Archive for the 'Blog Optimization' Category

Blog Posts: How Short Is Too Short?

Thursday, July 10th, 2008

When it comes to blog posts, how short is too short?

Well, the real answer is, there is no too short. You can post a one sentence blog post and that’s better than nothing. But if you want a highly optimized blog post then the longer the better. But the real way to optimize blog posts is to make them not too short and not too long.

If it’s too long then no one will read it. If it’s too short then you might not get a good ranking in the search engines. There is an optimal length, but it isn’t counted in words or paragraphs. The optimal length is how much space you need to cover your topic adequately. But if all you can do on a given day is post, “Hey, just dropping in to say Hi,” it’s not optimal, but it’s better than nothing. Just don’t do that too often or your friends will think you don’t like them any more.


See, I Told You So

Tuesday, July 1st, 2008

Everyone needs validation, right? Well, ghostwriter Crystal Smith recently gave me mine. She said the same thing that I’ve been saying for a couple of years now, since I started writing online. And it’s almost word for word. Here are a few snippets of brilliance from Crystal’s article on blogging and article writing:

Firms that specialize in online marketing will tell you that search engine ranking is of critical importance. To compete in your industry you need to rank well on Google and, to a lesser extent, on Yahoo and MSN.

OK, so it’s not genius level. It’s a repeat of what you’ve heard a million times. It never hurts to hear it again, does it? The fact is, search engine rankings are the most important measurements of online success and have the potential to drive your business to the highest levels of achievement. It’s getting there that is the battle.

There are two keys to ranking high - optimized content and link popularity.

Once again, two things that drive your rankings. Need I repeat them? Sure: optimized content and link popularity.

The main factors involved in optimizing content are keyword relevance and volume. Keywords are the terms used by people searching the Web. If your site is particularly relevant to the keyword term, it has a better chance of ranking well in the search engine results.

Keywords are a double-edged sword. On the one hand, if you mismanage them you could get a reputation as a spammer. On the other, you’ll be limp and ineffective. Proficient optimization requires the proper use of keywords throughout your content such that your writing appears natural but has the effect of feeding search engine spiders with the necessary food to elevate your web pages in the rankings.

To gauge whether your site is relevant to a keyword term, search engines need to see a lot of content. Pages should be between 400 and 500 words long.

There is no optimal length for web pages or blog posts, but you don’t want them too small. Anything less than 400 words in today’s competitive market is too small. Feed the spiders!

You should have a page for each keyword term you want to rank for, and the keyword phrase should appear about 2% of the time on that page. But you have to avoid spamming, that is, having the keyword just appear for no apparent reason. Keywords have to be used in context.

One aspect of optimization that many inexperienced Web writers miss is the semantic language aspect. Search engines now have the ability to analyze your content and make judgments about it regarding context. Synonyms and synonymous phrases can work wonders. It makes your content look natural and less contrived. Filling your content with keywords just to rank higher will likely not achieve the goal. I do believe in optimal keyword densities, but I would not go less than 2% on any page. Going higher depends on your content, the level of competition, the specific keyword phrase you are targeting, and your ability as a writer to achieve the necessary results.

The best way to manage the keyword ratio is to write well. Don’t just try to fill space.

Didn’t I just say that?

If there are lots of links pointing to your site, you are seen as an expert in your chosen field. As people figure out the tricks of keyword optimization, inbound links are becoming increasingly important to good search engine rankings.

People don’t realize it, but all you have to do is write good content and you’ll be linked to. If you don’t have other bloggers within your niche linking to your blog after three months then you are probably not writing good enough content.

Content for this blog post was taken from an article by Crystal Smith: Crystal Smith is a professional writer who specializes in search-engine-optimized Web site copy, article writing and blog posts. Writing samples and more information are available at http://www.tigerlilymedia.ca

Want to know more about blog optimization techniques and how to use your blog as a pre-sales tool with SEO benefits? Contact Blog Content Provider today.


What Should You Do About Duplicate Titles?

Wednesday, June 18th, 2008

Once you’ve blogged for awhile you’ll start to cover the same material. No matter how broad your niche, and we recommend narrowing your niche as far as you can without getting too narrow, eventually you’ll start writing about the same topics again. You might even inadvertently come up with duplicate blog post titles for some of those blog posts that cover the same topics. But how will the search engines deal with that?

Well, if the blog post titles are exactly the same then that could pose a problem for the search engines, depending on the structure of your permalink.

WordPress’s default permalink is a funky structure that uses a question mark followed by a string of syllables ending in the culmination of the number of your blog post. It looks like this:

http://www.blogcontentprovider.com/?p=123

That’s no good because you have no keywords in that permalink and keyword-based URLs are better for you in the search engines than a number. The ?p=123 follows your website’s main URL preceded by a forward slash (a / symbol).

WordPress does allow you to change the permalink structure, but it involves several steps and to do it correctly you’ll need access to your server through FTP so that you can alter your .htaccess file. Among the options that you have for changing the permalink in WordPress are:

  • Day and Name structure (ex: http://www.blogcontentprovider.com/2008/06/18/sample-post/)
  • Month and Name structure (ex: http://www.blogcontentprovider.com/2008/06/sample-post/)
  • Numeric structure (ex: http://www.blogcontentprovider.com/archives/123)
  • Custom structure

To change the permalink structure for your WordPress blog you’ll need to select the structure that you wish to use and save your changes, but the permalinks of your blog posts won’t be changed right away. In fact, if you click on a blog post then you won’t even be able to see it. You’ll get an error message. That’s because your .htaccess file has to be updated.

Save your changes and copy the code in the box at the bottom of the permalinks page inside of the WordPress admin area. Paste that code into your .htaccess file. If you don’t have one you’ll have to create one. But once you do that then you should be able to see your blog posts. Note that if you have been writing to your blog for any length of time before changing your permalink structure then you will have to 301 redirect all of your previously written blog posts to their new URLs. That will take some time and work so it’s best to change your permalink structure before you start blogging.

To make sure that your blog post titles do not create duplicate content issues for the search engines, choose a permalink structure that allows you to include the date of your newly created posts. That way, if you do have two blog posts with the same exact title, the date of the post will distinguish from each other and you won’t experience any duplicate content issues with the search engines.

If you got something out of this blog post, find out how you can have your own optimized WordPress blog.


Why Blogs Get Ranked Faster Than Websites

Monday, June 16th, 2008

If you’re wonder whether blogs or websites are easier to rank in the search engines, consider these attributes of blogs that make them easier to rank and allow you better marketing opportunities:

  1. Daily posting invites search bots more often - A daily blog post will keep the search engine spiders returning to your website to crawl it every day.
  2. More opportunities to rank in the search engines - For every post that you post on your blog, that’s one more way a visitor can find you.
  3. Ping services keep your blog posts visible - By pinging the various ping services every time you post to your blog you are keeping your blog visible in the blog directories and ping services such as Technorati.
  4. Ping services also build your links faster - As more people read your blog they will link to it.
  5. Social bookmarking drives more traffic and links to your blog - By using social bookmarking services to promote your blog, you attract more visitors and more links and the social bookmarking links sometimes act as inbound links that drive up your PageRank.
  6. A well-optimized blog post can rank faster - Since the search engines are visiting your blog more often any activity that you do on that domain will get your blog ranked faster for the keywords that you are targeting.

Even though a blog has the potential to get you more traffic and get you more visibility in the search engines faster than a static website, you still don’t want your blog to be your primary website. People don’t buy from blogs. They read them for information. They will then visit your website and make their purchase there.

Get more information on blogging.


5 Ways To Increase Traffic To Your Blog

Friday, June 13th, 2008

It’s important to keep traffic flowing to your blog. Traffic is what makes you money. Without traffic you are simply writing into a vacuum.

But a blog doesn’t necessarily have to be the place where you close the sale. You want to talk to people, if possible. Or at least get them to visit your web site. A blog post is really about getting them interested in you. Then, you and your sales team can close the sale.
We had a real estate agent who let us write her blog for a while then she left because we didn’t make her any sales. But she did tell us that we sent her more traffic to her web site than anything else she’d ever done. Still, she was disappointed that we didn’t close any sales. Sorry. That’s not our job. Our job is to drive traffic to your web site so that you can close the sale.

That’s not to say that we won’t ever close sales with blogs. Sometimes we do. But we don’t make that our primary effort because most people prefer to speak to someone and visit a website before they buy something. Especially in real estate. People aren’t going to buy a house from a blog.

So keep your expectations realistic. And keep in mind these 5 ways that you can drive traffic to your blog so that you can get their attention and close the sale:

  1. Search Engine Optimization - There is no substitute for SEO. Have a list of keywords that are important to your business and use those keywords in your blog posts. Link to your website pages in your sidebar using those keywords.
  2. Social Bookmarking - Pick some popular social bookmarking sites and make friends. Bookmark your blog posts and bookmark your friends’ blog posts. Be a social butterfly. It works.
  3. RSS Feed - Set up an RSS feed for your blog and invite your readers to subscribe.
  4. Use A Blog Promotion Newsletter - Not everyone understands RSS. But they will read your blog from an e-mail or newsletter. Offer them one. For free.
  5. Write Articles - Articles are a great way to drive traffic to any website, even a blog. Write articles and include your blog’s URL in your author resource box.

Learn more about blogging and additional services at Blog Content Provider.


3 Things Your Blog Needs To Succeed

Monday, June 9th, 2008

When it comes to business blogging, or commercial blogging, it’s not the same thing as personal blogging or blogging to make money. You are blogging to make money, but you are not trying to squeeze out revenue from your blog. You are using your blog as a marketing tool to lead people to your website so that you can close the sale and make money on your products and services. Your blog is the lead generator; your website is the salesman.

So what does your lead generation blog need in order to do its job well? Here are the three absolutely essential ingredients to make sure your company blog stands out and drives traffic to your website:

  1. Quality, original content - Every day. We’re not talking about private label rights or recycled eye candy. Graphics are nice, but content is better. Eat a meal and not just a snack! Take your company talking points and turn them into a blog by getting into a real conversation with your customers about their needs and your desire to fill a niche within the marketplace. It all starts with quality, original content.
  2. Links - You need to link to your website. Not just the home page either. I’m talking about real links to every page that is important on your website. And your links need to be in the body of your blog posts as well as in your sidebar blogroll. Take your important keywords and turn them into anchor text and link to each page on your website using the appropriate anchor text.
  3. The right template - It can be custom-made, but it doesn’t have to be. An off-the-shelf template works just as well as long as it is SEOd properly. Your blog template needs to be crawlable so making sure that the code in your template makes it easy for the search engines to find what they need is absolutely essential. Your blog template must be able to attract a reader’s eye quickly and not drive them away, so attractiveness is important but even an ugly template with the right SEO will get you the traffic you are looking for. When it comes to getting ranked in the search engines, SEO is far more important than being pretty.

These are the three most essential elements to a successful company blog. Other things are nice, but without these three things going for you, you might as well hang it up. Everything else is gravy.

Learn what a blog manager can do for you.


Does Your Blog Have Original Content

Friday, June 6th, 2008

I see blogs every day that simply copy posts from other blogs and link back to them. Some blogs are just lists of links to other blogs and that’s it. Do these blogs do well in the search engines? Generally, no. There’s no original content.

These blogs mostly rely on traffic from other, more popular, blogs in the form of trackback links. They copy your posts and link back to it as a trackback hoping that you’ll approve their comment and your readers will click the comment link and visit their blog. They then sell advertising using traffic numbers gained from these trackbacks. Sometimes they slap AdSense ads on the blogs and hope to scrape a few bucks that way. Is this ethical?

Probably not, but even more important than the ethical issue is the business model. If the company can make more than $10 on AdSense or ad revenues then they’ve run a profitable business. Many of them do. That’s why they do it. But all they really do is scrape a few dollars over the course of a year. Imagine selling a $50 ad to a handful of businesses over the course of a single year. Payout = $10; income = $100 or more. Not much, but if you do that enough times then you’ll have a decent income just from scraping other people’s content. And you can do that with no rankings.

But why would you? If you’re lazy, OK, it’s a lazy way to steady income. But don’t count on anyone ever really doing business with you if you are trying to run a legitimate business. If you use these lazy tactics and word gets out about it then your customers will not want to do business with you. Short term gains = long term credibility issues.

Legitimate businesses trying to run legitimate blogs need to have original content in their blog posts. Write about important issues facing your industry. Attract real traffic within your niche. Don’t play games with other people’s content.


Keyword Density: Do Bloggers Need It?

Friday, May 23rd, 2008

It is my responsibility at Blog Content Provider to ensure that bloggers are trained properly on blog optimization techniques and helping our customers achieve the results they are looking for from their blogs. One of my newest bloggers asked me recently what keyword density I want to see in my blog posts. It’s a question that one will see frequently in forums, though I admit I don’t get it as much any more. But some new bloggers still wonder about keyword density. My response is always the same.

In my view, keyword density is a poor measure of SEO success. It doesn’t really get you anywhere and the reason is because all of the search engines have a multitude of factors that they take in and consider when it comes to ranking websites for keyword positioning. You can’t rely on one factor alone and keyword density relies too heavily upon the use of keywords within your blog posts. An overly aggressive tendency to focus on keywords could lead to spammy behavior and, well, that won’t help you any - particularly when the search engines now use semantic technology to determine whether content is useful or not.

No one knows for sure what the most important ranking factors are, but through trial and error, many SEOs have discovered that some things are better than others. As a general rule, the following factors are some of the ranking factors that search engines consider when deciding where you should rank for your keywords:

  • Keyword usage in your blog post title
  • Keyword position within your blog post title
  • Subheads with h1, h2, or h3 tags in conjunction with keyword usage
  • Keyword anchor text usage
  • Overall keyword usage within your blog post content
  • Title attributes within your links
  • Photo optimization practices like alt tags and surrounding text
  • Relevant inbound links
  • Quality of inbound links to your blog’s index page as well as each individual blog post
  • Outbound links in your sidebar
  • Dofollow vs. nofollow tags and destination pages of your blog post links, sidebar links, and comment links

In all, the search engines analyze over 200, or close to 300, ranking factors. Too much emphasis on any one or handful of these could lead to a reputation as a spammer or ineffective SEO. That’s why I try to teach my bloggers to think for themselves and to understand how their content is being read by and analyzed by the search engines for ranking purposes. Blog marketing is a long-term strategy that can result in your blog achieving high rankings for you keywords over time, but it isn’t an overnight success mission. Don’t treat it that way. Consistency, persistence, and flexibility are key characteristics to develop if you want to be a successful blogger.

Learn more about blog optimization from the blog optimization experts.


Does Your Blog Have A Purpose?

Wednesday, May 7th, 2008

Many small businesses and companies entering the blog marketing arena for the first time are a little bit confused about the purpose of blog marketing. While it possible, and we’ve had some success with it, that blogging can lead to sales, that is not the primary purpose for starting a company blog. Most consumers are not going to make a purchase from a blog. That’s not what they read blogs for.

Blog marketing can be seen as a lot of like TV and radio advertising. No one buys an ad on TV or radio expecting the ad to sell their product - that is, unless they are in mail order. Local businesses that have a service or product to sell - especially retailers - use TV and radio to drive consumers to their businesses, either in person or by phone call, to discuss business opportunities. That’s when the sale is made - in a face-to-face or voice-to-voice meeting over the phone.

Blogging is a lot like advertising on TV or radio. The purpose is not to close the sale right then. You really just want to spark enough interest in the consumer to drive them to your website and that’s where you’ll close the sale. So what needs to happen before that?

How A Blog Fits Into Your Sales Cycle
Successful companies build their sales funnel then chart their strategy for making sure the sales process is followed. Do you have your online sales funnel drawn out? If not, then isn’t it about time?

For most businesses, the company website is the place where the sale is going to be closed. If you have a local retail store then you might use your website to provide information to people in your community who will drive to your store to purchase an item, or they may place the order online and pick it up in person. You may want them to call you to place the order. That’s fine. Whatever your sales cycle is, you need to define it and make it work for you. But where should your blog fit in?

Your blog should be seen as a pre-sales tool. Whether you close the sale on your website, use the website to drive traffic to your brick-and-mortar store, or have your customer call you, you’ve got to get them to the website. A blog is a great tool for driving customers to the website. Here’s why:

  1. Your website is a static tool that doesn’t change often
  2. Your blog is updated every day, increasing your chances of getting your website crawled daily
  3. A blog can be used to add new pages with fresh content to your website every day; that in turn brings the search engine spiders back to your website to crawl it more often
  4. An off site blog can be used to build link popularity for your website, which in turn affects the search engine rankings and authority of your site within its niche
  5. The longer you keep your blog running, the more effective you’ll be in gaining a loyal readership over time; that loyal readership can translate into increased links and traffic for your website
  6. Your blog can drive targeted traffic to your site as the traffic to your blog increases

So, to boil it all down, your blog can be used for three overarching purposes:

  • Search engine saturation
  • Link popularity
  • Traffic

And, of course, all of that translates into branding.

Two More Tools To Make Your Blog More Effective
Your blog fits into your overall sales funnel by being a conduit between the search engines and your website. As more and more websites compete for your key terms due to more and more businesses going online, adding a blog can give you an added advantage in your niche. New businesses entering your niche to compete are less likely to start a blog so you’ll be ahead of the game. Your blog can be most effective in achieving the three stated purposes above if you make it effective in these three areas:

  • SEO
  • Social Media Marketing
  • Viral Marketing

We’ve talked about SEO - remember? Search Engine Saturation and Link Popularity? - but what about social media and viral marketing? The key to social media is to use sites like Digg, Technorati, and StumbleUpon to reach traffic that you might not find through SEO. Plus, SEO and social media marketing reinforce each other. When fellow Stumblers and Diggers see your website in the search engines, they’ll recognize it because they’ve seen you on the social sites. Again, that’s branding. That’s why we offer the additional service of social bookmarking, to add to your edge.

Viral marketing is a bit different. Social bookmarking can be a part of that, and so can SEO. But viral marketing involves giving your customers a reason to do your marketing for you. One term that is used is customer evangelism. It’s a term that encompasses the idea of customers talking you up and driving traffic your way. One tool that is excellent for doing that is a newsletter. Some of our customers use a blog marketing newsletter to keep loyal readers. The newsletter goes out weekly and highlights that week’s blog posts so that busy professionals who don’t have time to stop by your blog every day and haven’t quite figured out the RSS thing (which is most small business people and new Internet consumers) can receive your newsletter in their e-mail inbox and visit the blog posts that interest them based on this unique viral marketing tool - and you can make it easy for them to share your newsletter with their friends!

So, you see, it’s all about your marketing funnel. If you have not added a blog to your sales cycle or you’re not quite sure what a blog can do for your company, find out more by paying a visit to Blog Content Provider or give us a call at 786-317-8774.


Ranking Highly Is Not An Exact Science

Monday, April 28th, 2008

Many good bloggers focus too heavily on keywords. While keywords are important, you can emphasize them too much. What is more important is quality content. Here are some rebuttals to the arguments made in this article.

Getting Your Blog to Rank Highly In Search Engines

There is little point in writing a blog if no one comes to read it. Blogs are automatically search engine friendly because of their fresh content and clean formatting, but there are a few easy techniques you can use to improve your rankings.

A few words about keywords:

1. Choose your Keywords wisely.

You can choose to write on a topic, or for a key word or phrase, that is immensely popular and has a ton of competition, and never stand a chance of getting in the top page or two of rankings. Or you can choose similar but more targeted keyword or phrase with less competition be in the top 10 listings.

Actually, you should choose popular keywords or phrases. Don’t waste a lot of time looking for all the “long tail” keywords so you can rank for them. Keep a list of important keywords for your business and run through all of them - long tail and broad search. You don’t have to rank on page 1 of Google for every single keyword or phrase. Some of your best traffic will come from your pings.

2. Key Word or Phrase? That is the next question.

Most people do not use a single word for a search engine query. The often search a phrase or even type an entire question. This is not necessarily the most efficient way to search, but it is the most natural. So do not think you need to limit yourself to single key word. A key phrase of three - five words is entirely appropriate.

It is difficult to optimize a blog post for keyword phrases longer than three words. When you optimize a blog post, your three keywords or phrase do not even have to be contiguous - one right after another. You can split up the phrase several times in your blog post and still rank for the phrase because most search engines these days are using semantic language algorithms. Your phrase does not have to remain in tact for every usage.

3. Choose your URL wisely.

Once you have chosen your keyword, it is time to choose your URL wisely. Whether your blog is hosted by your blogging software, on your own domain or subdomain. You want your primary keyword to be in your domain name (URL).

If you use WordPress, which I highly recommend, all you have to do is include your specific keyword or phrase in the title of your post and WordPress will automatically include that in your URL. It’s called a permalink. Of course, you have to change the default settings in WordPress to format your permalink properly. That isn’t hard to do if you know how. A one-hour tutorial can help you get your permalink set right, or a professional WordPress expert can do it for you.

4. Keyword Placement

Besides having your primary key word in your URL, you also want it to appear the header tags and titles of your posts.

Yes, I recommend adding a title and description tag at the very least to your header.php file. Again, a one-hour tutorial can help you do that, or a WordPress expert can do it for you.

5. Keyword usage in the body of your post

When writing each post you of course want to use your primary keyword(s) in the text, but don’t over do it or you’ll sound like spam. Always write in a natural, reader friendly manner. This is also the place put a few secondary keywords as well.

This is where a lot of bloggers go wrong. Don’t overdo it. Blog spam is easily detected by the search engines and if you litter your blog posts with your keyword over and over again then it won’t rank the way you want it to. The search engines will discount it as spam. Use your keyword phrase, but use it sparingly.

6. Keywords in Links

Keywords that appear in links are more important than those in plain text. So where appropriate, when linking to another blog or website, use your keywords in the text of links.

Do it once or twice. I’ve seen bloggers use six or eight links in a 300-word blog post. That’s spam. It doesn’t help you. Search engines will only count the first instance of your anchor text. After that, strategically place your links for driving traffic where you want it to go. Otherwise, you’ll be guilty of overkill, aka “spam”.

7. Keyword Categories

Another natural place to put your keywords in your Category names.

Yep. I agree. And be sure to include tags with each post. The latest edition of WordPress has a field for you to enter your tags.

Keywords are not the only thing search engines consider when ranking your blog. Here are few other areas to consider:

Links

Links that point to your blog and posts are very important to building pagerank.

1. Search Engines and Directories

Being listed in search engines and directories provide great single direction links. So make sure you submit your blog, first of all to dmoz.org. This is end all, be all to internet directories and is a place that most search engines pull from to find websites to spider. After than submit directly to the major search engines, that way they know you exist. Finally, submit to the blog search engines and various free directories.

This information is so outdated. First, DMOZ is not the end-all be-all of directories. It could take as long as a year to get listed there AFTER you submit your blog. By that time you could 365 blog posts, or more, and already have top 10 listings with single blog posts. Sure, submit to DMOZ, but even if you don’t, do other things right and you’ll have a blog that you can be proud of.

You don’t have to submit your blog to search engines any more. That’s why they have spiders. The most important thing to do to get your blog crawled by the search engines within 72 hours is to get at least one inbound link. Find a local directory and submit your blog to it. Open an account at Google Webmaster Central and verify your blog. Also, verify it with Yahoo! and MSN. Once you do that, you’ll be crawled.

Here is a well respected list of Blog Directories by Robin Good.
http://www.masternewmedia.org/rss/top55

2. Articles

Turn some of your blog posts into articles and submit them to the article directories. This will get you more linkbacks.

Yes, this is a good long-term strategy.

3. Comment

Leave appropriate comments on forums and other blogs with a link to your site in the comment.

This is a great way to get quick back links to your blog. Find two or three forums and blogs in your niche and leave a comment. Don’t spam them. Find an appropriate topic and join the conversation. Make it seem natural and people will love you.

Updates

1. Update your blog.

The more fresh content you have, the happier the spiders are. Some blogging software will even let you write posts in advance and schedule them to be posted on certain days.

You can timestamp your blog posts, but I don’t recommend it. We found out that WordPress pings your blog posts when you publish them, not when they go live. That means that if you timestamp a blog at 5 p.m. to go live the next morning at 10 a.m. then it will notify all the ping directories at 5 p.m. on the day that you publish, a full 17 hours before you want the post to go live. You’ll likely get visitors to that blog posts too soon and if it contains information that you don’t want to go public before 10 a.m. the next day, you’ve breached your own security.

Blog directories like Technorati index blog posts by listing the latest one at the top and the oldest ones below it. If you want your post to go live at 10 a.m. the next day then when 10 a.m. comes around, because you pinged when you published, that blog post will be at the bottom of the heap. The people you want to read it when you want them to read it will not get that chance. I don’t recommend timestamping. A better solution is to write the post ahead of time and save it as a draft. Then when it comes time to publish it, you can login and publish it in a few seconds.

2. Ping

After you update your blog, you’ll want to “ping” the search engines to let them know you have new content. That will get your site spidered more often. You can us the Ping-O-Matic Tool (http://pingomatic.com/) to ping a lot of search engines all at once. Alternately, if you use Feedburner, for your RSS distribution, they have a tool that will automatically ping the search engines when you update your blog.

Yes, Feedburner does have a ping tool. So does WordPress. I recommend getting a list of ping directories and insert that list into the ping field of WordPress. Alternatively, you can use Feedburner’s distribution model. One or the other is fine.

Other words on Feedburner, even if you use WordPress to ping the directories, I still recommend Feedburner for RSS distribution.

Follow these few easy guidelines and see your blog listed in the search engines in no time.

Cheryl Hartzman is a successful work at home mom who specializes in providing advice and opportunities to others who want to earn a living working at home. For more information about working at home, visit her blog at http://wahcenter.blogspot.com.

Copyright © 2008 Cheryl Hartzman. All Rights Reserved (Article may be reprinted if all text and links remain intact and unchanged.)

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Cheryl_Hartzman

Cheryl Harzman has some good advice for you here, but some of it is outdated and incomplete, or inaccurate.

Find out more about professional blog management at BCP.