WebStyle

Blog Search Engine Optimization

Any blog owner who wishes to get traffic without constant promotion and marketing will have to use some form of search engine optimization. Search engine optimization can be a highly debated topic however, most experts seem to agree that the best way to optimize search engines is for you to have one-way inbound links or an established reciprocal and you need to ensure you make use of keyphrases on your pages.

During the initial step a search engine will perform, it will bring up information from the keywords that are entered in. You will need to find out which keywords you should use to bring in the highest amount of traffic and then you can begin optimization. There are several ways to do this, for instance, you can purchase software such as; ’Atomic Blogging System’; ’Blogger Generator’ or ’Keyword Explosion’ to help you maximize your efforts and make it much easier to do.

You will need to track all the returns you receive for each Keyword Overture Inventory search. Your next step will be to analyze the site or page supply for your keywords. You can do this by searching for each of the returned keywords on Google. Not only will you want to record the search return data in terms of numbers, but you will also want to look at the top competitors for those keywords and where they rank. Optimal keywords for search engine optimization purposes will have high search counts, low site returns, and show competition in the top slots.

The next step will be to perform more optimization by using an onpage search engine. You can do this by using your selected keywords as titles and headers on different pages of your blog. You will then want to fill those pages will good information about the keyword in question; additionally, you will want to optimize it for a keyword density of 1.5%.

The last step in your search engine optimization campaign is to perform offpage optimization. This can be done by adding links to directories that have specific keywords already in the link title. You can also join link swap programs and swap with other high-quality blogs.

Hubpages can be a great tool in the internet marketers arsenal. Lets look at how you can make make money at home with hubpages. Hubpages is similar to Squidoo, but is currently looking like a better bet for making money on a long term basis.

Hubpages provides authors with a number of money making options. The key to making money on hubpages is writing useful content. If you just add PLR and generic sales pitches you will get nowhere on hubpages. Making money on hubpages is straightforward :so long as you play by the rules.

You need to actually add content that’s useful to people. Your best chance of ranking for that content in Google is via hubpages. The site enjoys great authority with Google - probably because of the quality of content. Hubs aren’t just articles though. Adding images and videos will make your hub more interesting, and its easy too. You can also add RSS and news feeds which are useful for keeping your hub continually updating.

Hubpages keep their content quality high through a number of mechanisms. They penalise duplicate content. There is a vibrant community who will actively flag spammers and their hubs.

There are three ways to make money at home with hubpages. Directly through their revenue sharing programs and via promoting your own sites.

The revenue sharing is 60/40 in your favour. You need to register for Adsense, Amazon and eBay in order to benefit from this.

In addition you can promote your own sites. But make sure you read the Hubpages TOS and stick to them. You can only have 2 out-going links to the same “self-serving” site. You must run Adsense on any hub which has self-serving links.

The third way to make money at home with hubpages is by signing up affiliates. If an author signs up with your affiliate tracker (called a url tracker at hubpages) you will get 10% of their earnings (from hubpages.com share, this doesn’t affect their income).

Web traffic, as the maxim goes, is the fuel of every web undertaking.  Let us discuss 6 tried and tested tactics that will help you get the traffic that your web endeavor will need:

1.    Search engine marketing (SEM.  It cannot be denied that eighty percent of the number of visitors that you will be able to generate for your homepage will directed by the search engines.  That being said, it is absolutely important that your pages will be formatted for easy classification by the leading search engines on the internet.  This can be done via proper keyword research and usage.  By seeking out attractive keywords appropriate to the topic of your website, you can attract the attention of search engine spiders and effectively compete for a good position in search engine results pages.

2.    Article marketing.  Compose articles relevant to the topic of your online business.  Include a resource box talking about yourself or your business, and more importantly, including a URL leading to your website.  Publish this article and bio box to established article directories like eZinearticles.com and ideamarketers.com.  Commit to this daily and soon enough you’d have hundreds of back links leading to your website.

3.    Yahoo Answers.  Yahoo Answers is one of the best ways that will allow your website get listed in search engines in a matter of hours.  Just look for open questions relevant to the topic of your business, answer them to the best of your abilities, and mention your URL when required to state your source.  Yahoo Answers will fetch direct traffic and it will build for you important back links from what Google sees as an authority website.

4.    Blogging.  Google, Yahoo, MSN and the big search engines absolutely adore blogs.  By maintaining a blog and regularly updating the same with posts that contain your website’s link, you will be able to generate more back links for your homepage and you’ll be guaranteed that it will beeasy for search engines to categorize and present your web pages.

5.    YouTube marketing.  Transform your text-based content into a simple video and publish the same over at YouTube to immediately garner the attention of a batallion of internet users who frequent that popular cyber hangout.  And don’t forget, Google has a love affair with YouTube videos!

6.    Press releases.  Countless internet and print publishers are always looking for noteworthy information to republish.  They scrutinize newswires where various people submit newsworthy articles.  By writing a factual and interesting piece about your website and submitting the same to an established web PR service like prweb.com, you’d be able to move your online enterpriseto gather a lot of visitors.

Anyone can turn their hand to writing online articles and it is great for beginners who are not sure how they are going to set up their online empire.

Articles are very useful as they can help you make money and gain backlinks to your websites. The simplest of these is to set up a website that is built up around a tight niche. To give you an example I know that you should select “bargain health insurance” instead of the huge niche keyword of “insurance“. It would be quite hard to get lots of visitors using the top keywords, in this case Insurance, but by using less popular keywords you can get traffic to your site from people who are searching for information on the internet using phrases as their search terms. So here are some easy tips on article writing with Adsense income in mind.

Stick to one subject

When you are building an Adsense or potential money making web site you must keep it on one subject. Adsense web sites that try to capture visitors from a wide range of subjects will distract a visitor and ultimately they will not get very high click through rates. The main rule to follow is only write about one topic on your site whether that be dog training, gardening or some other subject.

How to write an article

When you write an article, you will be writing about just one aspect of your niche. You should ensure that the article is well written and has a good flow of ideas from start to finish. To do this I find a lot of keywords that say almost the same thing. So if I had a website on saucepans I could chose to write about cast iron saucepans as the topic for one article. My special keywords would be.

Cast iron saucepans

Antique cast iron saucepans

Cast iron pots

Cooking with cast iron

Using cast iron saucepans,

Etc.

I’m sure that you can see how all of these keywords could work together in an article. If you spend time collecting keywords that work together the article will almost write itself.

Write a natural looking resource box

If you are writing articles to promote your website, many of your articles will be submitted to an article directory. One of the top tips on article writing is to write a good resource box that follows the article without a break. What many people do not realize is that the resource box is not shown as a separate item. It is part of the main content when the submitted article is displayed on an article submission website. So make the content flow on from the last paragraph. Just put in one or two links to your website so that people who read or use your articles on their own sites end up visiting your website for more information on the topic.

Besides being a good communication tool, blogging is also a great way to make money. If you’re new to blogging and yet want to start quickly, there are several business models you can try for maximum results in a short time. This article discusses the three most popular methods.

The first method is get paid to blog or paid blogging. Create your first blog and start adding some decent articles to it. When your blog is at least three months old you can sign up with one or more of the paid blogging networks, and once your blog is accepted you’ll be able to see what “opportunities” are available. These networks are filled with advertisers looking for blogger who can help them spread the word, and they are willing to pay. Accept the opportunity, write about it on your blog, and you get paid.

The second method is WordPress and AdSense and it requires a little more technical know-how. You need to build a WordPress blog on a specific niche topic (gardening, biking, fancy cars), and start writing some good content on it. Then, get links from other blogs by leaving relevant comments on blog posts, promote your RSS feed and get listed in several search engines and directories. The objective is to get traffic that is interested in your topic and those that will also likely be interested in investigating the ads on your site as well so that you can make some money.

The third and most sophisticated method is affiliate marketing with WordPress blogs. Again, you set-up a good WordPress blog, but with this model the amount of content you publish is not as important as the “selling quality” of the content. Each post you write must pre-sell the web visitor and convince him to click on your affiliate links. When the visitor makes a purchase online after that, you get credited for the sale and earn commissions.

Many bloggers use a combination of Adsense and affiliate marketing on their blogs, and some use all three of the methods discussed above.

Ultimately, which model you choose depends on how much time and resources you can dedicate to creating and managing your blogs. Choose a model that requires little investment at first, although this may mean more of your time. When you get the hang of it, you can venture into other blogging models as well.

Every single small business owner is an expert in their field. No matter what product or service  you provide, your customers do business with you because you are the expert in that  arena, and if you are not an expert, then they very quickly realize that and go  somewhere else. People trust experts, and when making a decision about a purchase, they look to  the expert to tell them what they need to know and to give them all of the information they need  to make an informed decision.

For a small business owner who is just getting started, however, it may take some time and effort  to establish yourself as an expert in your field. You may know what you need to know,  you may have the information you need, you may do a superb job at what you do, but if your  potential customers do not know that and cannot see it, then why would they choose to do business  with you? You need to, essentially, place yourself out there in front of them and demonstrate  your expertise. You need to build your reputation as an expert in your specific area, which will  build the trust of your customers and potential customers.

An excellent tool to use when establishing yourself as an expert is blogging. A blog is essentially an online journal. You write about whatever you want, it’s easy and simple to use,  and easy for people to read. This gives you a medium to communicate your expertise, as you can  blog about what you know about your product or service and provide useful information for your  readers.

For example, if your business is selling salt-water fish and aquariums, then you would want to  set up a blog and write about the care of fish, how to set up an aquarium, what you will need to  get started, what kind of fish are good to start out with, what fish and creatures dwell together  well, and so on. Since your business is marine fish, you obviously know a lot about them and have  a lot of information to share, and you can do this in a fun and interesting way, and in whatever  style is you.

Another example, if your business is a car repair service, then you would want to write about not  just car repair, but car maintenance, how to prevent common neglect and accidents, how to care  for your car after repair, how to choose a good mechanic and what to look for in a repair shop.  And the list can go on.

Setting up a blog is easy and inexpensive. There are numerous websites where you can sign up for  free and create your own blog. They already have the tools that you need integrated into the  website, ready for you to use - you can start blogging almost immediately! You can add photos to  your blogs, you can allow readers to post comments, and most blogs have an option for your readers to subscribe to receive new blog posts via email or rss feeds. Google has a blog service that can be found at www.blogger.com. Another free one is at www.thoughts.com. For other options,  just do a Google search for “free blog” or similar keywords. These sites will give you your own subdomain, such as www.yourblog.blogger.com, which links directly to your blog. You can then give  this url out to your friends, customers, and include it in your marketing materials to direct  people to your blog.

If you are not sure what to write about, or are afraid you will run out of topics, try some of  these ideas:

Keep a paper and pen handy with you in your purse, by the phone, on the dash of your car, in your shirt pocket or wherever is convenient for you. You will find that as you go through a normal day, you may get ideas for blog topics. Write these down as you get them, then when you go to blog, you will already have a list of great topic ideas!

Ask your readers what they would like to know about. Invite them to email you questions. Some blog sites may have a tool where you can create a quick poll or a short survey. Use these to get feedback and to find out what your customers are interested in knowing about your subject.

Browse magazines on your subject. This may spark ideas and you may be able to build off what you’ve read.

Borrow from other experts. If you run across another blog, or website, or an article in a magazine that you really like and would like to feature in your blog, then get permission from the author and post the article on your blog. Most authors will be more than glad to let you use their article as long as you provide their information and a link back to them, but don’t forget to ask first.

Use your own experience. Do you have some entertaining stories from your experience in this  field? Do not be afraid to throw in some fun and humor.

Blogging does not have to be tedious and boring, or take up huge amounts of time. If you are not a natural writer and feel like it’s too much of a job to sit there and write a long post, then don’t!  Keep it short and simple, or whatever is your style. Remember that it is your blog, so let it reflect your personality.

If you find you simply do not have any time at all to do your blog, then hire someone else to do it. Perhaps you already have someone working for you who can take it on, or perhaps you know someone who would be interested. You can give them your topic ideas, or even use a voice recorder to record the posts for them to type out in the blog. Again, whatever works for you, your style  and your business!

The world of blogging is a wonderful tool to use to keep in touch with your target customers and  to establish trust as an expert. If you take the time to start, you will find it well worth the while and will learn a lot from it as well! You have information and expertise to share - a blog  is a great medium to use to get it out there!

In the earlier post in this series, I reviewed what blog carnivals are and why all up and coming bloggers should be participating in them. In case you missed that post, let me review quickly the benefits to participating in blog carnivals:

• They improve your authority
• You immediately get regular, profitable readers of your partner blogs
• You get an immediate surge of traffic to blog entries
• You get a longer term increase in search result rankings

What I’m going to review in this post is how you can get the most benefit out of your carnival participation. Let’s face it, carnivals require effort and time, so you might as well get the most benefit and good will from them as possible. Here’s how you can do just that:

1) Add your posts early. There will be a submission deadline, but in all likelihood the host already has some idea on how the post will be structured before the deadline, so you want your article submitted during this early stage.

2) Make the host’s job easy: Learn how to create blog article titles that are clever, and come up with two or three powerful, compelling headings that can be used for the anchor text in links. Good headlines are hard to craft, so create them on your own. You’ll save the host the effort and get more traffic from a more powerful headline.

3) Follow the submission guidelines.

4) Get organized: Organize the information you enter. Include your name, e-mail address, blog name, article title, post summary, several sample headings, trackback URL, and permalink. Place this information in an e-mail above the full article itself, unless otherwise directed.

5) Promote: Once submitted, be sure to advertise the carnival. What goes around comes around, and your collaborative efforts to generate traffic will payoff for all of you in the long run. That’s the concept behind these carnivals: all participants are sharing readers, giving each the opportunity to attract the others’ regular readers.

6) Make sure your blog can handle your visitors: Prepare your blog for any traffic surges that might occur, and optimize the page that the carnival readers will be viewing. You’ll want to aim the offers or ads to your audience, provide a very conspicuous subscribe link, and follow-up with at least a week’s worth of solid articles to capitalize on any lingering traffic you might have.

Blog carnivals are a terrific way to attract profitable, relevant, qualified, long-term readers. Use them properly and you’ll reap the rewards. But you must be ready to put your best foot forward. Pick up a good blogs how to if you have any doubts on how you can optimize your blog for this kind of traffic.

Good luck!

I can’t think of a more common question or concern among both novice and experienced bloggers alike: which blogging platform should I pick? Aside from learning how to blog, it’s an almost universal concern.

And there is no definitive answer. All bloggers SHOULD own their domain names, but platform choice is mainly dependent on the individual blogger’s needs and possibly, finances. That said, I’ve compiled a list of pros and cons of the two main platform categorizations below.

Hosted Platforms

Hosted platforms refer to services whereby a service provider gives you access to their network connection, hardware, and software, and you create a blogging account for use on their service. With a hosted blog, you have access to an admin panel for your blog, and that’s it.

Common hosted platforms include packages like Blogger, TypePad, Wordpress.com and LiveJournal.

Advantages of Hosted Platforms

• Economical: many are free; others (like TypePad) are offered with multiple price points
• Quick to setup: just sign up for an account and then quickly  learn how to create blog posts
• Automatic updates: you don’t need to concern yourself with keeping hosted software up-to-date and patched.

Disadvantages of Hosted Platforms

• Rigid: there are fewer customization options with hosted platforms.
• Not as many design options: you typically only get to choose from a limited number of standard designs, and you often can’t make updates to them
• Generic URL: some hosted platforms don’t offer the choice to use your own URL
• Lack of control: you are at the mercy of the platform
• Migration issues: moving from some free hosted platforms results in a lot of effort and often the temporary loss of search engine rankings

Self-hosted Platforms

Self-hosted platforms consist of a web hosting account you establish with a host, and the blogging software you install on the data center’s server. With a self-hosted blog, you have access to an administrative panel for your blog, but you also have access to a server account and the blog software where you can do almost anything.

Common self-hosted software includes WordPress, Joomla, and Drupal.

Advantages of Self-hosted Platforms

• Design flexibility: you have complete control over design and layout
• Great software: the best software exists on self-hosted platforms
• Custom URL: custom URL’s are ubiquitous on self-hosted platforms
• Adaptability: as your needs change, so can your blog
• Easy migration: should you ever want or need to move to a different platform or another server, migrating is a snap

Disadvantages of Self-hosted Platforms

• Difficult setup: setup can sometimes be difficult, but this can be overcome with a good blogs how to
• Cost: while the blogging software is free, the hosting platform and domain names will cost you money
• Hosting issues: unless you choose a good host, you might have to suffer from down-time or poor support. ( i personally recommend Hostgator as a web host, I use them.)
• Upgrades: you will need to keep your software patched

The majority of my blogs are self-hosted, and it’s what I generally advise anyone looking to create a professional presence. There are too many advanatges to turn down, and you usually have the option to host many blogs and domains on one account, driving the cost per blog down to a small amount.

Let me just say that I’m a huge fan of blog carnivals. They’re not without their drawbacks, of course, but the benefits entirely outweigh the investment of time and effort that you put into them.

That’s why it confounds me that blog carnivals aren’t as popular as they should be. Yes, the first few times that you participate in them, it might take you some extra time to learn the ropes. And new carnival networks can sometimes be more unreliable than one would like. But get hooked up with a good group of bloggers in your field, and carnivals are effective ways to:

• Increase your authority
• Immediately get profitable, regular subscribers of your partner blogs
• Get a quick boost of traffic to blog posts
• Get a longer term improvement in search result rankings

Carnivals: Just the Facts

A blog carnival is a web event consisting of a loose partnership of bloggers writing about a predefined topic. The posts created (or linked to) during a carnival usually resulting in a magazine-like format. The carnival has a title, theme, editors, writers, and consumers. Most carnivals are held regularly with rotating hosts.

A carnival usually has an owner, who is the organizer of the overall carnival, deciding or collaborating on converns like rules, frequency, how to blog in the carnival, editorial guidelines, and such. The owner also acts as the coordinator, determining the hosting schedule for the carnival.

Each carnival has a specific host, and the host’s blog is where all the blog articles for that particular carnival are held. In reply to the submission call, every blogger participating in the carnival submits their post to the host, where it is reviewed, edited, and published in the host blog as one giant post (link bait) or a series of smaller posts. Obviously, you’ll need to know how to create blog posts that are effective and compelling to get the most benefit.

Carnivals usually draw loads of qualified traffic, so bloggers participating in the carnival receive a powerful backlink from the host and the immediate traffic surge associated with the initial readers. The carnival host receives links from each of the participating bloggers who have teamed together to advertise the carnival, knowing that the better the carnival is, the more powerful the links will be when it comes time for them to host.

Now that you know what a carnival is, we’ll talk about how you can maximize your carnival participation . . . in our next post!

To read an updated version about the best article submission service and how to instantly multiply your article marketing efforts by 10 times check out Article Marketing Automation.

In this post I’m going to talk about great ways to make money writing articles. Are you looking for easy ways to make money online or from home? If so, you may come across article writing online. There are a number of different great ways for you to make money writing articles from home.

Although writing articles online can help you make money from home, it is not necessarily something that you should do on a whim. First, create a small business plan. After all, if you want to write articles to make money from home, you are essentially creating a business. That business needs to be well thought-out to be profitable.

It is also a good idea to decide what type of articles you want to write, ahead of time. Are you knowledgeable on the subject of software, cell phones, and computers? If so, did you know that you can specialize in technical writing, which tends to pay more? Do you want to stick with writing articles like traditional web content or would you like to branch out to sales letters and press releases? To make the most money, you may want to consider trying all of these different ways of making money from home writing articles.

Next, you will want to decide who you want to write for. Do you want to write for yourself or for others? Know that each has its own advantages and disadvantages. For example, if you’re going to use your articles to create a niche website that will make money through advertisements, it can take up to 9 months or more for you to start seeing a profit. On the other hand, if you obtain clients to write articles for, you should be paid within 14 days, on average.

You should also take the time to think about how much money you want to make writing articles from home. Asuming you are able to write articles and work from home, you may be seeing huge dollar signs. With that said, like any other legitimate work-at-home opportunity, you will not get rich right away. Website content articles vary a lot. Some writers charge $5 per page, while others can charge as much as $50 for a page.

Determining your rate ahead of time is not required, but it will help to ensure that you are paid what you are worth. Yes, you can raise or increase your rates, depending on the projects in question, but do not undersell yourself just to find a client who will pay you to write articles to make money. After all, you want to make money, not lose it right? At the very least, make sure you get paid your state’s minimum wage.

If you choose to write articles for others, you will want to target either webmasters or search engine optimization companies. Webmasters often look for article writers who can write the content for their websites. SEO companies are hired by webmasters to optimize their sites and increase their search engine rankings. Article writing is an important component of search engine ranking. Aside from outright targeting these individuals and companies, you can look for freelance job boards, visit freelance bidding websites, or create your own website.

If you opt to write your own articles, it is important to know that you have a number of different moneymaking options. One of the easiest ways to make money is to sell your content online. There are websites that allow you to do so, but these websites tend to take a percentage of the sale. There are also websites that either pay you outright or with a page view bonus for displaying your articles on their website.

Another approach that you can take is to create your own website. You can use your articles to create a niche affiliate website. For example, if you’re going to write articles on dog grooming, your website could have a generalized dog care theme. Later on, you can add additional articles, such as articles that mention tips for dog agility, etc. With this approach, you can make money online through advertisements, affiliate products and Adsense ads.

As you can see, there are a number of great ways available for you to make money writing articles. In fact, that is what is so nice about doing so. You have the freedom to decide how you want to make money.