Monday, May 2, 2011

FW: When Google Gets Mobile Detection Wrong


When Google Gets Mobile Detection Wrong

Post image for When Google Gets Mobile Detection Wrong

By Michael Gray on May 2, 2011


I have mentioned the dangers of having multiple versions of your website. On recent trip I had first hand experience with it as user as I searched for the term [jetblue parking laguardia].

Bad Mobile Detection

Sending a desktop user to a mobile version is a bad user experience and not a problem you should have. Serve your content under one URL–just omit elements based on the user agent. As long as you serve the mobile Google crawler the same content as a mobile user, you aren’t cloaking.
Creative Commons License photo credit: DaveOnFlickr

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Related posts:

  1. How Mobile Friendly is Your Website In late 2010, the New York Times published an article...
  2. What’s Wrong With A Universal Google Icon When Google switched to a single universal icon a few...
  3. When Google Local Gets it Wrong Now, don’t get me wrong. Google Local and Google Maps...
  4. What if Google Was Wrong Earlier this week Danny Sullivan and many others noted that...
  5. When Google Gets Duplicate Content Wrong There’s lots of hand wringing among publishers about duplicate content,...

Advertisers:

  1. Text Link Ads - New customers can get $100 in free text links.
  2. BOTW.org - Get a premier listing in the internet's oldest directory.
  3. Ezilon.com Regional Directory - Check to see if your website is listed!
  4. Need an SEO Audit for your website, look at my SEO Consulting Services
  5. Link Building- Backlink Build offers 45 PR5+ Backlinks for $295
  6. Directory Journal - Get permanent deep links in a search engine friendly directory
  7. Glass Whiteboards - For a professional durable white board with no ghosting, streaking or marker stains, see my Glass Whiteboard Review
  8. Links From PR9 Sites - - Get In Top 3 Google ASAP
  9. KnowEm - Protect your brand, product or company name with a continually growing list of social media sites.
  10. Scribe SEO Review find out how to better optimize your wordpress posts.
  11. TigerTech - Great Web Hosting service at a great price.

See my disclaimer about advertising and affiliate links

 

 

Feed: Graywolf's SEO Blog
Posted on: Monday, May 02, 2011 7:23 PM
Author: Michael Gray
Subject: When Google Gets Mobile Detection Wrong

 

Image removed by sender. Post image for When Google Gets Mobile Detection Wrong

I have mentioned the dangers of having multiple versions of your website. On recent trip I had first hand experience with it as user as I searched for the term [jetblue parking laguardia].

Image removed by sender.

Bad Mobile Detection

Sending a desktop user to a mobile version is a bad user experience and not a problem you should have. Serve your content under one URL–just omit elements based on the user agent. As long as you serve the mobile Google crawler the same content as a mobile user, you aren’t cloaking.
Image removed by sender. Creative Commons Licensephoto credit: DaveOnFlickr

Image removed by sender. tla starter kit

Related posts:

  1. How Mobile Friendly is Your Website In late 2010, the New York Times published an article...
  2. What’s Wrong With A Universal Google Icon When Google switched to a single universal icon a few...
  3. When Google Local Gets it Wrong Now, don’t get me wrong. Google Local and Google Maps...
  4. What if Google Was Wrong Earlier this week Danny Sullivan and many others noted that...
  5. When Google Gets Duplicate Content Wrong There’s lots of hand wringing among publishers about duplicate content,...

Advertisers:

  1. Text Link Ads - New customers can get $100 in free text links.
  2. BOTW.org - Get a premier listing in the internet's oldest directory.
  3. Ezilon.com Regional Directory - Check to see if your website is listed!
  4. Directory Journal - Get permanent deep links in a search engine friendly directory
  5. Glass Whiteboards - For a professional durable white board with no ghosting, streaking or marker stains, see my Glass Whiteboard Review
  6. Need an SEO Audit for your website, look at my SEO Consulting Services
  7. Link Building- Backlink Build offers 45 PR5+ Backlinks for $295
  8. KnowEm - Protect your brand, product or company name with a continually growing list of social media sites.
  9. Links From PR9 Sites - - Get In Top 3 Google ASAP
  10. Scribe SEO Review find out how to better optimize your wordpress posts.
  11. TigerTech - Great Web Hosting service at a great price.
  12. What Motivates You - what makes you want to get up and be successful

This post originally came from Michael Gray who is an SEO Consultant. Be sure not to miss the Thesis Wordpress Theme review.

When Google Gets Mobile Detection Wrong

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Sunday, May 1, 2011

FW: How Often Should You Update Evergreen Content


How Often Should You Update Evergreen Content

Post image for How Often Should You Update Evergreen Content

By Michael Gray on April 28, 2011


The idea of evergreen content is that it is essentially unchanging, intended to last “a long time,”and have little or no maintenance. So isn’t updating evergreen content a bit of an oxymoron? In some cases yes, in some cases no.

This discussion is part of a larger discussion I’ve been having on Twitter about re-tweeting old posts that have no published dates on them. While I do have a solution for displaying custom date formats that doesn’t adversely affect my Google click through rate, the fact that I may be tweeting outdated information exists.

So what’s a workable solution to evergreen content?

Make it part of your annual content audit process. Every 6-18 months, review and prune your dead posts. Review your top content to see what needs to be updated or cleaned up. Treat posts that you update like seasonal content and keep the living URL the same. Clear the “already tweeted” or “already published” flags (so the post will retweet when you change the publish date) and hit the “publish” button. (side note – for those of you who are using a plugin to post your tweets and may not know, when they “publish,” it sets a field in the database so it doesn’t retweet when you make any edits. In this case you want to override that behavior and make it retweet again as if it were a new post).

If you review the content and it needs very minor changes or no changes at all, treat it as seasonal content: clear the tweeted flags and update the publish date. This will add a bit of maintenance but not much. If the information is still up to date, your followers won’t mind “a rerun or two from last season” as long as there are regular posts and you don’t tweet them in “batch mode.” (side note: as an SEO, we like to work in batch mode, so updating 20 posts in one day and having them retweet in “batch” probably won’t win you any friends). If your audience is made up of whiny SEO’s or short attention span social media gurus, expect some hating. Regular people who aren’t on Twitter all day don’t really mind; in fact, many studies have shown retweeting is an effective way to reach these people.

So what are the key takeaways from this post:

  • When you do a content audit, also look for posts with outdated information.
  • Decide if you need a full rewrite or just a cleanup.
  • Treat the content like a living URL and don’t lose any existing link equity.
  • Clear out any “already tweeted” and “already published” flags.
  • Update the publish date, republish, and re-tweet.
tla starter kit

Related posts:

  1. What is Evergreen Content Evergreen Content is a subject I talk about quite frequently...
  2. Short Term Content Versus Evergreen Content I’ve got a confession to make. I used to be...
  3. Matt this is not an Update Cutts C’mon Matt do we really have to have this semantics...
  4. Oddities From the Latest Google Update Man the latest update on Google is clearly showing some...
  5. Andrew Wise of SEOLinkWheelers Talks About the Panda Update The following is a sponsored post. For today’s post we’re...

Advertisers:

  1. Text Link Ads - New customers can get $100 in free text links.
  2. BOTW.org - Get a premier listing in the internet's oldest directory.
  3. Ezilon.com Regional Directory - Check to see if your website is listed!
  4. Need an SEO Audit for your website, look at my SEO Consulting Services
  5. Link Building- Backlink Build offers 45 PR5+ Backlinks for $295
  6. Directory Journal - Get permanent deep links in a search engine friendly directory
  7. Glass Whiteboards - For a professional durable white board with no ghosting, streaking or marker stains, see my Glass Whiteboard Review
  8. Links From PR9 Sites - - Get In Top 3 Google ASAP
  9. KnowEm - Protect your brand, product or company name with a continually growing list of social media sites.
  10. Scribe SEO Review find out how to better optimize your wordpress posts.
  11. TigerTech - Great Web Hosting service at a great price.

See my disclaimer about advertising and affiliate links

 

 

Feed: Graywolf's SEO Blog
Posted on: Thursday, April 28, 2011 9:31 PM
Author: Michael Gray
Subject: How Often Should You Update Evergreen Content

 

Image removed by sender. Post image for How Often Should You Update Evergreen Content

The idea of evergreen content is that it is essentially unchanging, intended to last “a long time,”and have little or no maintenance. So isn’t updating evergreen content a bit of an oxymoron? In some cases yes, in some cases no.

This discussion is part of a larger discussion I’ve been having on Twitter about re-tweeting old posts that have no published dates on them. While I do have a solution for displaying custom date formats that doesn’t adversely affect my Google click through rate, the fact that I may be tweeting outdated information exists.

So what’s a workable solution to evergreen content?

Make it part of your annual content audit process. Every 6-18 months, review and prune your dead posts. Review your top content to see what needs to be updated or cleaned up. Treat posts that you update like seasonal content and keep the living URL the same. Clear the “already tweeted” or “already published” flags (so the post will retweet when you change the publish date) and hit the “publish” button. (side note – for those of you who are using a plugin to post your tweets and may not know, when they “publish,” it sets a field in the database so it doesn’t retweet when you make any edits. In this case you want to override that behavior and make it retweet again as if it were a new post).

If you review the content and it needs very minor changes or no changes at all, treat it as seasonal content: clear the tweeted flags and update the publish date. This will add a bit of maintenance but not much. If the information is still up to date, your followers won’t mind “a rerun or two from last season” as long as there are regular posts and you don’t tweet them in “batch mode.” (side note: as an SEO, we like to work in batch mode, so updating 20 posts in one day and having them retweet in “batch” probably won’t win you any friends). If your audience is made up of whiny SEO’s or short attention span social media gurus, expect some hating. Regular people who aren’t on Twitter all day don’t really mind; in fact, many studies have shown retweeting is an effective way to reach these people.

So what are the key takeaways from this post:

  • When you do a content audit, also look for posts with outdated information.
  • Decide if you need a full rewrite or just a cleanup.
  • Treat the content like a living URL and don’t lose any existing link equity.
  • Clear out any “already tweeted” and “already published” flags.
  • Update the publish date, republish, and re-tweet.

Image removed by sender. tla starter kit

Related posts:

  1. What is Evergreen Content Evergreen Content is a subject I talk about quite frequently...
  2. Short Term Content Versus Evergreen Content I’ve got a confession to make. I used to be...
  3. Matt this is not an Update Cutts C’mon Matt do we really have to have this semantics...
  4. Oddities From the Latest Google Update Man the latest update on Google is clearly showing some...
  5. Andrew Wise of SEOLinkWheelers Talks About the Panda Update The following is a sponsored post. For today’s post we’re...

Advertisers:

  1. Text Link Ads - New customers can get $100 in free text links.
  2. BOTW.org - Get a premier listing in the internet's oldest directory.
  3. Ezilon.com Regional Directory - Check to see if your website is listed!
  4. Directory Journal - Get permanent deep links in a search engine friendly directory
  5. Glass Whiteboards - For a professional durable white board with no ghosting, streaking or marker stains, see my Glass Whiteboard Review
  6. Need an SEO Audit for your website, look at my SEO Consulting Services
  7. Link Building- Backlink Build offers 45 PR5+ Backlinks for $295
  8. KnowEm - Protect your brand, product or company name with a continually growing list of social media sites.
  9. Links From PR9 Sites - - Get In Top 3 Google ASAP
  10. Scribe SEO Review find out how to better optimize your wordpress posts.
  11. TigerTech - Great Web Hosting service at a great price.
  12. What Motivates You - what makes you want to get up and be successful

This post originally came from Michael Gray who is an SEO Consultant. Be sure not to miss the Thesis Wordpress Theme review.

How Often Should You Update Evergreen Content

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View article...

Saturday, April 30, 2011

How Often Should You Update Evergreen Content

 

So what's a workable solution to evergreen content?

Make it part of your annual content audit process. Every 6-18 months, review and prune your dead posts. Review your top content to see what needs to be updated or cleaned up. Treat posts that you update like seasonal content and keep the living URL the same. Clear the "already tweeted" or "already published" flags (so the post will retweet when you change the publish date) and hit the "publish" button. (side note – for those of you who are using a plugin to post your tweets and may not know, when they "publish," it sets a field in the database so it doesn't retweet when you make any edits. In this case you want to override that behavior and make it retweet again as if it were a new post).

If you review the content and it needs very minor changes or no changes at all, treat it as seasonal content: clear the tweeted flags and update the publish date. This will add a bit of maintenance but not much. If the information is still up to date, your followers won't mind "a rerun or two from last season" as long as there are regular posts and you don't tweet them in "batch mode." (side note: as an SEO, we like to work in batch mode, so updating 20 posts in one day and having them retweet in "batch" probably won't win you any friends). If your audience is made up of whiny SEO's or short attention span social media gurus, expect some hating. Regular people who aren't on Twitter all day don't really mind; in fact, many studies have shown retweeting is an effective way to reach these people.

So what are the key takeaways from this post:

  • When you do a content audit, also look for posts with outdated information.
  • Decide if you need a full rewrite or just a cleanup.
  • Treat the content like a living URL and don't lose any existing link equity.
  • Clear out any "already tweeted" and "already published" flags.
  • Update the publish date, republish, and re-tweet.


View article...

7 Tips For Making Your Blog Posts More Readable

You might have a lot of ideas for your blog posts and you might know many tricks on how to successfully promote your blog. However, the content on a blog is as important as your marketing tools. The reason is simple: you want readers to come back. If you get readers to come to your page, but they don't enjoy reading your blog posts, they won't be back.

You might have a great interesting idea for a blog post. But if the blog post you come up with is not readable, your idea just goes to waste. Writing good blog posts takes practice and there are a few things which you can do to make your articles more readable and enjoyable to your audience.

1. Structure your blog posts. When you write an article, make sure you have an introduction, a body and a conclusion. Your introduction should state the main idea that you're going to discuss. The body will develop your argument, in one or several paragraphs, and can contain lists and bullet points if applicable. The conclusion should be a short summary of the whole article and a restatement of the idea from the introduction. A structured text is easy to go through, and your readers will be able to get your points only by skimming it.

2. Use sub-headers. Online readers are not very patient. A long block of text will bore them and they'll be gone in seconds. Sub-headers are a great way to make blog posts more readable. They allow readers to get a quick idea on what issues you're tackling in your article and to skip to the topics they're interested in.

3. Make your blog posts coherent. Organize your ideas into paragraphs and don't suddenly skip from one topic to another. All the arguments and ideas in your blog posts should flow in a logical manner. You might know what your point is, but if you jump around from one idea to another, your readers will get tired and confused and will simply quit trying to understand.

4. Use pictures. Not all blog posts can be illustrated with pictures, but many of them can. Depending on the length of your blog post, you can use one or multiple pictures. Images attract reader's attention and make texts look friendlier.

5. Avoid using numbers and technical details. Unless you're writing for a limited number of highly specialized readers, avoid using a lot of numbers, technical names and specifications. Scatter them through the article, and try to use a conversational language.

6. Don't overestimate or underestimate your readers. You probably shouldn't explain what Facebook is, but do explain things that your readers might not understand. If your not sure how to make the difference between what you should detail and what you shouldn't, think whether your friends would understand it. If they would, it's probably common knowledge. If they wouldn't, explain it or provide a link where your readers can get some information.

7. Don't use too many keywords and don't include irrelevant links. It's understandable why you want to fill your blog posts with keywords and why you want to link both to your blog and to other websites. But remember that blog readers can easily make the difference between a text written with the audience in mind, and a text written only for SEO purposes. Place keywords strategically, only where they fit naturally into the text, and only include relevant links. Your readers will get mad if they click on a link and get to an irrelevant page.

In time, you will be able to write excellent blog posts without thinking to much about it. But, in the beginning, you have to establish a step by step routine and follow it every time you want to publish something. And checking if your blog posts are readable should definitely be part of that routine if you want to build a solid returning audience.


Original Post: 7 Tips For Making Your Blog Posts More Readable


 

Tuesday, April 26, 2011

Reduce Your Bounce Rate In One Second

Reduce Your Bounce Rate In One Second

So, how do you get visitors to spend more time on your site and reduce your bounce rate, without spending more than one second trying to do it?
It’s simple.
First of all get inside the control panel of your website (e.g., WordPress admin dashboard, or the equivalent on the software you are using). Now go to the section where you can tweak your CSS and other design aspects (in WordPress this is under the “Appearance” menu). Now find the line controlling the font size on your site, and increase it. That is it!
There are many case studies around the web where people used A/B testing to find how they could reduce the bounce rate, and increasing the font size works on most situations.
Just consider that the population in most developed countries is getting older and older, and that more and more people need to stare at a computer screen all day long for professional reasons (meaning our eyes are getting tired).
Then combine that with larger screen resolutions (where you have more pixels on the screen, but the actual appearance of the graphics gets smaller) and you get web visitors who would love to find a big large font on your site, so that they can read your awesome content comfortably.
And yes, I did increase the font on Daily Blog Tips a couple of months ago. It used to be 12, now it’s 13, and the bounce rate improved slightly.

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