When you think of “spam,” as it involves online business, the mind traditionally flies to email. Unsolicited bulk email or UBE is most definitely spam. In this case, the recipient never agreed to receive email from the sender, and it goes against the CAN SPAM act of 2003.
But some websites are classified as SPAM websites by search engines, as well, and this is where SEO comes in. There are definite practices that you want to avoid so that you aren’t penalized. And you will be… it’s only a matter of time.
Not only are search spiders very smart and pick this stuff up pretty readily, there are human editors out there policing these things so that the search results returned by their search engines aren’t all the same, crappy stuff that nobody really wants to see. The site in question is flagged and a real, honest-to-goodness person just comes in and nukes you right off the face of their planet… continue reading »
Did you know that approximately 20 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every MINUTE? Think about it… That’s a LOT of video. Talk about breaking the Web, eh? If anything can do it, video can. But that’s highly doubtful. And video is becoming the most popular form of surfing. From ten to ninety-seven, everyone seems to really love YouTube. When there’s nothing to do, or when you’re in a bad mood, finding some hilarious stuff on the site certainly changes your daily picture.
Remember, Americans love TV, and YouTube and video sites like it, have definitely changed the way we see the Web.
But how do you optimize video for search? Spiders can’t parse video yet, right? So, what can you do?
It’s basically the same as it would be for any web page. Have a KILLER title and description. That’s number one. Your title can be based on something that already gets a lot of views on YouTube or something you make up, but it should definitely have a keyword in it that people are searching for. And the title shouldn’t be too long. Remember that Google only shows 65 characters in your SERPs listing, so keeping your video title to 65 characters or less is a good rule of thumb. continue reading »
Just when we get used to WordPress 2.8, the developers over at WordPress are already working to release WP 2.9. I think that’s neat-o, but for the casual blog user, it may mean upgrades they don’t want to make and plugins that aren’t compatible. These changes often put normal folks into a tizzy.
But, I’m not normal. I was excited when I saw that they were working on a new version! They made some stellar changes in the past two major upgrades, and so, I can’t wait to see the newest release, though I can’t say when that will happen.
Here are some of the new features coming:
Trash Status: You can move pages and other stuff to a trash bin, much like the recycle before permanently deleting. Interesting, but not killer.
rel=canonical for single pages (the page you get to when you click on the title or your “permalink” page): Cool… Gives the search spiders a clear view of what’s going on.
The ability to select “Allow My Blog to Appear in Search Engines” during installation. Well… who wouldn’t want their blog in the SERPs? Some, I’m guessing, and for those folks this is cool. This will block all your pages from spider view. continue reading »
As you know, I’m a HUGE fan of WordPress. Not only do the search spiders love the platform, but it’s so easy to use and so extremely customizable that you can find plugins that help you to do just about anything you want to do with your blog. It’s just incredible!
Anyway, I’m always checking out new stuff, and am excited about a few new plugins I just heard about and thought I’d pass the information around. I have to admit that I haven’t tested them myself yet, but I have every intention of installing and using them as soon as I’m done writing this post. So, here we go:
WP-Contact Form: I do use this one. It’s awesome! If you go to my top nav menu, you can see it. Setting it up is just a matter of making a new page, and plugging a little code into the HTML tab. Simple and one of the things that spiders look for in a web site. If you don’t have a contact form of some kind, you should and this plugin makes it easy for you.
Scissors: Allows you to do some sweet photo editing from your blog, like resizing and cropping. And it helps make the image smaller, which WordPress doesn’t do. It just resizes the image but keeps the size intact. That could mean MB for scanned images, for example. Better to resize before uploading or with this plugin, do it from your blog. A little more convenient, I’d say.
Lifestream: Add as many of your social feeds as you want. Each time you post to Twitter, Facebook, FriendFeed, etc. your updates can immediately be posted to your blog as well. This isn’t for me, though. I like to give a digest on the weekend, when I”m not posting content, but you really don’t want to know every time when I tell someone I hope they feel better, now do you? Be sensible about this. Too much la-di-dah won’t be good for your credibility.
N-Voice: This is a great plugin for folks who’d rather talk than type. It’s great for people who can’t type or people who are handicapped and unable to type. Blogging can be writing, but it can also be talking or video or whatever you want it to be, as long as it’s valuable content.
Redirection: Change your permalink format after making several posts in your blog? This plugin will make your 404 errors 301 redirects, and allows you to point the pages wherever you want them to be. Spiders really don’t like dead ends. This plugin helps stop them from happening.
PayPal Donations: Is your content really good? Do people tweet about it? Do they make comments and tell you how much you’ve helped them? Well… maybe it’s time you started accepting donations. Couldn’t hurt to have a button that lets people decide how good your content really is for them, right? You’ll be seeing one in a widget in my sidebar very soon, I think.
Daiko’s Text Widget: I’ve been using this one for quite some time, and it’s great! It allows you to add php code to your widgets. If you set up a text widget and it doesn’t work… this is your solution. Just add a Daiko’s and you’re probably going to be all set!
So, there are seven really cool plugins that will help you to make your blog awesome and save you a ton of work on some fronts. Try them out, one at a time. If you install more than one and your blog goes kablooey, you’ll know which plugin did it, and you’ll be able to uninstall it and go along your merry way. I’m not saying that any of these will be problematic, but you never know. Sometimes a plugin won’t work with your theme or your version of WordPress. Update to the latest version first, of course, and then… let ‘em rip!
