Wow, its been a veryt long time since I blogged here. The reason being that there was nothing worth blogging about for quite some time now. But there is something worthy of blogging now.

Keyword Elite 2.0

Brad Callen has reased the next version of the famed Keyword Elite.

read the Keyword Elite 2 Review

Have you ever noticed that titles on the cover of magazines sometimes differ from the actual title of the articles themselves? The next time you purchase a magazine, look at the titles and see if they are the same. In the latest copy of Wired magazine on my desk, the headline on the cover is “The Rebirth of Music”, however, the actual name of the article is “Music Reborn”.

Why is this?

This is because the objective of the circulation department of the magazine is to sell as many copies as they can. In their effort to do so, they often simplify, modify or reconstruct the titles of the articles to make it more interesting and make people buy their magazines. In effect, the circulation department is “working the headlines.” They simply try and make a good headline better. To make the title better, they sometimes lengthen the title, as with the example above. Sometimes they shorten it. Other times, they change a word or two. And sometimes the entire title is reworked.

To improve your online campaigns, it is a good idea to review printed marketing material to spur ideas and to get you thinking creatively.

As often is the case, looking at printed marketing material can spur ideas in your head on how to improve your online campaigns.

Here are some more examples taken from the book, “Tested Advertising Methods”.

These titles were given more impact by being shortened:

[Original Title]: Hot Tips on Heating Your Home
[Revised Title]: How to Cut Fuel Bills

[Original Title]: A Smart Shopper’s Guide to Bargains
[Revised Title]: Shopper’s Guide to Bargains

[Original Title]: Three Ways to Mothproof a Marriage
[Revised Title]: 3 Ways to Save a Marriage

[Original Title]: How to Understand the Perplexing Teen-Ager
[Revised Title]: How to Understand Your Teen-Ager

[Original Title]: Which Diet Tips Pay Off?
[Revised Title]: Diet Tips That Pay Off

The following are article titles that were given more sales appeal by being lengthened:

[Original Title]: When Your Husband’s Affection Cools
[Revised Title]: When Your Husband’s Affection Cools – and what to do about it

[Original Title]: Birth Control for Men
[Revised Title]: Now – Safe, Simple Birth Control for Men

[Original Title]: You Can Read Faster
[Revised Title]: Read Faster – a 20-Day Plan

[Original Title]: Key to Fitness at Any Age
[Revised Title]: Key to Fitness at Any Age for Men and Women

Here are article titles that were given greater interest by reconstructing them:

[Original Title]: The Smugglers of Misery
[Revised Title]: Where All the Drugs Come From

[Original Title]: Building on the Positives in Marriage
[Revised Title]: 4 Ways to Keep Your Marriage Young

[Original Title]: High Blood Pressure – New Light on a Hidden Killer
[Revised Title]: New Protection Against Heart Attack

[Original Title]: Backyard Gardeners Are Back in Style
[Revised Title]: How to Start a Backyard Garden

[Original Title]: What You Can Do to Combat Inflation
[Revised Title]: 10 Ways to Beat the High Cost of Living

Look at your Titles, not just in your PPC campaigns, but on your web sites as well. Could your Titles use a rewrite to improve the message?

Here are some of the secrets to getting your articles, newsletters, sales copy, squeeze pages, blog posts and press releases noticed. Not only that, but you will also discover the techniques that will encourage your readers to become an army of promoters who will spread your sales message far and wide for FREE.

So why is it important to get your website noticed?

Imagine that there is a giant bar with over a billion men who are looking for a sexy lady. However, for every 1,000 men there is one woman. Your website is one of the men and the women are the customers. Let’s say that the design and layout of your website determines the physical appearance of your man. However, your site’s content is the clothes , hair, sense of humor, charisma, intelligence, etc. A site with good content is like a man who is the ultimate charmer . He will have the ability to attract all the women and he will stand out from the crowd. This is how the Internet works. There are millions of new men entering the bar every month so it is becoming more and more important to learn how to not only attract the women but also how to satisfy them over and over again.

Now it is time for some science:Being noticed is something every human craves for. It is in our blood and in the DNA of our society. Everything from your hairstyle to the car you drive has the effect of getting you noticed. In the big wide world it is nice to be noticed, but on the Internet

IT IS VITAL!

You could have a great product or service but if nobody reads about it then your sales will be a big fat ZERO. There is nothing worse than putting blood, sweat and tears into an article only to find that just a handful of people read it.

We don’t know about you, but if we’re going to take the time to make great content then we want as many people as possible to see it. The key to all of this is to ensure that your site stands out from the crowd and causes a reaction.

The late, great, Prince of Print (Gary Halbert) said: “The worst response you can get from your readers is meh.”

Meh is the sound you do not want your readers making. Meh shows that they are not really interested or motivated by your content. In fact Even a negative response is better than a ‘meh’
A negative or controversial response is not ideal but it gets you talked about and that means free promotion. So by now you should realize the importance of being noticed and standing out from the crowd.

As of yesterday, twitter seems to have introduced a new cap on how many followers can be added. The cap seems to be 1000 a day. This is seen as a measure to curb rampant twitspam. There is also speculations as to if this is a temporary measure or a permanent one.

For the unenlightened ones out there, twitspam is when someone uses automated tools to auto follow people and then normal people respond by following them back. This then enables the spammers to spam the followers. Twitters 2000 followers cap notwithstanding, twitter spam has seen enormous rise in the past 3 months.

Hopefully this measure will curb twitter spam.

Introduction to the Importance of Content Development

Here’s a secret that very successful bloggers know:

Even if you screw everything else up, great content has wings! Even if you don’t set your blog up properly. If you do everything else wrong, which you won’t, you could become popular on the sheer value of your content alone.
Now let’s flip that…

What if you don’t develop good content but you excel at marketing and link building? Will the same apply?

No.

The heart of a blog is content that people want to read, view, or listen to. And they want to tell others about it. Now, let’s not get cocky and just think it is a simple matter of “content is king.” Odds are, with the massive amount of content on the web today, that even with good content your blog could just sit there with no readers for a very long time.

That’s the other thing that pro bloggers figured out…
Once they understood how to market their blogs they quickly realized how much time they wasted just writing great content for a few visitors per day. Some pro bloggers have been blogging since 2002 and even earlier. It didn’t have to take them as long as it did to get popular. They just didn’t know the marketing techniques that go with great content development. So they had to wait for the web to discover THEM instead of launching themselves to the web. But, First Thing First!

In the Content Development section of this site you will find all the tricks for coming up with great, sticky, crowd-pleasing content that will grow your readership and get into the search engines. You have to have something worth visiting before you start marketing the site, or it’s all for nothing.
But I Can’t Write!

That’s fine. But anyone can blog! This site is called Blog Success, not Writing Success! But you will find yourself becoming a better writer in the process. Writing is like anything else. You get better the more you do it and study how other successful bloggers write.

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Attention = Money

Everything about having a profitable presence online revolves around getting attention. Every website owner from beginner to the largest company wants all the attention they can get for their site, ads, products, content, or services.

With blogging it is no different. For your blog to thrive and profit, it needs targeted traffic…attention! But wanting it and getting it are two different things. We are all fighting for attention. The internet is a gigantic popularity contest. The biggest the human race has ever waged in our history.
Sound Daunting?

Don’t let the perception of massive competition for visitors fool you. Out of all the websites on the web, a tiny fraction makes up the most popular. We are here to put you into that elite group. And it isn’t nearly as hard as it sounds! Most Sites Suck!

Most sites on the web, as you’ve noticed, are really crappy places to visit. If that weren’t the case, you’d have hundreds or thousands more bookmarks than you do. The reason your bookmark file is manageable isn’t because of your “bookmark discipline” or your pickiness. It’s because there really isn’t that much out there on the web that moves people to bookmark or subscribe. 5+ years ago I would have told you that by 2009, everyone would have picked up on the fact that you have to actually do something, anything, remarkable to get noticed and be “bookmark-able.” I thought it was obvious then, and that everyone with a website would have figured out the game by now.

Very few site owners have figured out the game to this day. Most sites on the web are still crap. Most people who throw up a site are still just phoning it in. Most websites, to this day, don’t have any content “worthy of devotion” as my friend Clay Cotton puts it. Most sites in every niche have owners who think you can just slap together some junk and “make it big.”

Here’s the Big Secret to Getting All the Attention You Need: Don’t Suck! You must set yourself above the rest of the people in your market. You must be remarkable and stand out. Sound hard? It really isn’t given that most sites, well, suck. The big, magic formula (and you can go back to your very most favorite sites on the web to verify this yourself) is that good, high traffic, profitable sites, including blogs, are remarkable in some way.

Smacked In The Face

Have you ever been surfing and you just seem to hit one poorly designed, crappy site after another? And then, just as you are about to give up, you click one more link and BAM! A site the likes of which you haven’t seen for weeks or even months smacks you right in the face. The content is exactly what you’ve been looking for. The navigation is easy to understand. You seem to find something great around every corner of the site on every link you click. Its that moment when you think to yourself that you can’t get this site into your bookmarks fast enough. You can’t wait to tell someone else about it. You devour the content, and once you catch up with everything on the site, you wonder when the owner is going to post again so you can read, view, or listen to more of what they have to share.
Again, you may be thinking to yourself right now: “How am I ever going to create that feeling for people? Sounds like you have to be a genius to do that!”

More than anything else, this site is here for the exact purpose of training you to build one of those remarkable sites. And that’s how you are going to get the attention you need to make your site profitable. Excited? A little bit? Good. Because right now the only thing standing in the way of you and blog success is a bit of time, some learning, discipline, and application of what you learn here. That’s it. As you go through the training you will start to believe this is really possible. That you can be one of those super popular bloggers that people talk about and follow. You will learn how to put together an interesting blog around an interesting topic and drive traffic to it like a pro without ever worrying about whether you have what it takes. You have everything you need right here. Take it seriously.

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SEO (Search Engine Optimization)

We’re about to point you to an extremely well-done resource for beginning SEO. It is one of the best written documents on all the important points for SEO on the web today. But Before You Go! The way we train you to set up your blog, the software we use, along with the plugins and settings we use, will get you 95% to the finish line with SEO. The absolute necessities for optimizing your blog posts for the search engines are as follows:

1. Your Post Title: Always keep your titles as brief as possible with your main keyword phrase for the post as close to the front of the title as possible.
If your keyword is Leash Training, then… “Leash Training Your Dog” is better than “Training Your Dog To Walk On A Leash” for the search engines.

2. The Post Body: In your first paragraph, following the keyword example above, you want your keyword to appear as soon in the first sentence of the first paragraph as possible.
Paragraph One of your Blog Post
“Leash training is a necessary evil for all dog lovers. It might not be as much fun for you or your dog to spend a day on this important training, but walking properly on a leash is good for you and your dog’s safetly and well being. Here’s how to put the fun back into leash training while getting the job done in less than 1 week.”

The Rest of The Post

From here on out, don’t stuff your post with the keyword phrase “leash training.” Use natural language to describe the probems and solutions and let it flow. The worst thing you can do is make the post hard to read and far too “dense” by using your keyword too often. If it sounds funny or if it doesn’t seem to fit or read well, you probably need to choose better wording to make the post something worth reading. You are going to have natural placement of the word “leash” in a post about leash training. You are also going to have natural use for the word “training” by itself in a post like this as well. Your keyword phrase DOES NOT have to be together (leash training) to have an affect on your search engine rankings. “Leash” and “training,” no matter where they appear throughout the post, will support your case to the search engines that you should be ranked well for “leash training.”

3. Links: With a post constructed properly as in the example above, the only thing left to do is getting links to it.
Google, for example, judges content by cheating. They like to see what OTHER people think of your content before making up their mind where you should rank. So they look at all the sites in their index that link to you and decide how many of those sites really matter in your niche to give you a score for ranking. A link to your post is a “vote” from another source on the web for your content and its relevancy. So getting other bloggers in your niche to link to you is crucial to making the top 10 rankings in Google. If you are networking with other bloggers and they are following your content, or they find you through a link on a social site, then it depends on how good your post is whether or not you will get natural links to it.

A good mix of links from inside the posts of other bloggers (who point to you as a resource to support what they are talking about) along with social links from your social networking and other social profiles (fans of your site who submit you to places like StumbleUpon) will usually ensure that you beat all other similar articles on the topic in the engines who have fewer links.

The only sites that will beat you for your key phrase after all the above has been done are sites with more “authority.” This means older sites that Google and others have a longer history of “trust” with and sites that overall have more links than you do. You can overtake more authoritative sites in time through good habits of link building and writing great posts with the SEO techniques outlined here.

The purpose of this article is to show you the biggest social websites on the net. Once you have created your content you should submit it to the relevant sites. Social media websites are one of the most powerful resources available. There are literally hundreds to choose from, and many of them have millions of users, but below I have listed four of the biggest and most powerful.

Promotional Website Number 1 = StumbleUpon

www.stumbleupon.com
Description = StumbleUpon is highly flexible. You can promote almost any type of content on StumbleUpon, and its userbase covers all ages.

WARNING: We have had hundreds of thousands of hits from StumbleUpon. However, the quality of traffic is very low. Most users flick from one site to another with the Stumble button so won’t stick around to subscribe or click your ads.

Promotional Website Number 2 = slashdot

www.slashdot.org
Description = SlashDot is a site for geek content. Anything related to the web, technology, computers, etc. If you have content related to these topics, then submit it to SlashDot and hopefully a moderator will put your content on the main page.

WARNING: We have been on the main page, and it crashed our server.

Promotional Website Number 3 = digg

www.digg.com
Description = The Big Daddy, the monster, the biggest and most powerful of them all.

WARNING: We have been on the Digg.com main page three times. It is probably best to avoid the often childish comments from users. However, many bloggers use Digg as a way of finding stories so for link building they don’t come much better than Digg.com.

Promotional Website Number 4 = prweb

www.prweb.com
Description = PRweb is a press release distributor. If you have content that is newsworthy then a press release can be hugely powerful.

WARNING: A payment may be required based on how wide the distribution is. It is also advisable to hire someone to write your press release for you.

Action points: Take five minutes and subscribe to all of the above sites. Have a play with each site and get a feel for how they work and the types of articles they prefer. These sites are your ticket to Internet riches so take the time to get to know them.

What is Link Rot?

Basically it occurs when external sites or your merchant (if you’re an affiliate) changes the links in their system so your links produce a 404 (page not found error). I started looking at my test data from the recent PageRank Update and noticed that a high percentage of sites that had a drop in PageRank, also had lots of dead links throughout their site.

Was this the main cause of the drop? Was it partial? I don’t know. Regardless, it is always a good idea to “keep a good house” which includes checking your links at least on a quarterly basis.

So, if you haven’t checked your links in a couple months, do it now. Here is what you do:

1) Search for “Xenu” in Google.
2) It should be the first site listed.
3) Click the link to go to the site.
4) Click “download” and then install the program.
5) Do a complete internal and external link check.
6) I like to view the report for each page.
7) Fix all the dead links (both internal and external).
8 ) If you had ten or more internal pages with problems, rerun your Google XML Sitemap

That’s it. It should take you about 1-2 hours to run the report and fix the main broken links. The benefits will be huge for you.

Get this done first thing and I will have more steps for you to improve your site coming.

I have already mentioned why it is so important to keep up-to-date in your industry. So how do we ensure we are kept on the cutting edge? You should first check to see if your industry is covered at Moreover.

Secondly you should use a tool that is hosted by Yahoo at http://news.yahoo.com/rss

Simple scroll down for the search box and type the keyword for your industry into the search box. Remember, you can do this multiple times for multiple keywords if you wish. The next step is to click the drop-down box and subscribe by using the feed reader of your choice. I personally use Google, it gives the following options:

Add to Google homepage

Your Google homepage brings together Google functionality and content from across the web, on a single page.

or

Add to Google Reader(Works Better)

Google Reader makes it easy to keep up with the latest content from a large number of sites, all on a single reading list. I personally have used both, and they are both great options, but I would recommend the “Google Reader”.

Remember, all of these options are completely free of charge. Also make sure you go to any of the authority publications or websites in your industry and subscribe to their RSS feeds.
Not only can you use the following tools to monitor your industry, there is the added bonus of using them to get your creative juices flowing. There is nothing better to spark some ideas for content then having hundreds of existing content ideas laid out in front of you. With this information you should never run out of ideas for Creative Content.

SEO consists of two components: On-Page and Off-Page Factors. Since Google is generally known as an Off-Page Factor search engine, many SEOs and webmasters have started to ignore the On-Page Factors. This is a big mistake. While you can’t rank well for competitive phrases just focusing on the On-Page factors, if you get the On-Page stuff wrong, your ranking suffer. To help you, I’ve put together the following checklist:

1. Validate your HTML Code so it is “Spider” Compliant. Your code should be “close to” W3C Compliant. W3C is not perfect and often will flag a problem when there isn’t one. Before making radical changes, discuss them with your webmaster.

You should know that there is a big difference between “W3C Compliant Code” and “Search Engine Compliant Code”. According to my testing, having “search engine compliant code” is what you want.
You should also check your Code to Text Ratio. Having more body text than code can give you an edge in securing a good ranking for your site. One of the best ways to improve your code to text ratio is to make your JavaScript external files and use CSS for your formatting and make that file external too. That can save you as much as 30% of your file size.

2. File Naming – Hyphens Not Underscores.

Why? Because…
blue-widget.html = blue widget (good).
blue_widget.html = bluewidget (not good).
In terms of getting a “boost” from the keyword being in the URL, if a search for “blue widget”, the first URL gets the boost. To get the second to receive a boost, a search for “blue_widget” must be done (with the underscore). Do you search that way? Of course not, and neither will anyone else. I recommend you use zero or one hyphen in your domain name. More than that it looks spammy and you will lose credibility.

3. Text Link Navigation at the Bottom of the Page.

Having text link navigation at the bottom of your pages allows you to target the specific keyword in the anchor text and send valuable PR juice to the pages you want and nofollow all others. Which means you will have better control over the terms used in anchor text as well as where your PR will go. Remember having the text link in the body text will give you the most “juice”, but if you can’t force it, the bottom of the page is better than nothing. Also, remember of the recent bug in Google – if you have an image link, you have to have a text link too somewhere on the page.

4. Character Set Tag.

First, your Character Set Tag must be correct. Which one you use depends upon what you want to do. Examples of the two most often used are:
<meta http-equiv=”Content-Type” content=”text/html; charset=utf-8″>
<meta http-equiv=”Content-Type” content=”text/html; charset=iso-8859-1″>
The biggest advantage for UTF-8 is its extended character set, thus it can display a higher number of foreign characters. If you aren’t accepting foreign characters in your forums and are mainly using “Western European Languages” (English, French and German), you want to use 8859-1. Current testing results show no differences in terms of crawlability with GoogleBot between the two character sets.

Tip: The Character Set Tag should appear as the first tag after the <head> tag. Why is it before the Title? You want the Character Set Tag before any other tag that displays text in the browser so that you are defining the character set and not allowing the browser to choose for you.

5. The Title Tag.

In terms of SEO, the Title tag doesn’t carry the same weight it did years ago in Google. The Title not only displays at the top of the browser window, but also appears when potential customers perform a search in a search engine and review the results. Therefore, in terms of clickthroughs and conversions, your Titles are extremely important. So you should focus on creating killer titles that are highly compelling and focused.
Every page should have a unique Title.
Maximum of 66 characters. Google shows 66 characters in the SERPs.
The Title should be the second tag (the character set tag should be first).
Try to formulate a question or a strong statement. If you pose a question, answer it in the Description Meta Tag.
Describe what the page is about and keep it focused.
For highest click-through, incorporate a “Call to Action” into your Title.
If you use the keyword phrase in the Title don’t keyword stuff. I recommend it as the keyword phrase will be bolded, thus drawing attention to your listing. If the keyword phrase is at the beginning of the Title, testing shows it helps “anchor” the eye to the Title.

What not to do:
Do not use ALL CAPS. Instead, capitalize the first letter of each major word.
Don’t use more than one Title tag per page.
Duplicate use of keyword in the Title.
No long Titles (more than 66 characters).

6.The Description Meta Tag.

In terms of SEO, the Description Tag is not very important to Google. The Meta Description appears with the Title in the SERPs. So, it must work hand-in-hand with the Title to attract potential customers. If you do not include a Meta Description, Google will use the first 30-40 words of your page, which could look very unappealing to a customer.

Recommendations:
Include a unique Description on every page.
Maximum of 150 characters (including spaces).
If you posed a question in the Title, answer it in the Description Meta Tag.
Your focus should be in creating curiosity in the reader. Don’t satisfy it with your Description. If done right, you will achieve higher traffic to your site.
Include offers, guarantees or even phone numbers to a install Call to Action.
Should be placed in the <HEAD> section after the Title.

What not to do:
Do not use ALL CAPS. Instead, capitalize the first letter of each major word.
Do not repeat any keyword more than three times, and do not have the same keyword repeated back-to-back.

Before moving on:
Is your Title and Description compelling?
Do they solve a problem?
Do they suggest that it solves the problem quickly?

If you answered “no” to any of the above, you need to do a rewrite. Think of your Title and Description as an Advertising Campaign and spend as much time as it takes writing an important ad. They are THAT important.

7. The Keyword Meta Tag.

Due to spamming issues in the late 90s, the Keyword Meta Tag has been devalued
– Google has never indexed it.

You should never include your “money phrases” here as there are plenty of programs out there to scrape keyword tag information. Instead, it is best to fill this tag with very general or generic terms.

Note: Commas are not indexed, nor are they used by the engines to separate the keyword phrases. Commas are for aesthetic reasons only.

A word of caution: Do not use your competitor’s company name, trademarked products and/or words in your keyword tag. Most legal experts will tell you permission is required before using a trademark on your site at all. There have also been lawsuits filed because phrases used sounded or looked similar to the owned trademark. Keep these very important factors in mind when selecting your keyword phrases. Don’t risk a lawsuit.

8. DTD statement.

According to my testing a DTD is not required in order to allow your site to be displayed in a browser, or for a search engine spider to crawl your site. Why is a DTD Statement necessary?
Using the correct DTD Statement also allows for your site to get indexed faster and deeper in Google and, according to my testing, shortens the time your site spends in the Sandbox by an average of 12 days. However, if you use a 4.01 statement, and your code was written in HTML 3.2, the engine will make note of it and there is a strong likelihood that the page (or site) will be dropped or penalized. So be sure it is the correct tag. If you don’t know, hire someone who does. I strongly recommend the Transitional tag, as it allows you some flexibility with code, especially with the use of HTML editors GoLive and DreamWeaver.

Without a DTD Statement, if the engine comes across code it doesn’t know what to do with, it may “hiccup” causing it to prematurely back out of the site. However, with the DTD Statement, it will know how to handle the code and continue to spider the site.

HTML 3.2 Warning: I suggest upgrading your code. Testing results show that HTML 3.2 does not rank as high as it would if it was HTML 4.0 or 4.01.
HTML 4.0/4.01
Strict: <!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01//EN”
“http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/strict.dtd”>
Transitional: <!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN”
“http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd”>
Frameset: <!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Frameset//EN”
“http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/frameset.dtd”>
XHTML 1.0
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN”
“http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd”>

9. JavaScript.

Due to indexing issues and ensuring your page file sizes stay as small as possible, I recommend you send your JavaScript code to an external file, especially if you have the same JavaScript appear on every page.

The process is simple:
Cut your JavaScript from the page
Open Notepad
Paste your code in Notepad
Name the file “code.js” (or whatever you decide to name it).
Load the file to a folder called “JavaScript”
Disallow the folder in the robots.txt file.
I have noticed Google will index .js files from time to time unless they are disallowed in the robots.txt file.
Then add the following code to the page:

<script language=JavaScript src=”javascript/code.js” type=”text/javascript”></script>

10. Cascading Style Sheets (CSS).

CSS is a file that allows for consistency in all of your formatting throughout your page or site without having to place font code at the beginning of every paragraph. Having your CSS files embedded into your pages is just a bad idea. It takes up space and pushes your importance code downward.
Create a file such as style.css, include your formatting, and a reference to it in the
<head> section of your page like this:
<link href=”style.css” rel=”stylesheet” type=”text/css”>
Note: Using processes to hide keywords or text in your CSS file can be detected by Google. Be very careful if you use CSS to stuff keywords or adjust the formatting to allow your page to receive a bigger boost from On-Page Factors.

11. The Heading Tag(s).

There are six types of headings: <h1>, <h2>, <h3>, <h4>, <h5>, and <h6>.
They are ranked in the same order for importance, with <h1> being the most important in terms of On-Page SEO. Headings must be compelling and include the keyphrase to add the most value to your page. You can use the headings to list your “headline” (h1) with its “tagline” underneath (h2). For example:
<h1>Complete Home Security System</h1>
<h2>Self-install your home security system in One Hour or Less!</h2>
In the above example, it allows for the key phrase “home security system” to be used naturally in both headings, thus increasing the on-page optimization score.

12. Do your main graphics use the ALT tag properly?

Google indexes the ALT tag; however, over the last two years I have seen a trend which shows using ALT text for SEO purposes has diminished. According to a Google engineer, what you should do is create an ALT [text] that is relevant to the picture, so it gives the user a good experience, including the visually impaired. The ALT text is indexed, but it is downgraded in the algorithm. “‘We see ALT text as being about as relevant as the Keyword Meta tag,” said the Google engineer. That should say it all as Google has never used the Keyword Meta tag due to the high spam rate.

The American Disabilities Act (ADA) has strict guidelines as to what your site needs to contain in order to be ADA compliant. I guarantee they do not look favorably at ALT text that has been keyword stuffed. There are people who are “sight impaired” and there is nothing worse than having 200 meaningless keyword phrases jammed into the ALT text read aloud by an OCR. Don’t ruin someone’s day. Don’t practice what I refer to as “ALT Text Spam”. Use ALT text in the manner in which it was designed to be used by the W3C: to describe the image for the benefit of those who surf the Web with images turned off and for those who have the contents of Web pages read out loud to them. If appropriate, a keyword phrase can be used, but under no circumstances should you stuff the ALT tag with keywords. Keep it to a simple description. Basically, remember to be compliant, not just with the W3C, but also with the ADA.
SPAM Tip: Although ALT text may or may not be counted for relevancy, search engines may utilize it when evaluating sites for possible “spamdexing.”

13. Keyword Phrase.

If you can, meaning if it makes sense and is readable, place your keyword phrase in the following areas:
Title Tag
Meta Description
H1 tag to begin the content
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Used in anchor text to either an internal page or relevant external site. This will help indicate to Google which keywords are important on your page as well as your overall site. Taking appropriate action on all 13 steps above should give you a nice boost in Google.

Many ask on the best way to blog both for the purposes of personal blog and for the sake of building authority to an affiliate site or an ecommerce site. I try to answer them to the best of my ability.

1. What is your choice of blogging software?

Wordpress period. Nothing beats blogging on this platform. The sheer amout of flexibility must offer you a must use reason.

Cost: Since WordPress is open source it is free.

Control: Once you download WordPress it is yours … you control where to host it. This avoids being “held hostage” by a Blogging service where all the content you have created is on their service, and leaving with your content is either very difficult or impossible.

Community: Themes and Plugins are constantly being created and the strong user base report bugs to allow for the platform to be in a constant state of improvement.

Customizable: Since WordPress is written in PHP there is basically no limits to the customization you can do with your Blog.

Comments/Collaboration: Since Web 2.0 is all about interaction, your readers can comment directly on your Blog post and create an “interactive” discussion online which can be powerful. While it can be powerful, it can also be a negative with all of the Blog Comment Spam that is rampant; this is where all the plug-in come in, one can simply use them to cut down on the spam being put up as comments.

Keeping “Current & Cool”: Since adding content is super fast and easy with a blog (as with the WYSIWYG editor), your website can stay “current and cool” with your visitors.

Connect: Facebook, MySpace and Twitter can be an “extension” of your Blog. You can also use video too.

Prescheduled Entries: You can create 52 tips, upload them, and schedule to have one published each week. This “trains” both your visitors and the search engines to keep coming back because there is fresh content being published. This is one of the most underutilized features of blogs currently.

2. In your opinion, what are the most important features for blogs?

Comments, as mentioned above. Comments help me to understand what the readers want more of or less of. Almost like an ongoing survey the comments allow my visitors to get to know me better, thus, drives you to my products and services more.

The other most important feature is you, as the Blogger. Don’t just publish fresh content. Publish fresh and valuable content. Doing so builds your expertise and allows your audience to trust you more.

3. Can the average person conduct an upgrade for Wordpress without losing their entire blog, (ie. accidentally overwriting the files on the server)?

The short answer is: Yes. However, if you upload just the core set of WordPress files to the appropriate files on your server, you’ll be fine. Before I ever do any upgrades, I always download the entire site via FTP … and I mean everything, log files, full site, cgi-bin, email, etc. That way, if something goes wrong, I have the files prior to the change. Yes, it takes some time, however, start it before heading out to lunch and by the time you get back it should be done (depending upon the size of the site, the speed of your connection and, of course, the length of your lunch break!

After you have uploaded the new files, go into your wp-admin folder on your server and you want to load the file “upgrade.php”. So, for example, on my blog, I would execute: blog.seorevolution.com/wp-admin/upgrade.php.

If you don’t have a server admin, contact your host for help. You DON’T want to lose your data.

4. Besides having the XML subscribe button posted, what are the other ways to get a blog noticed? What are your “must have” subscribe chicklets?

My favorite tool is “Share This” by Alex King. Just “Google It” and you’ll find it. What it does is it allows for an icon to appear in your blog so people can share your post through a variety of different ways. This is a great way for other people to be exposed to your blog from your current readership, but what about getting people there to begin with?

Look for other bloggers in your space and engage in the conversations on their blog. In so doing, your reputation as someone who is knowledgeable in the space will begin to grow, as will your reputation. How do you find the right Bloggers? Technorati.

Trackbacking: This a feature that let’s you comment on some else’s blog, but on your blog. It is a pretty cool feature and the hope is that readers of the comments will see your trackback commentary and then flow over to your blog to read more.

Lastly, I suggest putting on your “party hat” and jumping into the Social Media scene by searching out groups relevant to your topic or find where your target audience “hangs out” online. But I also warn you not to be a dork. Act the same way you would at a cocktail party. Be respectful; don’t pitch right out of the gate. Gain people’s trust first. use of video and audio in the Web 2.0 world is desired. Get your video and audio files on the various sharing services. The right title and the right description is just as important in this area as it is in SEO

5. What are some great marketing tips on getting a new blog in front of the right audience?

first you must KNOW your audience. You can do that by going to different groups and social media sites and finding out through the posts what they want and more importantly, the packaging and pricing structure that is most attractive to them. Moving the “Free Line”, what it means is give more of your products/services away to get potential customers a “taste” of what you have to offer.

6. What are your favorite resources for blogging information?

Covered above.

7. Which blog directories are best to submit to? Are there good country specific blog directories? Or is it best to just concentrate on US-based blog directories if your blog is outside of the US?

I suggest going into the Options | Writing area of WordPress and then scroll down to find “Update Services”. Clicking on the link takes you to Codex Section of WordPress and here you can copy and paste the list of pinging services for your blog.

I recommend (listed in order of importance) Best of theWeb Blog Search ($39.95), BlogFlux (Free), Bloggapedia (Free), Blogging Fusion ($1.99), Bloggeries ($19.95) and Eaton Web Blog Directory ($34.99).

8. Does blog and ping still work? What is the best method of getting Google back to your site? (I did a test and found that if you blog at least three times a week and don’t go more than three days of no postings, Google will come back at least a week to reindex the blog. If you blog everyday, Google comes everyday. Your thoughts?)

I like OnlyWire.com and Pingoat.com on top of the services WordPress has as covered above.

9.If a site like Feedburner distributes my content to all the other blog sites, do I really need to submit the content to all the blog directories?

No you don’t. Aside from the initial pings all you need to do is connect with other bloggers as we have already discussed. Always look to expand to new audiences.

10. What is the your to obtaining “greatness in blogging”?

Keep it Real. Stay Who You Are. Always Add Value. Share Good Information. Look into Podcasting and Videocasting to set you apart from your competition.

In other words, don’t try and be someone you’re not just to try and make it big in your industry. Embrace who you are and build on it. If you fake it, it may work for a little while, but you won’t be happy and people will eventually figure it out and you’ll lose trust. Your personality is what made you.

This is just the first parts, there is more to come. Keep in touch and please to comment and also spread some love!