Whereto from here?

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15
Hi Guys,

Bronkim here youre resident noob, I have a question for you, I have been messing around with a blog over the last month (my first) and have read a lot about backlinks etc for better page rankings.

I have listed the blog at quite a few directories but am still unable to see where my blog is in the organic search results? What else do i need to do to get someone to see my blog?

Do blogs also get caught up in the google "sandbox" or is that only related to PPC?

okay that was Two questions but i'm a noob so thats ok lol!

Many thanks
Best Regards

Bronkim
#search engine optimization #search engine ranking #seo #whereto
  • Banned
    [DELETED]
    • [1] reply


    • +1
      Bronkim, Please check your PM Inbox. I have sent you a private message.

      Thanks,

      James
  • Thanks to Brett & James,

    I have managed to include the link to my blog in my sig. but how do i change the text to relfect my blog <title>?

    I am wanting to learn as much as i can with the help of other warriors and appreciate every effort.

    Bronkim
    • [1] reply
    • Hello Bronkim! You can copy/paste the following into your sig and it should work: (remove the ** at the beginning and end of the line after you paste it in your sig section, then just save your sig and it should look the way you want).

      Code:
      [**URL="http://www.lefthandedguitarist.blogspot.com/"]Left Handed Guitarist[/URL**]
      Hope this helps If so, don't forget to click thanks at the bottom of this post

      Best Regards,

      James
      • [ 1 ] Thanks
      • [1] reply
  • Hi Bronkim -
    A few things...

    First, even though you've listed your blog in a few directories (which is a start), it depends upon how important those directories are to the major search engines. If they don't hold much weight, it won't do a whole lot of good.

    Blogs usually provide an RSS feed. Consider submitting the feeds to RSS directories.

    Make sure that each post on your blog has a specific keyword you're aiming for. If you're blog is on "business cards" for example, do some keyword research on that topic and see what keywords people are using to find information related to "business cards". The free keywords tool at Wordtracker is a good place to start Free Keyword Suggestion Tool From Wordtracker.

    Link the posts within your blog to one another using the keywords for the page you're linking to within the anchor text of the post.

    When you link back to your blog posts from other sites, use that same keyword as the anchor text.

    Be sure you're using the keywords in appropriate spots on your blog posts such as in the title, in a header on the post, and within the content.

    Use related words and phrases throughout the blog posts to help aid the search engines in understanding what that blog post is about.

    These ideas should get you started in the right direction.

    - Kristine
    • [ 1 ] Thanks
    • [1] reply
    • Hi Kristine,

      Firstly thank you for your post, I really appreciate your efforts.

      you make reference to directories holding varying importance with the major search engines, is there such a website that gives us an idea of the "prefered" directories we should be listed in?

      As I mentioned in my post, I am a complete novice here online, so whilst I have seen RSS feeds on various websites & blogs I have no idea on how to add one or whatever it is I need to do with it

      In your Third point you recommend that each post on a blog has its own Keyword to aim for, How does this effect the overall Keyword selection ie. my first post was about left handed guitars and how scarce they are in music shops, my keywords were: left handed guitarist, left hand guitarist & lefty guitarist. My second installment is about why they (my readers) decided to learn the guitar, so am I to select keywords relating to my second post and add them into the meta tag for keywords?

      Thank you for the Wordtracker keyword tool. I am sure that will come in very handy. As far as linking my blog posts to each other using the anchor text keywords, I have only just learnt to make a link with anchor text today (Thanks to James) so I will need to try this out and see what happens.

      I thank you again for your input and hope I am not making a fool of myself.

      Best Regards

      Bronkim
  • Hi Bronkim -
    Don't ever be embarrassed! Oftentimes when you work so closely with a subject you have a tendency to use jargon which I often forget and don't take into account. This is a good reminder for me.

    I'm sure you could probably talk well over my head about guitars .

    In answer to your question about directories, there are a few that are considered "top of the line". Here's a few to get you started (note that these are blog directories because you had stated you created a blog for your site):

    http://www.bloggapedia.com - Free or paid (your choice)
    http://blogs.botw.org - One Time Fee
    http://www.BlogCarnival.com - Free
    http://www.Blogoriffic.com - Free

    Blogs especially give site visitors the ability to subscribe to the blog using an RSS feed reader. The way that they would do this is by clicking an orange icon either in the address bar or somewhere on your site.

    If you visit your blog in Firefox for example you'll notice in the address bar there is a small orange icon. If you click on this icon, it will give you the ability to subscribe to the RSS feed for that blog.

    You can use this same RSS feed yourself and submit this to RSS directories. This way, each time you update your blog, wherever you've placed your RSS feed will also be updated.

    Some RSS feed directories want the actual URL of your feed while others like http://blogpulse.com/submit.html simply want the URL of your blog.

    Either way, it's a great way to keep sites updated with content without you having to visit them individually each time you make a new blog post.

    http://feedraider.com/ is another good spot to visit.

    What I meant was each post you make should focus on one or two keywords. In your example above, even though you used three keywords, they were all so similar that there would have been no way to create unique content around each one so that was fine.

    The title of your blog should contain that keyword and then the content itself should reference that keyword as well as related words to the keyword you're using.

    Within the "left handed guitarist" page you would reference the keywords on the additional page you created and then link to that page using the keywords you focused on for the additional page.

    You're welcome. I hope this helps.


    - Kristine
    • [1] reply
    • Hello Kristine,

      I think it's all starting to make some sense to me now thanks to you . I will be acting on each of your recommendations in turn to try and make the blog more search engine friendly and achieve higher listings in the search results.

      The blog is purely a practise run to see what is involved in designing and developing a high ranking website/blog and the little tips & tricks that were needed to do this, which you have kindly shared with me.

      In your expert opinion, what order should you follow for SEO ie. do you build the site, add content then do keyword research. or is keyword research the first thing that must be addressed?

      Ultimatley I think I would like to try out Affiliate Marketing, as my aim is to make some money and eventually quit my day job (wishfull thinking ) and I have constantly read that this is the easiest route to take - your thoughts?

      Again I thank you for your patience and understanding and most of all the pricless knowledge that you have outlined in previous posts and hope to somehow repay that in someway in the future.

      Best Regards

      Bronkim
      • [2] replies
  • Thanks dotslash,

    I never even gave any thought to that!

    Regards

    Bronkim
  • Hi jtrag. I could not reply to your private message about SEO for my site urbanpeeps.com because i did not have the required minimum of 15 posts yet. I want to do the SEO optimization right away. Please email me at gbenga001AThotmailDOTcom.
    Thanks

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    Whereto from here?

    Hi Guys, Bronkim here youre resident noob, I have a question for you, I have been messing around with a blog over the last month (my first) and have read a lot about backlinks etc for better page rankings.