Obviously this is going to be more pertinent to those who do not currently have a website, or perhaps those who are not happy with their current site.

The great thing about my sites is that they are built in weordpress…this makes them versatile, easy to handle and, most importantly, the search engines love them!

They are built using CSS (cascading style sheets) which makes it easier for the search engines to read your site, as they are looking just at the content, which is what they are interested in.

Anyway, email me if you are interested from my contact page

Thanks and speak soon

Mark

– I highly recommend this.

This one piece of software got me started in the SEO business several years ago. I started small with just my hypnosis site and managed to get it to page 1 of Google for the term ‘hypnotherapy’ and it has remained there ever since (and I don’t spend half as much time on this site now as I used to). Go and check it out, type ‘hypnotherapy’ into Google and my site, www.happyandwell.com, should be up there on page 1.

This software, by Brad Callen, tells you exactly what you need to do to outrank your competition. It gives a large amount of critical information about your site and your competitors’ sites, and it has a built it directory submitter. You can also track your keyword positions on the major search engines and get a breakdown of your own site, which pages are listed on Google, and their PR. This information is particularly valuable if you have, or plan to have, a large site with hundreds or thousands of pages.

But best of all is the link building feature, allowing you to get thousands of links from high ranking, Google friendly sites. And high quality links to your site are a huge part of Google’s ranking algorithm.

There is a one off purchase price with free upgrades for life, and a 60 day money back guarantee.

I wont say anymore, just have a look for yourself by clicking here.

Thanks

Mark

RSS stands for ‘Really Simple Syndication’.  (Sometimes it is referred to as ‘Rich Site Summary’). Basically RSS delivers updated and changing content to anyone subscribed to that particular RSS feed.  News feeds are very popular for instance as news is constantly updating throughout the day. If you were to have to continually monitor a news site for new information this would quickly become tedious and very time consuming.

The first thing you will need is an RSS reader. There are many of these and are either browser based or a downloadable application. Personally I use iGoogle and this is the most popular, although your could try My Yahoo,  Feedster or Bloglines. They all perform the same function of notifying you if there is any new content in your subscribed RSS feeds. You only need one reader for all of your RSS feed subscriptions.

The obvious advantage of browser based RSS readers is that they are accessible from any computer, similar to an email hotmail account. Downloadable applications allow you to store the information on your computer, as you would your email in outlook.

Once you have chosen which reader to use you simply have to decide which content you would like to subscribe to. For instance a weather buff could subscribe to the BBC weather feed. Simply go to the BBC weather page and look for the familiar orange RSS feed button. Click on this to subscribe and all content will be delivered to your RSS reader. When there is an update you can just click on the headline to take you back to the new content on the subscribed website.

As the feed itself is more a means of notification than anything else, the information contained is very basic. Usually it is a clickable headline followed by a short description, and this is fine because that’s all we need. Some RSS feeds are set up to display the entire content of an updated post,  but a brief headline is more common.

More and more sites are now taking advantage of RSS, and you can tell if a site has a feed as it will display the standard square, orange button on its page, or else this same button can be found in your url browser, usually on the right hand side.

From a search engine optimisation point of view, RSS feeds provide great backlinks to your site, and allow direct traffic from surfers interested in what you have to say. Blogging platforms are very popular with RSS as it is such an easy way to discover when your favourite blogger  has added a new post. Social media also use RSS, so you could maybe subscribe to the feed of your favourites on Twitter, and be alerted as to when they post an update, rather than continually checking back to their page.

So why not subscribe to my updates now by clicking on the orange RSS  icon above right, with the word ‘POSTS’ after it.

Thanks

Mark

It is important to get good keyword rich domain names, so, as always, keyword research is the most important part of this process.  So, to use the ubiquitous ‘widget’ example, if you had a site that was selling widgets you  could first try and buy the domain “widgets.com/.org/.net” etc if this is taken try “sellingwidgets.com”  and so on until you get the domain you are happy with.

The two hosts I use most are Hostgator and Godaddy, you can click on the banners below to take you straight through to these sites:

If your product or service is country specific then I would always recommend getting a country specific top level domain (ccTLD – Country Code Top Level Domain) such as .co.uk for the UK, .fr for France, .ca for Canada etc. Most registrars will sell these domains, but if you are struggling to buy one for your specific location type your ccTLD followed by ‘domain names’ into the search engine and you should get a good choice from there (for example ‘.co.uk domain names‘). If not then feel free to get in touch with me and I will help.

So which domain extension is the best? There are so many extensions these days that opinion is very divided. The official line taken by Google is that the extension does not matter, but all the evidence points to the contrary. In general the top domain extensions in order of preference are

1 .com
2 .net or .org
3 .info or .biz

.com’s have always been more brand able and tend to do very well in the search engines.
.org’s are good too, but are still often associated with charities and organisation.
.info’s tend to be a little cheaper but because of this have always been seen as a little spammy.  Originally they were associated with information sites, and if you have a site which is based mostly on supplying information then this will still be a good bet.

The use of hyphens in a domain name is another grey area. Generally a hyphen will make your site less brand able and harder for people to remember, but can still be a good idea if it helps you get your keyword rich domain name. I would not recommend however any more than 1 hyphen. So in our example above you could use selling-widgets.com but I would steer clear of you-selling-widgets.com

And finally we can move on to prefix and suffix. A prefix comes before your keyword and a suffix after it. So for instance in the widgets example your keyword could be prefixed by ’online’ or ‘your’ or ‘buy’  thus making onlinewidgets.com or buywidgets.com

The suffix would simply come after your keyword, such as widgets online.com or widgetsreviews.com
In general I would recommend using prefix and suffix if it is suitable for your business, if you are selling a product online then putting a prefix of ‘buy’ or ‘buying’ is very viable.  Also of course the prefix and suffix are good if the domain name and extension you are primarily after are not available.

That’s it for now. As always feel free to ask any questions or leave a comment.

Mark

Domain name is the address you type into your web browser ending in .com or .net or .co.uk ie google.com or google.co.uk or twitter.com Domain names can have a big influence on your SEO (search engine optimisation) and can influence the speed of indexing and how high your site is ranked, and can also have a very direct impact on how much money you can make.

It can be a difficult choice. You are looking for an SEO friendly domain. Keyword research is very important in any optimisation as ideally you are looking for a keyword that is searched for many times, but has low competition. This is an idealised view, and rarely seen so easily, but you get the general picture.

Once you have you a keyword or phrase it is important to use this phrase when choosing a domain name. Although the search engines haven’t come out and admitted it, all the evidence points to the fact that they see keywords and phrases as an important factor in ranking.

There are three categories of keyword matching options. Exact match, phrase match and broad match.

Exact Match matches your keyword or phrase in the domain exactly. For instance if your keyphrase is ‘bird seed’ then the exact match domain would be ‘birdseed.com ‘

Phrase match has the keywords in the right order in your domain but with an extra word also to create a new phrase. Using the bird seed example that could be ‘buybirdseed.com’

Broad match has the keywords in a different order, also with an extra word or two thrown in. For example ‘seedbirdonline.com’

There is also non keyword optimised domains, which don’t have any of your keywords included. Again taking the above example this could be ‘avianfood.com’

Generally non keyword phrases are most suited for companies with an established brand, or trying to build a brand. This doesn’t mean that these domains can not be used for your chosen keyphrase, it just makes it a little more difficult.

With all other ranking factors being equal then the search engines will rank in the following order: Exact, then phrase and finally broad.

In my next post I will discuss choosing the best domain if your keyword has been taken.

Google Wave is coming later this year. Google Wave is an online ‘communication and collaboration’ tool developed for the web.

I have included the Google Wave Developer preview below. It is long, but may be worth a browse as it gives a lot of information about google wave.

With a google wave you will be able to communicate and work with richly formatted text, videos, documents etc. Because the google wave is shared anyone participating can add participants, edit the text and content and reply anywhere in the message so the wave really is shared. And because the google wave is live you can see any updates or edits in real time.

For more information check out the google wave developer preview below.

If you areinterested in getting your site way up the Google rankings, then just email me your web address to mark@blogyourworld.com

Thanks!

Mark

There are a whole load of resources available to help you with your wordpress blogging, so I thought I would list the main resources that are available here as a quick reference.

If you feel I have missed something then please leave a comment and I will add it if necessary.

Thanks!

Mark

http://wordpress.com – Starting point for your free hosted wordpress blog

http://wordpress.org – The place to start for your self hosted wordpress blog

http://www.wordpress.org/support – WordPress support forum for self hosted blogs

http://wordpress.com/forums – WordPress support for free hosted blogs

http://codex.wordpress.org - A great resource! Basically an online manual for wordpress users

http://wordpress.org/development – Here you can access news about wordpress and its development

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins – The wordpress plugin directory. Thousands of plugins listed here

http://wordpress.org/extend/themes – WordPress free theme directory. Once again, thousands to choose from, and a good safe place to get themes without the worry of spyware, viruses etc

Linkbait is used to attract traffic to your website or blog. It is content on your site written to entertain anger or educate your readers. If these articles are well written and create a reaction then you will create a buzz that spreads through the internet virally from one site to another producing links and comments about what you have written. The search engine spiders then follow these links back to your site and hey presto! Your ranking improves.

Here are 5 different types of linkbait which will bring links and visitors pouring back to your site:

1. Argument and Debate. Have a rant about something (or someone) in a really negative fashion and you will invite a whole load of attention to your site. People will argue with you, call you names, agree with you, support you…everything! It doesn’t matter because the attention is there, the comments will flow and you will be attracting plenty of links. Great Linkbait!
2. News. Write about what is happening now in the world. Both with the internet and the world in general. If you keep up with breaking news, even a short blog post will produce links to your sites.
3. Knowledge. This is always a good one. If you pen information and articles that educate people then you will always get a good response. People are hungry for knowledge.
4. Make them laugh. A bit of humour goes a long way. Keep it brief, remember ‘Brevity is the soul of Wit’. But funny stories, anecdotes, videos and cartoons will keep people coming back to your site.
5. Resource. Build a good resource list and viewers will link to it. A resource list can be incredibly useful for someone involved in your specific niche and will become a reference for them. This is probably one of the best forms of linkbait that you can have. A niche specific list of resources is invaluable and will generate far more links and traffic than your other pages of content, no matter how good that may be.

So keep these 5 points in mind, or better still link to this page, and you can start building your own linkbait straight away!

Thanks

Mark

Note, this is a very basic video for beginners only.

Thanks!

Mark