SEO Werkt!

This was one of the first sessions at the BlogHer ’12 conference, Aug. 2 – 4 in Manhattan, and it was jam-packed with bloggers who wanted to learn how to position themselves to work with brands, find a healthy balance between blogging and professional and personal demands, and promote their blogs on social media. 

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This guest post is by Ayelet Weisz of All Colores.

Yesterday, I started the convoluted process of swapping my blog from WordPress.com to WordPress.org. As you may remember, I’d finally got to the point where I was ready to import the files of my blog. Everything seemed to be okay, until….

Big Deal #4: The import keeps getting stuck

You see that white screen? That’s how it stayed.

At first, I was happy. The little circle on my browser was turning. I assumed it would take a lot of time. Even though my blog was obviously smaller (2.9 megabytes) than the maximum allowed file (64 megabytes), I figured it would take time to import eight months worth of blogging with almost 2000 photographs.

So I let it be.

When I returned to my computer, I found out that the import process had got stuck. Remember, my blog crashed for almost 48 hours. I was sure that was the reason of my current technical challenge. After my blog returned to life and I was able to work again, I repeated the process explained above. While my blog hasn’t crashed since (and it was in late February), after a short moment of importing, nothing was circling anymore: the white screen of the import remained white.

Big Deal #5: Challenges with the blog file

I decided to open the file I had exported from WordPress.com. This is what it looked like:

I learned that there were two errors in the file:

1. Error on line 149 at column 32: Namespace prefix atom on link is not defined.
2. Error on line 150 at column 29: Namespace prefix atom on link is not defined.

I Googled it and found various discussions on the matter. I looked for ways to fix the file, yet found no help in simple language. I tried exporting the file from WordPress.com and importing to WordPress.org various times, and kept hitting the same error, only in different lines and columns each time.

As I kept searching the web, more and more answers seemed to lead to one solution, but one that sounded too simple—and to be honest, too frustrating—to be true.

The advice said, refresh the page.

I exported the file once more. Imported it once more. And then refreshed it an unbelievable number of times.

Each time, more and more files appeared to be added. Sometimes only a few files were added when I hit Refresh; sometimes there were many at a time.

Either way, the list of files kept growing.

At the end of every file line, it said “already exists”. For example, “Media ‘DSCF1372′ already exists”. Also, I didn’t see all my posts and pages on the list. I was concerned that some aspects of the blog were being imported multiple times and some not at all.

Then I got some good news.

“All Done. Have Fun!” WordPress.Org wrote to me.

Could it all really be done? Could I now actually stop dealing with technicalities and return to writing?

I logged in to my new URL: www.AllColores.com—no “WordPress” between my blog’s name and the dot-com—and I saw my blog! It was an exciting moment.

Until I noticed something was not okay.

Big Deal #6: My photos weren’t included

All was well with the posts and the comments on my blog, but no photos appeared in the posts. Let me remind you, we are talking about almost 2000 photos, which I made sure to include in the export and import processes.

After some digging in my dashboard, it turned out I’d actually done things well. The photos were indeed imported to the new blog … most of them just weren’t “attached” to any blog post.

The solution? Take a deep breath!

On the left-hand sidebar of your dashboard you will find the word “media”. Click on it. You will reach your media library, where all your photos are listed. I had 1856 media files, all of which were photos, and 1847 of them were unattached. That means that only nine photos were attached.

As you will see in the above photo, in each line beside the media file, you will find a column named “author”. Next to it, there will be a column called “attached to”. If the photo is unattached, an Attach button will be available. Click on that button to attach the picture to the post.

An image will pop up, asking you to search for a post or a page. You can type the beginning of a post title, or choose from a list offered by WordPress by clicking on the right post, then click on Select.

If you, too, have many media files and don’t feel like spending hours “attaching” them to countless posts, you can Google for plugins that might do it for you. From the various message board discussions I read, these actually had helped several people. I tried a couple of options, but they did nothing for me. It was back to manual work.

How do you remember which media file belongs in which post?

That’s where not deleting your WordPress.com blog comes in handy. Keep one window open on your WordPress.org dashboard, and log back in to your WordPress.com dashboard on another. Go to your media library. In your WordPres.com dashboard, files are attached to posts. Follow what it says there as you attach photos on your WordPress.org dashboard.

And, as it turns out, there’s a way to hurry up the process after all.

On any given page, mark all the photos related to a single post and only then click Attach on one of the photos. You will select a post the same way, yet when you click Select, up to twenty photos will be attached at the same time.

Once I was done attaching, I verified that all photos were transferred and attached well.

The end result

Here is a part of my post “More Photos from Bariloche”, which I published while in Argentina in September 2011 to let everyone back home know I’d been doing well and enjoying the snow.

Here is part of that post as it appeared on my new WordPress.org blog in late February 2012:

At last, I could breathe a sigh of true relief. I would have preferred to start with WordPress.org, yet accomplishing this triumph gave me a new boost of energy as I returned to do what I love most: writing.

Have you encountered any other technical challenges while transferring your blog from WordPress.com to WordPress.org? Share your tips and tricks with us in the comments.

Ayelet Weisz is an enthusiastic writer and translator from Israel. She celebrates the everyday and extraordinaire joys of life through travel on her travel blog, All Colores. Follow her adventures onTwitter and sign up to her RSS Feed.

Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger

Transfer Your Blog From WordPress.com to WordPress.org Part 2

If you’re just new to Twitter marketing, one of the best things to do is look for examples. Of course, there’s no better way than to look after your colleagues or competitors. If not all, you can always find a similar business or blogger that is taking advantage of the micro-blogging site.

Good thing, there are now easy ways on how you can research the competition on Twitter.

Follow Your Competitors

The first thing that you need to do is to follow your competitor and monitor what they do on Twitter. The good thing about it is that you don’t need to follow them directly. Instead, you can create a private list on your account, and then add all of their accounts, as well their employees that are also on Twitter. In turn, this will give you a stream of information on how they handle their strategy.

Check their @Replies

Searching for your competitors’ @username will also give you a look on what other people are saying about them. That way, you will know what their followers are looking for, what questions they frequently ask, as well as their complaints.

In case you see that your competitors don’t respond to majority of their @replies, it will be ideal if you can share what you know with them. Just avoid replying with a blunt marketing pitch. Instead, offer help or suggestion, and then let them decide whether they follow it or not.

Know Their Followers

It would also be helpful if you analyze your competitors’ followers. You can do this by signing up to third-party Twitter applications that offer such services. Knowing who their followers are will give you an insight on how active their community is, and who among their fans are the most influential. This will also give you an idea on who your target audience are, which you should also start creating genuine relationship with.

Monitor How They Integrate Other Social Media

Other than Twitter, businesses use other social media and integrate it with their micro-blogging campaign. Check out what other networking sites are they using. If your competitors have customized background, it is most likely posted on their profile. Other than that, see how they use and integrate it with their Twitter account.

When researching about your colleagues and competitors on Twitter, always to remember to look for good example. Once you’ve found them, follow them and analyze their marketing strategy. That way, you can create a good Twitter marketing strategy for your business.

The post Analyzing Your Competitors’ Twitter Marketing Strategies appeared first on About Social Media.

I like to compare blogging and guest blogging to news segments. Bear with me here. For the sake of keeping things light-hearted, we’ll use The Daily Show as an example. Now this is Jon Stewart’s show (or his blog). People tune in primarily to listen to his commentary (his blog posts). However, in addition to his [...]

Instagram users will no longer be able to find their friends on Twitter, as the micro-blogging site has blocked Instagram from that part of its Twitter connection.

continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

There are millions and millions of blogs living in the blogosphere.  Sadly, only a handful of blogs get regular readership.  The problem is blogs are so easy to start up, but not as easy to build up.  Many bloggers don’t know what they are getting themselves into after they have an account and blog address.   Would you consider yourself to be one of those bloggers? Maybe you are or maybe you’re not, but we all make mistakes.  Check out these five blogging mistakes and how to get them fixed so you can get on to building your blog.  

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Who needs a TARDIS when you can time travel via YouTube? Today, we’re looking back at the blog-centric interview between MarketingProfs chief content officer Ann Handley and Scott Rosenberg, co-founder of Salon and author of Say Everything: How Blogging Began, What It’s Becoming, and Why It Matters. 

The superbrief, informative interview discusses the differences between blogging and journalism writing in 2009.

Plus, Scott discusses why most journalists were slow to adapt to the blogging world. Most couldn’t see why blogs mattered. Scott says he initially thought, “What’s the point?” (Yes, he changed his mind soon enough.)

Are the differences still that defined today?

The second day of our Search Marketing Expo Advanced in Seattle is now over and we have complied a list of live blogging throughout the day. Below is a listing of blog posts we have found covering SMX Advanced today. 57 Amazing Ways To Audit PPC Campaigns Like A Pro, Straight From #SMX Advanced,…



Please visit Search Engine Land for the full article.

The first day of our Search Marketing Expo Advanced in Seattle is now over and we have complied a list of live blogging throughout the day. Below is a listing of blog posts we have found covering SMX Advanced today. 12 Hardcore Social Media Tactics from #SMX Advanced in Seattle, Microsoft…



Please visit Search Engine Land for the full article.

This guest post is by Bamidele Onibalusi of YoungPrePro.com.

Guest blogging is currently among the most popular marketing tactics, and you can be sure find guides on guest blogging almost anywhere you go online.

The problem with guest blogging is that it is being used by so many people today that if you donít have a solid plan your blog will hardly benefit.

What do you want from guest blogging?

Imagine I ask the question, “What exactly do you want from guest blogging? How do you want guest blogging to contribute to the success of your blog?” What would be your answer?

I’m sure a lot of us will answer along the lines of, “I want to score a guest post on ProBlogger and get hundreds of visitors back to my blog as a result.” Or “I want to score a guest post on {insert top blog’s name} and bring my blog to limelight.”

The reality, though, is that while following the above approach might sound like a smart thing to do, it is hardly very effective. A guest post on a big blog in your niche won’t make your blog popular; ten guest posts on big blogs won’t, either.

I’ve written hundreds of guest posts for my blog in the past two years, a good portion of which were published on big blogs. I’ve even had a guest post published that sent me 1,000 visitors in a day, and another one that sent me around 1,500 visitors in one week. You’d expect these to be some of my most effective guest posts ever, but unfortunately, they weren’t.

The best guest posts I’ve ever written, in terms of results, were written in one week, and they were submitted to blogs youíve probably never heard of. I wrote 31 guest posts, and I submitted them all in one week.

Together, all of those guest posts sent me less than 150 visitors in total referral traffic. But, those 31 guest posts I wrote in one week have resulted in over 60,000 additional visitors in search engine traffic over the past six months.

Re-read the above paragraph; that was 31 guest posts in one week, submitted to very small blogs that sent little or no traffic, but which lead to over 60,000 visitors in six months.

If we do the math, that’s like an additional 10,000 visitors in a month, for just one week of work. It’s an average of 1935 visitors per guest post. (It’s actually more, because the real number was around 64,000 visitors, but I rounded it down for the purposes of this discussion. Another thing worth noting is that around 26 of those guest posts were published, but let’s leave it at the number written—31—for the sake of this article).

You’re probably thinking, “How did he do it?” I’ll answer that question in this article, but before I do so, I’ll try to convince you as to why this approach is better than just focusing on writing hit-and-miss guest posts for big blogs in your niche.

So you see clearly what I mean, here are screenshots of my search traffic before and after the challenge.

Six months of traffic before the challenge:

Six months of traffic after the challenge:

You’ll notice a huge increase in traffic in just six months with these screenshots. It’s like a 200% increase in traffic, even though I never did anything to increase my SEO traffic after the challenge.

I know a lot of factors count when it comes to SEO, so the stats above are to some extent subjective, but I’m certain the search engine traffic increase is hugely influenced by those 31 guest posts I talked about earlier. To prove this, I wrote a post just ten days after the challenge, since I’d already started noticing an additional 100+ search engine visitors. You can read the post to read more about my experience.

Why you should write guest posts for SEO instead of instant traffic

It’s more effective in the long run

If you’ve written a number of guest posts on big blogs before, you will notice the traffic you get hardly lasts. Depending on the quality of your guest post and content on your blog, you’ll be lucky to retain 10% of the visitors you got from a big guest post (you can retain more, of course, if you focus your efforts on getting subscribers).

With this in mind, even guest posts that sent me thousands of visitors only do that in the week or month of the guest post being published; after that, the traffic dies down and I hardly get any more traffic from those guest posts.

With guest blogging for SEO, however, the effect of a single guest post can last for months. Search engines take time to recognize and calculate links, but you can start seeing effects a few weeks after gaining a link.

The difference between writing guest posts for traffic and for SEO is that traffic dies down as your guest post gets buried on the blog where it was published, while traffic increases from the search engines as time goes on; in other words, the value of your linked guest post increases with time.

It’s easier to do

If you want a huge spike in traffic from your guest posts, you have to choose the very best blogs in your niche, and, to be honest, it takes time and effort to get published on them. In contrast, writing for links is easier with smaller blogs.

In other words, you can write, say, three guest posts for smaller blogs in the time it will take you to write one post for a bigger blog, and if you do things right you will be able to get results from the guest post on the smaller blogs in no time.

You get targeted traffic

Let’s be honest: when you write for a blog that publishes a host of topic, the traffic you will get will only be targeted to an extent, no matter how targeted your guest post is.

However, by focusing on SEO ,you’ll get more closely targeted traffic. People only use the search engines when searching for something specific, so they’re more likely to subscribe to your blog or buy your product if they come from the search engines (or at least, if they come through targeted keyword results).

It’s a passive, long-term strategy

A few guest posts can have an effect for years. Traffic doesn’t die down like it does when you experience a spike in traffic from a recently published guest post—with search-optimized posts, your traffic keeps increasing for years.

What’s more, you keep on getting more traffic without doing anything. For example, since I completed the 31 guest post challenge, I haven’t done anything to improve my SEO. Yet my search traffic keeps increasing.

SEO is very competitive, though, so depending on your field you might need to keep building links actively. But you’ll also get great results from doing that, and it will be more cost-effective than paying for ads.

What kinds of blogs did I submit my guest posts to?

Now that we’ve covered the benefits of writing guest posts to improve your SEO, let’s talk about the kinds of blogs you can write for. While my recommendation in this section reflects what I did, note that the better the blog, the better your results.

Here some metrics you can use when trying to select a blog to write for.

Alexa rank

Alexa ranks websites based on the number of people who visit the website with the Alexa toolbar installed. Even though this is subjective to an extent, that doesn’t mean it isn’t an effective measurement. In my own experience, blogs with good Alexa ranking have some authority in the search engines, so getting a link from them can be very effective.

During the challenge, I only wrote for blogs with an Alexa ranking below 400,000. Yep, you read that right. These kinds of blogs are very easy to find (in fact, you can find hundreds of them in a few hours), so getting published on them probably won’t be much of a problem.

You can check the Alexa ranking of any website by installing the Alexa toolbar.

Google Pagerank

Google Pagerank is still as effective as it used to be, and it is an actual sign of how much trust Google places in a website. For the challenge, I used blogs with a Pagerank of 2 or more.

The thing, however, is that I either used Pagerank or Alexa rank to assess the sites—rarely both. So if a blog has an Alexa ranking of 400k or less, I don’t care about its Pagerank. If a blog has a Pagerank of 2 or more, I don’t care about its Alexa ranking.

You can check the Pagerank of any website by installing the Google Toolbar, for Firefox, or the Pagerank Status add-on for Chrome.

Mozrank

The Mozrank of a blog is another important factor when determining whether to write a guest post for it or not. I didn’t know much about how Mozrank worked when I started the challenge, but it seems more accurate than Google Pagerank and Alexa ranking, so any blog with a Mozrank of 3 or more is a good fit irrespective of its Pagerank or Alexa rank.

You can check the Mozrank of any website by using the tool at Moonsy.com.

Customrank

This seems to be the best metric at the moment. It uses a combination of a blog’s Alexa rank, Mozrank, and other metrics to calculate the blog’s worth. Any blog with a Customrank score higher than 30 is a good place to start.

You can check the Customrank score of any website by visiting Customrank.com.

How to find blogs based on these metrics

While the above metrics give you an idea of what kinds of blogs you can write for to get good results, actually finding a blog to write for is another thing.

I’ve published the ultimate guide to guest blogging on my blog, and it contains practical and extensive tips on almost every aspect of guest blogging that this article won’t be able to cover. Check it out if you want a better idea of guest blogging and how to find blogs. However, here’s a short guide to finding blogs for guest blogging in any niche:

• Technorati: Technorati.com is the biggest blog directory available online, with a lot of quality blogs in various niches. You can find blogs on almost any topic you want by searching for the keyword of that topic using the Technorati search box on top of the page; one thing you should note about the search box, though, is that there are two options. There is an option to search for posts, and there is an option to search for blogs. Make sure you select the “blog” option when typing in your keyword. Also, make sure the keyword you’re searching for isn’t too generic or too specific. For example, don’t search for “health” if you’re in the health niche, and don’t search for “the major dangers of health” either. The first keyword is too generic, and the other is too specific. Instead, search for something slightly specific like “family health,” or “health blog.”
• Alltop: Alltop is like a more sophisticated and more organized version of Technorati. Unlike Technorati, it contains more quality blogs and is neatly organized by niche. Blogs in Alltop are also manually reviewed, so it’s very unlikely that you’ll find a blog in the wrong category. A disadvantage Alltop has in contrast to Technorati, though, is that it doesn’t list as many blogs. So while you will find quality blogs, you will find fewer of them than you will on Technorati.
• Google: You can find relevant blogs that accept guest posts in Google by using the following ideas:

  {niche} + write for us

  {niche} + submit guest post

  {niche} + guest blogging

  {niche} + submit post

  {niche} + guest blogger needed

  {niche} + contribute

  You can also try changing the terms to keywords you think people in need of guest posts will use. Make sure you replace “{niche}” with your niche, but let the plus sign remain. E.g. in the blogging niche I’ll search for something like “blogging + write for us” (of course, without the quotes).

You will find a lot of blogs using the methods I outlined in this section, but you can’t use all of them. Make sure you gauge any blog you write for with the metrics we discussed above.

Content, tags, and relevance: what kinds of guest posts did I submit?

One major question that comes up a lot when it comes to SEO and link building is that of relevancy. A lot of people are confused as to how effective it is to write a guest post for a non-relevant blog, or how relevant the post’s title should be.

My blog is a writing blog, but I didn’t write a single guest post for a related writing blog during the challenge, so I guess that answers your question about relevancy! I only wrote for blogs in the technology, blogging, and make-money-online niches, and the impact on the results I got was still significant.

One thing to note, however, was that I didn’t write irrelevant posts for these blogs. For example, I didn’t write a post about the latest Apple iPhone for a tech blog and link it back to my writing blog.

Every guest post I wrote was in some way related to my blog, and to the blog I contributed to. For example, a guest post on a blogging tips blog might be on how to write better blog posts. A guest post for a technology blog might be a post on top writing apps I have on my Blackberry (and I do have a Blackberry!). A guest post on a make-money-online blog might be a post on how to make money writing. You can see how those posts tied the topic of my blog to that of the host blog.

One major myth you’ll hear about using guest blogging as a link building strategy is that the quality of the content doesn’t matter; it does, so make sure you put extra effort into your content if you want to get good results from this tactic.

In a nutshell, there are two things to remember when writing guest posts for link building purposes:

• Relevance isn’t that important: By “relevance,” I’m referring to the relevance of the blog you’re submitting a guest post to, as compared to yours. Instead, focus on writing thematically relevant content for the blogs you guest post on. This means your content should tie the topic of your blog to that of the host blog. If you were to focus only on blogs in your niche, your approach will be limited. But if you can bridge the topic between your blog and that of your host, you will significantly increase your chances of getting good results.
• Use your keywords in your article: One thing I haven’t talked about is using keywords in your articles. With my challenge, I tried to use the keyword I want to rank for in every article at least twice, and I think this had a significant impact on the value of the links I got.

Using anchor text

As you read this article, you might come to the conclusion that this tactic isn’t effective with bigger blogs. The fact is, it is; in fact, the bigger the blog, the better your results.

The problem most people have when it comes to writing for big blogs, though, is that they don’t use anchor text, and that alone costs the author a lot of potential traffic.

What makes this whole approach worthwhile is your use of anchor text. The anchor text is the keyword you use to link back to any page on your blog—it’s a vote of authority for your site, and it tells the search engines what the page you link to is all about.

You have to use caution when using anchor text, though. Here are a few things you should keep in mind:

• Use variations: Don’t just keep using the same anchor text in your guest post bio. Use something different, but related to the same keyword. If you want to rank for “blogging tips,” don’t keep using that key phrase alone as the anchor text in every guest post. Some variations you might use are: blogging, blogging tips, blog, blog marketing, blogger, etc. All these keywords hint at the same thing, and over time you will end up ranking for your main keywords—and more.
• Don’t always use anchor text: Aside from using anchor text variations, one other thing you should consider is to not always use anchor text. If you think about it, not everyone will link to your blog using a keyword. Some will tell their readers to “click here” to read the article. And some will paste the direct link into their post. That’s exactly how you should approach your campaign, too—just make sure the majority of your links contain anchor text. A good approach is to use anchor text in a ratio of 1 to 10—don’t use keyword-rich anchor text for every ten keyword-rich anchor text links you create.
• Don’t focus on ranking just one page: The real key to success as far as SEO is concerned is relevancy; in other words, your efforts should be directed at pages that achieve or support a specific goal for your blog. Don’t make the mistake of linking to just the homepage—or just one page, for that matter. Focusing on optimizing a single page that isn’t popular will look unnatural; focusing on five or more different pages on your blog will look more natural. By focusing on a single page, you can also be affected should you stop ranking for that keyword, but focusing on several pages will more likely leave you unaffected.

I’m not saying you should link to all pages in your guest post; a guest post should link to just one or two pages. This means the success of your campaign will depend on the volume of the guest posts you can write.

What effort has it taken to keep the traffic? Was it really worth it?

The final, and most important question is, What effort has it taken to keep the traffic this challenge generated? Was it worth it? Was it a good return on the investment of my time and effort? You can bet it was worth it, as those 31 guest posts have attracted tens of thousands of additional visitors to my blog from the search engines. And they’re just the ones I could count—of course, a percentage of those visitors will share my posts, a percentage of those visitors will subscribe, and a percentage of those visitors will tell their friends too.

I haven’t tried using ads to grow my traffic before, but I know that the one week of effort I put into this challenge was more profitable than any ad could be. I generated free, targeted traffic I couldn’t get elsewhere, and it only continues to grow as time goes on.

I was so impressed with the results of the challenge that I’m planning to make guest blogging for links an integral part of my marketing approach going forward.

How are you using guest blogging for your business?

The good news is that it doesn’t matter if you’re a blog or a business owner, guest blogging can be a smart way to grow your traffic and improve your search engine rankings. Is this idea entirely new to you? How are you using guest blogging to grow your business? Tell us in the comments.

Would you like to take your business to the next level with smart guest blogging? If so, hire me and letís discuss how I can help take your business to the next level. Also, if youíre interested in cutting edge tips and techniques on how to use your writing to grow your business, make sure you subscribe to my newsletter by downloading my free eBook, The Writerís Handbook: How to Write for Traffic and Money.

Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger

How I Increased My Search Traffic by 200% in 6 Months