INL – News

This is Week #1 of INL’s March Madness Blogging Spotlight. We covered ideas for finding a niche, choosing a domain, installing our blogs using Expert WordPress.

We also went through the Welcome Package.

Since class time is limited, here are some videos on Installing and configuring your blog.

Tips on making money with blogs.

Happy blogging

Optimizing your blog for search engine traffic is very important in order to be successful. Traffic from search engines can be slow and develops over time, but once it does, it will grow steadily and bring long-term results. Because SE traffic can take time to cultivate, you should be using other methods such as Adwords, Blogger, Forum or Article Marketing in the beginning to get the ball rolling.

Basic Blog settings for an SEO Friendly blog

Blog SEO

If you used Expert WordPress to install your blog, a good deal of the SEO work has been done for you. You may want to look over the configuration in the settings menu to double check or to tweak it. Here’s a video to show you where and how to do it in WordPress.

Once installed, these videos show how to tweak your blog for your needs. This first video is how to configure the settings area

This next video is how to change the default stuff that WordPress puts into you blog.

Now you may want to change the look of your blog. Expert WP gives you several options with customizing your blog’s theme. Here’s how:

1. Click on Appearance
2. Choose either Expertwp options or Header Options
3. Choose the changes you would like to implement and save.

Don’t worry about messing it up- you can always click on the defaults button and restore it to the original settings. So, go ahead and play around.

You also have some themes in your Welcome Package. All you have to do is upload the zipped file in the “add new themes” section in appearances and install. You can choose to preview or activate the theme. Activating it will make it your present theme for your blog.

The Flexibilty Theme in you Welcome Package has a Whole Lot of options which can be overwhelming when you first see them. It’s a good theme to work with if you really want a unique look to your blog.

This video shows you how to upload/install new themes- no FTP prog needed

Installing plugins is pretty much the same process. Next week we’ll touch on editing themes a bit and start looking for plugins to monetize your blog.

A lot of on-line professionals are discovering how easy backlink building with RSS is for getting their website a good ranking position in the search engines – yet syndication feeds have many other uses in promoting its success. Here are a few reasons to use this tool to its full advantage:

Attempting to dazzle the masses with a new business venture, when so many people have similar internet businesses already, can seem like an exercise in futility at times. Surprisingly simple and easy ways to boost ones website efficiency in any manner – such as the multiple benefits of having a feed – is a godsend when discovered. But in what way?

RSS feeds can keep a business at the top of the game: Internet game software sales gurus need to be in the loop regarding the newest and truest changes to goods and services in whatever their niche may be. If one\’s in software sales, a feed mainly comprised of home computer program breaking news sites, and the like, is a good way to keep information at his fingertips. He can quickly jump on any new updates or programs applying to his business, and in that way, gain the lead over competitors – who may not know what hit them.

The internet business owner who provides on-line technical help to customers with computer problems, benefits with a feed of new repair technology service websites that provide him with the latest how-to information and education on upgrades for computer repair, now more affordable to him – and in turn, to his customers. An extra benefit of this convenience is getting to know any support staff at the informational websites, who are available for any questions or concerns he may have about possible future snafus that could hang him up in helping the customer – and in this way heads them off before they happen. Being so prepared helps a business person to ensure the loyalty of his clients – who often bring him new business in return.

RSS feeds can add various and fun entertaining options for the reader of a blog: Some with niche websites and a fan base started a blog as just a simple way to keep in touch with their loved ones and friends, but it grew into something much bigger. With not a lot of time to post fresh material, a blogger is often at a crossroads at what to do that fits his schedule and won\’t kill his blog. By adding feeds for entertaining the reader in different ways – like with the newest music, funny videos or breaking news – the reader won\’t be so disappointed if there isn\’t any new material to read once in a while.

RSS feeds can by utilized by aspiring writers to enter the profession earlier: There are those who want to write for a living, and know that to do so, it\’s crucial one establish a following of readers – and other writers, as well. To eventually get that dream job, and catch the eye of publishers – one has to earn credibility making a positive name for himself among all sectors of the writing community.

Back links from other websites is crucial for a writer to build a good reputation, but just as important is visiting other writers in the community, and reading their work. By using a continuous feed of all the websites he visits, even when busy, all the writer has to do is locate them in the feed, read the posts – then click a link to leave his opinions. Having a convenient way to read and comment is a huge gift to a busy writer, as this is a big part of building that accessible reputation – which is considered professional courtesies between writers. Professional and personal friendships often come of successful give and take courtesies – not to mention the extensive networking that\’s beneficial to all. And there\’s always the chance that a door will be opened, and a publishing opportunity will be on the other side of it, one day soon.

By these examples, it\’s simple to see how easy backlink building with RSS is just one of the many magic functions of continuous feed to be used to improve the his success on the web.

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What’s Happening In The Lab

This is week two of the Blogging Spotlight. As part of this spotlight several members are getting together a brand new blog from scratch to get down the specific step-by-step methodology for creating blogs and monitizing them to a successful end.

Why blogs and why WordPress?

WordPress is one of the easiest platforms to learn and use to build a Niche Business. The learning curve is very fast while the results are very professional.  Not to even mention it is free.  (Affiliates – promote the Word press Self Study Course and earn + the Bronze Membeship includes a blog set up complete with hosting at a mere $9.95 per month.)

In this first week, we got the basics of installation

• Beginners – use Fantastico, but make it secure
• Intermediates – Expert Word Press One Step Install with all of its extras
• Advanced – Get under the hood and get to know how it works

In week two, we installed the theme and learned about the most important plugins.  Just because they are out there doesn’t mean you need every one of them.

The course includes 12 videos students will be able to download.

This is week three we will  begin to work on how to monitize the blog

Week 4 Driving traffic to the blog.

Basics of Design on Wednesday Ed showed us how to design a logo. He showed us how to customize the blog header. 

Check out the calendar for this weeks schedule then set aside the time to attend those conferences you need to fill in the gaps.

Food For Thought:

The quality of a man’s life is in direct proportion to his commitment to excellence, regardless of his chosen field of endeavor.   –Vince Lombardi

Putting videos online is all the rage but is it really just as simple as uploading a video to YouTube or your website for people to find it? The simple answer is No. You need to do some work to make it search engine friendly just like all content needs to be on the Internet. So here are some quick tips on how to do just that.

Get People Pointing – One of the most important factors in ranking high in Google search results are backlinks. Those are links that are coming into your site and pointing at your videos. You need these or Google won\’t see how valuable your information is and will slide you near the bottom of the pile. Here are three things to do in order to keep that from happening. One, when you have that video uploaded and ready to be seen why not tell people about it? Put out a press release, a newsletter or a news blast to let your current subscribers and the media know it\’s there. Who knows, it might get picked up by a major site and you\’ll get more traffic. Two, do it yourself by dropping links in social networks like Twitter and Facebook, social bookmarking sites like Digg, Reddit, and Delicious. Those are all high value sites and will also generate some traffic. Three, tell your friends. Keep a list of people who maintain sites that pertain to your particular topics. When you put out a new video, drop them all an email to let them know. Or if they have forums and blogs leave comments and write posts that will also tie into what your video talks about because then it\’s easy to slide a link in.

Subtitles and Captions – Not everyone can hear or speaks English so you need to make the information in your video as accessible as you can. That means subtitles and captions for your video. There are numerous services that can help with this and since many are saved as text files they are extra information that Google can use to determine how valid and important your video is when people are searching for that specific information. The other bonus is that even people who are at work and might not be able to listen to the sound of the video will get the message. It ensures the widest possible spread of the content of the video since you\’re giving it to people in as many forms of media as possible. Be sure to include a URL or contact information so people know where to go to get more info.

Multi-faceted Distribution – Get that video out to as many places as you can because that will get it seen. If you don\’t want to pose the whole video to other video sharing sites but want people to see a teaser that leads them back to you then do that but be certain to include enough information so that they are compelled to find out more. You can even get a piece of software that will do all the submissions for you quickly and easily in a sort of fire-and-forget fashion where you don\’t even need to be there.

Yes this all sounds so simple right? Well it is, but if you don\’t do it you\’re sure to hardly ever generate traffic on your videos. So what are you waiting for? Even if you\’ve got older videos on your site that are under-performing you can do all of this to get them revitalized and bringing you more traffic.

These are some tips to get started, but many prefer to work with a trusted video search optimization company. Successful video search engine optimization requires professional keyword research, optimization and distribution. Consider the internet\’s most trusted authority for video seo , ReelSEO.

When the Internet started out in’97, it was naturally vulnerable to abuse. Those who created it had yet to perfect it while dealing with the unknown. Nobody exactly knew how such technology would make it outside where people would be using it. When search engine optimization and its benefits first came to public knowledge, it was automatically explored and practiced by businessmen who believed it was the solution to their classic problem of poor Internet visibility which automatically translated to poor sales.

Of course, the Internet itself was technology and its advantages had to be exhausted if it were to serve man significantly. Since the only way to improve site performance was to make it turn up on results pages, seo experts toyed with all sorts of ideas on how to beat these engines’ algorithms and actually have their sites landing where they wanted them – at the top of a search engine ranking page or SERP. This became a fight among programmers who were commissioned by site owners to crack the formulas that the engines used in indexing pages. By this time, spammers were born.

Search engines used so called “spiders” to pick up information for each web page on the Internet so it would know which sites to display on its search results. When an search engine optimization submission expert knew precisely what keywords to use in his meta tags, he site had a great chance of getting a good ranking.

However, as the Internet had yet to be perfected back then, spammers bombarded their content with all of these keywords even if they started to diminish the quality of their sites. In other words, search engine optimization then was simply about overstuffing your information with search spider-friendly words and working HTML magic to be able to beat the engines and competing sites.

Today, old-school seo just wouldn’t work because search engines have become smarter and better at spotting black hats. In fact, when content is detected to have a higher keyword density than allowed, the site is simply skipped by the spiders, hence, burying the site down into the deepest pits of search engine results. In worst cases, the it is simply banned.

Today, some web programmers still attempt to crack the search engines’ algorithms in indexing pages but none has, so far, succeeded. In fact, a more holistic approach is now being used for evaluating sites with deeper aspects of seo marketing such as competitive analysis, copywriting and copyediting being factors in a site’s chance of getting good Internet visibility.

Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of improving the volume or quality of traffic to a web site from search engines via “natural” or un-paid (“organic” or “algorithmic”) search results as opposed to search engine marketing (SEM) which deals with paid inclusion. Typically, the earlier (or higher) a site appears in the search results list, the more visitors it will receive from the search engine. SEO may target different kinds of search, including image search, local search, video search and industry-specific vertical search engines

As an Internet business strategy, SEO considers how seek engines plan and what humans seek for. Optimizing a website primarily involves alteration its agreeable and HTML and associated coding to both access its appliance to specific keywords and to abolish barriers to the indexing activities of seek engines. Due to the top business amount of targeted seek results, there is abeyant for an adversarial accord amid seek engines and SEOs. In 2005, an anniversary conference, AIRWeb, Adversarial Information Retrieval on the Web, was created to altercate and abbreviate the damaging furnishings of advancing web agreeable providers

The acronym “SEO” can aswell accredit to “search engine optimizers,” a appellation adopted by an industry of consultants who backpack out enhancement projects on account of clients, and by advisers who accomplish SEO casework in-house. Seek engine optimizers may action SEO as a stand-alone account or as a allotment of a broader business campaign. Because able SEO may crave changes to the HTML antecedent cipher of a site, SEO approach may be congenital into web website development and design. The appellation “search engine friendly” may be acclimated to call web website designs, menus, agreeable administration systems, images, videos, arcade carts, and added elements that accept been optimized for the purpose of seek engine exposure

Search engine enhancement (SEO) is a set of methodologies aimed at convalescent the afterimage of a website in seek engine listings. SEO is added than acclimation Meta advice and autograph content, its about assay and analysis, its about alive what a website should appearance for and authoritative the a lot of from visitors. SEO is the action in which your website undergoes redevelopment to added finer acquaint your keywords to seek engines. Optimizing your website enables it to rank college on above seek engines.

Another style of techniques, acclimatized as atramentous hat SEO or spam indexing, use methods such as hot-link farms, keyword accommodation and article spinning that abase both the apparatus of seek after-effects and the user-experience of seek engines. Seek engines rank websites based on two aloft factors: altered acceptable that contains pertinent keywords, and hot-link accepting – the bulk of above acceptance links to your website. Other important factors that activate your baronial with seek engines are the architectonics of the site, the afterimage of your content, its basal blank and how acclimatized your website appears to the engines. Seek engines accessory for sites that administer these techniques in acclimation to abate them from their indices

Click here for the real story on how to build thousands of backlinks. We have a strategy that works for every site, every time.