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Used under Creative Commons Attribution licence, from RankedHard SEO

Hehehehe, found this online and loved it.  How true!

(If you’re looking for an easily understandable SEO book, check out IttyBiz SEO School (opens in new window) – fantastic ebook.  Leads you step by step through how to set up SEO on your site and why it all works, written in plain english for the non-techie.  Note: the price isn’t on the page but it’s $39.00 and worth every cent!)

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There’s been a lot of talk on the net lately about how Google is moving away from actual keywords and is ranking sites based on content.  Which means all the writers who write ‘articles’ (I’m using the term loosely there) stuffed to the gills with keywords will be out of business.  They’re going to have to start writing proper articles, filled with useful content, and only a few keywords used in an appropriate context within the article.

Here’s the disclaimer:  I’m no SEO expert.  I only recently realised that I had to enter details in to my SEO WordPress plugin.  I’m also no expert, if there is such a thing, on how Google ranks sites, or even how search engines find and display information.  I’ve done some research on it, done a lot of reading, and I have quite a few friends who are professional writers as well.

I have been told that having keywords in your title, in <h1> tags, helps because it tells the search engines give those words priority.  I’ve also been told that having the words ‘Sex’ and ‘Home Business’ also tend to rank well (this article has both sex and home business in the title deliberately)  and they attract a lot of traffic to your site.

However, if someone is coming to my site because they searched on the word ‘sex’ then they’re unlikely to be interested in the business information available here.  Finding the site through ‘home business’ would help them certainly.  I’m not too sure that I’m the right person to help them if they searched on ‘sex home business’ though!  I’ve also had a lot of searches for “make money online quickly” which pulls up this previous post, however I’m pretty sure those people are disappointed as well. 

For those of us who aren’t experts in SEO and are uncertain of how Google works (does anyone really know?) the best way to optimise your site with keywords and for SEO is simply to write quality content.  People will find you, other sites will link to you, your site url will be passed around as a go-to quality site that is worth the time to read.

Search engines are machines and websites aren’t read by machines – they’re read by people.   You need to write for people and not for search engines.  Good quality content, with enough keywords that fit organically within the context of the article will ultimately do more for your SEO and rankings than stuffing an article so full of keywords that it’s unreadable nonsense.  And in the process you’ll attract the customers that you want to bring, who will in turn bring others.

If you want to read about SEO from a person who knows a lot more about it than me, my good friend Marc Pieniazek is currently writing a series of posts on SEO.  I’ll be reading his posts avidly to learn more about SEO, and I highly recommend you sign up for his RSS feed so you don’t miss any as well.

For now, I’m going to be watching my stats with interest to see how well the keyword stuffing in the title draws traffic and from where.  Popcorn anyone?

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I’ve had a few discussions lately with various people about the different WordPress Plugins that are available to boost the functionality of a blogsite. These are my all-time favourite WordPress Plugins that I use on my own blogs (and a few that I’m not using right now but have previously or will be using soon) and wholeheartedly recommend as being extremely useful and easy to use.

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General Plugins

WP-SpamFree
WP-SpamFree blocks spam comments from appearing on your blog.  I have found it to work better than the default Akismet, plus you don’t have to go in and manually delete the spam as you do with Akismet.

Contact Form 7
Creates a great contact form that is easy to use and customise.  This form is brilliant because when you use it you don’t have your email address on your website, just waiting to be harvested by spammers!  The form can be extensively customised from a simple contact form to a detailed form with several sections.

Exclude pages
When you want to have pages on your site that are not included in user menu’s.  For example, a thank you page when people sign up to your newsletter.  This plugin puts a simple tickbox on the Page options when you are creating or editing a page.

MaxBlogPress Super Ninja Affiliate

This is a paid-for plugin that automates adding affiliate links to your site.  You set it up with the affiliate links and keywords and it automatically adds the links.  It prevents affiliate theft where the id is altered so you lose your affiliate payment.

Twitter Meme
(scroll down the page a little for this plugin) I LOVE this one!  Twitter Tools has the option to automatically create tweets from your posts, blog posts from your tweets, a digest of your replies and a couple of other options for Twitter.

Database Backup Plugin
Hands up all those who have lost a site or blog and not had a current backup!  Here’s your answer, the Database Backup Plugin.  It can be set to automatically (daily, weekly, monthly) email or download to the server a full backup of your database.

WP-Shortstat
A quick and easy way to see where you visitors are coming from, what keywords they are searching for, how many visitors and other stats.

I use this one in conjunction with StatCounter which is not a plugin but extremely useful, free and gives very detailed stats.

WP-Super Cache

WP-Super Cache enables faster loading of your site and less bandwidth usage.  Recommended settings are to reset the cache when a page or post is published or updated, and set to ‘Half-On’ and ‘Mobile Support’

MobilePress

Enable your site to be seen on mobile devices such as internet phones.  I’ve tried several mobile plugins and this one seems to be the best.

Commenting plugins

Comment Luv
Automatically inserts a link to the commenter’s latest post on their blog.  The Commenter has the option to untick the box if they wish.  You can also register your blog at Comment Luv and it will collect click-thru stats on your site and comments on other’s sits

Subscribe to Comments
Enables a Commenter to subscribe to comments on an interesting thread.

LinkWithin

This plugin puts three related post links at the bottom of each post, including any graphics in the post.  Customised for each site, it’s a tiny bit of code.

SEO Plugins

All-in-one SEO Pack
SEO out of the box for WordPress blogsites.  While there is still a lot that you can do to improve your SEO yourself, this plugin will give your blog a great boost.

Google Sitemap Generator
Creates a sitemap and updates it every time you make a change on your blog.  Great for the search engines to find and crawl.

Recommended Plugins that I’m not using at present

These four are plugins that I have used, or will be using soon.

Wishlist Member

This is a paid-for plugin that makes setting up a member site easy.  I know of several people who are using this plugin now, and as I have plans for a member site in the future I’ve bought it as well.  There are free plugins out there for member sites, however I’ve yet to find a free plugin that works as well as Wishlist.

Featured Content Gallery
Rotates featured posts and pictures.  This one was recommended by Sandra at TechCoachforCoaches recently.  It looks fascinating and I’m looking for a way to play with it on here!

Smart YouTube

Add a ‘v’ to the http of your video and it automatically inserts it into the post.  Very very easy!

What plugins do you like to use?  Please share your favourites in the comments so we can all check them out!

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‘Build it and they will come’.  Back in the wonderful halcyon days of the early internet, if you simply put up a business website you were considered to be cutting edge and would receive traffic and customers.

Unfortunately that’s no longer true.  Every single business website now has to compete with millions of others on the web and likely hundreds of those are all chasing after the same customers as you.  Now it’s ‘Build it – and hope like anything that they come!’

If that’s enough to make you want to give up right now and go hide under a rock, there is some good news.  Really! There are ways to drive traffic and build your business in the cluttered environment of the internet.  And most of them aren’t rocket science and don’t require an advanced masters degree in psychoanalysis or computer science.  (Unless your business is psychoanalysis or computer science!)

Let’s have a look at some easy ways to get your business out there and noticed:

1.    Look at your website. REALLY look at it!  Now go and ask everyone you know who hasn’t already seen your website to have a look at it, then ask these questions:  Is it attractive to your market?  Is it easy to navigate around?  Is it blindingly obvious what your business is and does?  Is it up to date?

2.    SEO (Search Engine Optimisation). Your website is optimised for SEO isn’t it?  If it’s not, then get out there and get it fixed, like, yesterday.  Not having your site optimised for web traffic is the same as asking a blind person to find their way on a printed roadmap.  It’s just not gonna happen!

3.    Blog on baby! A blog is without a doubt one of the all-time greatest tools you can use to bring traffic to your site.  Constant new, relevant, interesting and keyword-rich content helps the search engines fall in love with you and your site.  Blog technology is optimised for search engines, most are set up to notify the major searchers (Google and Yahoo! for starters) as soon as you post.

4.    Going on with keywords in your content. Keywords, relevant to you target market, are what search engines pick  up on.  Ok, there’s other stuff too, but this is a biggie.  And the keywords need to be used logically in your content.  You can’t just type your keywords over and over and over.  Search engines aren’t stupid.  Use them in your content, in written conversations on your blog.  Watch them be found.

5.    Affiliates and Joint Ventures. Piggybacking on someone else’s traffic.  Do a teleseminar with someone and promote to your newsletter list and theirs.  Sign up Affiliates to your site, you offer them free money if they promote your stuff to their list.  Totally win-win, as long as your stuff is good.  If it’s not – make it fantastic first and then go for the Affiliates.  Any good shopping cart (I love E-Junkie) will have an affiliate program with it.

6.    Guest posting. Piggybacking again.  You’re doing a favour for someone by taking the weight of writing a post off their shoulders, and in return you get a link to your site.  Yup, that’s a win-win again!

7.    Advertise yourself in your email and forum sigs. Include your tagline that tells people what you’re about and a clickable link to your website.  Don’t just have the link, you need to tell people exactly what you do, and make it as clear and memorable as possible!  This one won’t build a ton of traffic for you, however it gets your name and business known, and who knows when Joe Blogs will be talking to a friend, who talks to a friend, who talks to a friend who happens to know you and knows that you’re the perfect person to work with Joe blogs?

8.    Web 2.0. Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc etc etc.  Join half a dozen online communities and build your networks there.  Be active in the online communities (but keep an eye on the time, they can suck up entire days in the blink of an eye!) Facebook and Twitter both have the functionality to automatically promote and link to your latest blog post.  Use the tools and make it easy for yourself.

9.    Promote! Promote! Promote! Continually.  Don’t quit.  Building a torrent of web traffic won’t happen in a day, and is unlikely to happen in a month.  Promotion builds momentum and it needs to be sustained.  A huge promotion this week and then nothing for a month is a surefire way to prevent any real action happening.

Obviously there are a lot more ways to drive traffic to your website, some are free, some require a lot of hard work, some require largish amounts of cash and a web designer.  This list is simply intended to get you thinking, and in a marketing mindset.  Everything you do with your busines is marketing.  Everything.

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One of the worst mistakes a new business owner can make is to use a hosted blog for their business site.  Hosting can be quite cheap, if you use a site such as Hostgator (as I do) you can have unlimited sites under the one hosting plan.

There are three main reasons for having your site or blog self-hosted rather than using a free platform such as Blogger, WordPress, Typepad, Free-Web etc.

1.    Search Engine rankings. When you have your own website every hit on your website increases your rating on search engines.  If your site is hosted on a free platform, they receive the increase in ratings.  The higher your rating on the search engines, the more they will pick up your site.  If you’re giving away your website hits to a free platform they are the one’s being noticed and indexed by search engines, not your business.

2.    Emails. Having an email address myname@myowndomain.com looks far more professional than a free service email.  Gmail is possibly the only exception to this; however I would argue that an email address from your own site is still more professional than gmail.  A bonus of having your own site’s email is that when you email someone they can find your site url from your email.  (Although you have a link in your email sig already, don’t you!)

3.    It looks more professional to have your own domain.  Why use a free platform?  Is it because your business isn’t bringing in enough to pay $8 a year for the domain and $10 per month for hosting?  Using a free platform can raise questions in the visitors minds about the professionalism and authenticity of the business.  Is this a hobby or a real business?

If you love the ease of using a blogging service for your website, have a look at WordPress.

WordPress.org (different to wordpress.com) is an absolute treasure for small businesses to be able to get online and update a website easily.  You can download the WordPress blogging software and install it on your own domain.  In fact, most hosting companies offer instant installation of all the major blogging software onto your own domain.  I prefer WordPress because of it’s ease of use and the huge functionality that you can achieve from installing plugins and widgets.  And as a bonus you can import your free blog onto your new domain, so you keep all your previous work!

If you need some help setting up a blogsite, Sandra de Freitas (TechCoach) has written a great book called “Does This Blogsite Make my Wallet Look Fat“.  Easy to understand, step by step directions for installing and optimising a blogsite.

Free hosting, particularly on blogsites, are a great way to get started and have some practice with getting out into the world wide web.  As your business grows and develops though, it’s to your advantage to register your own domain and move your site over to it.

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Marketing – it’s everything you do to sell your products.  Come to think of it – it’s everything you do!

The aim of these marketing ideas is two-fold.  Firstly, you are making sure you are recognisable and memorable.  The more your branding is in front of someone’s eyes the more they will remember you.  The more they remember you, the more you will be talked about and referred to.  Secondly, you need to provide a motivation and reason to come back and purchase from you, and a reason for your customers to recommend you.

Keep those two points in mind, being recognisable and providing a reason for clients to come back and check everything you do against these two criteria.

1.    Use your email signature feature.  Whether you’re using your personal email address or business address, have your email software set up to automatically insert a signature that includes a clickable link to your business site.  Even better, add a short and memorable sentence that describes what your business does.

2.    Use signature advertising on forums with a clickable link to your business.  Likewise, use a gravatar (www.gravatar.com) when you reply or comment on a blog.

3.    Have a business blog and post in it regularly.  Not regularly twice a year – regularly each week!  Blog software is designed to be picked up by search engines almost immediately, the more you post relevant content with relevant keywords for your target market, the higher your search engine ranking will be and the more people will see your site.

4.    Sponsor competitions or events within your target market.  This has two distinct benefits.  It gets your name known in your market, and it can result in a higher than usual number of visitors to your website.  More visitors means your search engine ratings go up.

5.    Have a distinctive logo made for you, and carry the same colours and design from your website, to your business cards, to your email signatures, to your gravatar.  Whenever your customers see something from or about you, it should be instantly recognisable as YOU.

6.    Make a Strategic Alliance with a complementary business, which is a business promoting to the same target market as you but different products or services to your business.  A nappy/diaper maker teaming up with a designer of baby clothing.  A bag maker teaming up with a fabric shop.  A VA teaming up with a Web Designer.  There are so many possibilities here, both in the types of business that can team up to what that alliance can be.  Putting one of your business cards in with each product they send out.  Advertising in each other’s newsletters.  Interviewing each other and cross-promoting.  Word of mouth referrals.

7.    Publish online articles to sites such as Ezine Articles, LadyPens, The RepOZitory, and WAHM Articles.  Note that your articles are NOT advertisements for your business.  They are informative articles on a topic related to your product.  The advertising comes in the Information Box at the end, where you have your name, a link to your site and a sentence or two on what your business does.

8.    Offer Loyalty bonuses or Referral Bonus’s.    Buy six and get one free.  12th month free.  Refer a friend and receive 15% off your next purchase.

9.    Up-sell!  Every McDonalds’ staff member is trained to ask, “Would you like fries with that?”  Offer accessories to your main product, even discounts if they purchase them together.  Many shopping carts have the capability to offer this, or the ‘other customers who purchased product xyz also bought…’

10.    Make sure your website is set up to attract search engines.  While Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is an extremely in-depth and complicated topic, there are a few things that you can do to increase your chances of being picked up by search engines.  Use Alt text on graphics, particularly your logo.  Your index page is the page that is most often scanned by search engines; make sure it’s full of keywords relating to your target market.  Keep flash graphics to a minimum (they don’t get picked up at all).  Have a lot of keyword rich text throughout your site.  Look at your web statistics and it will tell you what search terms people are using to find you.