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May 15th, 2007 — blogs
If I had alot of time on my hands I would definitely spend more time learning and using CSS. It can be very satisfying when you design something good using CSS. However, as a webmaster for several blogs, I know how time consuming CSS can be. Therefore, I tend to put content before CSS.
Nevertheless, a few tweaks to your design can make a big difference to the uniqueness of your sites.
Here are some useful CSS tips. If you would like to add any other CSS resources, please add as a comment.
I particularly like:
the good thing about the pull quote is people read it
May 14th, 2007 — blogs
What makes a good URL.
A good URL should involve:
1. Never Change.
At all costs try to avoid changing URLs, it will only cause problems. You could set up redirects, but, it is alot of work and search engines may dislike excessive changes. Choose a good URL structure and stick with it. If your current URL structure is less than ideal, don’t worry it’s not going to hold you back. It will probably be better to go forward, rather then spending time, changing old URL’s
May 14th, 2007 — SEO
This is a tricky question, there are advantages and disadvantages of both approaches.
Advantages of having date in Blog URL.
1. It’s good for readers, they like to know when an article was published. I like seeing the date on blog post, so I can choose the most recent. If it’s useful for your readers it should be a good thing to do.
2. It gives a certain structure to your site. It’s a logical approach for a blog to take.
3. Numerical URls are suitable for international understanding
Disadvantages of Having Date in Blog URL.
May 13th, 2007 — blogs
A traditional view of New sites is that Google will sandbox a site for upto 6 months, or in some cases longer. The argument is that a sandbox stops “spam” sites. Spam sites often have a very short life span; often they are in response to some keyword that temporarily becomes very popular e.g. Some celebrity like Britney Spears.
Some SEOs were of the opinion that whatever you did, you could expect little if no traffic from Google.
With this in mind I was surprised this blog ranked very highly for “Wordpress vs Blogger” after only 3-4 weeks in existence. Its not the hottest keyword, but it is bringing some traffic each day, which show people are searching it. Today 13th May ,it ranked 2nd on Google.com and was higher than more established blogs and websites (and higher PR),
This and other experiences suggest that the Google sandbox is much less rigid than it used to be. If you can get a range of links and good quality content, google seem more willing to let you miss the sandbox. In this regard, I was lucky to benefit from many inbound links as result of participating in Pro Blogger’s Top 5 Writing Competition. This gained quite a few links from relevant sites. The links also had a degree of diversity.
May 11th, 2007 — blogs
Blogs where Comments have no_follow attribute removed. Make sure your comments are useful though
6 free ways to turbo charge your blog where I found the nofollow tip
Getting links from .edu sites at Daily Blog tips
Some selections from Pro Bloggers’ top 5 Writing Contest
Top 5 SEO skills at Search Engine People
May 11th, 2007 — blogs
This post is primarily aimed at beginners to blogging. If you have been blogging for a while, you may have learnt some of these through practical experiences.
1. Ignoring Google’s own Guidelines
Google’s the boss, if Google says don’t use SEO tricks, there really is little point in doing so. You may be able to fool search engines temporarily, but in the long term they will catch you out. It could even result in getting banned from search engines, which is of course an absolute disaster
Make sure you read Guidelines for Webmasters
2. Duplication of Content.
If you want to rank highly for a keyword, you need to focus on creating original, unique writing. If you have a couple of sites it is mistake to duplicate the same content on each one. Make sure the writing is unique, changing a few words will not fool the search engines See: Writing Tips
3. Unnatural Growth.
Some webmasters are impatient, they want good rankings and high traffic overnight. Therefore, they will do things to try and boost traffic overnight. However, if your site suddenly gets 100 links in one day (and all have same anchor text) it is fairly easy for Search Engines to know these are not natural links. Therefore, they may have little if any benefit. Grow your site naturally and gradually.
May 10th, 2007 — blogs
1. Installation
The big advantage of blogger is that it is easy to add on to your existing site; files are then uploaded by FTP. When creating a blog – just choose “advanced set up” – You will need your FTP username and password. Wordpress, on the other hand is a little more complicated to install. However, if you choose a hosting domain which supports Wordpress, they will have a script which makes installation very easy.
2. Search Engine Indexing.
The argument is that since blogger is owned by Google, they will index Bloggers very quickly. From my experience of using bloggers I find this to be true. Within 24 hours a new post can be indexed and receiving traffic. On standard web pages, it can take upto 2 weeks. However, I don’t think Google are just favouring their own blog software; this blog got indexed very quickly, and is already getting traffic via Google, after 2 weeks. There are also concerns that exampleblog.blogspot.com have the highest % of spam blogs.
3. Design.
With regard to design I think Wordpress is the clear winner. The default choice of Kubrick is better than the most popular blogger templates. But, the real advantage of Wordpress is the huge choice of themes. (Official: Wordpress Themes) It is also very easy to switch between skins, and you can do it without knowledge of html and CSS.
May 9th, 2007 — Blogroll
One of the constant challenges for bloggers is to find new ideas for blog posts. We also need to maintain a motivation and inspiration to write. If you are focusing on a competitive niche, it can also be difficult to think of something different and unique.
These are some suggestions to maintain our inspiration to write.
1. Start off with simple articles.
Writing seems onerous when we expect to produce a masterpiece, or the “best blog post ever”. If you start off with short simple articles, over time you will gain confidence to write longer and more involved articles. We only need a little inspiration to write a short simple article. But, once we actually start to write, we may gain increased confidence and increased inspiration.
2. Find a Suitable Location for Writing
Writing at your computer can be difficult because there are so many distractions, especially if you have internet connection. I often find that my most productive writing sessions occur in a coffee shop, or even at an airport. Whether this is the coffee, of the different location I’m not sure. But it is good to find a quite place where you associate with writing, and where you will not be distracted. Also, always have a notepad ready to write things down should good ideas come
3. Read Good Writers.
Reading good writers will give us ideas and inspiration. Most of my blog posts do not arrive out of thin air. They are usually in response to some other article or post. When we appreciate the good writing of others we can learn from their style and manner; it will help to improve our own writing.
May 8th, 2007 — SEO
When I first started working on websites, like many people, I was fascinated with Google’s Page Rank. PR seemed to be the holy grail, if only you could get a link from a PR 8 site, all your problems would be solved.
The first website I worked on was Poetseers.org. At the time I started work on the site it had low traffic and a PR of 5. I was determined to move the PR to PR6. I worked very hard in creating links and content. In particular, I was always looking to get a link from PR 6 and PR 7 sites. Two things happened as a consequence.
After 2 years I felt PR was of little importance, and now no longer even bother to have it installed on my google bar.
This is not to say PR is completely irrelevant. Generally good sites accumulate a good PR. However, I once heard Google say PR, is for “Entertainment value only” - I think this is quite close to the truth. Don’t worry about PR, concentrate on creating good content and developing your blog in a natural way.
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