Advice for How Often to Post to Blogs

Don't become a fanatic thinking you must post to your blog every day.

Small business owner blogs provide an opportunity to add fresh content often which is good for seo, search engine optimization. However, just how often to post should not create a feeling of pressure to make entries especially when writer's block kicks in. It is more effective to avoid posting unless you have quality value for your readers.

You may want to review my article Small Business Blog Writing Tips for some pointers if you feel like you're running out of ideas.

Weblogs, aka blogs, were originally introduced as a daily diary or journal of personal experiences. Finding topics was easy. Using a blog for small business purposes truly adds value when providing advice and tips, or more insight into your business. Avoid posting just for the sake of posting, so weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly is fine.



TAGS: advice small business advice seo search engine optimization blogging

Update on Backlinks and SEO Value

After reporting earlier this month about the uproar from some website owners over their PageRank adjustment by Google, I realized another aspect of the big drop deserves more attention. My small business owner web design clients may want to review the previous post Google PR Update and Owner Protests, also.

Natural backlinks to your site add SEO, or Search Engine Optimization, value to your PageRank because each link TO your site is like a vote. Natural links that relate directly to your site's overall theme add more value. Repeating another rule, any deceptive means of promoting your site will backfire. Do NOT engage in buying or selling links!

A large number, perhaps millions of website owners, were severely punished in 2007 for promoting paid linking schemes to add two-way or three-way links between sites for a fee. Here is an explanation citing an email "offer" that I received just last week that violates the rules of natural linking:

(Identifiable names and the writer's website address have been omitted intentionally.)

Any email that begins "Dear Sirs" or "Dear Webmaster" should be deleted immediately. The person who wrote the email to me last week talks about "selling/buying links", "ready to pay" for a review of their site, and "tell us the price of the review". These tactics are blantantly deceptive because they do not add value to the internet community, so I decided to investigate their site status more closely.

Did they get caught already? YES. Were they punished? YES. Here is the evidence as taken from URLTrends.com with points numbered 1 through 5 which I added in yellow circles for illustration purposes. The rest of the graphic was taken from URLTrends.



Point 1: URL of offending website covered intentionally
Point 2: Title of graphic for Google PageRank™
Point 3: Trend graph showing PR going from zero to minus 1 twice
Point 4: Date range tracked and reported by URL Trends
Point 5: The orange line from April to August goes up to PR5 and back to PR minus 1

The temporary boost to PageRank 5 and then the ultimate fall proves my warning about using deceptive means of optimizing the SEO value of your website because "You will be caught. You will be punished." The email last week further proves this site owner did not learn their lesson including the dangers of short term value using deceptive means.

A PR Zero means your site is unranked. Positive numbers for any small business website may never exceed PR2 or PR3 simply because your impact on the overall 6 billions sites online is minimal. Most site owners are unaware that minus PageRank values exist, so if PageRank is Google's way of ranking "the importance of a website", a minus site is likely wallowing in the sewer.

Do not agonize over your PR number. Most small business owners are unaware that the PageRank number system only displays whole numbers after rounding off a more precise PR down to the smaller whole number. You could have a PR2.999 (very close to PR3) that only shows PR2, so stay focused on adding value with original quality content often and the rewards will follow.



TAGS: advice small business advice seo search engine optimization pagerank

Reality of Article Directory Ownership

One of the free methods I teach my custom website design clients about seo, or search engine optimization, is writing articles to get backlinks as syndicated articles are published, plus you can establish your reputation as an expert.

The incentive for article directory owners to promote article writing by offering free syndication is a challenging business model. Monetizing a free resource depends on visitors following affiliate links on the site and then making a purchase, or from click revenue derived from Google Adsense advertising if that's used on the site. Otherwise, the enterprise becomes a hobby without a financial revenue stream unless that website becomes very well established and is sold years later.

The series of email messages shown below were received from an article directory owner, and all within 30 minutes. The names have been obscured to protect the identifiable parties involved. The urgency and calamity faced when things go wrong are apparent.

Message 1: I have found it necessary to add user and password login to (directory site name) because of so many spam articles. Hopefully this change will not be too much trouble for you.

Message 2: Please be patient. The security measures that I turned on in this article directory are not functioning correctly. I am in contact with (software company name) for their assistance.

Message 3: (Directory site name) article submissions is back up. Requirement for security has been disabled so you can submit freely. I must come up with a plan B for spam.

The security measures being attempted by this article directory owner are already in place with the majority of article syndicate websites, and points out one of the time consuming issues these owners face. The best directories have editors who proof read every article submitted before approving or rejecting each. If they receive 200 to 500 articles a day ranging from 500-1000 words, that's a lot of work, and reading.

Article writing is a great way for do-it-yourself website promotion to establish a reputation as an authority, and get bonus backlinks to your small business website as articles are republished. Authors should benefit from the seo, or search engine optimization, value of article syndication. Hats off to the article directory owners who make this possible.



TAGS: articles article writing article directory seo search engine optimization

Web Design with Multimedia and SEO

Another of my published articles targets small business commercial website design advice with tips on using multimedia such as audio, music, video, or flash. My core business is custom website design for small business owners, so consider this excerpt from the article quoting a reply to a site owner who was considering flash:

"Why would you want to add a flash scene to your site? In my list of "Don't do this" for website design, flash is at the top of the list. It has zero SEO value, and the file size is intolerable for people on dialup. With more than 50% of internet users still on dialup you cut off half your potential visitors by having flash. Unlike videos that allow visitors to make a choice of play or not, flash loads automatically and cannot be avoided. People visit commercial websites for information. Flash is "entertainment" and most people want answers to problems, so my advice is stay focused on text content that search engines can index."

You may want to read the entire article "Multimedia and Search Engine Optimization" here.

The most serious issue for using multimedia other than zero value for SEO is failure to offer visitors an option to play or not play. Any large file that automatically loads or plays will hurt the visitor's experience. They are on your small business commercial website for information or answers meaning solutions to problems. Text content is usually a better choice for SEO puposes.

One point made in my article illustrates the potential problem of an employee looking for a restaurant on company time. A client wanted music to play automatically on their restaurant website. That employee searching and caught for unauthorized use of their computer could very well be fired because that site owner felt compelled to entertain visitors without giving them that choice.


TAGS: advice small business advice website design multimedia seo search engine optimization

Google Sandbox Effect and Blogs

Google did not coin the term "sandbox". This ficticious place is where new websites are held for weeks or perhaps months to age before showing up in search results. The search engines protect their reputation and reserve top search results for proven and trusted websites, and designers call that waiting period the sandbox. Age of a site has been one factor for becoming trusted, and of course that takes time. Having an active blog may help accelerate the aging period.

Fact: Various sources report a range between 60% to 80% of all blog owners will quit in the first month. Of active blogs, another 66% go more than 2 months without a post. Blogging does not have to be a chore. By posting monthly as a minimum, you avoid being placed by search engines into those categories of abandoned or temporarily abandoned blogs.

Do you have a custom blog integrated with your main website? Some of my clients did start blogs, yet early on they stopped posting. Reasons vary. To achieve value from your small business blog there is no pressure to post new content daily, or even weekly. Infrequent posting biweekly or once a month is better than stopping altogether.

Comparing the site performance of my clients, those with newer websites and integrated blogs who immediately maintain a minimum level of blog posting are out of the sandbox sooner than others with older blogs who stop or never start posting. The comment from the first paragraph bears repeating: "... search engines protect their reputation and reserve top search results for proven and trusted websites." A static or stale site that doesn't change cannot compete with a dynamic site that adds original quality content often. That fine line is easily overcome by staying active in your blog to enhance recognition as a proven and trusted site.

My advice for clients for small business custom website design is patience when it comes to the benefits of SEO, Search Engine Optimization, and overcoming the sandbox effect. Recent results have proven that you can overcome the holding pattern of new websites that keep you from showing up in Google SERPs, Search Engine Result Pages.

Before accepting custom website design projects, I still caution new site owners that it may take as long as 3-6 months, or perhaps a year, before their new website shows up in search results. Recent surprises with new website launches indicate some websites may get out of the sandbox sooner. Instead of 6 months, some of my clients have Google page one results in less than 6 weeks for generic search phrases!

Here are examples as of mid-November, 2007:

Search for room additions+southern california to see Masterson Construction on page one.
Search for exterior painting+cumming ga to see Mannion Custom Painting on page one, also.

One secret to establishing the authority and trust of your website is keeping your site dynamic by adding quality original content often. From studying the recent search results mentioned, other features in my custom website designs and further advice that I give have obviously shortened that waiting period.

The age of your website cannot be accelerated, so how did these two sites break my 3-6 month rule? For one, each has a custom integrated blog and the owners post on a weekly basis. That adds quality original content. Next, each took my advice to register their www domain for 5 years. A registration for 5 years versus just 1 year shows a commitment to be online for the long haul. This is public information easily retrieved by the search engines, and may carry more weight now than it did just a few months ago to help overcome website aging.

Finally, both sites were designed in XHTML with CSS which is streamlined code for faster page loading, and using less code means pages are easier for search engines to index, too. You may want to learn more about improved SEO custom website design in my articles Small Business SEO Tips and Tricks and Google Crawlers and Stray Cats.

SEO techniques in the XHTML code and on-page content with a focus on websites designed for visitors all add up to more positive results, and may include an early release from sandbox prison. Website owners who try to trick search engines with deceptive SEO techniques will eventually be caught and punished. Blog owners who abandon posting are overlooking one of the easiest ways to add fresh content.

Proper code and on page search engine optimization of your site along with a blog strategy achieves proven results. If you have a dusty blog, and want more advice for reactivating content, this blog has a ton of advice with writing tips. Post one or two paragraphs weekly with quality advice about what you do to avoid the look of an abandoned blog. Feel free to contact me with questions or comments, too.



TAGS: advice blog custom website design google sandbox seo small business website design

Custom Content Management System Website

A custom small business website for CDA Alliance recently launched, and the owner has taken over managing the site which includes a matching private forum. This CMS, or custom Content Management System website design is another option for clients of the Small Business Resource Center.



The advantage of taking control of your small business website and freely adding content depends on your willingness to climb the learning curve that is involved. The site design fee is nominal compared to a fully custom website, yet the investment in time learning the functions may not be practical for all clients.

Another option to easily add original quality content is a fully integrated custom blog.



TAGS: advice blog template custom website design cms content management system forum launch website design

Tax Accountant Custom Website Design

Another custom website design with matching integrated blog launched this weekend for RR Accounting and Tax Services of Kissimmee, Florida.



The main part of the tax accountant custom website features horizontal top navigation using CSS, custom web graphics, XHTML with CSS for code, and cloaked email to avoid junk mail from spambots, plus a custom favicon with a single letter "R". The color scheme, header, and footer graphics of the accounting and tax advice blog matches their main site. Blogs are great for improving seo, search engine optimization, because they allow owners to easily add fresh content often.

Additional content including a list of services, online library, and bilingual versions of all web pages are being added during November 2007. Besides bookkeeping and tax preparation, RR Accounting and Tax Services can assist you with Incorporations, New Company Setup, Accounting Software Tutorials, Immigration Services, Tax Problem Resolution, Divorce Filing Petitions, Notary Services, Term Life Insurance, and Investments, plus more.

My core business is custom small business website design with matching custom new blogger templates, and the layout of this bilingual website site allowed us to go live while waiting for additional content including Spanish translations.



TAGS: blog blog template seo search engine optimization small business services custom blogger template

Google PR Update and Owner Protests

PageRank, or PR, is the Google method of ranking sites based on importance, and this week's PR update confirms what I warned small business website owners years ago. Don't get hung up worrying about PR. Online forums are a great way to test the pulse of an industry or get reactions to trends. Forum members are buzzing about PageRank.

Within the last few days I've viewed forum posts with protests by site owners because their ranking dropped by several points each time in the last two Google PR updates. On the Google scale of 1 to 10, one dropped from PR9 to PR5.

I believe Google is cleaning house in line with advice that I give small business clients for my commercial website design services.

The site that went from PR9 to PR5 is well established, so I doubt they employ deceptive techniques. Instead, I believe that in tweaking algorithms, a site that was PR9 earlier in 2007 may be just as important now at PR5, and PR6 to PR10 is being reserved for truly outstanding websites. The secret to success in small business website design is still providing original quality content often.

Small business owners may never achieve PR10 by the very nature of being "small". Megasites with a large staff of site developers and search engine experts are more likely to get premier ranking. However, there are methods that you can use to improve ranking and site performance.

View label results for SEO to read more search engine optimization advice on this blog. You may also be interested in my latest published article Small Business SEO Tips and Tricks to learn more about what happened to Google PageRank in 2007.



TAGS: advice small business advice seo search engine optimization pagerank