Optimal Meta Description Tag Code For WordPress

When Andy Hagans says something, I listen. And Andy Hagans (following Aaron Wall) says that META descriptions are back and important, not for keyword stuffing, so much as page differentiation.

Did you know that the default for most WordPress themes is to NOT include a META description? While title tags remain, in my view, the single most important SEO factor, one of the biggest problems you’ll face with any new-ish site is getting each page indexed. Google evaluates each page to see if it is important enough and different enough to separately indexed. If not, then you’ll find many of your pages going supplemental.

So how does one go about differentiating her site? Well, title tags are a start. But they aren’t enough. The on-page content should be at least 100 words. But sometimes that’s not enough. So what else can you do to help GOOG differentiate your pages and see them as index worthy? Make sure that every page has a unique META description.

But as I said, most WordPress themes don’t have META description code built in. That’s where this post comes in. Below, I include the code for what I think of as two variations of an ideal WordPress META description.

In the above code, you are basing the description completely on the title of the page. That’s a good start, and it may be the best option for complete differentiation, but in my view, a more complete solution would be something like the following addition

So what are your thoughts? What do you use to generate descriptions for your individual WordPress pages? If you’re not into an automated soluton via code, what are some of the plugins that you use?

Affiliate Marketing Q&A – Part One

When it comes to making money on the Internet, or more specifically with a blog, there are simply so many options out there, it can be a little overwhelming for someone starting out, trying to earn a living through blogging or through creating a website community. One of the highest paying and easiest to use ways to make money is with affiliate programs. Affiliate Marketing is a lot simpler than the blogging and marketing ‘gurus’ would like you to think, and I whipped up a questions and answers blog post, highlighting a conversation I had with a client a few weeks back.

Question – What’s the single easiest way to start Affiliate Marketing right now?

This is an incredibly difficult question to answer, let alone to start with… In Affiliate Marketing, relying on a ‘single’ technique or tactic, even just to get you going, is suicidal. You need to be using a wide range of different methods to drive traffic through your affiliate links – anything from PPC to blogging, SEO to viral marketing… It’s really up to you. In the Affiliate Defined videos I’m creating, there are some truly unique tactics, tricks, tips and ideas to get you started.

Question – Do you need a big website to successfully use Affiliate Marketing?

Absolutely not! You don’t even NEED a website! There are so many ways you can reach an audience on the Internet (whether you choose video marketing on sites like YouTube or PayPerClick advertising on networks like AdWords, maybe even a bit of t-shirt marketing from time to time) it’s reached a point where a website isn’t actually needed to earn an income online, and that’s what Affiliate Marketing is all about. Promoting other people’s products on other people’s websites!

Question – Do I need to have a big list of prospects to become a successful affiliate?

Let me tell you a secret… For the first five months as an Affiliate Marketer, I had NO list. NONE. Not even a single person. Building my list was initially slow (but once I knew how to build it I was getting opt-ins by the minute) and I didn’t see any profits at all. Why? I hadn’t built that vitally important relationship with my list. I was sending them the freebies to keep them on my newsletter, reading what I had to say, but they still didn’t have a clue who I was or what I was trying to achieve. You need to connect with your list. Tell them the odd funny story. Share an embarrassing secret or two.

So my answer to that question? No. You don’t need a list to be a successful Super-Affiliate, though admittedly, without one, I wouldn’t be earning half of what I do earn today. You live and learn I guess.

Question – Fair enough. You’ve made your point. So where can I start building my list?

My advice would be to check out GetResponse, the auto-responder I use. Their deliverability rates are second to none, their support is fantastic with forums, e-mail support, live chat and a great phoneline all at the disposal of members to use as frequently (or infrequently, as the case may be) as they wish. I’ve never had any reason to really contact the GetResponse support seeing as they have some excellent Camtasia walkthroughs on hand to teach the basics – though it’s great to know that if you do run into an issue, someone is just on the other end of a telephone.

Question – Right. So I don’t need a website or a list?

STRONGLY NOT ADVISED, but no. I guess it’s not entirely essential, however without one or the other you’ll certainly be in a bit of a pickle. There’s no excuse for not having a blog or a website though, with free ones easily creatable at Blogger.com alongside a whole host of other ‘free hosting’ websites. Naturally I recommend a self-hosted, top-level-domain site, but under some circumstances this isn’t always possible. Play around and give it your best shot though.

Question – What would be your number one piece of advice to an affiliate marketing newbie?

Selecting a single point would be incredibly hard, so I’d like to touch on a few related points, mainly focusing on mindset. One – Be yourself. You’ve heard it before and I’ll say it again… Don’t try to be someone or something that you’re not. The truth worms it way outta the can eventually. Two – Keep believing. Self-belief and motivation is everything in the fast-paced Affiliate Marketing arena. If you’re not first – you’re last. If you don’t reach your targets – you lose. You need to stay with it. Stress and depression are common when getting started and mental barriers come by the dozen. Doubt. Worry. Regret. Uncertainty. “I wish I hadn’t said that.” – “I hope I made the right choice… ?” – “I’m scared… What if it doesn’t work?” It’s a painful uphill struggle, but from the top of the hill it’s plain sailing.

Expect Part Two sometime soon, and make sure to sign up at Affiliate Defined for more affiliate marketing tips. But for now, David Wilkinson – 13-Year Old ProBlogger, signing out.

Optimal Title Tag Code For WordPress

HTML title tags are, arguably, the single most important SEO ranking factor. Nailing the title tag could be the most important thing you do all year in your blog’s SEO campaign. Yet the average blogger simply inherits her WordPress theme’s title tag, without shaping it into SEO perfection. In this article I’m giving you the code for what I think are the two most optimal WordPress title tags.

I’ve been using the “Cutline” title tag code for the longest time, assuming that it was the best out there (and in some cases, it very well may be). But the other day, I decided to question all my basic blogging assumptions and re-think some critical questions from scratch. Having done that, I’ve come up with the following SEO optimized title tag code to place in your header file:

This is optimized for SEO, not necessarily for usability. For example, if branding is important to you, you might prefer the Cutline title code, a version of which I include here:

The main difference here is whether or not the name of your blog gets included in the title of every page. It is my view that by putting your blog title in the title tag of every post, you dilute the SEO value of your article’s title.

Tracking Historical Metric Trends With EatonWeb

One cool feature of EatonWeb that I’ve been playing with a lot lately is the Advanced Account historical trending data. While this is a “pay” feature, I can’t help but love having historical trends in PageRank, Alexa, Technorati, Site Visibility, Linkage, etc. all in one place.

With EatonWeb’s Advanced Stats feature, you get historical trending data for your blog starting the day your blog is entered into the directory. I’ve setup a sample of this feature using data from my car blog RideLust, which you can see by clicking here.

For an idea of what the historical trending graphs look like I’ve included a screenshot below:

What should come first: traffic or money?

I took part in a radio interview yesterday. It was with the work at home radio network and had to do with blogging as career choice. My interviewer was most interested in how to earn money through blogging, especially through monetizing one’s own blogs. I told her what I told everyone else: when you’re just starting out, money should be your last concern.

I can’t tell you how many brand spanking new blogs I’ve come across that receive a couple of visitors a day, yet have big, flashing ads on either side. This tells me two things:

• The ads are more important than the content.
• This person is hoping to pull in some quick money.

So I ask you, how can you earn money with a blog receiving no traffic?

If you build it they will come

If you’re asking my opinion, and I’m assuming you are since you’re reading this, I’d say build up traffic. Don’t waste your efforts on ads; the money will come in time if that’s what you’re after. Instead write pages and pages of good, useful content. Offer your readers sound advice, humorous anecdotes and links to important resources. Once you have at least a dozen pages written, it’s time to bring in the traffic. You can do this in many ways. When you’re just starting out, I’d recommend:

Visiting other blogs and commenting. Don’t leave spammy “hey nice blog, check out my content” comments, instead, offer your point of view and that’s it. You’ll notice a spot to drop your link in the heading boxes, that’ll do just fine.

Visiting online forums. Just as with commenting, you don’t want to seem spammy. Offer a useful point of view and drop your link in the signature. If you offer a useful opinion, people will want to visit your blog.

Digg, Stumble Upon and other social networking and media sites. If you believe you wrote something brilliant, take advantage of the different social media sites. You may not make it to Digg’s first page, but there might be a person or two interested in reading what you have to say.

Offering up your services as a guest blogger. A great way to drive traffic is by guest blogging on someone else’s blog. Trust me, I know. A couple of months back, I was a guest blogger for Darren Rowse and traffic to all my blogs soared.

Installing a stat tracker. I use Site Meter and Google Analytics (and of course, PMetrics). Stat trackers are a great way to tell why people come to your blog. You’ll learn which topics and keywords are most popular, giving you an idea of what type of content to write. That isn’t to say you should revolve your blog around keywords and search terms. Nothing turns me off more than a blog filled with obvious keywords.

Writing lots of content. The more great content you write, the more pages will be indexed by Google and other search engines and the more people will visit your blog.

Now, I hate to harp on this, but I’ll say it again. All this takes time. It takes time to achieve Google and Alexa rankings, it takes time for people to find your blog and it takes time to achieve the amount of traffic likely to enable you to earn a decent income from your blog. In fact, I’ll venture to say not everyone can expect to earn a revenue check each month.

If you truly want to make money blogging, you’re going to have to work hard to bring in the masses. Once the traffic is flowing, once you have a great community built up, once your name is out there, then, and only then, should you worry about the ads.

How To Use pMetrics to Analyze AdSense Anomalies

The other day, I was having an abysmal (I mean horrid) day with AdSense on PopCrunch. I’d only gotten about $30 for the day and it was about 5:30pm.

As many of you know, a bad day of AdSense can put you in a bad mood unless you’re real careful. Well, I wasn’t very happy when I went to dinner. When I came back, only about 45 minutes later, AdSense revenue had shot up to about $74.

Reporting delay, I thought. So I went to play a little Nintendo Wii (right now I’m playing through the Rookie challenge in The Bigs).

Went back to my office about an hour later to check AdSense (I’m compulsive just like you). AdSense revenue had shot up to $124.

This ain’t no reporting delay, I thought to myself. Something’s going down. WTF?

So I rushed over to my pMetrics account for PopCrunch to analyze live traffic patterns. As usual, it was a number one slot on the Google SERPS for a hot celebrity topic. Loads of traffic poured in.

But loads of traffic pour in all the time, and I never see this kind of drastic AdSense rocketing.

By the time I got done analyzing pMetrics data and the on-page text for the hot article, I checked AdSense again. $185. Then I took a walk with my wife for about an hour (I was in a good mood at this point;-) When I got back, it was at $227.

Things started to slow down at this point, and I won’t give you the final numbers. But it is sufficient to point out that something weird was happening with CTR. It’s not as though I’d never seen traffic flow like this. There was either something distinct about the ads being served or the type of people visiting the site.

Well, without giving too much away, let’s just say that it turns out to have been related to the type of visitors that Google was sending to the site (people who are passionately searching for something specific tend to be good ad clickers).

So why did I tell this story? Well, for two reasons. First, because without pMetrics I wouldn’t have been able to solve the anomaly, pretty much in real-time. Second, because by solving the problem, I was able to quickly reinforce the hot content with supplemental articles and picked up more of the long-tail (in fact, it the long tail is still trickling in).

The next time you notice an AdSense anomaly, why not use pMetrics live stats to stay ahead of the curve, and capitalize? Because on the net, timing is everything and with pMetrics you get stats…live.

Rediscovering ScribeFire

Matt Mullenweg waxed lyrical recently about Windows Live Writer, and recommended it as a quality blogging tool. Somewhere in the back of my mind I remembered ScribeFire, or what you may remember as Performancing For FireFox.

ScribeFire has evolved into quite a nice system, one you should certainly look at if you write for multiple blogs. I’ve played with it for the last few days, and while I originally hated PFF, I’m gradually coming around to ScribeFire. Here’s why:

• Excellent browser integration: I can see the page that inspired me to write a blog post in the same window, which means I can easily copy information from the original post without flicking between different windows. Not having to log into my blog’s admin page means I can blog more spontaneously.
• Follow The Conversation With Technorati: The built-in Page Tools allow you to see who else is writing about this topic, so you can reference other bloggers and create a more informed and informative blog post.This service would be nicer if other services like Google Blog Search or Sphere were included.
• Easily Save Drafts: You can save any draft as a post and it goes into your Notes area. From the Notes tab, you can see all your draft posts. You can load up any draft post, finish it and choose which blog to publish it to.
• Easy Tagging: With advanced publishing options in ScribeFire, you can easily add a list of Technorati tags and automatically bookmark your new post at del.icio.us using the same set of tags. I seem to remember talk of integrating ScribeFire with the Ultimate Tag Warrior plugin which would be much more useful.
• Better Focus: Sort of related to my first point above. How many times have you logged on to WordPress to blog and got distracted by your latest incoming links, new comments or your stats plugin? Because you’re cutting out this step, you’re more focused on the topic that got you fired up in the first place!
• Easily Edit Your Recent Posts: ScribeFire imports a list of your most recent posts, so you can make easy edits where necessary without having to visit your blog.
• Works Offline? I haven’t tested to be honest, but I’d imagine ScribeFire caches your drafts locally so that you can work on them even if you haven’t got an Internet connection. Useful if you’re working on a laptop in the middle of a field…

There are other features I haven’t looked at yet, like the ability to upload images to your blog through FTP or your blog’s API (if it’s supported).

I’ve found my WordPress accounts extremely easy to connect to. Drupal sites need to have the Blog API module switched on before they’ll accept connections from ScribeFire, but otherwise work just fine. And of course, this post has been written entirely using…you guessed it.

Anyone else using ScribeFire or Windows Live Writer for blogging? Why not share some tips and tricks here if you are.

Gerard McGarry is a music blogger for Unreality Music, web designer and all-round Web 2.0 enthusiast.

Carnival of Internet Pros #1

This is the first edition of the Carnival of Internet Pros (aka CoIP). The idea is to promote articles that help us improve our skills for any sort of professional online career. Please see below the list of entries if you are not in this one.

To turn this carnival into the beginnings of a content workshop, in each edition of CoIP, I’ll pick out 2-3 entries and offer some constructive criticism. What I’d like is for anyone here at Perf to also offer constructive criticism – at least about the 2-3 articles singled out. The articles selected in the order they were submitted – no favoritism, and as mentioned before, very few articles will be turned down (see exceptions list at bottom). For this first edition, however, I’ve added brief comments about each post. I am not expecting everyone to agree with me, and whether you do or not, hopefully you’ll add some comments. The objective is to improve our content.

1. Outsource Your E-Mail Lists Please! by Cade Kreuger of Write To Right.

   Comments: Cade gives an example of good anchor text and deep-linking in this article touting the value of outsourcing your email lists.

2. 3 Ways to Increase Your Blog Stats by Ant of The Beef Jerky Blog.

   Comments: Short and sweet, easy to follow, and a bit of “meat” (explanation) for each item. However, maybe it’s a fluke, but your page takes a long time to stop loading. My guess is that you have a widget or some other web service that’s hogging time.

3. 12 Common Mistakes of an Online Business by Kevin of Niche Site Domain.

   Comments: A good example of over-delivering. Kevin said “12″ but offers a bonus 5 mistakes. However, I think this woul have had more impact had the extra 5 been in a second “bonus” list. They’d have to have some distinguishing reason to be kept separate, though.

4. 5 Great Reasons to Create Your Own Products by Craig Andrews of Internet Business Blog.

   Comments: Affiliate marketing is said to be heating up. But instead of joining a program, maybe you have something to sell through your own affiliate program. Craig offers five reasons to do so.

5. Make Ends Meet, and Then Some by Shawn Edwards of Desty Online.

   Comments: Yes, this post has an Amazon affiliate link (twice), but in this case, it’s worth it. Regardless of your faith, The Richest Man in Bablyon is an excellent book about success, and Shawn gives his interpretation of each of the Five Laws of Gold. In my estimation, this is an example of good affiliate marketing writing.

6. 10 Reasons Why You Should Invest in Content Creation by Derek Beauchemin of DerekBeau.com.

   Comments: Derek gives a nice example of a mini-bait, with good formatting for easy scanning and information absorption.

7. How I Became a Professional Blogger by Yehuda of Yehuda.

   Comments: I love this one. Yehuda has given a perfect example of part of what this carnival is about: sharing our pro blogging experiences and knowledge.

8. Howto: Use Web 2.0 to Get Viral Traffic Your Blog by Andy Boyd of BoydCreative.

   Comment: Andy gives another good example of what this carnival is for – sharing techniques to improve our online professions.

9. Serving Two Writing Masters by Sharon Hurley Hall of Get Paid to Write Online.

   Comments: Who are you writing for? Do you know? Sharon discusses the two “masters” of your writing, and explains what some of her experiences as a writer have been.

10. 20 Ways to Add Value to Your Products and Services by Terry Dean of Integrity Business Blog.

    Comments: This carnival isn’t just about blogging. If you sell products or services from your website, read Terry’s tips on adding value.

11. Do You Stand Out From the Crowd? by Richard Pettinger of Net Writing.

    Comments: Richard offers some wise advice about how to stand out on the Internet, to develop your brand as a blogger. I’d suggest, though, that the article title should have some relevant keyword. Don’t change the URL at this point, but consider tweaking the title.

12. Google Analytics Tutorial – How to Track Conversion Rates by Adam Taylor of Conversion Matters.

    Comments: Adam deciphers some of the mysteries of Google Analytics, separating logical sections of the article with great descriptive headings.

13. Before You Begin Blogging: A Few Things You Should Know by Deb Ng at Performancing.

    Comments: Normally, I’d want to go outside of Performancing for carnival entries, but this is a very important article for new bloggers to read (and some of us veterans, too).

14. The Value of Search in a Product Oriented World by David Krug of College Startup.

    Comments: I’ve been reading College Startup since Ben Bleikamp created it and I’ve always enjoyed the concrete examples presented there. David doesn’t disappoint with an example of how he’s costed out the value of each sale of a door at his door affiliate marketing site, based on search traffic.

15. Warning! Make Your Graphic Designer Read This Before Creating Your Mini-site! by Stephen Dean of Stephen Dean’s Blog.

    Comments: A short yet informative tip about conversion rates based on whether or not you use a header graphic on your sales pages.

That’s it for this edition of the Carnival of Internet Pros. If your submitted article did not appear in this edition, it’s likely to appear in the next one – unless:

1. Your entry is not relevant to the carnival.
2. Your URL produced a 404 error.
3. Your site has popups/ popunders.
4. Your article is promoting affiliate programs or other ads.
5. You’re one of the persons who submitted 4 or even 9 entries all at once. (If you entered two on separate days, I’ll accept that this time.)

Everyone else that submitted an article by Jul 20th and who is not here should appear in the next edition. (After that date, you will also likely appear in the next edition, on Wed Aug 1st.) If you are not in because of one of the above five reasons, you are welcome to submit something else that follows the rules and criteria for the Carnival of Internet Pros.

Please remember: one entry per week (running Saturday to Sunday). Don’t force me to read through all your entries – pick out your best on your own and submit one, maximum, each week. The submission form is at Blog Carnival.

Analyzing the Digg Effect to Write Better Articles

Last week, Performancing’s article entitled 10 Articles All Bloggers Should Read (at least once) got over 1,000 Diggs and made it onto the front page for almost an entire day. For those of you who happened to be around, a bunch of us had some geeky fun monitoring the Digg in real time.

But that’s not where the real value of a Digg lies. The real value lies in two effects: 1) Establishment of authority and 2) Backlinks.

I didn’t realize I was filling such a big need at the time of writing it, but my meta-article on blogging seems to have become an overnight, authoritative resource for new bloggers. From a preliminary investigation, the article is already getting linked to from the far ends of the blogosphere.

So what can we learn from this example of the Digg Effect? I see a clear lesson. The lesson is this: fill a real need and people will eat it up. Think about how many new bloggers are starting each day. Think about all the blog owners hiring new bloggers each day. Well, I did think about these things because it was starting to drag on my daily responsibilities. Having to constantly summarize the basics of blogging and provide tips for improving headlines was detracting from my more important work in SEO. So I put a list together for myself to fill a need. Then I realized that there are probably others with the same need. Turns out there were lots of them.

With all the junk information floating around the internet, many people have grown weary from the search for good information. Since Google doesn’t give people the information they really want anymore, one of the fundamental tasks for the blogger is to organize and serve good information. This makes you an authority.

Put together useful lists of resource articles for a broad audience and you’ll soon find that your site is becoming an authority. When people recognize it as an authority, you are going to acquire some killer backlinks.

So here’s what I learned from the Performancing Digg: not all Diggs are created equal. I’ve gotten on the front page before and only acquired 7 or 8 backlinks and no residual traffic. But if you make something that a large number of people really need, a timeless resource, it only takes a little nudging;-) and your article is an overnight authority (with lots of residual benefit).

July 2007 Performancing Experiment: A Statistical Analysis of Cost/Benefit for StumbleUpon Submissions

Experiment: Submit every new Performancing article to StumbleUpon by at least 5 people during a 2 week period and evaluate the traffic benefit (will you help?).

You can track the experiment by monitoring pMetrics statistics for Performancing.

Having run Nudger.org in Alpha for a few months, it has become increasingly clear to me that human tendency is to pursue the simplest solution with the biggest perceived payoff. My goal here is to change your mind about the biggest perceived payoff in social voting, and to change your promotion behaviors (just like I’m starting to change my own).

When bloggers are choosing whether to submit to Digg, Reddit, StumbleUpon or Netscape, and they only have one choice, they almost universally go for Reddit.

I want to change this tendency because I am confident that it is the wrong approach. Normal Reddit traffic is borderline useless, except to artificially boost up your stats and maybe get an adrenaline rush. Reddit traffic doesn’t convert nearly as well as search traffic, and hardly any better than Digg (which is notorious for having poor ad conversion).

One hypothesis is that, all things being equal, there is a measurably better cost/benefit reward ratio for a steady dose of Stumble/Netscape then a steady dose of Reddit/Digg. Yet, I also believe that SEOs everywhere, including myself, are inclined to go with the Reddit/Digg combo or maybe just the Reddit solitaire. Why? Well, in the case of Digg it is so damn popular. In the case of Reddit, it is so damn easy (and I mean easy…)

The problem, as I see it, is that the simplicity of Reddit can become addictive and often provides no lasting effect. If you have an average blog you are probably getting somewhere between 75 and 400 visitors per day. Reddit can singlehandedly double or triple your traffic in any given day. But this traffic is largely junk traffic.

Netscape has the benefit of building strong, deep links over time. Some of my blogs have long-term PR 4 or 5 links straight from the Netscape domain. Many articles get short-term PR 6 and 7 link love. While you won’t drive much traffic from Netscape, you will help drive SERPs over the long haul. Netscape should be part of anybody’s long term link building strategy

Stumble traffic, in contrast to Reddit, is very focused and converts quite well. Sure, the initial submission is more time consuming, but then it’s all “thumbs-up” from there. Plus, I’ve found that a single Stumble can send thousands of visitors to your site. No need to get on the front page or anything. Just get a few people to “thumbs up” your article, and you’ll have sticky readers with an interest in your site topic flow right for high conversion rates.

So my hypothesis is this: Reddit has the least payoff of all the major social voting sites, but that it’s also the one solution that most people use. Instead of using Reddit, I think that a wiser use of your time is to go after topic-targeted traffic with StumbleUpon. It doesn’t hurt to do both, but avoid the temptation of using Reddit for all your social voting needs.