swansonager – what is matt up to?

Matt has posted a summary of his 2007 WordCamp SEO Whitehat list for Bloggers – if you’ve not seen this one, it’s a great watch/read Thanks Matt!

I’ve always wondered what the default time was a message appears on your home page would be before Google would index that message. For example, if your bandwidth was exceeded would the SERP teaser say “Site: Blah.com Bandwidth exceeded” or if you site was down for maintenance, would the SERP teaser read something like this:

I guess depending on how often Google, MSN, or Yahoo! crawls your home page would be a determining factor – @mattcutts do you have any thoughts on this one? We’d love to hear them

Does that post title mean anything? Not one thing at all but chances are you clicked on it to see what it does mean. That is the topic of my post today – using intriguing post titles to capture audience attention as well as the click.

On Monday and Tuesday of this week, I essentially posted the same exact body in the post. The only difference was the post title. On Monday, I used the title “Blogging is all about frame of reference” and on Tuesday, I used “Do you dress up to go to Walmart?“.

Not much difference in the post content, but the titles were very different. Take a look at the stats on CTR (Click Through Rate) from my bit.ly URL tracking service below:

Take a look at the increased CTR % (19 clicks v. 4 clicks) on the Walmart titled post – using a unique and intriguing title is sure to increase the number of readers that will look at your content. What’s your experience from using different approaches to titles in your blog posts?

We’d love to hear what you’ve experienced!

[update #1]
For you Alison

If you’ve been on the web for any amount of time, you realize that you can get traffic form a myriad of sources. In general, we want as much traffic as possible, but there are some instances where we might only want to get traffic from a certain set of countries or possibly even exclude entire blocks of countries from accessing your site or blog.

The best way (although not bullet proof by any means) is to block traffic based on an IP Address. How can I do that? you ask…

For site owners running on linux based platforms, there is a great .htaccess hack that will allow you to block ranges of IP Addresses based on the host country. Take a look the service offered by Block a Country for a great and easy tutorial to implementing a host country block for Linux based sites. nihars world has a great summary oh using Block a Country as well you might want to check out.

Windows based sites are a bit trickier and you might need to subscribe to a service like the one offered by MaxMind which provides a subscription based model to access City, ZIP, Host Country, State, etc. for each request to your site. Once you have the subscription to the Maxmind service, you can either implement your own database of IPs and update that regularly or you can use their web service based model.

The question I have out there for everyone is this:
If you are using a service like Wordpress.com or Blogger (Blogspot) – how can you block traffic based on Country – is there anyway that can’t be accomplished? I was thinking that possibly you could do a .js include that might redirect the user, but this wouldn’t help for any hotlinked images or if the user had javascript disabled. Any ideas???

Over the past few weeks I have been thinking about some of the top guys and gals in the SEO and Web Engineering space and what makes them successful. I wanted to put together a post that detailed which tools some of the top SEOs and Web Engineers out there use on a daily basis and what tools they absolutely CAN’T live without. Below is list of what some of the top guys and gals are using and what, when asked, they can’t live without.

Special thanks to Aaron, Matt, Shane, Jill and Drew for their input that helped make today’s post possible!

Aaron Wall from SEOBook

• Google’s sktool
• the SEO toolbar
• our competitive research tool and any analytics tool the site is running

Jill Whalen from High Rankings

• Google’s Keyword Research Tool
• Google Analytics
• Firefox (plus all its tons of extensions)

Shane Pike from Ask Shane

• A great code editor: I still use Visual InterDev to this day even though I don’t code in ASP anymore just because I like how the editor works. There is probably a better answer out there, but InterDev still works great for me
• An FTP client: In many cases the command line works just fine, but there are times when I just need an actual application. I use FileZilla because it’s simple and free
• A web stats program: If you’re not measuring, you have no idea whether you’re succeeding. I use Google Analytics because it’s widely accepted and it’s free

Shane’s OS of Choice?

And I’m a PC guy all the way. In 16 years I’ve never had a problem, so I’ve never even thought about switching.

Matt Cutts from Google

• the full Google set – Search, Gmail, Calendar are always open. Chrome is my browser of search. These “Big Four” are with me ~100% of the time.
• non-Google-wise, I like Twitter, especially the standing search functionality.
• non-Google-wise, I keep an eye on Techmeme to see what the news of the day is.

Drew Meyers from Geek Estate Blog

I’m pretty old school with tools, I don’t use too many. Some I use:

• MyBlogLog to see where my traffic is coming from in real time
• Twitter
• SEO status plugin for firefox
• Yahoo site explorer
• Google reader

I’m a windows guy, but planning to switch to a mac when I buy my next computer.

Matthew Swanson from swansonager

• Since I do a lot of text editing, I’ve found Textpad to be an indispensable text editor – it does a lot of functions really, really well. Including “Find in files” that imo, Windows has always lacked in BIG TIME.
• Firefox, plus my favorite plugins: Search Status, Firebug, and Rank Checker from SEOBook
• Domain Tools – one of the best (imo) places to research everything you want to know about any domain
• StatCounter – As much as I LOVE Google Analytics, I still like the simplistic nature of StatCounter – it’s not 100% like GA, but it’s always good to have a second sanity check on your domains for stats, etc..

What are you tools of choice? We’d love to hear.

I’d love to hear what your favorite tools are – leave a comment below and share your absolute “can’t live without tools” with everyone

Chuck Norris uses two Total Gyms at his house. Why you ask? One for him, one for his wife. Since he has to leave at 6am for the office, he uses the tools he needs to make his workout happen. What are you doing to make it happen with your website or blog?

Just do it.

Something that is. If you have all the tools necessary in your tool box to build your business, but sit around and do nothing, you won’t amount to much in the world of building a successful blog or business. Just do a little bit everyday. Much like working out, You won’t get lean or in shape over night, but doing a little bit each day will help you reach your goal. Don’t think you have time? Shoemoney nails with Time is all we have

Fail to Plan, Plan to Fail

Just like Chuck has only 15 minutes to workout – he has a specific routine to do. Chest, Lats, Tris and Bi’s.

You might only have 15 minutes a day to do something for your business or blog, but you’ve got to make the time and stick to your plan. If you fail to plan, plan to fail. You need a defined plan to use your time effectively and be productive with your tools and time.

An un-used blog or stagnate website is a dormant site collecting web termites. You don’t want web termites – trust me.

Using your tools will energize you

Look at what others in your space or the web/seo space are using to help increase their traffic and customers. Just like Chuck’s wife didn’t know about the Total Gym before they got together, you might not know about other great tools out there that others are using – look around and ask. (note: I’m putting together a post on this topic later this week so ping me if you would like to share your top 3 tools with everyone)

Like Chuck’s wife says – “just try it and maintain your daily workout” (or work in our case) – by just using the tools you have at your disposal, you will be moving in the right direction and see some positive results.

I always think back to the successful things I have done or been a part of in my life — all the experiences I went through to get me to those places that brought me to that point in time. Without each step along the way, you can’t get to the next thing that’s 5 steps ahead of where you are right now. Are you taking the steps today you need to get where you want to be next? If not, why not?

Ok, so not really merging in a physical sense, but in more of a virtual sense of what each service offers their users from a feature perspective. In this post, we’ll explore the benefits and drawbacks of each blogging platform as well as each of the following services: Blogspot, Wordpress.com, Standalone Wordpress Software.

What are the different options for blog owners and authors that provide the most flexibility, ease of use, and the best benefits for both power and casual authors that want to create a blog for their business or passion.

Earlier this week, Alison commented on my post about how to get natural traffic from google in under 3 days and posed this question:

Thanks, Matt! Great post! As for those of us who use blogger, do you have any suggestions regarding it specifically? Or if not, is it a good idea to switch over to Wordpress?

She brings up a great question. A lot of you might know even know what the options are when it comes to starting a blog using some of the great open source and free options you have available. So let’s give a breakdown of those services first. You can basically have a blog that is either:

Option One – Use a free blogging service

For example, Google offers Blogspot for their users as a free service, or Wordpress (more on Wordpress in a second though)

Cost: FREE – Maybe you want to setup a free blog with blogspot

Cost: FREE – You could setup a free blog with hosted wordpress

Option Two – You host the Blog, Software and Database

In this option, you install the blog software you download on your own web host or web server (you could go with something like Wordpress, B2Evolution, or Dot Net Blog Engine)

Cost: FREE (you only pay hosting and bandwidth + domain registration) -You might want to use the wordpress standalone software

I mentioned that Wordpress is a different beast in a way because they offer both option 1 and option 2 above – You can use Wordpress.com if you want to have a blog that is hosted by Wordpress or you can download the standalone version of wordpress from Wordpress.org to run the software yourself.

If you’re a .net guru, then dot net blog engine might be for you

Another option for open source is B2 Evolution – I used this back in early 2003-2005 to blog internally when I was a Sr. Software Engineer at CareerBuilder.com

What’s the best option to go with?

Really, it’s different for everyone. Like with most things, it’s really what you are comfortable using. Most beginners or folks that don’t come from a technical background, or have an understanding of html or any scripting language for that matter will probably go with Option #1 above – it’s free and very intuitive to set up and use. Most of the third party hosted blog provide ample functionality for the casual blogger to get started and run a site.

That being said, there are some drawbacks to using a third party blogging service:

1. Lack of broad plugin support (what a plugin you ask? we’ll use Wordpress for example – anything you could ever want to do has a plugin that someone has built)

2. Domain and URL Structure Control – you’re domain will be xxxxx.blogspot.com or xxxx.wordpress.com. (Note: you can use the cname process with blogspot though) but most folks have no clue what that means and I won’t go into it now…) Full details here: CName’ing your site with Blogspot

3. Root access for uploading files…sitemaps is done in a non traditional route for notifying Google which pages you have on your site – Lenin writes how to upload a sitemap for Blogspot…..

4. Database backup and storage backup – with Blogger or Wordpress.com backing up your data can be tricky and not automated that I know of (please someone correct me if I am wrong) – but with a standalone Wordpress site, you can easily backup your wordpress database automatically

5. You want your content to boost your domain – let’s face it, if you are going to put the time and effort into any business venture or blog, you want to have full ownership of the site as well as experience the full benefits down the road – like if you sell your site for 1M one day. Building out your site on a Blogger domain isn’t the best choice for setting up yourself for future success, imo. You can always migrate from blogspot to wordpress later on, but that can be tricky for the general blogger to complete successfully, etc.

Where Third Party Hosted Blogs win (usually)

Those are just a couple drawbacks but I’d like to mention a key area where Blogger or Wordpress might really be able to help you – it’s scale. You want to make sure your efforts will be seen by the masses and that your site can handle a lot of visitors, right? Blogger and Wordpress.com a used by millions of people everyday and they will be up 99.999% of the time in most cases. Running your own site does put you at risk to make sure your web host can handle the traffic load when you get on the front page of CNN – ok, that might not happen right away – but you need to be ready and set yourself up for success.

Conclusion of Third Party Hosted v. Standalone Blogging Software

Basically you can get a free blog that is more of a black box (blogger or hosted at wordpress) or you can do it yourself…Having ‘under the hood’ access if you will, provides way more flexibility but at the same time, requires a deeper understanding of technology.

On a personal note, if your friend wants a blog and knows nothing about the tech side, set them up with a wordpress hosted or blogspot blog, otherwise you’ve just got a new non paying customer to support

If you decide to go with option #1 above, Pulsed has published an excellent list of the features of a BlogSpot v. Wordpress.com Features that’s updated as of May 2009.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on which features of each type of service you love or hate… please comment and let me know!

After deciding to finally get my new blog up and running last week, just a couple months after my 10 year anniversary of working in the online world, I thought it would be cool to let everyone know how I started getting natural google traffic to this site just 3 days after the launch of the site.

I always say that whenever someone that claims to be an SEO guru ‘promises’ or ‘guarantees’ they can deliver for you in the world of SEO, you should be skeptical. That being said, let’s take a look at the steps I took when starting this site to ensure I started down a path to building a firm foundation.

1. Settle on your domain – I am big fan or deferring decisions until the last second possible, but in the case of a domain, it’s best to make a good decision from the start. Whatever your niche – make sure you grab a domain that you’ll be happy with – after all, you’re going to be spending a great amount of time and effort to make your site great, right?

I went with Swansonager.com – thought that would be a memorable name for me since it was a nickname I had at one point growing up

2. Technology – What platform are you going to build your site on? Wordpress? Joomla? Rails? Asp.net? It doesn’t matter 100%, but you should look at the different languages, what they have to offer as far as community support goes, and how that can best fit into your strategy for building out your business.

For me, this was an easy one – Wordpress. Wordpress has a ton of support and it’s been only getting better since Matt started the project a few years back. Themes, plugins, you name it and want to do it online – Wordpress has the support for it – hands down.

3. Content for your site – this is a key issue. Most folks want the easy way out here – doing things that are blackhat or look phishy to the search engines is definitely no-no. Just ask Matt Cutts – his summary of how BMW .de did something not so good back in 2006 is always a reminder to me that we should be building things to make the best user experience and the best content for our users – not just doing things for SEO reasons. 99% of the time when you try and do things that are meant to game the system, you lose. Seth has a great article on “The spirit of the game” that I suggest you read if you haven’t already.

4. Process of launching – to make this easy, I’ll just sum up what I did to prepare for the launch of swansonager in addition to how long it took me to get things done (approximately).

Action	Time to complete
purchase domain	(5 min)
setup hosting	(5 min)
install wordpress	(10 min)
find one of the 100 Excellent Wordpress Themes available for free	(10 min)
customize the theme slightly	(15 min)
download a couple plugins for wordpress	(10 min)
submit my Google Sitemap	(5 min)
get my Google Analytics code setup for swansonager.com	(5 min)
customize the theme slightly	(15 min)
verify swansonager.com with Google’s Webmaster Tools	(5 min)
setup my feedburner code	(5 min)
add a twitter follow me button	(10 min)
Total Development Time:	~100 Minutes

This was my basic process, but you get the picture. In just over 100 minutes, I had put together the basics for what I needed to get my site up and running and all in a very lean fashion for deploying software.

What comes next is content. Yep, that’s it from a setup perspective – so in just over 100 minutes or over an hour and a half, I’m ready to go.

So I start writing a couple blog posts, and then my long lost friend Googlebot pays me a visit, thanks GoogleBot, I had missed you. The post I am going to share is the one from yesterday, just 3 days after my blog launched. I wrote about a funny ad in the Sunday AJC paper that featured steaks for a dollar.

Within a few hours of submitting that post to Swansonager.com, I’m ranking for the keywords dollar tree steak on page 2 of Google for this search term. Pretty cool, eh? Now before you jump in and say – hey! “dollar tree steaks” isn’t anywhere near a competitive keyword phrase to rank for, I already know that

This example was really just to illustrate that, given your niche, it’s entirely possible to rank for long tail, niche specific keywords in Google very quickly (in less than 3 days in this case for a brand new domain/site), despite what rumors you might hear.

Swansonager Ranking for Dollar Tree Steaks

Results from the lone user that found swansonager.com searching for Dollar Tree Steaks:

Natural Search Traffic to Swansonager.com