To find information they’re interested in, people enter keywords and keyword phrases into search engine query fields. The search engine returns relevant results and ranks them for users to scroll through and select results that appeal to them. Most people don’t look beyond the first few pages of search results, which typically place ten results [...]
The vast majority of search engine-related blog traffic comes from Google and Yahoo! followed by MSN, AOL, and Ask. Google and Yahoo control more than 50 percent of the online search market, so it’s safe to say that in the beginning stages of your SEO efforts, focusing on those two search engines is a less [...]
Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of creating or modifying your Web pages to increase their rankings in search engine queries. You might think of it this way: If you write a blog about search engine optimization, for example, would people find your blog if they type the word search engine optimization into their [...]
To join Plurk, simply visit the Plurk home page and click the Sign Up for Free button, shown in the figure below. Complete the online signup form, and you’re ready to go! Share and Enjoy:
You can join Twitter by visiting its home page and clicking the Get Started — Join button, shown below. Complete the online form to create a free Twitter account and then you can start “tweeting!” Microblogging, a relatively new tool of the social Web, allows users to publish short blog posts or messages, typically fewer [...]
Delicious is a popular social bookmarking site that works slightly differently from Digg and StumbleUpon. Rather than submissions being based on topics and categories, they’re based on keyword tags. The power of Delicious, therefore, in terms of driving traffic to your blog, comes from the quality of the keywords chosen to tag your content. Similar [...]
StumbleUpon is another popular social bookmarking site where users submit (or “stumble”) and share links to content they like. The site uses a voting system that’s fairly similar to the one at Digg. Users stumble content, and other users vote on the content, giving it a thumbs-up or a thumbs-down. Content that receives a lot [...]
Digg is one of the most popular social bookmarking sites. In fact, it’s viewed more as a social news site because its primary purpose is to share links to content more so than to bookmark content for personal use. Users submit content (or “digg” content) by entering the URL, description, and title for the specific [...]
LinkedIn has a reputation of being the go-to place for business and careerrelated social networking. It has a stripped-down interface that’s intended to be free of spam and irrelevant content. Rather than add “friends,” LinkedIn users make connections. Similar to Facebook, you cannot view another member’s profile unless you have been introduced to that person [...]
When you’re looking at sites specifically designed for social networking, remember that Facebook is one of the most popular options. Facebook is different from MySpace in that you can view complete profiles of only the people who are in your network, which means that Facebook is better for targeted networking and protected from spam. Although [...]
In terms of organized social networking, MySpace can be considered a viable option. If the truth is told, however, MySpace is more than a social networking tool because it provides far more options than social networking functionality, such as the ability to create individual blogs. It also allows anyone to create a MySpace page for [...]
Visit the MSN Live Search submission page, shown in the figure below . Simply type into the appropriate box the spam-blocker text that’s displayed, and enter your blog’s URL in the text box. Click the Submit URL button and you’re done. Submitting your blog to Technorati, a blog search engine, is a multistep process. First, [...]
The first thing visitors to your blog will notice about your blog posts are the titles of those posts. With that in mind, you should consider a few issues as you compose the title for each of your posts. Write titles that ✓ Arouse your readers’ curiosity: Just like an advertising headline, your post title [...]
