Using Common Sense SEO Practice

The practice of SEO is a never-ending process of testing, measuring, and reading what other people are saying.

But what about using common sense?

I like to think that Google wants to rank highly of those websites that publish fresh content, consistently, on a daily or weekly basis. But it's not always true. There are websites that get the #1 listing for short-tail keywords that seemingly are never updated.

But let's assume for this discussion that content freshness is a key factor towards moving up in the rankings. What are the signs of a website that is fresh, active, and "alive"?

• Adding new content


• Adding new navigation pages, site map


• Redesigning the look of the site


• Fixing broken links


• Rewriting existing content (eg. fixing spelling/grammar errors)


• Moving the site to a new server


• Buying keywords on AdWords



• People posting comments to your blog


• Other websites adding links to your site


• Google users clicking on your AdWords

The first seven bullet points are things that you as a website owner can control, while the last three points are those that you don't control.

I'm not saying that Google considers all of these factors, I'm just saying that it seems sensible these are characteristics of a website that's fresh and active.

For example, if your website has a lot of broken links, it suggests that you're not interested in keeping it current. To me, that says your website is not as authoritative as it could be. If a competing website in your genre has all links working, doesn't that website deserve extra page rank value over yours?

I started this article by saying that SEO is a practice of testing and measuring. We can never know the specifics of Google's search algorithm, but we can second-guess it, and then put those ideas to test. And that starts with using common sense.  ✓

Commission Junction SmartZones - Do They Work?

I'm assuming you're already familiar with the SmartZones in Commission Junction. In short, it's a way to build a banner rotation script for merchants on Commission Junction.

So do they work?

In terms of earning revenue, not very well.


After having used SmartZones for some years now, experimenting with text links, banners, for several of my sites, and for several of my merchants, they just don't make any money, or they make very little money.

If you mix links for several merchants, all you're doing is watering down the potential EPC, to the point where it's almost impossible to earn anything.

The reason why is that by running multiple merchants on a single SmartZone script, you're dividing up your total audience to the point where a fraction of your visitors will see the best performing link.

For example, if you have 5 different merchants running in your SmartZone script, then 1/5th of your visitors will see one merchant, another 1/5th will see a different merchant, etc...

Moreover, not all of your visitors will share the same interests. If you're publishing a digital camera blog, a portion will want to buy a digital camera, another portion only wants to know what's new and cool, another portion wants to learn how to use their camera, and another portion wants to know where to get the best deals. If you rotate links from five different merchants, then 75% of your visitors will see links that don't interest them.

Instead, just permanently fix links from all of your merchants down the side of the page, and don't rotate them. That way, all of your visitors will see a merchant link that will interest them.

Running banners on a rotation script is typically what you'd do for CPM campaigns, where you're paid for displaying an ad. It makes sense to use a rotation script so that you're exhausting advertiser impressions quickly as possible.

But when monetization is based on a revenue share (earning a commission), rotating banners means reducing the number of times your visitors see your best performing banner.

You're actually just better off not using SmartZones, or any rotation script to randomly display ads paid on a revenue share. Find your best performing link, and keep it on the site, in the same place, all the time, to maximize sales potential.

If you really want to use SmartZones, then create a separate SmartZone for each merchant, where one SmartZone serves only one merchant. If you have five merchants for your digital camera blog, then create five SmartZones, one for each. Then paste all five SmartZone codes on the same page. That way, all of your different types of visitors will see a merchant link that interests them.

If you insist on having multiple merchants rotating in one rotation script, then utilize CPM campaigns. I guarantee they'll pay better in the long run, than if you were to rotate revenue share ads.

The only rotation script I would recommend for revenue share ads, is one that lets you target specific ads to specific pages. Don't just randomly show revenue share ads on any page.  ✓

How Blogger Can Be Like Twitter

Seems like what social media experts are saying the most about Twitter is that it's "real time".

Actually, the truth is that it's more usable.

Blogging is just as much real time as Twitter, in the sense that each blog post is published as the writer wrote it. That is, the content a writer writes is fresh the moment he/she clicked on the "publish" button. That's just as true with Twitter or Blogger.

What social media folks are really trying to say is that Twitter encourages people to write quickly, instead of taking 60 minutes to write a full blog post. But really, Blogger can do just as well. Perhaps it's just that folks don't know how to use Blogger all that well.

• Twitter has a search engine that lets you search tweets
• Blogger also has a search engine that lets you search Blogger blogs



• Twitter keeps messages short and concise, limiting you to 140 characters
• Blogger will also let you write short and concise posts, and will accept 140 characters or less (or more if you want).



• Twitter lets you post tweets using your handheld (iPhone, Blackberry, et al)
• Blogger lets you compose and publish posts using your handheld by composing an e-mail that you set up for your blog, which Blogger publishes immediately.



• Twitter lets you post photos from your handheld
• Blogger lets you post photos from your handheld, using the same e-mail function noted above



• Twitter lets you create RSS feeds of any Twitter search query
• Blogger also lets you create RSS feeds of any Blogsearch query



• Twitter lets you "friend" with other Twitter users, and you can see all your friends tweets in one place
• Blogger also lets you "friend" other blogs, and lets you see the updates on your Blogger homepage



• Twitter will let you reply to other people's tweets
• Blogger will let you post comments on other people's blogs

If anything truly makes Twitter different than Blogger it's that there are so many Twitter tools and apps out there. Blogger doesn't quite have the same third party support, with the exception of Blogger Gadgets that you can add to your blog.

Twitter is not more real time than Blogger, it's that Twitter has so many users posting tweets of news events.

Somehow, somewhere, no figured out that they could use Blogger for the same thing. But if you were to go back to the early 2000s, when Blogger first went live, and look at those blogs, you'll see the same kind of Twitterish content.

In fact, the very first blogger was someone who just posted links with short messages of his web travels. It was his "web log". The folks who created Blogger, simply created a tool that let other people do the same thing.

Over the years, as blogging grew more sophisticated, blog content became more creative, and more commercial. That in turn, encouraged people to take 60 minutes or more just to compose something.

The 140 character constraint in Twitter encourages people to be quick.

Just an FYI, I timed myself writing this blog post, and I took 27 minutes.  ✓

Twitter versus Facebook

"Help! My wife is addicted to Facebook, and she can't get up!"

The past few months since I introduced her to Facebook, she's been hooked. She sits on the sofa with her laptop, the television turned on, with her Blackberry and remote control by her side, and a tall glass of iced tea, and sits there all morning, all afternoon, all night long.

The reason why are all the games on Facebook. Stuff like Mafia Wars, Sorority, Bejeweled, et al. There's about 20 games that she actively plays.

She has partnered up with the neighboring wives on our block. There's like four or five wives on our street and they all play against each other, or with each other, on Facebook.

Facebook is the king of stickiness.

Twitter, on the other hand, is for geeks.

That is, geeks like me, Internet professionals, who want to communicate and follow those who have good ideas, and can share some cool links.

Facebook is for the general populace, while Twitter still seems to serve the hard core net geeks.

But, it's all changing. Twitter is quickly gaining acceptance into the general populace, and soon it too will be integrated into online gaming, online dating, etc., etc., etc.

While my wife is seemingly hooked on Facebook, at least she's not complaining about being bored.

In a way, it's cheaper for husbands like me, because she's not spending all my money at the shopping mall.  ✓

I Hate Browser Plugins

Today I ran across a couple of instances where a website required a browser plugin.

The first one was for a QuickTime plugin, the second one was for Flash plugin.

Why do web designers need to show such glitzy stuff?

I guess I'm a bit of a renaissance man in this sense. I like simplicity. I like things to load quickly, display quickly. I'm not so much impressed with fancy design, as I am with quality content that's easy to read, and easy to find.

When I see this stuff on my browser, asking me to download a plugin, the first thing I think of is, "How cheesy! Whoever designed this site actually thinks they're sophisticated"...


Well, I'm rebelling against the onslaught of browser plugins. I refuse to install them. If you can't design something to render in IE or Firefox without the use of a plugin, then you're obviously not thinking about usability.

Remember all those sites years ago that would publish a little blurb that said, "Best Viewed on IE at 800x600"? And didn't you think that was stupid too?

That plugin message is kinda saying the same stupid thing.

I remember back when Google was just starting gain traction. At that time, all it had was its search engine. And everyone loved it claiming that it was more accurate than Alta Vista, and Inktomi. Remember those two?

But I think the real reason why people liked it was because it was so simple. Google's home page was so easy. The search results was so simple. And it was fast, blazingly fast. Honestly, I don't think people cared about how accurate it was, they just loved the usability.

These days, it seems people want their websites to look sharp, beautiful, like the office of a Beverly Hills plastic surgeon. Whatever happened to the small town family doctor, the guy who actually knew you, and was always curious to know what you've been up to?

Those days of the Internet seem to be gone. Back when content was real. Today, content is a commodity. They still say that content is king, but in truth, the content is always the afterthought. It's how professional your website looks, it's if you have an "Inc." after your name, it's if you're on the A-list. That's what seems to sell now.

Here's the sad reality: People actually think your content is more trustworthy if the website it's published on looks professional and sharp.

To prove that, think about how people judge other people, by their character, or their looks? I think if you relate that to content, you'll agree with what I'm saying.

So if I can say something about browser plugins, it's to avoid designing stuff that requires them. I don't want to download plugin-after-plugin just so that I can view your website the way you want me to view it. I just want to see the content.

As an affiliate marketer, and a publisher, I want to make sure my website visitors feel encouraged to peruse my pages, and build links to my sites from their blogs, forums, and tweets. Make it as easy as possible for them to do so.  ✓

What is the Blogger Post Page Filename Character Limit?

Blogger places a character limit of 39 characters for the filename of an article post (Post Page).

Since putting your most important keywords into the filename of a blog post is a key SEO strategy, you'll need to keep this mind when composing new blog articles. Here are some tips to keep in mind...

• Blogger uses your Post Title as the filename (you probably already know this)



• Blogger includes the spaces between words towards the character limit, it replaces them with dashes (you also probably know this)



• Blogger removes the words "the" "a" and "an", from the filename. So when counting the characters in your Post Title, don't count these characters.



• Blogger uses only whole words in the filename.
  
  So, if for example your Post Title is, "Maximizing Post Page Character Limitations",
  
  The 39 characters are, "Maximizing Post Page Character Limitati"
  
  The filename that Blogger will create is "maximizing-post-page-character.html".



• But if you assign one long word that exceeds 39 characters, Blogger will use that word as the filename, but will use only the first 39 characters.



• Blogger removes non-alphanumeric characters from the filename, with the exception of dashes.
  
  So if your Post Title is "$20.00 Will Not Get You Far",
  
  Blogger will create this as the filename, "2000-will-not-get-you-far.html"



• If you create two separate posts on the same day, and each post has the same exact title, Blogger will add "_01" to the filename of the second post. Interestingly, if your Post Title already reaches the 39 character limit, Blogger will actually expand the character limit to as many as 42 characters just to include the "_01".
  
  If your Post Title is, "Maximizing Blogger Filename Characters" (38 characters),
  
  Blogger will actually assign, "maximizing-blogger-filename-characters_01".html (41 characters).



• Blogger does not let you change the filename. That is, when you've saved a post, it will create a filename, and keep it permanent despite any future changes you might make.
  
  For example, if your Post Title is "Maximizing Blogger Filename Characters",
  
  Blogger will create the filename, "maximizing-blogger-filename-characters.html".
  
  But if you go back and change the Post Title to, "Maximizing Blogger Filename Limitations"...
  
  ...it won't change the original filename.



• Saving a post as "draft" does not assign a filename. You have to actually publish a post live to your blog, in order to get Blogger to assign a filename.
  
  But once a post has been published live, you can remove it from your live blog by going back to the Blogger editor, and resaving it as "draft". However, this will not allow you to change the filename; Blogger still keeps that original filename.



• To change a filename, you'll have to delete the post entirely, and create a new one.

My advice on maximizing your SEO value from this, is to compose a Post Title that only has the keywords in it. That is, strip out all the unnecessary words, and fit the most important keywords into the first 39 characters. Then publish the post live. Then, go back and change the Post Title to insert additional words to make it read grammatically correct.

For example...

1. If you want to write an article entitled, "What is the character limit on Blogger filenames?"



2. Create the Post Title instead, "Character Limit Blogger Filenames", and publish the article live.



3. Then edit the article, by changing the Post Title to "What is the character limit on Blogger filenames?". And republish live.



4. You'll still end up with a filename "character-limit-blogger-filenames.html", but your Post Title will actually read as "What is the character limit on Blogger Filenames?", and that title will be recorded as the Title on Google search results pages.

  ✓