June 28, 2008 By

The art of "no-follow" links: WP Plugin

Having an opportunity to write sponsored posts is indeed a great way to earn money off your WordPress blog. But, at no point of time, I feel you’ll do it at the cost of your page rank or SEO, for that matter.

Keeping an eye on the links you put into your posts is extremely relevant. But what if you have more than a hundred posts on a blog which is running well over the past few months or years and you wish there was a magic button which could get a “nofollow” attribute to all your links!

You may now, breathe easy with this ‘no-follow-links-in-posts’ plugin.  

 

nofollow

Nofollow-links-in-posts plugin helps you add the “nofollow” attribute into links within posts. You have an option to enable “nofollow” attribute to links in posts which are older than “X” days. You need to select a category of posts for which you want this effect to hold good.   

The plugin automatically adds a rel=”nofollow” into links in posts older than “X” days!

Talking about compatibility with WP versions, the plugin works only with WordPress 2.5+. So, incase you’re running an older version of WordPress, you need to upgrade it. You may like to try out the latest beta release, we talked about in the previous post – WordPress 2.6 is peeping in!

Installation:

  1. Download the plugin.
  2. Unzip “nofollow-links-in-posts.zip” and upload the “nofollow-links-in-posts” folder to the ‘/wp-content/plugins/’ directory.
  3. Activate the plugin through the ‘Plugins’ menu in WordPress.
  4. Go to the ‘Settings’ menu and click on ‘Nofollow Links in Posts’ to check out the plugin options.

I would recommend it to all blogger’s who are frequent with sponsored posts on their blogs. Happy no-following!

Filed Under: Free Tips Tagged With: , , , ,
March 8, 2008 By

Don't Underestimate The Slug!

I bet you wonder what kind of slug I’m talking about, it is the WordPress slug. In case you still have no idea on what I’m talking about, then take a closer look at your WordPress editor inside your admin.

<a target=wordpress slug" border="0" height="216" width="480" />

If you take a closer look at the image above you can see where the two arrows point within the editor. The arrow on the left show you the title of this post to make it more appealing and interesting for the reader -you!

The second arrow on the right is for search engine purposes.

This is especially important in niche marketing, when you are trying to rank well for a certain keyword. Inserting a keyword rich slug will help your post to rank better than using (the diluted version) of your posts title.

In this case the three words [don't underestimate the] in the title do nothing for SEO and are therefore worthless to have any chances of trying to rank this post for WordPress slug. Not that I’m trying anyway, otherwise the structure of this post would differ from what it is right now.

But many bloggers totally under utilize the WordPress slug and never even use it. They wonder what purpose it might serve and then forget all about it.

Don’t make the same mistake. Use the WordPress post slug efficiently whenever you can since it does help you with your search engine rankings. The more you know about SEO, the better and more valuable the slug will become for you.

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March 4, 2008 By

Use the Genie's Tools To Find Blog Related Info

For those of you who are into stats and checking where they rank for what keyword etc, then Search Engine Genie is a cool free tool that allows you to do all kinds of SEO related checks.

search engine genie

For example you can check your back links, compare your site to those of your competitors, check your position on Google and Yahoo for any given keyword you target, check your current and future page rank on Google and so much more.

Be warned though as this site will probably keep you busy for hours. The more you see, the more you try to check and before you know it you will have spent quite some time. When I target certain keywords for my niches, I normally like to check where I stand and whether they climb Google.

So far I had to rely on Shoemoney’s Serp tool which always bothered me somewhat since I’m sure Shoe can actually spy on all the searches and check out why this certain person always checks for the one keyword. So I never felt 100% comfortable. He might not bother with this at all, but I know that if I had this tool on my site I would certainly go and check stats every now and then and repeated searches would stick out like a thorn.

Therefore I’d quickly see if and who keeps searching for the same keyword on a given site.

With the SEG, I don’t have to worry about that anymore as it isn’t hosted on a particular blog as such.

Plus every time I visit Search Engine Genie I find something new to check out.

Filed Under: Free Tips Tagged With: , , , , , ,
February 8, 2008 By

Use Directory Rating Websites to Find Top Directories

Paid directory submissions can be scary.

Unlike submitting to free directories, it’s way more stressful to send a Paypal payment to the owner of a web directory and never really know if your site will ever be listed. Most web directories appear to be lifeless, and you don’t know if the webmasters that manage them are still actively accepting submissions.

So you fill-up their form, make a payment, and wait for a response. A week passes, then a month, and eventually you’ll forget about checking if your site is listed. Not to mention that by now you’ve already submitted to so many paid directories that you can’t keep track of them all. What a way to waste cash.

Isn’t there a better way to find directories worthy of your hard-earned money?

This is where directory rating sites play an important role. Simply put, these sites attempt to find, organize and rate the thousands of free and paid directories available on the Internet.

Here are two of them:

Directory Rate

directory-rate

DirectoryRate.com allows you to rate the top directories, so you can read other people’s ratings and experience before you decide to submit. It’s also easy to see which directories are active, and the overall SEO power of each. The site assigned it’s own rating system, and the active directories will display this rating on their sites.

Directory Critic

directory-critic

DirectoryCritic.com works the same way. When a directory gets listed high here, it’s providing social proof that they have an active submission process, and you can even get testimonials of how much traffic to expect from your submissions. It’s a win-win situation for the directory owners and for you.

If you submit your blog to a directory via these services and get good service, make sure you go back to the sites and submit your own rating or review. This would help other webmasters find good web directories. You can also share your list via StumbleUpon or other social bookmarking sites.

If you own a directory, consider listing your site in these sites and instantly improve your reputation and daily submissions.

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December 19, 2007 By

The Google Sandbox Effect on Your Blog SEO

Have you ever heard about the Google sandbox? The Google sandbox is a security step if you will that Google put into place around 2004 to stop spam blogs from ranking well in the search engines with non relevant terms. The Google sandbox was often called a myth and heavy discussions have evolved through this. However, it seems that the Google sandbox is a reality.

One thing that I know, is that my blog is now in the Google sandbox because I made the mistake of registering a brand new domain opposed to buying a pre-registered one at auction.

What most bloggers don’t understand (and I didn’t either until recently) is the fact that pretty much any new domain will end up in the Google sandbox. These are protection steps from Google against spammers and no matter how good your blog is, how much traffic you receive or even how little, you will be reduced to limited search engine positioning through the sandbox.

I believe that the average sandbox playtime for blogs plays out around 3 month up to nearly 18 month for some. What happens during this time is your blog will loose search engine rankings for keywords and eventually disappear.

I’ve always wondered why I managed to hit the first position on Google for a couple of days with a well place blog post in terms of keywords and then suddenly poof it disappeared without trace.

Now I know it is due to the Google sandbox effect and there is nothing I can do until the time comes when the blog will come out of it.

Once you are in the sandbox there isn’t much you can do.

But knowing this, there is one thing you can and that is to buy a pre-existing domain instead.

Hope you don’t get sand boxed!

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December 15, 2007 By

WordPress Endorsement & SEO Advice from Google

Matt Cutts is a famous Google engineer, head of the “Search Spam” unit in Google. This department basically determines what sites are trying to game the search engines, and how to stop them.

In this video Matt Cutts talks about the search engine benefits of WordPress, and why he would recommend using WordPress as a website building tool.

Some important points:

  • WordPress is probably one of the best SEO tools you can use for free to build your website, especially version 2.3 that works better at avoiding duplicate content
  • Consider keyword variations that a real user would type into the search engines
  • Provide some form of useful resource on your site to give people a reason to keep coming back
  • Use Google’s Webmaster Tools to make Google understand your site better, and improve your SEO with their free tools
  • If you’re using videos on your site, you can get indexed better by having a transcript (text) on your site with the video as search engines still have problems indexing videos
  • To get a real view of how a search engine’s “bots” view your site, try looking at it from a text-based browser like Lynx or use an online SEO tool that allows you to see your site as it would appear in Lynx
Filed Under: Free Tips Tagged With: , , ,
December 11, 2007 By

Analyze Your Search Engine Traffic

Search engine traffic is agreeably the best kind of traffic any blogger or website owner can attract. After all it is totally free of charge and once we manage to increase the amount of search engine traffic to our site we are onto a winning streak.

Naturally this takes time and if somebody says to you that it can be one within 2 weeks, I’d say they are full of rubbish. To rank high in search engines, not only do we need a fair amount of natural incoming links, but also a good amount of targeted and relative keywords.

image

And yes, you can rank high in search engines rather fast for a well structured blog post (I’m talking 3 days or faster) which I have done many times over. But the real trick here is to build on this and keep the ranking strong.

After the initial high placement, our blog post normally drops gradually in rank over the course of 1-2 weeks and unless we back this up with more targeted content, we will struggle to keep the top position.

Especially in a high competitive niche!

So how can we possibly do this you ask?

One such tool that can help us dig deeper into our analysis is using 103bees. 103bees is a fantastic tracking tool that allows us to analyze your keyword traffic, both search terms and long tails.

Analyzing keyword traffic is great because:

  • it can help you to build your natural search engine traffic
  • you can see exactly what search terms lead visitors to your site
  • you can write more keyword related blog posts and build on this traffic
  • find “hits” that are killer content which you can use to your advantage
  • use the stats correctly and drive a ton of free traffic to your site
  • and more…

What 103bees can help you with:

  • find your latest search hits
  • see the top performing landing pages
  • learn what your top search terms are
  • what are the top keywords that drive traffic to your site
  • which search engines send you traffic and at what percentage
  • where does your particular blog entry rank in the search engines
  • what long tails can be utilized to drive even more traffic to your site
  • find funny questions people type to find your blog/site

The search engine traffic tools from 103bees are a great way for you to build better search engine rankings. You can sign up for free for the first month and if you’d like to utilize the full suite of their search engine tools, then paying $9/month is peanuts.

Monika Mundell

Editor of Easy WordPress

 

Filed Under: Free Tips Tagged With: , , ,
November 6, 2007 By

Get 2000 Incoming Links from Directories

DirectorySubmitterDirectory submissions is a common SEO advice you’ll find in all SEO books. It’s the most basic way to get incoming links to your website or blog.

These kind of links are exactly what the search engines are looking for. The websites with more quality, one way links are typically the sites that rank the highest, period.

However, it is suicide to attempt directory submissions without the help of software.

There are several websites directory submission programs on the market, but the best and easiest to use is a new program created by Brad Callen, called Directory Submitter.

Directory Submitter is free, and with it you can submit to over 350 web directories. With the upgraded Gold Version, you can submit to a total of 2000+ web directories.

It is the most straightforward program that we’ve come across, in that all you need to do is:

  1. Input your website details (i.e. title, description, URL, etc.) into the software
  2. Click on the directory you want to submit to

And then the program will automatically fill in your website details. Then, you simply click the submit button and your website is instantly submitted to the directory. Then, you can move to the next directory and go through the entire list.

If you don’t have time to submit to all 300+ sites, just pick the ones that have PR4 and above, or the ones with an Alexa ranking below 100,000.

directory-submitter-2

I can’t think of an easier way to get links. Of course, if you’re going to get links this quickly, it’s important to vary your website title (anchor text) every 20-30 links or so, to make things look more natural to the search engines. You don’t want to look like you’re spamming with the exact anchor text litters all across the web.

You can do this very easily via Directory Submitter when you create your project in the beginning.

directory-submitter-1

The software is constantly being updated by an incredible community of users who all work together to make the software better and better, so you know you’re getting great value for the money.

But there’s ONE drawback – Reciprocal Links.

Although the directories allow you to submit your site for free, they usually require a reciprocal link (link back from your site) and to create 2,000 links on your blog is no easy task. This is one part that cannot be automated by the software at all, so you’ll need to spend some time doing it.

Would you like me to give you that list, so you can just copy and paste it into your blog? I’ve created a list of all the best directories in Directory Submitter here that you can just download and upload to your own WordPress page or static HTML page. This will definitely make your life much easier as you can go through the entire list of directories quickly and then just update the new ones.

Download Here: Directory Submitter

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October 28, 2007 By

Golden Tips To Get Better Google Pagerank

Google’s recent Pagerank update which is still going on has been a maniac for the whole blogosphere. Every blogger tried his best to get a better pagerank but ended up with nothing or a downfall in his previous rank.

Before I start, let us first confirm what exactly Google Pagerank is and how it works.

Google Pagerank is nothing but a complex mathematical algorithm which ranks websites and webpages according to there relevants. Things on which this algorithm works:

  • Inbound links
  • Outbound Links
  • Site Quality
  • Search Engine Ranking
  • Reputation over the web

So to increase your Pagerank, you need to work on these things but HOW? Here goes my tips to preserve your pagerank and try to get a better one too. :)

Links

Links are the base concept of the Google Pagerank algorithm. The number of incoming links to your blog and the number of outgoing links from your blog is a big pagerank factor. The more no. of incoming links you have and the less no. of outgoing links you have determine the best pagerank for you.

How To Get More Incoming Links?

This is a tough topic. If you want more incoming links and authority links, you need to follow some steps:

  1. Write content worth linking to
  2. Comment on Other Blogs to establish a better relation which then leads to link sharing
  3. Never ask for link exchanges directly
  4. Add your blog URL in your other websites and webpages
  5. Add you blog URL to your social networking site profile pages

How To Decrease Outgoing Links?

If you want to link to some product your are reviewing, it is very important to mind that you are not overlinking to the site of the product. To take care of it, here are some easy tips:

  1. Include links at the end of post with the an anchor text
  2. use URL covering
  3. Add ‘nofollow’ attribute to the links

Another thing you should be more careful about is DO NOT SELL LINKS. This is very important if you want to please the Google God.

Site Overview

This point has been always forbidden and not taken care of but it is very important and matters a lot. Your website structure is the main thing. Things like javascript errors, wrong HTMLs, errors in CSS etc. can make Google Pagerank spiders hard to crawl through your website and so your indexing is not done properly.

What Can I Do To Make My Blog Perfect For Crawlers?

To make sure that your blog is perfect for spiders and crawlers, validate your blog. Goto W3C Site validator and enter your blog URL there and check.

W3C validator will show you the errors in your blog structure which then you can improve and correct. If you blog is totally valid, your blog is then perfect for spiders and crawlers.

Search Engine Ranking

Pagerank affects your better SERP but it also need a better ranking to get a better pagerank. Your blog posts should get good ranking in there specified category or niche for them to get a rocking pagerank.

How To Get A Better Search Engine Ranking?

  • Use All-In-One SEO plugin
  • Use better and more specific blog post titles
  • Include more niche keywords
  • Write the post smart and in simple language

Follow these steps and you will surely get a better Search Engine Ranking.

Site Reputation

Your blog’s reputation over the web matters in your Pagerank. If you have more no. of links from authority sites then it will bring more reputation for your blog. There is no tip to increase your site’s reputation other than to play safe in the blogosphere. ;)

Other Tips

  • Try to concentrate for more incoming links on your blog homepage
  • Try to nourish the pages which already have a pagerank to maintain them
  • Try to including ‘nofollow’ attribute maximum in your blogrolls or outgoing links.
  • Interlink blog posts whenever you write posts which are related.

Hope these tips will help you get a better pagerank in the next PR update!

Filed Under: Free Tips Tagged With: , , , , , , ,
October 5, 2006 By

Automate Social Bookmarking With Delicioso

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This is our first “Videocast” edition, and we’re having a look at a free, useful tool called Delicioso. Delicioso allows you to automatically submit your blog post to a handful of important social bookmarking sites such as:

  1. tagtooga.com
  2. del.icio.us
  3. furl.net
  4. simpy.com
  5. blogmarks.net
  6. shadows.com
  7. spurl.net
  8. nevous.com

Social bookmarking is a good way of getting incoming links and traffic to your blog, but to submit manually to the ever-increasing stable of new social bookmarking sites is a major pain in the ass. That’s why software like Delicioso are gems, especially when it’s available for free.

You can download Delicioso at: www.tagtooga.com/pg/delicioso

Another way to automate social bookmarking on your blog is to use Auto Social Poster, which is also a WordPress plugin. This one, however, submits your sites automatically to social bookmarking sites.  You can also check out Tag And Ping for in-depth information on social bookmarking.

Please also take this poll:
[poll id="2"]

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