Affordable Website Promotion

29 Apr

I am not sure what is going on, but two of my sites are not being updated in Technorati, whilst a third one is successfully displaying latest posts and the Authority is climbing.

Of course, I have checked all three websites to make sure that all three are setup the same way and to ensure that all three are submitted the same way. I did make a few changes yesterday to one of the at fault blogs and the other was merely submitted yesterday, so maybe I need to be patient and hope it is all fine in the morning.

But, it does not feel like that! On my mind is, "What if tomorrow morning when I check the account, both websites are still showing an Authority of 1 and no recent posts?". I know that Technorati Authority doesn't in truth mean much, or not that I have yet found, but it is one of those badges that you only have to get. Plus, by being included in Technorati's directory, there is a possibility of other bloggers coming in excess of this way.

Paradoxically, the web site that is included is the one that I thought would struggle the most! It is merely round 8 weeks old and not yet showing lots of inbound links! You never can tell!

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29 Apr

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I have been struggling to get some blogs listed on Technorati (the 3 listed in the blogroll) and it is the turn of this site next!

All three blogs were immediately accepted, but the first blog did not start displaying any recent posts, even though the second blog, submitted the following day, is doing so. The third blog, submitted last night, is also yet to start displaying recent posts, but maybe there is a slight time delay before this starts? Maybe it will start tomorrow.

I think there may be an issue with claiming blogs if your RSS feed displays only a summary and the claim token is more than a sentence or two into the post. This happened on the first blog (word 53 was the claim token), but the 2nd site had the entire post in the RSS feed.

Last night I increased the RSS feed on the first blog submitted to offer the full post and put in another new post, starting with the claim token. So, if tomorrow morning suddenly both of those blogs are showing recent posts the I have cracked it.

If not, then it is likely that this blog might become the third to not be showing on Technorati! If they so start listing, full instructions will follow!

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27 Apr

Recently, I have put in place a new blog, using a few tricks that I don't usually use. And immediately I have seen traffic to that blog that matches blogs that I have had in existence for a year or two. Obviously, these are tricks that I am putting in place now across the other blogs to improve the traffic levels there! These are tricks to get more people onto my blog and also to keep people there. Both aspects are important and improve your traffic. I'll share with you today those tricks that I am currently using to improve my blog and get better traffic.

First Improvement - Install An SEO Pluggin

By installing an SEO pluggin, you are helping to give the search engines what they want from your site. There are various pluggins available, from those tha supply the metadata to those that provide extra linking from the content of your posts to other posts. These are crucial for making sure that the search engines can get fully round your site and send visitors to every page.

Likewise, grab a sitemap pluggin and install that onto your blog. Make sure that there is no reason for search engines to miss a single page!

Second Improvement - Remove Pluggins!

How many pluggins have you got installed that don't currently help the site - either you don't really use or aren't doing something important| Are they slowing down the page loading time? This can put off visitors and search engines will also downgrade your search positions if your site is slow to load.

Third Improvement - List Newest Comments

Do what you can to get people to leave comments and then display these comments on every page! By showing the latest comments that other visitors have left, some of these comments will tempt other visitors into replying with their own thoughts. This is great, especially when the new comment passes back to the first person and they return to the site to reply. This can go on and might not seem beneficial traffic, but it is. These people soon feel that they belong to your blog, they are a part of it and they will keep coming back. This makes them more prone to accepting your posts and buying what you recommend through your affiliate links!

Fourth Improvement - Tidy Up The Site

This is definitely something that I am very guilty of, as you would notice if you visited my unchanged blogs! An old fashioned theme, too many advert positions, Google Adsense all over the page, getting in the way of reading the post and other such sins of packing too much in are all guaranteed ways of getting the visitor packing themselves and hiting the back button. Limit yourself to one or two add positions, keep the content clean and tidy and use a fresh lookint theme. There might not be as many opportunites to click on adverts, but if you just concentrate on those that drive income, you should see improved returns.

Fifth Improvement - Tidy Your Navigation

By making sure that people can find their way around your website and that your most popular posts are highlighted to the readers and the search engines, you should see more return visitors and the search engines finding their way around your site more.

Keith Lunt

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22 Apr

Every day I receive and delete lots of requests for reciprocal link exchanges. I no longer value them and think everyone should delete their links directories! Why?

First, let me say that I do not include in my sweeping statement proper link exchanges. If you run a website and want to list a couple of related sites that are carefully hand picked that your visitors can benefit from, then continue. This is great and lets get back to that. Keep listing further information links, but can we just delete all of these rubbish link exchange directories and stop sending so much spam trying to get new link partners!

Why, when there is such a huge industry based around these activities, am I so against them? Well for a start, they no longer fool the search engines.

If you have a set of pages linked to under the name links, partners, directory etc, then you have just told the search engines that you undertake links exchanges and so do the people listed. Whilst linking in itself is not a problem, search engines do not want to reward links that are just there to manipulate the search engine results. And pointless links directories definitely come into category.

Over the last couple of years I have seen sites with both link exchange directories falling out of favour. Actually, one site jumped to the first page of google when all of the links were accidentally deleted from the directory. And with two similar sites, the one with the least effort put into links and no links directory has always done better than the partner site I have link exchanged heavily on.

The other problem with bulk link exchanges is that quite often they come from paid professionals who will do anything to earn their payment and by finding a new link exchange. They do not care what quality of link they give you or whether you keep the link up after their customer has paid up. Therefore, the quality of links that you receive from these sort of people is usually very poor. You give a decent link, risking being dropped from the search results because you are now linking to someone who is paying for links, and get a link that could well be hidden on a useless directory somewhere.

Another problem is the sheer amount of time that it will take you to maintain a links directory. You have to be constantly checking that the sites you are linking not only still exist, but also that they are linking to you without hiding their links. I used to expect about 30% of links to have been removed within a month of receiving the request. What a waste.

Overall, in the last few years the value of reciprocal links have been destroyed. They are pointless and no longer carry any weight. So please do not email me asking for a link exchange - your email is just going to be deleted without being read!

So how do you get links in to build up your page rank and improve your site? If you do not already know, then call across to our marketing blog and read some website promotion ideas to see what you really should be doing these days.

Written by Keith Lunt.

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19 Apr

If you are a website owner you are probably plagued by link exchange emails. But why? There are next to no benefits. Read on for why I think they are a total waste of time!


As a website owner, each day a variety of emails arrive telling me of the virtues of reciprocal links, how vital they are and how I should be link exchanging with the sender's customer. Some go into great lengths to explain what link building is and why it is important. Others try to convince me that I should be party of their three way link exchange, or triangular linking as it was once called.

But, they are all a total waste of time. There is a benefit to proper linking, but absolutely none that I can see from link exchanges. Here is why I just delete every link exchange offer I receive without even reading it.

First, most of these wonderful offers are sent by people who earn their income by sending out such spam in mass. Yes, I call it nothing more than spam. Many of these paid professionals are using underhand techniques to give the links back, or giving you a link back from a directory created for such a purpose. There are loads of ways they hide your links, but I will not go into these in detail - in case someone uses the list to learn a few cheats.

You have probably seen the offers that arrive telling you that they have personally visited your site, you have a wonderful site that provides good information and they want to link exchange. But because of spam problems, please use the contact form rather than emailing. This email is often forwarded to me by my customers, word for word the same, but just the website names changed. I have also frequently received this email regarding sites that have been deleted!

This mass emailing of the same email and targeting old sites to me is evidence that it is nothing more than computer generated spam. If they have not the interest to find proper sites, then they are just bulk creating links. Usually the person requesting it wants you to put up a link first and they will then put up a link.

This is very one sided. They want a link on your website, they are hoping from a content page, in return for a link from a huge directory, possibly one that is not even search engine listed.

And it is this mass industry of creating spam link exchanges that is destroying itself. The major search engines do put great weight on the links into a site, but they are clever enough to spot a link from a huge links directory, which they then can ignore, as opposed to a single link from a quality blog post. No doubt they also assess on blogs the proportion of blog posts that are linking to other sites to attempt to work out which are genuine and which are link building, but that is a different story.

Very few sites still link build the traditional way, I have no problems with that style of linking and encourage it. But I cannot see the benefits of reciprocal links any more. My best performing sites are those that have never engaged in these activities and so I now steer away from these requests.

If you want to know more about how to get you website optimised and how to get affordable website traffic, call into the website. There are plenty more website promotion ideas in store for you.

Written by Keith Lunt.

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