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With the roll out of the new Google +1 share button, chances are you will want to add this snazzy button to help optimize your website or blog. Installing the Google +1 share button is very simple.

Place this tag in your head or just before your close body tag:

<script type=”text/javascript” src=”https://apis.google.com/js/plusone.js“></script>

Place this tag where you want the +1 button to render:

<g:plusone></g:plusone>

The button should look something like this on your website.

You can go here to create a custom +1 button and/or access some very helpful Google +1 button FAQs.

SEO Checklist for New Blog Posts

posted by Caitlin Kaluza
Wednesday, May 18, 2011

 

So you got yourself a fancy new blog!

Blogging TshirtYou’ve meticulously narrowed down the categories, trained your authors, and chosen the perfect layout. Your content is going to be dynamic and exciting, you’ll show off your expertise over your competitors and throw in fun videos… But what about SEO?

A Blog can be a great way to bring in traffic, especially from people who are searching the web for specific How Tos, Demos, and other FAQs in your industry or specialty set. Blogs show off company culture, position you as an expert, and drive people back to your corporate site. And to be sure you are bringing in the most new readers as possible, Optimize each and every post that gets published so your content makes the Search Engines happy as well.

Whether you have a personal or corporate blog, here are SEO Recommendations to take into account for Search Engine Optimization whenever you post a blog post:

General SEO Recommendations for Blogging

  1. Post Content Regularly – Content is King
    • The Number 1 thing you can do to Optimize your site is add fresh quality content
    • Google determines how often to come back and crawl the site based on the pace of new content on the site
    • Tip: If you write several posts at once, leave them unpublished and publish them once a week so every time Google (and visitors) come back, there is new content
  2. Use relevant keywords when possible without stuffing. Make sure posts are readable for visitors.
  3. Take advantage of targeted location searches – Add geography when applicable. When discussing your location, refer to it as your “Houston Texas Headquarters” instead of just Headquarters
  4. Avoid duplicate content – Google works to index sites with unique content and attempts to filter out duplicate, so keep your content unique
  5. Remember that Google is deaf & blind – add descriptions on photos and videos, use alt text on photos
  6. Cross Link to other parts of the site whenever possible – you don’t want Google (or visitors) to get “stuck” and not have anywhere else to go next

Checklist When Adding New Blog Content

  1. Page Title – make the title of the post SEO friendly (don’t rely on clever but non-descriptive titles)
  2. Meta Tags – Add Description & Keywords
  3. Use Headings
    • The formats for Heading 1, Heading 2, Heading 4, etc. give Google an idea of the structure of your content (like an outline)
    • Also, words in these Headings get more weight than words in paragraphs on the page (these are sometime referred to as “fancy hits”)
    • There should only be one Heading 1 for each page and the title of the page will automatically be coded as the H1, so start with Heading 2 in your text
  4. Add Alt Tags for all Images – put copy in both Title and Alternate Text
  5. Add Cross Links to other pages on your site when possible
    • Look in the text and determine where you can cross link to other parts of the site
    • Be sure to link keywords (not “click here”) – what words are linked tell Google what the page is about. For instance, link “Contact our Web Design experts today” instead of “Click here to Contact Us”
  6. Encourage Feedback
    • A great way to increase comments is to ask a question at the end of the post, the simpler the better
    • Another option is to embed a poll from a site like http://polldaddy.com to get immediate feedback from your readers
  7. Share your posts
    • Google and Bing are incorporating Social Signals into SEO, so a link gets at least a small boost if it’s been Tweeted and Shared
    • Don’t be afraid to Tweet your posts twice – at two different times of the day, at least one day apart. The first can be the title of the post and the second should be an interesting fact or quote from the post (use the same bit.ly link to track clicks)

The bottom line is: post interesting content – this will generate readers and links to your blog. And have fun! Readers enjoy a human voice, especially if you are writing for a Corporate Blog and want to show off the brand persona of your company.

Anything I left out? Let us know in the comments! Happy Blogging!

Photo thanks to Flickr user avatar-1

Search Engine Marketing Expo at SMX West included tactical sessions in addition to strategy. One of the tools presentations included a focus on WordPress plug-ins available to help manage Search Engine Optimization of blogs. There are lots of tools, these are some of the most important in getting started.

All in One SEO Pack – This is the must have plug-in for your WordPress Blog. It allows you to:

    Customize title tags, meta description tags, keyword meta tags
    Automatically generates meta descriptions from excerpts or first paragraph
    of your post.
    Allows you to have tags become your keyword meta data as well.
    Allows you to have tags become your keyword meta data as well.
    Solves duplicate content issues.

A couple other plug-ins that will help make WordPress a bit more SEO friendly:

Headspacehttp://urbangiraffe.com/plugins/headspace2/

SEO Title Taghttp://www.netconcepts.com/seo-title-tag-plugin/

Dofollowwww.semiologic.com/software/wp-tweaks/dofollow/
Allows you to remove “evil nofollow attribute” from your comments. Just plug n’ play.

ShareThishttp://sharethis.com/
A plug-in that will display a “Share This” button at end of your post which allows your
visitors to easily share a post/page with others. Plug-in supports both e-mail and
posting to social bookmarking sites. Just plug n’ play.

Twitter Toolshttp://alexking.org/projects/wordpress
Integrates your WordPress blog and Twitter account. Bring your tweets into your blog and pass your blog posts to Twitter. Enter twitter user name and password and select options.

Subscribe To Commentshttp://txfx.net/code/wordpress/subscribe-to-comments/ Allows readers to receive notifications of new comments that are posted to an entry.

Math Comment Spam Protection -
http://sw-guide.de/wordpress/plugins/math-comment-spam-protection/ This plugin asks the visitor making the comment to answer a simple math question. This is intended to prove that the visitor is a human being and not a spam robot. Does require adding code to comments.php file.

This set of tools was presented by David Wallace of
SearchRank

Jonti Bolles

For more information please contact the Search Engine Marketing Team at Schipul – sem@schipul.com

If you need help in starting your blog, the teams at Houston Web Design teams at Schipul will help create your blog site with the correct plug-ins and tools to manage your presence.

Blogging: How to Get Started – The Schipul Way

posted by Jason McElweenie
Wednesday, November 19, 2008

BlogGangSign Ok, so we’ve all been there; stuck in lines at the grocery store, standing by the water cooler, talking to our Grandparents. Every thing is fine and dandy one moment and then your confidence sinks: Grandma mentions her blog and asks if you have one too. I don’t know how many times it’s happened to me. No one likes getting schooled by Grandma so Schipul to the rescue!

Schipul Blog Design and Hosting

We have started offering Blog design and hosting to help you get your feet on the ground. It’s fast and easy to do and you get the same great Schipul service and expertise. Plus you can become the beacon of information that may one day take down a respected journalist.*

Don’t believe me? Check out the Schipul Blog for more info

“71 percent of all journalists get stories from bloggers,” said Dallas Lawrence at the Central Michigan PRSA Social Media event on November 14th.

Hold the presses! If your voice is worthy of making headlines, why isn’t Schipul helping you make your voice heard?

Now I know blogging does sound a bit dirty to the untrained but the power of it in terms of SEO is really amazing. Some of our clients blogs generate the most referral traffic to their regular site than search engines.

So think of your blog as a door to door salesperson only without the overcoat and jaded disposition.

We do provide Blog training as well, in fact we had one today. Were you here? If not you can read about here on the Schipul Blog

So remember, don’t let Granny school you in the ways of the blog and once you have your blog up and running maybe you can try your hand at a mashup challenge with Granny Teller below;

Granny Teller Mashin it Up

 

*Ok we are totally kidding about that part

 

Jason McElweenie

For more information please contact the Search Engine Marketing Team at Schipul – sem@schipul.com