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10 Minutes a Day Can Help Your SEO-Stop playing games and get serious - Great SEO!

You know the old saying - if a tree falls in the forest and no one is there, does it still make a sound- or something like that.  Well that might be said of our blogs and websites...if we write a post and no one reads it, does it still exist?

Convoluted I know but with all of the work we do with our blogs and sites Joe Smith, a welcomed new Active Rain member, shows us how spending 10 minutes a day can help you with your SEO and Google. 

If you haven't "met" Joe yet, I suggest you do and subscribe to his blog. 

Via Joe Smith Great SEO Services that you can afford! (Nebraska Networks):

Hi Everyone, 

Yes, it has been awhile since I put out a post. To be honest, my phones have been ringing around the clock since Google's last algo updates, or should I say "last muscle flexing" I thought about the millions of people who have been affected by what I would call mindless updates. Well, one thing for certain, they are keeping me in business! I told a long time customer some hard truth yesterday. I told him to stop playing games! I keep telling people that "what you got away with in the past won't fly anyjmore".

PLEASE DON'T READ THIS POST AND COMMENT JUST TO GET YOUR 10 POINTS. TAKE 10 MINUTES A DAY TO ENSURE THAT YOU SURVIVE THE NEXT GOOGLE UPDATE.

The fact is, the info I am putting out in this post would take the average person 10 minutes a day (consistently) to avoid being penalized or more likely TANKED by Google. This post will show you how to find out if you get to pass go and collect a paycheck, or if you go to jail while your competitors go on buying and selling.

My tips are completely FREE! All I ask is that when my tips work for you that you refer people you know who might benefit from using my services, or those who don't have a desire to become their own SEO expert to me. My tips work only if you invest the time to do them. Please subscribe to my blog for regular SEO Tips. 


Great Affordable Quality SEO

 

 

 

I guess the deal is I get tired of watching friends crash and burn because they refuse to take their websites visibility serously. In the popular board game "Monopoly" you are playing for paper money, and at the end of the day, regardless of how much money you won or lost, you laugh and go home. In the REAL game of "Business" we depend on the traffic from our websites to keep our businesses alive. 

I have some good news, and some bad news for everyone. I will give you the bad news first so I can finish up with the good news and end on an encouraging note.

The bad news is that in the past few months, Google has released some very NASTY algorythms which have sent many people reeling, and many many websites tanked. Panda hit huge numbers of websites that were doing great into the depths of nowheresville (like page 20 or worse), Penguin followed up with what many felt was a death blow. What they DON'T know is that there is more coming. 

This post will give you practical steps to take to tankproof your website. You can spend the time now to tidy things up, or you better be prepared to look to mailings and other forms of marketing while your websites are "recovering". 

The best way to survive these algorythms is to understand what they do.

Here are some hints right from the horse's mouth. Here is what Matt Cutts of Google had to say about the Panda update.

"This update is designed to reduce rankings for low quality sites—sites which are low-value add for users, copy content from other websites or sites that are just not very useful. At the same time, it will provide better rankings for high quality sites—sites with original content and information such as research, in-depth reports, thoughtful analysis and so on." 

Given the above statement, you can make the following assessment of the direction you need to go with your site in order to avoid being penalized. Just look at the things they targeted and avoid them!

They are:

  1. Copy Content (duplicate content)... I know, I sound like a broken record!
  2. Spammy keyword usage...
  3. Sloppy linking practices
  4. Mis-use of "anchor text" in links. (OVERUSE of the same anchor text)

There are more factors, but the above 4 are being the hardest hit on the internet right now. Save yourself
alot of time and money by checking to see if you violate these rules.

Here are the steps you can take GUARANTEED to find out if you are targeted.. Yes, I said GUARANTEED!

Go to Semrush.Com and enter your site name in the search box in the form of www.yourdomain.com 
Look at the keywords semrush says your site is ranked for, and note the position they say you are in. Now go to google and search for those keywords. Where is your site? If it is not in the position semrush said it was in, you have been hit. Now it may not be that bad, but once you get hit, you can count on more scrutiny from them. A further check of your google analytics or your web stats will show you the same thing.  Look for an UP-DOWN-UP-DOWN pattern in your traffic. Sometimes it can be as bad as daily. Don't just check once and assume you are fine. Check these regularly, especially if you see declining rankings. 

I promised to end on a good note.. Here it is. If you detected a drop in your rankings, you can generally recover by simply fixing the issues. The number 1 problem I am finding in people's SEO is Duplicate content followed by bad link practices. 

The GREAT news is that you can survive the google updates if you work smart and take the time to be proactive. Look at your SEO the same as you would returning a call from a lead.

My #1 rule for Great SEO is that you be PROACTIVE, not REACTIVE!

Have a great day, and here's to seeing you ALL at the TOP!

 

 

Kathy Streib 
 
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Make Sure We Can Find You...You told me your name but forgot your title! - Great SEO

I probably could make a living reblogging Joe Smith of Nebraska Networks posts about SEO!   Please read this all the way through.  There aren't any cute pics but it's full of information you'll want to know about your page titles. Why spend time on our blogs and websites if know one can find them.

Go to Joe's site to leave your comments, then be sure to subscribe to his blog. 

Via Joe Smith (Nebraska Networks):

Hi Everyone,

Please read this whole post. This is a long post, but if you don't already FULLY understand the impact of your Page Title, and you don't read this post, you only have yourself to blame for lost business.

When I am responding to your comments here on A/R, I tend to randomly peek at your websites, and I would like to say that what I see is great work! You all have great sites, some extremely dynamic work out there! I commend you all..

I would like to say that about 80% of the sites that I have "peeked" at could be getting a LOT more traffic than you are. Here is what I found. I will not name any of the sites because it is not my intention here to criticize anyone, and honestly your sites look great. But I believe that someone FORGOT to tell many of you how critical your site titles are to your SEO efforts.

SEO can be very simple when we follow the rules, when we don't, our efforts will only be frustrated and un-fruitful.

You need to understand how critical this aspect of your SEO effort is. I will provide several example searches that you can see to help you understand how your page titles affect your visibility. A properly formed page title is the most powerful (and FAST) method you can use to increase your traffic.

OK, In life, many people get hung up on titles.. Where people are concerned, I could care less if people use my title or not. Where websites are concerned, titles are VITAL! In many career fields your name is not important, people don't find me by looking for Joe Smith, they find me by looking for Quality SEO or some other phrase.

If you were searching on the internet for someone to help you do your SEO, would you search first for Quality SEO, or start typing in random names hoping to find an SEO Expert? I know of one of my SEO clients who searched for me by name. In the real estate industry, your name is vital, but Google doesn't care what your name is.. SO many sites in the real estate industry have wrong titles, and it is costing you a lot of leads.

Here is a great example of how to do a title for multiple target keywords.

Quality SEO

Notice the Keywords I searched for, and the Title of the site.. "SEO Masters - Quality SEO - Search Engine Optimization"

Notice in the next picture I searched for SEO Masters which is also in the TITLE!

SEO Masters

 

Notice how I put both sets of keywords in my page title, and now it affected my results. Position 1 and Position 6 on page 1 is not shabby. You can easily verify these results by doing a search in Yahoo.com or Bing.com.. The results are the same in both. I did take a hit in Google during Panda, but I will recover..

Now notice the picture below of one of my competitors when I do the same search. They are on page 60. Notice, I used the bottom half of the screen instead of the top so you would catch the Page they are on.. Lets see, 60X10=??? Oh, they are in position 596..

Dumb SEO!

 

Who would you rather be, them or me? I am not going to fill this page with anymore pictures, you can verify all of this by a simple trip to Yahoo or Google anyway... but the below references prove the point is valid.

My Site Homes For Sale By Owner - Page Title "Homes for sale by owner | Sell your home | Home Sales Online" is #1 in Google, Yahoo, and Bing for the search term Home sales online, and is climbing for the other terms.

Another site Nationwide Restaurant Directory is in position #1 in google for the search term "Prime Dining", it is in the #3 position for "Nationwide Restaurants Directory" It is in the #10 position for "Omaha Restaurants Directory" The title of the page is "Omaha Restaurant Directory - Prime Dining Nationwide Restaurants Listing Service" What do you notice.. I have 3 sets of keywords and all of them show up on page 1 in google, yahoo and bing.

Now I have been doing a little research, on the position of keywords in the title but all my results are not in, but in my opinion, if a title is broken up into 3 sets of keywords, they are factored by Google as follows:

Least Important | Best Position | Second Best Position

Interesting tidbit huh?

I talked to a Realtor earlier, and she was getting no traffic I looked at her site and this is what I found.

The title of her page was "RE/Max HER CITY - Her Name" I am not going to expose who/where...
When I started doing more searches I discovered something that REALLY troubled me..

I did a search in google for "RE/Max" and found 165 pages of the following:

RE/Max CITY - Name

165 pages.. How do you think ANY of those professionals will EVER get found. What happens is "RE/Max" flooded the search engine results yet you would never find the agents... If you work for that organization, and they have given you your website, you might consider going into your admin and creating a REAL title that will separate you from those other 165 pages of results..

Ok, enough of my rambling... Please check and fix your title so you can be found... These are simple things to change that will make all the world of difference for you..

Have a GREAT day..

See you at the TOP!

 

Kathy Streib 
 
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Finally... a How to Answer I can Understand! Set your sights on the right keywords! -- Great SEO

Since I've been blogging I keep hearing about keywords and tags and I know how important they are but I could never quite get a handle on just how to choose them.  As Joe Smith of Nebraska Networks said, using your company name or your name as a keyword only works IF the person searching knows your company name.  

Hop over to Joe's post and say hello and while you're at it press the "subscribe" button as well. 

Via Joe Smith (Nebraska Networks):

Hi Everyone,

Just a quick post on keywords since I still get a lot of emails and comments on this subject.
Please forgive me for making assumptions that everyone fully understands keyword impact.

The keywords you choose will either make or break your online presence.

I had a conversation earlier today with a friend about keywords and it went kind of like this:

The friend said "I don't understand, I am in #1 position in google, but I have no business"
When I checked the site, I loaded the site in my browser and did a "view source". This is most representative of how the search engine sees your site. I looked at the 3 most important factors, Title, Meta Keys, Meta Descr... Guess what I found for all 3? Their company name!!!! I said "great, if I know your name, I can find you..."

Is that how you want to be found in google my friends? By your name, or your company name, or by a term like "California Homes for Sale", or "Maryland Real Estate"...

Consider the following example which will all find the same site.

Nebraska Networks -- Searched  less than 10 times monthly.
Joe Smith -- Searched 60,000 times monthly, but WHO CARES!
Quality SEO -- Searched only 58 times a month, but high conversions.
SEO -- Searched 90,500 times a month. I want this one on the target but not my main focus at first.
Affordable SEO -- Searched 2400 times a month, but the people searching this term want to pay nothing.

Below is where I put my crosshairs in respect to searches. I want a balance of people who want "Quality SEO"
and "Affordable SEO". "SEO" alone is wildly searched, so I target him, but I know he will take some time. Some people search for "Joe Smith SEO", and "Nebraska Networks SEO" so they are targets also, but I don't focus on them.

Quality SEO

Notice "Joe Smith" is off the target altogether. There is so much room in the Reticle (the visible area) of the scope I used in the example above. Anything in the reticle is to be considered "on the radar" or "low hanging fruit" these are keywords that you are targeting and are close to, or on page 1 that you want to focus your efforts on. On a brand new SEO endeavor, you need to decide what your target is, take aim at a set or 2, take your shot, and wait a month to see where they all land. The keywords above are targeted for my website Affordable Quality SEO (anyone see how I just targeted another set of keywords?)

Find your keywords using the Google Keyword Tool and make sure you check the "Exact" box on the left side of the page under the "Match Types" option.

Remember, you can be in position #1 on google for all the wrong keywords and get NO traffic. Do your homework and pick the right keywords for your business!

See you at the TOP!!

 

Kathy Streib 
 
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Great SEO - Get a hold of your bounce rate and watch leads increase!

We all spend a lot of time blogging and working our websites but do we really know what's going on after we post or publish them?  

Joe Smith, of Nebraska Networks, has written an excellent post about Bounce Rates.  He explains what they are and how we can increase our leads by monitoring our web traffic.  I had the opportunity to speak with Joe today and he helped me out with my site.  

Head over and introduce yourself to Joe!

Via Joe Smith (Nebraska Networks):

Hi Everyone,

This is going to be a valuable (and fun) post. Get a hold of (and reduce) your bounce rate and your income will grow EXPONENTIALLY!

Over the years, I have had conversation after conversation with my customers about "Bounce Rate" and 90% have asked me the same question.. - "Bounce Rate? What is that?" What are you talking about Joe?? Bounce Rate???

Here is the simplest way I can describe "Bounce Rate".. It is when a visitor hits the homepage of your website, does not navigate to any internal pages, and leaves your site to go elsewhere. Whats your bounce rate

With the proper website statistics software, you can go as far as to know the following:

1: Where did the visitor come from.
2: What search engine did they use. This is the "Referrer" page... Could be the same as "Referring Search Engine"
3: What keywords did they search for in the search engine. This is called "Keywords", or "Keyphrases"..
4: What was the "Entry" page ... (what page did they first hit on your site) This is called the "Entry" page.
5: How long (in seconds) did they stay on your site. This is called "Visit Duration"
6: What page were they on right before they exited your site. This is known as the "Exit" page..

Ok, when you UNDERSTAND, and CONTROL your bounce rate, your income can double.. REALLY DOUBLE! Mine did.
Now, many of you are scratching your heads and saying "HOW CAN I CONTROL THIS?"..
I used to ask the same question till I started really ANALYZING my site logs. I don't mean taking 10 minutes and scraping through your logs and saying "Great, got that done" NO! I mean ANALYZING them from TOP to BOTTOM, and EVERYWHERE in between..

Now, the info listed above is very important, but you actually have to look at it in somewhat reverse order..

1: Was the "Exit" page the same as the Entry page? If this is the case, you have little to NO business.
2: How long did the visitor stay on your page, and on what page?
3: What were they looking for (Keywords/Keyphrases?
4: Did they get to the page in your system that satisfies those keywords?? Did they find what they were looking for?
5: What search engine did they come from (You may need to target other keywords in other Search Engines).
6: Most of the time, I don't care where they came from, but for local services this can help to know.

Ok, now the practical reason this is all important.
I have one site (it is REALLY UGLY), but last year I did 2 things to it.. I aggressively SEO'd it, and I aggressively went after my bounce rate. This site sells just one service (I install commercial grade email servers for internet providers).
Year before last, I did about $20K worth of business that I knew I could attribute directly to that website. After a good long look at my statistics for that site, I found I needed to make some adjustments. Here is what I did, and here is how it affected my bottom line. I made it impossible for any visitor to not know how to buy from me. I put my main product right in their face. Keep in mind that I made these changes in late December.. Guess what happened?? By March of 2011 I had made multiple sales (almost $90K worth).. Remember in the previous year I had done a total of $20K from this same site.. Get the picture friends? Now lets take a few minutes and talk about bounce rate and how to fix this problem..

When bounce rate is high, there are several problems that could be working against you..

1: Your visitors are not finding what they are looking for.
2: Your site is SO wordy that people get overwhelmed and click away.
3: Navigation is poor
4: Too many choices

I have a friend at Hayneedle, several years ago, he and I were talking and he said to me "Joe, do you know how long the average website visit lasts?" I jokingly said "Till they leave", he said "you better find out cause their money is leaving with them". The reality is that hayneedle did a study and found out that the average life of a website visit was less than 8 seconds. That is the time it takes a potential customer to decide whether your website is worth staying on, or whether they are moving on.. Interestingly enough, Google.Com feels the same way, and they have decided that one of the factors they now use to "rank" your website is your "Bounce Rate"....

Ok Joe, get to the point.. The longer your visitors stay on your website before clicking away affects your overall SEO rate. The longer your visitors stay on your site also affects whether they end up using your services or not.

Take a look at my business website at Nebraska Networks and think of yourself as a potential customer.  Where did your eyes first go? Ok, did you find out something about my company there? If your eyes went right to the image in the upper right portion of the page. You see the services we offer there.. Then you start scanning the page for info on those services. Right below that image, you see 3 boxes that take you to pages about the key services we provide. Take a look at Dell's Website. See any similarity? Take a look at my site Sell Your Home which focuses on Real Estate Resources, where do your eyes land? See the 3 points below the main image?

Google knows how long a visitor stays on your page, they know which page the visitor first went to, and they know where the visitor was when they left. You need to get your "Bounce Rate" under control. Now many of you are saying "Ok Joe, I don't even know my bounce rate, let alone managing it" Never fear.. Your'e in good hands! Here is what you need to do.

1: Contact your hosting provider, and ask them where your web stats are accessible at. If at all possible, have your hosting provider install "Awstats" for you. This stats package works great for these purposes.
2: Go to your stats pages, and make an investment into your business by figuring out how your stats work, and what info you can get from them.
3: I don't want to overwhelm you right now, so just focus on 4 points.

  1. Keywords (keywords they used to find you)
  2. Entry Page (what was the page they came into first)
  3. Exit Page (what page were they on when they left)
  4. If #2 and #3 are the same, you have a problem.

Now that you have this information, go to your website, have your friends go to your website. Ask them for their honest opinion of whether they would use you if they needed your service. Ask them if they were able to navigate your site without confusion. Ask them where their eyes landed when they first went to your site.

Make the adjustments necessary and monitor your stats daily. You may say I don't have time to do all that, I'm trying
to sell houses, or I'm trying to sell a product.. Ok great, start by learning how to keep visitors on your site so you can capitalize on the one resource you have... TRAFFIC!

I could go on and on.. Enough of my rambling for this post..

Have a great evening, and here's to your great success!

Joe

 

Kathy Streib 
 
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What the Heck Does SOAP have to Do with SEO??

What the heck does SOAP have to do with SEO?

If you’ve spent any time on Active Rain at all you know how much we’re encouraged to write posts about our local area....events, neighborhoods, soaplocal restaurants and stores.   You are providing something of value to your readers as well as setting yourself apart as the expert in your area.

And as many of you who write these have experienced, we often get the “out of the blue” call from someone asking us …..


“Can I bring my dog to the orchid show?”
“ I’m in for the season.. .is this the tea room?”

So it was no surprise today when I received this call today...

“Hi, I found you on the Internet and wanted to see if you were tired of melting soap.”

Me:  “Excuse me?”

“I wanted to tell you about a product I developed that will save soap from melting away and getting all mushy.  I saw that your store  carries soaps and bath products.”

You get my drift.  We had a nice conversation about his product and what he’s doing to market it.  And in fact... he’s sending me some to try out.  I told him that if it does what it says it’s supposed to I’ll be happy to write about it in my blog.  

Now, if you ask if it resulted directly into a Staging project for me.. the answer is no.  But.. he knows a lot more about what home staging is than he did before and he knows who am.  

When I can get my name and the home staging profession in front of the Room Service Home Stagingpublic, then I’ve just had some free advertisement.   

So what the heck does Soap have to do with SEO?  


I’ll let you figure it out.. I have to go write

some more Local posts.


PS ...Stay tuned and I’ll let you know how this product does.       


 

Kathy Streib 
 
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Just How Many Links are too many? A key SEO learning from Active Rain University

I just had to reblog this one by Debbie Gartner our AR Flooring lady!  I'm scared to go to my blog signature line to see just how many links I have there to my Social Media but per Debbie... this dilutes your Google juice.  

Pick the links that are important to you for your blog.  You can always add the other social media links to your sidebar!

Via Debbie Gartner - Westchester Flooring -Hardwood Floors Carpet Tile Refinish - (Floor Coverings International Westchester NY & Stamford CT):

A year and a half ago, I took a series of Active Rain University courses and they were super helpul.  I took 3 classes during the last week or so of August/beginning of September - right around Labor Day when things were slowing down and I had a bit of extra time and things were more relaxed.  This was 2 months after I started blogging, and for me, that was perfect.  I think if I had taken them too soon, it would have been overwhelming.  I was just at the point where I was starting to know what I was doing, but still had so much to learn.

active rain university logoFor those that haven't taken them yet, by all means sign up.  It's amazing how much they can pack into that hour and I learned a ton of tips.

Here's one that really stood out.

Fewer links on a page is better...less is more!

We all know that if you overwhelm a consumer in any way, they are less likely to make a decision. This can be in the form of visual clutter on your page, giving them too many product selections (or showing too many homes) or giving them too many reasons to buy, etc.  So, we all know that instinctively - try to make things simple.  So, using this logic, if you have a few links on the page, customers are more likely to click, and if you have too many, they are less likely to click.

But, what I didn't realize until after I took the class is that google treats things the same way.  No one knows the exact formula, but essentially there is a certain amount of google juice on each page.  And, if you have one outbound link, that link gets the juice.  If you have more liks, the juice gets divided...so the more links, the less juice per link.  And, the first link gets the most juice, followed by the 2nd and then the 3rd, etc.  Makes sense, right?

 

So, what does that mean for us?

1.  In general, having less links on a page or blog post is better.  The less links, the more juice per link.  In Active Rain University, they suggested 2-5 links per post is ideal....and, that includes the links in your footer.

2.  Put your most important link first!  And, I believe it's better if you put that link above the fold (or top part of the page before someone needs to scroll).  I'm not sure if that just makes it more likely for someone to click (esp since some people scan) or if there is a google benefit or both.

 

After I took this course, I took the following actions:

1.  I removed my social media links in my footer...they were taking up valuable link juice and for me/my biz, these links were less important than links to my site/key pages.  (that may be different for you).  I did add them to my side bar, though.

2.  I elminated other less important links in my footer.  I still have 4 which may be too many, but that's what seemed to make the most sense for me.

3.  I've been more choiceful in the number of links I have in most posts.  Yes, of course, I have some posts w/ lots of links and it's called for, but for many, i may only have 1-3 key links.

4.  I make sure my most important link is first and comes early in the post!  If it doesn't flow naturally from the text, I insert a link on the first photo (since that will be what google reads first).

I hope this is helpful, and I do hope you can take some time to attend the Active Rain University classes. They are free and jam packed with useful information.

Hardwood Flooring - Carpet - Tile/Natural Stone - Laminate - Refinish Hardwood - Backsplashes

Floor Coverings International Westchester and StamfordDebbie Gartner, President and Owner

"The Flooring Girl"Debbie Gartner - Westchester Hardwood Flooring

Floor Coverings International: Westchester NY/Stamford CT

You can download our free flooring guide.  Or, visit our flooring selector - 2,000 options for hardwood flooring, carpet, tile. Call us for a free estimate 914-937-2950. 

"We bring the store to your door."

WC19920-H07, HIC619252

 

Kathy Streib 
 
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How to Increase Blog Traffic with Engaging Content

Rebekah Radice of Benchmark Mortgage in Colorado Springs, CO. has written another great post to help us increase traffic to our blog. And, as we've been told, a good blog begins with good content.  

If you're still struggling to write your posts or even if you've been writing for years, you'll find Rebekah's post informative.  And, don't forget to read all the way to the end for her "Rules to Apply to each post"!

Via Rebekah Radice Colorado Springs FHA Loan 203k, VA Mortgage, Loan Pre-Approval (Benchmark Mortgage, Colorado Springs FHA, VA, Pre-Approval):

increased blog traffic with engaging content

Once you have established your blog with consistent and relevant content, increasing your blog traffic is an important next step. In order to generate buzz and gain traction, you will need to boost your blog’s online visibility. It’s essential that you have a social media strategy as well as a consistent posting schedule and plan.

To achieve this, a crucial element to increased blog traffic is your content. This is the driving force behind your blog’s success as it’s what keeps readers coming back time and time again. It’s definitely not an area where you can take a “hit or miss” approach.

Here are 7 quick and easy tips to get you on the road to blog readability and sustainability!

Pick One Topic and Stick With It

Define what your one topic will be per post and stick with it. If you feel yourself getting off track or going off on a tangent then take the time to slowly work your way back through the post. Can you take this tangent and break it up into a series of posts? Don’t just automatically delete and move on. I find that “getting off track” in my current article can offer additional talking points and ideas for additional blogs.

Choose Your Words Wisely

Clean up your post and eliminate all of your unnecessary or "weakening" words and/or phrases. (Adjectives and adverbs are typically the first ones to cut!) Remember that keyword density (the percentage of keywords used based on the number of words in your post) is a very important part of organic SEO. Optimizing your blog posts is one part of the writing process and a big step toward increasing traffic to your website or blog.

Post Consistently

There's no getting around this one. Don’t try to make each post a work of art or a 1000 word article. Just get out there and write and realize that sometimes good is good enough. By consistently posting, increased traffic will begin to happen as readers refer and search engines find you. With a little effort, your blog can and will change your business.

Write Catchy Blog Post Titles

Write short, effective headlines for blog posts. Start with your main keyword and then work it into your title and post. The challenge can be making it feel natural.

Make sure that your post titles:

  • Stimulate the curiosity of your readers and
  • Summon their emotions – whether it’s anger, frustration, happiness or excitement

Check the Readability of Your Blog Before Posting

Reading your post out loud allows you to feel what your reader will feel as they read through it. It also allows you to sense where you can edit or eliminate unnecessary verbiage. I always read my articles out loud (to the utter frustration of my family) to hear the flow of each sentence and make certain it isn't too wordy or choppy. There’s no shame in editing as you read through.

Practice makes perfect!

Apply the Rule of One

Apply one of these rules to each of your posts:

  • Offer a solution for your readers
  • Offer an answer that your competition isn’t
  • Show “how-to” do something
  • Encourage your readers through facts to make a decision
  • Entertain your readers through a relatable story
  • Inspire your readers through “feel good” stories
  • Make your readers laugh, cry or think
  • Let your readers get to know you and understand that you really can make a difference in their life or situation

Now ask yourself: How does this article make the lives of my readers better or easier?

Mix Up Your Posts

Intersperse fun, relatable stories with educational and informative articles all while making it entertaining and engaging.

You don’t need to do a hard sell to get people to buy from you. What you need is authentic, relevant information that offers insight into who you are and why they need to take action with you today.

Writing great blog content only requires a couple things – consistent posts from someone that truly cares.

Generating blog traffic will come as you make blogging a part of your routine. Good luck -- and here's to increased blog traffic!

 

Here are a few more resources on writing effective blog posts and generating blog traffic.

How to Write a Catchy Blog Post Title that POPS

Blogging Mistakes You Can’t Afford to Make

20 Sure-Fire Blog Titles that Get Results

 

How to Increase Blog Traffic with Engaging Content was written by Rebekah Radice.

 

 

 

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Recent Articles from Rebekah's Blog

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What Happened to My Loan Approval

Top 5 Reasons You Should Blog on Active Rain

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Kathy Streib 
 
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Adding Google +1 button to your website

 

Our very busy Debbie Gartner of Floor Coverings Int'l has done it again.  If you're not familiar with Google+1... Google it because it's the next techie/FB'ie thing coming down the road. 

Debbie shares how to add the Google+1 button to your website.  You don't have to add it but at least know what it is!  

Since I have not tried to do this ..... yet if you have any installation questions.. best you head to Debbie's blog and in fact head there anyway to thank her!!!

 

Via Debbie Gartner - Westchester Flooring -Hardwood Floors Carpet Tile Refinish - (Floor Coverings International Westchester NY & Fairfield CT):

google plus oneAs many of you know, getting Google +1's on your website or blog posts can give you a boost in Google's Rankings.  Certainly, the most important thing is content/keywords/links, but Google +1 can be the icing on the cake.  The theory is that if you have good content, people will like you and give you a +1.

So, how do you add this to your website?

To be honest, I really struggled with this...I read it in several places and didn't get it/couldn't get it to work.  But, thanks to Marte Cliff, I finally got it to work last night, so I added it to my home page and 6 key internal pages.

 

Here's how.

1.  Go into the html code for your page.

2.  At the bottom of the page add this in:

<script type "text/javascript" src=https://apis.google.com/js/plusone.js"></script>

This is supposed to go at the end...right before the </body> tag.  Now oddly enough some of my pages had this tag and others didn't.  It seemed to work when I put this at the end when there was no tag, or directly before the tag when there is a tag.  Weird, but it worked.

3.  Add in the google +1 icon using below script placing it where you want on the page.  So, if you want it at the beginning, put it there; if you want it at the end put it there...or put it in both places.

<g:plusone></g:plusone>

 

Bonus:  If you want it right justified change above to be:

<div style="text-align; right;"><g:plusone></g:plusone></div>

If you want it centered, change "right" to "center" and I believe it will work

 

Westchester hardwood flooringIf you want to help my site's rankings (and if you like my site), check out my home page Westchester Flooring - Floor Coverings International.  To get to the Google +1, you need to scroll down below the slider and the 1, 2, 3, 4 section.  Please note that you need to be logged on to your gmail account and have a Google Profile already established.  (Note: this is not the ideal placement on my page, but I don't currently have a way to move it higher.

Also, I added it to my hardwood, carpet and tile pages - both on top and bottom (these placements are better.  Feel free to +1 those as well.

I just added these.  Currently, I have 5 plus ones on my home page, 2 on my hardwood page and 1 on the carpet and 1 on the tile page.  So, clearly, I have a long way to go.  I can definitely use your help.

 

BTW, I have not been successful in getting this to work on my Active Rain blog.  If anyone knows how to do that, please let me know.  It keeps erasing the code on here and I'm not sure why.

Hope you found this helpful.

 

 

 

 

 

Hardwood Flooring - Carpet - Tile/Natural Stone - Laminate - Refinish Hardwood - Backsplashes

Floor Coverings International Westchester and StamfordDebbie Gartner, President and Owner

"The Flooring Girl"Debbie Gartner - Westchester Hardwood Flooring

Floor Coverings International: Westchester NY/Stamford CT

You can download our free flooring guide.  Or, visit our flooring selector - 2,000 options for hardwood flooring, carpet, tile. Call us for a free estimate 914-937-2950. 

"We bring the store to your door."

WC19920-H07, HIC619252

 

Kathy Streib 
 
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You Just Never Know What You'll Find When You Google!

You Just Never Know What You'll Find When You Google!

I'm wracking my brains out tonight while watching True Grit (the Jeff Bridges version) and for the life of me I just can't think about what to write.   So, about 15 minutes into the movie I decided upon a topic, which will for now be placed to the side, perhaps never to see the "blogging" light of day.

So as part of my diligent research I was doing for my aforementioned blog topic I Googled "Drought conditions in Palm Beach County"..... and look what I found:

google

Yep... there was a post I wrote last week about 5 Things You Can Do in Drought conditions when selling your house.  Who would have thought! 

I'm not sure from a Blogging-SEO standpoint what this means.  But if you look at most of the other sites that are on that page, they're our local newspaper and television stations. 

So as you're scratching your head and wondering if writing about the local parade taking place this weekend; or current political events...local charities... the weather and its affect on local events.... whatever.... don't think... just write.  You may find out that through links or key words you may just pop up on Google where you'd least expect it!

**I went back after I'd written this post and Googled the topic again, and I came up a few times on page 2, then Googled it again and was back on Page 1, then back on Page 2.. and so on and so forth.  I'll leave it to Craig Daniels or Tammy Emineth to figure it out.

 

 

Kathy Streib 
 
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