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:
One Click Plugin Upgrader
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.
Best,
Brad
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…]
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…]
Tonight, while taking a leisurely ride home, I saw some friends from way back when. Conversations ensued, and somehow the inevitable “What are you doing these days?” came up.
Now SEO (Search Engine Optimization for the uninitiated) sounds pretty complicated, so I usually just say something along the lines of… “Well, you see, errr, I make websites do a lot better in Google. And that makes the people who own that site very happy.”
Well this particular night something unusual happened. The guy I was talking to had heard of SEO. And he said, “Well, that must be about the most boring job in the world.”
Yeah. He said that.
Now maybe it’s not skydiving instructor, or brain surgeon, but the most boring job in the world? [click to continue…]
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…]
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…]
About six months ago, I released the Wordpress SEO Blueprint. It’s a short guide to simple, easy-to-implement techniques that will help get your Wordpress Blog indexed and rank for the keywords you’re going after.
The ebook has sold well and I’m very proud of the positive response from the readers of the Wordpress SEO Blueprint.
As my skills and focus have developed and changed, I realized that to up the ante in the Search Engine Optimization world, it’s important to let your secrets go eventually. That’s why this ebook is now available to everybody for free. [click to continue…]
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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There are literally thousands of SEO blogs, a handful of SEO books, and almost a lifetime of SEO tidbits that might make your site preform better in the Search Engines. In this post, I’d like to distill everything you’ll ever hear about Search Engine Optimization. I’m going to pare it down to an easy-to-understand picture so you can easily cut through the fog of Search Engine Optimization. Whether you are looking to hire a stellar SEO, want to do some SEO yourself, or just want to get an idea of how Search Engines interpret their results, this should help in your endeavor.
Search Engines are getting better everyday and giving better results. Slowly, Google and the gang are getting better at knowing if your site is authoritative, unique, and worthwhile to their searchers. We don’t know how they determine it, or quantify it, and we likely never will. But they know, and they are getting better at filtering the good and bad with each and every algorithm tweak.
Everything in SEO falls into two camps: On-Page SEO factors, and Off-Page SEO factors.
-On Page SEO Factors Include: Links around your own site, title tags, meta tags,your written content, etc. and optimizing all of this to give a clear picture to the Search Engines about your subject matter.
-Off Page SEO Factors Include: All the links to your site and their anchor text, all the buzz about your site, people remembering your site or message, viral linking, linkbait, and everything else that the creative marketers think up to get links and headspace.
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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 
