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| Learn How to Rank Highly in Search Engines - SEO Secrets Posted: 02 Mar 2009 11:26 AM PST
Last year at an SEO conference I met a fellow Aussie by the name of Glenn Murray (pictured right). He introduced himself to me as an SEO copywriter and he made quite an impression. In fact he’s pretty much the only person that I met that day that I remember the name of. The reason that Glenn was one of the few people that I still remember is that in a quiet and genuine way he stood out from the crowd. Many of the SEO types that I met that day were boastful and proud - Glenn was confident but far from cocky. He knew what he was talking about but didn’t seem to feel the need to let everyone know how good he was over and over again. Glenn and I have kept in touch since that day - mainly via Twitter - and so when he emailed me recently to quietly tell me about his new SEO training ebook I was keen to check it out.
Typically Glenn’s sales page for this great e-book makes no outrageous claims. There are no promises to make you rank #1 for highly competitive terms or screenshots of hundred thousand dollar earnings on clickbank - just Glenn’s story and a description of what you get when you buy this resource (as well as a sample chapter and Table of Contents) - that’s the kind of guy Glenn is. The book (currently in it’s second version) is 213 pages (including bibliography, index and glossary) of SEO wisdom. It has a section on WordPress 2.7, sections on link building (including a good section on linkbaiting), choosing keywords, optimizing web content as well as a fairly extensive bibliography for further reading (it is refreshing to see someone citing sources and providing this). The teaching in this ebook is good - very good - particularly for those at a beginner to intermediate level who are looking for a comprehensive and all in the one place introduction to SEO. Those who have spent many many hours doing extensive research on the topic on their own will probably not find a lot of new things in this guide - but for those starting out it is well worth considering as a practical investment in your education. Glenn has a gift at explaining concepts that can at times be quite complex - if you’re like me and not wired with the brain of a technical genius you’ll appreciate the way he talks you through the many areas of SEO covered in this book. If you’re interested in discovering more about SEO check out the sample chapter and table of contents of SEO Secrets for yourself.
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| Blog Carnivals Are Great, Hosting Them is Better Posted: 02 Mar 2009 06:21 AM PST The Writer blogs about money and writing at The Writer’s Coin. His goal is to become the Michael Lewis of the personal-finance world—always writing something interesting and entertaining. That’s his goal, anyway.
You can’t read a post or a blog about “being a better blogger” without some mention of carnivals. They’re a great way of getting your stuff out into the world and creating links that point back to your site. It’s a win-win and it takes virtually no time or energy to submit to them. But what about hosting a carnival? Can it also deliver a lot of bang for very little buck? Not quite. Hosting a carnival is a LOT of work. You have to read ALL of the submissions that are sent in by hopeful writers looking to expand their footprint on the web. You’ll also have to sift through some junk in order to weed out the good from the bad. And the ugly… The Good
Notice I said “long list of articles.” When you host a carnival, every single one of those articles should hypothetically be promoted by each blogger that’s featured. So instead of getting one link back to your site (which is what happens when you submit a post to a carnival if it gets picked), you can get as many as you like. That’s not entirely true—you get as many as you’re willing to weed through and publish on your page. And that can turn out to be a very big number. But that means you’ll have a ton of sites pointing back to yours…which is great. It’s lots of bang for lots of buck. The Bad
Let’s not kid ourselves—it’s a lot of work. Making a carnival unique and interesting for your readers takes a lot of time and energy. No one said it would be easy, right? When I hosted the Money Hacks Carnival (which was my first carnival), I had no idea what I was getting into. I checked to see how many posts there were a couple days before it was to go live and my stomach dropped. Wow. I wasn’t sure I had time to read all of them, let alone choose my favorites. You’ll have to get yourself organized and prepared in order to do it right. That means gradually making your way through the submitted posts instead of leaving it all for the last minute. And coming up with a theme or concept that ties all the posts together to make the whole thing an enjoyable read can get pretty complex when you have a lot of articles to post. But the more time you have, the better off you’ll be. The Ugly
There’s a lot of bad writing out there. There are a lot of spammers out there. Some people will submit anything, regardless of what your carnival is about. The carnival I started on The Writer’s Coin is called Comics and Cents, and the idea is to write something funny and entertaining about personal finance, but I’ve gotten submissions for really detailed posts about refinancing your home and tips to cut your budget. Useful? Sure. Funny? Not in the way I was intending. Expect a good amount of the submissions to have absolutely nothing to do with what you asked for. This is the frustrating part, but hosting a carnival can still pay off big time by driving new readers to your site and getting tons of links back to you. It can also turn into a really useful compilation of info/entertainment for your reader. Some Tips
Hosting a carnival is just another tool at our disposal when it comes to broadening our blog’s audience and giving them some valuable content that they’ll keep coming back for. It also helps with backlinks, traffic, and SEO. So, yes, it’s a ton of work and there’s a lot you need to keep in mind. But as they say, “Hostin’ ain’t easy.” Tags: Blog Promotion |
Want to learn how to make your blog rank well in Google? 
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