Q and A: Can I bug you with my personal problems?

Dear Kalena...

i like this boy at school but he is older than me (i'm 15) and sometimes he drives me home in his car. I dont wanna tell my friends because im worried that my parents will find out and tell his parents and i wont get to see him anymore. i really like him!!!!!!!! im worried coz my schoolwork is not so good coz spending all time with him and skipping homework and now my teachers are going to tell my parents. what should i do?

Becky

Kalena's Answer:

Dear Becky

There's something you must do immediately. It's very important. Scroll up to the top of this page and read what it says directly under "Ask Kalena".


That's right. It says:

"Your daily SEARCH ENGINE advice column"

Got it? Now take out a notebook and write out 200 times:

"I MUST NOT EMAIL KALENA WITH MY PETTY PERSONAL PROBLEMS. SHE ONLY GIVES ADVICE" ABOUT SEARCH ENGINES"

Ok, I feel better now.


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What I'm Learning from "Do It Wrong Quickly"

A couple of weeks ago, IBM Press sent me a copy of Mike Moran's latest book Do it Wrong Quickly - How the Web Changes the Old Marketing Rules. I'm only a third of the way into it but it's really a fascinating read so far. What I long ago suspected is now true: online marketing is turning traditional marketing concepts upside down and inside out. I'm learning some new jargon along the way too. For example:

Flogs - these are blogs set up secretly by businesses for the specific purpose of criticizing their competitors or to promote their products or services while appearing impartial. Famous brands caught out flogging include Wal-Mart and Sony. Wal-Mart's "flog" involved a blog supposedly written by a couple traveling America in their recreational vehicle and camping overnight in Wal-Mart parking lots. It turned out to be a publicity stunt engineered by Wal-Mart's PR company Edelman. The blog was staged, the travelers were a Washington Post reporter and freelance writer and the entire trip was sponsored by Working Families for Wal-Mart, something not disclosed on the web site. The flog was exposed to huge outcry late last year and is a prime example of how web marketing can backfire very, very quickly. Fascinating stuff!

I'll feed you some more tidbits from Mike's book as I wade through it.

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SiteProNews: History of the Blog

I'm totally trashed tonight - it's been a series of 9am-1am days in preparation for our launch of Search Engine Wiki. Add to that 30 laps in the pool today and I'm really feeling it. So please forgive me for a lazy blog post tonight!

Please enjoy a post I made a couple of days ago on SiteProNews about the History of the Blog. Catchya tomorrow!


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Stanford Startup Lets You Surf Blogs Geographically

I received an email today from Clayton Brown, Stanford MBA graduate for 2007 and CEO of a recently launched startup for bloggers called Verve Earth. He invited me to check out the site and spread the word if I liked it.

Similar to Google Maps, Verve plots the content of the Internet on an interactive map of the world to enable people to surf the net via a geographic interface rather than via traditional links.

Some of the things you can do on Verve include:

• Create your personalized "Internet world" of content by adding favorites
• Create a blog profile for your geographic region
  
• Subscribe to the content that is important to you; cut out the rest
• Surf the net geographically, check out what's hot in your city and the world
• Share cool content with friends

Destinations are available for a range of topics - everything from mainstream websites (e.g. YouTube), cities and countries, universities, newspapers, sports teams and famous people.


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Blogger Woes May Prompt Mass Exodus

I have been having publishing problems with Blogger for about a week now, with the last 48 hours being the worst. I have no idea if my posts are going to publish or not and when the Dashboard shows them as published, I can't see them live anyway. Very frustrating!

Judging by the number of persons complaining in the Blogger Help Group, I'm not alone. Yet responses and updates from Blogger employees are noticeably absent. I've been planning to migrate this blog to WordPress for some months but this has given me the kick up the backside I've needed to fast-track the migration. I'm guessing that many others will follow suit before long!

UPDATE: Blogger has finally publicly acknowledged the problem and is apparently working on a fix.

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12 Breeds of Client and How to Work With Them

A terrific and amusing article was published recently on Freelance Switch, a community blog for freelancers: 12 Breeds of Client and How to Work With Them.

As a freelancer myself, I find myself nodding in agreement and laughing out loud at some of the client descriptions. Here's an extract:

"The Get-A-Good-Deal-Client:

Unethical get-a-good-deal clients are usually up for 'no harm trying' mentality that can see them trying to get out of paying for certain things, or at their worst, bullying you for more work or discounts...

The Low-Tech Client

The low-tech client looks confused and disoriented when discussing anything high-tech, calls rather than emails, wants everything to be faxed... The low-tech client will need to be hand-held through everything from setting up their email to opening up PDFs. Charge accordingly."

So true. And isn't it a snazzy blog design? I'm quite jealous. Thanks to Sophie for bringing this great site to my attention.


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Beginner's Blogging Resources

I've been collecting useful articles and blog posts for some months with the idea of putting together a beginner's guide to blogging. But I wanted to share with you a couple of gems I found that first-time bloggers will find useful in the meantime:

1) Patrick Schaber's Beginner's Guide to Setting up a First Blog Site

2) ProBlogger's Choosing a Blog Platform

Happy blogging!

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I'm now a SiteProNews staff writer!

This week I was absolutely delighted to be invited by Mel Strocen of SiteProNews to become a staff writer and blogger for their site and newsletter. I'll be penning a weekly article about search engine marketing, as well as 2 or 3 blog posts a week aimed at helping small biz owners and webmasters to market their sites via search engines.

You can catch my SPN blog here and browse the SPN Archives for articles I've written. Don't worry, I'll still be blogging here daily so keep sending through those questions. I will probably end up turning some of the FAQs here into more detailed articles and case studies for SPN.

Meanwhile, if there are any topics you'd like to see covered by my columns at SiteProNews, please let me know.


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Q and A: Where should I place outbound links in my blog?

Dear Kalena...

I would like to know what links and where on a page are the best kinds of links. I'm a new blogger and started up my 2nd blog this weekend: The Artist Food Network. An artist will email a recipe and a painting of a food from the recipe. We will link to her in our post and we will want a link exchange by having her put a permanent link to us somewhere on our side bar (in a sidebar with layout -- adding a new page element). Are these the same in value?

Everyone talks about the value of links but I never know where to put these links --In a comments on another's site, in the post, or permanently in the blog roll. Thanks for your help.

Nancy

Kalena's Answer:

Dear Nancy

What a delightful idea for a blog! Very unique. In terms of your questions, it can be confusing for bloggers to know who to link to, where to place the link and how many links to use on a page. First and foremost, design your blog pages with users in mind. Create your navigation and outbound links so they are the most logical for your visitors. Create a few different layouts for your blog and ask a sample of people to provide feedback and what they do and don't like.

Any usability expert will tell you that the most expected place for navigation links is at the left of top of a page and the most expected link format is blue underlined text. Now that might not work with your particular blog template, but you should still try to fulfill your visitors expectations as much as possible. Visual heat maps can show you what areas of a web page are most looked at and clicked on by visitors. Try to place your most important content and links in these areas.

In terms of how to link to your contributors, I see that you have created a Contributors column in your left-hand navigation and are linking to the profiles of each contributer. But most of your posts don't link out to other sites. I do see one post from a guest artist where you've linked to the artist's site within the post text. The way you've done that is just fine. In terms of search engines and linking, there are really only four things to remember:

1) A link from site A to site B is considered by search engines to be a "vote" by site A for site B. The quality of site A is what search engines pay close attention to. If site A is considered a high quality site, with high traffic and popular content, the vote for site B is obviously worth more. If site A's content is related to the theme of site B, the link value is even higher. If site A is considered to be fairly unimportant or of low quality, then the link value is reduced considerably. This is why mass link building campaigns are often unsuccessful, because webmasters go out and try to build links willy-nilly, without caring who links back to them or who they link to. It's quality that counts for search engines, not quantity. The same goes for the number of links from one site to yours. Having a link from somebody's blogroll to your blog might provide more traffic, because more pages are listing your link, but it won't necessarily help from a search engine perspective unless the pages that list your link are considered of high quality themselves. The point here is to link and become linked by all means, but make sure you only link out to sites you would recommend to your site visitors.

2) If possible, don't exceed 100 links on a single page, as recommended by Google in their Webmaster Guidelines. I know, I know, I break this rule! It's a usability thing.

3) Don't link to the same page more than once on a single page.

4) The anchor text you use in the link can influence how relevant search engines consider the linked-to page for matching search queries. So you should always try to use logical keywords within the link. For example, if you were linking to a site about watercolor artists, instead of having the link look like this: Visit this site, it's about watercolor artists. You should use keywords in the anchor text and change the link to: Visit a site about watercolor artists. Make sense? It's very important that you encourage your guest artists and any persons linking to you to use anchor text in their links also so your site can gain from the link juice.


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Q and A: Why isn't my blogging helping my SEO efforts?

Here's a recent exchange on LiveHelp with blog reader Jerry, who is concerned that his blog efforts aren't paying SEO dividends:

Jerry: Hi kalena, I'm writing like crazy but not bumping my seo juice. I was hoping for advice
kalena : how are you syndicating your articles?
Jerry : I'm not. I'm just blogging.
kalena : Ah. Have you registered your blog with as many blog directories as possible?
kalena : Do you make it super easy for readers to find your RSS feed?
Jerry : technorati and blogpulse
Jerry : yes, I use addthis
kalena : do you Digg etc your own posts?
Jerry : No, i haven't figured digg out yet. That's one I want to work on
Jerry : What about syndicating?
kalena : If you think your post is unique enough, you should Digg it yourself. Digg will tell you if there are posts on the same subject, but usually you can Digg your own
Jerry : Okay. That sounds like a good tip. I think it's very unique
kalena : yes, if you can encourage other sites and bloggers to syndicate your own blog feed, that's a good way to get traffic
kalena : It helps if you can get bloggers in the same industry to link to or comment on your posts
Jerry : How do I find them to ask them? My blog about memoirs is so unique I have not found too many like it
kalena : Do searches for popular sites and blogs on your subject matter and simply email them and ask for a link. Or send them a post that you think they'd like.
Jerry : Okay. But I get stuck in blogosphere when I search. I've been doing this for 4 months and still haven't got the hang of finding similar blogs
kalena : Try writing a few longer posts or mini articles on your blog. They are the ones that usually get traffic. Or create a useful tool for other memoir writers to use
Jerry : They are ALL articles
Jerry : I'm cranking out some of my best writing ever
kalena : Try creating a free account at helium.com. They are looking for new writers and you can link back to your blog.
Jerry : huh. That's new. Okay I'll try that
kalena : Hold on for a sec, I have a great list of article distribution sites...
Jerry : NEAT!
kalena : Ok, here is the URL: http://www.searchenginecollege.com/hub/weblinks.php?cat_id=52
kalena : Also, you can join Yahoo Groups and do a search for Article Announcement groups. These are places where you can submit your articles for free to thousands of sites who will re-publish them with your link
Jerry : That sounds perfect.
kalena : Glad to help.
Jerry : Thanks so much for your time!! This is awesome. I think I already have you on my blogroll
Jerry : If you have a moment I have a couple technical questions
kalena : Just a quickie as I am grading assignments
Jerry : Thanks! I started with the ugly default slug
Jerry : Should I go back and fix them with pretty permalinks?
Jerry : AND another question. Can I repost them, or does that get me in trouble with google for double posting.
Jerry : permalink
kalena : Re permalinks, if you have a look at the titles of my blog posts, they are permanent links.
Jerry : yes, they look great. All my first 4 months were ugly
kalena : You can add code to your Blogger template to ensure all your article/blog post headings are permanent links
kalena : Don't know about double posting, but why would you want to do that?
Jerry : Two reasons. I had SO LITTLE traffic my first few months, I don't want them to be lost
Jerry : And 2, the permalinks the first time were those ugly looking ?p=232" or whatever
kalena : I'll email you the code to create permalinks out of your blog post titles:
Jerry : Thanks Kalena. You've been awesome. Thanks for taking the time.
kalena : ok I'll shoot it through when I get time.
kalena : You're welcome. Good luck with the syndication
Jerry : Thanks
kalena : bye


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Q and A: Why has my blog PageRank dropped to zero?

Dear Kalena...

I have several blogs and sites. All of them do pretty well with all search engines. Lately I have noticed that my page rank on a particular blog dropped from 4 to 0. Also no backlinks show up in Google, although they do show up on other search engines. I tried adding keywords to help. It hasn't. What is Google doing?

Michelle

Kalena's Answer:

Dear Michelle

Google's not doing anything. You shouldn't take any notice of the little green PageRank bar in your Google Toolbar. It is a very inaccurate approximation of your true PageRank score, which is only known to Google. The little green bar is also anywhere from three to nine months out of date, because it only gets updated sporadically to reflect Google's current algorithm. Quite often, the toolbar gets a glitch in it and shows a zero PageRank score for every site, even Google! So just ignore it, or better still, switch it off.

A more accurate measure of how your blog is performing on Google is to check your search rankings for your target keywords. Have these changed recently? If so, that could indicate a problem. Google will never show you all your site's backlinks. Yahoo does a much better job of showing those if you're interested. If you still suspect a problem with your blog in Google, use their Webmaster Tools to verify your site and investigate potential indexing problems.

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Q and A: What are RSS feeds and why should I use them?

Dear Kalena...

I am working with web project using jsp. I came to know about the RSS Feeds. In my search for RSS Feeds I got your mail id. I think you can help me in this. Can you explain to me when and where we should use this RSS Feeds? What is the importance for this in a web project? Please explain to me briefly.

Majo

Kalena's Answer:

Dear Majo

RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication. According to Wikipedia's definition, RSS is a format used to publish frequently updated digital content, such as blogs, news feeds or podcasts.

Users of RSS content use software programs called "feed readers" or "feed aggregators". The user subscribes to a feed by entering a link to the feed into the reader program. These programs allow you to grab the RSS feeds from various sites and read them or display them on your own site. RSS feeds are usually delivered in XML format.

RSS feeds are useful because they allow you to easily stay informed by retrieving the latest content from the sites you are interested in. You save time by not needing to visit each site individually. They are beneficial to a web site owner because they provide instant, free content for your site that is automatically updated without you having to lift a finger. You can subscribe to feeds in any topic of interest to you or of relevance to your site.

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Q and A: How do I add Feedburner to my site?

Dear Kalena...

Any idea about how to add feed burner to my site? I transferred my blog to my own domain so what is my site feed? Where do i find it?

John

Kalena's Answer:

Dear John

Assuming you have already created a Feedburner account, your feedburner address should be: http://feeds.feedburner.com/[yourblogname]. If you haven't created an account yet, simply go to http://www.feedburner.com and create one based on your blog info.

If you are using Blogger for your blog, your feed should automatically be generated at http://[yoursiteurl]/atom.xml

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25 Tips to Optimize Your Blog

Jennifer Slegg over at Search Engine Land has just saved me a ton of research by writing an article called 25 Tips to Optimize Your Blog for Readers & Search Engines. I'd been planning a similar article - kind of a dummies guide to social bookmarking - but this article is all this and more. The only problem now is that her tips have added another 20 or so tasks to my MUST DO list.

Great stuff Jen.

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New Blog Template

This is my first post using my new blog template. Do you like it? I thought it was time for a change.

Q and A: How do I add keywords to my individual blog pages?

Dear Kalena...

I have a doubt plz help me. I think you can help. How do we add different keywords to each page of a blog like we do in a website? This blog has done it. How did he do it?

thank you
John

Kalena's Answer:

Dear John

To add tailored Title and META Tags to your blog pages, or to optimize them for keywords, you need to edit the HTML template for your blog. If you use Blogger, you simply access the tab marked "Template". For other blog templates, this article should help you.

cheers
Kalena

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Testing Blogger Beta

This is my first post using Blogger Beta. I love the ability to add labels to posts. Not sure what other advantages this version has yet apart from FTP publishing but I'll keep you all informed.

Q and A: How do I update my RSS feed?

Dear Kalena...

I read your article about RSS feeds and I'm trying to create one. But I am not clear on the updating. Who updates the items? Do I update my RSS files with new stuff or if I just update the pages in the links of the RSS files will they get updated by the aggregators? I am confused.

Joelle

Kalena's Answer:

Dear Joelle

If you create an RSS or XML feed from scratch, you add items manually to your feed. Every time you add a new story or post your feed will be updated. Aggregators will automatically index your RSS or XML file and recognize when new items are added to your feed.

But these days, it is not necessary to create a feed from raw code. Most people use a blog or feed service such as WordPress or Blogger to make and add automatic updates to their RSS or XML feed. You can also "ping your feed" to alert aggregators whenever your blog or feed is updated. Learn more at Feed101, Introduction to RSS and What is RSS.

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[If you found this post helpful, you might benefit from downloading our free Search Engine Optimization lesson]

Motherlode of all Search Engine Blogs

Someone was asking me for a list of my favorite search blogs. I finally completed the list and here it is...

read more | digg story

Q and A: Where can I search all your FAQs?

Dear Kalena...

I would like to search all your previous blog FAQs for an answer to my question but to go through your archive is tedious. Is there an easy way to do this that I'm just not seeing?

Big Kalena Fan

Kalena's Answer:

Dear Big Kalena Fan (*blush*)

Sure! You can either use the Search This Site box to the left, or you can search via Q and A category in the SEC Lounge.

Happy Searching!

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[If you found this post helpful, you might benefit from downloading our free Search Engine Optimization lesson]

Q and A: How do I get rid of the Blogger header on my blog?

Dear Kalena...

Thank you for your article I was sent by Site Pro News (10 Adsense Tips).
It was really good! I went & checked out your site & blog & Jen's blog too.
I would like to get some advice from you if you don't mind?

How did you get rid of the Blogger header on your Search Engine College
blog? That's pretty cool looking! How did you get the clickable banner for the SE College up there?

Also, I noticed that your articles are on a Blogger blog. Did you get rid of
the Blogger header the same way as above? How did you put your Search
Engine College header up there? That is so cool!! I want to do that with my blog!

How do I put a Site Map on my Blogger blog?

Dan

Kalena's Answer:

Dear Dan

First up, you should give up the caffeine man! Just kidding. Ok, let me answer your questions one by one:

1) To remove the Blogger navigation bar from the top of your blog, simply log-in to the Blogger dashboard, click on the Template tab and you'll see a drop down field at the top of the page titled "Change the Blogger Nav Bar". From the drop down list you'll see the option to turn the nav bar "off".

2) To add other elements like banners to the top of your blog, you need to be proficient in editing HTML. You can access and edit the HTML template of your blog by clicking on the Template tab.

3) Yes, I used Blogger to create our article library so I could easily add articles as if they were blog posts. I used HTML to edit that blog template to match our Search Engine College design template.

4) Re adding a site map, you can either create one in HTML and add a link to it within your blog template, or you can use Blogger's own archiving features to create links to your previous posts.

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Blog Backscratch of the Week

Carrying on the subject of the Yahoo! Publisher Network from yesterday, JenStar over at the JenSense blog reports that YPN have launched their own blog today. So Brian, you might want to send your questions to blog staff via the feedback link.