iWoodpecker

Blog Commenting: Is It That Important? [My Spammed Comment]

Allan — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 09:28:30 PST

This time it will be an experimental post, because it is, actually, a simple blog comment on 3 Resons Why Blog Commenting Is Important by Alex from howtospoter.com.

The reason why I’m publishing the comment on my blog is that it was considered a spam by Alex’s spam-proof system :) This must be some mistake.. But I find this case a very good idea for this post.

Besides, my readers know that I speak about web traffic and web promotion. Excellent promotion demands risks and unusual attempts to do something new, where you’ll be the first one… Isn’t this case a good and unusual way of web promotion? :)

My Spammed Comment on Alex’s Blog

Make sure you have read Alex’s post before reading the following comment:

Hi Alex,

Let me add several thoughts to your post :)

I would have agreed with you several months ago.. But now I should say, that I see this post very.. very controversial.

Why?

1. Commenting on blogs because of traffic is the least important reason. I have tracked it via Google analytics and understood, that only some rare units of readers follow the comments links. And if it’s your primary way of getting traffic, then you lose a lot of time (in most cases).

2. Your second subtopic is “Get Authority / SEO benefits”. Why they go side by side? :) What I mean is that these are extremely different sides of benefits of commenting on blogs.

You get authority.. yeah. I’d call this benefit the most important one. You whether decrease your authority because of *not very smart comments* or you, actually, increase it having your own strong point of view. But in this case you work for the blog owner. You have to impress him, because he can bring you tons of traffic by recommending you or retweeting your post or else. Your aim is not common readers, because they most likely will not read your comment with the same feelings like the author of the blog.

Speaking about SEO benefits.. Any dofollow link in comments is counted as a part of the entire HTML page (this relates to those blogs, that don’t redirect comments to special pages and which don’t have framed or iframed comment forms). This means, that you are totally right about SEO benefits. But still… Why did you put them into one subtopic? :)

3. You have mentioned very good aspect of visiting other blogs. It’s “Liked? Try it for your blog!”. Though you need to be careful.. people don’t like big changes on favorite websites and blogs.

PS. Don’t treat my comment a spam because of the name :) iWoodpecker is what I want to promote, not my real name. Thank you!

Best regards,

Allan

Alex has already reported via Twitter that it really could be his spam filter issue.

***

Video Dessert: «Laughing Baby»

Do you enjoy ripping newspaper like this little baby? :) I couldn’t stand his laughter – very relaxing video.

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Most Influential Commenter: February 2010 Roundup

Allan — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 10:26:20 PST

This is already the 2nd roundup of the MIC competition. And I’m glad to announce the winners…

Pay your attention, that I have written all the counted votes separately. It shows how many votes you got per certain posts.

Winners of MIC in February, 2010

Ileane – 1, 1, 1, 2, 1, 3, 1, 1, 1

She won again! I guess, that until I run this contest, her banner will be shining on my blog :)

Ileane, I have already reviewed you once :) What if this time you would have written some special guest post for me instead of a review?
Kiesha – 2, 2

Kiesha is a great discovery this time! She is beautiful, thankful, kind and very smart blogger :) Looking for more of your comments, Kiesha!
Imran Yousaf – 3

Imran has commented only once on my blog, but he got 3 votes for it. And though there are other commenters having a total of 3 votes, I decided, that Imran deserves to take the 3rd place, because of the ratio (made comments/votes for comments).

Other great participants, commenters and excellent bloggers

Commenters, who got also 3 votes:

ppo – 1, 1, 1
element321 – 1, 1, 1
Tom – 1, 2

Commenters, who got 2 votes:

Thebondgurl – 2
Hesham – 1, 1

Commenters, who got 1 vote:

Ari Herzog – 1
Arun Basil Lal – 1
chandan – 1
Dragon Blogger – 1
el7cosmos – 1
Fazreen – 1
James M. – 1
Jeffrey – 1
Jimi Jones – 1
Henri Junttila – 1
Keith – 1
Kissie – 1
Lee Ka Hoong – 1
Marko – 1
Ralf – 1
Rose – 1
Selurus – 1
Shirley – 1
Simon – 1
tech money – 1
Tycoon Blogger – 1

Special attention to her:

jess – 1

She left one nice comment, but not included her website.. Too sad, isn’t it?

Vote for each other

I know that for most of you this contest means nothing and you don’t take it seriously. But is that too hard to vote for good comments? You, actually, express your opinion this way, and it makes other people pay attention at good and helpful comments. And what I also believe in is that all made good things.. even the smallest ones.. somehow, somewhere will come back to you, just like a boomerang.

***

Video Dessert: «Dramatic Lemur»

A very relative video dessert this time:) This lemur is amazed by the winners, you can see it in his eyes!

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9 Guest Posting Tips: Increase Your Chances to Be Accepted

Allan — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 09:03:43 PST

As I have promised, this post will be dedicated to guest posting tips.

You want to be accepted, don’t you? So, let’s increase your chances and look at the most important factors that should not be ignored by you.

But before stepping to those tips, I’ll remind the main benefits of guest posting and its definition.

Definition & Benefits of Guest Posting

Guest posting is simply the idea of serving as a guest writer for another blog or website. It sounds weird, but it only sounds like that. Technically, guest posting provides a variety of tremendous benefits for both you (a guest blogger) and the blog owner, where you want to guest post.

You should remember that… You both have benefits. And if you abase yourself, offering your guest post, you simply don’t understand the value of the gift you are giving.

Benefits of Guest Posting:

Decent amount of targeted traffic;
Almost guaranteed new subscribers;
Quality backlinks;
Confidence in yourself, improved reputation and authority;

Benefits of Accepting Guest Posts:

You get a day-off;
Guest post on your blog will be most likely promoted by the guest blogger;
Additional promotion as a blog, that accepts guest posts;

Now let’s get to the tips.

9 Simply Powerful Guest Posting Tips

Avoid Being a Flashlight.

What I mean by that is that you need to appear on a targeted blog (where you want to guest post) as a commenter.

Make several memorable comments before guest posting. Possibly, this will not lead to some long discussion, but, trust me, you will get the blog’s author attention, because we all read every single comment we get.

And we naturally build ideas about our commenters.
It’s Your First Guest Post? Do Your Very Best!

Sometimes, it’s very difficult to give away your best posts. I know that.. I used to think it is better to publish my best works on my own blog, rather than on someone else’s.

But treat it like that – there will be other times for even better posts, that you can publish on your blog. Today, it’s time to promote what you already have. Plus, you can make some sort of a “roundup” of your recent guest posts.
2 Sentences to Catch Readers’ Eyes.

In most cases, you are allowed to write several sentences about you in the end of your guest post. You have to think really hard on them, because this is your, say, fish-rod.

What I wouldn’t recommend to write is sentences like “My passion is blogging.. blah-blah-blah“, or “I blog about SEO and blogging tips“, or “I am a part-time blogger and blah-blah-blah“.

Those examples are so-o-o boring! If you have written something like that, then your guest post was a simple backlink to your blog..
Experience vs Assumption.

Why something, that you have experienced is much more better, than things you haven’t tried, though you know them very well… but as an assumption? Because people are full of assumptions, ideas and hypotheses.

They want to know how this or that works with others, they want to know your experience. Plus, if you have some successful story from your past or simply your own unique story (we all have them), then this is the best guest posting idea to write about.
Detect the Style & Improve It In Your Guest Post.

This is a great idea to follow the blog author’s style of writing.. of course, if you know how to.

This will provide some special and unexplained feeling, that you are the one, that you differ from other guest bloggers. That blog’s author, where you want to guest post, most likely will not be able to explain, why you fit like that…

You can use this method applying some of the blog author’s most used expressions or rare words, that he or she uses. Couple of them in the beginning of your guest post, couple of them in the end.. This will do the job.

Don’t forget to improve the blog author’s style. How you can do that?

Find the most used structures of posts. Try to detect places, where those structures could be improved. Possibilities are endless.
Prepare Your Own Blog For Guest Posting Effects.

You realize, that the guest posting itself is the next step of your blog promotion, right? Is your blog ready for it?

Do you have an “About Me” page? Is your navigation fine? Are there any details you might want to improve? Do you monetize your blog properly?

Your traffic is about to explode – don’t lose the opportunity to monetize it. Besides, new visitors will get used to your blog with ads much more faster, than if you would have placed ads later.
Write SEO-Friendly Guest Posts.

You don’t care about that blog’s SEO.. I know that. But he or she does. And this is your minus, if you don’t consider to optimize your post. You simply lose to your guest posting competitors.

Impress the blog’s author with your SEO skills, make him/her love you, because you are doing his/her job, you save his/her hours of on page omptimization. Stand from the crowd and be number 1 to be accepted on that particular blog in the future.
Keep Your Positions After Your Guest Post Is Accepted.

How you supposed to do that?

There will be comments. This is 100% guaranteed. Don’t you think to leave them without your replies? So, don’t. This will show, that you are, actually, social enough. This simple thing can also lead to some extra subscribers or simply to your own future readers
Compete With Other Guest Posting Submissions And Win!

If it comes to guest posting on some A-list blog, then don’t doubt – you have very strong competitors, and there are a lot of them.

But stay cool and just go on with guest posting. If you are following the 8 previous tips – your chances are doubled (…at least) to be accepted.

Besides, even if you were not accepted.. it doesn’t mean, that you should start to cry and never come back. Big bloggers may not notice you in the beginning, but keep trying sending guest posts. One of them could be accepted and this means, that your next guest posts most likely would be also accepted.

This is it.. you are now officially riding guest posting.

***

Get even more guest posting tips from these awesome articles below:

Guest Posting Secrets – How to Get Published on an A-List Blog:

When I tell my readers about the advantages of guest-posting on popular blogs, I often get a response along these lines: “A popular blog would never publish something I’ve written. I’m just not well-known [...]
How to Guest Post Properly to Build Your Readership:

You may have heard that you can build your blog readership by guest posting on a prominent blog. But how do you get that prominent blog owner to accept your guest post? And what should you do to make the best possible use of [...]
Guest Posting: Explosive New Method To Gain Traffic And Backlinks:

I don’t know if you’ve heard lately, but the blog-o-sphere is abuzz with alot of talk lately on one surefire method (that practically guarantee’s) you traffic and backlinks.

What is this method, you ask?

Submitting a guest post. Yes! that’s it in a nut shell. It’s simple, free, trusted, [...]
How To Get A-List Blogs To Accept Your Guest Posts:

Getting your post onto an A-List blog is one of the best ways to boost your traffic and increase your credibility. It’s also one of the best, if not the best, no cost promotion idea. Here’s a few tips to [...]
Your Guest Post was Rejected, What’s Next?:

By now you probably already have learned that guest posting is a powerful way to drive crazy high quality traffic to your site. I’m not just talking about the hits here, I’m talking about traffic that could easily become one of your subscribers, more importantly your [...]
Guest Blogging: Tips, Advice, and Best Practices:

The concept is a relatively new idea that has built momentum as a great networking tool that can also provide the following [...]

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Video Dessert: «Paranormal Alien Animals & Strange Creatures Caught on Camera»

I am not sure, if these are some special video effects. I have got a strange feeling and it feels too true to be a lie. Pay special attention at [1:20],where this creature jumps out of the water..

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22 Blogs Accepting Guest Posts: Only the Best Ones

Allan — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 17:10:43 PST

Great resource of 22 blogs that accept your guest posts. I have picked only the best ones out of.. well, about 60 well-known blogs.

As I’m stepping into the post-guesting-sphere, this list is a must for myself and that’s why I have done my best here :)

Please, enjoy and start another step of your blog promotion with guest posting on the blogs below.

Mashable! – 7 370

The Social Media Guide

Founded in July 2005, Mashable is the world’s largest blog focused exclusively on Web 2.0, Social Networking and Social Media news. With more than 12.5 million monthly pageviews, Mashable is the most prolific blog reviewing new Web sites and services, publishing breaking news on what’s new on the web.

You can submit a little tip (100 words is maximum) or the whole news.

Adam Ostro also suggests you to follow 12 tips to be featured on Mashable and 12 things you should not do submitting your story to Mashable.
SeoMoz – 7 2,223

The Web’s Best SEO Resources

Anyone can contribute to YOUmoz blog and the best submissions are promoted to the main SEOmoz blog!

If your blog’s niche is SEO, and if you feel, that you know a lot of interesting things about SEO, then you have to try to contribute at least several articles to YUOmoz.
ProBlogger – 6 2,082

Blog tips to help you make money blogging

If your guest post is accepted by Darren Rowse, then you are a pro blogger indeed, because Darren recieves dozens of dozens of requests daily.. I’d say, you most likely will not be accepted, until you have made your brand name or you are well known in the blogosphere. Anyways, why not to try?
Search Engine Journal – 6 2,570

Latest Search Enging News

Search Engine Journal has tons of daily readers and more than ~30k subscribers. And they offer you to guest post on their blog! Great opportunity, if you blog about SEO or you simply know some worthy stuff.

Find out a little bit more about guest posting on SEJ.
CopyBlogger – 6 4,273

Copywriting and Content Marketing Strategies

Brian Clark mentions, that there is no special guidelines to be accepted. In fact, you should feel free to try to submit your guest post.

Be yourself, be natural and of course you better be someone by that moment, when you will be thinking of guest posting at CopyBlogger.
Blogging Tips – 5 14,915

Blogging tips, guides & resources

They are always looking for experienced writers who can write good original quality posts for them. In return you will get full credit for the post, an author page with a bio and your website will also be linked at the top and bottom of every post you make.

Sounds like a real opportunity for daily bloggers. Write for BloggingTips.com
Get Rich Slowly – 5 16,654

Personal Finance that Makes Sense

Get Rich Slowly is devoted to sensible personal finance. It’s not about making money online blogging. It’s about our daily lifes from the standpoint of finances.

You don’t have to be an expert. The only thing you need is some financial story from your life. Just read their archives, you can get the main idea of how to write for them.
Pro Blog Design – 5 19,852

Design a Better Blog

They are not looking for research writers. They want to work with authors who have experience working in the industry and know intimately what they’re talking about.

Plus, they will pay you up to 125$ per post.

Interested? Then learn more about how to guest post on www.problogdesign.com.
Search Engine People – 5 23,708

Internet marketing

This is a strong Internet Marketing community of expert-bloggers blogging about search engine news, SEO and Internet Marketing.

You have to know something, that could add some real value to this blog. In other words, experts are welcome.

Learn more about SEP guidelines and submit your guest post.
Huomah – 5 23,940

Search and Internet Marketing News and Views

Huomah is a great SEO blogger with growing readership. Good SEO knowledge is required for the opportunity to be accepted by Huomah.

The best articles are featured at SEO Dojo, which is supposed to be cool :)
ReveNews – 5 50,331

Online Marketing

When you’re read at ReveNews as a blogger, you’re read by leading decision makers, thought shapers, and innovators in the industry. They are focusing on B2B topics in the online marketing industry with a special focus on affiliate marketing.

Read more about how to guest post on ReveNews.com
Seo-Scoop – 5 57,881

SEO News, Tips & Tutorials

They have soft rules for guest bloggers. You can write about almost anything that you are familiar with on SEO topics. This is a good place to start for beginning guest bloggers.

Find out more about how SEO Scoop meets new guest bloggers.
Blogussion – 4 18,760

Blogging discussion, tips & tricks

They love to have guest writers as it gives others the ability to share their ideas and beliefs about blogging with the Blogussion community.

The Blogussion is about any aspect of blogging. And if you feel, that you have something to say, please, share that and get exposure!

Personally, I think this is the best place to start your guest blogger career. Write for Blogussion!
Smart Bloggerz – 4 30,760

Blogging Tips and Make Money Online Tips

This blog is also blogging about blog tips and making money online tips. Nothing serious and extraordinary. And by the way Smart Bloggerz is also a very good start point for guest posting.

Want to contribute a guest post?
Daily SEO Tip – 4 37,349

SEO Tips & Tutorials

Daily SEO Tip is a new SEO blog brought to you by the same people behind Search Engine Journal. Loren Baker & Ann Smarty, along with various guest bloggers, will be delivering a daily seo tip or tutorial every day in text, video or podcast platform.

Got any SEO tip? Then contribute it for Daily SEO tip!
Carlocab – 4 49,933

How to make money online

Carl Ocab is a kidblogger blogging about making money online. His blog got to the first page of Google with “make money online” keyword phrase competing with 160,000,000 other results.

If you also know some tips on making money online, then this would be a great challenge to guest post on his blog.
Freelance Folder – 3 11,817

Freelance Tools, Advice, and Resources

Freelance Folder is a team of freelancers, writers, designers, entrepreneurs, small business owners and marketers.

They are looking for well-written posts/articles that freelancers, entrepreneurs, designers, writers, etc.. will be interested in reading. Very simple and clear, right? Then try to guest post on Freelance Folder!
Blog Godown – 3 31,695

Social media, blog marketing and design

Blog Godown is a blog that teaches readers, how to make their blogs. Blog Godown readers consist of influential bloggers, web designers and social media evangelists.

This blog should also fit your needs of a beginning guest blogger. Read Blog Godown’s guidelines for guest bloggers.
SEM-Group – 3 57,146

Search Engine Marketing and Optimization Services

SEM-Group is a SEO company. But.. reading their blog you can feel, that it was written by a human, not an office robot. That’s why I recommend to try to guest post on their blog.
Beginner Blogger – 2 121,420

Blogging Tips

Simple and interesting blogging tips for you from the Beginner Blogger.

Make your first guest posting steps with him. There is nothing wrong about it, right? So try it! Meet new bloggers and get subscribers.
Teenius – 1 87,957

Make Money Online – Blogging Tips

Teenius has rather strict and soft at the same time guidelines for guest bloggers. Your guest posts should be on blogging tips and make money online topics.

Want to know more about guest posting at Teenius’s blog?
Dane Blogger – 1 117,702

Blogging Tips

Dane is a good blogger and he admits (what is really important), that he cannot know everything.

Contribute your guest posts on Internet Marketing topics to Dane Blogger!

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Tomorrow I am planning to make a post about the most crucial and effective guest posting tips. Don’t miss that one!

PS! If you’re not in the list, just offer your blog in comments – I’m planning to make the 2nd part of blogs that accept guest posts.

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Video Dessert: «Try Not To Laugh! [Fun Challenge]»

Today, when I was looking for another video dessert, I have found this video, that got me.. Ghm.. Just watch it! And try not to laugh through the whole video!

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Social Media Buttons: Give Explanation for Each of Them

Allan — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 06:59:16 PST

NB! My current social buttons are different now. But the post itself is an example how you can analyze your set of buttons.

We love social media buttons. It gives us a feeling, that we belong to social media. The more – the closer, right?

Wrong.

There is some certain limit for a number of social media buttons. And each and every blog should consider its own limit. Because.. in the end it is your page load time.

Social Media Buttons vs Markets

Why do we make our blogs look like those annoying markets and super-markets? Or you did not think about that?

Do you remember how annoying are sellers in the markets? “Buy it, buy it, buy it..” Well, blogs with tons of social media buttons look just like that – “Submit it, share, submit, please, share it, share it!”

Give Explanation for Each of Your Button

There is a way to identify your own appropriate number of buttons.

Just try to explain why you have this or that button. Consider social buttons’ efficiency on other blogs and see if there were any benefits for your blog.

If you see, that people only retweet and digg your stories, then leave only these two social media buttons and uninstall all 59 others :) You will improve your page load time and bounce rate – it’s 100% guaranteed.

Explanation for My Social Media Buttons

4 Social Buttons Above the Content:

First of all, I should mention that I have these buttons above the content, because they are the most effective for my blog and they should be on the first place.

«Retweet» button – there is no doubt, that this is a must-have button. Plus, since I offer updates via Twitter, I know, that I have a lot of people, who use Twitter;
«Share on Facebook» button – Though this button doesn’t work for me, I think it is my fault, because I still did not promote my blog on Facebook enough. But I know for sure, that there are billions of people, who use Facebook. I also can see, that those big Social Media guru sites like Mashable have this button and it works for them. That is why I think it will take some time for my blog to make «Share on Facebook» button effective;
«BlogEngage» button – this button works for me, because I know how to hit the front page of BlogEngage. I have done that several dozens of times and having this button on my blog is one of the little secrets for that;
«Google Buzz» button – I have installed this button just today, because there was an update of Digg Digg Wordpress plugin. They have added it and I have decided to test it. If this will not show any result, I will remove it. Besides, gurus have this Google Buzz button and it seems that it works for them;

7 Social Media Buttons Below the Content

These buttons still don’t work for me. They just don’t bring me any worthy amount of web traffic. But I use them myself sometimes. Plus, SexyBookmarks look great, which adds its value to the general design of my blog. So.. That’s why I have just 7 of them, though the whole number of available SexyBookmarks is 87.

«Google Reader» button – Testing this one. Not sure, if someone has used it by now.
«Google Bookmarks» button – This one is great even for your own usage. When you type in your tags there, they are then displayed in Google search results right under your submitted item. Not sure if it has any SEO value, but my intuition says – it has;
«Digg» button – I used to Digg my stories.. But I’m tired of seeing them above my original stories in Google real-time search results. I leave this button for now, because there are still people, who are addicted with Digg. Plus, I might be wrong about Digg.. that’s why I’m still keeping it and testing its efficiency;
«Del.icio.us» button – This button is great. And it works for me. But the number of submissions to Del.icio.us is still too low. Let it be here for now;
«StumbleUpon» button – This one also works for me.. just like the previous one. People stumble my stories, but I have not seen any traffic spikes yet, because I don’t have a lot of time to spend on StumbleUpon meeting new stumblers and getting subscribers there;
«LinkedIn» button – The only reason for having this button is that I have heard a lot of it. I am planning to promote my LinkedIn account sometime;
«Mixx» button – Mixx is dofollow social bookmarking site. And it has a great SEO value for your blog. I’m using this button to submit my best articles. Not sure if someone else is using it;

That’s it! And, to tell the truth, while writing this post I have removed Sphinn and Facebook social buttons from SexyBookmarks, because I have not found any explanation for them.

***

What about you? Can you give explanation for each and every social media button on your blog? If not, why don’t you remove some of them?

***

Video Dessert: «Evolution of Dance»

The fantastic success! 137,5 millions of views on YouTube means something! I especially like what starts on the 3rd minute of the video :) You simply can’t stay indifferent to this guy and his video!

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Acceptable Page Load Time: You Have 7 Seconds

Allan — Sat, 20 Feb 2010 16:04:40 PST

Thanks to Ileane, I’m writing this post because of her recent question: How many it takes to make up “too many”?

This is highly important question, because I see there so many blogs overfulled with plugins, that make page load time up to 30-40 seconds. It is impossible to call such page load time acceptable.

According to the current topic, acceptable page load time is no more, than 7 seconds. It is too controversial though, but, let’s say, it is fair enough as well.

Why?

The Rule of «7 Seconds»

I have found this rule on webmasters’ forum under the topic: How many page loading seconds are acceptable?

The guy says:

My rule of thumb is that you have 7 seconds to sell a prospect that they have reached a page of interest to them. You don’t have to make a sale in 7 seconds, you just have 7 seconds to keep them for a while longer.
Here is the skinny, if your initial page takes 6 seconds to load, you have 1 second of selling time. If your initial page takes 1 second or less to load you have 6-7 seconds of selling time.

This is a good point to start from. Though, aim to decrease you page load time. Less, than 7 seconds would be acceptable enough.

Visitor’s Internet Connection Speed Also Matters

Plus – do not forget about the visitors’ Internet connection speeds.

If you have a speedy connection, then multiply your blog’s page load time twice. You will get the result of the page load time of those users, who have Internet connection twice slower.

Now take a look at the map of «Internet Speeds and Costs Around the World»

You can easily see, that U.S.A. has relatively slow average Internet connection speed, which means there is almost nothing to worry about for U.S. users. I mean that if you are from U.S.A. you can focus on yourself, when you want to optimize site’s page load time.

Detect & Optimize Page Load Time Using Only 2 Tools

I am speaking about Mozilla Firefox’s plugin «FireBug» and the great web service «WooRank».

Using WooRank to detect your site’s page load time:

This web service is extremely easy to use. But all you can do is to check your SEO details, including site speed. Although, it will give you the main idea whether you need to improve or to optimize anything or not.

1. Just type in your website’s domain name – e.g. example.com.

2. Follow the simple instructions:

Note: WooRank shows the time, when your page loads enough to read. But that’s not enough at the same time. There is always some extra time you should consider as well.

Using FireBug to detect and omptimize page load time:

Now this tool is the one you should be always using. It seems to be the best one for webmasters and bloggers, who want to achieve success in SEO.

Using FireBug you can detect:

Which scripts and plugins load time is not acceptable;
Which images take a lot of time to load;
What works well;
Compare performance of cached pages and pages without cache;

That’s it. No other tools or web services needed.

Acceptable Page Load Time Depends on the Type of Web Traffic

Yeap, your traffic vary by age, gender, character, profession etc. You can use Alexa’s service to analyze your site’s audience demographics. It will give you the approximate idea of what page load time you need.

In any case, the less – the best.

PS! Take a look also at these 2 articles on page load time and its optimization topics: Acceptable Response Times, Let’s Make the Web Faster – Google Code

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Video Dessert: «Phax amazing! – Slow motion»

Amazing Phax performs the unbelievable slow motion effect.. or dance.. or moves.. or emotions. Just watch this:

Related posts:

Social Media Buttons: Give Explanation for Each of Them

Improve Google Ranking: Pick Appropriate & Related Tags

Allan — Sat, 20 Feb 2010 03:26:42 PST

I really can proudly say now, that I have improved my Google rankings, because of appropriate and extremely related tags (note: not meta tags, but post tags). Yeap.. those tags, that most of us hide or set to “noindex” (at least I have been doing like that before).

Google now even indexes my pages much more faster. Probably, because of improved tags as well – no other logical explanation.

I will show how I find appropriate and related tags in a second, but now – let me explain why…

…my Google ranking is improved because of tags?

First, picking every time from 5 to 10 new tags gives you thereafter 6-11 new pages (1 is your latest post plus 5-10 tag pages). You have heard, probably, that Google loves sites with a lot of pages, right?

Second, you might be thinking, that those tag pages have duplicate content and they are not supposed to add any value. It can be true, if you don’t have meta tag “canonical”, which says:

“Bots and crawlers from search engines, wait! Do not think that I create duplicate pages!! I just want to make my navigation easier, so that visitors could find needed stuff faster!“

Guess what – bots and crawlers treat this “canonical” meta tag just like that.

How to pick appropriate tags to make Google ranking better?

When you search for the proper title for your new post, you, probably, find several variants and then you pick the best one. But wait.. what about other variants? Too competitive or not that competitive? Don’t think about that – just let them be your tags. You can see that I have done just like that in this post (and in several latest too).

And, believe it or not, sometimes tag pages rank better, than my main post! Why? Because they all have different search competitors.

Therefore, you should also consider to make your tags capitalized, because they should look like common pages, when people see them in search results. Simply treat them like your common posts considering SEO factors.

Tools to improve Google ranking

I use only related searchs, that Google suggests. How you can do that too?

Step 1: Type in your main keyword phrase and click “search options”

Step 2: Switch from “Standard View” to “Related Searches”

Step 3: Pick suggestions for your tags, that relate to your topic

Find the line: Related searches for “improve google ranking”. You can see, that there are lots of variants. They are not random. Google knows what to show you, so why don’t you use it?

That’s it. This will definitely improve your Google ranking. Just try it :)

***

It’s All About Results™ – Google AdWords

Video Dessert: How To Improve Your Google Ranking?

Ever searched your name on Google? Did you come up on page 1 or 17? What about your web site or blog? Are you showing up for the ideal keywords? Watch this Daily Idea and learn how to improve your Google ranking in a few easy steps.

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Dynamic Sidebar Plugin: Certain Widgets for Certain Web Traffic and Pages

Allan — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 11:25:34 PST

Recently I have been looking for a plugin, that could add a dynamic to my sidebar. What I mean is that I wanted some widgets to be visible for certain type of my web traffic and on certain pages.

Certain Widgets on Certain Pages

I have found what I have been looking for – this plugin is called Dynamic Widgets. It, actually, allows you to modify visibility of your sidebar widgets whatever you like. And I wanted to display “text” widget, which shows 3 best articles, only on single post pages.

Why?

I have modified my front page so that it could focus my web traffic’s attention on certain places: “Featured post” and “Latest stuff”, which supposes them to click on those links. I do not want to have too many things to “check right now” on my front page.

In this case it acts against you.

But displaying “3 Best Articles” widget on single post pages makes readers take a little look at them (because they have attractive pictures) while reading solid texts. And after reading a post or (if they did not like it) while reading, they may switch to “3 Best Articles”, which plays a positive role.

I reduce my blog’s bounce rate and extend average time on site!

Certain Widgets for Certain Web Traffic

Wordpress plugin Dynamic Widgets also allows you to display certain sidebar widgets for certain web traffic.

Widgets could be displayed only for:

Administrator
Editor
Author
Contributor
Subscriber
Anonymous

… or for several types of visitors at once, while others cannot see your certain widgets.

Dynamic Sidebar Has Even More Advantages!

You can make some special note for your subscribers on your sidebar, which is cool, because your subscribers want to be unique and to be noticed;
You can run some certain poll specially for your subscribers… or for contributors. You can, actually, run different polls for different types of traffic! Isn’t that great?
You can display your ads only for anonymous web traffic, which shows some sort of respect for your readers;
What about a special message or several rules for editors? You can do that as well. It saves your time;
What about a widget, that displays “Top Authors” only for authors or “Top Contributors” only for contributors?
Any more ideas? (I think there could be more great types of purposes!)

***

Oh.. I almost forgot – the link: Install Dynamic Widgets plugin.

***

Today’s Dessert: Robot Boys’ Awesome Dance

Winner of Talent 2008 Denmark – Robot Boys. These guys are amazing dancers and entertainers. They won the final, and the prize money of 250,000 danish kroner. Watch…

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First Page of Google With 106 Millions Competitors: My First Time. How?!

Allan — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 08:28:18 PST

Though it sounds impossible for a blog like mine… with Pagerank 1 – I did it! I got to the first page of Google competing with 106 millions other pages.

When I first time saw it… I didn’t pay any attention, because this number of competing results didn’t mean anything for me. And the post itself, say, is not that worthy to burst with joy… but the fact, that my blog is shining on the first page of Google, made me crazy just about a week ago. I have finally realized the reasons and the things I have accidentally done, which made this post jump THAT high.

Why and How I Got to the First Page?

The post, that is currently on the 1st page of Google, is about the value of play factor in blogging.

Check the result of Google’s first page for that certain phrase:

Results 1 – 10 of about 106,000,000 for play factor. (0.26 seconds)

Why did Googlebot like this post to let it reach Google’s first page?

Let’s see what I have done there:

The word “play” was used 33 times (on the whole page, not just in post);
The word “factor” was used only 5 times;
The whole keyword phrase “play factor” only once;
The word “play” was used 7 times between < strong >< / strong > tags;
“Play” was also used as a part of the title of 5 pictures out of 5;
I didn’t make any external links using “play factor” keyword phrase or part of it;
I was using the video of Stuart Brown, where he speaks about play in general. The video is 30 minutes long and without a real interest to the topic, you would have, probably, turned it off at once;
As you can see, the number of retweets is not huge at all.. It means, that there was not much attention;
Meta keywords that were used there: “play”, “blogging”, “value”, “stuart brown”;
I should also admit that I have been asking too many questions instead of making statements or answers, which usually brings more value;
The post itself appeared to be boring for most of you.. at least I thought so, because there were made no comments;
Because of the previous reason, I have decided not to submit it to social bookmarking sites etc;
I didn’t show it commenting on blogs with CommentLuv as “my recent blog post”;
And according to Google tools for webmasters my strongest keywords are “blog”, “google”, “post”, “traffic” – not “play” or “factor” or “blogging” at all;

Find the Answer and Win!

So, which of the above reasons helped my blog to get to the first page of Google? I know it would be too easy to reveal the truth, but I promise to confirm it, if you say it in the comments!

Follow the 14 facts I have named above and read 2 more clues below!

***

Here is the clue #1: Watch the video to help you. It mentions the true fact, which I didn’t know before.. though it was so natural and logical.

Video: Dominating First Page of Google

Clue #2: My stats from Google webmaster tools showing traffic that Google sent via “play factor” keyword phrase.

***

It turns out, that in order to get to the first page of Google.. you need only this…

What am I talking about? The first one, who answers correctly, gets free banner spot until the end of February.

Waiting for your answers!

Update: The answer is given in the comments.

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What is Alexa Ranking?

Allan — Sun, 14 Feb 2010 13:32:14 PST

This question still bothers many bloggers: «What means Alexa ranking?», «What is Alexa ranking?»… I have met so-o-o many blogs arguing on this topic, that it is time for me to explain the value of Alexa web ranking, because I cannot imagine my blog’s niche without it.

The shortest definition of Alexa ranking is the potential of blog or website in numbers. That’s it. You can stop reading here. :)

…

Still reading? Then let me show you more detailed solutions on 5 problematic topics like:

How Alexa gets the traffic data of your site?
Is there any way to prevent your site’s traffic from being ranked by Alexa?
How you should be treating Alexa web ranking?
Why Alexa does not relate to Google Page Rank?
How to improve Alexa ranking and does Alexa toolbar improve it or not?

Before I will start answering the above questions, I should also mention the fact that many people ignore Alexa ranking, do not trust it and even hate it, because of its toolbar, which was considered by their anti-virus software as a spyware or a virus.

The summarized answer from the folks from Alexa on this problem was the following:

No, the Alexa Toolbar is not spyware.
Spyware is defined as hidden software that is installed on your computer without your knowledge.
It generally collects your personal information for advertising purposes, and provides you with no value in return.
The Alexa Toolbar is only installed when a user chooses to download it – it is not installed without your knowledge. The Toolbar is not hidden, it is prominently displayed at the top of your browser. In order to fill the Toolbar with relevant information, the URL of the page you’re on is transmitted to us and we return related information for that page.
The Alexa Toolbar can be turned off at any time.
If you feel that the features of the Alexa Toolbar are not of value to you, the Toolbar is easily uninstalled using Add/Remove Programs in the Control Panel of Windows.

This is it. Just add Alexa toolbar to your anti-virus software’s “trust list”, if such is present.

Now let’s get back to the 5 problematic questions.

How Alexa collects traffic data of your website or blog?

In the beginning Alexa Inc. was able to collect your traffic data only if you had installed their toolbar. Now, as you may have noticed, you do not have any toolbar installed and you still can see, that Alexa is ranking your blog or website.

Since early 1996 they have started using Alexa Crawl system, which works just like any other crawling bot.. e.g. google-bot. Currently Alexa’s crawling bots (or “crawlers”.. or “robots”) are gathering approximately 1.6 Terabytes (1600 gigabytes) of Web content per day. That is a huge number…

By today Alexa has gathered over 4.5 Billion pages from over 16 million sites, which is why if your site is only several days old, your Alexa traffic rank starts with ~16,000,000.

In other words, there are 2 ways, which Alexa is using to track your traffic:

Alexa toolbar, which you should install first. It gives you much more accurate data, than crawler’s work. So you better install it today. Download Alexa toolbar here.
The second way is Alexa Crawl system, which finds your site through external links pointing at you.

How to prevent Alexa ranking?

This is a very logical question. Of course, when your blog or website is still too young to show its “great” traffic data to the entire world, you want to hide it. This is why you may want to prevent your site from Alexa ranking.

In order to do that, first of all, you shouldn’t install Alexa toolbar. Uninstall it, if you already have it.

The second thing you want to do is to modify your robots.txt file:

You can allow or disallow specific robots from visiting part or all of your site. Alexa’s crawler identifies itself as ia_archiver, and so to allow ia_archiver to visit (while preventing all others), your robots.txt file should look like this:

User-agent: ia_archiver
Disallow:
To prevent ia_archiver from visiting (while allowing all others), your robots.txt file should look like this:

User-agent: ia_archiver
Disallow: /

That’s it. Only 2 ways. “Noindex” meta tag, probably, will not help you, because Alexa doesn’t mention it.

Treating Alexa ranking

I am not going to teach you how to treat alexa ranking, because it depends on your site’s needs. I will only share my own opinion on this problem.

Alexa traffic rank is my number 1 traffic analysis tool, because it really shows me the potential of a blog. It helps me to decide, whether to deal with the given website or not.

Alexa ranking can give you the general idea of successfulness of some site after 1 week.

Say, on monday I see, that the site’s Alexa rank is ~500k. Then.. I check its stats in the end of the week, and wow.. Alexa has changed to ~495k. This means, that the site is on the right road.

However, if Alexa has changed to, say, ~510k after the whole week, it means, that the author is not promoting his site anymore or doing it not properly. Moreover, I can say, that such site is getting ~15/20 unique visitors per day.. and it’s falling down.

Alexa does not relate to Google page rank

This is true, because Alexa uses its own crawler called ia_archiver. Google crawler’s name is… Googlebot. They are totally different, though they have similar algorithms, which is why a lot of bloggers and webmasters think that they somehow relate to each other.

To make it easier to understand:

Using Alexa, you can appraise site’s daily traffic;
However, with the help of Google page rank you can decide, if the outcoming links from some site are quality or not. Though you also should consider many many more factors, like keywords, dofollow/nofollow tags etc. Quality links improve your SERP.. simply reminding :)

How to improve Alexa traffic ranking?

Have you felt that?..

The question has the answer in it.

You need to get more traffic on your daily basis. But do not panic.. everything has its own time for it. If you are blogging consistently and promoting your stuff, your traffic ranking will be going up with each day. It only depends on how well you are doing those two things.

Well, as I have mentioned above, to get more accurate traffic data from Alexa you might need to install Alexa toolbar. But note.. it does not improve your traffic ranking, it only shows it more accurately.

For instance, when your watch is lagging for 5 minutes and you fix them (installing some toolbar :)… they become accurate. But the fact is the fact – they would have shown, for example 6:45 pm, anyway.

***

I think I have defined the meaning of Alexa ranking and have explained its ranking purpose.

Web sources that were used except the mentioned above: Alexa ranking – does it matter? and Technology of Alexa.

***

Video Dessert: «Stop The Alexa and PageRank Obsession!»

Lisa Irby explains why you should stop being obsessed by Alexa traffic rank, PageRank and so on.

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