Good Points Inspire

While doing a bit of research I ran across a Hub Page Title: Fifty ways to bring traffic to your website and blog. After reading the list, which had suggestive notes, I read the comments which were all pretty positive until the last one by someone named Thomas and I quote: "Your SEO tips are what people think are what needs to be done, but you're wrong, sorry.

It seems as though all you did was copy and paste a bunch of stuff and you have no idea what it means.

Alt tags in images? - No, worthless to search results

Proper SEO means 'making some adjustments' to your site? - No, SEO is a full time job, not a wave of a magic wand

Submit to search engines? - No, waste of time unless by this you mean submitting a proper sitemap

Link exchange? - No, takes too long to get each link and they normally amount to nothing worthwhile. Reciprocal linking is dead.

Here's some things you said that are true, but you don't know why they are true do you?

Organised internal linking? YES, but what does it mean?

Using sitemaps? YES, but what is a proper sitemap and what do you do with it?

Using robots.txt? YES! But how? Why? What is a 'robots.txt'?

You're not giving the reader anything useful, just spitting out keywords to get clicks."

Thomas

I'm not sure why Thomas had such a gritty tone but I get his point. I would guess he is an underworked, broke SEO.

With so many people trying so hard to "be seen" on the web; who's funds are at a minimum, it is a good time to ask How, and Why and What is. Since this blog is dedicatied to the "technically challenged" I think it would be a good time to start explaining some of these things. But not at this minute, I have two deadlines to meet!

But first I want to thank Thomas for great things to write about so I can save everyone that reads my posts some time and money!!

Meta Tags for Newbies

When you are new to putting up a website you may not know about Meta Tags. I'm not so sure if it is absolutely necessary to know all the gory details about Meta Tags as it is important to have them on your website. I've posted an Advanced Meta Tag Generator for you in the side bar. The tool is from SEO Chat. It is all "no charge" information. You will find it helpful in regard to your traffic and building and updating your website(s). There are other tools and analysers to help you there; far more extensive than I can elaborate on here. In case you don't know the meta tags go in the Head of your web page. They identify you and the content of your website so the search engines can find you.

What we have here is a Lack of Communication!

Feel the need to communicate your expertise? Need Traffic? Need Links?
Try: http://www.buzzle.com/ With categories covering everything from animals to tourism, Buzzle.com is your complete source for news, articles and information. Get the latest buzz, interact with authors and other readers on message boards, or add to the buzz by becoming a Buzzle.com author.

Here is another great way to get "your words" out: Ezine Articles

EzineArticles For Authors
Submit Articles
Members Login
Benefits
Expert Authors
Most Emailed
Most Viewed
Article Rating
Read Endorsements
Send Testimonials
Editorial Guidelines
Author TOS

This is an enormous site, well organized with very helpful information. You can communicate 'til your heart is content! Give and Get Back.

Getting the Word Out about You

Some of you might be interested in publicizing your product, service or whatever you are all about. You might consider checking this out.

Big News.biz

The purpose of this site is to give businesses, individuals and journalists a trusted venue to post news and press releases. Our goal is to provide quality content from sources that are accountable for what they submit.

Every author / publisher who posts to this site is vetted through the double opt in registration. They also time-stamp and record their IP address during registration confirmation as well as for each submission. Under every approved article you can see the contact information for the publisher account and the person that submitted the article.

All content is reviewed prior to publication and must include a URL for a Web site that pertains to the article. Approved content is then published online and made available to the media, the public, search engines and other Web sites on behalf of the publisher.

Guidelines for the types of press releases and news articles we will accept are available on the -Terms of Service- page. For more information, see: http://www.bignews.biz/?go=terms

BigNews.biz is a registered LLC in the State of New York. The founders have over 30 years of experience doing staff and freelance work for major media such as Newsday, The Los Angeles Times and the AP, covering both U.S. and International stories.

BigNews.biz LLC
16 Heath Place
Garden City, New York
11530-3005 US

http://www.bignews.biz/blog/

Traffic - Traffic Falling? No Traffic:

Check out Google Trends, you can learn about the trend of your market. Becasue I am a Home Based Jeweler I checked http://www.google.com/trends?q=handcrafted+jewelry. In an effort to promote traffic and sales of Handcrafted Jewelry on http:homebasedjewelers.blogspot.com I checked the "trend" of handcrafted jewelry and this is what I found:



Google states: "Trends scales the first term you’ve entered so that its average search traffic in the chosen time period is 1.0; subsequent terms are then scaled relative to the first term. Note that all numbers are relative to total traffic."

Checking Jewelry the trend shows:



basically the same trend.

People get so frustrated becasue they don't get enough traffic and I ask, how may of the same people really work at "getting traffic". Are you using the tremendous tools that are available at no charge. SEO's charge big bucks to "guarantee" top listings and what tools do you think they may be using?

Go to http://www.google.com/trends to check out what your market looks like.

To tweet or not to tweet?

Twitter:
To tweet or not to tweet?
How do you tell who is worth following though once you've found them?
How much time out of your ‘no time left’ day do you have to tweet?
How do you know the person you are following is even who they claim to be?

If you find someone with 2500 followers, you might think they have something of value; but do they?
Spammers are hitting Twitter like the plague. Twitter has started to verify account because of a lawsuit. Almost everything I read about marketing says you MUST be on the social network and yet I have not seen much that interests me because idle chit-chat is a waste of my time. In addition to all the nonsense that is going on in Twitter.

By Mike McDonald
“Social Media is still an area very much in it's development. There will no doubt be plenty of twists and turns as we move along. However, there is one thing you can absolutely take to the bank: if aren't in it, you need to get there. For better or worse, "wait and see" strategists have no place in this world.” (Mike has been covering ebusiness and the search industry for WebProNews since 2000.)

Somebody please tell me why I Must! The “authority” (?) that be tell us we must right after they tell us it’s not a good place to be. Go figure. Yep, and they will probably come with search engines for tweeters too.

What is the difference between Bird Flu and Swine Flu?
For bird flu you need tweetment
And for swine flu you need oikment.

Link Referral

The Linkreferral Concept (from Linkreferral website)
We (linkreferral.com) are striving to provide an affordable alternative to search engines and banner ad campaigns which give sometimes slow results. Our four pronged approach to developing free traffic for our members is described below:


Members directory traffic - By joining, you will be included in our members directory which is visited by our community of over 200,000 members, and thousands of outside visitors on a daily basis. You'll have the opportunity to earn a ranking at the top of your category, absolutely free! Receive valuable feedback from visitors of your website, network with your peers, and give your opinion on other websites in the directory. The more you participate, the more you get in return!

Referral based traffic - You are probably familiar with the concept of network marketing, well this is a free version of that marketing method - by registering and promoting your linkreferral affiliate link, an exponential growth of 5 levels of referrals can be created (ex. you refer 10 people who refer 10 people each who refer 10 each....), potentially 10,000s of visitors/day all viewing your link prominently in the top spot of our 'Featured Sites' section on our home page for your referral ID. It works because its free, fast to register, easy to implement and no risk. People that are referred from your site will have nothing to lose and everything to gain, just like you.

Search engine traffic - By registering, you'll benefit several ways, including,

1) having your web page listing indexed more quickly - the major search engines continuously spider our site, and the sites listed in our directory.
2) Improved search engine rankings and SEO optimization.
3) Indirect search engine traffic via linkreferral.com. Pages such as your directory listing and your affiliate page listing feature your link and description, are picked up by all the major search engines. Your sign-up description, combined with our strong traffic base (a prime ranking factor for most major search engines) can pull in a significant immediate steady stream of traffic to your listing on linkreferral.com and then on to your web site.

Straight from Blogger Buzz!

Third Party Templates for Blogger

BTemplates.
A free directory of user-submitted templates, classified by type and/or features.

The Cutest Blog on the Block
Run by Becky and Ashley of 2 Moms Talk, this site offers free, premade layouts, as well as customizable backgrounds.

Blogger Styles
Gallery of submitted templates, ranked by visitors and includes detailed configuration instructions.

FalconHive
Conversions of WordPress templates upon request, along with archive of past conversions.

All Blogspot Templates
Templates in 1-, 2- and 3-column options. Also includes AdSense-ready templates.

Zona Cerebral
Spanish site with dozens of templates to choose from, including several converted WordPress themes.

Quite Random
A number of free templates, and several Blogger-specific tutorials regarding setup and layout editing.

ChicaBlogger
In Spanish, templates designed primarily for women.

Deluxe Templates
Hundreds of templates, including many converted WordPress themes. Also has a nice "tips & tricks" section for customizing Blogger.

Pyzam
Thousands of templates, browsable by category and sortable by recency or popularity.

Our Blog Templates
160+ free templates, all well-labeled for easy browsing to find the one you want.

eBlogTemplates
Combination of free and premium templates, and a wealth of tips for tweaking your Blogger blog.

You must understand blogger.com does not provide support for third party templates. When I imported the template for Wear My Blues I had great insturction from the website eBlogTemplates.

I also started with a blank Blog, I did not move anything. The entire setup was a breeze!

Search Engine Optimization

"Search Engine Optimization May Not Be As Hard As You Think"

About the Author: Stefan Hyross publishes information for the Toronto search engine optimization company WebClimb. Specialists in real estate search engine optimization techniques. Visit the site for more information, news and tips.

Being found on page one of the major search engines is one of the number one marketing techniques you can use.

It's all about bringing targeted traffic and visitors to your site for your niche. Not only that but it is often one of the least costly kinds of advertising even if you hire an expert to do it for you.

For example a Toronto search engine optimization company may charge a few hundred dollars a month for their services. In comparison you would easily spend upwards of a thousand dollars trying to get similar results from paper ads. And optimizing your site can give it much a broader exposure.

You don't always need to hire an expert because you can do a number of things yourself if you are willing to put in the effort.

Before you even begin to optimize your site you need to think about which keywords you wish to rank for.

Think like a customer to discover keywords phrases they might use to find a similar product or service. The more you can think of the better. These may then be plugged into on-line tools like Google's keyword research tool or on sites such as Wordtracker or Wordze.

These sites can give you an estimate on how often these terms are searched for. If you find some terms that have a great number of monthly searches then it is a good indication that being on page one for that phrase could equal a large number of site visitors.

Remember that frequently the keyword phrases with the most amount of searches are often the most competitive also. That does not mean that you can never rank for them, only that it may take quite a lot of time.

A good strategy is to select a mix of difficult and easy to optimize terms. This will help get you a short term and long term focus.

The content contained on the pages of your site should be your next focus.

Try to use your chosen keywords into the various web pages. Despite the fact that one of the reasons for using your keywords in your site is for the search engines don't forget that actual visitors will be viewing it.

The greater the number of pages you can add to your site the better. Every time you add new content you are attracting the search engines to frequently return and reindex your web site. This can increase the chances of getting you to page one for many more terms than the ones you are specifically focusing on.

Finally comes what is definitely the most critcal part. Every time another site points to your web site you are one step closer to being on page one. That does not mean getting just any kind of link from any site. They need to be from sites that are of the same theme to yours.

For example if your site is real estate oriented site then you will need to have a real estate search engine optimization strategy. This may include getting links from various real estate agent sites, blogs, or anything related to that topic. You should be more concerned with quality, not just quantity.

One of the premier ways to accomplish this is with article marketing. You create content in the form of articles. These can then be submitted to various directories for inclusion like Article Alley. Your site will get a link pointing back to it in return for handing out free content. This is step you should be doing a minimum of once a week.

You will slowly begin to see your site's traffic and ranking soar. The greater the time period you optimize your site for the better your results will be. It could take some time and work however it is well worth it.

Google Announced

Google announced that its SEO Starter Guide is now available in 40 languages. This covers 98% of the global Internet audience according to the company. "We hope that webmasters around the world can use the guide to improve their sites' crawlability and indexing in search engines," says Brandon Falls of Google's Search Quality Team.