Welcome to Blog Like the Experts.
I'm going to step off on a small narrow path here, and discuss something a bit ahead of schedule. Or not, depending on where you are in your interests and knowledge levels. Most of us have heard about back links and content -it is one of the main tools used to drive traffic to your site, whether it be a website, or a blog, etc etc
Time used to be, and still happens more than you may realize, that creating a massive amount of bank links can be great for a site, however it can also be pretty bad. As I've stated before, SEO algorithms get more and more sophisticated every day. Add to that there is a huge uncountable amount of what I call 'thin' sites. I'm sure there is a better term for this, but it is what I use to describe a site I go visit. I wander through the content, and it doesn't take me long to realize that one page had solid content that's worth reading, and every other page appears to be nothing but a copy of the original just slightly 'different'. This is called kyeword spam, and what bugs me most about it, is there are a lot of people who pay hefty prices for software to do this for them. They've been convinced that an automated blogger system is the best way to add content. Not!
Please do waste your money, because that is exactly what you are doing with these systems. Essentially what the software claims, is you plug in your keywords, and the software happily grinds out page after page of content. Bleh. It does do this for sure - but it's crappy content, with nothing of value in it.
Now you've loaded up your site with what is call keyword spamming content, designed for nothing other then pulling traffic. The SEO guys don't like it either. They de-value your site, and your ranking plunge into the toilet, where your content belongs as well to be honest.
Now back to back links. Say you have this craptastic site of content, and now you go out hunting backlinks, by spamming that same craptastic content all over the web. Does it work? Sure. For awhile. Until someone like mr goodle comes along and does a manual review of your useless spammy content, with equally useless backlinks from people who do the same. What's your site worth now? Zip, zilch, nada.
In a worst case scenario, you might even find your site banned, or your blog pulled. Especially if your 'thin' site is obviously spamm designed with keywords simply to drive Adsense traffic. Uh oh. Bad news.
Long story short - make sure you have fresh content. Don't gorge your site on adsense with nothing else in mind.
Saturday, May 1, 2010
Friday, April 30, 2010
Keywords - what they are and how they function
Welcome to Blog Like the Experts.
Thanks for dropping by Blog Like the Experts. Another little section on the world wide web, where I talk about how to blog, and blogging basics - how and why certain things work, and some that don't.
Lesson Two: Keywords - what are they, and how do they function.
What are keywords.
Most people have a rough idea of how keywords work. Keywords have been around a lot longer then the web in many ways. If you think about libraries, and book indexes, these have contained keywords as long as either has been around. A keyword is simply a single word or small phrase that allows you to find a longer article, book, or document that pertains to those words. Don't let the crazy people fool you, it really is that simple.
How do they work?
In relation to the web, that is. Keywords do work in basically the same manner as the index of a gigantic book. You type in what you are looking for, and various search engines look at it and then conveniently spit out a bunch of suggestions, hopefully one of those is what you are actually looking for.
So how do search engines find those articles with the association keywords. Therein lies the tricks.
Places in a blog to put keywords.
I will be doing a another lesson showing this more fully, but for now a small introduction.
URL and Title
On the internet there are a few places your keywords need to exist - its a rule, like indenting a paragraph in an essay is.
Your keyword should be in your URL
-for example this blog is called Blog Like the Experts. The url is http://blogliketheexperts.blogspot.com
This gives me both a title and an address with the same keywords. Another helpful part of following this formula is if people know the title of this blog, they can also have an easier time guessing what the URL is to just type it into the link bar.
In your content.
Search engines have become more sophisticated over the past 15 years, as the vast amount of information they need to index and qualify has grown exponentially. Search engines will also go through the content on a site. Ideally, in a post, a keyword should appear 2-3%. So if I type a 200 word article, I should get my keyword in there twice at least. As an example, scroll back up and see how many times Blog Like the Experts has appeared so far. I'm not keeping a strict accounting as I type this, but I'm going to guess at least 3 or 4 times already.
Keyword Traps
Traps to not fall into. Don't write your content thinking how to get your keywords worked into it the entire time. That's what editing is for. If you are shy, go back, rework a sentence or two to toss it in. If you spend your whole time working around just that keyword count, your writing becomes very artificial and frankly - boring to read.
Keyword Spam is another bad one. I'm sure you've seen them without realizing it. It's like reading a bad car commercial from the 1970s. Where a keyword or keyword phrase is repeated so much you are getting thwacked over the head with it. Search engines also don't take kindly to this particular style either, and may even punish a poster for doing so- especially if its extremely obvious.
Thanks for visiting Blog Like the Experts. Hope to see you again!
Thanks for dropping by Blog Like the Experts. Another little section on the world wide web, where I talk about how to blog, and blogging basics - how and why certain things work, and some that don't.
Lesson Two: Keywords - what are they, and how do they function.
What are keywords.
Most people have a rough idea of how keywords work. Keywords have been around a lot longer then the web in many ways. If you think about libraries, and book indexes, these have contained keywords as long as either has been around. A keyword is simply a single word or small phrase that allows you to find a longer article, book, or document that pertains to those words. Don't let the crazy people fool you, it really is that simple.
How do they work?
In relation to the web, that is. Keywords do work in basically the same manner as the index of a gigantic book. You type in what you are looking for, and various search engines look at it and then conveniently spit out a bunch of suggestions, hopefully one of those is what you are actually looking for.
So how do search engines find those articles with the association keywords. Therein lies the tricks.
Places in a blog to put keywords.
I will be doing a another lesson showing this more fully, but for now a small introduction.
URL and Title
On the internet there are a few places your keywords need to exist - its a rule, like indenting a paragraph in an essay is.
Your keyword should be in your URL
-for example this blog is called Blog Like the Experts. The url is http://blogliketheexperts.blogspot.com
This gives me both a title and an address with the same keywords. Another helpful part of following this formula is if people know the title of this blog, they can also have an easier time guessing what the URL is to just type it into the link bar.
In your content.
Search engines have become more sophisticated over the past 15 years, as the vast amount of information they need to index and qualify has grown exponentially. Search engines will also go through the content on a site. Ideally, in a post, a keyword should appear 2-3%. So if I type a 200 word article, I should get my keyword in there twice at least. As an example, scroll back up and see how many times Blog Like the Experts has appeared so far. I'm not keeping a strict accounting as I type this, but I'm going to guess at least 3 or 4 times already.
Keyword Traps
Traps to not fall into. Don't write your content thinking how to get your keywords worked into it the entire time. That's what editing is for. If you are shy, go back, rework a sentence or two to toss it in. If you spend your whole time working around just that keyword count, your writing becomes very artificial and frankly - boring to read.
Keyword Spam is another bad one. I'm sure you've seen them without realizing it. It's like reading a bad car commercial from the 1970s. Where a keyword or keyword phrase is repeated so much you are getting thwacked over the head with it. Search engines also don't take kindly to this particular style either, and may even punish a poster for doing so- especially if its extremely obvious.
Thanks for visiting Blog Like the Experts. Hope to see you again!
Monday, April 26, 2010
Blog Thoughts
Things I need to mention
I've been occupied today with writing my second article concerning Blog Like the Experts. However I felt I needed to pause to address something that has been nagging at me all afternoon.
I'm sure all of us have seen the zillion websites and blogs out there offering the quick easy way to make a buck blogging. While I'm not against that, (god forbid) by any stretch, I wanted to put together this blog with a slightly different goal in mind.
The goal is to explain how to create a good quality blog, with solid interesting content along with explanations on what a lot of the geek speak really means. This fulfills the 'how to make money blogging' issue, but it isn't the main purpose. As well as attempting to provide everyone with all those neat tools that successful bloggers use.
I've spent a fair amount of my own time wandering through pages and pages of buy this! and you'll immediately make a fortune blogging articles myself. The fact is, I've come to the conclusion that most of that information is already accessible, if you know where to look and who to speak to. So this is my job here. To compile all of that information in a single place, so others can be spared the hours and hours I've spent trying to find it all.
Thanks for reading Blog Like the Experts, and up next keywords!
I've been occupied today with writing my second article concerning Blog Like the Experts. However I felt I needed to pause to address something that has been nagging at me all afternoon.
I'm sure all of us have seen the zillion websites and blogs out there offering the quick easy way to make a buck blogging. While I'm not against that, (god forbid) by any stretch, I wanted to put together this blog with a slightly different goal in mind.
The goal is to explain how to create a good quality blog, with solid interesting content along with explanations on what a lot of the geek speak really means. This fulfills the 'how to make money blogging' issue, but it isn't the main purpose. As well as attempting to provide everyone with all those neat tools that successful bloggers use.
I've spent a fair amount of my own time wandering through pages and pages of buy this! and you'll immediately make a fortune blogging articles myself. The fact is, I've come to the conclusion that most of that information is already accessible, if you know where to look and who to speak to. So this is my job here. To compile all of that information in a single place, so others can be spared the hours and hours I've spent trying to find it all.
Thanks for reading Blog Like the Experts, and up next keywords!
Sunday, April 25, 2010
Lesson One: Find your Niche
Welcome to Blog like the Experts.
Lesson One: Find your Niche
One of the first obstacles I ran into early in my blogging career was what do I want to talk about? Do I have anything interesting to say? And thus began my foray into the vast world of how do I do this?
I found a huge variety of sites talking about finding your niche. But what does that mean? After fumbling around, I realized it was a geek speak for saying if you want to write a blog, great! So pick something to write about. Sounds easy right?
Well not so much. If you are writing a blog about something you personally are interested in, and don't care about traffic, or anyone ever being able to find your blog online then that makes sense. You can ignore finding a niche, grab a blog and start typing away.
This in fact was what my first blog was like. And it still exists. It's my personal journal, which very few see. But how do you deal with working out a niche when you want traffic? Then life gets a bit more complicated. Can it be something you are interested in still. You bet! Nothing more boring than writing about stuff you don't care about. However as you get more experienced, you'll find writing about anything, becomes easier and easier.
So what does find your niche really mean?
To a blogger it means finding and blogging about content that people actively look for on the web. Whether it be current events, how-to, information on products. The list is pretty endless considering how many people surf the net everyday. But a niche needs to be something people are looking for all the time, if you are interested in creating a blog that gets traffic.
For example: The niche for this blog is Blog like an Expert. Meaning I am specifically targeting my blog posts towards people who want more information about how to blog, and the various tricks and ways to blog successfully.
How do you find that niche?
This is where something called keyword research comes in. Keywords are the next lesson, but since they flow together, I'll speak a bit about it here. Keywords are what drive traffic to your site. There is no sense picking a topic to blog about, where your keywords don't match or have no meaning in relation to the entire blog.
I'll pick for examples:
My personal blog. Which is called The Lane Account. On the Lane account blog I talk about whatever I feel like. Therefore keywords are random, change constantly and my blog has no focus. so it's almost impossible to find if you google it. That's fine by me, that blog is for me.
Secondly I'll use this blog as an example. I have named it Blog Like the Experts. My keywords will also focus on that. Blog like the experts, blogging basics, how to blog and niche. (which you will see at the bottom of this post if you click on the 'keywords' section), as well all my posts. Hence the 'niche' of this blog is easier to find by search engine queries. See the difference?
Now I'll give you another blog to look at. It's another one I write. Which is an example of a small niche blog. Plant a Kitchen Garden The reason I am adding this one, is you can see the topic, the keywords and how I've used a niche to create a blog that isn't related to 'how to blog' but it's still effectively driving traffic. The niche is very small, the first day I created it I have 40 views. The Lane Account which had been around much longer had a maximum of 80 views total over the entire time the blog has been active. So the difference is pretty amazing.
I tend to think of keywords like brand names. We all know what Adidas is. Why? because they took time to develop brand name recognition. Some one says Adidas, and you immediately think of shoes, and sports wear. That is what keywords are for your blog. It's what brands your niche blog with a distinct feel, name and consistent topic matter.
Thank you for reading Blog Like the Experts. I really hoped you enjoyed Lesson One: Find your Niche. I love comments, so be sure to leave some!
Lesson One: Find your Niche
One of the first obstacles I ran into early in my blogging career was what do I want to talk about? Do I have anything interesting to say? And thus began my foray into the vast world of how do I do this?
I found a huge variety of sites talking about finding your niche. But what does that mean? After fumbling around, I realized it was a geek speak for saying if you want to write a blog, great! So pick something to write about. Sounds easy right?
Well not so much. If you are writing a blog about something you personally are interested in, and don't care about traffic, or anyone ever being able to find your blog online then that makes sense. You can ignore finding a niche, grab a blog and start typing away.
This in fact was what my first blog was like. And it still exists. It's my personal journal, which very few see. But how do you deal with working out a niche when you want traffic? Then life gets a bit more complicated. Can it be something you are interested in still. You bet! Nothing more boring than writing about stuff you don't care about. However as you get more experienced, you'll find writing about anything, becomes easier and easier.
So what does find your niche really mean?
To a blogger it means finding and blogging about content that people actively look for on the web. Whether it be current events, how-to, information on products. The list is pretty endless considering how many people surf the net everyday. But a niche needs to be something people are looking for all the time, if you are interested in creating a blog that gets traffic.
For example: The niche for this blog is Blog like an Expert. Meaning I am specifically targeting my blog posts towards people who want more information about how to blog, and the various tricks and ways to blog successfully.
How do you find that niche?
This is where something called keyword research comes in. Keywords are the next lesson, but since they flow together, I'll speak a bit about it here. Keywords are what drive traffic to your site. There is no sense picking a topic to blog about, where your keywords don't match or have no meaning in relation to the entire blog.
I'll pick for examples:
My personal blog. Which is called The Lane Account. On the Lane account blog I talk about whatever I feel like. Therefore keywords are random, change constantly and my blog has no focus. so it's almost impossible to find if you google it. That's fine by me, that blog is for me.
Secondly I'll use this blog as an example. I have named it Blog Like the Experts. My keywords will also focus on that. Blog like the experts, blogging basics, how to blog and niche. (which you will see at the bottom of this post if you click on the 'keywords' section), as well all my posts. Hence the 'niche' of this blog is easier to find by search engine queries. See the difference?
Now I'll give you another blog to look at. It's another one I write. Which is an example of a small niche blog. Plant a Kitchen Garden The reason I am adding this one, is you can see the topic, the keywords and how I've used a niche to create a blog that isn't related to 'how to blog' but it's still effectively driving traffic. The niche is very small, the first day I created it I have 40 views. The Lane Account which had been around much longer had a maximum of 80 views total over the entire time the blog has been active. So the difference is pretty amazing.
I tend to think of keywords like brand names. We all know what Adidas is. Why? because they took time to develop brand name recognition. Some one says Adidas, and you immediately think of shoes, and sports wear. That is what keywords are for your blog. It's what brands your niche blog with a distinct feel, name and consistent topic matter.
Thank you for reading Blog Like the Experts. I really hoped you enjoyed Lesson One: Find your Niche. I love comments, so be sure to leave some!
Blog Like the Experts
Welcome to Blog Like the Experts.
In this blog, I will be discussing all the different ways to get your blog up and running. Regardless of whether you are interested in blogging for just yourself, and a small number of friends, or whether you are looking to create a blog that the masses will click to. There is so much information out there, but even I've had trouble finding a site where it gets all put together in a clear concise manner, so even people who are just starting out in the blogging world can blog like the experts in no time.
Thank you for visiting Blog Like the Experts. Stay tuned!
In this blog, I will be discussing all the different ways to get your blog up and running. Regardless of whether you are interested in blogging for just yourself, and a small number of friends, or whether you are looking to create a blog that the masses will click to. There is so much information out there, but even I've had trouble finding a site where it gets all put together in a clear concise manner, so even people who are just starting out in the blogging world can blog like the experts in no time.
Thank you for visiting Blog Like the Experts. Stay tuned!
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