If you're new to blogging and have used WordPress as your primary blogging platform, good for you. If you moved from one blogging platform to WordPress, a better choice indeed. So, what's next? Submit posts and let it be? A friend of mine asked me what are the "more-widely" used plugins for WordPress.
Here's my top list:
1. All-in One SEO Pack
This plugin speaks for itself. It is primarily used for the your blog posts. It can be usually seen at the bottom of your Post edit page.
Title
Make sure that when you input your blog post's title, you shouldn't exceed 60 characters. Why? Because most of the search engines use this maximum number of characters as title to searches.
Description
You can enter a short description of your article here. Acts more relatively like the WP post excerpt. Again, try not to exceed a character number of 160.
Keywords
They are your tags, categories for your blog article. Keywords are what search engines usually sniff out. On that note, you can unleash an unlimited amount of keywords. But make sure the keywords you use are relevant to
Whether you're a new blogger or a surfacing site owner, you might have wondered why most of the web guys are talking so much about SEO. SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization.
Okay, so what is SEO? It's basically a process to improve the visibility of your site or blog in search engines' search results. One of the leading search engines are Google, Yahoo! and MSN. In general, the earlier (or higher on the page), and more frequently a site appears in the search results list, the more visitors it will receive from the search engine.
You can also update your site's searchability by editing your site's meta tags. Meta tags are descriptions of your site which search engines look for. But also, make sure that the tags you are putting in are relevant to your site's niche, otherwise, search engines will ignore your site because irrelevance to content.
You may also use useful tags for your blog posts. This way, Search engines can easily search for your posts. Think about it as 'keywords' or 'key terms'.
The searchability of your site is very important since not everyone knows your site url. So what you have to do is promote your site thru commenting and other site promotion methods. Another sure fire way is to register your site to open directories. At the start of your blog's or site's life, always remember that you should register them in these Open Directories especially in Google and Yahoo. From there on, build up your site's Google PR and Alexa Rank reputation. Constant updates to your site also tells the search engines that your site is alive.
One of the best methods I can think of is to attend seminars or workshops to learn more. I heard an event in the Philippines about a Google Insider Secrets to Search Engine Optimization seminar which will be led by a former Google Optimization Specialist. Learning the secrets from the master themselves doesn't get any better!
I have previously discussed in my previous post the difference between Google PR and Alexa Rankings as well as it's importance in promoting and letting the web world about the existence of your site. For this post, I'll discuss how you could increase your visitors, followers and readers.
When I started my blog last July 1st, my Alexa ranking was about 25 million-ish. My Alexa ranking for the blog's first month(August 1st) soared to 3,466,553. So, how is there a magic trick? No, it's pure work. As one of the seasoned bloggers I knew told me that the secret to a blog's success is 'hard work'. Pretty vague, but it's all true, every single bit of it.
Here's my definition of hard work when it comes to blogging:
1. Don't just post anything. Post something worth reading. Put your heart
... they first called the animal turkey because they though it came from the country Turkey? And the red bumps on a turkey's head are called "caruncles".