Get Free, High-Quality Content Custom Written For Your Blog
I’m a big fan of guest posting high-quality content on high-quality blogs. Guest articles are one of those win-win transactions that take place all the time on the Internet without the transaction of money. The writer of the article gets the benefit of exposure and branding (assuming the article is good). The blog owner gets the benefit of a unique perspective and interesting content that wouldn’t otherwise be seen by his or her readers.
I’m offering to do 10 free guest posts over the next month for high-quality blogs (as determined by me). Every guest post that gets done will be custom written by me and I will strive for professional quality. Here are some samples of my guest posts from the past:
- The Four Dimensions of A Link Portfolio
- The Stoic Approach to Successful Online Publishing
- The Psychology of Linkbait
If you are interested, please contact me at the following email address ryan@college-startup.com so that I can look over your blog.
Finalists Announced In The Blogger Appreciation Awards
The 30 finalists have been announced for the Blogger Appreciation Awards contest. These 30 bloggers were selected out of thousands of nominations after they had survived a semi-finalist round in which the judges initially narrowed the field down to 200. These blogs were selected for their compelling content and active readerships: the two aspects of a great blog.
If you’d like to show your appreciation for one of the finalist bloggers, please make sure to participate by voting at the The Blogger Appreciation Awards voting page.
The finalists are:
- PZ Myers, of Pharyngula
- Jason Kottke, Kottke
- Steven Finch, Crenk
- Gayla McCord, MomGadget
- Phil Plait, Bad Astronomy
- Daniel Scocco, Daily Blog Tips
- Trent Hamm, The Simple Dollar
- Asha Dornfest, Parent Hacks
- Lorelle VanFossen, Lorelle
- Liz Strauss, Successful Blog
- J.D. Roth, Get Rich Slowly
- Yan Fortin, Geeks Are Sexy
- Kevin Palmer, Pointless Banter
- Thomas Peters, American Papist
- Gary Farber, Amygdala
- Laura Rozen, War and Piece
- Olliver Willis, OliverWillis
- Michael Totten, Michael Totten Blog
- Jason McIntrye, The Big Lead
- Brian Clark Howard, URTH Guy
- Deb Ng, Freelance Writing Gigs
- Randa Clay, Randa Clay
- Prince Campbell, Chartreuse
- Steven Snell, DesignM.ag
- Gyutae Park, Winning the Web
- Jonathan Bailey, Plagiarism Today
- Kevin Kraynick, Rump Roast
- Deb Nice, Nice Deb
- Carl in Jerusalem, Israel Matzav
- Char Polanosky, Essential Keystrokes
Blogger Appreciation Contest – Call For Nominations
Bloggers pour their heart and soul into their blogs and often get very little in return. As a whole, I think it’s safe to say that we’re an under-appreciated group who work very hard and what we do. Most of us blog for free and the only thing that keeps us going is the thrill of interacting with our readers or the rare time when we break a big news story or get recognized by other blogs for an insightful commentary.
But the fact is that even the most popular bloggers barely make enough money to scrape by. There are really only a handful of people who actually make a full wage off blogging.
Cell Phones .org thinks that bloggers don’t get enough appreciation and for that reason they are running a Bloggers Appreciation Contest. The contest will reward the three winners with some really cool prizes:
First Prize: a full year’s worth of your cell phone bill (up to $1000)
Second Prize: free cell phone (does not include plan)
Third Prize: $100 gift certificate to use at Cell Phones .org
Nominations for the contest will be accepted until February 28th 2009. Blogs that have been nominated will then ask their readers to show their appreciation by voting for them over the next few weeks. Voting will be held from March 1st until March 17th. Each visitor can vote once per day during the voting period.
To nominate your blog or any other blog, go to the Cell Phones.org nomination page.
Free Social Media Buttons For Your Blog
Have you ever wanted options when it comes to the social media buttons you put on your blog or website? I know I have. Normally I wade through oceans of junk in a Google Image search to find the ones that I really love. Then they all need to be edited down to size. And sometimes I can’t even find ones that match.
Well, the good news is that my friends Randa and Char have addressed this problem with their new site MySocialButtons.com which offers some really unique, interesting and high-quality social media buttons that are free to use. And the good news is that since they come from the same designers, you can find buttons for multiple social media sites that match each other. Once you’ve found the style you like, you can normally find the same style for the other sites.
Here are three of my favorite social media buttons from MySocialButtons.com -
A Request For Google’s Webmaster Tools – Fight spamlink hacking head-on
For at least the last six months, one of my blogs has been hacked and I didn’t know about it. For all I know, it is still hacked.
As Aaron Wall pointed out over at SEO Blog, there is a sophisticated new method of link cloaking that hackers are using where only GoogleBot sees the hacker’s spammy xanax links.
I had guessed that my site was hacked around last August because the site was de-indexed from Google. However, I went to Google’s webmaster tools at the time to look at “What Google Sees” and didn’t see any spammy keywords. Then, I checked all the files on my webserver and didn’t find any obvious changes. Then I scanned the database for common spam hacker tactics. Nothing. So as a last resort, I simply deleted all the WP files off the server and re-installed a fresh installation of WP.
In the past, this methodology has solved all my spamhacks. But not this time. And to this day I still don’t know if I’ve solved the problem. What I do know is that the site has actually been hacked because now when I go to Webmaster Tools “What Google Sees” and look at the cache of pages on my site, I see lots of spammy phrases.
So, 6 months later, I’ve gone ahead and rechecked everything. I’ve run the Exploit Scanner plugin and it doesn’t see a problem. I’ve looked through the theme files, including functions.php and still don’t see the issue.
What makes the problem especially tough to identify is the cloaking aspect. Because it’s impossible to test whether you’ve fixed the issue in real time. Instead, you are left waiting for the next time Google caches a page on your site.
So here’s the request for Google’s Webmaster Tools…
Let’s tackle spamlink hacking head on. Let’s make Webmaster Central’s Webmaster Tools really, really useful by meeting these specs:
- Provide immediate email notifications if spamlink hacking is detected on a site.
- Because of the cloaking issue, allow a webmaster to request an immediate site review (just like you do for initial site authentication)
- Provide webmasters a robust toolkit of actions that they can take to remove the specific spamlink hack that’s detected on their site.
The fact of the matter is that spamlink hacking has gotten too sophisticated for even the average webmaster to keep up with. With widely distributed CMS software like Wordpress and sophisticated attack methods, web security is not as simple as it used to be. It’s time for Google to help us out. And this post is my plea for help
Gawker Media: No Time For Subtlety In A Troubled Economy
It can’t be a coincidence that in the last week Gawker Media properties have blatantly stolen the titles and ideas proposed in two articles that appeared on my web properties early this year. And surely it’s not a coincidence that both of those articles appeared on the front page of Digg.
You see, I can’t help but think that Gawker Media has clearly instructed it’s writers to go into the backlogs of successful front page Digg stories, and to start copying concepts.
To be honest, this is not a new thing. Everyone studies the backlogs of Digg to learn and adapt. However, what is new is the blatant copying of titles and concepts that Gawker seems to be using:
Compare:
http://www.ridelust.com/10-cars-that-are-guaranteed-to-get-you-laid-on-a-budget/
http://jalopnik.com/5139493/the-top-11-cars-of-2009-most-likely-to-get-you-laid
and
http://www.businesspundit.com/give-windows-7-away-for-free
http://gizmodo.com/5141443/why-microsoft-should-give-windows-7-away
Now, if it happened to me twice in one week, I can only infer that it’s the new Gawker strategy: no time for subtlety in a bad economy.
Performancing Blog Awards 2007 Winners
The Performancing Blog Awards recognize excellence in blogging. With help from our readers, Performancing chose 28 awards categories (one half of our collective brain wishes we could have done more, the other half wishes we had done less;-) and nominated six candidates per category.
With over 61,000 votes in one week of voting (Readers’ Choice) and ongoing behind the scenes deliberation (Editors’ Choice) we’ve selected the winners of this year’s Performancing Blog Awards.
In some cases, the Readers and the Editors selected the same winners. However, more often than not, the Readers and Editors selected different winners. In those cases, it’s for you to decide who made the better choice;-)
While putting these awards together was a labor of love (and I mean labor in both senses of the term!) it was well worth the effort. What we have here is a solid collection of the best blogs in the world in some of the most important categories there are. It was no easy feat, but we sure hope you like the final product:
The Best Overall Blog of 2007
Readers’ Choice: Zen Habits
Zen Habits entered the blogosphere by storm, offering up a unique and fresh perspective on life, health, productivity and finance. It has not only gained the admiration of professional bloggers but also managed to gain a huge readership outside the average blog reading demographic. This can be partly attributed to to the fact that, with a clear and captivating writing style, Zen Habits offers smart and productive people an alternative, simpler way to live their lives.
Runner Up: Mashable
Voting results: Best Overall Blog Poll
Editors’ Choice: TechCrunch
Everyone in the industry hangs on TechCrunch’s every word. While the site has it’s ups and it’s downs, there’s no denying the fact that the writers at TechCrunch put out an incredibly large amount of exceptional content day in and day out.
Runner Up: Ars Technica
The Most Influential Blogger of 2007
Readers’ Choice: Darren Rowse (ProBlogger)
In what turned out to be the closest poll of this year’s Performancing Awards (only five votes separated first and second place), Darren Rowse pulled out the victory. Darren has been a pioneer of the problogging world and is consistently looked to as a role model for blogging consistency and success. His ability to continually generate new and useful ideas never ceases to amaze us.
Runner Up: Seth Godin (Seth’s Blog)
Voting results: Most Influential Blogger Poll
Editors’ Choice: Brian Clark (CopyBlogger)
The best bloggers will all tell you the same thing: the key to a successful blog is writing attention grabbing headlines and copy. And no one has influenced the art of copywriting like Brian Clark. His blog CopyBlogger has made the blogging community stronger with tips on writing engaging posts and headlines, and it’s safe to say we’d see less engaging content without Brian’s huge influence.
Runner Up: Darren Rowse (ProBlogger)
The Best Blog Design of 2007
Readers’ Choice: Copyblogger (designed by Chris Pearson)
The reader’s spoke loud and clear on this one. Connoisseurs of WordPress themes know that Copyblogger was not only one of the most widely adopted WordPress theme of 2007. But even more importantly, it’s got ultra-optimized code (e.g. the left sidebar shows up in the source code after the middle content) and beautiful typography. Name recognition certainly helped on this one, but it’s pretty clear that users of the Copyblogger theme love it, and that’s all that matters.
Runner Up: Veerle’s Blog 2.0
Voting results: Best Blog Design Poll
Editors’ Choice: Pearsonified
It’s a shame Chris Pearson doesn’t blog a little more often, but the infrequent posts don’t take anything away from the awesome design at Pearsonified. Chris Pearson is one of the best Wordpress designers working today, and it shows with his personal site.
Runner Up: Veerle’s Blog 2.0
The Best Blog Typography of 2007
Readers’ Choice: Freelance Switch
Freelance Switch features big, thick headline fonts and font layout that’s easy on the eyes. It’s easy to see why the readers’ picked this one (no pun intended, of course).
Runner Up: Graphic Exchange
Voting results: Best Blog Typography Poll
Editors’ Choice: Freelance Switch
In our opinion, Freelance Switch has set a new standard for great typography. Blog Designers take note.
Runner Up: 4-Hour Work Week
The Best Blog Name of 2007
Readers’ Choice: John Cow
Playing off the popularity of blogging rockstar John Chow, John Cow has become a household name. And the cow metaphor is priceless.
Runner Up: Get Rich Slowly
Voting results: The Best Blog Name Poll
Editors’ Choice: Velveteen Rabbi
We just couldn’t resist. The most beautiful play-on-words we’ve seen in a long time.
Runner Up: John Cow
The Best New Blog of 2007
Readers’ Choice: Freelance Switch
Freelance Switch managed to burst onto the scene and gather an amazing, dedicated crowd in a very short amount of time. In the world of freelancing, Freelance Switch is now the big kahuna.
Runner Up: Snarfd
Voting results: The Best New Blog Poll
Editors’ Choice: Snarfd
While we certainly love Freelance Switch, for this award we wanted to pick the blog with the widest appeal…the one that keeps drawing us back…like addicts. And Snarfd is it.
Runner Up: Freelance Switch
The Best Blog Community of 2007
Readers’ Choice: Freelance Writing Jobs
Freelance Writing Jobs has a passionate community of freelance writers, and they sure have spoken this time.
Runner Up: Twitter
Voting results: The Best Blog Community Poll
Editors’ Choice: Metafilter
A vibrant community blog where the comments are often better than the posts. Our Editor’s were tightly split between Metafilter and Twitter, though, so definitely give the microblogging runner-up a shot.
Runner Up: Twitter
The Most Improved Blog of 2007
Readers’ Choice: Mashable
Just take a look at the 3 year Alexa graph and you’ll see that our readers are quite the omniscient crew.
Runner Up: Get Rich Slowly
Voting results: The Most Improved Blog Poll
Editors’ Choice: DoshDosh
The originality and quality of posts at DoshDosh have just continued to go up since Maki launched it back in November of 2006. And we couldn’t resist the draw of anime… just too cool.
Runner Up: Get Rich Slowly
The Best Blogs You’ve Never Heard Of 2007
Readers’ Choice: The Astonishing Adventures of Lord Likely
An original, quirky blog chosen by some original and quirky readers;-)
Runner Up: Bluehat SEO
Voting results: The Best Blogs You’ve Never Heard Of Poll
Editors’ Choice: Dear Rockers
We love the concept of this site: resolve your music-stealing guilt by writing letters to rockers and sending them $5. Not sure if it gets you off the hook, but the letters are sure fun to read.
Runner Up: Wise Living Journal
The Best Use of a Corporate Blog in 2007
Readers’ Choice: Prosper’s Official Blog
Prosper is a group blog run by its users. We’d love to see more corporations go in this direction, instead of weaving the typical corporate spin.
Runner Up: Southwest Airlines
Voting results: The Best Use of a Corporate Blog Poll
Editors’ Choice: Matt Cutts/Google Guy
Sure, we know the official line. But this year Matt was caught between a rock and a hard place trying to justify how his employee Google gets to link to their own partners editorially while the rest of us get penalized (thanks to graywolf for this insight). Matt deserves mad props for taking one for the Corp.
Runner Up: Dreamhost
The Best Blog Podcast in 2007
Readers’ Choice: Freelance Switch
The guys at Freelance Switch put together a quality operation, topped off with a popular audio podcast.
Runner Up: CalacanisCast
Voting results: The Best Blog Podcast Poll
Editors’ Choice: On The Pod
We can’t say enough good things about what Duncan Riley is doing with On The Pod. As an operating principle, Duncan tries to introduce the listener to lesser known people with important things to say…if only Google would do the same thing with their semantic analysis;-) On The Pod works as a podcast because it not only introduces you to new ideas and new people, but also because it’s great conversation that covers topics that stretch beyond tech and blogging.
Runner Up: Random Bits
The Best Video Blog in 2007
Readers’ Choice: Daily Idea
Daily Idea didn’t start until the 2nd half of 2007, but it has already acquired a massive following, thanks in part to it’s regular mix of humor and tips.
Runner Up: The PopCrunch Show
Voting results: The Best Video Blog Poll
Editors’ Choice: 1938 Media
When 1938 Media started out, we were skeptical…and sometimes put-off. But collectively we’ve become fond of Lauren’s passion, candor and (even when he doesn’t intend it) dry humor. 1938 Media is unlike anything else out there…but that’s not why we like it. We like it because it’s got value…real value.
Runner Up: Ask a Ninja
The Best Writing/Blogging Blog in 2007
Readers’ Choice: Copyblogger
When it comes to writing copy and blogging, the place to start is Copyblogger. Hands down.
Runner Up: Freelance Writing Jobs
Voting results: The Best Writing/Blogging Blog Poll
Editors’ Choice: Daily Blog Tips
This might surprise a lot of you, and many of you might object, but in 2007 we found ourselves soaking up Daily Blog Tips. Simple, straightforward, practical tips that every blogger can use.
Runner Up: Pro Blogger
The Best Science/Technology Blog in 2007
Readers’ Choice: Pharyngula
In terms of community response and total traffic, there is no doubt that Pharyngula is the most influential science blog on the planet.
Runner Up: Bad Astronomy
Voting results: The Best Science/Technology Blog Poll
Editors’ Choice: Ars Technica
Ars Technica is always on top of every tech story, with thorough analysis. The blog is constantly on the front page of Digg, and for good reason. We believe that, hands down, no question, Ars Technica is the most interesting and sophisticated technology site out there. It’s also a real candidate for best website on the ‘net.
Runner Up: Pharyngula
The Most Controversial Blog in 2007
Readers’ Choice: John Chow
Speaking of controversy, anyone else think this vote was rigged? Over 99% of the votes were submitted for John Chow. The crazy thing is that an IP analysis doesn’t reveal any obvious screwing around. Controversy? No controversy? John Chow’s the winner.
Runner Up: Pharyngula
Voting results: The Most Controversial Blog Poll
Editors’ Choice: 1938 Media
Loren Feldman has never been one to shy away from controversy and 2007 was no exception.
Runner Up: Perez Hilton
The Best SEO Blog in 2007
Readers’ Choice: SEOmoz Blog
SEOMoz is the company that every aspiring white-hat SEO looks up to. Rand Fishkin and gang have managed to create something very special and signs are that they’ll keep it up despite last year’s organizational changes.
Runner Up: Seo Book Blog
Voting results: The Best SEO Blog Poll
Editors’ Choice: Seo Book Blog
Aaron Wall runs one of the most thought provoking blogs out there. He’s always at the leading edge of SEO and it’s a good idea to think deeply about what he is saying, whether it’s SEO he’s discussing or something else altogether.
Runner Up: Graywolf’s SEO Blog
The Best Celeb/Style Blog in 2007
Readers’ Choice: Go Fug Yourself
Go Fug Yourself strikes the perfect balance between fashion and celebrity, taking a snarky attitude towards both. While giving props to the stars with good fashion, the Fuggers are at their best when they rip into the poor style and lifestyle decisions that celebs make.
Runner Up: Perez Hilton
Voting results: The Best Celeb/Style Blog Poll
Editors’ Choice: Oh No They Didn’t
As a group blog, Oh No They Didn’t often manages to break news before TMZ, Perez Hilton or any of the billions of other celeb blogs out there. And because it’s a community, ONTD covers a much wider variety of news…in other words, it doesn’t get old with the same joke, over and over and over.
Runner Up: WWTDD
The Best Business/Money Blogs in 2007
Readers’ Choice: The Simple Dollar
The Simple Dollar is a crowd favorite, giving simple, practical financial advice for the average person in today’s modern world (you know, the kind who actually have real jobs and not enough time in the day). It’s no coincidence that The Simple Dollar has over 23,000 feed subscribers.
Runner Up: Get Rich Slowly
Voting results: The Best Business/Money Blog Poll
Editors’ Choice: The Simple Dollar
The Simple Dollar is a great read for anyone interested in personal finance, but it’s also a great read for someone looking for a blueprint on how to explode into a niche extremely quickly. The site is only a little over a year old, but Trent Hamm has quickly established himself as one of the premier bloggers around period, not just in the personal finance community.
Runner Up: Get Rich Slowly
The Best Photo Blog of 2007
Readers’ Choice: I Can Has Cheezburger?
I Can Has Cheezburger has been one of the most successful viral experiments of all time. And it’s no wonder. With a perfect mixture of cute animal pictures and funny captions, this blog is going to be a mainstay of Internet folklore for years to come.
Runner Up: Stuck in Customs
Voting results: The Best Business/Money Blog Poll
Editors’ Choice: Photopreneur
Photopreneur is a great resource for the amateur photographer looking to make a little extra cash with their work. Wins for community and operating principle.
Runner Up: Daily Dose of Imagery
The Best Sports Blog of 2007
Readers’ Choice: True Hoop
True Hoop features the best coverage of NBA basketball on the Internet. Now with ESPN, Henry Abbott built True Hoop from the ground up just like the rest of us…
Runner Up: Sunday Morning QB
Voting results: The Best Sports Blog Poll
Editors’ Choice: Joe Posnanski’s Blog
Joe Posnanski (a Kansas City sports writer) started blogging this year to promote a book he had written, and he very quickly created something special. One of the best blogs we’ve ever read on any topic.
Runner Up: Fire Joe Morgan
The Best Blog WebHost of 2007
Readers’ Choice: WordPress.com
WordPress.com is the easiest to use, most configurable, hosted blogging solution out there. And WordPress.com users love the variety of themes available to them. A tightly nit community has emerged between its users.
Runner Up: Blogger
Voting results: The Best Blog WebHost Poll
Editors’ Choice: Mosso
While Mosso is not in everyone’s price range, it is a massively scalable web hosting solution and currently hosts some of our Editor’s sites, some of which get as many as 500k pageviews per day. For high-traffic blogs that don’t want to run a dedicated server, we think it’s a steal for only $100 a month.
Runner Up: A Small Orange
The Best Family and Parenting Blog of 2007
Readers’ Choice: Parent Hacks
Real tips from real parents for real kids. Parent Hacks is a great community blog where parents help each other with parenting.
Runner Up: Ask Moxie
Voting results: The Best Family and Parenting Blog Poll
Editors’ Choice: Dooce
Dooce pretty much singlehandedly created the entire “Mommy blogging” genre, and while the site has certainly changed over time it is still a great read.
Runner Up: Amalah
The Best Political Blog of 2007
Readers’ Choice: Daily Kos
Daily Kos is the grassroots voice of the progressive left and allows anyone to contribute, with the best content featured on the front page. It is one of the most popular group blogs on the Internet and has made tangible political impact.
Runner Up: Huffington Post
Voting results: The Best Political Blog Poll
Editors’ Choice: Huffington Post
An excellent all around blog that puts out an incredible amount of good content drawing from a large pool of talent. A great example of what a well funded blog can be.
Runner Up: Firedoglake
The Best Food/Health Blog of 2007
Readers’ Choice: The Girl Who Ate Everything & 101 Cookbooks (tie)
It was a tie. That means they are both worth your time…and they are…really. Especially if you like food.
Runner Up: The Food Pornographer
Voting results: The Best Food/Health Blog Poll
Editors’ Choice: 101 Cookbooks
If you are up for exploring in the kitchen it is tough to find a site better suited for the task.
Runner Up: The Food Pornographer
The Funniest Blog of 2007
Readers’ Choice: The Sneeze
Everyone who runs across the blog tags it an instant classic. So do we. Don’t miss out on the “Steve don’t eat it” posts. Classic rofl comedy.
Runner Up: Waiter Rant
Voting results: The Funniest Blog Poll
Editors’ Choice: Violent Acres
There aren’t many blogs we could honestly recommend going through the archives and reading every single entry, but this is one. But if that is too much for you, just check out her most popular posts. You won’t be sorry you did.
Runner Up: The Dilbert Blog
The Best Travel Blog of 2007
Readers’ Choice: The Cranky Flier
If there are travel pundits, The Cranky Flier is one of the best. With snarky, critical and sometimes humorous comments about the airline and travel industries, The Cranky Flier is a crowd pleaser.
Runner Up: Travel Rants
Voting results: The Best Travel Blog Poll
Editors’ Choice: Gridskipper
Gawker’s travel blog is one of the leaders in the niche, and delivers the excellence and originality you’d expect from a Gawker property.
Runner Up: Gadling
The Best Education Blog of 2007
Readers’ Choice: Study Hacks
Cal Newport offers simple tips aimed at demystifying the secrets of successful college students. Based on our polls, his readers find the tips useful and worth voting for.
Runner Up: Teaching Generation Z
Voting results: The Best Education Blog Poll
Editors’ Choice: Eduwonk
Eduwonk is an excellent site that features heavy discussion and analysis on issues facing the American educational system.
Runner Up: HackCollege
The Best Entertainment Blog of 2007
Readers’ Choice: /film
/Film is a movie lovers blog. In addition to your standard Hollywood movie news, the site also covers cult movies and directors. An emphasis is placed on scifi and fantasy movies.
Runner Up: Television Without Pity
Voting results: The Best Entertainment Blog Poll
Editors’ Choice: Firstshowing.net
Firstshowings.net is a very slick and comprehensive site that is always on top of the movie industry.
Runner Up: Stereogum
A huge thanks to Randa Clay for her wonderful design services (Randa created the awesome award images)!
YouTube Monetizes Music Videos With In-Video Buy-Now Option For Apple’s iTunes
Today I was watching Rick Astley’s Never Gonna Give You Up video over at YouTube and guess what popped up:
So you were wondering how YouTube was going to monetize? Seems like iTunes integration is a sign of things to come. Think about it. If people are watching a YouTube video that’s associated with some product, it makes sense to give users the option of buying that product. Since many of the videos on YouTube are available for purchase at iTunes, this seems like a great partnership.
I imagine we’ll be seeing more partnerships like this from YouTube in the future. Imagine the option of buying the specific tools needed for a project from Amazon.com in a video about How To Install A Door Frame. Or, what about the option of immediately buying the exact product featured in a music video product placement.
In any case, the possibilities are limitless, and you could ask for a better compulsive buying scenario. It’s just like putting handbags, jewelry and shoes at the front of a Target store.
Note: My friend Andrew tells me that it looks like Google is auto-detecting the audio and that this is all automated.
Ryan Caldwell blogs his thoughts on culture and the Internet at Thrive and is a co-founder of Web Site Host Review.
Understanding Mobile Search – Go Local or Go Home
By now, most people are familiar with SEO for global search. The basic idea is to build quality content, choose strategical keyphrases, and get editorial links from authority sites with strategical anchor text. Very straightforward. Many people make lots of money off global search.
But global search has also become a slow-growth industry. It is the type of searching people do in front of their computers.
The growth industry for search is found in mobile search (there are almost 3x as many mobile phones in use as compared to computers) . Mobile search is the term used to refer to the very particular kind of searching people do on their mobile devices. Sure, it is true that many mobile devices allow for global search, but the type of information people are looking for while using their mobile phones is quite different than the type of information they are looking for when sitting in front of their computers. The difference comes down to two words: Local Search.
Mobile search is all about local search. It’s about being a regional authority; a primary source of information for people using their mobile phones to find local information.
For many, mobile search is an enigma; a mystery. Admittedly, I have had trouble understanding it in the past. Thankfully, Cell Phones.Org has put together a fantastic introduction to Mobile Search. They go over all the fundamentals of mobile search, from why it matters all the way to how you can optimize your site for mobile search users.
For more information on mobile search, check out these resources:
Semantic Variance Redux
Semantic Variance is a concept that (I think) I coined to refer to simple idea of not repeating exact phrases over and over. Where do we repeat the same phrases over and over? I can think of four common places:
1. In the title of our article
2. In the body of our text
3. In the anchor text of the internal links within our site
4. In the anchor text of the external links to our site
Let’s look at a concrete example to get my point across more clearly. I’ll use a page on The Dog Guide to show you what I’m talking about.
Take a look at this article on the Affenpinscher breed. So the first thing to note about this page is that the title tag is not well optimized:
Affenpinschers: A guide to dogs and puppies of the Affenpinscher breed
Take note of how we repeat the singular and plural forms of the breed name: Affenpinschers and Affenpinscher. All indications are that Google sees this as keyword duplication and diminishes the value of the second instance. It turns out that since the Affenpinscher breed has a nickname, The Affen, it would be much better to reshape this title to replace one instance of Affenpinscher with Affen. Remember, the intention of SEO is not to cater towards Google but to cater towards the user. Many users will know the nickname of this breed, and we shouldn’t leave them out. Here’s a possible alternative title tag:
Affenpinscher Breed Information – A guide to Affen dogs and puppies
Not only is it better, but it’s a little shorter and gets an additional two keywords in as a bonus (“information” and “Affen”). As a general rule, you should always try to keep your titles as precise as possible while still casting a wide, relevant keyword net.
Ok. So we’ve taken a look at keyword duplication and semantic variance in HTML titles. Now let’s take a look at keyword variance in the body of text.
I did a quick search on the singular “Affenpinscher” and found 13 results. Then I did a search on the nickname and found 5 results. This isn’t terrible, to be honest. You definitely want to weight the keywords towards the official breed name. But one thing I did notice is that for every instance of “Affenpinscher” there was an opportunity to capture a longer search phrase. However, I only find a handful of instances where that is done:
Affenpinscher Skills
Affenpinscher Personality
Affenpinscher puppy
Affenpinscher Photos
A quick glance at google’s keyword tool reveals numerous other phrase combinations that have been neglected:
affenpinscher rescue
affenpinscher breed
affenpinscher breeders
affenpinscher info
affenpinscher information
affenpinscher temperament
etc. etc.
Since 9 of the 13 uses of Affenpinscher do not combine to make a longer phrase, there is opportunity for growth on this page.
Ok. We’ve taken a look at the HTML title and the use of keywords in the body of the text. Now let’s take a look at internal links on your site.
An internal link is any link from a different page on your website to the one you are focusing on. If every time The Dog Guide site was to link to it’s Affenpinscher page with the word “Affenpinscher” it would not only be wasting opportunity, it just might be hurting it’s search placement.
Look again at those keyword combinations I listed above. Those serve not only as recommended keywords to use in the text of the article, but also as phrases to use in the anchor text when linking to the page. In fact, if you have a the phrases both on the page and then in links to the page, you basically have the magic recipe for long tail ranking.
So, you should be intentional about following up the semantic variance that you place in the text with semantic variance in the links you place to the article. I should bring up one note of warning here: if you rely almost exclusively on Related Posts plugins to do your inter-linking for you, you are pretty much guaranteed to be committing the sin of keyphrase over-duplication where more than 90% of the links coming into your page are exact matches. The same goes for sidebar links.
There isn’t much more that needs to be said about external linking. Just be intentional when choosing the anchor text of an external link to match phrases on the page you are linking into. And don’t always use the same phrase. If you are targeting a 2 word phrase, then why not build a bunch of anchor text with 3 word phrases that contain the 2 word phrase you are targeting. Then you will be killing two birds with one stone.
Ok. So that’s it. I firmly believe in this stuff. I hope you can use it. I may be wrong. But at the end of the day, it’s all about trying your best to give as many users the information they are looking for. Google will take care of the rest.
