SEO Tips, Webmaster Tools

There are essentially 3 different tools out there for the 3 main search engines Google Webmaster Tools, Yahoo Site Explorer and Bing Webmaster Central.  I would suggest signing up for each service, that way it will allow you to submit websites and sitemaps directly to those search engines.

Google Webmaster Tools allows you to upload your sitemap or sitemaps depending on how many sites you manage.  This is a pretty cool feature, allowing you to know for centain that Google has your sitemap.

Yahoo Site Explorer also allows you to upload site feeds and website links.

Bing Webmaster Central.  Microsoft has jumped on board with Bing Webmaster Central.  I think they have a long way to go to catch up to Google and Yahoo though.  I wasn't that impressed.

Dlvr.it, Distribute Blog Posts

I came across a cool website called Dlvr.it, which allows you to automatically distribute your Blogger posts to Facebook, Twitter and a few other Social Networking Websites.

I am currently using Dlvr.it for my SEO Blogger Book Facebook feed.

SEO Tips, Digg

A cool way to attract new visitors to a blog is by bookmarking posts on social bookmarking sites.  One of the bigger social bookmarking websites is Digg.com.  If a post becomes popular enough it can draw massive exposure to hundreds of thousands of new visitors.

Digging can require some time investment, but unlike Stumbleupon.com, you can setup your blog to automatically Digg your blog entries.

What is required to Automatically Digg your blog entries?

How To Automatically Digg Your Blog Posts

Step 1 Setup a Digg Account - Go to Digg.Com and sign in or sign up.

Step 2 Import Feeds - Once logged in click the drop down menu in upper top right.  It is located next to the Search Box.  Click the "Import Links" link on the sidebar. 

Step 3 Add Blog Sitemap URL - Enter the Sitemap URL address for your blog.  Here is an example of a Blogger Sitemap.    and the category you blog falls under.Add those details and click the 'Add Feed' button.  Once you enter the URL for the blog sitemap, select a topic from the "Choose a Topic" dropdown.  Once all the information has been entered, click the [Add Feed] button.

Step 4 Verification of Ownership - Digg will ask you to verify that you are the owner of the blog.  Selecting the 2nd option "Copy & Paste this key in your next post.".  At this point open a new tab or window with your blog and paste the HTML code provided by Digg in either a new blog entry or the last blog entry.  Once you have added and saved the code, click the [Verify Now] button.  Digg will automatically Digg your blog posts.

SEO Tips: SEO vs SEM vs SMO

When in comes to website optimization there are 3 critical components to consider.  These include Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Social Media Optimization (SMO) and Search Engine Marketing (SEM).

Of the 3, SEO is plays the biggest role when first setting up a website.  It is also one of the quickest and cheapest way to get listed on the major search engines.

SEM typically takes longer to setup and can be expensive, but usually pays big dividends when done correctly.  

SMO is a way of attracting and alerting website users through services such as Facebook, Twitter, Linkin, YouTube and others.  SMO usually is the biggest time investment of the 3, but again when done correctly can really increase overall website traffic.

SEO Tips, Meta Keywords, Meta Description

SEO Tips: What are Meta Keywords and Descriptions?

META tags are special HTML Tags allowing search engines to catalog and categorize your Websites pages.  There are 2 types of META tags, the first is the META Keywords tag and the second is META Description tag. 

META Keywords are used by search engines to highlight what the important keywords are for a website or website's page.  Keywords should be listed separated by a comma between words or phrases.  Don't repeat the keywords too many times, otherwise crawlers will mark your site as a potential spammer.

The META Description is what appears on the search results page.  If the description is too long, it'll be cropped off.  Try and keep the META Description under 150 characters (including spaces and dots).

SEO Tips, Search Engine Marketing, SEM

SEO Tips:  What is SEM (Search Engine Marketing)?

Search Engine Marketing (SEM) is a technical marketing approach for improving your website's external search engine ranking based on targeted keyword terms, search engine optimization, paid ad placement.

The goal of a SEM approach is to boost and improve a website's overall ranking and to improve placement on the search engine result pages (SERPs).

SEO Tips, Google SEO Ebook

Google has released a free SEO Ebook.  The Google Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide Ebook (Google SEO Starter Guide).  This is a must read for everyone interested in ranking higher within Google.

SEO TIPS, Google Webmaster Tools

If you want the best possible way to submit your sitemap to Google, then Google Webmaster Tools is for you.  Google Webmaster Tools is a free set of blog/website related tools, which allow a user to view detailed statistics about their site rankings.

Before you can really start using Google Webmaster Tools for your blog, you have to verify that you are the owner.

The following steps will show you how to submit and verify your blog.

Step 1 - Create An Account: Sign Up for Google Webmaster Tools: In order to use Webmaster Tools you need to sign up for an Account.  Setting up an account is free.  To setup an account go to Google Webmaster Tools website.

Step 2 - Add Your Blog: Once you have an account, you will need to add your blog.  To do this simply log into your Google Webmaster Account and click the "Add a Site" button.   Make sure to enter the correct blog name http://{your blog name}.blogspot.com. 

Step 3 - Verify Your Blog Part 1: Once the blog has been added you will need to verify that you are the owner of the blog.  Click on the "Verify this Site" link next to the blog in question.  After you click the link, 4 radio button choices will display.  Choose the "Add a meta tag to your site's home page" from the radio button options.

Step 4 - Copy Meta Tag:  Copy the Meta Tag information that is displayed.  You are going to copy this code into the Blog template file.  To do this, open up your Blog in a new window or tab.  Go to your Blogs dashboard and select the "Design" tab --> "Edit HTML" link.  Paste the Meta Tag information right after the <Head> tag and click the "Save" button to save the template information.

(*) You should always make a backup of your template before you make any changes.

Step 5 - Verify Your Blog Part 2: Once you have saved the template information, open Google Webmaster Tools and click the "Verify" button to confirm that you are the blog owner.  You should now be redirected to the Google Webmaster Tools dashboard for your blog.

SEO Tips, SEO Doctor

SEO Doctor is a modern SEO tool with one simple goal - make your website better optimized for search engines through an easy to understand, step by step, scoring and recommendation system.

You can download SEO Doctor Here.

SEO Doctor really helps in optimizing your website pages.

SEO Tips, Meta Keywords, Meta Description

Currently, when you create a new blog, Blogger doesn't add meta keywords or meta descriptions.  The following code will show you how to update your template and create dynamic meta tags.

Step 1: Log Into the Blogger Dashboard
Step 2: Select the Design Tab --> Edit HTML
Step 3: Make sure to Check the Expand Widget Content check box
Step 4: Look for the following code
(*) You should always backup your work before making any template changes.   

<title><data:blog.pageTitle/></title>

Step 5: You are going to replace the above code with the code below.
(*) You will need to replace certain parts of the code below with your own keywords and descriptions

    <!-- ***************************************************** -->
    <!-- Determine if the the page you are on is the home page -->
    <!-- of the blog or an individual blog entry                          -->
    <!-- 'data:blog.pageType == &quot;item&quot;' is an            -->
    <!-- individual blog entry                                 -->
    <!-- ***************************************************** -->

    <b:if cond='data:blog.pageType == &quot;item&quot;'>
   
        <!-- ** Title ** -->
        <title><data:blog.pageName/> | <data:blog.title/></title>

        <!-- ******************************* -->
        <!-- Setup Meta Tags -->
        <!-- ********************************-->

        <meta content='en' http-equiv='Content-Language'/>

        <!-- ******************************* -->
        <!-- Meta Keywords  -->
        <!-- ********************************-->

       <meta expr:content='data:blog.pageName+ &quot;, SEOBloggerBook.blogspot.com, SEO Blogger Book, Blogger Search Engine Optimization &quot;' name='keywords'/>

        <!-- ******************************* -->
        <!-- Meta Description  -->
        <!-- ********************************-->
   
        <meta expr:content='&quot;This blog post reviews the &quot;+data:blog.pageName+ &quot;.  Be sure to visit often for the latest SEO blog tricks&quot;' name='description'/>

    <b:else/>

        <!-- ** Title ** -->
        <title><data:blog.pageTitle/></title>

<meta content='text/html; charset=windows-1252' http-equiv='Content-Type'/>
<meta content='en' http-equiv='Content-Language'/>

        <!-- ******************************* -->
        <!-- Meta Keywords  -->
        <!-- ********************************-->

        <meta content='SEO Blogger Book, Blogger SEO Tips, Search Engine Optimization' name='keywords'/>

        <!-- ******************************* -->
        <!-- Meta Description  -->
        <!-- ********************************-->

        <meta content='The SEOBloggerBook.blogspot (SEO Blogger Book) is dedicated to to help bloggers optimize there Google Blogs for the best Search Engine optimization' name='description'/>

    </b:if>

SEO Tips, Sitemaps

Google's Blogger has a blogger feed with an extension of Atom.xml.  You can use the Atom.xml as a sitemap to submit to search engines.  The problem is the default Atom.xml file only displays roughly 25 of the most recent posts of your blog.  This is bad news if you want your whole blog indexed and you have more than 25 entries.

There is a solution, but it will require you to create multiple sitemaps with each sitemap containing roughly 500 entries.

In the following example 3 sitemaps are created and each sitemap will contain up to 500 blog entries.

http://name of blog.blogspot.com/atom.xml?redirect=false&start-index=1&max-results=500
http://name of blog.blogspot.com/atom.xml?redirect=false&start-index=501&max-results=500
http://name of blog.blogspot.com/atom.xml?redirect=false&start-index=1001&max-results=500

If more sitemaps are needed just add 500 the index count (1501, 2001, ...)