Archive for August, 2009

I felt I needed to share a recent article I read on Line 25, which is a website about web design. The article listed the 20 most common used plugins for Word Press. It is a good list, many of which are in use in my own blog.

• When it comes to getting found on Google, on of the most important steps that hasn’t yet been covered in the series Getting Found On Google is submitting a site map to Google.

• In order for Google to know your blog is up and ready for business, you must invite the spiders to “crawl on by” by submitting a site map. Your site map tells Google what pages are on your site and gives the spiders a “map” of where to crawl. A site map also helps the spiders crawl your site fast, fast is important!

• I personally use Google XML Sitemap. I found it easy to install and set up, and I like it because it is automated. This handy little “widget” keeps Google updated on new posts, pages, etc. This site was being indexed on Google in just a week after submitting my site map via the plugin Google XML. Though your site may not be “ranking”, you can find out if Google even knows your site/blog exists by typing your blog URL blog address in the Google search bar.

• The Contact Form 7 plugin is also a great tool I have implemented on my own site so I can easily be contacted or asked questions on blogging, search engines, Google, etc. I found it very easy to add in to the site.

• Adding a plugin for people to bookmark your articles on sites like “Delicious”, share them via email or “digg” them on the “Digg” social network is very important. Adding this sort of plugin to your blog site will help spread the word. It is really important to getting found on Google because it creates links in to your site.

• These are just a few on this great list of 20 I have tried myself and encourage you to check out the list. It is a great list and any of these plugin’s can be installed right from the “Add New” menu item under the Appearance section of your side menu. See below for the images to guide you.

Happy Blogging – Nadine Blogs!

First of all, what the heck is #followfriday?  Follow Friday is when you help other people on Twitter find interesting people to follow. The # makes it searchable in Twitter Search.

If you watch the trending topics, which you should, you will notice every Friday includes #followfriday.

This is how to participate.

In your post include #followfriday to suggest people to follow on Twitter. You would suggest other people you find interesting to help others find them too!  Add “#followfriday” anywhere in the Tweet so it is searchable. The “#” is very important – don’t forget it!  Learn about twitter lingo here.

Here is an example and you should feel free to copy ad paste this in to your post.

#followfriday I find the tweets from @nadineblogs interesting.

you can also list several people you find interesting by placing @ in front of their user name in to one post AND including #followfriday anywhere in the post.

You can find Follow Friday suggestion on Twitter Search or by clicking on #followfriday in the trending topics on the right side of your home page.

Have fun!

The much awaited Gravity Forms is available for Word Press and allows you to create forms for your Word Press site in an easy and simple way. Finding tools that help you to manage your data is helpful to the growth of your business. I have a form tool much like this for the PrinterBees printing website and have found it to be invaluable to collecting information and important data for people who have visited the site. I have listed the features below from the companies website. Click here to visit the rocketgenius website to order! The program is only $39 for a single site.

Click here to visit rocketgenius website!

“Gravity Forms Plugin for WordPress”

Lesson Six:

Naming your pages:   How you choose to name your HTML web page files and blog posts is very important. Every clue you can offer Google helps “your cause”. For your Word Press blog, make sure take advantage of your ability to use the “permalink” editing option, right below where you title your article to make sure it matches your content OR gives Google the proper hints about what you website or blog is.

For your HTML pages, use all lower case letters to name your pages AND used a “-” between any words.

Example using Keller Williams Business Cards.html, should be named keller-Williams-business-cards.html. When you have spaces instead of dashes in-between any file name that has multiple words, each space will become a % on the Internet. Examples would be Keller Williams Business Cards.html would become Keller%Williams%Business%Cards.html. It’s not clean and it doesn’t help your cause.

I have had make many repairs to the names of my own files from making this mistake many times. Remember, always in lower case AND no spaces in your files name, always dashes.   Same goes for naming your images or anything else which will find its way to the Internet on your website.

Lesson seven:

Proper tagging: When creating your website or blog, it is important to have proper “title tags”, .“meta description tags”, “meta key word tags”, and  “Robot. Tags”.  I know it sounds overwhelming, but with blogging it is super easy and very helpful if you wish to rank.  Again, it gives Google the clues it needs to know where to “index” you.

This is what they all mean:

“Title Tags” – The title of the page within the site or blog. Make your title tags relative using the information above.  It is also what shows up as the title of your page or site on the search engine listing. While putting your company name may seem important, you may consider leaving it out if it won’t encourage someone to “click”.

“meta description tag” - This is a SHORT, did I mention “short” description of what the web page is about and should include your keywords. If you make your description too long, it could end up counting against you (I will explain this part in future lesions), so use your words wisely and this can end up being the description that shows under the page title in the Google search results so it should also be a good “heading” that captures the persons attention who is reading it when they find your site in the Google Index. Also, make sure it includes your most important keywords.

“meta key words tags” - this is a list of words that best describe the subject of your website to the search engine. The list should not be too long. Did you hear me???  The list should NOT include too many words.  Keep your code clean and precise, it works in your favor.

“Robot tags” - Your robot tags tell the search engine if the search engine spiders should crawl the page or NOT crawl a particular page. You are probably asking yourself why you would have Google NOT crawl one of your pages. Well, the answer is simple, the fast Google can crawl your site, the relevant pages of your site, the better. There is no reason to have Google “follow” your companies “Contact Us” page for instance. That particular page most likely has nothing on it that will improve your chance with Google, so why have the spiders crawl that page. You want them in and out as past as possible. To have the spiders crawl the page, use the word “follow”, to keep the spiders from crawling a page, use the tag “no follow”.   You will see this option in Word Press, for HTML pages, you need to manually add them in.

Don’t hide content from your visitors

I love visiting the sites of other bloggers who really offer great content and sometimes what I read, really sticks with me in a way that I want to return again and again to re-read it.   I may mention it to other people in conversation, retweet it, or simply want to refer back to it because it was a great lesson!

One of my favorite bloggers, who shall remain nameless, because he really is a GREAT blogger who offers great content.   I visit his blog daily to see what other little tid bits of information he has for me today in the world of blogging.  His tid bits are “gold nuggets” and I so appreciate them.

I recently read a post on his blog about the importance of your headline.  He mentioned in his post that the heading of your post is as important than the blog itself. So important that you should invest as much time in the heading as in the blog post itself.

He also offered GREAT tips on what a good heading includes, buzz words that are important, etc.  I was having a conversation with a friend regarding some issues she was having getting people to open her email blasts and I thought about this post!  This post included just what she needed to improve her open rate!

I have since then, visited this blog no less than 6 times to try and find this “golden post”, but can’t find it because he has no “search box” on his blog that I can find.  He offers related articles, which I was fortunate to read while “hunting” for the one article I really wanted, but after six visits…still can’t find that one post! Gosh Darnit!

Lesson Learned – MAKE SURE YOUR BLOG HAS A SEARCH on it, so people who return and want to find a past article CAN find it.  It is the simple things that we often forget.

Happy blogging.  And…because what this particular blogger talked about, read this article about writing headlines and good “copy”.

After reading The Everything Guide To Writing Copy I have a whole new respect and much more insight to what it takes to write well.  How to write a headline that gets a potential readers attention and much more!   These books have simple and easy to follow tricks and tips  that will bring your posts to life!
Being a successful blogger requires writing good copy.  Copy-writing isn’t just about writing, it IS about writing material that SELLS and meets the need of the reader.  If your intention is to make money with your blog, writing good copy is essential.   Books like these, not only teach you about writing great copy, they teach you the essentials of how to write a great heading.  The Copywriter’s Handbook is a highly recommended book by many top bloggers like CopyBlogger!

Having a great heading is imperative to people reading the first sentence of your blog.  Having a great first sentence is the leads the reader to the second sentence and so on.

When you read the free report “profitable blogging”, I mentioned the need to write well.  These books will help you learn how to write better, EVEN IF you can write.

A book like will help you get your thoughts organized, how to present them and how to get people to actually read them with a great heading.

On Sale Now At Amazon For Only 2!2

Click here if you missed part 1 or part 2 of this series.  The information contained in part 1 and part 2.

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Getting  Indexed on Google Lesson Four:

Use the social media networks like YouTube, FaceBook and Twitter to name a few.  When we added the Mona.vie and Herbalife business cards to our product line, we created a web-page as well as individual blog posts for each product and a YouTube video.

The video was a simple slide show created using Picasa (a free Google photo organizing and editing product).  We announced the  new product lines, embedded the YouTube videos in to the blog posts as well as the new pages we created.   We were ranking on page one within a few days!

You will want to create your own YouTube channel and make sure to name your videos according to the key words you want to be found on.  I encourage you do to “podcasts” and post them on YouTube to create links to your site.  A great product for doing video pod casting is the “flip” hi definition digital video recorder.  It is about the size of a deck of cards, does great videos and comes with software that allows you to upload straight to YouTube.  What could be easier.

Using the social media networks creates links to your site.  An example of some of the social networks which should be on your radar are listed below this article.  Clicking on them will also allow you to bookmark this article which will help other people find it.

Getting  Indexed on Google Lesson Five:

Mixed media – What the heck is “mixed media“?  Mixed media is the use of text, images, video and sound and your blog.  Your blog is the perfect place for mixed media type content.

One of the most important things to remember with your images or anything media related is to NAME THEM PROPERLY.  This is so important, so I will say it again…NAME YOUR MEDIA FILES PROPERLY.

You are probably asking…how do I name them properly?  First let’s examine what NOT to do.  If the images in your website have names like “banner1.jpg” how does this help Google know what your website is about? Files not named properly tell Google a whole lot of nothing!

What if you named your images like we do on Printerbees.  On our “business card printing page”, the images have names like “business-card-printing.jpg” or “color-business-card-printing.jpg”.  When Google comes across these images, what do the file names tell Google about our website? It helps Google to know we are in the business card printing business.

One of the simple things often forgotten and overlooked is the use of “alternative text” also knows as “alt tags”, these tags that are always an option when you add in an image to your website or blog.  The “alt text” tags help people who are reading websites without downloading graphic images like on cell phones or don‘t automatically download images know what the images are.  Using alt tags also gives Google one more clue of where to index your site!  Every clue  you give Google helps your cause.

Happy Blogging and I encourage your questions, so that I can answer them not only for you, but for other people who may have similar questions they want answered.  Email your questions to nadine@nadineblogs.com

I have talked about “mixed” media being very important to the success of your blog and adding video to your blog being part of that “mixed media”. The Flip Mino camcorder combines remarkable video quality in a pocket-sized package that’s designable. Free Shipping Order Here!

I can personally attest to video camera The Flip being one of the greatest little gadgets for adding video to your site.  It is the size of a deck of cards, weighs next to nothing, it is SUPER easy to use, records in high definition, and loading the recorded video to your site could not at all be easier.  You “flip” out the USB plug, plug it in to your USB port and start importing!

Videos can be imported on any computer because the software you need to import is IN the video camera! And…one of the best parts, you can upload straight to YouTube once you import if you have no edits to the video!

The software it comes with the camera includes editing tools that allow you to cut out parts of your video you dont want included as well as combining your videos in to  one video if you record in a few different sessions.  I have been very pleased with my purchase and always have a quality video camera on hand for recording whatever comes up because it is so small and light.  “The Flip” video camera is a great addition to your bag of tricks to including mixed media on your blog and allowing people to get to know you alot better by recording yourself and adding it to your blogs.  People will keep coming back to your blog when they really feel they can connect with you.  Happy blogging and get yourself “A Flip”!  , it is currently on special and the model pictured is just over $100.  When you read the reviews, which there are currently 62 of, 49 people of the 62 gave this product FIVE STARS!

There is more than one model available, so make sure you check out the different models before you decide which one is the best for you. The Flip Mino camcorder combines remarkable video quality in a pocket-sized package that’s designable. Free Shipping Order Here!
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When you are new to Twitter, some of the “twitter lingo” may be a bit confusing and hard to keep up with.  Here are some quick tips on “twitter lingo” to help you out.

• @username + your message – directs your tweet to that person and also shows in their “replies” tab.
  Example: @Printerbees – Thanks for the printing coupon!

• D username + your message – a “direct tweet” that sends the  person a private message that does not show in the public time line.
  Example:  @RyanSecrest – what do you think about Paula possibly not returning to American Idol?
• RT @+username – “retweet”, if someone posts something you like and want to share with the people who are following you, give credit to the person to posted it by putting a RT (retweet) before the @username.
  Example: RT@Pdiddy “The future belongs to those who prepare for it TODAY!!!” -Malcolm X… A little inspiration for everyone’s Friday!!!

• #followfriday – Follow friday is the day when you recommenced other people on Twitter to your followers.  If you think the people who are following you will like someone you are following recommend them on “Follow Fridays”
  Example: @nadinebogs #followfriday  or I recommend @nadinebogs because I like her updates #followfriday , you can also add several users in one tweet or when you “ReTweet” something.
  
• #topic  “hashtags” -  This is a way to “tag” your twitter update on a specific subject.  Makes it easier for followers and non followers to search it on the Twitter home page or in the trending topics area.
• Nudge username – haven’t heard from one of your friends in a while…nudge them by typing nudge username
  Example:  nudge Oprah

Lesson one:

GET A BLOG!!! I know I sound like a broken record if you have read my free report on “Profitable Blogging“, but I wouldn’t keep mentioning it if it weren’t so important.

If you haven’t read the free report (no strings attached!),  you must read the report, it includes greater detail about why blogging is imperative to your success with ranking on Google.  Make sure when you get your blog, to use your own domain name and to do the hosting through HostGators so you can take advantage of the tutorials on setting up your word press blog step-by-step.  They have a super user friendly interface and you will be glad you chose them.

Lesson Two:

Blog!  Your blog will do you absolutely no good, if you don’t actually blog on it.  If you don’t feel it is something you can keep up with, hire someone to blog for you.  Blogging is really what will help your rankings and is the fastest and easiest way to accomplish “getting found on Google”.  One of the things that Google “spiders’’ look for as they crawl the Internet is new/fresh content.
Blogging = new and fresh that is also the most current.

Lesson Three:

When you blog, make sure that you use the keywords you wish to rank for in your blog AND that they link either to a page on your blog/website or to another blog post to create internal links in your website.  This is also called “deep linking”
Let me give you an example:

In the PrinterBees blog, when you see posts for Keller Williams Business cards and the words Keller Williams business cards in the blog post, those words link directly to the Keller Williams business card page on our website.  If you think of Google like the largest librarian on the planet and this librarian is in charge of making sure things are organized properly in this huge library, The Internet.  This link to your main web pages will hold more weight because the key word is in the link. In this blog post, I have created three “key word links” to the PrinterBees, Keller Williams business card page that ARE MY KEYWORD.  When Google crawls this page AND finds these links which include my keywords, it is another hint about where to index the site and it’s relevance to the person who has typed in “Keller Williams Business Cards”.  At the time of this post, PrinterBees is listed on page 1 in the number 8 position.

This is a lot to work on and take in, there are more lessons coming on the simple things you can do to improve your rankings.  Stay tuned, visit frequently or subscribe to the RSS to make sure you catch the next lesson.