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…]
Why using Google Analytics is making your site a sitting duck for your competitors & erasing your chances of growth.
A lot of bloggers and website owner use Google Analytics. It is free, has the Google Rubber Stamp of Approval, and looks pretty cool. So what could be so wrong with it?
Google Analytics is killing your site because it isn’t actually analytics. Or it isn’t used the way Analytics should be used.
Let’s step back a moment and ask a zen question… “What is the point of Analytics?”
A lot of people would answer that question this way… “Analytics tells you how many hits you get, where they come from, and what is popular on your site at any time. It also makes me very happy to see the line go up over time!”
Now that is all fine and good and important to know. Hell, I LOVE checking my analytics and seeing that “+26%” of whatever. It makes my day! But what is the real point of analytics? Isn’t there something more to it than just feeling good when you get lots of hits or feeling bad when you don’t? [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!
[click to continue…]
Gotta Love Tanisha
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.
Wordcamp Columbus! Yay!
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…
Hey everybody. Since there are occasionally some really hot SEO tips that I just can’t bring myself to put on this blog, I’ve started a private email newsletter to pass the tips along.
The newsletter is brand new, and you can sign up to be on the private list here.
If SEO, Wordpress, or Wordpress Development interests you, I really recommend you get on the newsletter list!
Thanks, 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…
[click to continue…]
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…]
I’ve never promised that my design sense is all that great. I’ll leave that to the specialists who could run circles around me in Photoshop, Fireworks, or Illustrator.
But, if you come by this blog much, then you likely noticed that a redesign silently took place.
It was time: I’d heard the last design was everything from “offensive”, “childish”, and downright terrible. The sad thing is- I agreed.
So I finally made time to redo everything. Inspiration awards go out to Dive Into Mark, colourlovers, and the entire redesign was powered by Gala Apples and Chipotle.
Until today, I wasn’t sure if the design was doing-it-for-me. That was, until about 30 minutes ago. [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…]
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 
