SEO Cheat Sheet

Search Engine Optimization for Dummies

When I first decided that I wanted as many people as possible to read my words online, I turned to a brand I trusted: the For Dummies books.  Search Engine Optimization for Dummies is such a great book that the person I lent it to still hasn’t returned it.

Now I see that the For Dummies people have a cheat sheet online to help beginners start to plug their websites:

http://www.dummies.com/how-to/content/an-seo-and-viral-marketing-checklist.html

It's the stuff you absolutely must know about how to promote your blog or website.  Cheers!

Copying Copy

The point of a blog is to update it frequently, with interesting content that invites readers to stick around, leave a comment, and return to read more.

I don’t have that much to say.  If I had, I’d write a book.  The truth is, my noteworthy insights are rare.

Most of what you find here is what the legacy media would call evergreens, articles that you can hold in a drawer (or on a thumb drive) and run any time.  Many professionals already know what I tell you about the basics of SEO, for example.  It’s true--it’s just not really news.

Then why do people from all around the world read this blog? They can easily find information about SEO or public speaking on better-known, easier-to-find websites. 

Could it be the very obscurity that draws them here?  Search engines look constantly for fresh content, as we’ve said.  So everybody wants new words on their websites.

At the same time, search engines penalize duplicate content.  If they find the same text on multiple websites, the search engines figure that somebody’s trying to game the system.

So what’s a site owner to do?

a)      Write fresh material every day.  It doesn’t have to be newsworthy.  It just has to be new

b)      Find fresh material, um, somewhere else and copy paste it

c)      Find fresh material, um, somewhere else, and mash it through article rewriting software to change the nouns and the verbs

d)      Offshore the process

A relatively obscure blog like this one is a good place to find words to copy, because other people are unlikely to find it and copy it.  

I'm not really worried about duplicate content yet.  I am worried about looking ridiculous.  Spammers have run my press releases through rewriting software before.  The results would have been hilarious--if my name hadn’t been on them. 

If this blog is your, “um, somewhere else,” and you’re here to borrow copy, I can’t really stop you.  All I ask is that you

e)      Take only the evergreens.  They have better search terms anyway.

f)        Make substantial changes, like more than 40%

g)      Please, leave my name off your final product.

If you’re here to read, hi there and welcome!  Please leave a message and tell me what else you’d like to read about.

New Year’s Resolution, part 2

To follow up on yesterday’s post: yes, you do want to update your site frequently in order to woo (or wow) the search engines.

Not everyone has the desire or facility to come up with something fresh and witty every day.  As Gene Fowler once wrote:

Writing is easy; all you do is sit staring at a blank sheet of paper until the drops of blood form on your forehead.

 I don’t digress when I say that yesterday I grew tired of looking at all my excess labels.  If you scroll all the way down to the bottom of any post, you’ll see a few labels, words that I thought applied to whatever I was writing about that day.  They help bloggers organize their posts, and, yes, they help the search engines find the posts.

In the beginning of this blog, I was label-happy.  I made up new labels every time I mentioned new subjects, which is why I only had one blog entry labeled “food pyramid.”  It was like setting up a filing system with paper files that only contained one sheet of paper.  After a while all those files get in your way.

I did something about those extra labels, deleting a lot of them.

Here’s the funny thing: that was good for my search engine optimization as well.  The search engines can’t really tell if I’ve just added important and timely news to my blog (only you can do that.)

To a search engine “spider” a deleted label is as much an update as is a trenchant blog post.  So’s a deleted comma.  I could edit my site every day, deleting a comma tomorrow and adding it back in the next day.  The search engines would think I was making serious changes and would think my blog had hotter news in it than the completing blog at the next IP address, which didn’t make daily minor tweaks.

I’d rather add new and interesting blog posts, but even when I do something dull like administer my labels, it’s nice to know that even that may help one more reader find this blog.

NJCommunique's New Year’s Resolution

In 2011, I will update my blog more often.

As a writer, I study ways that I can encourage more people to read my work online.  One way to do this is to write so that the search engines find it.  The more relevant the search engines think this blog is to internet users’ queries, the higher up on the page this blog appears on the search engine results.

People are impatient.  The closer a website is to the top of the first page, the more likely they’ll click on it.  If they click on my site, bingo!  I have more readers!

This process is called search engine optimization.

If I know that a lot of people search on the term “LinkedIn,” I can use the word “LinkedIn” and any synonyms I can think of, frequently within the post.  “Aha!” the search engine says to itself, “this post must be really relevant to the query because it concentrates on the subject—look how many times the word LinkedIn repeats.  I’d better recommend this page to people who want to learn about LinkedIn.”

Another way that the search engines check web pages is to see how many other web pages refer to it.  If a lot of other people recommend my page to their readers, my page must be good.  This is especially true if the website that refers to it is prominent.

I use this fact to a certain extent.  My LinkedIn profile includes a link to this blog.  If I think my friends might be interested in a certain post, I also mention it on Facebook.  If I wanted to, I could visit strangers’ blogs, leave comments there and include a link back to this blog.  I don’t usually bother.  I do have an offline life.

Another thing the search engines look at is how frequently the website is updated.  If nobody updates the website, the search engine figures it’s been abandoned or that the information on it’s outdated.  Search engines want to see sites with frequent changes. 

I like this blog to have good search engine results, which is why I vow to update it more often this year.  Thanks for visiting, and y’all come back now, you hear?

Resources for People Who Hate Networking

Maybe this is why I quit real estate: I hate networking.

Don’t get me wrong. I do it. My business card is attractive; I hand it out proudly. I send out lots of holiday cards. I go out of my way to get together with people. I forward interesting articles. I lend out my books (note: a few of them I do want back, okay? You know who you are.) But networking itself, getting on the phone and asking for favors, is so darned uncomfortable.

So I typed “hate networking” in my search engine. Here are some interesting results in case you hate it, too.

Networking for People Who Hate Networking by Penelope Trunk. You may especially enjoy point #5, “You don’t have to get off the sofa.”

How to not hate networking on Gravity Blog. I liked this one because it reminded me of the advice I often give out-of-shape people: people are not really going to look down on you at the gym. 80% is just showing up. And going back.

Crazy Networking at MeetUp.com. This looks like fun. I want to try it next time I’m in Toronto.

7 Networking Tips for Generation Y. Rebecca Thorman gives a good justification for that expensive haircut you wanted anyway.

Networking for the Networking-Phobic by Susan P. Joyce. Joyce offers several practicable and novel networking ideas. This is my favorite, “Take your lucky charm(s) with you. Scientific research shows that they do help you feel more confident!”

Ladies, only read this one when you’re exhausted. Why Men Have Stronger Professional Networks than Women by Kevin Fogarty. I like an excuse to say, “So that’s why it’s not working out.”

And here’s a tip: I met a woman at a cocktail party. Her first question to me was, “What can I do for you?” It was a little contrived, sure, but I liked it better than if she had set me on guard by immediately delivering her elevator pitch. I’ll try it someday soon.

Who's David Foster Wallace?

I heard a piece on Weekend Edition about a site called IWriteLike.com. You put in a sample of your writing. The site parses it and tells you which writer your writing style resembles.

I submitted this entry and IWriteLike told me I write like David Foster Wallace.

Who's he? Hee hee.

I write like
David Foster Wallace

I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!

10 Reasons to Visit njcommuniques.blogspot.com

10. either Katharine or Lloyd is a friend of yours
9. you plan to leave a comment with a link to your own blog
8. you want ideas for promoting your own product, business or nonprofit
7. it's raining and you're bored today
6. you want to recommend Katharine for a job and you'd like to see what she's up to
5. you want to learn more about the Flag Code, Four Letter Functionals or Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt
4. you're thinking of starting a blog of your own and you'd like to see how someone you know does it
3. you've been meaning to for a while, but...
2. Katharine knows how to do things on the cheap so maybe you'll get some ideas
1. it's witty (or at least it has its moments)

Wall between Editorial and Advertising

Last night at dinner I ran into a reporter for our local weekly paper. I'm sorry to hear that they had two rounds of cutbacks last week.

PC Magazine published its last print edition this month.

Times are tough for direct print media. It's harder than ever for me to convince people to pay for advertising. Print advertising is probably ineffective.

• If I want to buy something, I look online, not in print.
• The media that I respect do not allow advertising dollars to affect their editorial decisions, of course.

This means that if I do convince the people with the checkbooks to pay for print ads, the ads will probably not reach the buyers. Even if I spend, editors may still allow unfavorable coverage of my product.

That said, I bear in mind two things

• Print media are businesses, too. Subscription revenue does not pay their bills; without advertising, they sink.
• The editorial process gives direct print coverage and its online versions much more credibility than unedited usergroups and blogs like this one.

I believe in print media, and I believe in spending on advertising to support them. It's hard for advertisers to point to direct benefits, but if we allow our print media to sink, we have lost something important.