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…]
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
Link Builder's Pro "Service"
I know a lot of you out there may eventually decide to hire a link builder, so I want to tell you a bit about my experience with Link Builders Pro.
In the 4th quarter of last year, I hired Link Builders Pro to develop links for a website I promote. At the time, they were offering essentially the same package as they still offer, albeit for $1800 instead of their new price of $2500. (Why they raised the price I’ll never know).
It is important to note a few things about Link Builder’s Pro before paying them anything- as it is tricky to get concrete expectations after you have paid. Please keep in mind that this is just my experience, and yours may differ.
- Link Builders Pro uses blog farms. An example of which is here: (http://www.generaldir.net/business_and_economy/law/). Sadly, this is actually a “good” example of their offerings. Other examples from their final link report are here:
http://www.patonchessstore.com/business_and_economy/law/
http://www.uighuralp.com/business_and_economy/law/
http://www.051163.com/business_and_economy/law/
http://www.faddy.info/business_and_economy/law/
- Link Builders Pro uses low-quality blogs without established Pagerank. Of the initial meager bump in links the site saw, only a handful actually had even a pagerank of one. Yes, less than 1% of the pages with links pointed at us had any pagerank whatsoever. OK, maybe the homepage of the website had a pagerank of 1 (on rare occasions), but that certainly doesn’t mean the page you are linked from has any link value at all. These links pass almost no value at all. They may even hurt you in the long run.
- Link Builders Pro doesn’t meet deadlines. In our case, they ran almost double the estimated 6 weeks.
The closest thing to a "Statement of Work" we received.
- Link Builders Pro does not deliver what they claim. As my screenshot attached shows, Link Builders Pro claims to deliver “thousands of links from hundreds of websites with established PR [Pagerank].” They simply do not even come close. If you ask them why not, they’ll tell you to wait 90 days. Well, after 90 days there are even less links in the Yahoo Site Explorer then were there when I started the dispute. Currently, three months after ending our contract with Link Builders Pro, there are less than 400 links (of almost negligable value) that were developed by Link Builders Pro. That isn’t thousands, and I would be surprised if even one of the links was on a page with a PR of one or greater.
- Link Builders Pro will not work to your satisfaction. I’ve made all of these statement to Greg at linkbuilders pro (the owner) and he couldn’t offer any sort of resolution. His main argument was that to get what we wanted (we eventually asked to receive even the most modest interpretation of his website’s claims… and we never received it) would cost much more than the $1800 we paid. I haven’t heard such an asinine argument since the last season of Curb Your Enthusiasm. (God I love that show.) So if you want to get what you paid for, you are going to have to pay a lot more than you paid. Does this sound like a Zen Koan to anyone else?
I could go on for days and days explaining why you shouldn’t use Link Builders Pro, but I think we’ve covered the basics. Why would you pay $2500 (the cost of a nice vacation for you and your family) for what in my experience turned out to have absolutely no effect on a website’s rankings? It doesn’t seem prudent to me.
My suggestion to anyone considering a linkbuilding firm would be:
- Know what you are buying. Read up on Linkbuilding from Eric Ward, the master of Linkbuilding, so you can spot a fake.
- Get promises in writing.
- Understand SEO , or hire an SEO, so you can call them on their bullshit.
I hope this is helpful to you guys. And if Greg or anyone at Link Builders Pro comes across this site, please feel free to contact me with your response and I will happily post it right here.
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
Dean Ramsden, a fantastic Energy Healer and all-around Amazing Guy, is a recent client whose new website deserves to take a walk down the virtual catwalk.
I would love to take credit for how great the website looks, but in all honesty it’s Dean’s creative vision and good taste that made it look this good. Magnus Jepson, the theme designer and cofounder at WooThemes also deserves a big shout out. Let’s just say we make a good team…
Dean had this to say about our working relationship:
“After I had called Brad to do SEO work I was so impressed that he became my main website developer. These days he builds, maintains, and troubleshoots my website and blog, taking on every WordPress challenge thrown at him with determination and flair. Brad provides effective results. If you are looking for a talented and reliable WordPress consultant, don’t wait any longer. Hire him.”
A bit of background:
Dean’s last site got bit by the Wordpress 2.6 bug. (For heaven’s sake, if you haven’t upgraded to WP 2.7, please do so and save yourself a lot of hours. We learned this the hard way!)
But instead of letting the bug get in the way of his internet-aspirations, Dean took it as a cue to make his site bigger, better, and beefed-up with new security features. Now Dean’s blog is a security tank, but this is the only tank I know that can also win a beauty contest.
Security is a growing issue with all of Wordpress- as mentioned in the recent article about Wordpress in USA Today. Making sure Dean’s website was safe from hackers required researching and synthesizing a lot of security data. As a result I’m increasing my knowledge daily on how to make WordPress safer. While no one can guarantee you won’t get hit in the future I can suggest several important WordPress tweaks that will significantly improve your blog’s security. And that’s a good thing in today’s internet reality.
Dean’s new theme had a place to add twitter, and that functunality just couldn’t sit idle, could it? I encouraged Dean to get over to twitter and start tweeting away. And he has. Dean’s site is an excellent example of how putting your personality into and showcasing transparency on your site can be extremely compelling. It also makes Dean more approachable, and that is just good for business.
[click to continue…]
Jaimie Sirovich, the “egghead” behind SEO Egghead is at it again. He’s created a wonderful little plugin that solves a lot of SEO issues with Wordpress pagination problems.
I’m going to let Jaimie explain a bit better here…
-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…]
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…]
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…]
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 
