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In the hunt for more search effective websites and blogs, the basics are sometimes overlooked. The best advice that can be offered when optimising a web is: write for humans not robots. It is the humans who are our potential customers after all. If it works for humans, the robots will follow.
Are blogs more SEO effective than conventional websites? Not necessarily. The main reasons blogs are effective are:
- They are designed using WC3 compliant, valid code. Web pages with coding errors are less effective. The user friendly interface in a blog allows the user to concentrate on content while the technicalities are taken care of in the background.
- They use page elements like heading styles in a consistent way. H1 for the main heading, H2 and H3 for subheadings etc. A consistent page structure makes a search robots’ job easier.
- They tend to contain frequently updated content.
- They prompt the user to enter metadata such as keywords and alt attributes for images, links etc.
If these points were all observed, there really is no reason a static page can’t be as effective as a dynamically generated page. Both are basically html files, however they are generated. The following considerations might also be helpful:
Favicon and Logo: If you don’t have an effective logo, get one. Have your logo rendered as a favicon. A ‘favicon’ is just a file saved in .ico format. You will see favicons displayed in the URL field and as desktop icons when a shortcut to a website is saved. An effective favicon needs to be a simple image as it may be displayed on a very small scale (16 x 16, 32 x 32 pixels are standard sizes).
More info on favicons:
Favicons can be created using freeware programs like IconArt but if you have Adobe Photoshop there is a free plugin which allows you to save in .ico format: click here to download
Logos and favicons are important for visual product identification and helps your brand stand out in a browser or favourites/bookmarks lists.
RSS Feeds: Clearly display RSS feed and comment feed icons in a prominent position; at or near the top of your pages. Building a following of subscribers should be a high priority for any blogger. Creating an account with Feedburner: http://www.feedburner.com/ is a good idea. Feedburner provides a range of tools for tracking RSS feeds. RSS is an excellent method of delivering content to potential website visitors. It is also a channel for syndicating your content onto others’ websites.
Post Titles: Short titles which entice readers to read more are more effective than longer,more descriptive titles. A short title is much easier to tweet on sites like Twitter where the number of characters is limited.
Social Media: Google, Bing and other search engines are now specifically including social media results in searches. A consideration of social media is becoming increasingly important for websites and blogs. I suggest:
- Include social media buttons for your posts (allows users to easily add your posts to social media sites like digg, delicious, facebook, twitter etc.) This can easily be done via a plugin. (I found this button on one post, but it doesn’t seem to be implemented consistently).
- Establish a social media presence: create twitter, facebook and friendfeed accounts. Your Twitter status can be automatically updated every time a new article or comment is added. Social media sites such as these can be an important source of traffic.
- Include plugins such as Tweetmeme for Wordpress and Twitterlution for b2evolution. These will automatically update your twitter status.
Useful Wordpress SEO plugins:
- All in One SEO Pack - complete optimization package
- Meta Robots WordPress plugin – Adds meta tags automatically to posts
- Aizatto’s Related Posts – Adds related post information to posts and feeds
- SEO Title Tag – Don’t need all the power of Headspace try SEO title tag
- SEO Slugs – keeps slugs from becoming too long
- FeedBurner FeedSmith – Makes integrating with feedburner easy
- Feed Footer – Adds advertising, copyright or other custom messages into feeds
- Flickr Photo Album – Integrate your flickr photo’s, albums, sets, and groups into your website
- flickrRSS for WordPress – add photos from any flickr RSS feed into your website
Useful b2evolution SEO plugins:
- Advanced Google Sitemap for b2evolution
(Helps your blog to be better indexed on Google) - SEO Keywords & Description Hack
(makes possible post-specific (X)HTML page description and keywords lists. If no post-specific information is given, the default blog-specific information is used instead)
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