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Tag Archive: search engine spiders

Why you need to write two headlines for your posts

Written on Thursday 17 March 2011 by Alice

Fairy Blog Mother

Just as you thought it was difficult enough to write just one satisfactory headline for your post, now I’m telling you to think of two! (Don’t worry if you’re a WordPress.com blogger, this requisite is for those on WordPress.org blogs.)

But even so, I can’t stress enough the importance of the headline. It has many roles, all which are vital for both humans and internet robots alike. It needs to capture the attention of both, and satisfy the needs of each.

For humans it needs to connect with the reason why they want to read this information. You need to present the subject matter in such a way it relates to their search criteria, provides a solution to their problem, stimulates a desire, maybe tickles their sense of humour, and sticks out like a sore thumb so they can’t fail to notice it.

This is the same for the search engine spiders, but in a different way. You’re not dealing with psychology here, but with logarithms that are programmed to search for particular words. The answer is to give those words to them – find out what people are searching for, and if they are suitable, high quality and much sought after, stick them in your headlines (and the rest of the post too).

The clever bit comes with how you combine these fabulous words the spiders desire within a headline that grabs the attention of your readers. And nobody says this is easy – headline writers in newspapers are paid well for their ability to compose such things.

So why two headlines? Well, if you have installed the plugin ‘All-in-one-SEO-pack’ in your WordPress.org post, you will see at the bottom of your Post Editor page some more fields to fill in, and one of them is marked ‘Title’.

What I suggest is that you create your human-biased headline for the title of the post, and your spider-influenced headline for the ‘Title’ field at the bottom of the Post Editor page.

The human-headline will appear in RSS feeds in Twitter and Google Readers, whereas the spider-headline appears in the title at the top of your browser window and also in search engine indexes and RSS feeds into social media such as LinkedIn Groups (usually accompanied with what goes into the ‘Description’ field that follows after).

And as each have a good chance of being seen by humans and spiders alike, they need to be understandable by both, which makes their composition all that much harder!

blogs and blogging, marketing methods, Writing tips - Tags: All-in-one-SEO-pack, Google Readers, headlines, importance of the headline, LinkedIn Groups, logarithms, problems and solutions, RSS feeds, search criteria, search engine spiders, title, Twitter, Wordpress.com, Wordpress.org, words - 1 Comment - Why not leave a comment?

Visitors don’t enter websites via the hompage any more

Written on Monday 29 November 2010 by Alice

Fairy Blog Mother

It’s a common misconception that the only way to enter a website is through the homepage. I’m afraid that’s not true any more.

It’s a strange thing to get your head around. Websites aren’t like houses, where visitors can only come in through the front door; it’s via any opening that is available (windows, chimneys, ventilation shafts…) and this process is accomplished through links.

I have said before that links are like portals to your website. The more links you have, the more visitors (and search engine spiders) you will get visiting (or crawling through) your site. This is a good thing, especially if you want to increase your visitor rate, but you must be careful to encourage the right kind of visitor.

Another method of web-attraction is through keywords. If you are able to use the correct keyword that matches what people are asking in the search engines (and there are websites that will tell you which keywords are ‘hot’ or not), you have a much better chance of attracting the right kind of visitor. This is how visitors enter your website through any other aperture that isn’t your homepage.

If the keyword on a specific web-page matches a search engine request, the visitor will be sent to that page. They will not be sent via the homepage, as that doesn’t have those keywords on it. This direct response is much more satisfactory for the searcher.

This means the web-page must perform like a mini-homepage for its particular subject. It must be carefully optimised (written with the relevant keywords) without assuming the visitor has approached it through the ‘normal’ route (via the homepage). There is nothing more frustrating that landing on a web-page that isn’t relevant to your search, or designed to enable the visitor to understand its purpose.

blogs and blogging, Free Wordpress blogs, Self-hosted Wordpress blogs, Writing tips - Tags: analytics, content, homepage, keywords, links, navigation, optimisation, portals, search engine spiders, search request, subject, visitors, web-page, websites - 0 Comments - Why not leave a comment?

The difference between static and interactive websites

Written on Monday 1 November 2010 by Alice

Fairy Blog Mother

Websites are not the same throughout the world. Apparently in Europe they are mainly what we call ‘static’ websites, online business brochures, somewhere the visitor can confirm a business after a networking experience or a referral. They do not interact with their visitors, and many are on the way to becoming obsolete because they do not compete with the whizz-bang websites from the States.

America has taken on the interactive website by storm. There are so many different kinds of CMS (content management systems) that allow the owners to update the contents themselves without having to rely on a webmaster to do it for them, and also allow the visitors to contribute their comments and ideas to the website with immediate publishing effect.

Blogs are a form of CMS website. They are extremely easy to maintain, and positively encourage visitors to interact with them. Their programming is extremely enticing to search engine spiders, who crawl the internet looking for new material to feast on, and blogs are a plentiful supply of fresh content. They are designed to be updated on a regular basis (from several times a day to once a week), and even the visitors who comment on them are considered to be fresh spider meat.

This constant new content is exaggerated by the social sharing sites (Digg, Mixx, Reddit, StumbleUpon, etc) who rely on computer techies who have nothing better to do than to read tonnes of blogs and share them with their pals. The more interaction you get from these sites, the more visitors, comments, spider interaction and ultimately higher indexing by the search engines. And the sharing concept is continued on ordinary social networking sites (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn), with retweeting and feeding galore, all with a ready supply of new content to spread across the internet.

Static websites do absolutely nothing for the businesses they represent, apart from looking pretty with out-of-date material, and only visited when someone types in their URL and bothers to get past the first page. Blogs and other CMS websites are perfectly tuned towards getting passing search engine traffic, continuously being updated with new stuff that is worthwhile reading, interacting with their readers and social media – actually being a presence on the internet that surpasses their expenditure and actually gets in business without having to try really hard.

Now which one would you prefer to represent you business?

blogs and blogging, increasing business visibility, online marketing, social networking - Tags: blogs and blogging, CMS, content management systems, interact with visitors, online brochures, other social media, search engine spiders, search engine traffic, social networking sites, social sharing sites, websites - 2 Comments - Why not leave a comment?

10 ways to get your blog to catch on

Written on Wednesday 8 September 2010 by Alice

Fairy Blog Mother

Sorry to break your bubble, but unless you are extremely lucky, a top notch celebrity or are posting on a subject that is incredibly popular, it will take some time before your blog starts to build an audience.

The usual time-frame is from 6-12 months, and this does depend on how you treat your blog. Neglect it, and nobody, not even the search engine spiders, will bother to visit. Stuff it full of top quality posts, and your following will grow accordingly. Blog every day, even several times a day, and of course you will get lots of traffic, especially if you are canny with your use of keywords, subject matter, frequency and timings of your posts, and a multitude of plugins and other apps designed to increase your blog’s exposure.

Here are some factors you could put into play to help your blog to catch on:

1. Keep on posting. Patience, persistence, consistency and quality will all contribute towards gaining a loyal audience. They will require and need continuous fresh material if you are to encourage them to return.

2. Promote your blog widely. Add in your blog’s URL in your social networking profiles, as well as feeding your blog into them so every time you post your fans and followers will get a chance to read your blog’s latest contribution. Use appropriate apps and plugins to make it easier for them to share or recommend.

3. Contribute on social media. Paste your posts on LinkedIn Groups, feed onto Facebook Fanpages, and answer a question in LinkedIn Answers with a link back to a relevant post on your blog.

4. Allocate tags and categories to your posts. Be aware of the keywords that are not only relevant to your post’s subject, but are also popular in the search criteria at that particular moment. Blogs are ideal for search engine optimisation, as long as you use it effectively.

5. Comment on other blogs. Choose the ones in your niche or relevant to your blog’s subject, as your contribution will have a link back to your blog. This will also give you the opportunity to build an identity or further your expertise in your chosen field. You can give your blog a head-start by adding in the plugin CommentLUV which helps towards leaving and hosting comments to further your blog.

6. Submit to blogging directories. Apart from the obvious, like Technorati.com, there are plenty of other directories to consider, such as bloglisting.net, blogcatalog.com, blogged.com – do some research, see what others use, or ask around for recommendations as to the best ones to use.

7. Participate and share. There are a number of social networking sites, such as Digg, Mixx, Reddit, StumbleUpon, Tumblr, Delicious and many more, that are designed to share blog posts through a voting system. Just like Facebook and Twitter, you build a following and comment, share or recommend each others’ blogs, and the most popular, or the ones with recommendations from a higher source, will gain in social levels and therefore visitor rates. This will work for high posting and quality contributions, as well as consistent participation on others’ blogs rather than promoting your own.

8. Become a guest blogger. Submit to MyBlogGuest.com to offer your services as a guest blogger, in which you can (subtly) link back to your blog with relevant references to the subject you are writing about. Don’t forget about blog carnivals, as contributing to them can certainly help your blog traffic.

9. Submit your blog’s URL elsewhere online. Promote your blog’s URL in your stationery, email signatures, newsletter publications, tweets and other social media updates, submit your posts to online magazines such as iSnare, EasyArticles, EzineArticles and ArticleDashboard (though make sure each contribution is slightly changed to avoid repetition penalties), and anywhere else people will get a chance to click on your blog’s URL.

10. Make RSS prominent. To encourage a loyal audience and maintain your readership, use RSS for subscriptions for email notifications or newsreaders in search engines. Place the sign up form or link high up on the sidebar to capture the attention of interested visitors, and the RSS URL itself can be used to help feed your blog posts onto social media.

Let me know if you can think of any more to add.

blogs and blogging, increasing business visibility, other social media, social networking - Tags: blog, blog's exposure, build an audience, consistent posting, keywords, newsreaders, other social media, RSS, search engine optimisation, search engine spiders, search engine traffic, subject matter, subscription, top quality posts - 3 Comments - Why not leave a comment?

Ogirlsays blog suggestions taken on board

Written on Monday 6 September 2010 by Alice

Fairy Blog Mother

My previous post provided recommendations for improving a blog through one of my reviews. I only published this a couple of days ago and already the owner of the blog has taken my suggestions on board. The result is so much better, and is so gratifying when you can see the changes – now we have to see if they make a difference!

What’s been done? A change of theme – I wasn’t expecting this, but I’m glad she did. The white background is so much clearer to read the text, and the space is wider to accommodate her pictures better. Her headlines (could be slightly bigger) are much more noticeable, which is what headlines should be.

She has brought her subscription button closer to the top, added on a recent posts widget, highlighted her Twitter app more through better positioning, shows her comments to encourage more, recommended a series of other websites for outward links, and tidied her categories into a pull down menu.

And she has changed her blog’s title to say ‘Commentary on life and reading’ – now they know what the blog is about, I’m sure people will be more inclined to stop and have a look, not to mention the search engine spiders.

A big improvement, as I’m sure you will agree – you can see the result below:

blogs and blogging, design makes a difference, Free Wordpress blogs - Tags: blog review, headlines, recommmendations, search engine spiders, subscription, suggestions, Twitter, white background, widget - 0 Comments - Why not leave a comment?

Reveal your passion when you post

Written on Tuesday 24 August 2010 by Alice

Fairy Blog Mother

There is one thing that will get your blog’s audience going, and that is your passion for your subject. They may be inspired by your writing, revel in your enthusiasm, absorb your knowledge and be in awe of your expertise, but it will be your passion that makes them come back for more!

It will be your passion that will make you write more posts, which means more new material, and thus more information to entice the search engine spiders to visit to index your posts. This in turn will therefore publicise your blog to a wider audience. Your great content will also encourage more readers to subscribe to your RSS feed, which in turn can be fed into social networking sites, exposing it even further through viral marketing and sharing tactics.

Your blog needs to have a subject you really enjoy writing about. It needs to be as wide as possible to stimulate you to undertake relevant research for your readers, to transform this information into something new, taken from your experiences and expertise. If you find a subject that has been blogged about many times before, don’t be put off; write about your point of view, how you see the situation, what slant you can put on it, what you can recommend or what item you have found that you wish to share. This makes the subject far more interesting to read, rather than purely writing blandly about a much quoted theme.

Eventually posting passionately should become a way of life. You will learn to find new content wherever you are, something will stimulate a possible post, or your brain will be inspired to think in another way to express your thoughts or observations. This then needs to be reverted it into something relevant that will interest your readers, providing them with a passionately inspired post written with them in mind, designed to entertain them suitably to encourage them to either comment or return for more.

blogs and blogging, Writing tips - Tags: blog posts, expertise, inspiring writing, more material, passion, RSS feed, search engine spiders, social networking sites, wider audience - 0 Comments - Why not leave a comment?

How often should you post in your blog?

Written on Wednesday 11 August 2010 by Alice

Fairy Blog Mother

At my brother’s 40th birthday party last month my father came up to me and said I was looking podgy, just like my great aunt Margaret. Well, that raised my ire (if not my blood pressure), partly because my great aunt was morbidly obese and a hypochondriac, and partly because it was true (ideally I should lose three stone or 42 pounds).

So since then I have been down the gym every week day (can’t quite manage the weekend), pounding away on the treadmill in the hope of losing a bit of weight, the spectre of my terrifying relative looming up to goad me to keep wobbling on…

Treadmills are great places to think, and I wondered if all this consistent activity was doing any good (though the scales said otherwise). With my brain switched into blog mode, I remembered I’d recently read that blogs become more successful the more you post. This is obviously true, as all this new material constantly being churned out is like a continuous buffet for the search engine spiders, who feast on this content before returning it to be indexed.

Prolific bloggers post several times a day. Woah, why? I hear you ask. Well, if your blog’s purpose is to make money through the advertising and affiliate links it contains, this can only be achieved through a constant flow of traffic, and continuous indexing of your posts, combined with your audiences subscribing to RSS feeds and newsreaders, traffic alert systems and social media scrutinising, will bring in the necessary quota of readers to make your financial ventures successful.

But what is the optimum minimum? Three times a week – quite a respectable and achievable goal. I manage this for my boss’s blog, but not my own, partly because I have other commitments after work (going down the gym for example) that take up my time. You can see from your blog stats that consistent posting will easily maintain your traffic and readership loyalty much more than a flurry of activity followed by a period of famine. Spiders are hungry and need continuous feeding, and if neglected may easily search their nourishment from elsewhere.

And what if you want to start up a blog or resurrect it from a period of abandonment? Then you need to publish as many days as you can (a bit like me going down the gym) as consistently as you can manage with the correct kind of content (or diet) that will sustain interest and build up a following. Reduce the size of your blogs (I’m sure mine are far too long) by breaking them down into many subjects that can be posted independently, and keep an editorial diary to stimulate and store new ideas to prevent a post drought. Watch out for another post about what to write about soon – there, I’ve given myself another subject to research and deliver to you!

blogs and blogging, increasing business visibility, social networking - Tags: achievable goal, blog posts, bloggers, consistent new material, constant flow of traffic, editorial diary, other social media, quality and consistency of posts, readership loyalty, regularly posting on your blog, RSS feeds, search engine spiders - 0 Comments - Why not leave a comment?

How to stop your blog from failing

Written on Wednesday 14 April 2010 by Alice

Both kinds of blog

A blog should be a medium for communicating with your readers. They are somewhere to provide interesting information that will educate your audience, produce compelling content that will explain your business in a different light, provide an insight into another side of a topic, and allow you to express your knowledge and expertise within your niche.

Self-hosted blogs allow monetizing, such as affiliate links, badge advertising and other ways of making money, but if your blog is geared totally towards selling, that’s where it will fall down. You could use WordPress to adapt your blog into a website (or blogsite), with pages that contain selling points for services or products, but it should not resemble a blog that’s sole aim is to sell.

Blogs should be subjective and informative, and unless you’re really famous or a particular personality, talking totally about yourself is a turn-off. OK, occasionally turn the conversation around to include an anecdote that might explain a point better, provide a story that would be of benefit for your readers, or relay a funny incident to provide some light entertainment, but if the posts are constantly about you, it’s not a good idea.

A blog with nothing in it is ‘like a cheese sandwich’. What this means is without regularly posting on your blog, it quickly becomes stale and a neglected blog will soon appear ‘dead’. Blogs thrive on new content, just like the search engine spiders who are programmed to visit blogs far more frequently than websites, and your regular visitors will soon tire of looking for new posts which never come. What would a new visitor think if they arrived on your blog to find the last post was over three months ago?

If you are blogging to raise your profile, and increase the exposure of your business, don’t give up too quickly. Just as with networking and other forms of marketing, it can take time to build relationships with your readership, the blogosphere, the search engine spiders, and other social media users. Longevity helps blogs become established, as does the quality of the content and the prowess of their authors.

Writing good posts takes practice, and as you gain in experience, you’ll learn from others in the same niche (if you follow their blogs, which I thoroughly recommend) and pick up good tips. To master your technique may even take years (I would certainly give it at least six months), and if you consistently contribute during that time, just think what a mind of information your blog will become by then!

blogs and blogging, increasing business visibility, online marketing - Tags: blog, blogging, communicating, compelling content, educate your audience, interesting information, raise your profile, regularly posting on your blog, search engine spiders, Wordpress - 0 Comments - Why not leave a comment?

To comment or not to comment, it’s all about interaction

Written on Monday 7 September 2009 by Alice

Both kinds of blog

One of the aspects of a blog is that it is interactive. This means readers are able to contribute to your blog if they have something to say. Blogging programmes automatically add an area after posts where readers can add their point of view. The ability to comment is also part of the phenomenon Web2.0, which is about interaction on the web.

So, what is special about blogs and commenting? Ordinary websites don’t have areas to put your point across, unless it’s a form to leave your details or send an email. Therefore what you have written is not automatically showed to you afterward for others to read, something that naturally occurs on a blog (unless the blog’s administrator wants to moderate your comment first, to make sure it isn’t spam).

But why should you comment on blogs? Apart from sharing your opinions, your comment may increase the value of the blog post, making it more interest to other readers. The author may also be inclined to respond, and starting a conversation – all adding to the entertainment factor.

Another thing to note, comments are viewed by the search engine spiders as new material, so the more interaction, the more the blog post goes up the search engines.

Comments can vary in content, as their authors can agree or disagree with the topic of the post. As long as you continue to be polite and forthcoming, and your contribution is relevant and resourceful, any comment is good. Sometimes comments lead onto other blog posts, especially if backed up by links. As spiders thrive on links, there are opportunities for comment authors to leave their details.

How do you induce a comment? Simply ask for one, as sometimes it won’t occur to the reader to leave one otherwise. Positioning a question at the bottom of your post may also encourage a response, as well as controversial subject matter. Those who comment are usually used to interaction on the net, and are likely to be avid social networkers, but anything that stimulates a reader to take action is advantageous.

Why is it good to comment? If you want to find your way in your chosen field, visit as many relevant blogs and leave a comment where you can. Then you will begin to get noticed by other bloggers and blog readers, and commenting will also enable you to link back to your blog or website, thus increasing your visitor rate. If you get a name for yourself by leaving good quality comments, visitors are more likely to visit to read your articles, subscribe to your blog and even leave comments themselves.