Building traffic and driving sales for Small Business and Bloggers since 2003.
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Last night the new Blog Services and Rates page went live.
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.
-Brad
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A great developer and I have teamed up to bring you guys and the rest of the Wordpress Community the first plugin of its kind. I can’t go into it much yet, but it is some pretty exciting stuff.
Ultimately the plugin is going to provide anyone writing a post with exactly the words they should use in their post to get Google to love you. This isn’t your brother-in-laws keyword density stuff from 1995. This is a whole new ballgame.
I encourage anyone with interest in testing this plugin or following it’s development to grab the RSS feed at the new tumblelog devoted to the LSI Wordpress Plugin. Or if you really want to be in the know, then click here to sign up for email updates.
-Brad
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There is a pretty prevalent problem in Search Engine Optimization that deserves some serious attention. And it’s causing us all to think that our own sites are ranking a LOT higher then they actually are.
It’s called Google Personalized Search. Here’s a bit about it:
Google has released a new version of Google Personalized Search, this time in a format intended to constantly monitor what people select from search results and shape future queries based on their choices.
The new service is linked to the My Search History feature that Google unveiled last April (see our Google My Search History Personalizes the Web for more on the feature). Google Personalized Search uses My Search History data to refine your results based on your searching habits.
-From SearchEngineWatch
There is nothing wrong with Google Personalized Search by itself. The problem arises when we check out rankings for different keywords.
I’ll show you an example of what can happen…
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Client: “OK, so my main site is doing well. We’ve got a bunch of links, some age on the domain name, a decent pagerank, and a couple hundred indexed pages. But the domain name itself doesn’t have our main keyword(s) in it. And I see a bunch of the highest rank websites have the equivalent of a “vanity URL”… it’s chock full of keywords. So what do we do?”
SEO: “Well gee, it depends” (aka: The SEO’s Standard Response)
It’s a question that all of us SEO’s have had to answer at one time or another. And there isn’t a whole lot of agreement across the board (so I invite anyone with expert experience in this department to chime in below in the comments section.) Until we have a tested answer to the question, I’ll wildly speculate on the best approach.
The Problem: Let’s re-phrase the question with an example to make sure we are all on the same page:
Let’s say Ying’s Teahouse and Yum Yum is trying to rank for “Columbus Chinese Food.” And Ying bought www.yingsteahouseandyumyum.com when she started the business 5 years ago and has added a bit of content slowly over the last five years. The domain is five years old and is getting steady traffic and has picked up some decent links along the way.
But now Ying is thinking that maybe buying www.columbuschinesefood.com will get her higher in the rankings. And to boot, she also bought up clintonvillechinesefood.com, centralohiochinesefood.com, ohiosbestchinesefood.com, and a handful of other keyword rich domains. So what do we do now?
My Opinion: Google’s search algo. is constantly searching for a balance in the importance of keywords in the domain name. About a year ago, domain name keywords didn’t have a whole lot of importance, but lately there seems to be a good deal more importance placed on the keywords in the domain. Who knows where it will be in 6 months? [click to continue…]
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There is a battle raging between the two schools of Search Engine Optimizers. And it’s about whether On-Page Factors or Off-Page factors win in the race to the top of the rankings.If you’re new to SEO, or looking to hire an seo then you might need to start with a primer on what exactly we’re all fighting about… [click to continue…]
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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 like me, you’ll enjoy being able to print this out and have it next to your desk.
You can download the pdf here: What’s New in Wordpress 2.5
NOTE: If you are into free ebooks, you can grab my Wordpress Search Engine Optimization Blueprint too. Click here for that. [click to continue…]
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Update: I’d like to thank all of the Sphinners out there who helped put this article on the front page. A special thanks goes out to these two who helped get this article there. Thanks!
We all know that Google uses the Click Thru Rate (CTR) in their paid listings. Heck, you can even see the CTR of each of your own running ads in the Google Adwords dashboard.
So with that same technology, is it sensible to think they use the same technology to improve the relevancy of their organic results too?
Case + Point:
Google has a limited amount of factors that they can distill from their own personal analytics. With that set of data, they have to try and extract the most meaning possible.
If Google serves the same 10 results for “Wordpress Consulting” over and over then hypothetically each result should get 10% of the clicks. [click to continue…]
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When the economy goes into recession, a good many business owners tighten their wallets and get ready to weather the storm (and for good reason). Often times, the first thing to get cut from the budget is advertising.
But strangely, my Search Engine Optimization business has really taken off lately. So I started asking myself “why?“.
It seems SEO is different from regular advertising in many ways. Good SEO just works in a down economy where other types of direct advertising fail. Let’s take a look at..
5.5 reasons why SEO is the choice a lot of business owners invest in while pulling back the reins on traditional advertising.
1. Track your EXACT Return on Investment (ROI)
Traditional advertising is a “throw it against the wall and see what sticks”. I don’t know about you, but that isn’t the way I want to spend my advertising dollars when every penny counts.
Search Engine Optimization is different. With SEO, you can literally track almost every aspect of how you were found, the keywords that were used, and even if they eventually purchased something from you. With that knowledge, you can continually improve your strategy to jive with the market. Try doing that with traditional advertising. [click to continue…]
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There comes a time in every blogger’s/webmaster’s/designer’s life where you get tired of working with a site. Maybe your interest in the niche slipped into non-existence or you got tired of the work and updates that seem never-ending. Sound familiar?
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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.
