Archive for February, 2010
How to Get .Edu and .Gov Links
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photo credit: English106
The other day I mentioned the importance that Google and the other search engines place on .edu and .gov links. They are considered very valuable. So people have been asking, “How do I find them?”
Here are a couple of easy ways to find them.
Type the following into Google search:
site:.edu inurl: “your keyword” Put your keyword in-between the quote marks and see what comes up. Find a site where you can put a value added comment with your keyword as anchor text and you’ve got a link! For .gov sites just replace the .edu with .gov and follow the same process.
Here is the coolest way to really drill down and get exactly what you are looking for:
site:.edu inurl: "post a comment" -"comments closed" -"you must be logged in"
What this will give you is a .edu site that allows you to post a comment but it eliminates sites that have closed the comments on that post and eliminates sites that require you to log in. Once you get the search results find an appropriate site and add a helpful comment. Substitute .gov for the .edu and follow the same process. It’s that easy!
Finding Blogs and Forums in Your Market Niche
An easy way to find forums and blogs in your niche is to type your “Keyword” + forum or “Keyword” + blog into Google search. For example if your keyword was “carpet cleaning” you would enter carpet cleaning + forums into Google search or carpet cleaning + blogs.
If you have any questions for The Blog Builder Guy leave a comment or email me. Enjoy!
Link Building to Boost Your Blog’s Search Engine Ranking
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You’ve got a great blog with an eye catching template, all the right plug-ins and widgets. Not to mention some killer content including audio, photos and even some video. Excellent! A great blog is…well….great but if no one can find it, it’s not doing you much good.
So how do you get the search engines to love you?
The answer is…. Link Building. It is one of the most important steps a blog builder can take to boost their search engine rankings. This is accomplished by using one way backlinks with the appropriate Anchor Text.
Anchor Text: Anchor text is one of your main keywords that have been converted into a hyperlink to a page on your website. For example, one of my keywords is “blog construction” and it would look like this in a post on a forum or a comment on a blog. Blog Construction. If you click on it you will go to the home page of my site The Blog Builder Guy because I linked the keyword to the site. Always use one of your keywords as your name when you make a blog comment.
So where do you find places to add your links? Below is a list of the easiest places to start.
Forum Posting: find forums related to your niche and place links in the body of the message or in your signature. Make sure your comment contains helpful content and follow the forums rules.
Blog Comments: Post relevant comments on blogs related to your niche. Use your anchor text as your “Name” when filling out the comment info box.
Yahoo Answers: Find questions that are related to your niche and give answers. The resource section allows you to put links to your site.
Social Bookmarking: Bookmark your site on places like StumbleUpon, Digg or Technorati. At the bottom How to Set Goals for Social Media Marketing you’ll find a number of bookmarking sites listed.
Once you have started your backlinks building campaign make sure you stick to a schedule so you can achieve maximum effect. Don’t do all of your linkbuilding on the same day of the week either. Spread it out so it looks more natural to the search engines.
And remember it takes time to build quality backlinks and it takes time for them to have an effect on your ranking. Be patient…remember the turtle and the rabbit story!
WordPress Makes SEO Easy
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photo credit: r0bz Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the process of making your site attract the search engines like a magnet attracts iron. It is part science, part art and maybe a little bit of luck.
The goal is to make sure your blog is high in the search engine rankings for the keywords that you think people will use to find you. And that of course, makes it easy for prospective customers to find you!
WordPress blogs are designed to help make SEO as easy as possible. There are a few simple tasks that you need to do to make sure that your blog setup is optimized.
- Custom Permalinks-customize your permalinks instead of using the default links. The permalink should include a keyword and a category that is also a keyword. See Plugins,Widgets & Permalinks for a detailed explanation of permalinks.
- Text-when writing make sure to include your keywords in your posts. Just make sure that using them is natural and it doesn’t look forced. And don’t overdo them either…one or two mentions is good. It is also a good idea to bold or underline one or two of them. That makes the search engines notice them.
- Post Titles-make your titles as descriptive and attention getting as you can. It is also a very good idea to include your main keyword if possible.
- Page Titles-another great way to insert keywords into the blog.
- Category Names-Guess what? You should use your keywords for your categories too.
- Photos and Video-WordPress makes adding images and video easy. And the search engines love them!
- <ALT>tags- An <ALT> tag provides a description of an image or photo. This is useful for a text-based browser or for screen-reading technology for visually impaired people. The benefit for SEO is that the search engines read the <ALT> tags as keywords. So guess what you should be putting in your <ALT> tag? If you guessed keywords, you’re right!!
So those are a few steps you can take to make the search engines love your blog! As a matter of fact I think I need to make sure all my images have <ALT> tags!
WordPress Resources
Posted by: | CommentsIf you are having problems with your blog setup then check out these helpful sites. There are many more but these are the one I am familiar with.
Forums
WordPress has their own forum: WordPress Forum
WordPress has their own TV show WordPress.tv
A Different WordPress.com Forums WordPress.com Forum
Premium Themes You have to pay for them but they offer much more flexibility. Here are two of the top ones I have found:
IThemes The Blog Builder Guy is built with their Flex Theme
Books:
These are affiliate links…if you buy a book I make some cash.
WordPress For Dummies
WordPress 24-Hour Trainer: Watch, Read, and Learn How to Create and Customize WordPress Sites (Book & DVD)
You can always do a Google search for just about any topic related to WordPress.
And last but not least you can always contact The Blog Builder Guy with any questions.
I hope you found this helpful and if you want to add some resources of your own feel free to put them in a comment!
