Posts Tagged ‘valuable’

Search engine optimization-Swap Links

Tuesday, July 15th, 2008

Similarly many bloggers swap links with other bloggers. Sometimes this happens pretty naturally (you see someone linking to you so you link back) but in many cases the links are strategic ones and formally arranged between site owners. I get daily requests for such reciprocal links (I rarely act on them). Whilst there is some benefit in such link swapping I would again advise caution here as many SEO experts believe that the search engines have methods for tracking such strategies and devaluing the links. Some try to get around this by doing indirect or triangulated links. ie instead of site A and B doign a direct swap they involve other sites. So A links to C in exchange for D (also owned by C) linking to B (also owned by A) - makes your head hurt doesn’t it!?! There are also a variety of systems around that say they’ll take care of such interlinking for you - I know many who use Digital Point’s Free C0-Op Advertising system. Personally I tend to avoid such schemes and have a policy of linking to sites I think are valuable to my readers. If they link back then so be it.

What are these SEO Hats?

Thursday, June 26th, 2008
  1. Black Hat SEO’s (aka SEO spamming) goal is to heavily leverage technology in order to get fast results. This means quickly getting their web site to the top of the Search Engines, which quickly catch on and ban them.
  2. White Hat SEO focuses upon building quality content. These web sites are built for people, not for the Search Engines, and the webmasters rely more upon content, combined with their marketing skills, to get them top results.  These webmasters understand that this is going to take time and so they do not rush the results and thus run absolutely no risk of being banned by the Search Engines.
  3. Gray Hat SEO varies in its use of questionable tactics as well as the risks that they take. While some techniques may be frowned upon by the Search Engines, they are not necessarily against their rules. However, other techniques may be more risky and should be carefully considered before use.

So, which SEO hat should you wear? This depends upon your goals and objectives. However, you probably should not use black hat since it is so short-lived. Instead, strive to wear a white hat. Sometimes gray hat techniques also make sense but do not take too big of a risk if your web site is quite valuable.

To Blog or Not To Blog

Saturday, June 21st, 2008

One of the biggest trends these days is to use blogs to market and educate users on whatever the sites topic of interest is. Bloggers have even found their ways into the mainstream political arena like blogger Tom Burka.

Blogs are becoming a large source for people’s daily information. Our own blog is related to search engine optimization and seo for example and provides the reader with valuable information on current seo trends.

But political and news blogs are not the only success stories out there. Many business blogs are designed as marketing and public relations tools. Many business people today use blogs as one of their main sources for relative news.

It’s promising to see blogs have impacted business and how their growth will continue to be a large source for news and marketing. We are definitely on the cutting edge of a new wave of electronic publishing!

Use a Human Voice

Thursday, June 19th, 2008

Charisma is a valuable quality, both online and off. Through a blog, it’s most often judged by the voice you present to your users. People like empathy, compassion, authority and honesty. Keep these in the forefront of your mind when writing and you’ll be in a good position to succeed. It’s also critical that you maintain a level of humility in your blogging and stick to your roots. When users start to feel that a blog is taking itself too seriously or losing the characteristics that made it unique, they start to seek new places for content. We’ve certainly made mistakes (even recently) that have cost us some fans - be cautious to control not only what you say, but how you say it. Lastly - if there’s a hot button issue that has you posting emotionally, temper it by letting the post sit in draft mode for an hour or two, re-reading it and considering any revisions. With the advent of feeds, once you publish, there’s no going back.

Don’t Jump on the Bandwagon

Thursday, June 19th, 2008

Some memes are worthy of being talked about by every blogger in the space, but most aren’t. Just because there’s huge news in your industry or niche DOES NOT mean you need to be covering it, or even mentioning it (though it can be valuable to link to it as an aside, just to integrate a shared experience into your unique content). Many of the best blogs online DO talk about the big trends - this is because they’re already popular, established and are counted on to be a source of news for the community. If you’re launching a new blog, you need to show people in your space that you can offer something unique, different and valuable - not just the same story from your point of view. This is less important in spaces where there are very few bloggers and little online coverage and much more in spaces that are overwhelmed with blogs (like search, or anything else tech-related).
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