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It’s bad enough when vendors offer real estate SEO services and/or advice that isn’t worth a dime … but what about when the national organization that’s supposed to support real estate agents starts spreading around misinformation to its members?

The National Association of REALTORS® offered up some SEO tips in its official magazine last month via an article titled “6 Weeks to Better Search Engine Results.”

I like the idea behind the article — simplifying some of the low-hanging SEO fruit into tasks that can be worked on one week at a time. Good idea. But some of the specific advice is … well … not so hot. Frankly, some of it just exacerbates the same problems that have plagued real estate agents for years — namely, that so much of what they call “real estate SEO” is over-the-top and spammy.

Here are the six one-week tasks listed in the article:

1. Week 1: Write Better Page Titles
2. Week 2: Broadcast Your Links
3. Week 3: Use Keywords Generously
4. Week 4: Reword Outgoing Links
5. Week 5: Develop a Site Map
6. Week 6: Tweet About It

On the surface, that list looks … okay. Not great, not what I’d list, but not terrible. It’s when you get into the specific suggestions that things get ugly and real estate agents get misled. Let’s look at a few tips:

Real Estate SEO: Linkbuilding?

Under Week 2: Broadcast Your Links is this advice:

Develop a campaign to get other Web sites linking to yours. Focus on social networks and trusted real estate Web sites, advises Cheryl Waller, a real estate technology expert in Port Saint Lucie, Fla. One way to do this is by making thoughtful comments on real estate blogs and leaving your link as part of your blog post. “You don’t need 14,000 links to your site. What you do need are relevant links to your business from reputable Web sites that are trusted by search engines,” Waller says. This helps search engines deem your site as trustworthy, too.

Reality: Commenting on blogs can help with exposure, but it’s not a “campaign” and isn’t likely to make a search engine think your site is trustworthy, either. Worse, it’s something that too many people overdo and get wrong. A lot of real estate agents dropping links on each other’s blogs only adds to the perception that the entire industry is one big spam-fest. Consider these two comments that came in overnight on the Richland Real Estate Blog:

Not very “thoughtful,” is it?

Real Estate SEO: Keyword Density?

Under Week 3: Use Keywords Generously is this advice:

While it might seem like overkill to repeat certain keywords heavily throughout your site, the strategy really does work, says real estate and technology blogger Matt Rains, a practitioner with Keller Williams Atlanta Partners in Loganville, Ga. He suggests incorporating the top phrases that you want associated with your site—”St. Louis Historic Homes,” for example. For strategic ideas, try the Keyword Tool on Google AdWords. Using the tool, you can type a phrase that’s relevant to your business and immediately find out how many people search for that term each month. Your main keywords should appear at least 10 to 13 times per 700 words on a page, says Mark Menzella, who runs RE/Advantage, a real estate Web design company in Fairfield, N.J.

Reality: Keyword density is a myth. There’s no perfect amount of times a keyword should appear on a page to rank, because there are countless other factors that determine a page’s relevance and importance. Hearing “real estate Web design” people pitch this advice only reinforces the idea that real estate SEO is a joke. Better advice is what I said here: There’s no magic formula or perfect “keyword density” — write for your users so the pages are readable, but be sure to include the right search terms as you write.

Real Estate SEO: Twitter?

Under Week 6: Tweet About It is this advice:

“Now that tweets are indexed in Google, Twitter has become an important part of SEO strategy,” says Misty Lackie of Go Smart Solutions, a technology consulting firm in Grover Beach, Calif. So get a Twitter account if you don’t already have one, and create useful tweets that happen to include your business keywords and links to your site.

Reality: I love Twitter, but the SEO benefits of using it are neglible … especially if your tweets are going to “include your business keywords and links to your site.” Look below; does anyone think this is how to use Twitter?

No human will click on the link in a tweet like that, and since the link is no-followed, there’s no SEO benefit from using Twitter this way, either. Twitter can be an amazing tool for local visibility, but it has nothing to do with Google indexing tweets (users are blind to real-time results). It has to do with being real and creative on Twitter, not spamming your keywords and links there.

Final Thoughts

If you’d like to see the whole article for yourself, it’s on Realtor.org. Sadly, it seems that nothing has changed in the two-plus years since I first wrote about real estate SEO being a disaster and a joke. Even more sad is that the bad advice is coming from the national organization that’s supposed to make life easier for real estate agents.

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This is a post from Matt McGee’s blog, Small Business Search Marketing.

Bad SEO Advice for Real Estate Agents … from the NAR

Related posts:

1. Real Estate Marketing 2.0
2. Real Estate: SEO Disaster / SEO Opportunity
3. How Should a Real Estate Agent use Twitter?

Originally posted here:
Bad SEO Advice for Real Estate Agents … from the NAR

Choosing the affiliate marketing model that works for your site or blog can be tough. If you’re a publisher, you will need to weight pros and cons of CPM vs CPC vs CPA models to find which one will work for you and provide the best return for your site ad space. If you’re an advertiser, you’ll need to figure out which model will work for the type of product you’re trying to promote.

Each affiliate marketing business model offers different benefits and drawbacks. To help you decide which model will work best for you, Ace Affiliate has created the following handy “Affiliate Marketing: Choosing The Best Model For You” infographic.

You may remember Ace Affiliate from their two previous infographics. They were the ones who created the interactive Affiliate Review Report Card and Affiliate Marketing in Plain English chart. Affiliate Marketing: Choosing The Best Model For You completes the “trilogy.”

The newest infographic is very easy to understand and breaks down the pros and cons from both a publisher and advertiser’s standpoint. Hopefully, it will help you choose the best affiliate marketing model for your blog.

Copy and paste the HTML code below to embed the infographic onto your blog.

View original here:
Affiliate Marketing: Choosing The Best Model For You

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This post originally came from Michael Gray who is an SEO Consultant. Be sure not to miss the Thesis Wordpress Theme review.

How to Handle Old Directory Listings, Links and off Topic Traffic

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How to Handle Old Directory Listings, Links and off Topic Traffic

They always say that blogging is already saturated. Saturated especially if you are going to use blogging to target a wide audience and then make money. I’m always observing the blogosphere and while I can’t argue that there are so many blogs out there on a certain topic, I think it’s not enough to call it saturated yet. Not even close if you ask me.

I always classify bloggers into three. There are those who we call professional bloggers, the medium caps bloggers and the average bloggers. Pro bloggers are those who are considered the experts, the famous ones or simply “web celebrities”. Mid cap bloggers are the ones who I describe as bloggers who do things right but not as popular as probloggers are yet. And obviously average bloggers are the pollutants, they are the majority of what comprise the entire blogosphere.

Ok, I understand that pollutants is a bit of a harsh term but unfortunately, most people don’t realize that they just fall into this category. In this post I will give a list of 10 signs why you are just an average blogger. Without further ado, here they are.

1 .You don’t have a goal (and specific goals)

Goal Setting is a very important part of every business. And blogging is an internet business, so you need to set one as well. When I ask people what is their goal, their usual response is to make money. David Risley recently made a very good post on how people should get things done. In that post, he outlined that most people just put a long haul general goal and the problem is that almost all of the times, it’s not attained.

Setting goals, targeting specific tasks and outlining subtasks are important for online success so make sure you’re not neglecting this one.

2. You don’t build a list

I used to think that list building was for spammers only. But as I’ve observed how famous people use list to their advantage, I realized that it’s really a must-have for all serious bloggers. My blog has been up for 2+ years and its just last year that I started building a customer’s list.

Remember each and every of your readers is your potential customers. They build your business for you and it’s really imperative to collect them.

3. You think of making money too much

Most bloggers get into this mistake. They start a blog then put some content, market it a bit and then go full force into making money. Most of the times they do it by plastering ads to their site or by simply switching from giving good value to their readers by having the obvious intention of making money.

Listen, do you really just want to waste all the effort you exerted by forcing your monetization tactic? It’s hard to build a loyal base of audience and once they start clicking that unsubscribe button, it’s gonna be hard for you to make them come back.

4. You have a crappy design

The problem with this is that usually people really don’t realize their blog design sucks! Just because you think it’s cool it doesn’t mean it’s great in the eyes of the majority as well. The thing is you really need to follow the majority. If they think it sucks, then ditch it!

One of my tips is to actually just make use of forum review sites. Most people think its sole purpose is for quick traffic but the use of it is still to provide reviews. Most forum lurkers are pretty straightforward so you’re going to expect some great suggestions there. People always say content is king, but isn’t it that design is part of the content?

5. You don’t utilize social media

Social Media represents Web 2.0. I’ve seen some bloggers who skyrocketed their profiles in their blogs by just maximizing its use of social media. If you’re new to social media then please consider taking some time on reading about it, understanding it more.

When I was in my early stages I even studied how each of the social sites work, built relationship with reputed people and just invested an ample part of my time. If you’re not into social media as one of the tactics in your blog then you’re missing out a lot.

6. You think blog commenting is the best marketing tactic

Blog commenting is cool especially if you just started a new blog. It’s a pretty great way to say “hey I exist!” But one thing I see most bloggers do is use it as their no.1 marketing ploy. Sure there’s nothing wrong in commenting but just doing that will bring you nowhere!

Consider who’s going to gain more traction between the two. The first blogger comments on 150 blogs everyday while the second blogger do guest posts at least thrice a week. Who’s going to get more traffic and readers at the end of one week? You judge!

7. You don’t do Guest Postings

Reading the previous one, it’s obvious that we’re going to head into this topic. Guest Posting is probably the quickest way to spit your brand out there and get noticed in a very wide scale of audience. I bet all of you guys reading this article know it but I doubt you put this into work.

Writing guest articles is not just doing it three times, four times or eight times. Man, you have to do it in bulks! You can easily notice as well that even popular bloggers do guest posting. That’s because of the unending search for a new audience that would turn into a loyal customer. Guest Posting is probably the most cost-conscious method that you can use to drive great traffic to your blog.

8. You spread yourself too thin

This is the common mistake that most bloggers make. They believe they already know the recipe for success and as a result, they create multiple blogs. In order for anyone to be successful in blogging, it takes a lot of hard work and dedication. In short, you need to spend a considerable amount of time in your blog to make good progress. Don’t fall for this common mistake, don’t spread yourself thin.

9. You mass market your blog

There is nothing anything worse than seeing someone create a thread in popular forums only to say “hey check out my blog, its cool”. Or going to a high traffic social site like BlogCatalog only to spam your link out there. This is another crucial mistake that most bloggers are still doing! They think that by letting as much people as possible see their blog, they’re going to convert well.

It’s really a huge mistake not only because you get to annoy people there who cause them not to even look at your site, but more importantly you’re most likely targeting the wrong demographics. Remember, quality is more important than quantity.

10. Your content doesn’t make sense

OK, assuming everything is in line now. You now have that good design, have done a ton of really great guest posts, have an awesome list, you focus only on one blog and stuffs. In the end it all boils down to this last point, writing good content.

This has been rehashed probably a million times already but obviously everything that you’ve done is useless if you don’t write good content. Just imagine, you managed to guest post on several authority blogs, people love what you wrote and as a result they are clicking to your link. What if what they saw in your site is post about your cat? Or how ugly is your enemy? Or how you loathe you Math teacher?

In the end it all goes to waste. You see, it’s really a tough pill to swallow isn’t it? How do you write good content then? By sticking to your niche. I discuss a lot how professional blogging isn’t about having perfect grammar, superb fluency and being boring. And writing good content doesn’t have to be like that. As long as you think you’re connecting well with your readers, you’re fulfilling their needs; you’re doing your job.

Conclusion

So to end this one, I would leave it all to you. If you have been blogging and you think you’re exerting some effort and still not growing, then maybe it’s time to re-evaluate, time to jot down notes on things that you are working hard with, yet are not producing good results for you. Remember those average bloggers never evaluate things. Just by doing your job now will put you way ahead of most bloggers.

Melvin is a young blogger and entrepreneur who blogs at MelvinBlog Dot Com. He has also created a report for his readers entitled Blog Marketing for Fame which is available for download.

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10 Signs Why You Are Just An Average Blogger

This is an unofficial extra task for the 31 Days to Build a Better Blog Workbook.

Today I spent the morning working on a task that I try to do at least once a month – SEO on individual key posts in my archives.

While it’s important to know and practice the basics principles of SEO in the way you set up your blogs structure and in the writing of your posts – I find it can be very worthwhile periodically going back through key old posts to optimise them even further. I’ve used the following process for a while now and in most cases where I do it I find I’m able to increase my ranking for different posts.

I’m not the world’s best SEO but here’s the process that I use in doing this (I invite you to share yours in comments if you do this type of thing) – I hope you find it useful:

1. Identify Key Posts to Optimize for SEO

Across my active blogs I have 10,000 blog posts so I need to be a little strategic about choosing which blog posts I go back to to give a little SEO attention to.

For me the way that I do this is to dig into my Google Analytics account to work out what posts are already having some success with search traffic – but which could be improved. I generally look for posts that are ranking anywhere from #2 to #10 for their keywords (although sometimes focus upon those which are #1 to strengthen them further).

If a page is already generating some traffic from Google for a keyword but isn’t in the number 1 ranking for the word and increase in ranking should also see an increase in the traffic that the post receives. I’ve seen a variety of studies over the years that show that the #1 ranked result in Google can be getting anywhere from 35-55% of all clicks – the higher you are to the top the better.

Lets look at an example:

I’ve got a page on DPS which ranks #2 (depending where you are) for the term Portrait Photography.

It is a good page to optimise because it’s a relatively good term in the amount of traffic it drives (it’s a term that get a fair bit of searching for in Google) but also because the page is a ‘sneeze page‘ which links to quite a few pages across my photography blog and as a result those who visit that page end up visiting over 7 pages on their visit (the site average is a bit over 2 pages per visit).

The page already generates some healthy traffic (a few thousand visitors a month) so I know if I could get it ranking higher it will generate more.

2. Analyze the Competition

I don’t tend to get this deep into SEO too often but from time to time it can be worthwhile doing a little analysis of what pages that are ranking higher than you for a keyword are doing.

One tool that I use for this (and other keyword analysis) is Market Samurai. It’s a tool I’ve only been using for a little while but it’s very handy. That link is an affiliate link but it does give you a 12 day free trial. I’ve shelled out for the full version as it has been so handy a tool for this type of analysis.

One of the modules in the Market Samurai system (there are quite a few more) is one that does analysis of what competing pages are doing for a keyword. Lets take a look at what it gives us for ‘portrait photography’ as a keyword (click to enlarge).

You can see that the #2 ranking is for my site but it also shows a variety of information for other ranked sites in the top 10. Some of the information given is not overly relevant to me (or at least is out of my control like the first column which looks at the age of the domain) but some of the information is useful in getting a handle on how your page compares to other sites.

Knowing this might help you work out what you need to do to rank higher – or it might also give you an indication of whether you have much chance of ranking for the keyword at all (if the site you’re trying to compete against is way beyond what you can achieve it might be an indication that you want to go and work on another page).

In this example lets compare my page with the #1 ranked page:

• DA – domain age – they have a real advantage here.
• PR – page rank – their page is a 4 and mine is a 3. Something to work on.
• IC – index count (the number of pages indexed on the domain) – they are obviously a lot bigger site. This doesn’t mean I can’t rank for the term but gives an indication that I’m up against a pretty established site.
• BLP – the amount of backlinks pointing at the page. They obviously have more (we’ll do some more analysis of this below).
• BLEG – links from .edu/.gov sites pointing at the page – they have a couple here while I don’t
• DMZ – is the site in the DMOS directory (I don’t page a lot of attention to this but some say it can be a factor)
• YAH – is the site in the Yahoo directory (again, not something that I pay much attention to but some say it can be the difference between getting a higher ranking and not)
• Title – is the keyword/s in the title tags of the post (we both do this)
• URL – is the keyword/s in the URL of the post (I have the advantage here)
• Desc – is the keyword in the meta description tag (not something that I’ve found to impact SEO much but perhaps something to consider with the way your post appears in Google)
• Head – is the keyword/s in a header tag on the page
• CA – The Cache Age (the number of days since Google Cached the page)

In this case – the analysis shows me that I’m up against a pretty heavy hitter. It’s an established site with lots of links pointing both at the domain and the page itself. I’m tempted to settle for just ranking #2 for this page but for the sake of the exercise I’ll push on.

Note: Market Samurai also gives you the opportunity to dig deeper into competing sites and can give you a breakdown of the actual links pointing at a page. I won’t do the analysis here (it might be deeper than where people are at) but what I found was that in the case of my competition on this one is that the competing site had a lot of forwarded links pointing at it. I’m not sure what was going on with it but it seems that the majority of the links pointing at my competition are from forwarded domains and not actual live pages. This gives me a little hope so I’ll push on with optimising the page.

3. On Page Optimization

The above competitive analysis might give you a few hints as where to begin in optimizing your page. For example if you’ve not got your keywords in ‘title tags’ or ‘header tags’ – you’ll want to fix that. If your keyword is not in the URL, that’s another thing to consider. Those three tweaks alone could have a fairly significant change (I’ve seen changing title tags to include keywords as increasing rankings significantly).

Once you’ve done that you might want to also look at some smaller tweaks that could play a part. Using keywords in bold, using keywords in alt tags on images etc. These are probably not going to have a major impact but could help a little.

Ultimately if you want to rank for a particular keyword – you need to be using that keyword on your page in key spots (titles, headings, URL). Don’t stuff your page full of the keyword (and whatever you do keep your content useful and readable to readers) but a few tweaks might help.

4. Off Page Optimization

You might find that with some on page optmization that your post is already increasing its rankings – particularly if the keyword you’re looking at is not highly competitive. However at times it can be worth looking at ways of generating some extra links to your page as the number and type of links are important in determining how a page ranks in search engines.

I don’t tend to do much of this type of SEO as I find my site tends to get a nice number of links pretty naturally from other sites but I know those who are more into SEO will work hard on some of the following:

• analysing where the competition is getting their links and looking for opportunities to get links there too – for example if a link is coming to your competitor from a forum discussion or blog comment you might also have an opportunity to leave a quality comment there with your own link.
• links from other blogs you own (particularly one on a relevant topic) link to your page from it
• internal links – this is something I do do – basically its about interlinking your posts. While internal links don’t count as much as an external link they can help a little.
• pitching links to other blogs – if you have a relationship with other blogs in your niche try pitching a link of the page that you’re optimizing to those bloggers.
• sharing links in social media – most social media sites like Twitter and Facebook put no-follow tags on links so they don’t count directly for SEO but I find that an occasional push of an older post on social media sites can lead to indirect links from other bloggers. I also suspect that search engines are paying more attention to what links are being shared in social media sites so getting your links into them (without spamming) could be useful if you have a network of people who will pass them onto their own networks.

Note: the generation of links can be a fairly ‘black hat’ game at times. It can also be pretty addictive and become an obsession. I personally would prefer to spend my time producing quality content than spending my days asking for links. Do be a little careful with link building – not only can it be a time suck but if you engage in tactics that Google sees as against their Terms of Service (buying links for example) you could also be jeopardizing your sites ranking in their index.

Further Reading on SEO

• 8 First Step SEO Tips for Bloggers

Do you ever go back and optimize individual posts on your blog for SEO? If so – I’d love to hear your approach to it. This is the way I do it but I’m certain that there will be many other approaches that others take.

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

Optimize a Single Post On Your Blog for SEO

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Optimize a Single Post On Your Blog for SEO

A Guest Post by www.lewishowes.com on driving traffic to your blog with LinkedIn.

LinkedIn is the most powerful, yet under-utilised social networking platform on the web.

Whether you just created your first blog, or you are considered one of the top bloggers in the world like Darren Rowse, Chris Brogan, or Tim Ferriss, you are always looking for ways to generate more traffic to your site.  Even more so, you are looking for qualified traffic to your site, (i.e people who are interested in the content you produce).

LinkedIn is a great way to generate free, organic, traffic to your blog.

“But Lewis, isn’t LinkedIn just a site to post my resume when I am looking for a job?”

No, wake up people!  Although LinkedIn has been great for job seekers during the most recent economic cycle, it is much much more than that.  Individuals and companies are achieving more professional goals than imaginable on LinkedIn.  For example, LinkedIn can help you:

• Sell products
• Find new clients or employees
• Generate leads
• Receive funding for your company
• Obtain sponsorships
• Sell hundreds of tickets to your professional event
• Get national and local press coverage
• And last but not least, drive massive traffic to your blog

Achieving these goals on LinkedIn don’t come naturally.  You’ve gotta work the system on LinkedIn and experiment with different methods.  I’ve come up with the best ways to achieve those goals.  Here are my top 10 ways to drive traffic to your blog using LinkedIn:

1.  Complete Your Profile:

Numerous individuals have told me LinkedIn doesn’t work for them. I always ask them how much time they have put into using LinkedIn, their response – very little.  If your profile is weak people will lose interest quickly and may never click on your website links.

If you want people to read your profile and click on your websites then make your profile concise, compelling and value driven throughout.  Complete your profile 100%, add a great picture of yourself, and take the entire process very seriously.  The more complete and compelling your profile is, the more people will read and visit links you have posted.

This advice goes beyond driving traffic to your blog.  If someone were to Google your name (which most people do when they are researching you) your LinkedIn profile is one of the first things that pop up.  Personally, my LinkedIn profile is the third result, and for Darren Rowse it comes up seventh (before Facebook or Twitter).  Google your own name and check out what position your LinkedIn profile shows up.  You must make your profile compelling.

2.  Increase Your Connections:

The more connections you have, the more people will have access to your profile.  Every time you take an action on LinkedIn (i.e. update your profile, join a group, recommend someone, RSVP to an event, etc… this shows up on the home page of your 1st degree connections).  If you only have 100 connections, this limits the amount of potential clicks on your profile and website links per day. Constantly be updating and adding new connections.

3.  Customize Your Website Links:

When you first create your profile your website links will look like this:

However this is not a “call to action” and you are missing potential traffic because of it.  No one actually cares what your blog is unless it is relevant to them or solves a problem.  Instead, customize your website links to attract more clicks and drive more traffic to your blog.  If I were Darren, I would insert this:

The second image is more compelling and explains exactly what the viewer will see on the next page when they click on each link.  In order to change your websites with a custom headline, click on the “edit” button next to one of the websites. View the image below for further details:

4.  Answer Questions:

This is a great way to drive traffic to your blog.  The more questions you answer, the better the chances are of that person asking the question to click on your blog to learn more about you. Not only will that one person be more interested in learning more about you, but also others answering that question.  Additionally, when someone rates your answer as “The Best” of the mix, it will improve your thought  leadership status. It moves you up the rankings as a “featured expert” in the category you answered in.  When you are a featured expert people become more aware of your profile, and the chance they will click on your link to learn more about what you have to offer improves.

5.  Update Status:

For you Twitter lovers out there, this should be an easy step to take.  LinkedIn also has a status update feature that is a lot like Twitter, only it gives you 148 characters to work with instead of 140. Why is it so important to constantly update your status?  Because it is the first thing that pops up the home profile for all of your connections.  Check out your home page on LinkedIn and you will see a few status updates of those your are connected to.  If they are smart, they will include some compelling copy with a call to action and a link back to their blog (something I do that drives traffic to mine).

6.  Join Niche Groups:

Whatever your blog is about, there is an audience of people on LinkedIn that share interest with.  To make it easy to find these people click on the “Group Search” tab and type in some key words that relate to your blog.  I have a sports industry blog that focuses mostly on social media with an audience of professionals who work in the sports.  I joined all of the professional sports groups I could find:

Some of these niche groups have thousands of members who are actively involved in connect with other members.  If you are not in the groups where your audience for your blog is hanging out, then you are missing out on the opportunity for new readers, and organic traffic to your site.  Join as many groups as you can after doing a key word search that relates to your blog.

For starters – check out the Professional Bloggers Group.

7.  Post Comments In Groups:

Some larger groups are receiving hundreds of new discussion topics every few days (think of it as a forum).  People are sharing points of discussion, commenting and giving further feedback and suggestions on those comments.  Every time someone creates a new discussion topic, it shows up on the home profile of everyone in that group.  If there are 100,000 people in the group, then you are potentially getting the attention of 100,000 other individuals for your comment.

8.  Add RSS Feed to Groups:

Each group has a section that allows you to add a link to a website with the latest news you think is relevant to that group.  It also allows you to add your own RSS feed or website link so it will automatically update the group every time you post a new article on your blog.  This creates an automated flow of organic traffic that will show up on the home profile of everyone connected in the group.  Again, this gives you more opportunities for people to view your blog.

9.  Create a Group:

This may be one of the most powerful things you can do on LinkedIn.  I won’t go into all of the amazing details on how this has helped me, but I will tell you that owning a group drives a lot of traffic to your site. I own several niche related groups on LinkedIn.  For example, I created the Sports Industry Network group on LinkedIn and there are currently over 19,500 members.  When a new person joins the group, they see a brief description of the group, my name as the owner of the group, plus my website url www.sportsnetworker.com.  Since my group gets over 100 new members each week, that’s additional traffic from new members alone. That’s not even including the close to 20,000 members who are actively engaging in the group, and clicking on my blog links.

10.  Add the Blog Application to Your Profile:

This might be the most obvious suggestion, but I still see some of the top pro bloggers leaving this feature out.  This application posts the title and first paragraph for your most recent articles you have published on your LinkedIn profile.  It is a way to give viewers of your profile a sneak peak of what they will read on your blog.

Go to “applications” and download either the WordPress or Blog Link application and add your URL for your blog.

LinkedIn continues to be one of the top sites that drives traffic to my blog, thanks to these 10 examples, but the power of LinkedIn doesn’t stop here. What other tips have you found through using LinkedIn to increase traffic to your blog?

=====================================================

Lewis Howes is the co-author of the LinkedIn book, LinkedWorking: Generating Success on the World’s Largest Professional Networking Website. He founded the Sports Executives Association and SportsNetworker.com, which provides daily social media and marketing tips for sports professionals.  You can connect with him on Twitter at www.twitter.com/lewishowes or on his site at www.lewishowes.com.

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

Top 10 Ways to Drive Traffic to Your Blog Using LinkedIn

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Top 10 Ways to Drive Traffic to Your Blog Using LinkedIn

At Pubcon this year Google announced page load time was going to become a ranking factor in 2010 (see video below). Shortly after this announcement, Google started showing load time data in webmaster central. Being a bit proactive, I decided to start looking at ways to speed up this site.

The graph below shows the average load time for this website. I had a high of about 12 seconds and low of about 5 seconds. Using the techniques below I was able to bring my page load time down under 5 seconds.

• First, remove any social media buttons that have active counts. Using add-ons like the “smart digg button” makes a call to another website and will increase the page’s load time. The more buttons, the longer the site will take to load, so go with static buttons for things like sphinn, stumbleupon, twitter, digg, facebook, and so on. In some cases this may work against you as it will get you less “votes.” If you depend on social media interaction for traffic, consider using a date based hook. Show buttons with the count when the post is new, then switch to static buttons or remove them entirely when the post is old.
• Two of the biggest offenders which deserve special mention are share this and tweetmeme. They make a disproportionately large number of connections for what they are doing. Worse, they throw a huge amount of validation errors. True you don’t need to be valid to rank but for a plugin to throw 40 validation errors is embarrassing and quite simply shows nothing less than gross incompetence from a programmer or team who should be fired on the spot. Those two plugins should be first two to go if you are concerned about speed.
• Look at your sidebar for any social widgets, plugins or javascript-based add-ons. Decide if  they are helping you bring in any traffic. Things like Google Friend Connect are almost never worth it and should be removed.
• Are you using plugins like shadowbox to give you a nice effect when people zoom in on a picture? Seriously consider whether it’s worth it: chances are good that the plugin and ones like it are having some detrimental effects on load time.
• Are you using any dynamic, on-the-fly image resizing, or are you cheating and using hard coded width and height settings for your images? If you are, chances are good that you’re affecting load time. Create a smaller image and link to the larger one. Starting with wordpress 2.9 there is a built in image editing feature. Take advantage of it.
• If you are using comments, set the default avatar to “blank.” It will show images for people who have registered but won’t show anything for people without avatars. if you have posts that get over 25 comments, the savings can be significant.
• Do a plugin audit. Use a page load monitoring tool to turn plugins on and off one by one to see if anything is adversely affecting load time. Some plugins like Page to Post converter don’t need to be enabled 100% of the time. Turn them on when you need them, turn them off when you don’t.
• Wordpress used to have a GZip setting built in.  It was removed in version 2.5.  Add it back in if it’s compatible with your hosting plan because it’s worth doing.
• Caching is a tricky thing with wordpress. If you are playing the social game you want it running and everything set to lockdown. If you publish frequently you need to clear the cache to make sure everyone is getting new content. 99% of the posts I do here are scheduled, and I’m not convinced the setting “clear cache on post publication” works 100% of the time with scheduled posts. So use WP-Cache–just get in the habit of manually clearing it out every now and then(at least once a week at bare minimum).
• Install WP Minify. It reduces and combines the javascripts and CSS files. This one can be a bit tricky to get installed and sometimes has conflicts. It’s definitely worth trying though.

To conclude, what you want to do is look for scripts, add-ons, plugins,  javascripts, or social media tools with large load times or callbacks to external websites. Remove them whenever possible. Use basic file reduction techniques like using thumbnails instead of large images. Install compression and caching scripts to maximize the value from your first two steps. By themselves, none of these steps will have that much effect; however their cumulative effect will add up. In the case of this site, they reduced load time in half.

To be clear, at the time of this post’s publication, there is no evidence that page load time is currently affecting organic rankings. However, it is a part of the quality score in Adwords. When taking into consideration Google’s statement that load time will become a factor in the future, this presents an opportunity for you to take proactive steps now instead of playing catch up 6 months from now.

Advertisement: Need an SEO Audit for your website, look at my SEO Consulting Services

This post originally came from Michael Gray who is an SEO Consultant. Be sure not to miss the Thesis Wordpress Theme review.

How to Speed up Wordpress

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Bosses and co-workers can be tough to shop for. So allow me to make a potentially helpful gift suggestion:

My How to SEO Your Site in 60 Minutes e-book.

At $25, it’s the perfect price point. And here’s what a couple buyers have shared as feedback:

“Lots of excellent tips on making site’s SEO friendly. Read it through from cover to cover already. Excellent work, thanks again!” — Doug B.

“I have already read the book and there are definitely some things I can implement right away to improve the site. Very valuable information and easy to follow advice.” — Malcolm K.

And Jennifer Laycock from Search Engine Guide says “…it’s about the best SEO primer I’ve come across in terms of helping you learn how to make basic changes to your site.”

So make your boss happy and maybe help your job security in the process. Place your order and I’ll email you the e-book as fast as I can, even on Christmas day.

This is a post from Matt McGee’s blog, Small Business Search Marketing.

Need a Last-Minute Gift for Your Boss?

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When holiday cheer is in the air, I get in this state of mind where I hear jingle bells everywhere and the whole world is aglitter with tinsel. I have this constant stream of carols looping through my head and an urge to flavor everything with peppermint. But the holidays aren’t always a happy time for all.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jelene/ CC BY 2.0

The holidays are billed as a time of love and togetherness, which is great fun if you have someone to share it with. But when we’re reminded that others don’t have someone to share life and love with, we remember that the holidays are also about giving. As we remember all the things we have to be thankful for, we’re reminded that the world is full of people in need.

One of the simplest but most heartfelt gifts one can give, all year round, is a smile.

Now, if this was your reaction:

What do you mean, “Give a smile”? I’m an Internet marketer, not a GAP model! *

Not to worry. As it turns out, smiling has a lot in common with something with which you’re very familiar: search engine optimization!

Introduce Yourself Warmly

Before you whip out those pearly whites or that SEO strategy, think about your audience. Any introduction should be geared to the audience, whether it’s formal or casual, what the relationship might be going forward, and what’s expected of both sides. Search results are often the introduction platform between a searcher and a Web site. A site should make a great first impression by meeting the visitor’s needs, answering their questions, and leading them to the information they’re looking for with as little trouble as possible.

Which leads us to the next point…

Organize the Right Way

http://www.flickr.com/photos/dotbenjamin/ CC BY-SA 2.0

A smile and an SEO campaign should both be structured correctly. Someone offering a smile has to be aware of what kind of smile they’re giving (goofy, toothy smile? purse-lipped, toothless smile? relaxed, laugh-filled smile?) so that it matches the occasion. You wouldn’t want to laugh at someone when they’re hoping for gentle optimism? Likewise, an SEO campaign should seek to organize the site in the best way for users and search engines. Siloed, or theme-based, logical site architecture will act as a strong support for the themes of the site, at the same time making it easier for users to traverse the site.

Build from There

If a smile is like SEO, then a handshake is like link building, and a hug is like social media, and a pat on the back is like affiliate marketing, and you get the idea. Take your introduction and run with it to develop a strong relationship. Develop a holistic Internet marketing strategy that builds a continuing relationship with visitors, using all tools at your disposal. But don’t forget to keep sending out the smiles.

* I was just kidding about the whole “Internet marketers don’t smile” thing. I was just looking for a clever transition. You know you all have beautiful smiles! So use them!

How SEO is Like a Smile was originally published on BruceClay.com, an SEO services company.

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How SEO is Like a Smile