketing. It generates increased targeted traffic to your website which generates a sale for the website. Follow these tips for a successful article marketing campaign:

  1. Many people think that it is the number of articles that is important for successful article marketing. However, it is also important that you maintain quality content for attracting and retaining readers. Use the internet for information to make the articles interesting and have readers coming back for more.

  2. It is better to maintain sweet and short articles. Readers don’t have the patience to sit for too long in front of the computer reading long articles. So keep articles short and to the point to retain readers’ attention.

  3. Introduce variety in your articles. Think of different perspectives that can be used to reach your topics. With various articles, you will be able to target your niche and thus, attract a larger and more interested audience to your site.

  4. Make sure your articles have interesting headings. It is the headline of your article that gives a reason as to whether or not a reader should look at your article. The headings should also be keyword centric and use main keyword there.

  5. It is better to do some research on the best keywords to use in your articles before writing them. These keywords are the words that readers are most likely to use to find the information in your article. However don’t use too many keywords; too many of them make the article look like spam.

  6. It is better to write organized articles with bullets and numbers where possible. This helps in getting your message and point across to readers, and also makes the articles more readable.

  7. Make it a habit of proofreading your articles before publishing them. Bad writing and spelling and grammatical errors give you and your product or service a bad impression both in the eyes of readers and search engines bots.

    After proofreading, have friends and family go through the articles and listen to whatever comments they give. Sometimes a small but trivial improvement is sufficient to make a difference in the presentation of your article.

  8. The best place to place your articles is your website to strengthen the site content and build trust in your visitors. However if you have no website, then you have to make use of the many article directories on the internet. Many people visit these directories; so by publishing your articles in them, with a link to your website, you are sure to see an increase in website traffic.

  9. Include a resource box in your article describing and linking to your website.

  10. Use the help of social media sites, forums and discussions boards by pasting enough of your article to interest readers to click on the link leading to your website.

  11. Link articles of the same subject, to one another. If you have affiliates, let them use your articles for promoting your service or products.

Try these tips and you will soon see an increased traffic to your website and quite a few potential customers amongst these visitors.

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Seventeen Effective SEO Copywriting Tips for Copywriters

April 1st, 2009

When thinking about the Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Content Writing, one may think, in the first instance, of placing the keywords in their content to achieve a certain keyword density. However, the algorithms used by search engines have improved over time to a point where they, now, look for more than just the frequency or positioning of specific phrases. These days, the search engines look for clues as to the quality and relevancy of the content. Ideally, your content should be strong enough for other sites to link to. These links work as a vote for your contents.

Today, keyword density is not an important factor anymore. Instead, you want to craft a search engine friendly contents that incorporates keywords at important places, something called the keyword prominence. The writer of the content must work to achieve the highest possible standards in terms of quality and the keyword prominence to satisfy both people and search engines bot. The following tips should help writers achieve this goal.

1. Keep a Theme

Your website should maintain a consistent theme throughout all of the pages. Each page should be a reflection of or somehow related to that theme. For example, you might choose to write about insurance as your theme then have different sections of your site dedicated to each major type of insurance. Just make sure the main theme of the site is explained clearly on your home page.

2. Know the Keywords First

Before you do any type of writing, you should have a firm grasp of which keywords you are going to use. These keywords can be selected using free tools on the Internet that can help you pinpoint good choices.

3. Write Relevant Content

When you’re trying to grab the attention of the search engines, you need to make sure your content is not only laced with keywords but is also going to provide relevant valuable information. Just throwing a bunch of keywords together won’t do the trick. The content should be about the title and theme of your site – this is something the search engines look for.

4. Use Title Tags

When you add a new page to your web site, make sure to provide it with an original title tag. Don’t just reuse the same ones for every page. And try to include your keyword in that tag. Search engines look at these tags when they are ranking your site so don’t miss out on an opportunity to impress them. Remember that the title tag should be keyword centric yet catchy.

5. Pick Prominent Spots for Keywords

The idea is not to put keywords on as many places as possible into the content but to strategically sprinkle the words in places where they are most likely to be seen by potential visitors. For example, you can use them in your titles, headers, image captions or ‘alt’, linking text, bulleted text and more. By having your keywords show up like this, search engines are going to be more likely to give you a top ranking.

6. Put Keywords in Important Parts

Another good reason to start choosing keywords early is that ideally your keyword is going to show up in the domain name, in the names of your pages, and even in the taglines for your company. The nice thing about taking this step is that when people link to your site they are also more likely to include your keywords in their links because of their placement in these areas. And that’s going to help your rank, too.

7. Use Keyword Synonyms

Another trick to boost your SEO results is to incorporate keyword synonyms into your content. These are words or phrases that could easily take the place of your keyword phrase. Throwing a couple of these into your content is always going to be useful in boosting your ranks. It’s called stemming.

8. Add Meta Tags

Adding both description and keywords meta tags is a good idea, too. Meta Description is often shown up in the search engine results. It provides valuable information for visitors and increases click through rate (CTR). Still some search engines take keywords meta tag into consideration so it worth adding that. But do not sped much of your time in writing meta keyword tag.

9. Use Text not Images

An important rule to remember is that search engines don’t read content in image formats so stick to plain text if you want that content to influence your ranking. Even, when you use an image, do not forget to add alt and title tags to it.

10. Keep Content Original

One thing search engines frown on is duplicated content. If you’re trying to convince search engines that you have a lot of content just by repeating the same couple of pages, it’s not going to work. You’ll probably even end up lower. Make sure each page has fresh, informative content. Also, keep your pages updated, too. New content regularly is a big plus in the eyes of search engines.

11. Optimize the Whole Site

Some people only use optimization techniques on the home page but don’t stop there. Almost any of your major pages could appear in the search engine results and by optimizing them you’re increasing your chances of landing a high spot with different keywords.

12. Use Linking

An important part of SEO is the use of internal and external links. With internal linking, you are able to spread the visitors to your site over many pages instead of having one page keep all of the traffic for itself. Plus, these links help guide readers to appropriate information on the site. External links show that your site is providing more resources for visitors which search engines also like.

13. Have the Right Number of Words

While 200 to 1,000 words may seem like a big range, that’s the word count you want to shoot for on every one of your web pages. Most people tend to shoot for the average – 500 words – when it comes to articles and a little lower than that for other pages.

14. Choose Relevant Keywords

Make sure that your choice of keywords is relevant to what you’re hoping to do with the site. If you’re going to be selling a product, avoid any keywords that might have a negative connotation towards your product. Just using words that have high search volume isn’t enough. Those words need to be connected to your site’s theme and purpose. Consider adding a few “long tail” words which are longer phrases that also include descriptive terms.

15. Create a Landing Page

The landing page’s purpose is to immediately provide visitors with a clear, attention-grabbing overview of your site. These are great for optimizing because they can help drive traffic to the rest of your web site easily.

16. Check Statistics

Your site’s analytics, provided by the hosting service, may provide clues as to what needs to be done on your site. Analyze those statistics and see what you can learn from them. Then make adjustment in your keywords and apply what you’ve learned to the site.

17. Submit Content to Link Back

Creating articles and other social media that will drive people back to your web site is a good idea. Just make sure to submit them to trustworthy sites.

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Guest Post: The Best Internet Copywriting – Tips from the Top Copywriters

March 10th, 2009

Guest post by Saman Rashid ( CEO, MS Copywriters )

You can earn good money by writing copy online, which has resulted in a dramatic increase in the number of copywriters. The increased competition means that for your work to stand out, it needs to be of the highest possible quality.

 

If your ambition is to just be a good copywriter, keep in mind that the Internet is full of them. But don’t give up, because you can learn to become an exceptional writer if you follow a few simple steps.

 

The first thing you should do is seek out and read the advice from the top copywriters. You might think you are good enough to go it alone, and maybe you are, but you’ll get there faster if you listen to the tips that the pros offer. They’ve learned a great deal during their careers and if they are willing to share their wisdom, you should listen.

 

You need to keep practicing your craft. It doesn’t matter how easy you find it to write, practice will make you even better. Never think that there is no more room for improvement. The best musicians still practice, and so should you.

 

Everyone makes mistakes – it’s inevitable. But not everyone knows when they’ve gone wrong, or learns from it. Take the time to consider how you might have done something better and try to implement what you’ve learned into your next piece. You want to get better with every piece of copy that you write.

 

You can never do too much research into a subject. If you want to write a great article that your readers will believe in, you need to be credible, and for that you need to do your research. Even an expert on a subject can learn something new.

 

Finally, you need to be creative, and to hone that creativity so that every article is new and fresh. That might seem to be an impossible task, but experiment with different writing styles or find a new angle on the topic. Creativity is the key to incredible copywriting.

 

 

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What are SEO and SEO Specialist?

February 1st, 2009

What is SEO?  

Search engine optimization (SEO) is the science and art of making websites be found on top of the major search engines for the relevant keywords. Achieving high rankings on the top search engine is the best advertising tool on the Web today. The reason is simple: Millions of searches are performed everyday. Thousands of web pages that organically appear closer to the top of those search results essentially get free advertising. It has been called the cheapest and the most effective marketing tool available.  
SEO can bring loads of targeted traffic to the site, thereby enabling a stronger customer base, which is an essential component for brand building. It is definitely an investment for the future as it benefits the company for a long time. For insurmountable success and irresistible change in the way your business operates just hire an SEO specialist.

What is an SEO specialist?

An SEO Specialist or Search Engine Optimization Specialist is the one with deep understanding and knowledge about the search engines who has the ability and skills to bring up the sites in the top positions for the targeted keywords by applying various white-hat or ethical methods. An SEO specialist is also termed as an Internet Marketing Specialist, E-marketer, Web-marketer, SEO Consultant, SEO Guru, SEO Wizard, SEO Start or as an SEO Expert. 

Who can be a Qualified SEO Specialist?  

A qualified SEO specialist must have his website top ranked for the competitive keywords. He must be knowledgeable about both the black hat (unethical/ bad) and white hat (ethical/ good) methods of SEO, but still use only white or organic methods. He must be a true professional, not just work on assumptions or just the very basic knowledge. He must have updated and up-to-date knowledge and must prove his work experience. He definitely should have many years of experience and must be capable to achieve the desired results by bringing the targeted traffic and top ranking for the targeted keywords in variety of industries.  

Overall Fee and Timeline for a Successful SEO Project   

The fee structure and the timeline vary with different jobs depending upon the keywords competition, site age, SEO Specialist’s experience and other factors. One cannot expect the results overnight and it takes time to show up in the search engines. So with all this in mind the SEO specialist estimates and determines a feasible and affordable fee according to the timeline. The most imperative point to remember, though, is the need for SEO services for the success in a business operation.         

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100 Advantages of Blogging - Why You Should Blog?

January 2nd, 2009
  1. Use blogging as a tool to be kept updated and in the latest developments and products of your field.
  2. Blogging helps in adding fresh relevant content to website which search engines like.
  3. You can build up your business creditability with the help of blogging.
  4. A blog is a great tool to help increase your customer base.
  5. Get free and fresh content with the help of comments that are made in blogs. This can be like User-generated content or UGC.
  6. Create and establish a brand and brand awareness with blogs.
  7. Help build trust between you and your readers and customers through blogs.
  8. Enhance your website effectively and cheaply with the help of a blog.
  9. Blogs are an easy way to establish two way communication and social interaction.
  10. There is a higher and better chance of getting viral over social media sites with the help of a blog.
  11. People generally consider reading a blog much better because of their non promotional tone and informative nature.
  12. Blogs give you an easy way of approving comments before posting as against to social media sites where you have very little or no control at all.
  13. Create more targeted traffic to your websites through search engines using blogs.
  14. Blogs help to save time as visitors find many answers to their questions there.
  15. Rumors about a business can be clarified through a blog.
  16. With a blog, you not only become famous, but also gain power which you had never experienced. 
  17. Blogs have a huge part in SEO. Blogs are loved by Google and other Search Engines.
  18. With the help of a blog, the Google PR of your site is enhanced.
  19. Blogs are a great means of increasing potential traffic to your site.
  20. Develop free PR for your business with a blog.
  21. Blogs are great for creating returning targeted traffic.
  22. The interactive nature of blogs makes people choose blogs over websites for links.
  23. Remember that blogs consist mainly of text; and in SEO, text is king.
  24. The comments posted on your blogs can give you better business ideas and tricks for your business.
  25. Use blogs to express your thoughts. You can also use the blog to exercise your freedom of speech.
  26. You can share whatever knowledge you have using a blog.
  27. You will be considered an expert in your field because of a blog.
  28. Use the help of RSS and links in getting targeted traffic to your blog.
  29. Maintain public relations and relations with the media through your blog.
  30. When compared to normal website pages, spiders tend to crawl blog posts more frequently.
  31. Blog is a great means of creating a buzz or voice of mouth advertising.
  32. Use the blog as a foundation for the content of a book.
  33. Develop your business with the help of your blog.
  34. Remain connected with people 24/7 with a blog.
  35. You get new visitors and potential clients with the help of blogs.
  36. Blogs are helpful and beneficial to the community.
  37. Blogs are used to share company news.
  38. Blogs are used as a communication link between employers and employees.
  39. Blogs indicate that you are an easily approachable entity.
  40. Keep in touch with industry leaders through blogs.
  41. Use blogs in educational marketing, where you show how your services and products can be used to solve customers’ problems.
  42. Blogs maintain convenient internal communication to share information in a company.
  43. Find out more about your customers and clients’ needs through blogs.
  44. Use blogs to create an online community.
  45. Blogs provide easy communication with clients.
  46. Talent is easily found with the help of blogs.
  47. Blogs are used for getting back links.
  48. Use blogs for getting internal links.
  49. Blogs are regularly indexed by Google.
  50. Use blogs to get free links from blog directories.
  51. Develop easy and efficient deep linking with blogs.
  52. Share any ideas you have on a blog.
  53. Use blogs to solve problems.
  54. Blogs are used for marketing because of its low overheads.
  55. The navigation on blogs is text based, and search engine friendly.
  56. The non promotion tone of blogs makes them very easy to link. This makes blogs highly linkable.
  57. Use blogs to generate quick feedbacks.
  58. A blog is a really great promotional tool.
  59. Use blogs to convey authority.
  60. You can easily target variety of keywords using blog.
  61. Search engines find blogs easy to crawl.
  62. Use a blog to let people and clients to get to know you better.
  63. The RSS feeds of blogs help in efficient link building.
  64. Blogs indicate that you are open, and don’t hide from anyone.
  65. Use a blog to increase membership and opt-in lists.
  66. Blogs are great for educating and informing people about specific topics
  67. You can learn time management and discipline through a blog.
  68. Find new partners and experience better networking through blogs
  69. Use a blog as a platform for announcing new products and services.
  70. Use blogs to reply to queries.
  71. Both cultural and geographical borders are overcome through blogging.
  72. The long tail keywords in blogs help you get top rankings as blog are mostly hosted on very reliable domains. Blogging give you an excellent platform to target long tail keywords and get top ranking.
  73. Generate a niche appeal using a blog.
  74. Blogs bring about a more personal connection between yourself and your clients.
  75. A blog helps you find jobs and clients quickly.
  76. A blog can be easily integrated into a market plan.
  77. Get to meet new visitors and buyers through guest blogging.
  78. A blog offers increased lead generation opportunities.
  79. Learn current trends through blogging.
  80. A blog means low cost, better communication.
  81. With a blog, you experience reduced emails, calls and inquiries.
  82. You can also boost your social life with a blog.
  83. Flexibility is an important feature of blogs.
  84. The easy web publishing solutions make blogs much easier to set up and maintain than websites.
  85. Blogs provide a punctual and important means of sharing information with an audience.
  86. With the help of a blog, you can increase your writing, debating and analytical skills.
  87. Use a blog to generate money with Adsense and Affiliate marketing.
  88. A blog is a great and easy publishing tool.
  89. With a blog, you can introduce a human voice or element in a company.
  90. Blogs provide a great medium for opportunities and to use as a research tool.
  91. You can increase the number of your loyal customers with blogs as it helps you get close with customers.
  92. With a blog, you become different from your competition. This is because the medium tends to approach you if you have a blog and not the competitor who does not have a blog.
  93. Blogs offer different and varies means of spreading ideas.
  94. Blogs are considered a great means of relational marketing. This is because once you post honest and heart felt blogs, you instill trust and respect in prospective customers.
  95. Manage your online reputation by using a blog to answer any negative remarks made about you by a competitor. In other words, blogs help you stop rumors from spreading.
  96. With a blog, you can easily create more pages which is great for search engines that rank pages and not sites. With a blog, you need not bother about the fitting in of the new pages with design.
  97. You can use a blog for recording all your past experiences and thus, start a sort of history about yourself.
  98. Blogging is fun. Blogging is something everyone enjoys doing.
  99. It has been proven that blogging offers some medical and psychological benefits like better memory and sleep and fast healing after a surgery.
  100. After creating quality posts like this one, you develop a feeling of satisfaction.

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Top 100 Reasons Why Blogs Fail – Blogging Mistakes

December 12th, 2008

 

  1. Lack in patience and confidence.
  2. Trying to write on a subject you don’t understand, or that you don’t enjoy.
  3. Not knowing that there is a difference between a blog and a website.
  4. Trying to use blogs to sell something instead of using them for credibility and trust!
  5. Spending too much time thinking about the design and Search Engine Optimization, SEO.
  6. Having too much clutter on the sidebar. This causes too much distraction.
  7. Putting too much money towards the advertising of the blog and not the writing of the blog.
  8. Thinking that you are going to start off with a ton of traffic.
  9. Assuming you know everything about blogs and stop learning about them.
  10. Anticipating that people will visit your blog without promoting it.
  11. Not thinking about your long-term goals of the blog, and focusing too much on the short-term ones.
  12. Not analyzing the traffic to your blog to find out what is working and what isn’t.
  13. Forcing people to comment on the blog or to link to it.
  14. Not including a top ten posts, archives, and recent posts.
  15. Lacking in organization of the content of the blog by context.
  16. Having no plan to go by.
  17. Not having the need to learn.
  18. Not learning from previously done mistakes.
  19. Thinking that you will make passive money from blogging.
  20. Not having enough social interaction and making your blog run solo.
  21. Trying to target a very small market niche.
  22. Not using English to target an international market.
  23. Underestimating blogging by not giving it enough credit.
  24. Failing to maintain the quality of your blog by controlling spasms.
  25. Having too much irrelevant traffic to your blog.
  26. The inability to handle incoming traffic.
  27. Having links that do not work- broken links.
  28. Not including a blogroll.
  29. Having a lack of originality.
  30. Lacking in regularity.
  31. Writing on irregular posting.
  32. Having a lack of dedication to your blog.
  33. Fearing to go against others.
  34. Not choosing the right blogging platform.
  35. Blogs that are made for advertising only.
  36. Having annoying ads.
  37. Trying to blog to get rich.
  38. Lacking in defined keywords to target in your post.
  39. Not understanding the news and RSS readers.
  40. Having too many blogs to keep up with.
  41. Wanting to get everything with less than 100 posts.
  42. Having too many keywords in your post.
  43. Content writing with no research behind it.
  44. Writing for search engines and not in a natural way.
  45. Duplicating the contents from other blogs or within your blog.
  46. Not using titles effectively.
  47. Failure to use keywords at important places like subheadings, text links, headings, and bullets.
  48. Using generic headings & subheadings. Not getting to the point.
  49. Having a lack of facts and evidence.
  50. Textual content is lacking or not there.
  51. Trying to turn one post into several subjects. Showing people that you are uncategorized and can not stay on topic.
  52. Writing about topics that are not helping the reader.
  53. Having to posts and not mentioning them.
  54. You have a blog with a lot of plug-ins.
  55. Posts that come across as boring and not informative.
  56. Having no links to other blogs with relevant information.
  57. Prompting with poor or bad content.
  58. Including a lot of duplicated content.
  59. Lacking in useful content that people want.
  60. Not having the ability to stay on topic.
  61. When you do not proofread or spell check your post.
  62. Having too many words in your URL.
  63. Forgetting to add an ‘about page’ to tell people who you are.
  64. Trying too hard to impress people with big words.
  65. Having paragraphs that are not formatted properly so that they are easy to scan.
  66. Being a very annoying blogger by spamming people.
  67. Using blog posts that are too long.
  68. Having no niche to market to.
  69. Choosing a niche that has a big drop in the market place.
  70. Other blogs that are competing for your niche, that you can not keep up with.
  71. Using a niche that there is no demand for.
  72. Skipping the basics of good SEO.
  73. Opting to go with SEO methods that search engines recommend not using (called black hat SEO).
  74. Trying to promote your blog before it’s done.
  75. Using a different domain name for a blog that’s already up and running.
  76. Running a blog that costs too much.
  77. Wanting it all in just a few months.
  78. Not including RSS feeds.
  79. Failure to give an easy way to subscribe to your feed.
  80. The ill use of animations and images.
  81. Choosing a bad looking template for your blog.
  82. Aimless writing with no attention to promotion or to design.
  83. Colors that make your text hard to read, or making your text too small.
  84. Not allowing people to use social bookmarking or to subscribe by email.
  85. Having no option to leave comments or a way to get in touch with you.
  86. Choosing to not be linkable.
  87. Not having next, previous pagination.
  88. Trying to buy visits or traffic to your site.
  89. Not using offline promotions.
  90. Ignoring comments and emails about your blog.
  91. Leaving no meaningful comments on other blogs.
  92. Having no link back from your comments to your blog.
  93. Not commenting on other blogs in your same niche.
  94. Having no network of friends. Lacking in a network of bloggers.
  95. Not being indexed in the search engines.
  96. The lack of links from other blogs and relevant sites.
  97. Your blog does not have enough links from variety of sources leading to it.
  98. Not using blog directories like pingomatic and technorati.
  99. Having links to bad neighborhoods and blogs.
  100. Forgetting to follow the tips we just talked about!

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Top 100 Blogging Tips for Bloggers - Bloggers Guide

November 15th, 2008

The scope of the business is international and I currently deal mostlywith the international clients, but many people from Pakistan ask about the SEO and the blogs by various means, such as social networking sites, emails, web enquiries and telephone calls. It just becomes difficult for me to explain them everything. For this purpose I have complied my blogging tips over here. Contrary to my previous blogs, I have tried to keep it general and have tried to avoid the jargon this time.

Keywords and Writing

  1. Unlike other web content, a blog is more social, personal and informal. Use a casual tone while writing. You can earn money by blogging with the help of adsense and affiliate marketing.
  2. Don’t write blogs on just about anything. Choose your niche carefully; preferably something that really interests you.
  3. Before writing, do some research and find the right keywords to use in the blog. This can be done by thinking of words people are most likely to use while looking for your blog and by using some keyword research tool.
  4. Choose keywords that are less competitive and target the long tail keywords.
  5. Create attractive blogs by customizing the look of the blog while feeling templates.
  6. Make sure that the content of the blog is of great quality; it is the quality of the blog content that makes a successful blog.
  7. Don’t just write content; do some research to find the right content for the blog.
  8. Write your blog in such a way that it will become the main source of information you are writing about.
  9. Don’t place all your blog posts on a single post; just a few.
  10. Make sure you spell check your post and proofread it before submission.
  11. Titles play an important part in the blog post so create catchy titles while using keywords over there.
  12. If you have long posts, use sub headings – use keywords in subheadings.
  13. Wherever possible, add some italic and bulleted text containing your keywords.
  14. Stem your keywords. Use singular, plural, past forms, etc.
  15. Make use of synonyms and don’t spam your blog with one and the same keyword.
  16. Your URL also has to be keyword rich.
  17. The more posts you have on the blog, the higher is the chance of getting found on search engines through targeted traffic.
  18. When writing blogs, make it a point to add sources and references for matter.
  19. Blogs become user friendly and easy to navigate by building an index on the blog.
  20. Link to other similar blog posts on the internet.
  21. Use and add tags carefully in the blog post.
  22. Moderate all the comments you get.
  23. Promote the writing of comments, and answer all comments you receive instantaneously.
  24. It is better to have a long blog divided into divisions.
  25. Include an ‘about us’ page on the blog for newcomers to learn more about you and what your blog boasts of.
  26. Write for the readers not for the search engines i.e. Do not do keyword stuffing.
  27. Interlink the blogs within the contents.
  28. Make your top posts prominent.
  29. Write blogs with a positive note, and not how negative something may be.
  30. Give a first hand narration of what you know or have experienced.
  31. Instead of repeating points, find and add new angles to a discussion.
  32. Be the first person to write on the topic you have chosen.
  33. Never duplicate content; you can be jailed for this.
  34. Write about one subject per post.
  35. It is better to write on evergreen topics which will remain fresh and in demand even after a few years’ time.
  36. When writing for a blog, write on topics that people will want to read and share.
  37. Make it a point to add keywords to the start, middle and end of each page.
  38. Make sure you cover topics and FAQs thoroughly in your niche.

Designing and Maintaining

  1. The blog design is important; so make it easily readable with the right background colors and placement of text.
  2. Color for the blog should be chosen carefully.
  3. Avoid using fancy and small fonts on the blog as they are difficult to read.
  4. All white spaces or spacing between elements of the blog have to be removed.
  5. Place some emphasis on the blog design not for SEO purposes but to attract the attention of visitors and have them returning for more.
  6. This does not mean you need an elaborate blog design; something simple is sufficient.
  7. Blogs have to be updated regularly, with a minimum of 5 blogs per week, if not 7. This content helps generate traffic and thus income for you.
  8. Your blog should be easy to subscribe perhaps through RSS, mobile subscription and emails. People should also be able to digg your posts.
  9. Your blog should make it easy for people to contact you when required.
  10. All the categories of your blog should be well organized.
  11. Don’t place too many ads on the blog.
  12. Use the help of research, surveys and polls to make your blog more interesting. It also improves the quality of your blog.
  13. All important contents of the blog should be placed ‘above the fold’.
  14. Make it a point to add images to the blog, and to optimize them.
  15. Ad visuals in the form of blockquotes, videos, charts, graphs and photos are important for a blog.
  16. Work at integrating these ad visuals into the blog and not at bombarding visitors with the ads.
  17. Speed in downloading is important in blogs, so maintain a low page size.
  18. Choose and create a decent logo for your blog, and display it with your posts.
  19. This logo should link to the home page.
  20. The functionality of the blog is enhanced with plugins. In the process, it also saves time.
  21. When archiving a blog, you have to archive it according to topic and not go by date.

Promotion / SEO

  1. Make sure you optimize and distribute a press release announcing the start of your blog.
  2. Use the help of blog directories to promote your blog.
  3. Forums and other similar blogs can be used to promote your blog by participating, and by commenting in them.
  4. Online communities are effective in promoting a blog.
  5. Participating in social networking sites like facebook, orkut and myspace are effective in promoting your blog.
  6. Simultaneously, your blog URL has to be included in social media profiles.
  7. Work at researching and commenting on various industries related to your blog.
  8. Article marketing is a great tool for promotion of the blog.
  9. Use www.pingomatic.com to send out notices and pings.
  10. Online blog communities are great for blog promotion. You could also create your own community to promote the blog.
  11. Dig and stumble upon are feasible options for promoting the blog.
  12. Let others know about the updates on your blog by using Twitter and Jaiku micro-blogging.
  13. Make your own videos and post them on youtube, podcast and Vlog directories.
  14. Every time you post a new blog, remember to post and thus make a network
  15. You can attract new visitors to your site by participating and getting involved in a community.
  16. Inform others about your blog; and don’t feel shy to say you have a blog.
  17. Include you blog URL in all your email signatures.
  18. Never attempt Black Hat SEO techniques as these are unethical SEO techniques.
  19. Like all businesses, you have to work at first building your visitor base to your blog, and then at earning money online.
  20. Keywords have to be used in linking texts.
  21. This keyword linking text can also be used to get and exchange links from relevant sites with high PR.
  22. Your signature should have a link to your blog so that the posts you make to forums, outgoing mails, etc work at promoting your blog.
  23. Blogs should run with a good link building campaign.
  24. Work to give links to other blogs from your blog. People tend to find out who links to them and in exchange, will also link back to your blog.
  25. With all this linking, it is important that you check your statistics and analytics on a regular basis and make the required changes in your blog.
  26. Look at other blogs for ideas- www.bloglines.com and www.technorati.com are great sites to visit to get ideas from other blogs.

  27. Meet and interview famous and interesting bloggers.
  28. Though SEO may be time consuming, it gives long lasting effects and is better than the quick social bookmarking where results are not long lasting.
  29. Blogs have to be submitted to major search engines.
  30. Blogs have to be submitted to blogging directories using keywords for links.
  31. Work at becoming an expert in your trade and also a specialist in your topic.
  32. Make an account in stumble upon where you have to stumble good stuff and make new accomplices.
  33. Work at growing, and sustaining your audience.
  34. Be careful of ongoing discussions on your blog.
  35. Make it a point to keep track of visitors, with the help of some analytic software.

Final Words

  1. Don’t concentrate on short term benefits of your blog- work at increasing your readership base.
  2. Be as helpful as possible, whenever possible.
  3. Keep some time solely for your blog.
  4. Be patient as blogging is more like running a marathon, and not a 100m sprint.
  5. Learn and make improvements from previous mistakes.
  6. Though the going may be tough, perseverance succeeds.

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Keywords in a Domain Name - The Catalyst of SEO Process

October 20th, 2008

Having keywords in the domain names plays the same role as a catalyst does in a chemical reaction. Although, in the modern SEO, just the keywords in the domain names is not all about the SEO. It merely means that the keywords in a domain name, make the SEO process happen at much faster rate than under the normal circumstances. One would still need to strictly follow the routine SEO practices in order to get the maximum out of the SEO process. If it was just the domain name that matters then having a successful SEO would simply meant choosing a keyword rich domain name. But, in that case the spammers would have had a great time. It is very tricky to design a site that both search engines and the customers are going to like. Choosing the right domain name for the website name is no exception. searchenginewatch.com , searchengineguide.com, seochat.com, seo-usa.org, seo-london.com, seo.com, are good search engine-friendly domain names which all have the keyword rich domain names with great branding value. These all are also ranked on the first page of Google for their very competitive keywords selection. Having said the keywords in the domain names work as a catalyst in the SEO process, their benefits are indirect. Below is a brief description of some of the major indirect benefits:Benefits of Keyword Rich Domain Names:

 

  1. SEO friendly Inbound Links

Links play an important role in the SEO and having the anchor text containing your keywords is what everyone wants. Domain names with keywords tend to create SEO friendly inbound links as many people link to your website through your domain name.

 

Other than domain names, use keywords in titles, filenames, logos and taglines because many people will link to you using these elements as well.

 

  1. Better Click Through Rate (CTR)

Keywords in a domain name lets you get a better Click Through Rate (CTR) because when people conduct a search, Google tends to highlight the words found in the domain names which match the search query. So these domain names tend to build up the confidence of the searcher that they are on the right track, and thus give your site a better CTR.

 

  1. Instant and Clear Definition of Business

Another benefit of having a keyword rich domain is that it defines your business clearly. However while choosing the keywords for your domain name, it is advised not to use very long domain names as it only hurts your SEO visibility and the brand name. In my opinion, three words with two hyphens is the maximum in a domain name one should go for. www.seo-consultant-specialist.com is an seo friendly domain name with good branding value but online-seo-consultant-specialist-expert.com looks like a spam.

 

  1. Search Engine’s Favor

Search engines assume that sites having keywords in a domain name are more relevant, so they generally put them on the top of a search return. So, if you use keywords in your domain names, and follow other SEO techniques you will definitely get an edge over other domains in search results. Who Should not use the Keyword-Rich Domain Names: The domain names of existing companies are better off when the company’s name is used in the domain name than a keyword describing it. Like Nike gets better traffic with a domain name with Nike.com, and not BestSportsShoes.com. This is obvious because people would know and refer to these shoes more with Nike, than the best sports shoes and tend to use the brand name when conducting searches. Same would be the case with other existing top brand websites. Hyphenated Vs. Underscored Domain Names: It is always better to register both the hyphenated and unhyphenated versions of domain names to safeguard the brand. The competitors may grab the other version and get it registered in their name if only one version was registered. It is generally better to use hyphens instead of underscores for separating words in the URLs. This is not only due to the fact that Google recommends it, but also the underscores are harder to read as the URLs are mostly underlined. It would be interesting to read Matt Cutts Blog about Dashes Vs. Hyphens .

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