Suzannah Porter's Library tagged Blogging →  View Popular

As we promised from the start of Blog Perfume, we would like to help bloggers as much as we can. We are trying to find all the best wordpress resources for bloggers, at the same time are developing some helpful tools for bloggers. You can view our themes and tools we have released eariler.

Feed Analysis - Detailed report and analysis for individual FeedBurner feed.

SilveRay - Clean and Soft Free WordPress Theme

Blubs - Elegant Premium WordPress Theme

Feed Compare - Compare your FeedBurner subscriber numbers with Others

A lot more coming…… Please subscribe to our RSS and stay tuned

Both people and search engine spiders might get to an error page because:



• A page linked to externally (internally) was moved/deleted;
• You/your HTML editor confuses relative and absolute URLs;
• Spammers generate non-existent URLs followed by a search engine;
• A (socially) bookmarked page was moved/deleted.

Once Google Webmaster Tools report a number of 404 pages:





1. Make sure you do not link to non-existent pages throughout your site - Xenu is a great free tool to search for broken links on your site.
2. Make sure your server returns the proper 404 header when redirecting from the non-existent page. A 404 error is meant to alert you, you visitors an search engines that the page no longer exists. (This Google Groups thread, for example, describes the case when a non-existent page was using 302 redirect to 404.php, which returned a ‘200 OK’.)
3. Include important navigation links at your 404 page: this will both give your readers and search spiders an alternative to go. The following links are recommended at a 404 page: links to popular posts/articles, a link to the home page, a link to your site map.
4. If you have multiple 404 pages reported that follow the same pattern (often: /search.php?xxx, member.php&xxx etc) - block them with robots.txt to make Google forget about them.
5. Set up automatic notification once 404 page is visited - you will thus have good chances to find out about the errors before Google.

• Pratheep
  on May 14, 2008 at 4:34 am
  

  
  
  
  

  I have custom 404 page for the website, but still i can see a huge list of pages listed in my webmaster tool. how to eliminate it. should we completely block those pages from the bot?

  
  

  FYI: we have removed many pages of our old html website and it is creating the 404 problem.

  
  

  Pratheep

  
  
  
  
  
• 
  
  

  
  Ann Smarty
  on May 14, 2008 at 4:46 am
  

  
  
  
  

  @Pratheep - the best way to handle this is to remove ALL references to the nonexistent pages from your site and wait. After the bot revisits your site and sees no references to them, it will update the WT stats (in a time).

  
  

  You can also block these pages with Robots.txt if they belong to one non-existent directory.

9. Be Clear, Open and Honest

If you have a product out of stock, say so. Few things annoy users as much as reading all about a product they are after, adding it to a cart, and starting the checkout process - only to find out the product isn't actually available.

The same applies to pricing - a user might spend $100 on a product, but when they find out the shipping is $100 on top of that, they are unlikely to continue the sale. Showing delivery pricing is tricky business, but not impossible. An Ip to Country database will allow you to work out where a user is from and show them a likely delivery cost, for example. If you can't do that, show delivery prices for the countries most appropriate to you - where your products are most often delivered, or for major world regions.

8. Don't Waste Time

One of the biggest mistakes sites make is asking for too much information. Your conversion process may be sale, or it may be a request for information. Either way, don't waste the user's time asking for things you don't need to know. This is, of course, doubly important when it comes to asking for information the user deems private, and that they don't want to give out without good reason.

You don't need to demand the user's email address before letting them download a PDF. You don't need their phone number when they fill out an email enquiry form. A user may not want to buy from you twice - so why make them create an account so they can buy again later before processing their first order? You can give the user the option to do all of these things by all means, but make sure it's not compulsory.

7. Help The User Trust You

Most people are still cautious when buying online, and rightly so. There are plenty of people you really shouldn't give your credit card information to! It's important to give the potential customer every reason to trust you.

An address - bricks and mortar, not a P.O. Box - is a good start. A phone number, with people answering the phone, also helps. Showing a privacy policy and explaining shipping procedures clearly can also help the user to trust you. If you have a SSL certificate, show the "VeriSign Secured" logo to the user.

Design and content also play a part in trust. A poor design gives off an unprofessional feeling. If a company can't afford a decent website, or won't spend the money on it, how can a user be sure their order will be treated with the importance it deserves? If content is inaccurate or badly written, the same applies - show that you take pride in what you do.

6. Have a Clear Returns Policy

Returns on the web are, and are likely to remain, a major issue for consumers. With a bricks and mortar shop, the customer knows where the shop is and that to return the product they simply have to go back there and explain the problem. With the web, this is more of an issue. This is especially true for clothing (where people cannot try things on before buying).

Users are impressed with sites with a good returns policy and are more likely to buy from them. Have people phone for returns - they can then explain the problem to a real person, which is always a good first step. Free return shipping is usually a good option, if commercially viable. People don't like to pay to return things, especially if it is a mistake by the retailer. Finally, give the user plenty of time to return things. 28 days is fairly common, but if it takes you that long to deliver a product, what use is the return policy? 28 days from the date of delivery is better.

5. Keep the User Informed

When somebody buys something online, they want to know when it's going to arrive at their door. People are impatient, after all. Giving them an estimated delivery date during the checkout process is a good start. Emailing them when their product is dispatched is great. Giving them a tracking number if using a delivery service that supports online tracking is even better. Keep the user informed at every step of the process, before and after sale, about as much as you can.

How will this improve your conversion rate? Leaving the customer happy once they have made a sale means they are more likely to speak favourably about you later. They may even recommend you to their friends and within online communities. They are also far more likely to buy from you again.

Think about it like this - if a salesman is doing their absolute best to help you, and to make your life easy, and answering your questions, you might buy what they were selling. If they completely ignored you after you'd bought from them, how would you feel about them? They might well have undone all the good work they put in, because once you'd completed your purchase they see no immediate value in you. A company that shows it cares about their customers, even after they've finished shopping, will make a user far happier and far more likely to return.

4. Offer Different Payment Options

It might sound obvious, but you should offer the user a reasonable selection of methods of payment. Not everybody has a credit card, and those that do don't always want to use them. You don't have to accept cheques, but when deciding on payment methods, consider alternatives to the usual methods. Make the user's life easy and give them what they want.

3. Improve the Value of Visitors

People that buy from you are doing so because they like what it is they see. If a user adds a product to a basket, show them other things they might like as well. If they are viewing a product, the same applies - show them similar items. While they might not buy the product they first saw, other similar ones may not have issues that put them off the first. Upselling and cross-selling are tried and tested sales techniques, and there is no reason not to use them on the web.

2. Be Memorable

A good site will include information. A poor one is just an online catalogue. Information (articles, advice, reviews and so on) all help the user early in their buying process. Users start with research online, just as they do offline. If you can make contact with the user at that stage of their process, and give a favourable impression, there is a good chance that they will come back and buy from you when they finally decide to make a purchase.

Being memorable, and making sure you stick in the user's mind, is dependant on a lot of factors. You must have a USP (see the next point), and branding is important (no good if your visitors remember why you are great but don't remember your name), as well as the quality of your site and information.

1. Know Your USP

Finally, the most important point of all - your Unique Selling Point (USP). Your USP is what sets you apart from your competition. If a visitor goes to several sites looking for a product, why would they decide to buy from you instead of somewhere else?

Many companies do not know their USP. Almost all companies have one, but not all of them are aware of it. If you are a family run business, that's a potential USP. Great customer service, low prices, products that can't be bought elsewhere, free delivery, great support - all of these are USPs. Tell your users what yours is. Shout it from the proverbial rooftops.

Short URLs will also help in direct type ins of URLs (if anyone still uses that instead of Google).



• Dashes are better than underscores. Although Google has no individual preferences (meaning you won’t be penalizes for either of the versions), dashes are more preferable as Google “sees” each hyphened word as an individual one:



So if you have a url like word1_word2, Google will only return that page if the user searches for word1_word2 (which almost never happens). If you have a url like word1-word2, that page can be returned for the searches word1, word2, and even “word1 word2?.

If you hesitate if your URLs may be perceived as spammy, check out SEOMOZ URL Spam Detection Tool that will estimate:

• spam words;
• hyphens;
• subdomain depth;
• domain length;
• digits.

3. Authority

In 1963, a Yale psychologist proved people are more willing to adhere to an instruction if given by an authority figure. The infamous Milgram experiment demonstrated the link between influence ability and authority.

In the experiment, a biology teacher with no professional scientific background played the role of a scientific researcher by simply donning a white lab coat. By playing the role of an authority figure, he was able to convince complete strangers to shock someone with up to 450 volts. Some participants questioned the authority and hesitated to administer the shock, but ultimately, it was ultimately proven that people will easily and almost blindly adhere to someone they see as an authority.

Bloggers aren’t looking to shock anybody. But, if you are trying to influence actions and establishing yourself as an authority figure increases your ability to do so. No matter your blog topic or niche, you should strive to be an authority figure in that field.

You can build your online authority in many ways, including having other website mention and point to your blog. Also consider proving useful and insightful information on a consistent basis, which your blog should do anyway.

• build link power of several resources simultaneously ( = if the microsite is closely associated with the main site, many webmasters will link to the both resources when talking about either of them). Michael Martinez in his recent post on one-way link building put it greatly:



satellite site networks succeed because each site brings enough unique content and concepts to the user experience that it makes sense for people to link to them all

See how others use micro-site strategy to both build links and brand awareness (examples from Mashable and WOMMA):



• host relevant but different content: Coca-Cola Conversations blog focuses on Coke collectibles.
• encourage viral marketing: a social network of photo enthusiasts around Fujifilm newest camera.
• host link bait: to promote its new T.V. series “Back to You,” Fox Broadcasting created a micro-site where users can upload photos of themselves to create an image that shows them seated at the anchor desk between the show’s stars, Patricia Heaton and Kelsey Grammer.
• host different type of content (e.g. user-generated content): Southwest Airlines employees and customers share the “Nuts About Southwest” on a separate blog.

<a href=”/ann-smarty/” title=”Author’s biography”>Ann Smarty</a>

OR

<a href=”/ann-smarty/” title=”More posts by Ann Smarty”>Ann Smarty</a>

Let’s first learn why we need to use TITLE attribute at all:

Link TITLE attribute for SEO: title attribute carries no weight on search engines (per my experience and based on other SEO’s opinion).

A couple of years ago, Googlers confirmed they did not use TITLE attribute in the algorithm because it was used too seldom. This has changes since then but I still failed to spot any evidence that link TITLE attribute somehow influenced the rankings (you can run a simple test: include any non-existent word - that doesn’t exist in Google index - as a link title, wait for the link to be indexed, and in some time check if either the linking or linked page got ranked for that word). Anyway, if your experience is different from mine, please share.

Link TITLE attribute for usability: in most browsers it will pop up when you hover over the link.

Thus there is no need to duplicate the anchor text in a title tag. If the title tag can’t provide more information, then don’t use it:

Do not add link titles to all links: if it is obvious from the link anchor and its surrounding context where the link will lead, then a link title will reduce usability by being one more thing users have to look at.

Exception: title attribute can copy the link text when not the full link text might be displayed (due to design limitations for example):

Link TITLE attribute for accessibility:

…visual browsers frequently display the title as a “tool tip” (a short message that appears when the pointing device pauses over an object). Audio user agents may speak the title information in a similar context. For example, setting the attribute on a link allows user agents (visual and non-visual) to tell users about the nature of the linked resource.

One should bear in mind that very often screen readers won’t read the title attribute, so if you put anything too vital in there, many users won’t hear it:

If the supplementary information provided through the title attribute is something the user should know before following the link, such as a warning, then it should be provided in the link text rather than in the title attribute.

For example, for acronyms you should both include a title attribute and provide a plain text expansion the first time it is used on the page.

Conclusions on TITLE attribute usage:



• use it for your users, not search engines (this approach always pays back);
• don’t duplicate it with link text (this hurts usability: for example some blind users will hear the same text twice);
• don’t put too much weight on the title attributes as not all screenreaders may render it (make sure either surrounding text or anchor text explains the link at least the first time you use it).

Creating a Comments Policy

Either way, you, as the blog owner or administrator, have total control over the comments on your blog. You can shout “freedom of speech” and have an “anything goes” policy. Or you can have a more drill sergeant discipline, striking down mean-spirited or bigoted comments. Or walk the middle of the road, killing off comments that will only inflame, but leaving up stupid, narrow-minded comments as an example for others.

As the blog owner, you have the following rights:





1. Control over content and comments.
2. Ability to edit comments.
3. Ability to censor comments.
4. Ability to delete comments.
5. Ability to prevent comments by specific persons or groups.

More Than Self-Service

If you aren’t already an affiliate blogger, it will help to have some help along the way. After all, when you first join an affiliate network or program, it takes some time to figure out its ins and out.

Every network has has an array of products to promote, and affiliate managers often know which products work best on which sites/blogs. Being able to chat with one those managers will help you choose which products in the network to focus on promoting.

Affiliate networks/program are also all powered by different affilate software. If you want to really optimize your affiliate marketing efforts, you’ll want to get the most out of that software and the analytics it provides. Dedicated affiliate manager can also help you with that.

Finally, some affiliate programs offer more marketing tools than others. As a blogger, there are a few different ways you can promote products (e.g. sidebar ads, in-post links, etc…). An affiliate management team that’s willing to look over your site, recommend tools (and programs that offer them), can save a lot of time and energy when it comes to setting up your affiliate account.

Dedicated Support

Providing support across an entire network requires staff and that can be costly. Consequently, some networks only provide support to some of their biggest affiliates. This happens with both smaller networks that don’t have a lot of resources, and massive networks that prefer to work with so-called super affiliates. In either case, such networks only want to invest in support when they see an immediate return.

On the other hand, there are network that see affiliate support as a longer-term investment. That is, they believe in the long tail, and know that if they invest in an affiliate, that affiliate will become a better affiliate and make both of them more money. They also know that that affiliate will also stay more loyal, and continue to (effectively) promote products within the network for years to come.

As a blogger, you’d probably be more comfortable with a network that offers such dedicated support. First, they’ll be there through your growing pains, giving you the kinds of support mentioned above. Secondly, they’ll listen to your (and other affiliates’) feedback, and that intelligence will trickly back into the network/program, making it a better, and more competitive place for both advertisers and publishers.

Choosing to be an Affiliate Blogger

To succeed as a blogger, you have to passionate not only about your topic, but about your readers/users. You have to build a community and develop relationships with its members.

If you’re going to monetize your blog through affiliate marketing, then, it makes sense to choose an affiliate network/program that shows a similar appreciation for relationships and treats its members as a community. A network/program that takes the time to develop a relationship with you and it other members will not only provide better support, but will better understand what you and the rest of the network members (the community) need to succeed. Not to mention, that relationship approach is also likely to attract better advertisers who are actually interested in growing their program, rather than just moving a couple extra units during a seasonal down-turn.

Here’s how the overall process works:





1. Make sure the server meets the minimum requirements to run WordPress
2. Delete all the spam comments on the WordPress.com blog
3. Export your posts and all data from WordPress.com
4. If needed, create a MySQL database on the new server
5. Install and configure WordPress on your own web server
6. Import the WordPress data
7. Install theme(s)
8. Install and configure additional plugins
9. Repoint the domain name (if you had your own to begin with), so that when people visit they get the new self-hosted blog location instead of the old WordPress.com location

There can be a few “gotchas” along the way, such as:



• Database issues (WordPress stores all of its posts and other information in a database, so problems with this can be frustrating and difficult)
• Domain name issues (your “dot com name”)
• Settings on the web server may not be correct
• Links in old posts that worked fine at WordPress.com now broken

Tags:

Tags are one of the best and easiest SEO tools. Tags have a lot of advantages; they generate a new page for each tag, the more pages you have in the index the higher the chances of getting more visitors. I do not recommend having more than 3 tags per post.