Tag Archives: seo

WordPress Plugins for a Better Life

Well, at least they make *my* life better, and hopefully those of my readers! I use a lot of WordPress plug ins for SEO, Event Management, Web Analytics, Communications, etc so I wanted to just list them out for all to see.

Here are all the plug ins in use over at Complete Poker Rules:

  • AdSense Manager
    • For managing Adsense Ads throughout the site
  • Akismet
    • Nearly eliminates the spam comments I receive. Some false positives but that may just be the nature of running a Poker Blog.
  • Amazon Reloaded for WordPress
    • Allows you to search Amazon from the post edit screen and insert the product image or text link complete with Amazon Associate ID.
       
  • cforms
    • Contact forms with an excellent admin interface and highly flexible styling. 
  • FeedBurner FeedSmith
    • Used in conjunction with FeedBurner to manage your RSS subscriptions.
  • Google XML Sitemaps
    • Creates and keeps up to date you sitemap.xml file for assisting search engines with the structure and pages of your site.
  • Headspace2
    • Make your WordPress site SEO friendly with this very powerful tool.
  • Highlight Author Comments
    • Call attention to the comments that you leave as admin so they stick out from the rest.
       
  • More Link Modifier
    • Changes the behavior of the ‘More’ link in WordPress posts. You can customize the copy that is displayed as well as disabling the “Jump To” behavior of the More anchor link when clicked.
       
  • Redirection
    • Manage the redirection of deleted posts, etc without needing to edit your .htaccess file. Also great for 301 redirecting domain.com to www.domain.com or vice-versa.
  • Robots Meta
    • Manage the index nature of your site. Some SEO expert say that duplicating content within your own site dilutes the link juice you would otherwise get from a single instance of a post. Also good for noindexing your WordPress Login page among others.
  • RSS Footer
    • Append a footer to the end of each post in your RSS feed. This is especially key if you have sites that scrape your content, it will include a link back to your site and you can at least benefit from the juice!
  • Search Excerpt
    • Enhance the on site search experience for your readers with keyword highlighting and relevancy sorting. 
  • Sociable
    • Allow your readers to share your content on social networks.
       
  • Theme Tester
    • Allows you to test out a new theme without disrupting service to your visitors. 
  • Ultimate Google Analytics
    • Plugin to allow you to include your Google Analytics tracking code on all your pages. Also allows you to set which user level should the tracking code be displayed for. For instance, you can disable to tracking code for admin users to avoid inflating your tracking numbers.
  • WordPress Database Backup
    • Schedule the backup of your WordPress database tables to file or email.
  • WordPress Related Posts
    • Include links to related posts based on tagging. great for deep linking content.
       
  • WP-Polls
    • Include a poll in your post. Highly customizable: user contributed answers, multiple selection answers, etc. 
  • WP-PostRatings
    • Adds a ratings system to each post. 
  • WP-Table
    • Insert a table in your posts or pages for a better handle on structuring your content without CSS.
       
  • WPListcal
    • Create events and display them in any post, page or template. Flexible scheduling system to show x days out, only current and future events, etc. 

#ramday: An Experiment in Meme-Jumping

While a relatively small group of Twitterers were sharing their #ramday experiences, I wrote this blog post: “What the Hell is #ramday?”. It was an attempt to jump on the coattails of the #ramday meme and vault the blog post as high as possible in Google. Christopher S Penn had a similar meme-jumping experience with Youtube and Rickrolling.

Did it work??

Graphic showing the dramatic increase in visitors for the ramday meme explanation post.

For a personal blog with very little traffic (5 – 10 uniques a day?) I had 406 unique visitors on Friday July 25th (aka the inaugural #ramday)!

And here are the search results in Google:

Google search results for Ramday

Incredibly enough, and this is  testament to how great Google is as a search engine, this page highlighted above was result #51 on Friday July 25th 30 minutes after I wrote it!

SEO/SEM for Nonprofits: Interview with Aaron Wall

I recently had the opportunity to exchange questions via email with Aaron Wall of SEOBook.com on a topic of my choosing in the area of Search Engine Marketing/Search Engine Optimization. My topic was how nonprofits can leverage search engine optimization and marketing tools to further their cause.

[ Geoff ] The recent announcement of the Google Grants program will certainly help level the playing field for non-profits. Could you tell me in your opinion just how important the Google Grants program will be for non-profits from an SEM standpoint?

[ Aaron ] The one area where Google Grants will help bring in direct revenues is for some fake charities set up to push business interests, where people donate valuable goods that get auctioned off in order to receive a tax break. Donate your car offers come to mind, because the tax loophole makes many people donating not care who gets the donation. Some donors may even shop for the maximum write off potential.

But for real charities, I think Google Grants should help them somewhat on an awareness front, but not to directly achieve donations…more to help them bring about awareness of issues that they support. Many non-profits have enough link equity that if they use some of the leading keyword research tools, use clarity in their language, and then make sure they optimize their page titles to focus on issues like world hunger, starving children, etc. that they should be able to get exposure for the issues. Then if people decide they care about those issues and how the non-profit wants to address them then they may donate and/or subscribe.

[ Geoff ] On SEOBook.com you have an article called “101 Link Building Tips to Market Your Website”. Do you feel there are certain link building methods on that list that are more important to non-profits than others methods? Would you revise that list at all for non-profits or do they apply across the spectrum of businesses and industries?

[ Aaron ] I think that even more than with other issues, non-profits tend to be budget limited and fight some of the more destructive elements of corporate externalities.

Given their limited capital (and the vast capital of some competing forces in many markets) non-profits really need to connect to people on an emotional level. They need to make people enraged or concerned, and they need to turn their readers/watchers/learners into teachers to help spread their message.

Here are 6 concepts stemming from that idea

  1. Syndicate content on sites like YouTube, like UNICEF did. This does 4 powerful things:
    • Video content is quite captivating, and helps make the invisible visible (see the above UNICEF video)
    • YouTube is a high authority site which has a lot of viewers
    • YouTube foots the bandwidth bill
    • Embeddable videos are easy to spread…and make your message go viral
  2. Use newsletters and create a central blog people can subscribe to.
  3. Some non-profits may even want to encourage guest bloggers from outsiders who really are passionate about the organization.
  4. Outside of videos it helps to have other widgets too…sites like Kiva allow donors to become the marketers by syndicating a widget to their website.
  5. Get people to feel involved in the process…let them feel ownership. I recently saw Brave New Films allow people to sponsor a message in the movie. Of course anyone who does that not only helps pay for the film, but they will also buy a copy, and watch it with their friends.
  6. If possible try to sell media or other goodies in pairs to try to get people to share it with friends. Host bring a friend nights, etc.

I appreciate and thank Aaron taking the time to answer my questions. You can learn more about Aaron and SEO/SEM at SEOBook.com