Your Blogging Services Portal

If you’ve started your SEO education, then you already know there are two major factors that comprise search engine optimization…onpage factors and offpage factors. Today, I’d like to share the 8 things your normal blogging habits should include to make sure you master the Onpage Factors

Title Tag

The number one onpage SEO tactic to have is meaningful, keyword rich, descriptive titles for each blog post, blog page and search/archive page in your blog.

Be advised though, Google is onto those *black-hat* tactics like keyword stuffing, so the title should read naturally. Using the same word over and over in your title will get your site banned. Period.

Words closer to the beginning of the title, are given more *weight* than those that are at the end. So, make sure your title gets to the point, quickly.

“I’m blogging, I can’t control the title that appears at the top of the blog window, can I?”

Well, actually, if you are using Wordpress right out of the box, probably not. However, there are a number of ways to enhance the title tag, or browser window title with plugins. A couple that come immediately to mind are All In One SEO Pack and HeadSpace2. Both offer customizations that will ensure your title tags contain the right information, as long as your post or page title does. Both of the plugins I mentioned, also help with the next few factors as well.

Description Meta Tag

Yeah, I know. You’ve probably only heard of this one. The Description Meta Tag is not something humans normally see, unless they are looking for it. It’s purpose is to speak to the *spiders* that crawl your site. It was originally designed as a helpful way to explain the content of the post or page.

When Google finds a description meta tag, it will use the first 160 characters to display the *description* that appears under the link when your site is returned in the results for a search term.

It is important to note this tag is more than a way to explain your content to the search spiders then…it’s a way to talk to your target market, and explain why they should come read your content.

If you don’t provide a description meta tag, Google will grab either the first 160 characters of your content, or 160 character near the keyword that was searched … to find your content. Leaving it for Google to *build* your description is a little like relying on someone who hasn’t seen the movie, to tell you if it worth seeing. Hmmm.

Keywords Meta Tag

This search engine optimization factor is getting some bad press, and experts are unable to agree on the validity and importance of this one. However, for years, Google, Yahoo and MSN used the keyword meta tag to help them weight your content based on the keywords found.

Here’s my thinking on this matter.

Having 3-7 of your main keywords related to the content in this tag won’t hurt you, and very well might still be ranked pretty high on the internal thinking of spiders who index your site.

Header Tags

I don’t want this to become a tutorial on HTML or anything silly like that, but you need to know something about how web browsers *read* the content and display it to you. They use a *tag* system that allows them to define how something will appear, on the fly. For example, to make the word bold, appear in bold in a sentence, an instruction (a tag) is placed right in front of the word and immediately following the word.

For example, this word will appear bold when read by a browser.

Now that you understand that concept (yeah right, clear as mud, right?), there are tags used by all browsers to display text at various heights. In fact, there is a standard set of header tags, numbering 1 through 6, (with 1 being the largest, 6 being the smallest) that every browser understands.

With me so far?

When you put a keyword in a header tag, it is given more *weight* on the relevancy scale, than that same word just appearing in the text. A header tag automatically tells Google it’s more important.

Alt Tags

An Alt tag is a small bit of text that is displayed in place of an image, until the image loads. Perhaps you have surfed a site and seen text just kinda hanging out in space, and then, when the page finished loading, a photo magically appeared instead of that text.

You are seeing the Alt tag at work.

Since photo’s can be large and take longer to download to the local surfer’s machine, Alt tags let them know something is coming.

However, the Google spiders crawl Alt tags and if your keyword is there, it’s like another small vote in your favor. Again, I remind you that Google is onto the *black-hatters* that stuff keywords in the Alt tag, just to get better rankings.

A good rule to follow would be to use the title as the Alt tag, and add the word photo. For example..you have a post called *7 Travel Destinations Everyone Can Afford*, and it displays a beautiful photo of the beaches of Fiji. For the Alt tag of that photo, insert the text *7 Travel Destinations Everyone Can Afford Photo*.

Please note, your photo names can also help your SEO. Just name the photo the same as the title as well, and add the word photo. For the photo name though, you will want to replace all spaces with dashes. Although there a couple of plugins I have seen for this task, I have had problems with them and the new version of Wordpress. If I hear of one that rises back to the top again, I will let you know.

Link Text

Also called Anchor text, this is the text that is displayed when you include a hyperlink in your content.

Let’s say you have a site all about Pool Service. And within a blog post, you are sharing your experience with a great vendor that offers overnight delivery for their supplies. If you will include keywords within your text (rather than just *click here*), a few things happen for you.

• You have your keywords included again on your page (in natural sounding language)
• You are linking to an outside site (that might have a great page rank) that is related. So, you are *voting* for the other site.
• The vendor you are linking to get’s some business, making them happier with you
• Google sees you now, as more of an authority on the subject, since you are a linking to another known authority.

This habit is all on you. I know of no plugins to help with this process… just remember, the better the anchor text you highlight for a link, the better all around it will be.

Sitemap

I should mention that there are two types of sitemaps. One, is built for humans. The other, is built for the search engine spiders. I am referring to the one for Google here, although, it’s a really good idea to have a good sitemap for your visitors as well.

This one requires a bit of work unless you choose a plugin to handle it for you. In fact, I highly recommend using a plugin since getting the priorities, scheduling, category hierarchy and other obscure and difficult to follow factors go into this.

A sitemap built for Google looks like raw HTML code. In fact, it’s called XML and is a cousin to HTML. It basically recounts everything that Google can expect to find on your site. Again, unless you are really really into that geeky stuff, I highly recommend a plugin for your blog to handle this chore. Google XML Sitemaps is a good one that comes to mind.

Good Content

Obviously, this really should be weighted very high on the scale of things to do to bring visitors to your site. None of the Onpage optimizations you do will keep your visitors on your site or coming back like delivering some killer content.

Need a few ideas? Try Google Alerts.

Here are the links to the plugins mentioned above: 
All In One SEO Pack 
HeadSpace2

Blog marketing is something that all blog owners need to do. In order to see a profit from your blog, you need to market to find as many readers as you can. There are many ways to market your blog, getting it into the line of sight for readers to benefit from. Blog marketing is also a great way to sell things by using affiliate links and programs. Blog marketing as a home business is one of the most affordable and achievable ways to make money online in this day and age.

If you are serious about turning blog marketing into a home business, you will need to have more than one blog. You should create a list of possible topics you will want to discuss on individual blogs. You need to only create posts in accordance with your topic. For example, if you are writing about potty training you will not want to include a post about investments as they do not relate. But you could write a parenting blog,then discuss various parenting concerns,such as potty training since most of your readers will likely be first time parents looking for help.

In order to make a living by blog marketing, you need to know every aspect of it. You need to know what needs to be done to get readers to your blog, how to write about the things that you are promoting and how to get it up in search engine rankings. Doing so will lead to successful blog marketing and making a home business income with it.

One of the hardest things to learn for many is SEO, or Search Engine Optimization. This consists of optimizing your blog in such a way so that the search engines will find it and rank it as high as possible. This leads to more traffic and leads from your blog. If you do not know how to do this, nor have the time, there are specialists you can hire to do it for you.

If you are planning on making a substantial amount of money with this business, you will want to outsource a lot of your work as time goes by. You may need another writer, a blogger to post comments on other people’s blog to link back to your site. A good plan of action is to write up a list of all job duties, decide how often they need to be done. This will keep you organized and able to prioritize accordingly.

Blog marketing for a home business is not much dfferent from any other home business. You will get out of it what you put into it. If you only work for two hours a day, you can not expect to make as much money as you could working full eight hour days. Being consistent and working on your blogs every chance you get will pay off in the long run. You will also discover that there is no better feeling in the world than owning your own home business, and working for yourself.

It all starts with your first blog. Start small, work hard, and soon you will see your dreams coming true. You can make money with blog marketing.

Why you need to be marketing via Social Media

Do you need to get into Social Media Marketing (SMM) – Almost certainly YES because a) the other approaches don’t work so well anymore, and b) because it offers a much wider reach, to a more closely targeted audience. And it’s free.

a) Other approaches don’t work any more:

• Cold calling on the street – when was the last time anybody got invited in to make their pitch?
• Cold calling on the phone – talking to voicemail isn’t fun anymore.
• Print and other broadcast media – far too expensive and unproductive.
• Email – authorized sender lists and other filters send these to Trash.
• SEO your marketing site – Google ranks advertisers first and content (in blogs) next.
• Adwords – cost per click is driven up by big brand budgets and only Google makes money.

On top of these is the resistance we all have to intrusive advertising. Our brains, our Firefox or our Tivo, allows us to filter it out.

b) Social Media platforms aren’t intended for marketing, but do help us get messages out there, to people interested in the subject. The creators built these systems so communities could interact, on the Internet. Members avoid advertising like everybody else, but as in other social places, they are open to meeting people and learning and sharing. Participating in these communities, we can meet people who are buying what we sell.

Social Media Marketing is:

1. More effective
2. Wider reach to people who are interested
3. Free!

The Seven Secrets to Being Welcome

Getting started with SMM can appear intimidating. All of these places seem full of experts who use their own special languages. We have to write and publish stuff in ways people want to read. Most of all it seems to take up so much time.

But actually it’s easy, provided we stick to the fundamental principles:

• Avoid Internet Marketing Experts like the plague. Sites are dominated by these characters trying to drive readers to their blogs, in the hope they’ll click an Ad. They know less about SMM than we do, or they wouldn’t act the way they do.
• Find some genuine (there are a few) SMM experts and read what they generously share in their blogs. A great starting place is chrisbrogan.com. Find Chris’ paper “Fish Where the Fish Are” for the most clear explanation.
• Sign up to sites where your prospects, or people they know, hang out. Be social. Fill out your profile as if you’re joining a club. In Social Media, members like to know the person behind the business. It’s just like meeting people at a cocktail party.
• Write blog posts on stuff you really understand. Make these posts short, to the point, and offer genuine expertise. The objective here is not winning a Pulitzer Prize – it’s sharing your expertise. Don’t pretend to know something. Frauds are exposed in a heartbeat.
• Write comments in forums, sharing what you know with people who don’t. Answer questions posted with short comments directly on subject. People interested in the same subject watch the answers to questions. The question becomes the focal point of a mini community. Here you can answer one question and have ten people recognize your value add.
• Don’t make promises you can’t keep. Bad news about a product or service will be around the world in a nano second and consign the perpetrator to oblivion.
• DO NOT SELL. There are plenty of fools who do, but they’re noticed as Spammers. There’s no need to sell. When we know what we’re talking about, people in the market will want to buy.

Anybody following these rules will be welcome on discussion forums and other meeting places.

Easy Steps to Global Presence

We need to think of the Internet as a spinning plate. We can stand in the middle and not move while it goes on around us, but we know there’s stuff going on out there. The perimeter is moving much faster then the center. It’s all a blur.

To join in we’ll need to move toward the outside and be prepared to move more quickly. The further we get out there the faster we have to think, and move. What’s happening isn’t near the center, it’s out there on the edges. In today’s world it’s a case of “be out there, or be square”.

In B2B, the good news is we don’t have to get to the extremes of what the gurus are dreaming up. Our audience, being more focused on business than redefining the world, congregates in places where it’s easier to play a part. Not that far from the center. Further out there will be opportunities in the future so we should stake out a place, but we probably aren’t going to do business there – yet.

Most of the sites out there have been started by people wanting to get paid for advertising, one way or another, and run the site for their own benefit. Why not start at Front Office Box User Group ?- it’s run for your benefit. You can manage your own communities, get all your blog posts automatically sent to content distributors. Get your profiles indexed by Search Engines, and advice from the Social Media Marketing group.

At WeCanDo.Biz create a profile in the directory, receive endorsements from customers and business partners, contact other members via messages and post any business needs to the community. Coming soon will be a business forum.

At implu.com find up to the minute details of 167,000 company officers, create a personal profile and share your “stories” about corporate America. There’ll be blogs and a forum coming soon.

Not many people know but you can set up a business profile on Facebook go to Mari Smith for a guide.

Next go to to Linked In. Here we find 25+ million professionals, like us, wanting to connect for business: reconnect with past colleagues, receive job offers, get help from their peers. Linked In has 1,000s of special interest groups and posts questions and answers in 100s of categories.

Growing fast is a host of special interest sites using Ning and Collective X software. Both offer directories of their sites. There are 1,000s of Ning sites, some with 100,000s members, focused on special interest or geography. Ning makes it particularly easy for us to set up our own, and keeps a consistent profile of us and our “friends” across all of it’s sites. Find some interesting groups, join and join in discussions. You’ll be familiar with the way it all works- the user group’s a Ning site.

Spread your Internet footprint by submitting content at Ezine Articles. From December 2008 join AddsYou for more of the same opportunities. Post the same content in Squidoo lenses and Google Knols. Contribute to Knols Debates. – researchers use these like encyclopedia. 
Get a Google account. Post content in your Blogspot blog, publish it in Google Sites pages, make videos and publish on You Tube.

Answer others’ questions anywhere you find them – particularly at Linked In, Yahoo Answers and Knol Debates. People appreciate the help, and Google is watching – by now you’re becoming a world authority on your subjects. (worth remembering 99% of the content on the web is regurgitated garbage – if your stuff is good it’s easy to stand out).

Microblogging and What We Can Do With

At the extreme edge of our plate we come to microblogging with Twitter, Pownce, Yammer, Plurk and a few more – on the face of it the most meaningless service imaginable, with broadcast publishing limited to 140 characters and a host of complimentary software/services adding value to it. The number of people joining Twitter is growing at a blinding rate, because the members are creating purpose for it as they go along. With Twitter the lunatics really have taken control of the asylum.

Even further out we come to Twingr. This is a site/service letting people create their own communities, just like Ning but limited to the 140 character post size. (It’s brand new so might need some time to fix a few things.)

Why limit messages to 140 characters? Because it cuts to the mustard. People out there want to benefit from our insight, not out literary skills. The limit focuses minds on the meat. Readers can scan hundreds of posts in a few minutes, choosing ones they want to know more about.

Microblogging started with simple status updates – what I’m doing now – between friends. Then it exploded with users and innovation.

Now news services monitor Twitter posts to find out what’s happening. Journalists monitor them to find out what people are thinking. Politicians are doing the same, and engaging a new public with their own ideas. Software companies are publishing service notices to their users. Brands don’t need customer surveys anymore, they just monitor Twitter.

Sales guys are monitoring Twitter to find out who’s interested in what, and what’s being said about their competitors. This is the new source of sales leads, and we don’t have to look for them, they come to us.

More than a million early adopters are publishing news and opinions to the rest of the world. The service is so successful, developers everywhere are writing programs to add value – including Twitter Search, monitoring keywords and sending every post using them to our RSS reader, and Twellow, a directory of Twitter users with more than 620,000 entries.

With Twitter we can find new friends and colleagues anywhere in the world. We can learn of a new opportunity, evaluate and decide within just a few minutes.

We can be so much more productive, because we’ve got access to so much more information and support. It’s the ultimate question and answer service.

What’s Next ?

Beats me! We just need to keep up with pace.