Tuesday, November 30, 2010

Yahoo Clues

Yahoo recently put out a new tool to compare trends in search items, Yahoo Clues.  It’s a handy way to compare two different search terms and see how they compare to each other.  Here’s a comparison between Black Friday and Cyber Monday.

cybermondayvsblackfriday

First thing we see is that the searches for Black Friday are more consistent over time.  If you were trying to optimize your site for these terms in the years to come, I would focus on ranking for Black Friday more than Cyber Monday because it looks like very few people search for that before Black Friday and I imagine nobody searches for it after Cyber Monday.  The window is so small you’d be better off getting the traffic from Black Friday searches.  (Doesn’t mean you neglect Cyber Monday totally, just put your resources where they will  do you the most good.)

cybermondaydemographics

There’s also demographic info.  I was surprised to see women out searching men across all age groups.  I expected more men to search for Cyber Monday at least.  Shows what I know!

cyber monday locations

There’s also location info.  The leader in both searches?  Illinois.  If you had asked me to name the state that led the way in search volume for these terms I might have had to take 50 guesses.  It’s also amazing to me how low New York is on both tables.

search flow cyber monday

Finally, one very cool tidbit is some insight into what people searched before and after the term you are looking at.  A great look into how the mind of the average searcher works.

A great tool and easy to use, I recommend you play around with it and see what you can discover!

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Thursday, November 18, 2010

How to create an SEO Plan for your Site Pt 3

So far we’ve looked at Keyword research and On-site optimization, today we look at ways you can make your site rank for your keyword with off-site methods.  But before that I need to clear up one thing that was brought to my attention, when I say that you should write posts that use your keywords I’m not suggesting that is all you should do.  You should continue to put out the same content you have been but you should also sprinkle in the occasional post that is targeted for your keyword phrase.  What this does is keep your regular readers happy, (you are still putting out great content) but brings in new readers as well from the Search Engine results.  It’s also important to remember that if you like getting ad revenue from your site (and who doesn’t) far more visitors from Google searches click on ads than regular readers, that’s why it is important to always have a steady stream of first-time visitors.  There are a few helpful discussions of this on my BlogFrog page.  Now, on to off-site optimization!

Articles

Articles are an easy method of getting a backlink that is targeted to your keyword phrase.  All you do is sign up for an article hosting website like E-zine articles.  There are a lot of them out there but E-zine seems to be the most trusted but I have seen a lot of success with a few others like Squidoo or ArticlesBase.  Once you sign up write an article (or a series of articles) that talks about your keyword phrase, then put a link to your site in the “About Author” section.  Ideally the anchor text in the link should also be the keyword phrase you are focused on.  For instance, let’s say you’ve done your research and found that the keyword phrase you want to focus on is “crochet baby bonnets”. (I’ve picked this phrase because I know nothing about it and am not really sure I spelled it right.)  You would write a series of articles with with titles like “Unusual ways to crochet baby bonnets”, “5 ways to crochet baby bonnets”, or “What to consider before you crochet baby bonnets”; then in the “About Author” section you would say something like “Jane Blow has been crocheting baby bonnets (That would be linked) and other clothes for years.  Read more about crocheting (or baby bonnets, whatever) at www.blahblahblah.com.”  I know of one woman in particular that has a website that is an affiliate site for a relationship advice product, all she does is after sending her kids off to school, she writes a new article every day about some aspect of her product and includes a link back to her site.  She says it’s a rare day that she doesn’t make $300-$400 through her site, she’s been so consistent and so focused for so long that she is reaping the benefits every day.

Comments

combox Another great way to get a link back to your site with your keyword phrase is to comment on other people’s sites, you just need to keep two things in mind.  First, your comment can’t be stupid.  Someone put time and effort into that post so read what they wrote and give good feedback.  No one likes a spammer.  Second, the most helpful way to get a backlink to your site is to use your keyword phrase as your name.  Generally most comboxes will ask for your name, email, and website and will link your name to your website so if you put your keyword phrase into the “name” box you will get a link to your site that uses your keyword phrase as the anchor text.  You should set a goal of at least one or two comments a day with links back to your site, this will force you to interact with other sites and keep tabs on your competition as well.  An easy way to find places to leave comments is to set up a Google Alert for your keyword and you will get a daily email of other blogs and websites that are relevant for your phrase.

Ask for Backlinks

One of the easiest ways to get backlinks is to just ask for them.  If you are active enough in your niche that you’ve built up a relationship with others, ask them to link back to you with your keyword as the anchor text.  Make it easy for them by writing a great article and then ask for a favor, the worst they can do is say no.

What methods do you use for off-site SEO?  Come join the conversation at the SEO Assistant BlogFrog page.

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Tuesday, November 16, 2010

Fake Activism - TWLOHA

TWLOHA Every once in a while, some new fad takes over my FaceBook wall and I’m forced to wade through dozens of posts promoting awareness for some new cause.  Sometimes it’s the color of a woman’s bra to promote Breast Cancer Awareness or some other bit of trivia for the Cause of the Minute.  This last weekend was To Write Love On Her Arms Day (TWLOHA) and I was treated to untold numbers of pictures of people who had written the word “Love” on their arms and taken pictures of it to boost awareness of the TWLOHA movement and their fight against abuse, molestation, incest, and other forms of sexual trauma.

Don’t get me wrong, I think the sexual abuse of children is horrible and every effort should be made to eradicate it.  And kudos to the TWLOHA people for finding a unique way to generate “buzz” and get their program out there.  In fact, it is really the trendy cause du jour among middle-class Christian teens.  It’s not uncommon at all to see a few TWLOHA T-shirts in most Youth Group meetings.

TWLOHA2 The concern I have is that this type of “activism” confuses meaningless symbolic acts (posting pics on FaceBook) with actually doing something meaningful and concrete.  If a teen writes a word on their arm, posts a pic of it, then goes on with their life with some sense of having actually accomplished something they are deceiving themselves.  Christ has not called us to a life of FaceBook posts but a life of service and sacrifice and if a Christian confuses the former for the latter then they are headed for a life that makes no impact for the Kingdom of God.  I’m not saying we should stop promoting causes we believe in, I’m saying our symbolic acts need to be followed up by some kind of sacrifice on our part for that cause.  Whether it be a monetary donation, volunteering to serve in some way, time spent in prayer for them, or any other thing you can think of; if our “activism” costs us nothing then it accomplishes nothing.

The Bible teaches us that our greatest joy is found in focusing on others.  In fact it’s often said that JOY is an acronym that tells us that in order to get Joy you have to put Jesus first, Yourself last, and Others in between.  You are robbing yourself when your life consists solely of symbolic acts when Christ calls us all to the joy that is available when we roll up our sleeves and actually do something for the Kingdom.  Let me encourage everyone who reads this go do something and find out for themselves that there is more joy in working sacrificially than posting pics on FaceBook.

Looking for a Reformed Church in Arlington TX?  Join us at www.ArlingtonBelievers.com

Monday, November 15, 2010

How to create an SEO Plan for your Site Pt 2

Last time we started our look at how to create an SEO plan for your site with “Keyword Research”.  If you haven’t read that yet, click here see what you missed.  Once you have a set of keyword phrases in mind, pick one to focus on for a week or two.  As time goes on you can rotate through your list to make your site more relevant for multiple phrases but for now let’s just pick one and focus on it.

On-Site Methods

Today we are going to look at things you can do on your site to make it rank better for the phrase you’ve chosen.  What we are trying to do here is convince Google (Or Yahoo, etc.) that when someone types the phrase you’ve chosen in to their search bar, your site should be at the top of the list, at the very least on the first page.  To do this, you are going to have to create content that uses the phrase you’ve chosen.

Blog Posts

This is the easiest way to get it done.  Just write a post or a series of posts that explain or at least use the phrase you’ve chosen.  Let’s say the phrase you’ve chosen to focus on is “How to use coupons”, you would write a post that would use those words in the title of the post.  Then in the body of the post you would use those words as much as possible.  Start off with something like, “Today we are going to look at how to use coupons”, or “Ever wonder how to use coupons?  Let’s learn together.” or however you want to do it.  Then create a very informative post explaining your keyword phrase.  Don’t write for Google and just repeat your keyword phrase over and over but create good, useful content for your readers that uses the phrase you’ve chosen.

URLs

Another easy way to make your post be more relevant in Google’s eyes is to include the keyword phrase in the URL.  The easiest way to do this is to set your Blog to include the title of your post in the URL and then make sure to use your keyword phrase in the title.  If you don’t already have this set up, in WP go to Settings=>Permalinks and click one of the presets that includes to post name in the URL. (Like “Day and Name” or “Month and Name”)  You might also have a plug-in (like “All in one SEO”) that is already doing this for you.

The key here is to really make your blog the place to go for information on the keyword phrase you’ve chosen.  You want it to stand out above all the others and have the best info on the web for that phrase.  Next time we will look at some off-site things you can do to capture the Search Engine Results Pages for your phrase.

Please visit my BlogFrog Page and give me your feedback on this post.

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Friday, November 12, 2010

How to create an SEO plan for your site Pt 1

Most people start a site with very little thought given to SEO.  They have a passion and want to start writing and sharing and they assume that eventually they will get a following.  And sometimes that’s exactly what happens!  Other times their efforts fall into the static of all the other blogs out there and languish in obscurity.  Fortunately, with a  little planning you can get your blog noticed by more people and begin to see some fruit from your labors.  The important thing is to have a plan for your site and then follow through.  For the next few posts, we are going to look at how to implement a step-by-step plan and what you can do to increase the Search Engine traffic for your site.

Do Keyword research

The first step is to figure out what keywords you want to do focus on.  There are a number of tools out there to help with this.  If you have a little money to spend (or can get all your research done within the free trial limit) you should go with Market Samurai, a very powerful and easy to use app that makes market research very easy.

If you don’t go that route, then make use of the old standby; Google Keyword Research Tool.  It’s very easy to use and gives good results.

Step 1 Select a Keyword

Go to the Keyword tool home page and type in a phrase that has something to do with your site.  This could be anything but you want to be a little vague so you can see the range of options it brings up.  For this example, I’ve typed in “Mommy blog”

Google Keyword

Step 2 Take a look at the results.

Keyword result

The first column you want to look at is the “Competition” column.  The less green in the result bar, the less competition for that phrase.  I was actually surprised to see that that for the most part this is an underserved niche.  There is very little competition for virtually every relevant keyphrase.  In other words, with a little focus and determination you could get your blog at the top of the Google results pages for some very lucrative search terms.

You also want to look at the number of searches for that term.  It doesn’t matter if you focus on a low-competition keyword if nobody is searching for it.  For instance “redneck mommy blog” has no competition but nobody is searching for it so don’t focus on it.  On the other hand, “baby blog” gets a ridiculous number of searches and has no competition.  In fact, if you go to the Google results page for that term there’s stuff that probably shouldn’t be there. (A fake blog from an Office character that has two posts in the last 6 months?  Practically begging someone to take its place on the results page)

Your Homework

Play around with the Keyword Tool and find some keyword phrases that fit your blog, are low competition and have a good number of searches.  You should have a list of 3-5 keyword phrases and rank them in the order you want to focus on them and next time we will look at what to do with them.  In the mean time, I’m interested in any SEO plans you have for your site and what has happened with them.  Please go to my BlogFrog forum and answer the question, your input will be very helpful as we move forward.  Thanks!

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Thursday, November 4, 2010

The Election

Well the election results are in and it looks good for the Republicans and bad for the Democrats.  While I can only hope that this means a return to fiscal responsibility and smaller government, (do I dare dream of a balanced budget?) it’s important to remember that regardless of how the election goes, God is still in charge.  He directs the King’s (and President’s!) mind like a watercourse in His hands, He determines the direction of the country and He has the final say on what our Government does.  Let’s make sure we are not looking to Washington to be our Savior, we already have a Savior and He’s enough.

Looking for a Reformed Church in Arlington TX?  Come join us at www.ArlingtonBelievers.com
Looking for a great company that does Home Repair and Remodel in Arlington TX? Visit www.HouseMendersofTexas.com.

My BlogFrog Community

I have started a new community for people with questions about SEO in general and SEO for small blogs in specific.  Please come over to www.myblogfrog.com/SEOAssistant and join!  Today’s question is, “What do you understand the least about SEO?”  My plan is to use this information to create a few blog posts hopefully explaining some of the intricacies of the SEO world.  Please click on the link above, join the community and tell me what you think!

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Monday, November 1, 2010

De we need to prepare for Martyrdom?

In yesterday’s sermon, we spent a great deal of time on the subject of martyrdom. Talking about the possibility of giving your life for the sake of the Gospel is always a little uncomfortable in my Western, well-fed, prosperous context. Martyrdom seems like such a remote possibility that I would do better to be worried about a meteor falling out of the sky and killing me because there is a greater probability of that happening then actually dying for my faith. Talking about how to handle yourself in a situation that could lead to martyrdom seems to fly right over the heads of most of the people in my congregation. “When am I ever going to need this?” seems to be the silent question in their eyes as I speak.


Is the possibility of martyrdom something we should be spending time on in a church service?  After all there hundreds of other topics I could cover that would seem more relevant to my congregation’s lives and spiritual walks. Despite this, Pastors need to give instruction on this matter because any Pastor will tell their flock how to live well, good Pastors will tell their flock how to die well. Here’s a few reasons.

1. The Bible talks about Martyrdom.

 Any Pastor worth his salt is going to be preaching through the Bible verse by verse. When you do that you will inevitably hit a verse that mentions martyrs and you have a responsibility as a faithful exegete to handle that Scripture and apply it to the lives of your people.  Preaching like this will hit every topic important to God in the exact ratio that God has included it in His Word.


2.  Your flock needs to know it’s a possibility.

Even in America it is possible to be made a martyr and every day it seems like we are moving closer to that being a reality. When government makes it impossible for Christians to speak the truths of the Word in certain situations, how far will you take it? Will you still call Homosexuality an abomination when they threaten you with jailtime?  Will you still speak out against Abortion if they will fine you? What if it gets worse and the punishments get more severe?  What if you are in a situation where mob violence takes over?  How will you react?  Which leads us to our final point...


3. You flock needs to have an opportunity to decide now what they will do then.

Being put in a position of possible martyrdom may catch us by surprise so we need to have our response thought out before hand. How would you react if threatened with torture? Death? The murder of your child or another loved one? Hopefully these are questions we will never have to face in reality but we should prepare ourselves mentally for the possibility.  Think through different scenarios and mentally steel your self for different difficult circumstances.

While martyrdom is an unpleasant topic, it should be preached on and dealt with in a pastoral matter.  Every believer should be prepared for possibility of losing money, property, and even our very lives for the sake of the Gospel so if that day comes we will be able to stand strong in our faith.  Remember, if we deny Him before men, He will deny us before His Father and only those that endure to the end will be saved so nothing less than our eternity is at stake when persecution unto death comes upon us.

Looking for a Reformed Church in Arlington TX? Visit us at www.ArlingtonBelievers.com.
Looking for a great company that does
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Best of Today's SEO - 11/01/2010

Why Search Metrics are Horrible – A look at how common SEO Metrics are falling into irrelevancy

Blekko – A new Search engine that provides SEO data on the SERP’s

Local Search – A new look at how to rank for local searches.

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