Beginner Blogger

This morning I was thinking about SEO, google rankings/SERPs and all that jazz. One way to get higher page rankings in google is to have a lot of backlinks. Even better a whole lot of backlinks from sites in related niches. And even better backlinks from high authority sites that have high pagerank.

As a person who uses Google to search for information I like to see top quality sites ranking in the first 10 pages. Sites I can trust, sites that I know the information will be accurate, sites that aren’t misleading.

Bad Tony – A Fictional Tale

Let’s say for example I have just bought a new puppy and I want to teach and train it myself. So I do a search for ‘puppy training from home’ or something like that. I click on the first link that Google gives me and I start reading the site and applying what is said on the site. It must be accurate info right? It’s ranked number 1 on Google!

So I’m training my puppy and nothing is working. I look deeper into the site and find out the page has been created by a 15 year old kid (let’s call him Tony) who has just been regurgitating information from different places all over the web. They themselves aren’t even interested in puppies, have no experience in puppy training at all – they’re just trying to make a quick buck from their site. (or so it seems)

It would seem the way they reached to the top of the Google search rankings was by spamming a lot of forums and blog commenting section that had ‘do-follow’ implemented. This means that Google will follow the links left behind by our fictional friend (or fiend) Tony bumping up his ranking for keyword ‘puppy training from home’.

No-Follow For A Reason

There is a reason Google created the ‘no-follow’ tag. To prevent un-trustworthy sites from ranking. Just imagine if sites like Facebook and Twitter were do-follow. It would be a horrible place to be. A total spam-fest (ok, just imagine the spam you see on those sites now but 100 times worse). SEO gurus would be spamming it left right and centre getting quality backlinks to their site. By implementing no-follow on such sites it prevents people getting any benefit from Google by posting their link up there. Google will just ignore any site with the ‘no-follow’ tag attributed to it.

Is Your Blog Do-Follow? Be Responsible

If you’re a ‘do-follow’ site owner where it’s easy for others to post a link to get some Google credibility I hope that you’re monitoring all links that are left behind. We should be striving to get the best quality/most trusted sources at the top of Google. As site owners, one way to do this is to make sure all the links we have going to external pages are truly quality/trusted resources. It’s our responsibility.

It’s Our Own Fault Really

At the same time however, as consumers we should make sure we are doing background checks on the information we consume, and see what others are saying about the author/owner before we can truly trust what we’re reading will be accurate and quality information that we can apply to our lives. We shouldn’t just jump on the first site we see and take all the information in to be 100% accurate. It’s too easy to create an information site and claim it to be true. So it’s our responsibility as consumers to make sure we do our research too.

Popularity: 17% [?]

Forget about trying to make money online, putting in banner ads, google AdSense and what have you and trying to make a quick buck. It’s the wrong way to go about it. Make relationships and build trust. I want to tell you a story I had recently that involved a fine wine shop and a $100 voucher.

Usually I buy my wine from the large liquor warehouse down the road. It’s close and the cheapest so why go anywhere else? The $100 voucher I had however, could only be used at the ‘Fine Wine’ shop which was a lot further away and prices aren’t always the cheapest. But I had no choice in the matter I had $100 voucher to use there so there I went!

Make Yourself Known – Help Out

So I walked into the the small wine shop, there was wine EVERYWHERE. Very well organised. It wasn’t long until someone came up to me and was happy to help if I had any questions. He wasn’t in my face or anything, just a simple ‘can I help you with anything’. I told him that I didn’t know a great deal about wine and was looking for a summery type of red (it’s summer here in Australia). To cut a long story short, he was just really helpful, taught me a few things about wine I didn’t know about, introduced me to rare wines that were very affordable and even took the price down on the grand total as I had amounted to $102 or something like that, so he took it down to $100 neat which my voucher covered. Just a small act like that and the fact that he was really helpful meant so much to me. He now has me as a return visitor in me.

I compare this to the liquor warehouse chains where there is no customer service like we experienced at the small wine shop. It’s like being in a store filled with robot workers. No-one goes out of their way to help, the people at the counters are in a zombie-like state. There just isn’t any personality or engagement. The only reason you go there is because it’s cheap. But buying ‘cheap’ isn’t exactly a nice feeling either.

The Best Part

The best part about this story is where it originated. The wine voucher was a gift from my work mates. The gift came from the relationship that had been built from my time of working there. They knew I was into wine because I’d told them through the many conversations we’d all had in the past. Usually the birthday person would just get a credit voucher that they could use anywhere with no personality behind it. But the fact that they bought me the wine voucher shows that my relationship with my former colleagues had value.

How Can We Apply This To Our Sites

When you get people coming into your site (or wine store) – make them as welcome as possible. Sure enough they’ve probably come from a reliable source (my work mates recommended the Fine Wine shop) for a specific purpose (to buy wine). Make sure your content (wine) is fantastic. Use your expertise to help new readers (customers) as much as possible (wine selection, teaching about various types of wines). Give them more than they will expect (learned about new wines, slashed prices, customer care). Engage with them afterwards (business card).

Deliver care and engagement to your visitors and the people you have just met online. Give them a reason to trust you. I feel so much better now buying wine from the Fine Wine shop than the local liquor warehouse even though the Fine Wine shop is a bit further away and a bit more expensive.

So don’t be too warped worrying about making money through your blog.  Worry about making relationships online and care for people enough that they’ll go out of their way to come back to you. Give them kindness, helpfulness, genuineness, value and trust and you’re in for a great ride.

Popularity: 2% [?]

Lately I’ve been getting a lot of twitter followers which is great, but I’m not always going to follow you back. I have my own personal guidelines and preferences for following people back. This got me thinking – What do other people do when they’re deciding to follow people on twitter?

So what do you do when someone starts following you?

• Do you auto-follow people?
• Do you have email notifications when someone adds you to twitter turned on or off?
• Do you immediately engage with the person that adds you on twitter or just add them?
• Do you have an Auto DM message set up when someone adds you?
• What are your personal reasons why you would add someone?

My following guidelines/preferences

I get emails of people when they add me to twitter. I check out the twitter page of EVERY person that adds me. To be followed back I will make sure they’re a real person on twitter and not an automated machine just posting links with no interaction with others what so ever. If they have a picture of themselves and link to a blog and are conversing on twitter – then you’ll be added.

The perfect combination is:

1. You’re into blogging and/or have a blog
2. You interact with others and don’t just pop out links which obviously seems like it’s an automated account.
3. Personal unique image and background – Not one of those premade twitter ones. Personalise it.

That’s my approach when I see new people following me on twitter. What are yours?

Enjoyed this post? Here are some more you may like:

1. How I Got 1000 TARGETED Twitter Followers In 30 Days
2. Top 5 Ways To Increase Your Twitter Following Without Begging For One
3. Twitter TweetDeck and some Tips

Popularity: 1% [?]

This is a guest blog post by Nicholas Cardot from Site Sketch 101 Having just resigned from full-time work myself I understand that running a successful blog while working full-time can be hard work. Nick shares his experiences…

Blogging can be a difficult task.  In fact, those who tell you that you can compete with the top bloggers in the blogosphere without having to work very hard are sadly mistaken.  It takes hard work.  It takes a lot of writing.  It takes dedication to provide amazing content to your readers in every article.

And truth be told, most people aren’t full-time bloggers.  We don’t all have the luxury of enjoying a full-time income from our blogging efforts.  We have to work and sometimes that means long hours.

I currently serve as an Infantryman in the United States Army.  I work an average of 60 or more hours every week and I maintain an amazing blog (in my opinion) called Site Sketch 101.  It’s not always easy to balance them both, but it’s fun and it can be done.

Let me share with you some of the things that I do to help me write, design, interact and work a job.

1.  Always carry a pen and paper with you.

You never know where you’re going to be when you think of any idea that you can use as the topic of an article and with your time limited you can’t afford to forget it.  If you think of an idea, write it down right away.

2. Schedule time to work on your blog.

I don’t usually sleep in very late on Saturday morning.  I get up, get a glass of milk, and I get to work writing my articles for the coming work.  I use the ideas that I came up with throughout the week and I put them into articles.

3.  Don’t get overwhelmed.

If you feel like you’re too stressed out then take a break.  I blog because it’s a way for me to relax.  I enjoy it.  I love interacting with my readers.  I love helping people grow and develop their skills.  I love writing and expressing myself.  I have fun doing it.  Find a way to make it fun.  Enjoy what you do.  And when necessary, take breaks.

It is possible to operate an amazing blog and work a full-time job.  Don’t think that your limited by your situation.  You’re not.  You can accomplish amazing things.

But don’t stop learning and growing.  Those of us who work full-time have a major disadvantage.  We have less time to learn and develop ourselves as bloggers than those without jobs.  But that is no excuse.  Let’s continually strive to be the best that we can be.

Nick uses his blog Site Sketch 101 to express his passion for helping people learn how to blog with awesome content, brilliant designs and commanding influence.

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Popularity: 2% [?]