Essential WordPress Plugins

One of the great things about WordPress is that you can extend it with all kinds of
functionality with WordPress Plug-ins. There are hundreds of plugins that you can use,
but here I’d like to list a few of the essential ones.
In WordPress 2.7 and above you can search for and install new plug-ins from within the
WordPress Admin UI. In the past, you had to find them in the Plug-in directory,
download them, and then upload them to your WordPress installation. WordPress 2.7+
simplifies this process a lot!
Here are a few of the essential plug-ins that you’ll want to install on your new website.
OpenHook
Another powerful feature of the Thesis WordPress theme is the ability to add “hooks” to
customize where things appear on your site.
You can add something just before your header, or just after. Just before your sidebar
content, or just after your footer. You get the idea.
To do this, you need to know a little bit about coding PHP. There is an excellent tutorial
that Sugarrae made called Thesis Hooks for Dummies.

WP-DB Backup
You should install this plugin, because you can use it to instantly back up your
WordPress database to a ZIP file and download it.
Even better, you can tell it to back up your WordPress database on a schedule - once per
week for example - and email it to you. It’s a great way to back things up automatically.
To get this plugin, just go to your Plugins menu and select Add New, just like you did
before, and search for WP-DB-Backup.

Read More

Headings & Links Seo

If possible, you want to use the core terms and top variations in
headings and sub headings (H1, H2, H3…) on the page. It’s not
absolutely essential that the heading is the first thing on the
page.

Besides the headings, you should also try to work these same terms into the text of
links on the page. This is usually a logical thing anyway, because you should have
two URLs that you’re trying to get ranked for every search term (a first and second
choice) so you can take care of this just by linking them to each other using
keywords.

You may have already done this site structure.
You do NOT need to work every keyword into links. Remember, the phrases you
use in your writing can contain more than one variation of a search term.

Read More

Make your site easier to navigate

The navigation of a website is important in helping visitors quickly find the content they want. It can
also help search engines understand what content the webmaster thinks is important. Although
Google's search results are provided at a page level, Google also likes to have a sense of what role a
page plays in the bigger picture of the site.

All sites have a home or "root" page, which is usually the most frequented page on the site and the
starting place of navigation for many visitors. Unless your site has only a handful of pages, you should
think about how visitors will go from a general page (your root page) to a page containing more
specific content. Do you have enough pages around a specific topic area that it would make sense to
create a page describing these related pages (e.g. root page -> related topic listing -> specific topic)?
Do you have hundreds of different products that need to be classified under multiple category and
subcategory pages?
The directory

Read More

URL structure

• Use words in URLs - URLs with words that are relevant to your site's content and structure
are friendlier for visitors navigating your site. Visitors remember them better and might be
more willing to link to them.
Avoid:
• using lengthy URLs with unnecessary parameters and session IDs
• choosing generic page names like "page1.html"
• using excessive keywords like "baseball-cards-baseball-cards-baseballcards.
htm"
• Create a simple directory structure - Use a directory structure that organizes your content
well and is easy for visitors to know where they're at on your site. Try using your directory
structure to indicate the type of content found at that URL.
Avoid:
• having deep nesting of subdirectories like ".../dir1/dir2/dir3/dir4/dir5/dir6/
page.html"
• using directory names that have no relation to the content in them

Read More

Different types of SEO

This guide covers all major aspects of SEO, including:

• content SEO
• analytical SEO
• performance SEO
• Technical/HTML SEO
• Image SEO
• Off-site SEO

Where possible I will demonstrate techniques (or refer to other articles) with verifiable SEO
examples that you can look at on Google.

Content SEO

Content SEO refers to the techniques you can use to help content appear higher in the SERPs
(Search Engine Results Pages).
How to implement content SEO: Content SEO requires you to know which SEO keywords and
phrases you want to target. This in turn means you need to do some SEO keyword research before
sitting down to write.

The following articles tell you everything you need to know about content SEO:

• Anatomy of a blog post: How to get more traffic and s ocial engagement from your content
• Killer SEO tip: How to make the long tail pay

What's new in content SEO: Google's Panda and Penguin algorithm updates hit a lot of sites. Not
all of the updates affected content SEO - Penguin focused on spammy backlinks, for example.
However, almost all of Google's updates are designed to improve the quality of the content returned
by their search. Quality! That's the new buzzword. Good content SEO starts with high quality
content that is useful, engaging, valuable or entertaining.

Analytical SEO


Analytical SEO makes use of traffic analysis through an analytics service like Google analytics. By
analyzing the sources, demographics, browsing patterns and conversions of organic search traffic, it
is possible to improve your SEO strategy.

Read More

Small business SEO ROI calculation

For the purposes of the ROI (Return on Investment) calculation for small business SEO, we'll make
a few assumptions about the amount of traffic clicking through from Google (feel free to modify
these if you think they are different).

In both cases, we're looking at the traffic generated by results appearing on the first page of Google
that's the whole point of proper SEO after all.
To make the maths easy, let's assume that Google generates 100 000 impressions for your keywords
each month.

We'll also say that the ADV is $5 and that the conversion rate is 2%.
Top of 1st page results:
Monthly value of SEO = 100 000 x (20% click through) x $5 x 0.02 = $2000
Bottom of 1st page results:
Monthly value of SEO = 100 000 x (3% click through) x $5 x 0.02 = $300
The difference between ranking right at the top of the first page in organic search results, and at the
bottom of the first page is considerable. So the margins for error in SEO are very thin - second page
results may generate no traffic at all (depending on the popularity of the keywords).

Read More

Weekly SEO top 5

This SEO list for bloggers and small business will show you five things you should do at least once
a week in order to ensure that your blog or website is driving as much Web traffic as possible.
In many cases, the SEO or search optimization related tasks mentioned in this list should be
performed more than once a week.

1. Create content
Add content to your site at least once a week. If you rely on revenue from the Internet then it is
definitely worthwhile creating content on a more regular basis, as a high authority, highly ranked
niche website can bring great ROI (Return on Investment) online.
New content must be original and relevant to your blog or business niche. In addition, you might
consider doing some SEO keyword research to further enhance the rankings of your content in
search.

2. Monitor analytics
Analytical data, provided by a service like Google analytics, can tell you a great deal about how a
blog or website performs. In particular, it is important to pay close attention to the following
aspects:
• Overall traffic volumes: This metric can provide strong evidence for how well or poorly
various marketing and SEO efforts are paying off.
• Traffic originating from organic search: This provides insight into how well your blog or
website ranks in the SERPs( Search Engine Results Pages).
• Top content: This can tell you which posts bring the most traffic and allows you to tailor
advertising or marketing on these pages, or work to help other pages move up in the
rankings.
• Conversions: If you have set goals, analytics can provide data about how well your blog or
site is converting traffic to meet predefined objectives, such as newsletter signups or product
purchases.
• Bounce Rate: A high bounce rate may indicate poor or confusing web design, or poor
quality content. A low bounce rate is a good indication that your blog or site is engaging
readers well.
To learn more about analytics and how to use analytical data, I recommend reading the following
articles:
• Five awesome tips to extract valuable SEO secrets from Google analytics data
28
• How to double your search traffic using SEO, Webmaster t ools and Google analytics
• Five ways to make more money using analytics

Read More

SEO and Internet marketing diversity

So here it is, based on the current state of search, SEO and social, we can make some pretty
powerful deductions about how to move forward with the best SEO and Internet marketing strategy
possible.
The keywords for small business SEO and marketing in 2012 are diversity, authority, and
engagement.
Content diversity
Content needs to be diversified to cater for different needs now that direct product sale conversions
are likely going to diminish with Google's product search taking the majority share of the pie.
Community discussions, reviews, human interest articles are good ways to get around Google
product search and still offer value to readers, with the potential to convert.
SEO and Internet marketing diversity
Don't put all your faith in SEO. It's not clear what effects knowledge graph and product search will
have. Combine that with the current algorithmic fluxes and, while SEO is hugely important, you
should agree that having all your eggs in the proverbial SEO basket is probably not prudent.

Read More

Promote your website in the right ways

While most of the links to your site will be gained gradually, as people discover your content through
search or other ways and link to it, Google understands that you'd like to let others know about the
hard work you've put into your content. Effectively promoting your new content will lead to faster
discovery by those who are interested in the same subject. As with most points covered in this
document, taking these recommendations to an extreme could actually harm the reputation of your
site.
Good practices for promoting your website
• Blog about new content or services - A blog post on your own site letting your visitor base
know that you added something new is a great way to get the word out about new content or
services. Other webmasters who follow your site or RSS feed could pick the story up as well.
• Don't forget about offline promotion - Putting effort into the offline promotion of your
company or site can also be rewarding. For example, if you have a business site, make sure
its URL is listed on your business cards, letterhead, posters, etc. You could also send out
recurring newsletters to clients through the mail letting them know about new content on the
company's website.
• Know about social media sites - Sites built around user interaction and sharing have made
it easier to match interested groups of people up with relevant content.
Avoid:
• attempting to promote each new, small piece of content you create; go for big,
interesting items
• involving your site in schemes where your content is artificially promoted to the
top of these services

Read More

FILE NAMES FOR SEO

This is another are in which opinions are varied as to the effect of file
names on search engine ranking. But it’s good protocol to name your
files – webpages, mp3s, images, videos etc with useful, relevant
names, and since it definitely won’t hurt your rankings, I say ‘why
not?’. Without being spammy, you can choose wisely when naming
your files to make them relevant. If you have MP3s, don’t just name
them “track one” or something generic like that. Include the name of
your band, genre and track title for example, and remember to use
hyphens to separate your words
eg. “Blue-snake-rock-girls-are-cool.mp3”

Search engines like content that is updated regularly. If your site gets
stale, your ranking will drop because it becomes less relevant. Not
every kind of site lends itself well to updated content which is where a
blog can come in handy. A blog, by its nature can be any kind of
content and is frequently updated. If you are a band you can utilize a
blog even when you don’t have an album out because you can let your
fans know about what you are up to. Are you in the studio recording?
Post pics of your sessions or let them know what songs you are
working on. Share rough cuts of tracks – ask for feedback. Give your
fans the feeling they are getting some personal insight into your life as
an artist. This kind of regularly updated content not only helps develop
your relationship with your fans, keeping them engaged and coming
back to your site frequently, but it also looks good to the search
engines.
Also keep in mind that the more pages your site has, the better it
looks to search engines. So it’s important to keep adding pages on a

Read More