SEO

Jan 22, 2013

YouTube compilation – winter wonderland

The power of YouTube compilation videos.


YouTube compilationsThe last YouTube compilation I posted was two years when I shared the BBC Wildlife voiceover clip. Since it’s been below freezing for the last week in the UK, and it’s snowing heavily outside right now, I thought I’d add a bit of humour with this YouTube compilation video of pratfalls in the snow and ice.

What’s so special about YouTube compilation videos?

YouTube compilations have the possibility of going viral. The one I’m sharing here only has 1310 views so far but could blossom into an online hit. Which means that you can get some reflected glory from Google by posting it on your blog from YouTube. All you need to do is click on ‘Embed’ under the video, copy the code it gives you and post this into your blog post. (This was a secret shared by one of the top internet marketers in the US!)

So I’m not only sharing something that might make you laugh, wince or stay indoors until the ice goes. I’m also giving you a heads up that sharing a top YouTube compilation video could help your blog get some exposure.

Of course it would be better to produce your own viral YouTube video like Dave Carroll’s brilliant “United Break Guitars”. This video has had almost 3 million hits and propelled its maker into fame and fortune. So much so that he now does the speaking circuit talking about complaint resolution.

So with all the technology available to you it’s not too difficult to get creative and produce something a bit ‘off the wall’ which catches on. Who knows. You could be the next big thing on YouTube!

Warning – some people were hurt in the making of this YouTube compilation!


By Andy Britnell YouTube 9 Comments Tags: , , ,

Sep 5, 2012

SEO Plugins for WordPress – Yoast

One of the best SEO plugins for WordPress

SEO plugins for WordPressI’ve been using SEO plugins for WordPress sites for a few years now. So far I have focused on the All in One SEO plugin and XML Sitemaps plugin for search engine optimisation. They have helped me to get my clients’ blogs in on the first page and sometimes top billing for certain keywords in Google. Recently they have been flying up the Alexa league table. But now I’ve swopped them out for a new Plugin – WordPress SEO by Yoast.

Why have you changed the SEO plugin?

Well, having played with it for a few weeks I found it to be a more elegant solution to getting your SEO right on your blog. It integrates into your dashboard in such a way that it becomes an indespensible guide for making sure your SEO is as good as it gets.

Benefits of SEO WordPress Plugins by Yoast

  1. Target keyword allows you to check that the keyword you want to rank for is in all the relevant places – title, URL, description, content etc.
  2. Gives a visible representation of how your page or post will appear in a Google search. I really like this as it gives you a feel of what it’s like to be in your visitor’s shoes when they find you in Google. It helps you to make your entry more compelling and relevant.
  3. Checks you have the right amount of characters in your title, description and your Slug!. This is important as truncated text (text that get’s cut off because there are too many characters) in either of these can confuse your visitor and put them off making that vital click.
  4. It’s free. Having looked at various reviews of SEO plugins for WordPress this one is considered to be as comprehensive and effective as others you have to put your hand in your pocket for! The only plugin I pay for at the moment is Commentluv. I may look at purchasing a more powerful SEO plugin in future but results so far show this is having a positive effect on blogs it has been installed on.
  5. One plugin for the price of two. SEO plugins for WordPress can do various tasks for you. The beauty of this one by Yoast is that includes XML sitemaps so you can dispense with your other SEO plugins and those that generate XML sitemaps – that helps declutter things so your site runs a bit faster too.
  6. It gives you step by step indicators to get the following factors right for your SEO:
      Keyword density
      Readability
      Use of stop words in keyword phrase
      Keyword in first paragraph
      Alt descriptions on images include keyword
      Sub-heading tags include keyword
      Word count over recommended 300 words
      Outbound links
  7. It also covers the fact that you might have spent many hours getting your SEO right with another plugin. Those carefully crafted titles and meta descriptions can be imported easily with this plugin.
  8. And lastly it has comprehensive settings to make your blog SEO tailored to your requirements.

    9. Look no further at other SEO plugins for WordPress. This one is as good as it gets for free.

    What’s your opinion?

    By Andy Britnell Blog Optimisation, WordPress Plugins 33 Comments Tags: , , , ,

Jul 10, 2012

Alexa ranking – infographic showing how to improve it

Alexa ranking. An important measure for potential advertisers

How to improve your Alexa rankingIf you are like me you probably want to improve your Alexa ranking as it’s a good way of showing you, potential advertisers and guest bloggers how your blog compares to the competition. Plus you get a warm glow when you finally break through the 100,000 mark!

With Alexa you have to be ‘in it to win it’ so you will need to register your site with them. This means that not every website is included in their ranking. There are currently only 30 million sites listed! So it’s not a totally accurate tool, but it’s a very good guide so I encourage you to register your site and get the badges. Check out the widget down on the bottom of the right hand sidebar. It helps with your search engine optimisation (SEO) and they get over 6 million visitors a month.

Apart from giving you useful analytics for your site Alexa also provides tools to improve your SEO and you can pay a premium to get blog or website optimisation. It helps to get a few people to review your site as that impacts on your ranking. Persuading some of your raving fans shouldn’t be that difficult although they do have to sign up to Alexa which may be a potential objection. Explain to them of the benefits of doing it for their site and you should be OK.

Here is a handy infographic to show you how to improve your Alexa ranking. I have followed this advice with my clients’ blogs and they have all improved their ranking within a few weeks dramatically. Plus one of them is edging closer to the magic 100,000 mark.

I’ll keep you updated about the progress for www.workfromhomewisdom.com. We are looking to reach that Alexa ranking target before the end of the year.


Like this infographic? Visit MichelleShaeffer.com to learn how to build visibility, voice, and community online.

By Andy Britnell Blog Optimisation, Blog Traffic 39 Comments Tags: , , , , ,

Feb 14, 2011

Does your blog make the grade?

So you’ve started your blog, you are getting traffic and people are engaging with you by leaving comments, tweeting about you and posting about you on social media sites.

You have also begun to litter the web with your website URL so the search engines can track links back to your site.

You are checking Google analytics to see how your traffic is growing, where people are coming from, what they are interested in, how loyal they are and how deeply they search your site.

Which is fantastic, but how do you know what your performance is like compared to other blogs?

Perhaps one of the most satisfying blogging tools I have found is website grader by HubSpot. Amazingly this is a free service and they have some other cool resources for bloggers too.

Click on the website grader link above, enter your website, add your competitors’ URLs and leave your email. Click ‘Generate report’, sit back for a couple of minutes and ‘voila’ you have some really useful benchmarking information about your site.

Unfortunately it only grades you against people who have already graded their site (only 3,263,768 so far!) but you get a very good idea about how your blog is doing and how you can improve it. Don’t get too hung up on the numbers – sometimes it doesn’t pick up all the data, but you can see the overall trend.

I just checked mine and found my sitemap wasn’t working. Fixed it and I went from 51 to 61. Small things really do matter for SEO (Search Engine Optimisation).

NewsFlash: I have recently checked my site and am now graded at 91!
26 March 2011

What do you get?

1. Website grade – see badge above.

2. Website Traffic

3. SEO information

4. Social Media ranking

5. MOZ rank (similar to Google ranking)

6. Conversion forms (Have you got RSS and newsletter sign up for instance)

7. Readability level – education level of writing

Plus a lot more. So I suggest you whizz over to website grader now and see how your site measures up. And don’t panic if you have a low score – it doesn’t take a great deal of effort to raise the bar and often it is just a matter of time before you start to race ahead of the pack.

When you do get your website graded let me know your score and what you learnt from the exercise?

By Andy Britnell Blog benchmarking, Blog Optimisation 20 Comments Tags: , , , , ,

Jan 28, 2011

If you want Google to love you .. love Google

If you want Google to love you ... Love GoogleIf you have ever taken a close look at your web statistics, the hits you get from the Google search engine far outweigh the ones you get from the likes of Yahoo, Bing, AOL, Ask and Search. You could say they have cornered the market and are now the engine of choice for browsing the web.

If most of the search engine traffic comes from Google it makes sense to be friends with them so your blog or website gets more visibility. Let’s take a look at what you need to do to cuddle up to this giant and get it to notice you.

How do I ‘love’ Google?

Good point, well made. The more use you make of Google the more it is going to recognise and find your website or blog online. Using their website tools means that you have more links on Google real estate which gives you a lift up in the listings. You might not get a massive surge of traffic immediately but you are fertilising the soil so that your traffic is more likely to grow.

So what do I do?

If you haven’t got a Google account set one up now. Complete your Google profile and add the links to your website, blog and social media profiles (Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Digg, Myspace etc – you have got online profiles on some or all of these, haven’t you?)

The more you populate cyberspace with your unique name (business and/or personal) the more presence you have when someone searches for it via Google. If you search for Andy Britnell I pretty much dominate the first 6 pages (It’s a shame that there’s a racing driver with the same name which breaks up the perfect situation of having every entry in the first 6 pages but I am working on that).

Top Tip: If you have a common name, why not make it unique by adding an initial or second name. It might seem a bit weird at first but people will probably remember John Matt Smith and find you more easily that way. Plain John Smith will get lost in the crowd – sorry John, no offence.

That is a start and some of you will probably now be thinking about which other social media (SM) sites you can add a profile to with a link to your blog or website. If you hit the share button on this or the featured posts above you will find a list of most of the SM sites you could be listed on.

I’ll be doing another post on how you can give and receive even more love from Google by using their website tools.

Thanks to Marcin Wichary for the image

By Andy Britnell Blog Traffic, Social Media 11 Comments Tags: , , , ,

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