AMVA - Amanda Moore Virtual Assistant

In hosting the Virtual Assistant/Home Business Blog Carnival each week, one thing that continually surprises me is the number of bloggers who submit articles that don’t have text-based permalinks and that have titles which are not Search Engine Optimized (SEO). These are also usually the blogs that use a lot of “click here” links on their websites. These three things are so easy to change and will have a huge impact on the ranking of your blog that it makes no sense not to do them.

Titles

As any journalist will tell you, the power is in the title. If your article doesn’t have an eye-catching, interest building title, the odds of someone clicking on your link to read your article are greatly reduced.

For example, which article would you rather read?

1. Resource List
2. 97 SEO Resources That Will Get Your Blog Noticed

If you chose #2, you’re with the majority, but is that how you’re writing your titles? I’ll admit, sometimes it can just be hard to come up with a catchy title, but at least try to use something more descriptive and eye-catching than “Resource List.” The more info you give in the title to get interest the more people will see your post.

Permalinks

Even more important than your title for SEO is the way your link is generated. Using text-based permalinks is crucial for good SEO. This applies mainly to WordPress bloggers, but every blogger should double check their settings.

Which link would you be more likely to click on?

1. http://www.yourblog.com/?p=255
2. http://www.yourblog.com/97-seo-resources-that-will-get-your-blog-noticed

Obviously the answer is #2. Not only is it descriptive for the reader which will give you more clicks, it’s descriptive for the spiders which will help with your page rank.

In WordPress, the default setting is option #1 but it only takes about 10 seconds to change and will do your blog a world of good. Here are the instructions on how to change this setting.

1. Log in to your WordPress Dashboard
2. Click on the “Settings” link on the right side of your screen
3. Click on “Permalinks”
4. Choose the setting that you want to use (depending on how much info you want displayed)
5. Click the “Save Changes” button

There you go. 10 seconds and you dramatically increased the your blog’s SEO.

Keyword Links

Spiders are constantly crawling our blogs looking for information. One thing they like are links. If something is linked, that indicates that it’s important so you want to give the spider as much information as possible in that one tiny link.

Using key words to link is a great way to tell the spiders more about your site. For example, if I wanted to send someone to my services section, instead of linking “click here” (which is the #1 linked phrase on the net) I could link this phrase “Learn how AMVA can give you more free time.”

This will do a couple things.

1. It gets my company name into a link, and therefore into the search engine info about my page
2. It uses my tag line (which is “Giving you more free time”) which means that when people search for those words, my site is more likely to come up.
3. It’s more interesting to readers than “click here.”

You don’t want to go all nuts and try to cram in 1001 keywords into one link, but be more creative with your link choices so that you’re getting the most bang for your buck.

Implementing these three concepts (but particularly the Permalinks part) doesn’t take very long and will do amazing things for your SEO.

Submitting to Carnivals can be time consuming, but if you set up a system, you can do it all in just a few minutes. Here’s my system for Quick and Dirty blog carnival submissions:

1. Go to the Blog Carnival website and look at their list of available Carnivals. You’ll notice that there are dozens of Carnivals to choose from. You could theoretically submit to them all, but that would be a waste of time so instead you…
2. Sort the list by Latest Edition. This will tell you which Carnivals are actually active. Then, you want to scan down the list for Carnivals that are appropriate for the specific post you’re submitting. If you are submitting a post about SEO and How to Increase Page Rank, you don’t want to submit to the Canine Carnival. That’s just a waste of everyone’s time.
3. Open the Carnivals that look like they’re appropriate for your post. The best way to do this is just hold the Ctrl button and click on the link. This will open the page in a new tab. Do this for all of the Carnivals that look interesting and have been published in the last 2 months.
4. Re-sort the list by Next Edition. This will catch the carnivals that only publish on a quarterly (or longer) basis. Repeat step 3 above.
5. Read the Carnival Summary. This is important. Sometimes, from the name, you’ll think the Carnival is about one thing when it’s really about something completely different. If it’s not appropriate to your post, don’t submit your article.
6. Submit your post to the first Carnival only. If you’ve read the summary and you think that your post is appropriate for the Carnival, go ahead and click on the Submit An Article button on the left side. Now here’s the important part: before you submit any posts, bookmark the submission page. This will make it much easier in the future when you want to submit again. Fill in the information with the appropriate permalink and your contact information and hit submit. Don’t forget to include strong remarks as that’s what will get many people to read your post before others.
7. Submit your post to all of the other Carnivals. By completing the entire submission process with the first Carnival, you’ve just decreased your work because now certain information will pre-populate, based on what you posted in the first carnival. Now, to save time, instead of completing each Carnival one at a time, do the following:
   • paste your permalink into each carnival and hit tab, then move on to the next submission form. When you’ve placed your permalink into all of the Carnivals, go back to the first and you’ll see the info that has auto populated.
   • fill in the missing information but before you hit submit, copy each piece of information and paste it into the appropriate field on each Carnival submission page. Do this with all of the fields and after you’ve filled in the Remarks box on each, hit submit. Doing this cutting and pasting will save you a lot of time rather than re-typing the same information for each Carnival.

Once you’ve gotten your regular Carnival submissions bookmarked as outlined above, any time you want to submit to a Carnival all you have to do is check the site once a week for new Carnivals. Just repeat steps 1-4 above and look for the “new” icon. Be aware that Carnivals are listed as new for a while so make sure it’s not one you already submit to and then just follow the rest of the steps.

By following this process, I can submit to about a dozen different Carnivals in 10 minutes or less. I just go to my bookmarks page and right click on the “Carnivals” folder. Then I click “Open all in Tabs” and the Carnivals automatically go to the submission page. Then I just follow steps 6-7 above.

Blog Carnivals can be an excellent way to gain rank, authority and readers, just don’t expect it all to happen in one day.

I recently received the following question on my post Call For Blog Carnival Posts from Paul at The Business Coaching Blog.

Do you have much success with Blog Carnivals?
I tried it at the start of the year and submitted some of my best articles but never received enough traffic back to justify the time and effort.

The answer is, it depends on how you define success. You can’t just look at traffic because there’s a lot more involved which is actually more important than the traffic you receive.

Participating in Blog Carnivals can offer other things besides traffic.

1. By getting listed in a Blog Carnival you’re getting a keyword laden (assuming you use good titles) deep link to a page on your blog. Google *loves* that. It shows that people like specific things you’re saying, not just your blog in general.
2. The link from the Carnival gives you a touch more Technorati Authority, which Google is also a fan of.
3. Many participants in Carnivals will link back to the Carnival and make a comment about their favorite post(s) which could give you yet another link for #1 and 2 above.
4. When your submission is posted, you can go comment on the post to get your name in front of people again. If the host happens to be using do-follow and particularly comment or keyword luv, you’ve just gotten another link-back.
5. Your name and blog will get in front of many people who might never have found you otherwise which could result in a new loyal reader or two.

So you see, it’s not all about the traffic. You have to look at the big picture. Traffic is just a small bonus to the big payoff which is page rank and authority. About the traffic though, it’s my experience that even when it’s not a ton, it trickles in forever. On another blog I run, I have an article I posted to a Carnival 2 years ago that I still get hits on.

For tips on how to easily submit your posts to a Carnival, read my Down and Dirty Blog Submission Technique and don’t forget to submit your posts to my Virtual Assistant/Home Business Blog Carnival.

Every month I will post my top-10 referrers and my top-5 articles for the month. I don’t count commercial sites like Digg, Stumble, etc., but just want to give a little something back to the private sites that liked my content enough to send people my way.

1. Librillo de apuntes de Ramón Buenaventura
2. Full Time Blogger
3. Dosh Dosh
4. Inspired Moneymaker
5. M.Y. Marketing & Design
6. From the Desk of Janet Barclay
7. Modern Marketing Support
8. Internet Business Blog
9. Young Fox Consulting
10. Blog Me The Money

Top articles:

1. 106 Organizations That Are Changing the World (17,000+ hits are a result of going popular on Digg)
2. 6 Things That Will Make Me Leave Your Blog
3. How My Passion Is Changing My Life
4. Blog Carnivals 2 and 3
5. Do You Need a Virtual Assistant

Thanks to everyone for visiting and especially those of you who left comments. I love to read them and have installed do-follow and comment love to make sure you benefit from participation on my site.

by Nicholas Nanton

If you’re looking to grow your business, then a BLOG is a great tool to add to your tool chest. In this article we will discuss BLOG basics and how you can use them in your business.

1. What’s a BLOG?

What’s a BLOG you ask? Well, let me tell you. According to Wikipedia.com:

A blog (short for web log) is a user-generated website where entries are made in journal style and displayed in a reverse chronological order [newest entries are at the top].

So, its really just an online journal or diary that is written by anyone who wants to tell the world what’s on their mind. (Side note: When I say “the world” I really mean it, so be careful what you write.)

Ok, so how can this help you grow your business? Great question. To understand the answer you have to know just a bit about how search engines work.

2. BLOGs and Search Engines

Search engines like Google, Yahoo, MSN and all the others use what they call “spiders.” Spiders are software programs that “crawl” the internet looking for new content, and rank it based on its contents and its relevance to a certain topic. This is all done by some very complex math, but the important thing you need to know is that if you write often and/or discuss topics that are getting searched online a lot (i.e. topics in the news), the search engines will consider your site “relevant” and if you include “key words” (popular search terms) in your content, that you know your potential customers are searching for, there is a much better chance that they will actually be able to find you.

So to recap, my 3 Principles of BLOGging for Search Engines are:

1)Write Often

2)Write Relevant

3)Write Using Key Words

3. What makes a good BLOG?

This is a rhetorical question. The only thing that really matters is the opinion of the audience you are trying to reach. So here are a few tips that will help you stay on track.

1. Know who you are writing for - If your audience is 13 year olds, writing about retiring next year probably isn’t going to get you a lot of return visitors

2. Keep it short and to the point - 100-300 words is all most people will have the time to read, so keep your articles short and to the point. Over time this will build a great deal of credibility with your readers.

3. Write actionable content - “How To” and “Top 10″ lists are great. It gives your readers action steps they can take to use your content in their everyday lives. Think about ways to use these to point out how you are different from your competitors.

4. Don’t be afraid to tell some of your secrets - People love to hear about how to make something happen, then they love to pay someone else to do it. Let’s be honest, even though you just told me how I can edit my html code on my website to make it stick out like neon lights in a search engine, that doesn’t mean I want to do it myself. Just give me a way to contact you to hire you. After all, you just showed me that you are the expert.

5. Allow Comments - Consider allowing people to post comments about your BLOG. In fact, you should be the first one to post a comment after each blog, pose a question or comment to simply getting a discussion started. If visitors are interacting and writing comments about your BLOG, they are actually adding relevant content that the search engines are going to like.

Well, there you have it, BLOG basics.

JW Dicks & Nick Nanton, founders of TheBusinessGrowthLawyers.com, publish the Business Growth ezine monthly covering topics that every business, start-up to international powerhouse, needs to know. If you’re ready to take your business to the next level, get more FREE info now at www.TheBusinessGrowthLawyers.com
Article Source: Keyword Articles

Ok folks, this one has been at the back of my mind for a while but I just experienced it again so I’m putting it out to the world.

Blogging is SUCH an important part of building your online presence. However, there are things you can do that will detract from your visitor’s experience. Here are a few things that I’ve run into lately on some blogs that make me want to not go back:

1 - Advertising. Too much advertising is a *huge* turn-off. Particularly if the ads blink or move in some way (anything moving and blinking is a no-no) or the ones that are the double underline of the word with an ad that pops up of you hover over it. The amount of money you make may not be worth how many people you send away.

2 - Pop-ups. Pop-ups are evil. Please don’t use them. And in this I’m also including the ’snap view’ or whatever it’s called that wordpress.com blogs default to. It’s the little box that pops up when you hover over a link. Annoying in the extreme.

3 - Music. Unless you’re a band, there’s no reason to have music on your blog. If you feel you *must* have music, make it really, really, really obvious how to turn it off.

4 - Comments. Comments are the life blood of a blog. It’s how you get your readers engaged with you and coming back. If you set your blog up to only accept comments from people who have to be members of a certain service (i.e. blogger.com blogs) you’re going to lose a lot of people. I have a blogger/gmail ID, but it’s not linked to my business, it’s personal and I don’t want that linked to my business comments. Make your comments so that ANYONE can comment and just moderate them.

5 - Contact information. If you’re running a blog for a business, you MUST give your visitors a way to contact you - particularly if you don’t allow open comments. An email address is easiest, but if you’re not comfortable with that, at least put up a contact form. Otherwise you might as well just put up a post that says “I don’t want your business”

6 - RSS feeds. If you have a blog and you don’t have an RSS feed you’re making a big mistake. I’m still seeing a lot of blogs out there where you can subscribe to a newsletter, but not to an RSS feed. Well, I don’t do newsletters so, while I enjoyed your blog, I won’t be reading it again. Sorry.

So, to the blogger who had a bad experience that I wanted to commiserate with but who didn’t have contact info or wouldn’t let me comment - sorry that happened. I’ve been there, it gets easier.

So…what are your blogging pet peeves?

I’d never really thought too much about my blog commenting strategy. In fact, I’d probably never combined the word words “blog” and “commenting” and “strategy” into a single thought before. Sure, I knew at the back of my brain that if I left a comment on a blog some people might trickle back my way because of it, but that wasn’t really my motivation. Mostly I was just commenting because I liked (or disliked) the post.

Then I read a Dosh Dosh article suggesting that I rethink my blog comments and it made me do just that. The premise of the post is that blog comments should be used to build relationships with the poster (and potentially other commentators) not just give them a virtual high-5 or hope for some traffic your way. There are a few points that he made that really stood out to me:

1 - Almost all comments (unless they’re just spam) are valuable to the poster. Most bloggers (particularly popular ones) moderate their blogs so they’re reading everything whether it’s a “great job” or an in-depth analysis of the post. By posting you can potentially influence their way of thinking. I was always a little hesitant to post comments because I didn’t want to just add more work to the blogger’s plate, but I wasn’t looking at it as a way of connecting with them.

2 - “great job” comments can be seen as spammy or like you’re just looking for some back-link-love. I’d never really thought about this, probably because I only get a few comments a week so every one gives me a good feeling (except the viagra pushers), but on an extremely popular post with dozens or hundreds of comments, your “great job” isn’t really adding any value.

Personally, I try to make my comments a bit more pertinent, but sometimes I just want to acknowledge to the poster (particularly if there are no other comments) that their post was read and appreciated. I know that it can get disheartening to get lots of hits and no comments - good or bad. You start to wonder if people are actually even reading. So, while it may seem spammy to some of the big bloggers, for the little guys I say leave the “great job” comment. Odds are, you’ll make their day.

3 - Don’t be a serial commentator. If you are just finding a blog and read their last 10 posts and have individual, pertinent comments for all of them, go ahead, comment. However, if you’re just leaving a “great job” on all of them, it’s going to make you look like a spammer. This is particularly true if you leave the same comment on multiple posts across multiple blogs (like one of Dosh Dosh’s commentators did).

I highly recommend reading the entire article linked above. It may just change the way you comment in the future.

~~~~~

Some other posts discussing the Dosh Dosh post that I enjoyed:

• Dosh Dosh on Blog Comments
• 10 great tips and Wordpress plugins to increase comments
• Commenting for the Future
• Do you have a blog commenting strategy? (This poster has an amazingly thorough commenting strategy!