Blogging News

Blogs and Search Engine Optimization

Ten Tips For Optimizing Your Blog For Search Engines

It’s not breaking news that blogs are great for search engines. Since blogs became popular and were documented in the main stream media, back around early 2004, the merits of their marketing reach and search engine prowess has been well-covered by the search and marketing industry. It’s almost as if blogs were specifically designed to appeal to search engines, in that they fulfill so many specific criteria search engines look for when determining ranking. Fresh, content-based websites with clean architecture, simple navigation and keyword-rich page titles are like honey to a bear, search engines are naturally attracted to them and once they get sticky, they keep coming back.

But getting your blog to really communicate well with the engines isn’t something that comes built in; there are some essential steps that you need to take in order to make it easy for engines to discover your site and subsequently, rank it higher. Follow these ten tips to optimizing your blog for search engines, and you’ll be well on your way.
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Study Indicates a Rash of Twitter Quitters

While a staggering amount of people seem to talk about Twitter, the latest polls and research indicate that talk is about all that Twitter can muster nowadays. According to these latest numbers, the hype surrounding the microblogging site is far exceeding the practical rate of usage.

To that end, a study by Nielsen Online determined that over 60 percent of new Twitter users quit using the site after only one month. Put another way, the retention rate for the site hovers around 40 percent. To put that dismal number in perspective, other social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace boast a retention rate around 70 percent.

All the dedicated Twitter users, however, look for hope in the facts. After all, no one can deny the impressive rush of people who signed up for the service. But even these numbers can be viewed as troubling statistics for Twitter. After all, other social networking powerhouses also experienced explosive initial numbers. But unlike Twitter, they were able to hold onto their users.
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Twitter All Kinds of Popular

Twitter, the micro-blogging site that allows users to post updates in 140 characters or less, has garnered a ton of attention lately due to rumors of acquisition talks by the search giant Google. With it’s impressive user base and over 8 million visits per month, Twitter has some serious bargaining chips, especially when it comes to real-time search. This may be where Google has interest in Twitter, due to the potential real-time search tools Twitter offers and what this could mean to the future of search. Basically, indexing the feed of updates would allow engines like Google to tap into the collective conscious of Twitter users, and therefor a microcosm of the web’s user base, with instant results. Although all the talk has been speculation, and it’s been downplayed by Twitter to just a conversation about products and search, the service is certainly on the block.
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XML Sitemaps and Search Engine Marketing

I’ve always held the belief that XML sitemaps are an important technical aspect to an effective marketing campaign, especially when it comes to blog and search engine marketing. However, this belief was only supported in theory. Sure, every piece of marketing advice and documentation pointed to why XML sitemaps were beneficial, but there wasn’t any data to back up that claim. It was a search engine optimization assumption, in that because this technology was supported by Google and all the other major engines, it made sense to include it in a comprehensive marketing campaign. The question is, does this actually help the engines index your site better or faster? Or is this just a myth pushed by myself and the rest of the SEO community to justify the addition? Couldn’t search engines find and index your site or blog easily on their own?
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A Giant Leap for Blogging Kind

When Barack Obama promised the American people change, not that many imagined he meant change within and through media channels. But on February 9, 2009, Obama held his first press conference, and there were definitely hints of change in the proceedings.

Taking questions started out in the most traditional way possible. Obama called on 88-year-old dean of the White House press corps, Helen Thomas. A prominent and longstanding figure in the media world, Obama became the tenth U.S. president to field her questions. Obama quipped, “All right, Helen, this is my inaugural moment here,” thus acknowledging the very tradition which he was furthering. All business, Thomas asked a traditionally pointed question about Afghan safe havens for potential terrorists and the existence or nonexistence of nuclear weapons in the Middle East. Still keeping within political tradition, Obama spoke without truly answering the question.

He didn’t break tradition until the next question, which was taken from Sam Stein of the Huffington Post, a news-centered blog and self-proclaimed internet newspaper. Stein asked a similarly pointed question regarding the potential prosecution of officials within the Bush administration, which Obama pointedly and elegantly sidestepped.
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Worst Blog Offenders

Blogs have finally reached that point where they are practically a staple in our daily internet cruising. With such diversity available, blogs end up serving many different purposes. Whether you’re surfing the extensive repertoire of blogs for fashion, celebrity gossip, sports, or metaphysical enlightenment, the basic goal of any good blog is to inform and entertain.

But with blogs being free and easy to set up, there are sure to be many that fail to meet this simple goal. Today we salute some of the most atrociously awful blogs. In fact, these blogs don’t just fail—they represent the absolute dregs of the blogosphere.

Worst Marketing Blog

Jack in the Box has always had slightly different advertising tactics (why exactly is their mascot a half man/half antenna ball, and why isn’t that feat of genetic science being studied?) But their blog takes the talking car accessory a bit too seriously. In fact, this forum is supposed to be the official MySpace page of one “Jack Box.” Displaying fabricated interests, place of birth, and children (you guessed it, Jack Jr.), I can’t help but feeling bad for the intern who had to spend an afternoon coming up with these inane pieces of fake trivia.
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Twitter User Falls from Sky

When Continental Flight 104 careened off the runway at the Denver international airport, it resulted in a broken fuselage, burning flames, torn away landing gear and engine, and temperatures so high that the interior compartments actually began to melt. The crash left thirty-eight injured and no deaths.

For software engineer and plane crash survivor Mike Wilson, there was little doubt about what to do in the wake of this traumatic event. Call home to let everyone know he’s okay? No, not quite. Check the other passengers and assess for injuries? Not exactly.
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Stop (Blogging), In the Name of the Law

In the world of printed writing, there are many established laws concerning what can and can’t be done. The boundaries are generally clear, and these laws are widely known by those who take up a pen. But once those written blurbs move online, the law becomes a little bit fuzzier. Just ask Stephen Hogge, owner and operator of the blog HogOnIce.com.

Hogge found himself the center of a sticky legal situation after posting a blog that labeled an (allegedly) ex-girlfriend “a mentally ill alcoholic prostitute.” Apparently them’s more than fightin’ words. Them’s grounds for a lawsuit.

The woman in question, California resident Fatima dos Santos Fahmy, took issue with the maligning remarks. A graduate of Miami School of Law, Fahmy hauled Hogge into court. But the question quickly presented itself—where does one file a lawsuit of this kind?
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Thanks For WordPress 2.7

Happy Thanksgiving from iePlexus! In the spirit of giving thanks, and as a bit of an early Christmas present, I thought I’d give a little sneak peek into something that’s been a long time coming. Our favorite blog development platform, WordPress, is on the verge of releasing the most recent upgrade, WordPress 2.7. This version includes some serious improvements to the open-source application that has quickly dominated the blog development community and continues to grow its market share. More than ever, WordPress has transformed from a simple publishing platform into a dynamic, powerful content management system.
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Learning From Blog Predecessors

If you’re looking to start a successful blog, you might find yourself a bit discouraged. Confronted with so many established blogs, an internet presence can seem like a difficult thing to establish among such stiff competition.

But before you get too down on yourself, let’s remember that there are a lot of ways to gauge the success of a blog. You can label yourself a success when you’ve secured an impressive list of subscriptions, a healthy amount of inlinks, or perhaps even the ability to follow trends within your niche topic.

Whatever benchmark you’re using to gauge success, don’t forget that every established blog has piggybacked and improved upon the blogs that have come before. With that in mind, here are a few tips and pointers to glean from trends among today’s most successful blogs.
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