Have You Helped Someone Today?

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I’m not bragging. It’s a fact. My blogs get a lot of attention. They win awards. I have a lot of incoming links, and a lot of steady traffic. The PageRank of my blog – well, actually, I don’t know. I have no idea and haven’t paid attention for several years. It doesn’t matter.

Most of the stuff that other bloggers worry and fuss over doesn’t matter to me. I don’t look at my blog stats unless I have a good reason. I don’t write to beg for traffic nor attention. Honestly, I just do what I do and people like it. Any search engine page ranking success I’ve had is due to experience and common sense. No games. I hate the games.

I tried to explain this to someone just entering the blog market recently, and they just couldn’t get it. “But you’re THE Lorelle! You’re famous!”

Nope. I’m just me. I’m just you. I’m just like everyone else, I’ve just been doing this longer. So pardon my arrogance for just a moment, but I’ve been there, done that, and now I think I’m paying attention to what’s more important than some numbers and scores.

What matters most to me is helping people.
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Never Write For Search Engines

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I recently spoke at a writer’s conference and heard a fellow speaker recommend the following advice: Never write for search engines. Write for your readers.

While he’s right, he’s right to a point.

If you put all your energy into writing for Google, then obviously, you are ignoring your readers, but what does that mean?

Writing for SEO only is a simplified way of saying, “Let’s game Google.” Clearly, playing the Google Game won’t work if you put all your focus on interpreting what Google wants and then serving only that. It’s like asking for carrot cake and getting serviced a bowl of carrots and each ingredient in the carrot cake separately. Google wants carrots, give them carrots. Google wants sugar, so get the sugar out. Google wants flour, so where’s did I put it…ah, here it is. Two cups, right? Water? Spices? What else does Google need to make the cake?
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Do You Tag Yourself?

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Do you tag yourself? Honestly? No, this is not a game.

With everyone back on the tag versus categories versus tags bandwagon, have you checked to make sure you are tagging yourself?

Inside of is the tag attribute that turns “Lorelle on WordPress” into a tag.

<a href="http://lorelle.wordpress.com/" title="Lorelle on WordPress" rel="tag">Lorelle on WordPress</a>

When I write my name in a link, I also include a tag:

<a href="http://lorelle.wordpress.com/" title="Lorelle" rel="tag">Lorelle</a>

This makes “Lorelle” a tag.

When I write about the , I also put that in a tag, so the words “Blog Herald” get into the tag clouds on the site as well as the tag search engines and directories.

I use the same tag technique for , , and every taggable link I write to help associate what I write with those tags.

Are you tagging yourself and your blog? The rel="tag" is all a link needs to turn it from a link into a linking tag. It’s what defines a tag.

If you aren’t tagging yourself and your blog, it’s a great branding technique you may be missing out on.

Localized Domain Names to Increase Local Traffic, the Next Big Thing?

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Darren Rowse spins off a question asked on Twitter, regarding if it’s worth it to get a local domain name to better drive traffic in your region. While he says he’s no expert, here’s the conclusion:

Search engines are focusing more and more on localized search and indexing and promoting local search results to users. While less people use these local search tools than the global ones there is still a market and the traffic they generate can be significant. So yes – I definitely think targeting local markets with local domains can be very worthwhile.

This post is, by the way, in Darrens really cool reader question segment, where he uses 3 minutes to answer a question, and then flips it to the commenters. Great usage of a blog community, in my opinion!

Anyway, I’d reckon that there’s a lot of people that know more of this than I do, but I do find it easier to get higher ranks in local search results if you have A] the local top level domain (like .se for Sweden or .co.uk for the UK), and B] the local language of the region. Think about it, if you go to a local version of Google, you’ll be able to pick if it should only search in the country’s language, or pages from the country in question. Here’s where the TLD and language comes in, but I suspect that it also affects rankings since a google.com search while render different results than google.se, even if I haven’t opted to search locally.

Maybe someone else knows more of this?

New Version of Woopra Released

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Example of Woopra geographical map to track visitors liveThe web analytics program, , that generated massive enthusiasm when John Pozadzides presented it at WordCamp Dallas, will release a new beta version on Friday along with thousands of requests for access granted.

“We are excited to be able to extend the Woopra Real Time Analytics service to an additional 10,000 users beginning Friday April 25,” said Jad Younan, CTO of iFusion Labs. “The infrastructure has been holding up well for the roughly 4,000 users who have been on the system the last few weeks, and this is the next step in our phased approach as we scale the business.”

Elie Khoury, iFusion Labs’ CIO, added, “In addition to the mass approvals for Webmasters who have been waiting patiently, we will be releasing a new version of the Woopra client application with bug fixes and a number of new features.”

Layered Technologies and 3Tera are providing 100 grid-servers to Woopra to handle the sudden demand from the early release of the beta version at WordCamp Dallas, and by this weekend, the numerous requests for Woopra invitations will be granted on a first come, first serve basis along with the release of the latest version.
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Google frees Website Optimizer from Adwords – launches free independent service

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Yesterday, at ad:tech, Google announced that it has launched its Website Optimizer application as a separate independent service – no longer dependent on the use of AdWords in order to access the service:

Today at the ad:tech conference in San Francisco, Google Website Optimizer™ launched out of beta as an independent product. Formerly a feature within the Google AdWords™ advertising service only, this free website-testing tool is now accessible through its own website (http://www.google.com/websiteoptimizer) as well. In addition, Google’s Website Optimizer has introduced its own blog (http://websiteoptimizer.blogspot.com).

Google Website Optimizer helps improve user experience on the Web by showing its users what their visitors want to see. Rather than debating or guessing how a webpage might look best, users can continually test different combinations of website content, such as images and text, to see which one yields the most sales, sign-ups, leads or other goals.

For professional bloggers seeking to improve conversion and gain other data about their users, the website optimizer is a great tool to use.

Google releases guide on how to move your site

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Many of us have moved our blogs to different domains or URLs in the past – in that process, we’ve taken some various steps in the hopes that Google will quickly pickup the blog at its new location and index it properly.

Rather than guessing on what the best practices are to move a blog – Google has released a guide at their webmaster blog outlining the best practices to follow when moving your site.

Your aim is to make the transition invisible and seamless to the user, and to make sure that Google knows that your new pages should get the same quality signals as the pages on your own site. When you’re moving your site, pesky 404 (File Not Found) errors can harm the user experience and negatively impact your site’s performance in Google search results.

If You Don’t Write With Keywords, Will It Hurt Your Blog?

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Recently, I got the following comment on :

I just set up my blog and I am still trying to get everything in line. When I write original content, does it have to be about the subject of my blog? Will it hurt to have content not related to the title and keywords of my blog? Any input would be greatly appreciated!

My first thought was “whose going to hurt whom?” Honestly, who are you hurting if you don’t blog right? You.

If you don’t care about monetization, getting found, establishing a reputation or expertise, and your blog is not your resume, then who cares? No one is hurt because your blog is all for you and no one else that influences your ability to pay your rent.

If your blog’s purpose is to make money and establish your professional online reputation, by not blogging with search term, keyword-rich content in a consistent form within your blog’s purpose and intent that puts the reader first, you are the only one hurting you.

There are two answers I can give to this person.
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Business School for Bloggers: How to Make Money With Your Blog

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I am frequently asked about how to make money on the web, especially how to make money with your blog. I find a wide variety of answers around the web, some of them get rich quick schemes, PageRank games, and SEO illusions, but there is only one answer that I want to shout to the roofs, but few people listen.

Blogging as a business is business. It takes business training and skills to make money with your blog.

That’s it. That’s the secret. John Chow, Guy Kawawasaki, Darren Rowse, Seth Godin, these princes of blogging didn’t get rich with their blogs by just having blogs. They used their business sense and know how to make their blogs work for them. They understood that a blog is just another tool in the business arsenal, a business card and resume all wrapped up in one, offering a business a powerful communications tool. In order to make your blog work for you, you have to understand how business works.

To have a “successful” blog and to make your blog work for you, you have to have skills and training in advertising, marketing, economics, finance, writing ability and language skills, public relations, networking, everything any business needs. These are the skills you bring it to your blog to make it a success, earning the money you deserve.
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Publishing Article Series Tips and Techniques

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Excerpt reprinted with permission from the book, “Blogging Tips: What Bloggers Won’t Tell You About Blogging”, by Lorelle VanFossen

Writing a series of articles is a great way to connect related content together. It is also a great attention-getter, encouraging readers to return for the next installment.

On a blog, an article series must be planned in order to maximize its effectiveness. There must be enough advance time to spread the word of the upcoming series.
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