Amanda Walington starts the session with a question about how many bloggers are in the room right now. A good majority raises their hands. She starts with the Book of Blog Truths (or untruths). The truths are a blog must be a simple web page that has frequent updates, each having its own URL. Not necessarily, she says. The updates, posts, are arranged in reverse chronological order. Not everyone does that. It can allow reader to commend and join a conversation with the writer and other readers. Not always the case. Her point is that those truths of what we used to think blogs were are no longer hold to true.
She next moves to RSS Myths. RSS is just for promoting blogs. No. Another myth is that RSS really hasn’t caught on quite yet. Nope, not that either. RSS does not really need SEO-type optimization. HTML can be very easy. Amanda next goes into looking a simple RSS feed and details all the various parts such as header, channel data, and then the items in the feed. Blogs are extending and changing the tasks and role of the search marketer to include: Brand and reputation monitoring and management. Content strategy and development. Link development and so on.
Blog Optimization
Start by optimizing the blog itself. Build and use a keyword list when writing posts. Don’t use graphics where plain HTML will work. Use keywords whenever possible to identify resources and blogroll. Write powerful keyword-rich, worthwhile copy often. Give every post a theme – stay on message. Don't start throwing everything including the kitchen sink in the post. Make multiple posts to extend your message. Pay attention to titles and make them keyword rich. Use keywords in anchor text with links. If your post links to a valuable resource such as a publication, link the citation because chances are it’s an authority on the topic. See mentions Search Engine Roundtable. :-)
Next socialize your blog. Inbound links are valuable so garner them. Cross link your website and blog. Notify other bloggers about your blog via comments and email. Join the conversation by writing posts that reference other blogs. Become a link hub, an authority site, by making your blog a real resource. You can also ramp up your traffic. Submit your feeds, either by hand or using tools like RSS submit. Make sure pinking is turned on. Claim your feed at Technorati and subscribe to your own feeds. Use My Yahoo and My MSN accounts to submit to these search engines. Track which engines you are listed in.
Make subscription easy. Use chiclets (or chicklets) such as images so people can subscribe to your blog. Also include bookmarking sites such as del.icio.us. Optimize your RSS feed. Use keyword ins the feed title, less than 100 characters. Write your description as if for a directory, less than 500 characters. Use full paths on links and unique urls for each item. Each feed should have a keyword theme. Include images for branding. What are some ways that your can get your RSS beyond the blog. Well, you can use it for affiliate commissions, syndicating your content on other sites. New product announcements, security alerts, product uses tops, and so on. Amanda next goes into a lot of questions to ask about feed implementation. Measuring the results of your feeds is also a good idea. Stats can come from many sources and it's going to get easier over time to do a lot of this.
Sessions stops for a second, there is a whiny high pitched sound in the background, someone lets them know up front. Been several interruptions this session. Moving on....
Stephan Spencer is up next and he starts by going into the various types of blog search. His suggestions is that your don’t need to optimize for each engine. He says that full text is important, and not summaries. By default try to keep 20 or more items (not just 10) posts per feed. Make your brand name is in the item title. Be sure to have a compelling description.
Optimizing your blog, his take. Be sure to redo your internal hierarchical linking structure. Tag clouds and tag pages (ultimatetagwarrior plug-in) can be useful. Related posts as also good. List top 10 pots and the next and previous listing. He goes on to talk about tag clouds and so on. You can take many different approaches to listing your tag cloud in different locations. Sometimes these tag clouds can be beneficial on all pages, or just keeping it on the homepage.
Stephan recommends that when optimizing your blog, be sure to add the blog name at the end of the title, not at the beginning. The tag name should do in the title on a tag page. Customize with additional keywords for display only on your home page. The urls can be rewrite to contain keywords, hyphens not underscores. 301 redirects from yourblog.com to www.yourblog.com. Also be sure to make the posts title a link to the permalink page. Use Neat-O-Tool from webuildpages to look for opportunities. Couple other things, be sure to use emphasis tags with posts such as bolds and emphasis. Check.
SES NYC Tag: sesny2006
