SOB Business Cafe 08-04-2006

August 4, 2006 by Liz

Welcome to the SOB Cafe

We offer the best in thinking–articles on the business of blogging written by the Successful and Outstanding Bloggers of Successful Blog. Click on the title shots to enjoy each selection.

The Specials this Week are

Darren Rowse offers an interview with Dave Sifry on Blogging Popularity.

Mike Sansone considers whether blogging can be called a conversation . .. really.

Christine Kane lays out 7 great reasons why you should forget about email until after noon.

Scot Herrick has a fabulous read on creativity and innovation as a strategy in today’s Cubicle Nation.

Ann Michael has Google’s number laid out in keywords.

Related ala carte selections include

Minic Rivera has some Blogging Times News for Artists.

Please know that I include this last because everyone should see Susan Reynold’s wonderful art. Do click on it to see it full size. The image is amazing.

Sit back. Enjoy your read. Nachos and drinks will be right over. Stay as long as you like.
No tips required. Comments appreciated.

Have a great weekend!

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Blogspot Blogs — If You Can’t See Yours

May 9, 2006 by Liz

With a Little Help from Our Friends

Thanks to Joe at Working at Home on the Internet, here’s what to do

If your page cannot be accessed by readers, you must go into Blogger and publish a post. Then republish your whole blog for it to take.

I know, because I just went through it with my Blogs on Blogger.

Thought you might like to know.

Joe

Thanks Joe!

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Link Love Raises Your Property Value

April 19, 2006 by Liz

Springtime Link Love

It’s spring and a young person’s fancy turns to thoughts of . . . blogging. That’s why you’re here, isn’t it? The blogging version of spring would have to be link love. Ah link love . . . that warm, sweet connected feeling that you get when you click back to Technorati and see that incoming link that means someone loves YOU.

Well, wait a minute. For link love to be coming in, someone had to be sending it out. What is the advantage in doing THAT? Actually, if you know your SEO, there are some advantages to outlinking. [Read more…]

Thinking Inside-Outside the SEO Sandbox

April 11, 2006 by Liz

Learning by Getting It Wrong

Remember your first web site or blog? You had to learn so much about coding and Search Engine Optimization. Bet you learned most of what you know now by doing–OJT, On the Job Training, otherwise known as getting it wrong and fixing it. Those were valuable experiences.

The thing about learning by getting it wrong is that you remember what you did. Tweaking a template and having your sidebar fall off is WAY more powerful than anyone telling you how not to code something.

As much as I wish that WordPress had an undo button, I know I’ve learned more because it doesn’t.

Think like a Search Engine

SEO folks think like Search Engines. They buy and read Aaron Wall’s SEO Book and its updates. They follow and discuss Matt Cutt’s blog, and the Google Blog–probably not this one, the Google Blog, but this one Google Research Blog–or maybe all of them. They check in at Yahoo’s Search Blog, MSN Search, and with other SEO hangouts, such as Search Engine Watch, Search Engine Round Table, and Threadwatch. So I do some of that–the first half at least.

But reading doesn’t help me half as much as doing does.

Thinking Inside-Outside the SEO Box

I’ve been searching out experiences to help me think like a search engine. I use my stats to watch how search engines route traffic to my blogs. Sometimes they hit right on the page that has the content being searched for. That’s not interesting. I expect that. They’ve invested powerful resources into research in doing that right.

Sometimes they hit right next to where they should. THAT I find puzzling and intriguing, especially when the page in question is tagged with the exact search term that was entered.

It happened again this morning. Someone searched for “nextsplogs.” The searcher was sent to the home page of Successful Blog rather than to the page called SOB Business Cafe 04-07-2006, where Nextsplogs actually appears twice–in the text and as a tag. Is it because the term is singular in one and capitalized in the other? Hmmmm. I wonder.

I don’t like things I don’t understand, and I want to understand this.

I’ve learned a lot from watching my stats, but this kind of thing my stats can’t help me crack.

Build Your Own Search Engine

Just when I was about to give up on my chance of knowing, along came this post from the MSN search weblog, Build Your Own Search Engine. I thought, here’s a way to learn by doing. It’s not an actual full-blown search engine–it’s search engine macros–and it’s an early BETA version. That suits me just fine, though. It gets my brain and hands in the process and I can even watch how the parameters have to be tweaked to work right. Just reading the comments about it, I can feel myself getting smarter.

Go on over. Take a look. It’s an inside-outside the box way to learn SEO.

–ME “Liz” Strauss
MSN and Microsoft Joint Research Venture
SEO The Secret Life of Search Engines
Check Google Backlinks Through Yahoo
SEOÃ¢â¬âThe Value of Outlinks to MY Blog

Great Find: 10 Reasons to Love Google Desktop

April 11, 2006 by Liz

Keith Dsouza and I shared some email this week about using Google Desktop. He’s an all-out customer evangelist, and he can give you 10 reasons why you should love it too.

Great Find: Top 10 reasons why you should love google desktop
Type of Article: Product Review
Permalink: http://www.keithdsouza.com/google-news/google/top-10-reasons-why-you-should-love-google-desktop.html
Target Audience: All internet users

Content: In this article, Keith Dsouza outlines 10 of his favorite reasons for using Google Desktop. I say favorite, because his writing is filled with such enthusiasm, I have no doubt that he could give you another ten, if you asked him. He also lets us in on a secret that–he’s developing a new plugin for it. Keith uses several plugins already–for Sidebar, Scratchpad, and Del.icio.us. He also uses a filter to keep his RSS feeds right there. If you’re thinking of using Google Desktop, Keith is the fellow you want to know. Click the screenshot to read about what he’s been doing with it. I’m sure that he’d help you, if you want to do some of the same things.

Thanks, Keith.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Before You Publish–Check for Spiders and Opportunities

March 9, 2006 by Liz

Before you hit that PUBLISH button . . .

Publishing occurs whenever an author shares a work with an audience. An email memo, a note that says where you are going, a paper you wrote for a class in Econometrics, these are all forms of publishing.

–ME Strauss

Reading for Spiders

Publishing for the web has two audiences–people and search engine spiders. The first time I read my work over, I read it for people. I checked for errors that get between my readers and the message. I also had my proofreader check it to catch what my dyslexia missed. Yesterday, she caught quite bit.

Then I go over it a second time quickly for my second audience–search engine spiders–to make sure the spiders don’t trip and have plenty to eat.

Making Sure the Investment Pays Off

Prorating the time that I spent gathering ideas, I’ve probably spent 60-90 minutes on this one post. Time is money, and I think of that time spent as an investment. Now is when I make sure that investment pays off. I’ve made a short Pre-Flight Publishing list that I run down, before I pass say, “Go.”

Is the content keyword rich? By waiting to read for keywords until after all other checks, I make sure that I don’t forfeit quality to pray at the altar of SEO. Now, I can look for keywords my readers might search for and make sure that they find the relevant content that I have to offer. I won’t be reaching, and they won’t be disappointed. Current relationships will stay strong, and new readers will be pleased with what they encounter here.
What tags might I add that belong with this post? Tags can help search engine spiders properly index my post. Post tags are definitely blog, brand, and business promotion. If your blogging software doesn’t easily allow you to tag your posts, there are plug-ins and hacks for every platform out there.
What related articles do I have that readers might be interested in reading? Offering related articles for readers to go to when they finished your post, gives people more information about a subject they’ve already shown interest in. It also gets readers more involved with you, your blog, your business, and your brand. The intra-link that you make at the end of your post shows people how your content relates and is relevant throughout your blog–this helps search engines index it as well.
Are there opportunities for trackbacks? If you’ve mentioned another blogger’s work or if what you’ve said meshes beautifully with the conversation on another blog, send a trackback to let that blogger know.
Is this that one-in-a-million post that I should self-promote to other blogs? If you’ve written the post that reveals the nature of how to get “Google Goodness” from every post, carefully write a brief introduction of yourself and your post to a select few bloggers you wish to share it with. Do be sure it’s a one-in-a-million post, and do explain your reasons for thinking it’s a match with their blogs. If you don’t read a blog, don’t send a link. Period. Either way, it’s a long shot that a post really is the one-in-a-million post that we think it is.

Those are just a few ways I try to diversify and grow my investment. I like to make sure the time I spend continues to pay off, compounding interest well into the future.

You probably have other ways that you build promotion into the posts you write. Will you take a minute to share one with us?

–ME “Liz” Strauss

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