Tag Archives: blog

Professional Writers Blogs Are More Visible With LMNHP

Posted on by

For those who are following the ongoing SEO testing of the LMNHP approach to blogs, I continue to monitor SERP performances on the four SMM blogs where the LMNHP approach is being adopted. I am constantly amazed by the high rankings that are rapidly achieved by new posts. For critical tests I use Firefox using the Global Search Extension to avoid getting personalized search results. Today I saw a result that was really mind-blowing. Recency of post may play a part in this but it still is noteworthy.

I saw a guest post on the Problogger blog, which clearly has some authority. Its title was Why Professional Writers Need a Blog. Or Not. It suggested that professional writers on nonfiction topics would be well advised to have a blog whereas those writing fiction books would be better served by a static website. I have been looking for high profile blogs where I could see how well a post written using the LMNHP approach would rank against a high profile blog post.

This seemed an ideal subject and was also a topic I wished to discuss since I took issue with the opinions expressed by the author. I firmly believe that professional writers of all types are best served by a blog. As a result I wrote a post, Professional Writers Blog, that was uploaded just over 24 hours ago. The image below is the result when doing a relevant keyword search. This is a 9.0 million item search so there is high competition for this. The result is that shown by Google Australia (clearly far from Canada).

Google SERP result for Professional Writers Blog

As you will see the blog post I wrote is at #3 while the Problogger post I was commenting on is at #4. Searches on other Google centres using non-personalized search had the two close together, sometimes in this order and sometimes reversed. I still find this hard to believe. Your mileage may vary but if you do a search rapidly for Professional Writers Blog, you may see somewhat similar results.

The LMNHP approach here is behaving exactly as it should. The latest single blog post web page is given as the SERP result with its own Title and with its own meta description. This description was chosen carefully to appeal to potential searchers for these particular keywords. Since this blog post is being shown as the front page of the blog for the time being, this maximizes the number of of back linkis that are registered against this particular URL. Its high ranking in the search engine results is a confirmation of the power of this approach. It is also particularly gratifying that the post outranks the Problogger post, which it was discussing. Recency may play a significant factor in such early results but usually posts will come back to a similar position after taking a dip for a week or two after the initial days of high rankings.

If anyone needed a graphic illustration of the power of the LMNHP approach, this search for Professional Writers Blog provides an outstanding example.

Technorati Tags: , , ,

Best Least Known Blogging Tool

Posted on by

Darren Rowse poses an interesting question in asking What are Your Favorite 10 Blogging Tools? It clearly also is a topic that will generate a great deal of comment and discussion given the popularity of his Problogger blog.

It’s time for a little discussion – lets talk blogging tools. Over in the ProBlogger.com forum there’s been a lot of talk about different tools, applications, platforms and plugins that helps to improve blogs. I’m loving the different opinions and experiences and thought it’d be a good question to open up to the wider community – what are your favourite 10 blogging tools? I suspect most of us will probably include our blogging platform (Blogspot, WordPress, TypePad etc) in the list somewhere but other than that anything goes. Perhaps it’s a comments tool, perhaps a desktop editor, perhaps a plugin or widget – anything goes!

I am sure the resulting blog post with all its comments will be very search engine visible and many others will link to it.

However I am not sure that these lists of 10 that are so search-engine friendly are necessarily the most useful to readers. In this case, I can suggest a more user-friendly topic, which will undoubtedly be much less search-engine visible. I hope many will choose to comment since this could collect a host of revelations and new finds for our readers. The question we are asking is:

What is your favorite blogging tool that you believe few others may have found?

I could have nominated Dragon NaturallySpeaking, which is software to create text by dictation, and which is a real productivity help:

Dragon NaturallySpeaking gives small business and advanced PC users the power to create documents, reports and emails three times faster than most people type — with up to 99% accuracy. Most people speak over 120 words per minute, but type less than 40 words a minute. That means you can create documents and emails about three times faster with Dragon NaturallySpeaking. Dragon never makes a spelling mistake, and it actually gets smarter the more you use it!

DNS does of course cost money, so my nomination for the best, least known blogging tool is to use Mind Maps to organize your thoughts before you expand on your ideas. A great free tool to use, which I highly recommend is FreeMind, which is free mind mapping software.

FreeMind is a premier free mind-mapping software written in Java. The recent development has hopefully turned it into high productivity tool. We are proud that the operation and navigation of FreeMind is faster than that of MindManager because of one-click “fold / unfold” and “follow link” operations.

If you have some blogging tool that you are using that you think is not well enough known, why not add a mention in the comments. I’m sure others will appreciate your effort.

Related articles by Zemanta
Enhanced by Zemanta

Technorati Tags: , , ,

Titles Must ReTweet Well

Posted on by

Titles are Eric Lyndoman’s passion and he suggests you should Smash a Brick into the face to get another blogger’s attention if you have no prior relationship with that person.

What he really means is that you need a good headline to stop someone in their tracks. The headline does not only exist at the top of the content. It is in the subject text of email, it may be in a twitter post, a rss feed, a digg headline, etc. It is that headline that must get the blogger’s attention if anything is to happen as a result.

Lyndoman talked about smashing a brick for that really great post you have written. However the same principle is at work for all that you write. Some call it the Attention Economy. We all have too little time to do all that we wish to do. This time overload is magnified now with the Mobile Web becoming more prevalent. Your window on the world may well be your cellphone. As you see even more of what is going on, what will stand out from the noise.

More and more people will only see your title or headline. How can you make sure that there is enough to draw their attention, even if they know you already. I suggest that every title you write should be very clear on what is the subject behind it.

The other important phenomenon is that many people are now seeing the world through the small Twitter window of 140 characters and spaces. As evidence, Google CEO, Eric Schmidt, hinted that it could become a partner of the micro-blogging site, Twitter.

“People really want to do stuff real time and I think Twitter has done a great job about it,” Larry Page, Google co-founder said in a closing address at their Zeitgeist conference . “I think we have done a relatively poor job of creating things that work on a per-second basis.”

So what does that suggest for our titles. Often people may share a blog post link with their friends by retweeting. If you do the math and allow for the starting “Pl. RT” and the short URL, you may have only less than say 70 characters and spaces for the title, if someone wants to add some words of encouragement or some hashtags.

The title must get the attention of others who will only see that retweet so it should be clear on what they will get by visiting the link. It must signal the promise of something that they will be keen to check out. In practice, 70 characters and spaces gives much more than you really need. This post title takes only 24.

If you are convinced by the logic, why not support the principle by retweeting this post. All you need to do is use that Tell-a-Friend button bottom left (hover and click on Social Twitter) or copy and paste the following in your Twitter Status field.

Pl. RT: Titles Must ReTweet Well: http://cli.gs/98D7YP : A good message for all. #seo #links #twitter #search #sem #linkbuilding
Reblog this post [with Zemanta]

Technorati Tags: , , ,

Getting Links With Twitter Hashtags

Posted on by


We have suggested elsewhere that Google should adopt a Weakest Link approach in its search algorithms.  There are far too many people spending far too much time amassing more and more links to their websites.  They do this with the mistaken understanding that this may help their websites be more visible when people do Google keyword searches.  If only Google would rely only on links with more authority, this time wasting and irritating activity could cease.  Unfortunately it has not happened yet.

The only links worth having are links that do command some authority. That is true now and will continue to be true however the keyword search algorithms may change.   Darren Rowse of Problogger as usual provides some excellent advice in his post on 11 Ways to Increase Your Chances of Being Linked to By a Blogger.  Here are his 11 items of advice:

  1. Write something worth linking to
  2. Suggest a Link to a post not your site
  3. Develop a Relationship
  4. Demonstrate Knowledge of the Blog and Blogger
  5. Research
  6. Add Value
  7. Stay on topic
  8. Be selective in what you promote
  9. Reciprocate
  10. Build on the Experience
  11. Be Link Worthy

Most of these are almost self explanatory.  However his article is a good one if any of them are unclear to you.

Another way of trying to get on a blogger’s radar screen is to follow them on Twitter.  Most bloggers do tweet their Twitter followers to let them know when they have written a new blog post.  If you happen to spot such a tweet, then by retweeting their blog post tweet, you may well find they will start following you and the relationship begins.  I think this is sufficiently valuable, that it might usefully have been included in Darren Rowse’s list, if he had wished to extend it  to 12 ways.

Of course only your followers see your tweets.  Only if the blogger does a Twitter search, will s/he see what you have retweeted.  To increase the chances it may be seen, you could always try using a hashtag.  If for example, your post is about TGIF then in your retweet add the #tgif hashtag. Others who find that of interest may spot it and retweet it and perhaps word will get back to the original blogger.

If you have found hashtags useful in making connections and gaining links, why not add your experience in the comments here.  Non-spamming comments are welcome and do get a link in consequence, which should be worth having.

Related articles by Zemanta
Enhanced by Zemanta

Technorati Tags: , , , , , ,

Twitter, The Blog Killer

Posted on by

Is Twitter Killing Blogs and Blogging? was the question posed by Mark Evans.

My sense is Twitter is emerging as a vibrant alternative to bloggers and blog readers. Some bloggers who may find the grind of writing daily are now able to share their thoughts in quick bursts on Twitter, and still feel like they are contributing and cultivating their digital brands.

Twitter has become a quasi-RSS reader where people gain access to the information (news, blog posts, services) they see as valuable without having to visit blogs directly or use an RSS reader. Many of these people are still using blogs but perhaps not as actively.

Evans also points out that the blogosphere is becoming increasingly competitive as reader-generated content keeps on getting pumped out, especially from the leading bloggers who now employ teams of writers.

It is still the case that, if you blog well and think about search-engine visibility, you can ensure your blog posts will get traffic particularly via the search engines.  They are still much beloved by the current Google algorithms.

A much more important factor that Evans does not mention is that the online world is going increasingly mobile.  Twitter status reports are ideal for a mobile device.  This rapidly changing scene in terms of the typical screen size that audiences are using is critical. 

With most people thinking from a desktop PC mindset, they don’t get the message.  It is not that Twitter is killing the blog.  It is that small screens are taking over from big screens.  Make your blog post more Twitter-ish and you’ll do well whatever the screen size.

Reblog this post [with Zemanta]

Technorati Tags: ,

Exponential Marketing .. And She Told Two Friends

Posted on by
 
Tell A Friend Spreads The Word

Everyone is talking about viral marketing. However a better description may be exponential Marketing. It is all that old Breck shampoo commercial, “She told 2 friends, who told 2 friends, who told 2 friends….” What we are talking about here is exponential growth of the number of people who are in on the secret.

All this is by way of introduction to the new button you will see below on this blog and on the other two SMM blogs. You will see there a Tell A Friend button. In a way it is a bit of a misnomer, since the button helps you tell a number of friends in one go. The button is provided by Social Twist who suggest that with the Tell-a-Friend button you can Leverage Word of Mouth Marketing.

Remember your Diffy Qs
Image by tychay via Flickr

Tell a Friend widget helps websites and blogs to popularize their content through word of mouth marketing. Users can access their address book to email friends or tell a friend through blogs, Instant Messengers and social networking sites.

It is available as a widget for blogging software such as WordPress or as HTML code that can be inserted in a regular HTML webpage. It really is a very effective process. That is perhaps why the Social Twist Blog records such exponential growth in its adoption.

10 million more reasons to tell a friend
Posted on 1 Oct
We are overwhelmed with the response we have got. Within a few weeks of our official launch, we have already reached a milestone: 10 million widget serves… and counting! We are exploding the number of registered users. Plus there are so many thousands who are using the Express edition of Tell-a-Friend which requires no sign up.

Since other Send To A Friend code may only pass on the recommendation one friend at the time, this new button really does leverage the process. Truly exponential.

Reblog this post [with Zemanta]

Technorati Tags: , , , , ,

Search the Internet for other related articles.
Loading