Saturday, September 22, 2007
The best thing you can do is to get inbound links from sites that have already been indexed by the search engines. Then when spider go to that site to crawl the site, it will come across you link and will go to you site to crawl it too. This will also do you good as having links to your sites will increase search engine ranking. However, this is easier said than done unless you have your own site which has already been indexed. If you have no one to turn to to ask for inbound links, perhaps you can try to search for similar sites and offer to offer exchange links. For such purposes, it will be advantages to know the PageRank of the sites. See this post on how you can easily find the PageRank of your own site and any other sites: How to get the PageRank of your and other sites. (close the new window to get back to this page). Other ways to get links is to submit to blog directories.
Submit site to Directories
You can also submit your site to blog or other directories to get inbound links. To make your task easier, it is good to carefully prepare in advance title and a short description of your blog which you can use for all the directories, otherwise you will have to type it each time you try to submit your blog to a directory.
The best directory to get listed on is the Open Directory. To submit your site to Open Directory, go to How to suggest a site to the Open Directory. (Close the new window to get back to this page). Google, and many other search engines, uses the data of the Open Directory Project. In fact, Google Directory is taken from DMOZ, so if you get listed in DMOZ, your site is also listed in Google Directory. This means your site will have 2 high PageRank and authoritative site. However, it is VERY hard to get into the Open Directory. This blog got listed in DMOZ. You can read about it here: DMOZ, the most important directory, and Blogger Tips and Tricks got listed without even submitting (click BACK button to get back to this page).
It is easier to submit your blog to blog directories. There are many blog directories. Here are some blog directories:
(Close new windows to get back to this page)
Blog Catalog
Blogarama
Blogwise
Globe of Blogs
Bloggernity
Bloghop
Bloghub
Blog Universe
There are many other blog directories. When I have the time, I will compile them into a post and put a link here.
Submit URL to search engines
You can also submit your URL to search engines, but I hear they may not help much. Anyway, here are the links to the sites where you can submit your URL to search engines:
Submit your URL to Google
ExactSeek - Add your URl
Submit URL to Yahoo
MSN URL Submission
Add a Google Sitemap to your blog
Some are of the opinion that adding a Google sitemap will help your blog get indexed faster. In any case, adding a Google Sitemap to your blog has its advantages. It will make it easier for the spider to crawl your site.
Search Engine Marketing (SEM)
Search Engine Marketing is defined by New York Times as buying paid inclusions and paid placements(sponsored links or sponsored ads) in search engine result pages (SERP). This is the definition I would agree with. Others include Search Engine Optimization(SEO) in Search Engine Marketing. I personally feel Search Engine Optimization should be place in a class of its own and will write about it in another post, but put a brief description here. SEO is using various means of getting a site placed higher in search engines result pages, frequently by trying to get as many inbound links as possible, and also by using keywords in the sit, post titles and within the post content. Hits obtained in this way is referred to as organic (free) hits.Paid inclusions
Paid inclusions are links are mixed with those links which the search engines find relevant. Fee payable may be an annual subscription for one webpage, which will automatically be catalogued on a regular basis. A per-click fee may also apply.A new site can thus get their site indexed faster (within one or two days compared with weeks). The site will be crawled more regularly and more complete so that all their pages are included. Many says paying for paid inclusion does not mean a higher ranking for the site, but I suspect it may make a difference, otherwise why would one bother to pay for paid inclusions as the advantages of getting a new site indexed faster is only a slight and temporary advantage. Most search engines allow paid inclusions. Google do not allow paid inclusions. This is one of the reasons I prefer to use Google for my searches.Paid placements or sponsored advertisements
Paid placements, sponsored advertisements or sponsored links are advertisements on search engine result pages (SERP) separate from the rest of the normal links. Search Engine Marketers pay search engine companies to include their websites in the search engine index where advertisers are guaranteed a higher ranking in relation to desired keywords. In paid placements, you can distinquish such sponsored links and they may be placed at the top of the list of normal links like in the screenshot below (sponsored link highlighted by a red rectangle):
Search Engine Marketing Hints is a blog which give more information on Search Engine Marketing. It appear to be a fairly new blog as the earliest post I could find is Top 4 Sites To Buy Blog Links which is dated August 14, 2007. But it sure is an active blog regularly updated as after only a short time, it already has many posts, and probably by the time you surf over to that site, it will have many more posts. However, the owner seems to subscribe to the other viewpoint that Search Engine Marketing (SEM) include Search Engine Optimization (SEO) as there is a category SEO Hints which at the time of publishing of this post contains 4 posts.
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Google Adsense has some tips for AdSense users on how to drive more visitors to their sites and to improve the visibility of the site content. The include
- Submiting all your pages to Google index
- Find out how Google see your site
- How to diagnose potential problems
- How to find out which queries drive traffic to your site
- If your site has disappeared from search results, how to get reincluded
Friday, September 14, 2007
Technorati is a popular blog search engine and also index and rank blogs. Previously, MySpace blogs were not indexed, but now they are included. If you go to Technorati, you will find a search box right at the top:
You can type in topics you are interested in into the search box and find blogs that contain the topics you are interested in. If you are interested in getting traffic, it is important to register a Technorati account and claim your blog. You can also see a list of my blogs claimed in Technorati and their ranking:
As you can see, my most popular blog (this blog) has been ranked highest among all the blogs with a ranking (Authority) of 469.
It is also important to include Technorati tags for your posts so that surfers searching for those keywords can find your post. (a tag is simply keyword or category (called label by Blogger) describing the subject matter or topic of a post. Previously, Movable Type, WordPress and TypePad have an advantage over Blogger because they can categories for their posts, but the old Blogger didn't and Technorati uses these categories as Technorati tags. But now Google has introduce Labels which is their name for Categories or Tags, and these are also included as Technorati tags. It is important that you add labels to your posts to increase the chances of a surfer searching for something find your blog. You can also manually add Technorati tags at the bottom of each posts. The difference between Technorati tags and Blogger labels is that the Technorati tag link to the individual post while Blogger label will take a searcher to the Label page which will include all the posts with the same label. However, I read from Technorati forum that posts over 6 months may not be included in Technorati tag search results.
Each time you publish a new post, you should ping Technorati to update their index. You can sign into your Technorati account and use their ping to ping Technorati either by pinging the blog listed or entering the blog URL into the Ping box at the bottom.
If you don't want the trouble of signing into your Technorati account, you can go to Ping Technorati and just type or paste in your blog URL.
I normally uses Pingoat each time I publish a new post. Pingoat pings a number of services which include Technorati:
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Note: AdSense users please read update at the bottom of the post.
You spend all night setting up your very own blog, but in short time you realize nobody is coming to read it. Furthermore now that you have a blog what do you do next?
That's where BlogExplosion comes in. Imagine joining a blogging community where people can find and read your blog, get your blog reviewed or even chat with other bloggers all around the world!
Whether you like to talk about politics, business, your wedding, family or simply enjoy sharing your life experiences on your blog with other people BlogExplosion is a great way to expand the number of people that read your blog!
You can get more traffic to your blog via BlogExplosion in different ways. For every two blogs you visit via BlogExplosion, another will visit your blog. So the more you surf, the more visitors will visit your site. Remember to add a Visitor Counter (click "BACK" button to get back to this page) to your blog so that you can see the visitors coming in.
There is also a referral system for BlogExplosion whereby you will be given a link or a banner and people who join via that link, a portion of their traffic will be added to yours. This referal system is 4 levels deep, so a portion of the traffic generated by others who join through the person you referred to BlogExplosion will also be added to yours too. Also, you can add a MyBlogDirectory to your site, and when others want to be listed in your (and other's) directory (and BlogExplosion's directory) joined via MyBlogDirectory will also be added to your referrals .
Update: I have an AdSense account, and I have been hearing reports of people getting their account suspended without being given the reasons for the suspension. So, being careful, I contacted AdSense Help about using a traffic exchange like BlogExplosion. Their reply was not specific, just that we have to be careful and that the responsibility lies with us. I have since stopped using BlogExplosion for sites which have AdSense ads. There are others who are of opinion that it is OK to use BlogExplosion. You decide for yourself or you may want to seek clarification from AdSense Help Center yourself or from other AdSense users at the Google AdSense Help group.
Yes, how can one go from no PageRank to a PageRank of 5?
BLOG CONTENT
When a blog is first started, it is given no PageRank, not even zero. Keep writing good, useful and interesting content that surfers will like to read. That is number one. You have heard the phrase "Content is King".Inbound links or backlinks
Get as many inbound links, also called backlinks (links on other sites that point to yours) as possible. When people find your blog useful or interesting, they will naturally want to link to your site without you even asking. Other ways are to submit to blog and other directories. One on the best directory to submit to is DMOZ (Open Directory Project), but it is not easy to get listed in DMOZ and usually takes a long time. It is more advantageous to you to get an inbound link from a site with a PageRank higher than yours.Blog and other directories
There are a whole bunch of blog directories you can submit to. You can find them by typing or copy-pasting "blog directory" into the search box above, tick WEB and search. Before you start submitting your blog, it is good to prepare a "Directory Submission File" (don't know what else to call it). Open a Notepad file, Type or copy-paste the URL of your blog into the file plus the blog title, a description of your blog. Prepare 2 - one long and one short. This is because some directory have a small characters limit on the description, some have bigger limit, and some may have none. Get ready also a list of keywords (tags) related to the content of your blog. These are the information normally requested by the blog directory you want to submit to, and you wouldn't want to keep repeating the same action over and over again. With this file, you just copy and paste.Some directory require you to put a link to their site on your blog, others don't. If a directory require you to link them, you will have to decide whether you want to do that or not. Here is one very easy directory to get listed in with no requirement for a link back: My Blog Directory. Just go to the bottom of the directory and click "Add your blog", then follow the instructions.
Article Marketing
Write articles, submit to sites offering free articles for republishing. To find these sites, just type or copy-paste "copyright free articles" into the search box above, tick WEB and search. At the bottom of the article will normally be a paragraphs where you provide information about yourself and give the URLs of the site you want the people who republish your article to link to. In this way, you will get many inbound links (backlinks) because the condition for republishing the article is that the links must be made active. However, this will involve work on your part, but is is a one time thing.Link Exchange
Some bloggers resort to link exchange with other blogs. You can request for link exchange on forums or emailing direct the owner of a site, or making a comment in the blog. Remember, however, links should preferably be from blogs that are relevant to the content of your blog. Most are of the opinions that this will help your PageRank, but there are some who think they may not be beneficial. What is without doubt, one way link more beneficial than a link exchange. One very important thing: DO NOT LINK TO SITE CONSIDERED BAD NEIGHBOURHOOD. Bad neighbourhoods are sites that use dubious SEO tactics (black hat SEO), such as hidden text (making text invisible by making the font color the same as the background) or link farms.I myself do do link exchange and usually a request for a link exchange is politely turned down unless it is a link to a relevant and useful site.
