If you run a website, chances are you check where you are in the rankings pretty often. Unfortunately, Google’s personalization of search can make you think that you rank much higher than you actually do.
This is a really common problem.
I’ve had dozens of people come to me and say…
“You know, I rank 3rd for ‘Hot Salsas’ but only get 50 hits a day. What’s the problem?”
In many cases these websites aren’t 3rd, or 10th, or even on the first couple of pages of results. But Google Personalized Search is showing them their website because they’ve been to their own site so many times.
So how do we circumvent Google Personalized Search and find out where we truly rank, and where we rank on other people’s computers? Simple.
Just watch this video to find out exactly how to work around Google Personalized Search and see where you truly rank.
Google Personalized search can really change where you think you stand in the rankings. See an example of how Google Personalized works, and find out how to avoid it.
Lars Koudal is a brilliant SEO and a terrific guy to boot. He has been making some truly exciting Wordpress plugins lately. And that’s how we met.
Check out our recent interview below.
Me: How good at SEO is Wordpress “out of the box” in your opinion?
Lars: WordPress is fantastic in terms of SEO, and works perfectly out of the box. There are a few things I usually change, such as permalink settings and a couple of plugins to ensure the tags and categories are properly set up for SEO, but apart from that, WordPress is spot on.
Me: Can you give us an overview of the plugins you have already? And any “coming soon” plugins?
Lars: I like developing, and usually a plugin is developed for my own specific needs, and if deemed good enough and/or interesting enough, I produce a public plugin.
My most popular plugin to date is SEO Booster PRO , which is also the first plugin I developed. It works straight out of the box and has a happy following of customers. I’ve also developed myVideoPoster which posts Youtube videos automatically on WordPress blogs. Several of the customers use it to post only their own videos from Youtube, and the amount of time they save is worth the investment alone. It can do a lot more than that, but that is another story.
I’ve also developed mySEOStatus , which tracks your ranking and backlink indexation in all the major search engines. Its a fast way to get a quick overview of how your blog is progressing.
Now, I like the mindset of the WordPress community, where people are very giving (in general) so I also like to develop free plugins such as myUsersPingForMe , which lets your users automatically ping the RSS aggregators, so they know you have new stuff on your blog, and tells them to come visit.
And only last week I released Delete Duplicate Posts which can help bloggers who for one reason or another end up having a lot of duplicate posts on their blog.
I’m currently working on myTwitterBooster which is growing into an amazing powerhouse for utilizing instant Twitter traffic, but I’m facing the constant problem for any WordPress developer: Different server setups. The plugin has been working perfectly for a long period of time on the main test-blog, but fails randomly in strange areas on others. I never put out a plugin that has a bug (that I’m aware of), so the process is still going on. [click to continue…]
Alright, so Thesis Theme 1.6 Beta has been released. This is pretty big news, and there are some big changes.
First of all- If you want to get a copy of the Thesis 1.6 Beta, you have to own a thesis developers license. It’s not available to personal license holders yet, though if you have a personal license you can pay the little extra for an upgrade. So you’ll want to upgrade or get a developers license to see what all the fuss is about.
From the Thesis Theme Developer’s Blog:
This is the release that was never supposed to happen. Back in June, I began working on what I eventually dubbed Thesis 2.0, so I had no reason to believe we would ever see a Thesis 1.6. But then, a funny thing happened…
I dove into the 1.5.1 core files to solve a little problem with post image and thumbnail frames, and I got a little carried away. Next thing you know, I’m tweaking nav menu colors directly from the Design Options and dropping teaser images on Twitter.
Who knew image framing was so complex?
Anyway, now that you know how we got here, let’s see what we’ve got here. New hotness you’ll find in Thesis 1.6:
Oodles of design and color options! Control font colors all over the theme. Experiment with your background color. Customize the daylights out of your nav menu. Tweak all freakin day.
Automatic dropdown nav menu! Bring your parent-child pages or your nested categories, and Thesis will turn them into a killer new CSS-only dropdown navigation menu. Best of all, Thesis allows you to customize the anchor text of all your pages, so you can tailor your nav menu to your specific needs. Also, don’t miss the new nav menu design controls on the Design Options page! You’ll find ‘em under the Fonts, Colors, and More! section, and seriously—you’re gonna love ‘em.
Custom file editor in your WordPress dashboard: Sick of dealing with an external file editor and an FTP client every time you need to update that damned custom.css file? Not anymore, ’cause now you’ve got a custom file editor inside your WordPress dashboard that totally solves this problem! WIN.
New options placement in the WordPress dashboard: Instead of existing inside the Appearances section, the Thesis Options now have their own dedicated module in the WordPress dashboard menu. Sadly, the options are relegated to the bottom because the native WordPress function used to hook them into place doesn’t do all of the things it purports to do (like positioning the new module). Meh.
IE-only styles are now cache-friendly: Version 1.5 included a CSS-based method of serving IE-specific styles, but this method proved to have one fatal flaw—it didn’t play nicely with caching techniques (and especially the WP Super Cache plugin). Because of this, I reverted back to using conditional HTML in the document <head>, and now caching is money.
Fixed post image and thumbnail frames: These actually work now. Special.
Suppressed warnings on all getimagesize function calls: This PHP function has been known to trigger warnings on certain server configurations, and suppressing warnings will radically reduce the annoyance factor in these situations.
Moved the /rotator folder into the /custom folder: Can somebody tell me why the /rotator folder, whose very existence suggests customization, was not located inside the /custom folder from the very beginning? Sigh. Fixed.
Bold prediction: You will use the new Design Options in Thesis 1.6 more than you’ve ever used any other Thesis options to date. In fact, it’s quite likely that you’ll find them to be highly addictive, so proceed with caution (and bring your creativity)!
I’ve got to say that I like Thesis a lot more than Headway, but it sure is good for us users when they battle it out.
You may want to change the look of your site because you are bored with it. You’ve stared at it for hundreds of hours.
Your most devout readers/users aren’t tired of your site because chances are they’ve spent less than 30 minutes on it, ever. So don’t change out of boredom. Make incremental changes.
After a while of making incremental changes, your site will eventually be an awful hudge-podge of changes. Then, and only then, do you make a fresh start. But try to make the fresh start as familiar to the old users as possible while working all of the changes into something cohesive.
My hope is that it will be helpful to you bloggers and small businesses because you can see everything we offer and exactly how much it costs. Total transparency…
So head on over and see how amazing your blog can be for just a few bucks.
Keeping your Wordpress Plugins up-to-date is a good idea for many reasons, not the least of which is keeping your blog secure. Good plugin developers will track and fix known security probelms with their plugins, but if you aren’t upgrading then it isn’t going to do you much good, is it?!?!
The last few releases of Wordpress have made it very easy to upgrade your plugins with one click per plugin. But when you are installing a new blog, sometimes you have to upgrade twenty different plugins. And this can take a few minutes to do.
So for those of us who are too lazy to upgrade each plugin, there is a savior:
This free wordpress plugin will give you something like this:
Click on the image above to see a larger version.
Anyways, I really suggest adding this plugin to your arsenal of Wordpress plugins. If it helps you to keep all of your plugins up-to-date, then you are going to be very happy to have it.
Well it turns out that SEO isn’t the only way to get traffic these days (although it is still my favorite). I’m just a sucker for free stuff, I guess.
A fellow Columbus-ite, Justin Goff, is giving away a bunch of FacebookAdvertising secrets. Justin gears it toward Fitness Marketing, but you can take this advice and try a whole number of different things with it. Justin’s positive experiences got me interested in giving it a try.
I personally decided to take a stab at making some leads for my brother’s Columbus Lawn Mowing business. So far, it’s been a bit more difficult then I expected. Lots of clicks, not that many conversions. But it’s been fun so far.
Writing compelling ads and creating landing pages is different than my usual day-to-day work. And… I’m not good at it. Yet. But there’s something fun about split-testing pages and paying for clicks. It makes every move count, and forces me to think of what each and every user is looking for. And paying 40 cents for a click makes me reconsider the value of the traffic that SEO can generate. So it’s nice to have a new perspective.
Have you considered advertising on facebook? Even if you are a small, local business, you can easily advertise to only your target demographic. It’s easy, and cheap. [click to continue…]
Are you Looking for ways to make your blog better?
Do you want your blog to stand out from the crowd?
Are You Wondering why your Blog doesn’t get the search engine traffic it should?
If you answered yes to any of those questions then we need to talk.
By taking a close look at your site before our hour-long consultation, I can offer you custom tailored advice for maximizing your blog or website’s traffic. Together we will create and define a long-term blueprint for your blog, and I can offer you the tools and troubleshooting to get you on the right path!
If you are a frequent visitor, you may have noticed the new homepage copy.
The new copy is all thanks to Tanisha Robinson (check out her rant on english here). T, as we call her, is a true mix between scientist and artist. She has a masters in linguistics and has been doing empirical testing (thanks to Adwords) for long enough to know what makes people tick.
I can’t recommend her enough. Really.
So if you or anyone you know is looking for copy that grabs your readers attention, check out T’s website and give her a holler.
-Brad
PS: If you are local to Columbus, look for T and Myself at Wordcamp Columbus.
If you haven’t heard about Wordcamp Columbus, sit down. Are you sitting down? OK- There is going to be a Wordcamp Columbus. (Crowd cheers…)
Yes, this officially puts Columbus on the Wordpress Map. You can check out the rolling guest list and buy your tickets here. Or read more about it here. (Or here, here, or here.)
And if you want to meet up before to grab some coffee or afterward to drink some beer, just contact me. There is a great bar very close to Columbus State…
Google Personalized Search is making you think your SEO project is going lots better then you thought. Get the real data and real facts by turning GPS Off!
There’s a very cool free chapter from Wiley Book Publisher about What’s New in Wordpress 2.5.
I was looking for something thorough and yet concise for a client, and came across this ebook.
It’s a good overview of Wordpress in general, but has taken into account some of the recent changes for Version 2.5.If you are anything [...]
My name is Brad and I love to help people drive traffic and make great blogs. Thanks for coming by. If you like what you see here then check me out on twitter, or contact me directly to see how I can help your next project.
My name is Brad and I love to help people drive traffic and make great blogs. Thanks for coming by. If you like what you see here then check me out on 
