Category: admin

We’ve all heard it said that content is king. There is an argument going around, and has been for a long time now, about what is more important – keywords or links. It’s like asking what is more important for the human body: Food or water? Well, you need both to live. The .

When it comes to website development, your website needs both keywords and links. You must have some kind of internal link structure. Otherwise, all you’ve got are a bunch of loosely connected single pages. But without keywords, true search engine optimization can’t take place. Search engine optimization relies on keywords and links working together in tandem for maximum effectiveness.

Instead of asking whether links or keywords are more valuable, webmasters should be asking themselves what they can do to maximize their optimization opportunities.

Premium WordPress Themes – Link Architecture

Google Webmaster Central Blog posted its second in the series on links yesterday and the topic was link architecture. Before commenting, let’s define link architecture:

Simply put, link architecture is how you structure your internal links – your page to page links. Personally, I prefer two methods of link architecture and I recommend using them both.

• Crawlable navigation menu
• In-text links

• Crawlable Navigation Menus
  A crawlable navigation menu is one that is HTML-based, not Javascript or dynamic php. You might think the flashy navigation bars and drop down menus are cool, and maybe your human visitors will too, but the search engines won’t be able to crawl them. Anything not crawlable by the search engines will hinder your search rankings. Why do it?

  You are much better off with simple links as a navigation menu. It’s OK to have buttons and the buttons can serve as the hyperlinks. You can also hyperlink the text overlaying the button, but stay away from Flash menus, php menus that require mouseovers and mouse actions for activation. They are not crawlable.

  While Google has said that it now has the capability to crawl text within Flash, that capability is still limited and none of the other search engines can do it. While the text may be crawlable, the anchor text likely will not register as heavily as anchor text within HTML code. Why take that risk?

• In-Text Links
  In addition to the navigation menu, which should only have your most valuable page links on it, you should also have some in-text links sprinkled throughout your body content that encourages your visitors to visit other pages on your site. This is the best internal linking structure available. The search engines love to crawl in-text links and human visitors are more likely to click those links as well if they are used properly, intelligently, and sparingly. In other words, don’t litter your pages with links, but use the links strategically to drive traffic where you want it to go.

  I think the best use of in-text links is within a tiered site structure. If you map out your website in a Tier 3 fashion where your home page is tier 1, pages in the navigation menu are tier 2, and emplacing in-text links from your tier 2 pages to your tier 3 pages, then you ‘ll have an intelligent site structure that search engines will find crawlable and your human visitors will find easy to use.

• Bonus Link Architecture Method: Sitemaps
  Sitemaps are not necessary for every site. I think small sites with 20 pages or less don’t need them if they are easily crawlable by the search engines. I believe sitemaps are only necessary for larger sites that require more work from the search engines, and your human visitors, to find what they are looking for. Even then, a sound link architecture is better than trying to put a band-aid on a sore site with a sitemap. The sitemap won’t fix architectural problems. It might even make them worse. You are much better off working on a good link architecture and getting it to work for you then augmenting it with a sitemap only when your site is large enough to require one.
• Link Architecture Bottom Line
  The bottom line on link architecture is to develop a site structure that is both search engine friendly and human visitor friendly. It’s the most important thing to learn about links and there is no substitute. A solid link architecture rich with relevant anchor text will do more to increase your search engine standing than anything else related to links. It’s the bottom line.

Premium WordPress Themes – Old Links

The Google Webmaster Blog is about to piss off a lot of people. They’re going to discuss links in a four-part series, starting with the overview, which was today. Tomorrow they’ll discuss internal links. The day after they’ll cover outbound links. On day 4 the topic will be inbound links.

The reason I think they’re going to piss people off is when they get to day 4 they’re going to tell people not to buy links and quit wasting all your time obsessing on inbound links.

I think links are important, but there’s no reason to obsess. Too many webmasters are scrambling from here to there looking for the right combination of links, buying into paid link schemes, and riding the next wave of stupidity to Crash and Burn City. If you’ve been there before then you know it’s not much of a sight and you’ll definitely not want to go back.

Inbound links are good. Some are better than others. But let Google tell you straight up as I think they will: They’re not gold.

This is just the tip of the proverbial iceberg. There are many more reasons why you might want to start your very own blog. Perhaps if you see blogging as a hobby or you want to write about a hobby of yours and you don’t expect your blog to make you any money then you might go to one of the free blog hosts, but I wouldn’t recommend it even then. The best offer versatile built-in design options. Here’s why you don’t want your blog on a free blog host:

• Loss of Control
• Host Won’t Allow Advertising
• Credibility
• Flexibility

Premium WordPress Themes – Control Your Blog

Many bloggers have fallen into this pitfall. They set up a blog on a free host only to have that blog frozen or deleted altogether without notice or explanation. Most free blog hosts will have it in their guidelines that they can do this and you can’t do anything about it. When you sign the agreement form you are essentially giving them permission to take away your blog at any time. Blogger beware!
Free Blog Hosts May Not Allow Advertising – Even AdSense
Free blog hosts typically make their revenue off of AdSense and other advertising streams. They don’t want you competing with them. Therefore, they don’t allow advertising. Guess what? You lose!
Credibility
Most blog readers look down upon free blog hosts. If they visit your blog they will not consider you the expert that someone with a dedicated domain name is. Furthermore, a MicroSoft study shows that 75% of the blogs on Blogger.com are responsible for sending out spam. If you are mixed up in that crowd then you may be perceived as a spammer by association. You don’t want to get a bad reputation before you start, do you?
Flexibility
Most free blog hosts do not have the level of flexibility that software like WordPress has. For instance, on free blog hosts, you may not have the ability to create categories or tag your posts. You also likely will not be able to trackback, an important ability for a blogger. With WordPress, you have all the tools you need to run a successful business blog.
The Real Way To Run A Business Blog
If you are going to start a blog for your business then here’s the recommended path:

• Purchase a domain name
• Download WordPress
• Install WordPress on your domain name
• Configure WordPress
• Start blogging
• Promote your blog

Premium WordPress Themes – Website Analytics

If you’re not paying attention to what visitors on your website are doing, you should. How else are you going to improve your website to capitalize on your strengths and tweak your weaknesses? Without a proper analysis of visitor activity, you are like a man trying to paddle a boat without an oar.

You should receive some basic information from your web hosting company that will help you analyze visitor activity. If not, then you should change web hosting companies. That web hosting company should include statistics about the number of visitors who visit your website, how long they stay there, which pages they visit while they are there, how long they spend on each page, entry and exit points for each visitor, and the less important number of hits your website receives.

Don’t focus on hits, however. A hit is widely misused by people who don’t understand how to analyze their traffic. A hit is simply how many times information has been requested by a server. That can include each graphic on each page. So one visitor to a web page with 25 graphics will register as 25 hits. That is terribly misleading.

A more accurate measure of traffic is the average number of visitors your receive during a certain period of time – daily, weekly, monthly, etc. However, don’t be fooled into thinking that if your traffic keeps going up in a measurably dramatic way that you have built a fabulous website. You should ask other questions like how long visitors are staying on your website, how long they are on each page, and through what doorways they enter and exit. These statistics can give you some clues as to how your website is actually performing.

For instance, if you receive 1,000 unique visitors per month and 80% of those leave your website within 10 seconds after visiting one page then you should conclude that there is something on that page that is making them leave. What is it? Maybe it isn’t the type of information they are looking for, maybe it is the aesthetic of the site, or maybe they don’t like that picture of you and your mother fishing off the coast of Panama. Your job is to figure that out and fix it.

On the other hand, if you find that 80% of your 1,000 unique visitors stay on your website for 4-5 minutes and visit 5-6 pages then you should conclude that they are finding something they like. But what? And why aren’t they buying anything? If they are staying long enough to purchase something and leave empty handed then maybe you are not making it easy for them to make a purchase. Again, your job is to figure it out and fix it.

Another important telling factor is the page into which visitors enter your website and from what source they find you. Are they Googling you and entering an internal page three tiers removed from your home page or finding your index page in a niche regional directory? That’s important to know. It could be a clue as to how you can fix your problems.

Exit points are also important. Are your visitors clicking links and leaving your site? Maybe you should close some doors. Are they staying too long on your site when they should be clicking the links? Maybe the ads you sell need to be better written.

However your website is performing, you must spend some time analyzing your traffic. Use the right tools and figure out how your visitors are acting. Are they acting the way you want them to? If not, it’s time to go back to the drawing board.

If you are new to webmastering you may have heard of a bounce rate. But what is it? There really are two ways to define bounce rate. Every are not only beautifully designed for your business.

• Percentage of Visitors Who See One Page – Some analytics software define bounce rate as the percentage of people who only view one page on your website. They may stay on that one page for a couple of minutes, but they don’t go any further. They read a little bit and move on. You don’t have enough mojo to keep them around longer, therefore they “bounce” off to somewhere else.
• Percentage Of Visitors Who Leave Your Site After A Short Period Of Time – Another way to measure bounce rate is by the length of time visitors spend on your site. Most analytics software define this amount of time as five seconds or less. Some use a minute. But whatever the length of time is, it isn’t long enough to say that the visitor has a real interest in your content.

Ideally, you want your site visitors to stick around long enough to order something. If you run a retail site, you want them to checkout. If you sell services, you want them to purchase, or come back later and make a purchase. But you want them to be genuinely interested in what you have to offer. If your site is an affiliate site then you want your visitors to purchase from your affiliates. To do that, they’ve got to stick around long enough to be genuinely interested in your content.

The best way to ensure that people stick around is to give them what they want. Understand what your target market wants and provide it for them. That means making the absolute most out of your content. But it also means marketing your website to the search engines effectively. Your bounce rate is an important part of analytics and can tell you a great deal about your traffic and the quality of visitors you are getting.

WordPress Premium Themes – Webmaster Central

The Google Webmaster Central Blog posted a review of its developments from last year just two days ago. It was a good list. If I were to say which development is the most important I’d have to go with the Video Sitemaps announcement last month. As more and more people go online and more people start using higher bandwidth connections, more marketers will start using video. This will become a very important tool for a lot of viral video marketers in 2008. It also has huge potential to be a long-lasting tool that will serve webmasters for many years to come, and will only improve along the way.

Other notable developments for Google Webmaster Central last year include:

• Moved out of beta
• Extended support for link queries
• Introduction of the Message Center
• Robots.txt file analyzer
• Geographic targeting feature

I highly recommend that you subscribe to the Google Webmaster Central Blog. It’s one of the most important tools for webmasters anywhere online.

WordPress Premium Themes – Blogging Platform

Not everyone uses WordPress for blogging and if current predictions from none other than Aaron Wall of SEO Book, “In the next 2 or 3 years, Drupal will be the CMS of choice.” These are echoes of what Brain Turner of Web Pro News said a couple of months ago when he said to, keep an eye out on Drupal as a potential CMS for the future.” I must confess that before reading Aaron Wall’s article, I had not looked into Drupal much, but his write up got me interested and I have to say, it looks good.

Turner makes some very interesting observations in his article which I feel worthy of repeating.
On integrating websites:

I think it’s especially important to leave plenty of room to manoeuvre with video, because if you can make & integrate that into a website, you have become a TV channel – and that means potential syndication in the still embryonic but rapidly expanding IPTV market.

On WordPress:

My problem as a webmaster is that while WordPress suits blogs and small sites fine, it simply isn’t geared to community participation – featured author and commentator profile pages are not a default part of the set-up, plus WordPress has never really integrated community forums.

I love WordPress as a blogging platform, but I do tend to agree that it is somewhat limited. Nucleus CMS is a little better, but still very much blog oriented. Joomla is an alternative and while it has some very good points to it, the blogging platform is just plain nasty.

On Joomla:

(Note on Joomla: I’ve never liked the structure or coding – seems a very bloated, over-crowded attempt to create a CMS that somehow seems to struggle with basic functionality. Having been asked to look at SEO issues with Joomla a few times, I’ve developed an complete dislike of the platform – so much so that when a charity recently approached me looking for free SEO work on their CMS, I advised they would do better if I rebuilt it in WordPress for them.)

I tend to take a less harsh view on Joomla, it has some very good points to it. It is easy to install and pretty intuitive, but it is a little bloated and requires quite a bit of customization. In my examination of Drupal, I have to say it looks very nice indeed. There are a large number of high quality free themes and looks like it will be ready to go straight out of the box. That is a refreshing change. Keep an eye on Drupal, it looks great and I think that no small number of people are going to be thinking the same thing. I would say it is going to start taking off over 2008. I don’t see any established WordPress blogs making the switch. WordPress covers basic blogging needs and can be enhanced enough with plug-ins to keep doing what it is required to do.

WordPress Premium Themes – Metrics for Your Blogs

There are some great metrics plug-ins for popular blog scripts. Metrics is a great way to give you further insight into what is going on in your blog, especially if you are not the only person writing. Metrics programs will give you all sorts of useful information relating to your site. If you want to know how many words your writers have written, or how well they converse with their audience, check the metrics. Metrics can help you to identify your key writers.

As a general rule, if you are running a blog as a full time enterprise and have more than one writer, then you should definitely consider metrics. Even if you are the only writer, metrics might be worth taking a look at. If nothing else it gives you feedback of what you are doing on your site.

A well thought out search engine optimization plan is important to the survival of a website but let’s take a step back for a moment. Best free and for any website.

Does your website look good? If you landed on your site would you submit your information or buy anything? Many business owners try to save money by building a website themselves. If you are not a designer leave it up to the professionals. A professionally designed website is just as important as your online marketing efforts. What good is driving traffic to a website if it doesn’t convert well due to poor design and layout?

If you are looking for web design quotes Quote Catcher has made it very easy for you. With an easy three step process Quote Catcher can find the right web design firm that fits into your style and budget. Don’t worry about being bothered by a few hundred different design firms either, QuoteCatcher only sends out your information to five different vendors depending on your provided information. QuoteCatcher is safe an easy to use so you know that your personal information is safe once you submit. Finding the right web design firm could difficult an overwhelming. Quote Catcher gives you a helping hand on deciding the right one for any product or audience.

Premium WordPress Themes – Always Accurate

Part of your search engine optimization strategy is the study of analytics particularly when it comes to where your visitors are coming from and what search terms they are using to find you.

I know some search engine optimization consultants keep a daily watch on sites to track exactly what effects their actions are having on the sites they have been optimizing. It seem that, for about a week, Google analytics had problems with their databases and data displayed was incorrect. The admission from Google was simple and straightforward:

Google Analytics experienced a data processing error from April 30th to May 5th. Almost all of the data has been recovered and is currently being reprocessed. The recovered data will be reflected in your reports within a few days. Please note that a small percentage of data, particularly in the area of e-commerce reporting, was not recoverable from those dates.

If you do rely on Google Analytics then you may see some strange results for that period in early May. Search engine optimization can be an inexact science at the best of times, relying on analytics that may at times be astray on increases the inexact aspects. I wonder how many consultants went back to their strategies to see why they weren’t receiving the expected results?

Sometimes it pays to use an analytics source that has a fee associated with it. When using a free service there is little recourse for any search engine optimization consultant to recoup extra expenditure caused by the incorrect data supplied. At least with a paid service you could expect some level of accountability.

Consultants often rely on analytics to track the progress of the sites that they are working on; poor data can lead to poor decisions. Find an accurate data source and your search engine optimization strategies can at least be undertaken efficiently.

Premium WordPress Themes – Custom Search

If you have Adsense for Search options on your web site then you will be interested to know that Google have updated the search facility and it is now powered by Custom Search. As the name implies, you can customize many of the search features for your web site (or blog).

These features include:(courtesy of Adsense blog)

• Site Search: you can choose to provide just site search so users can find all the information they’re looking for on your site.
• Improved indexing of your pages:AdSense for search will now index even more pages of your site, as long as we’re able to crawl them, so that your users will see more results from your site in your AdSense for search results.
• Vertical search:You can also allow your users to search across multiple sites – this could be a network of sites that you own or other related sites that you think your users might find useful.
• Tuning search results and ads with keywords: Search terms can have different meanings in different contexts, so you can now configure your search engine with relevant keywords.
• Selecting ad location: Do you want ads to appear at the top and bottom of your search results? Or along the right sidebar as well, just like on Google.com? Now you can make the call on where ads are placed.
• Quick and easy updates: Just as you use our ad management feature to quickly change the settings for your ad and referral units, you’ll be able to do the same for your search engine within your AdSense account.

This should provide a much better system and possibly a better return for publishers using Adsense for Search. Customization is certainly an improvement on the previous search options.

Premium WordPress Themes – Top 20

One feature I like about Google Webmaster Central is the Top 20 Queries tool. You can check to see what the top 20 queries for each of your websites are AND which ones are the most clicked on. This information is helpful to you as a webmaster for a couple of reasons. First, you need to know how people are finding your website. The top 20 queries allows you to see at a glance what queries people are seeking information on and which ones your site appears for. It even tells you the lineup in the SERPs for the pages you rank for. Secondly, if you see pages that you rank for but you are not appearing in the second column for (which queries people are clicking on) then you need to re-optimize those pages or tweak them so that you “get the click.”

Another detail that you can glean from this information is keywords you want to rank for but don’t. If pages that you want to rank for do not appear in the first list then you need to figure out a way to get them there. It may mean you need to optimize those pages better or it could mean you need more link building. Whatever the case, it’s time to analyze and see how you can keep improving. Search queries tell you a lot of information about where you fall in line against your competitors for your Search Engine Optimization efforts. Pay attention to them.

Webmasters love tools, but how many do you need? Do you need every single tool available or can you get by with just a few. Most popular 2018. Search Engine Optimization Journal has compiled a list of essential webmaster tools – the ones you can’t get by without:

• Keyword Research Tool – You can spend thousands of dollars on some fancy gadget with bells and whistles or you can opt for the free version that does the job. Google’s Keyword Research Tool works for everyone.
• Link Popularity Check – You’ll need to check your link popularity from time to time. Again, you don’t need a bunch of fancy tools with bells and whistles. Marketleap not only reports your link popularity but it also tells you what your search engine saturation is. Two tools in one.
• Analytics – You can’t fix what you don’t measure. Know your stats. Again, you don’t have to spend a lot of money when you can get it all for free from Google.
• Code-to-Text Checker – Code-to-Text ratio is a very important measure of how well you’ve SEOd your website. Too much code could slow your load time. Know whether your website passes must with SEOChat’s code-to-text checker.

There are other really cool tools you could add to your arsenal. If you thought I was going to say an HTML editor or CMS, well, you can have them but are they essential? If you build your site with a CMS then you don’t need the HTML editor, and vice-versa. But if you want to build a website and you need tools, these tools are the bare minimum essentials. Don’t do anything without them.

Premium WordPress Themes – Advanced Segmentation

Google Analytics just keeps getting better and better. The Google Analytics blog recently announced that it has added advanced segmentation as a feature. The implications for usage and reporting here go far beyond what is amenable to running a PPC campaign. You can also segment your organic traffic.

What is a segment? Here’s a good definition straight from the Google Analytics blog:

Usually, it refers to a subset of visitors whose behavior you would like to see and analyze.

So if you want to segment your visitors into paid search and organic search and then break each of those down into traffic that has converted to sales, that’s advanced segmentation. You can see whether your organic search campaign is converting more visitors or your PPC campaign is converting more. With that level of analysis available to you, you can do some awesome planning and tweaking to your search engine marketing efforts. Don’t you agree?

The benefits to advanced segmentation are humongous. The problem for most small businesses will be in finding the time to learn all the new features and how to use them. That’s why it may be in your best interest to hire a professional to assist you. Let them handle the advanced segmentation details so you can focus on what you do best.

Premium WordPress Themes – Flash Video

Ever wonder how many people are watching your videos and responding to the offers directly from the video? Well, now you can. Google Analytics has announced tracking for Adobe Flash.

From the looks of things you’ll be able to use the Google Analytics tracking code to keep track of several stats regarding your videos including

• Embeds
• Microsites
• Widgets
• Flash-based games

That’s good news.

What you’ll be able to know about the people watching your videos include

• How many
• Are they targeted?
• Is the video marketing working?

In other words, you’ll be able to know if your online videos are leading to conversions. If not, how can you change that? That’s powerful information and I think it will increase the number of the people who start using online video to promote their brands.

The tracking code will track more than just Adobe Flash, and this is perhaps the best news about Google Analytics’ announcement. The formats supported are

• Flash visual component
• Flash AS3 library
• Flex MXML component
• Flex AS3 library

Plus, the tracking code is open source so it just keeps getting better! If you’ve been daydreaming about the ability to track your video marketing campaigns then now’s your chance. Have at it.

WordPress Themes Premium – Cadillac Status

Google Analytics recently added a couple of new features that are incredibly useful. The first feature is a motion chart. If you are a new user of Google Analytics you may not have this feature yet, but if you’ve had an account for a while then you’ve likely got it. Summarily, motion charts allow you to see statistics trends in video so that you can actually see the trending in action. It’s a pretty cool feature and you can learn more about it at the Google Analytics Blog.

There are also two other features that are in beta: Custom Reporting and Advanced Segments.

With custom reports you can define the statistics that are important to you. If you run multiple PPC campaigns and use a landing page for both PPC and organic search then you can use custom reporting to segment your statistics and break it down even into geographic targeting. There is no real limit to what you can do with custom reporting.

Advanced Segments is a feature that allows you to group certain types of visits together. For instance, visits where a site visitor stars a conversion process then backs out could be grouped together in one segment. This allows you to break down your marketing to individual and more specialized segments. Again, there is no limit to how you can use this feature for your website.

If you are not using Google Analytics then I highly recommend that you start today.

Premium WordPress Themes – Is Your Website

The Google Webmaster Central blog paints a vivid picture of an innocent website that gets mixed up in bad company and becomes the carrier of malicious malware. Could that happen to you?

Sure. I think it could, and if you don’t take precautionary measures it just might. Here’s a little snippet of what Google had to say:

The good news is that your grandmother is still kind and loves turtles. She isn’t trying to start a botnet or steal credit card numbers. The bad news is that her website or the server that it runs on probably has a security vulnerability, most likely from some out-of-date software. That vulnerability has been exploited and malicious code has been added to your grandmother’s website. It’s most likely an invisible script or iframe that pulls content from another website that tries to attack any computer that views the page. If the attack succeeds, then viruses, spyware, key loggers, botnets, and other nasty stuff will get installed.

That’s pretty gruesome. Your grandmother is a sweet old lady who wouldn’t harm a fly. Everyone knows that. And when your best friend Bob’s grandmother lands on your grandmother’s cooking website, well, things can get really nasty, and I’m not talking about bread dough falling flat. Is there protection for your grandmother? What can a webmaster do to prevent this type of hack from taking place on their site?

First, make sure that you don’t “hang out” in bad neighborhoods. Research the server that your site is located on and try to find out what other kinds of sites are on it. If possible, get a dedicated server, which is a server that your site and your site alone sits on. It’s more expensive, but you won’t have to worry about bad guys in your neck of the woods.

CMS systems are particularly vulnerable to attacks. They are easily hacked unless you go through the trouble to secure them properly. Make sure that you do. Better yet, code your site in HTML and CSS, if possible. Coded sites are less vulnerable to hacks.

You can also request a malware review of your website from Google. It’s best to do that if you think you may have been hacked or if you have just cleaned up your site and you want to be sure you got it all.

From time to time you probably want to search out your own sites on Google and see if you get the message “This site may harm your computer” associated with it. When you log into your Google Webmaster Tools account you should get a notification from Google that your site has been flagged. If you see one of those then it’s time to take action. Google will not give you advance warning so you need to take action as soon as you see the message. You will lose traffic if you don’t clean it up because if you’re seeing the message then it is appearing in the Google SERPs when people search for information that you provide.

If your website has ever been taken off line due to malicious malware issues then you know it can be frustrating. “But I didn’t put any malware into my site,” you say. Maybe you didn’t, but someone did. s for your business, magazine etc.

Malicious malware is not only bad for your site visitors, but it’s also bad for your website. If you get so many reports over a 90-day period, Google will take your site off line and issue a big red warning sign to visitors telling them that your website may harm their computers (forget about search engine optimization issues, it provides a horrible user experience). It could end up costing you traffic as some of those visitors may never come your way again. It’s a danger of the Web. A real danger.

But how do you combat distributors of malicious malware who would use your website as a distribution channel?

For starters, you need to strengthen your passwords, both your web hosting password and your blog software or CMS password. HTML sites can be affected too, but usually not as often as CMSs and blog platforms. In that case, you’ll want to secure some of your folders and make sure that you have a level of security that is appropriate for the folder.

Most malware and malicious links are inserted into a website’s code because the website owner made it easy for them to gain access. Strengthening your passwords will take care of most issues – probably about 70%-80%. But you’ll also want to make sure that you keep your software upgraded to the latest version. If you are using WordPress, for instance, the most recent version is 2.8.3, issued just a few days ago. Older versions of software usually have security loopholes and the older your software the is the more likely that hackers will be able to find those security loopholes.

Finally, make sure you have a strong spam blocker. The stronger the better. Akismet is considered the best of breed and catches about 90% of spam that is targeted toward a website.

If you do those three things, it may not make completely impervious to malware attacks, but it will go a long way to making sure your visitors – and your website – are safe.

Premium WordPress Themes – Giving Them Direction

Did you know you can direct robots to crawl certain pages on your website or to avoid certain pages altogether? It’s true.You can talk to the search engine robots directly from a document called robots.txt. This can drastically help you with your search engine optimization efforts.

It’s easy to create a robots.txt document. You can do it any text editor such as Notepad or Apple TextEdit. Generally, one robots.txt file can be used for your entire site, however, if you have secure pages on your website then you’ll have to have a separate one for those areas. Upload the file to the root directory on your server and from there it will control your own site.

So what should go into your robots.txt file? Any instructions to search engine spiders that tell them which pages you don’t want crawled or, in some cases, which pages you do. You can make your instructions for all robots or for specific search engine spiders.

Premium WordPress Themes – With A Strong Password

If you are creating your site using an open source solution like WordPress, Joomla, Pligg, or Drupal then you’ll need to make sure that you keep it safe from hackers. Hackers like to solve password puzzles and gain access to places they aren’t welcome. If you use a simple password that is easy to guess then you make yourself vulnerable to hackers and other malicious people.

So how do you make your passwords harder to guess? Here are a few tips:

• Make them long – Short passwords are easy to guess. Make your passwords longer.
• Don’t use dictionary words – Some robots will go through the dictionary and create a list of potential passwords from real words. They can be programmed to enter passwords while their human users sleep. If you use a simple dictionary word as a password then you could be opening yourself up to a hacking attempt.
• Use numbers and special symbols – In addition to being long, you should add numbers and special characters to your passwords. Some companies require their employees to use two numbers and two special characters in their passwords to gain access to the company intranet and other secure areas. You might institute a similar policy at your company.
• Use lower case and upper case letters – Another way to add security to your passwords is to use lower case and upper case lettering. Using only lower case letters makes you more vulnerable. Again, some companies make this a requirement for their employees.
• Don’t just use the obvious characters – The characters above the numbers on your keyboard are obvious choices. What are not obvious are other special characters like the symbols and the copyright symbol.

The longer your password and the more different types of characters you use in your password, the more secure your password. Here are a few examples of bad passwords and how you can make them better.

• Bad = peter / Better = P3e*e”R9t1
• Bad = 123456789 / Better = 1a2$3B45u6:;7C89*
• Bad = meandyou1 / Better = m6e&Y1o0^u=U7s5

You want your password to be easy for you to remember but difficult to guess for a hacker or robot. If you keep that principle in mind then you’ll do well. Stay away from using important dates and names like your birthdate, anniversary, children’s baptism dates, and names of firstborns.

Every time you update the web pages on your website you should test your new updates in the most popular Internet browsers. Some new webmasters make the mistake of thinking that if you test for Internet Explorer then that is enough. That isn’t true. Mozilla Firefox use is gaining a lot of ground so if you don’t test for Firefox usage then you’ll miss out on a lot of good website visitors if your web pages don’t look the way you want them to. Even if you test for Firefox and IE you’ll still miss out on valuable traffic as there are other browsers that get quite a bit of usage. Best s for your business. The following list of browsers should be tested with your web pages and this is the minimum:

• Internet Explorer
• Firefox
• Safari
• Google Chrome
• Opera
• Flock

These are currently the most popular web browsers on the market and while the smaller browsers do not enjoy huge usage, there are enough users that you should test your web pages for them. IE and Firefox you have likely heard of. Safari is used by the majority of Mac users although there is now a version for Windows. Chrome is Google’s new browser that involves the aggregation of features from several other browsers. Flock is popular among social media users so I wouldn’t leave that one out. And Opera has a few unique features that make it attractive to a small minority of Internet users. Be sure to test your web page updates in these browsers before uploading them to your website.

HTML With APIs: Where W3C Standards Are Moving

I’ve had a chance to look over some of the proposed though changing specifications for a work in progress: HTML 5.0. I’m impressed with some of those proposed changes and you’ll soon see why.

The W3C is a consortium of volunteers who participate in discussions about ways to improve web development standards. These volunteers look at the code involved and suggest standards that all web masters can implement to make it easier for the browser market and developer market to work together for common standards. They started to propose new changes to HTML, current version HTML 4.0, back in 2004 and have been working on development since.

After looking over some of the proposed changes at this stage of development, I’ve found three aspects of HTML 5, assuming these end up in the final version, that I quite like:

• Proposed web page structure
• Proposed new formset attributes
• The use of APIs

First, proposed web page structure, if implemented, will have your page elements defined as article, header, footer, nav, and so on. This will make it a lot easier for new webmasters to create the sections for their web pages and much easier to identify as well for the browser. This will streamline the code and the coding. I like it.

New formset features simply allow you to require that certain form boxes to be filled in, which will benefit webmasters and search engine optimization experts to a great degree.

But the use of APIs for HTML 5 is the part that really gets me excited. These APIs will allow for easier embedding of audio and video contact, allow webmasters to add drag and drop features to their web pages, enabling of off-line web applications, allowances for user notifications, and these are just to name a few. These APIs will allow all webmasters to enter into Web 2.0 without having to rely on third-party applications as often. You can essentially create a widget within your web page rather than installing a third-party created widget. Nice.

While these proposed changes have me excited about the way that HTML 5 is coming along, we are still far from approval. If you try to implement these changes now you will likely see your web pages not working this time next year. Changes will continue.

If you’d like to stay abreast of moving HTML 5 standards, you can join the mailing list. Read more about HTML 5 and its development at the W3C website.

How To Check The Number Of Site Pages You Have Indexed At The Search Engines

From time to time you may want to check your search engine saturation. That’s a fancy name for the number of web pages you have indexed at each of the search engines. Each of the search engines has a quick, easy way to check how pages are indexed for any website on the web. Not only can you check the stats for your own website, but you can check the stats for any other website online – even your competition.

Go to any of the three major search engines and type in site: followed by your site’s URL. Make sure that you include the http: in the URL. What you’ll get in return is a list of web page on that domain that are indexed by that particular search engine.

At Google, on the right above your results, you’ll see something like 1-10 of 208. Each page of Google results shows 10 results. The final number (208) is the total number of pages you have indexed at Google. You’ll see something similar at both Yahoo! and MSN Live. In Yahoo!, it will be on the left above the results and beside the number of pages indexed you’ll see a little box labeled “inlinks”. That tells you how many inbound links point the that domain. MSN Live will list your results the same way Google does it, such as 1-10 of 99 results. It appears above your results on the left side of the page.

Can You SEO Your Site With Social Media? It seems that social media marketing is growing in popularity while search engine optimization is shrinking. But can you do both simultaneously? Can you optimize your site with social media marketing? Best 7theme for your business websites.

One thing is for sure: You can build a certain number of inbound links with social media marketing. This won’t make your site great, but it will help. You build a profile at several social media sites and the links in your profile count as inbound links. Be sure to check and make sure that this is the case with a particular site that you want to use. Not all sites will give you link juice, but many of them do. Here’s a short list of sites you should have profiles at:

• Twitter
• Facebook
• BlogCatalog
• StumbleUpon
• Propeller
• Digg
• Delicious
• MySpace
• Bebo (if in the UK)

Make sure that if you set up a social media profile to go ahead and use the site. Many social media sites rise in the rankings for your profile if you use them often. Facebook and StumbleUpon do for sure.

Premium WordPress Themes – SEO Vs. Social Media

It’s amazing, but online marketers are still arguing about which is better – SEO or social media. I don’t know why it has to be either/or. Why can’t it be both?

Well, it should be. Marketers need to learn to make SEO and social media work together. They’re two different tools with two different purposes and learning how to make both work for you is key to being successful online.

SEO, or search engine optimization, is the practice of building a website that ranks in the search engines for keywords that you want to target. Social media is not SEO, but it can have SEO implications and knowing how to fit it into your overall marketing plan will serve you well. When you optimize for social media you are trying to build relationships based on trust with people you will likely never meet in life. Knowing what social media users want versus what search engines and searchers want is the first step to integrating the two strategies for maximum marketing mojo.

The next time you hear two online marketers arguing over whether SEO or social media is better, give a soft response: “I use both quite effectively.”

Deep Linking To YouTube Videos Now Possible. YouTube has announced that you can now deep link to within their videos. Don’t want to link to the complete video and waste your viewers’ time by forcing them to watch the complete 20 minute clown act of two sisters jump roping when the really funny part about one of them getting the rope wrapped around her neck happens at 10:25? Then just deep link to the 10:25 point in the video and be done with it. Here’s how:

Add the extender #t=1m15s to the end of the YouTube video URL. Your site visitors that click that link to see the video will jump right into the middle of it where you want them to rather than see it from the beginning. But what does the extender mean?

Glad you asked. The 1m15s means 1 minute, 15 seconds, which is the time reference of the video where you want your visitors to jump to. Sorry. You get no link juice for deep linking to a video, but YouTube does.

Premium WordPress Themes – The Drama Continues

I had recently written a post about Facebook’s “new and improved” account deletion tactics on our social marketing journal which you can read here, so just when I thought things where over they have started all over again.

Just to give you a brief synopsis on how useless Facebook is starting to become, and I don’t mean to go on a negative rant here but it is important for everyone to grasp this large swing in Facebook’s direction. After using Facebook for over year networking with other young professionals in the community consistently joining groups and taking time to meet others related to my interests and actively building up my profile with a healthy amount of professional contacts, which mind you is what I thought was one of the points of “social networking” the Facebook police has decided to shut my new account down that I launched right after the prior one got shut down which is only about 15 days old. Let me tell you my former account got shut down because I did too many friend requests, now I know what you are thinking because I thought this as well. Isn’t the whole point of social networking is to meet others with like interests? Why would I join a social networking website and only connect with people I know, make no sense to me at all.

Definition of Social Networking according to Dictionary.com

Definition: the use of a website to connect with people who share personal or professional interests, place of origin, education at a particular school, etc.

With my new account I connected with a few people and let it sit because I had such a big distaste in my mouth for this new strategy that I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do with the new account. The point I am trying to make here is that I totally agree with not abusing or spamming these powerhouse social networking sites but if I wanted to only connect with people I knew I would just pick up the phone and call them. If you are not allowed to connect with people you do not know than Facebook will eventually become useless. I have done some searches online and this has been happening to many others in the community. At this point I get more satisfaction out of using Google’s Orkut social networking site because they are not leaning over my shoulder making sure I connect with people that I have share air with before. Pretty soon Facebook will be requesting a blood test in order to connect with someone. Frankly, Facebook is really starting to generate some bad press for themselves with this new tactic. I’m not the only one this has effected, here is a link to another deleted Facebook account that will raise an eyebrow as well

For anyone out there who has had this happen to them please let us know. We are curious to hear your similar stories on this issue.

Premium WordPress Themes – Social Networking Has Great SEO Potential

For many website owners, social networking has been a means to a traffic building end, however, the real benefit can be in the potential it holds to boost your off page search engine optimization strategies.

If you consider the basic principles of social networking, it is a means of linking up with likeminded people. Whether your social networking is through forums, sites such as Myspace or Facebook, or using social sites such as Blogcatalog or even Stumble Upon, the opportunity is there to meet other people with similar interests or from the same niche as yourself. There are obvious SEO benefits to some of these sights. You can link your profile to your websites and, when it comes to social bookmarking, you can have content bookmarked with links back to those pages.

That is not networking. Networking is an active engagement of other people. Discussing on-topic issues, even at times discussing off- topic, although someone often finds a way to link it back to their topics. By networking with others you are building a group that will, overtime, rely on each other. Members of the group will visit each other’s pages, often looking for inspiration on what to publish next. When someone from the group finds some of your content worthy of expanding on, chances are they will link back to your article as part of theirs – you would hope so anyway. Off page SEO depends in the main on acquiring these back links.

By socializing through some of these social sites, you will build a band of followers. They will follow you back to your pages and they will link back to you – it becomes a form of social search engine optimization.

The more authority you can develop through these social network scenes, the more links you will acquire – the basic tenet of all SEO.

If you write a lot of content then you may at some point hit a road block – that is, you are running out of things to say in your niche. Of course, you want to keep it new and fresh rather than rehash the same old staid topics over and over again. How do you do that? Best for 2018.

Well, you can subscribe to thousands of RSS feeds in your niche and try to keep up with all the information that keeps coming out from this guy and that girl. Or, you can find an aggregator with a pretty good list of blogs in your niche and keep up with it on a daily basis. One strategy is to take said aggregator and use it when you are looking for ideas.

The aggregator I’d recommend is Alltop. This news aggregator carries blogs in various niches and runs the last five blog posts from each of the top blogs in each niche. Categorized according to the following categories, Alltop lists hundreds of subtopics within each category and each subtopic lists the top blogs in that key area. You just find the area of your niche and look for the blogs that fit into that niche. Now you can follow all the news and information from those blogs on a regular basis. Read the ones you want when you want and write content that is fresh and new every day.

Premium WordPress Themes – Should You Approve Spam Comments On Your Blog?

Spam comments can be a pain in the rump. They can take up a lot of time to sort through and delete. But should you delete them all?

I say you should delete most of them, but you might want to save a few. But which ones?

Of course, you want to delete any spam comments that are not related to your product or service niche. If you sell automotive services, for instance, you wouldn’t want to approve any comments from spammers selling insurance or viagra. But should you automatically approve all the spam comments related to automotive services? Not necessarily.

I would not approve any of the following type of spam comments at all:

• Spam comments left by your competition
• Comments from anonymous commenters
• That link to 404 pages or nonexistent websites
• Comments that appear as trackbacks but that do not link back to your blog from the site when you visit them (be sure you visit the website of all your commenters to see who is linking to you)
• One line comments that contain no substance
• Comments that contain excessive links within them

So what kind of spam comments, if any, should you approve?

If you get a spam comment that you know is spam but that uses your keywords and that don’t link back to any dangerous websites or neighborhoods then you can go ahead and approve the comments. The keywords will help you in the rankings and the additional content is a positive for your website. It’s an editorial judgment and I’m not saying that you should approve those comments. I’m just saying you shouldn’t see any harm to your site if you do, and if you don’t have too many of them.

Premium WordPress Themes – SEO In A Web 2.0 World

Are social media sites like Twitter and Facebook killing SEO? Wired Magazine published an article telling would-be bloggers not to start their blog and go to social media sites instead. But is that good advice?

Wired does make a good point. Blogging is getting harder to do – the right way. It is more challenging and there is more competition. It still provides good search engine optimization and it still can drive targeted traffic to a static website.

For the most part, Wired Magazine was talking to personal bloggers, not commercial bloggers. Commercial blogging is just getting its start. And there is practically no better way to build inbound links for your commercial website than through an offsite blog on the same, or similar, topic. As a commercial website, you’re not going to get other sites related to your niche to link to you because they are likely competition. Your best bet is to approach third-party sites like online trade journals and news sites to link to you, but many of them will only link to their sponsors. How do you get free links? Blogging is the best way to build a portfolio of free, quick inbound links.

Premium WordPress Themes – How To Make A Long Blog Post Better

If you write a blog and you write more than 300 words in your blog posts then you might want some tips on how to make your blog post better from a search engine optimization perspective. Coincidentally, these tips will also help your blog post in other ways as well. Here are some ways you can improve those long posts:

Break up your paragraphs with subheadings – If you write for more than three paragraphs, add a subhead. It should be short and contain your keyword. Make the subhead an h2 or use the font=”+2″ tag.
Add a graphic or two – Graphics break up text real well. You can align left or right or place the graphics between paragraphs. Whatever looks good, man. Plus, add an alt tag to each graphic to give it some SEO juice.
Don’t stuff keywords – Many bloggers are tempted to stuff keywords into their content. It isn’t necessary. If you write good content and include enough SEO elements, managing your keywords and links well, then you don’t have to stuff keywords.
Add tags – The latest edition of WordPress gives you a Tags field below your content box. Use it. Add three to five tags that correspond to the content of your blog post.
Chose more than one category – Put your blog post into as many categories as is relevant, not just one.

When it comes to SEO, long posts have a better chance of ranking well if they are optimized. Short posts can rank too, but optimization is the same. You don’t have to stuff keywords. Add the proper tags and you’ll do well in the optimization game.

Premium WordPress Themes – Essential SEO Elements Of A Blog Post

One of the best ways to increase content is through a blog. A short carefully worded post every day is going to generate over 300 pages per year – that’s allowing for the occasional day off. Posting content alone is not enough; each blog post is a page and requires a search engine optimization program like any other page on your site.

Unlike normal web pages, blog posts are easier to create and do not require extensive knowledge of HTML to create a search engine friendly page. All that is requires is a blog application such as WordPress. However, each post still needs to include several SEO elements to help it rank.

Assuming you have done your homework and developed a list of keywords and keyword phrases, all that is left is to optimize those keywords for the search engines.

Title: Try to work a keyword or keyword phrase into the title. It also helps to place the keyword as close to the start of the title as possible.

Content: From a search engine optimization perspective, you should scatter keywords or keyword phrases throughout the post. From the readers perspective, keep it natural, don’t stuff a keyword in where it doesn’t fit the flow of the sentence. How many times? There is no hard and fast rule as to how many times you use the keyword. General consensus: Once in the first paragraph, as close to the beginning as possible; once in the last paragraph, as close to the end as possible; and once in paragraph – if it fits naturally.

URL: There are blog plugins for WordPress that enable you to craft the URL. Try to include the keyword or keyword phrase into the URL.

Tags: Whilst tags may not help your search engine optimization efforts directly, they may have an indirect effect as social media sites such as Technorati often rely on tags.

Description: Another blog plugin can help provide a description for the page’s meta tags. This is the snippet that may appear in the search engine results so word it in such a way that it draws the user to your site.

These are fairly easy steps to undertake and only take a minute or two to complete prior to publishing your post. The effect is similar to a standard web page that has been optimized. The finished result will have unique meta tags for that page followed by keyword rich content.

To put the final polish to your post’s search engine optimization strategy for your blog, use keywords to link both internally and externally to information that is relevant to the post’s content. Encourage a good range of inbound links and your page will start to rank well. How well? It depends on the competition and your use of keywords.

When you are looking for more ideas to expand or improve your efforts in affiliate marketing, look to your affiliates. Their opinions are beneficial to the marketing team and company. You just need to ask and provide an easy way for them to participate. and responsive wp templates for you.

One way is to hold a video meeting with your affiliates. The session will allow them to be open, honest and express their ideas. Open a whiteboard and give everyone drawing tools so they can all write on the board at the same time, putting their ideas in writing. This option is also good for those who have no audio, or no headset, which causes echo when they use speakers.

Opening the audio for everyone also helps, providing everyone without headsets stays on mute until they have input. Having the audio open will allow the attendees to voice their opinions and discuss ideas openly. It will also encourage building relationships amongst themselves.

Video conferencing is the absolute best way to get people together, next to being there in person.

The second best way to get ideas from your affiliates, staff and board members is by using video email. While there is no immediate conversation, the videos are recorded and sent through email. That allows members to express themselves without having to type it all. It also allows them to show their ideas on a whiteboard, or a creation they made can be shown visually instead of trying to describe it.

Combining the two, using video email to invite members to a video meeting is by far the best way to communicate your intentions. Letting them know any boundaries up front will keep everyone on topic.

While there are a growing number of companies who offer video conferencing, not all provide video email. One I found that does a great job combining the two is WowWe, who recently hired a team of programmers from Hollywood to expand their video streaming offers.

Premium WordPress Themes – Handling Feedback and Complaints Using Video Email

Testimonials and feedback forms are needed with small and large businesses. Every business needs feedback from their clients and customers. They tell you how you are doing, what information or training they need and how you can continue helping them better.

Complaints happen. That is one of the natural facts in life. How you handle them determines whether you will keep your business and personal relationships strong, or drive others away.

The best way to handle complaints is in person. When that is not possible, the next best thing is the telephone. While not as personal as being face to face, using the telephone has been our way of life for many years. What if there was something you want to say than you want to tell an answering service or machine?

Video calling is available on a limited selection of smart phones. Those who do not have that type of phone and even those who do, have the option of recording a video to send, save and share with others if desired.

• What if for some reason the person you sent it to did not receive it, or accidentally deleted it and wants to see it again? You simply select it from your library and send it again. Try that with a video call. Once you hang up the phone that conversation is done, not available ever again.
• Video email solves that problem and many others. Yes it is a one-way communication, but you will like it much better than voice mail or typing long letters. The other person will not only hear your message, they will see your expressions to get the full meaning. They will have a much better understanding and respect for you taking the time to respond personally.
• Of course there are many other uses, such as: Invitations; meeting schedules; parents sending their children greetings while away; children checking in from their friends homes letting you know they arrived safely at wherever they went; thanking a prospective employer for the interview; inviting someone to a video meeting… let your imagination run wild with video email uses.

Now try video email free and see how it will improve your life. Then incorporate video conferencing into the mix and you will have the services needed to reach all your contacts personally.

Premium WordPress Themes – How Website Managers Select Banner Ads for Your Page or Blog

When adding banners to your web page or blog, you need to consider what type of banner you will display. There are several choices, ranging from static JPEG, animated GIF, transparent PNG and eye-catching flash.

When using banner ads, you have to decide what the focus of your page is – the content or the ads. Most often people will read the content and then look back at an advertisement. If your content is long enough to make people scroll down and read the rest, changes that they scroll back up to click the ad are slim.

Flash banners slow the page loading because their file sizes are generally 3-5 time larger than JPG images and their content is usually obtained from another site such as an advertising supplier.

Animated GIF images would be an improvement over JPG to grab attention, although their file sizes vary depending on several factors. The biggest factor in keeping GIF sizes smaller is omitting high resolution photos. GIF compression options are not designed to compress photos. Use 256 color graphics or lower, line art, cartoon characters and as few frames as possible, while keeping the animation smooth. Using an image compression tool will help reduce file size by decreasing the number of colors in the banner.

JPG banners are there and non-intrusive. GIF banners are animated to divert attention from the content to the banner. This type of banner usually gets a higher click-through than static JPG banners.

PNG is Portable Network Graphics. Although it does not include animation, it can contain transparency so the banner can blend into your background color. Depending on the banner content, the file size may be smaller than JPG, or larger if it contains high resolution photos.

When streaming video is reduced in size, it too can serve as an advertising option. It will usually not look very good as a banner, unless it is recorded for that purpose. Come to think of it, I just made one of those to track the responses. Adding a link to the video banner will be tricky, but there is a way and I found it.

Click the Play button on this banner to see how a video banner ad can also work in your advertising. The button is on the lower left and is pretty small. I could set it to play automatically but that might annoy some people.