Search Engine Optimization Keep Up To Date With Techniques

Probably the most important method of driving traffic to your web pages, websites and hubs is Search Engine Optimization (SEO) .

Search Engine Optimization is not a static thing. It is a constant battle between the Search Engine designers such as Google, Bing and Yahoo! and us those who post items and articles on the web.

Like in nature it is the survival of the fittest. They adapt their search engines to make it harder for us to gain a place on the top most pages of their search results. Those who care about driving traffic to their sites adapt and recreate their websites to maintain market share.

Those who ignore SEO, merely sit back and DIE.   Their websites doomed to disappear into the lost vast blackness of cyberspace only to occassionally reappear when a miraculous glitch throws them onto the unsuspecting websurfers screen.

It is therefore very important for you to stay up to date with the latest ideas on improving your SEO.

We have compiled a list of some of the very best Search Engine Optimization solutions available at this time.

These books are available from Bretsuki's Search Engine Optimization Store at Amazon

What is a Widget? How Do I Add a Widget?

more » HubPages

The Image above is my HubPages Widget. As you can see it contains my latest hub posts, also a drop down menu that allows you to see my hot hubs and my best liked hubs.   A widget like this placed on your blog can be used to backlink to your own hubs.

Adding a widget to your blog or webpage is quite simple.

1, Go to your HubPage Profile page.

2. Click on Add {Your Name} Widget to my Website.

3. HubPages will then provide you with the HTML code.

4. Highlight the code and copy onto your clipboard.

5Open the Layout page on Blogger or your web page.

6. Paste the HTML Code in an HTML/Java capsule on the sidebar if using Blogger or into the code which controls the area where you want to display your Link.

8. Save Settings and your Blog or Webpage should now display the Widget  for you.

9. Go and write your hubs. The Widget will update as you work.

Google Searches or Links? Which bring You MORE Views?

We have all heard the cry "How do I get top ranking on Google searches?" Maybe you have even asked that very question yourself?

Well I know I used to ask that very question. I bought the books advising on Search Engine Optimization and How to promote your sites.

They were useful in that they talked about building links and creating an RSS Feed etc. But over the last year I have come to realise that Google search engine page location is not all it is made up to be.

I regulary look up my stats on my blog, they show some very interesting figures. Of all views only 3% come from Google searches.

1% come drom other search engines but a massive 96% come from posting links to places such as HubPages and Yahoo! Voices, The largest source at 70% of all traffic comes from HubPages and my RSS feeds there.

So that tells me that people who have read my content on HubPages are clicking through my RSS feed to come here.

OK So I don't get any revenue because I don't advertise on my blog. I don't mind that, this blog is to share information with you.

But in that there is opportunity for you. If you have a monetized blog, link it to your hubpage hubs on related subjects and you will gain traffic from people who already enjoy your style of writing.

Also link back to other hubs to drive traffic back there so you can benefit from your HubPages CPM revenue.

Remember. Google ranking is not the only way to gain traffic. But once you have your reader keep them reading your pages by linking to your own work when you can.

Be patient though. building a network takes time. You won't see a difference overnight, it has taken me one year so far, unless you hit a hot topic. The idea is to plan for the  long term. Then over time you will see a marked improvement in traffic.

Upfront Cash or CPM Payments? What is right for you?

When writing on Yahoo! Contributor Network you have the choice of whether to submit items for upfront payment or to opt for Performance payment only.

What you choose is very important and affects how you will be paid.

With the cash upfront payment, you submit items for editorial consideration, this is then either accepted and a cash offer made or rejected for several reasons.
Yahoo! will turn down your work for several reasons, especially if the work is time sensitive such as news or sport based. Editorial consideration can take two or three weeks so you need to consider if you really need the two or three dollars quite so soon.

If you do want to sell your work outright, it appears, in my experience, that items sold for cash then never receive any performance payments. You only get the sun that was offered in the first place.

From my calculations performance payments or CPM (cost per thousand) in the first few months on Yahoo! Contributor Network receive a payment of about 1 cent per 5 or 6 views. so it can take a while for your cash to build if this is your main means of income from writing on the site. They pay out when your performance views reach about 1,500 views. ($1.50) In the early stages you get less cash per view than later as you get closer to 1,500 your payments are supposed to increase.

Taking cash if you can in the early stages seems to make sense if you can, but if you want to use those items to increase your CPM payments then maybe if they are good subjects that you are certain will bring in readers over time you may be better off foregoing the upfront payment and the editorial delays and opting for performance payments only. This means your work if you publish immediately for performance payment is available to readers for anything up to four weeks sooner than it would be if submitted for editorial review.

If it is a popular item you could have 2-300 views in that time if the item is well publicized.

That way as time passes your work will continue to contribute to your income for the longer term.

As you write more items your required number of CPM views actually falls, so one item requires 1,500 views to pay out. 100 items only require 15 views per item on aveage to reach the payout level.

Believe you me, the level of 15 page views per day is very achievable above the 50 items posted level.

This is something well worthwhile in considering as you look into making cash from your writing.

Succeed as a Student: Finally Published.

As I mentioned over the weekend I was waiting on the publication of a couple of my articles on YAHOO! Contributor Network (YCN).

One of the articles was finally published today, after three weeks waiting. 

The article is "How to Succeed as a Student" some of my easy to follow tips from my experience of gaining my Honors Degree with a 4.0 GPA.

You can use the tips to improve your grade at any time during the courses, which you are taking, but if you are able to start early, I believe that you too will achieve a 4.0 GPA (grade Point Average) and you too can become an Honors graduate.

To read the full article CLICK HERE!

How the Cash Grows

Of the online publishing sites which I have joined this year: Yahoo Contributor Network; List My 5 and Squidoo. There is a noticable disaster.

Squidoo has not lived up to it's expectations. I have had constant trouble logging in. For some reason my password keeps getting corrupted. I am unable to use all the functions when I do log in. It is just too complicated to get a lens (post) up that I lose patience and there is no real incentive to work through, the community there seem self interested and unwilling to help out. So Squidoo is not a place I like to go.

The other two publishing sites are very good for me.

List My 5 produces a good stream of views, now coming up to 10,000 in six months. I also now have a little income stream coming in from them. My lists are maturing and people are now clicking through on my links.

Prior to the Removal of my Amazon Affilliate status along with all the other California Affilliates my Amazon aStores were doing well with click throughs on List My 5, better than on my blogs or HubPages. I was really hit badly in that area with the closing of my account. But as I say I am seeing increased traffic through pay per click revenue at this time.

Yahoo Contributor network is doing very well. I have a couple of articles under review before posting. These can take a couple of weeks to be processed and one was time sensitive. It is on preparing for school and so evergreen but has missed the boat this year, hopefully it will bring some revenue over the rest of the school year, as there are ongoing improvement tips. But we have to wait for Yahoo! to publish it.

The network is also producing good viewing figures, I have risen in the contributor rankings which will pay me a higher rate per view, if current view rates are maintained by the end of the year.

Most of my articles I post directly. Waiting for review can be frustrating as I mentioned. I am now aiming to have 100 items posted on both List My 5 and YCN by the end of the year. That will triple my number of items and will need to be in addition to all my blog and HubPages work.

For YAHOO! Contributor Network articles   CLICK HERE!

For List My 5 articles     CLICK HERE!

Edit. Re-Write or Leave Alone? What to do with aging hubs.

Recently my friend on HubPages davenmidtown asked about the keyword menu option on his hub pages.

The keyword menu comes up on the edit hub/stats for hub menu.

When you first write a hub the keyword menu is blank, and appears useless. Go back after a couple of months however and you will find the keyword menu full of interesting phrases and words which Google has linked with your hub.

This then raised the question, What do you do with this information?

You can use the information in several ways. You can edit and re-write parts of your hub to include one or two of the keywords and key phrases that Google has provided you with.
You can write a hub on a similar topic and use the keywords already supplied with Googles report.

Personally I like to go back and tweek my hubs after about four months. By this time they are maturing and the longevity is making them appeal to Search Engines they have often been read by several hundred visitors and you can also incorporate some of the comments into the hub to add extra interest or answer questions in the hub itself. This saves the new reader having to look at all your comments for a interesting tit-bit of information.

Sometimes I have found that I have the makings of another hub, the list of keywords is useful to tag the new hub and also build a good framework to expand upon it.

I would always advise looking over older hubs, they are a good source of information to help you find out how Google has seen your hubs. But always use keywords and key phrases sparingly.

Use of Keywords CLICK HERE!

How to use keywords to bring you an audience and ads Think Like a Hunter Click HERE!

Views Increased since the New Domain Changed.

At the Beginning of July, 2011. I changed my hubpages to incorporate the new sub domain URL.

At the time I was receiving most of my views from within HubPages itsellf, only 9% of my traffic according to Google Aanalytics was coming from the search engines.

Today my search engine traffic has increased to 34% of my overall viewing figures.

This overall improvement in traffic via the search engines has come at a lean time for me as to writing new hubs. I have written just two in the last month due to going on vacation and other time constraints. 

Overall Google itself has produced 59% of my global traffic. Since the changes to HubPages and the sub domain were to counter the effects of the Google PANDA update in April I think this is a good sign that HubPages has done a good job and that traffic volumes are now moving in a positive direction.

Other Search Engine Traffic is also increased overall but to a less marked extent.

If you have not yet updated your HubPages to take advantage of the new sub-domain  I would suggest that you seriously consider doing so. 

  If you need instructions to create your HubPages Sub-Domain CLICK HERE!

What a Wonderful Day!

There is little doubt when a day like today happens it is wonderful.

As a writer somedays can be tough. Days when doing anything is better than sitting in front of a keyboard and staring at a blank screen with an equally blank mind. Those days are HELL!

Today I woke about 6am, a warm and sunny morning here in the Central Valley of California. The crickets were still chirping their last from the night and the birds were fluttering in the fronds of the palm tree outside my window.

I got up and showered while the coffee brewed. Then came to my computer and logged on to the web.

Late last night I posted my first hub for several weeks. I had seen my hubscore fall from 96 to 86 in the last three weeks.

I knew the answer was to write something but had no firm convictions so I posted answers and comments and watched my hubscore flutter downwards. Ideas in my mind would not become concrete enough to actually do any work on them.

It was a lazy time and I just allowed myself to drift.

Last night energized with one of my hub ideas, I sat down to type and publish. This morning my hubscore had jumped back to 91. First positive. I then wrote to my Cafepress blog to expand on an idea. Then went to Yahoo to write a short piece for them that had been circulating in my mind. That is now waiting to be scrutinized for upfront payment, and I have been back and too to HubPages to post answers and comments. All this while sipping my coffee from my Barcelona Starbucks mug.

There is actually a story behind that particular mug, maybe that could be used in a hub, or maybe just posted as a topic of conversation somewhere.

Anyway today things are good. I think that I have done some good work, I feel happy that things are moving around my brain again. Having been log jammed for a few weeks. It is a really good day.

And the coffee is great too!

Patience was Once a Virtue

It is a noticable fact that we writers are a pretty impatient bunch. Maybe we always have been, waiting for our manuscripts to be read in the past, hanging on the postman's knock, ripping open letters of acceptance or rejection.

Today, well, we send a post to our favorite platform, in seconds there it is and we then start looking at the AdSense clock to see how many clicks we have, how much each click was worth and God forbid there is a hiccup in the system.

Then we are on the techies like a pack of ravenous wolves. Why are we not getting feedback? Why is my click rate not being measured? I need to know how many views I had in the last five minutes.

OK people. Relax, so we have technical problems. We are not in a life and death situation right at this minute, unless the stress is giving us a heart attack. Call 911 someone. Writer down!

The speed of our world as online writers has meant that we have become used to almost instant gratification. Gone are the long waits as a letter moved from place to place. Please, every letter today seems to have a tracking number included. I can see the instant it arrives at my local post office and almost tell if Charlie the mail man stopped at Starbucks for his frappacino, iced, low fat mocha latte.

We need patience back in our lives. Take a deep breath when things stall, think nice thoughts about the view outside your window.

You know having not checked your stats for the last ten minutes might be good. You might have a movement in your views instead of a single viewer, who bounces out of your article on the invention of vulcanized rubber because it was not the kind of rubber item he had in mind.

Yes folks I am in a contemplative and somewhat flippant mood today. It's summer, the sun is burning down and I just want to rest easy, by a cool lake and enjoy good company over dinner. Not stress myself into the emergency room.

Patirnce should be a virtue again.

Creating Your HubPages Subdomain: A More Individual URL on HubPages.

Recently HubPages introduced a two click method to create a more personalized URL for your hubs.

In the past a URL might have been

 hubpages.com/hub/whatever-you-want-to-call-it

Such URL's were found to penalize publishers after the Google PANDA update and so many hubbers found their traffic falling after the April Google update.

Now a hubber may go to their My Account page and click  Profile on the drop down menu. Then click on subdomain tab and you will be offered your own sub domain URL link.

My account is under the name Bretsuki so my URL's now read

hubpages.com/bretsuki/hub/whatever-you-want-to-call-it

When you click on your chosen subdomain the process takes a second and all your hubs and links are updated to take advantage of the new  URL.

This is hoped to increase traffic as now individual hubs will be seen as independent units, rather than a part of the whole HubPages network.

Technorati

What is Technorati?

Technorati is a blog catalogue and index.

How Can it HELP Me?

If you register an account with Technorati you can then register your blogs and webpages with the index site. Whenever you update your blog Technorati receives a ping of new content via your Atom or RSS feed and then updates its files and index to allow people searching for items of interest and direct them to your blog.

If you also link your blogs to your hubPages you can direct people from all direction to your desired pages.

Because Technorati uses RSS or Atom feeds you do not have to do any work other than register the blog with the index site. All further updates are automatic after that.

Technorati also receives search engine requests and so if a search engine misses you on its own search your updates are passed on by ?Technorati.

The indexing site is free to join, registering blogs takes a few minutes, you need to provide URL's for the main page and also the feed, add tags and select areas where you see your viewers coming from.

You then submit a claim and receive a claim token, a series of numbers and letters which you place on the blog for technorati to crawl. When they find the token they then check the claim manually and in a few days or weeks the claim is processed and your position in the index is updated.

For you as a publisher it is a win, win situation. You gain SEO visibility, increased traffic and hopefully increased revenue for little work other than the original set up, plus updating your blogs.

Try it and see.


To Create a Technorati account CLICK HERE!

Use RSS Feeds to increase traffic across websites and pages.

As you increase your numbers of pages, with HubPages, Squidoo and your blog posts you should consider Really Simple Syndication(RSS).
For a while now I have used RSS feeds from my HubPages account to feed to this blog. It initially increased my traffic to my HubPages account by 10%. That is a good return for two minutes work setting up an RSS feed. Of course without a twin site with no RSS feed I cannot tell the effect on subsequent viewing figures.

Today I entered a new phase, linking some of my blogs to relevent hubs. Those hubs will now receive an updated through my RSS feeds as I add to my blogs.

Blog traffic on some blogs has increased ten fold in a few short hours. This blog hasn't seen that increase but it has doubled its viewers.

These views may also not be human views, they may be a rush of "Spiders" checking for relevence But spiders are good because they mean the Search Engines are following the links. Increasing SEO.

We will need to see if the spike of views today mean an increase of voews in the long term.

I will keep you posted on this technique.

First Improved Squidoo Lens

My first Lens, publication, on Squidoo was a bit of a rushed affair. It was ok as a first attempt but after three weeks I felt I knew enough to go back and improve on the original.

Luckily this was easy to do. The modular design rather like HubPages does allow you to quickly adapt your articles.

You can also as you gain points add modules and widgets to your article so it is to your benefit to consider increasing the user value by adding some of the items you have access too.

My latest widget was an Amazon widget. OK so does that work if I am in California?
To be honest I don't know but I added a couple anyway. I want to create a page for the reader, Amazon have a product, so in my view I may as well learn how to use a widget and give readers the choice, even though I now personally cannot benefit. Maybe you might see that as hypocritical of me? I would be interested to know what you think?

Playing with new lens capsules also adds photograph elements and increased discussion areas.

I like the point system that Squidoo use. Basic programs and capsules are available to the beginner. As you visit you gain points, as you comment you gain points and as you add tools you gain points. Points add levels and levels give you a higher level of interface options.

In short as you use and learn, you gain more options so increasing your ability to produce high quality articles. This prevents the initial shock of too many tools being used too quickly in a jumble of unco-ordinated capsules spoiling your work. Or the shock of too many options too soon scaring you into writers paralysis. as you wonder. How do I use this program?

To see my newly edited Squidoo lens on Gadgets for the visually impaired CLICK HERE!

History Files: "Peterloo" Manchester August 1819.

As the days of summer proceed towards August, I generally ask myself.

"What would it have been like to have been in Market Street, Manchester on the afternoon of August 16, 1819?

That date and time are perhaps synonamous with one of the most infamous and despicable events of English political history. The crowd of 60,000 mill workers from Cheshire and Lancashire mill towns had made their way to Market Street and St. Peter's Field by the Manchester Quaker Meeting House to here Henry "Orator" Hunt speak against taxes on food including the "Corn Laws" and call for universal male suffrage.

The charge of the Manchester & Salford Yeomanry, sabres drawn hacking, slashing and dripping blood into the crowd is told on this page.

Read the story of "Peterloo"

History Files: "Peterloo" Manchester August 1819.

Will there be a Tax Referendum in California? Amazon latest

Amazon.com today, backed a referendum call for California voters to remove the tax legislation from the books over the next year.
It was widely reported from Sacremento today that California legislators may face their recent online tax legislation being disapproved in a popular referendum. Amazon at the end of last week filed a paper proposing removal of the law by popular ballot sometime next year.

The proposal was accepted by the State government last week and now faces a preliminary vote where nearly 450,000 Californians need to support the proposal or proposition. If this number of supporters is raised the proposal will or should be written up for application on the November 2012 ballot.

Given the current situation, this proposal will, even if it passes, mean many California affilliates will have been without Amazon for over one year, there is little possibility of a stay of execution in anticipation of the proposal succeeding. With over a year of lost business many California affilliates will possibly not survive.

This is a good step for amazon.com to have taken. I will look forward to supporting the proposal during the next few months.

Given that many Californians already feel they are oppressed I think the proposal could succede. Though many proposals for extended sales tax finance proposals are also on the books for re proposition. In my own county, Fresno, we have a Measure B proposal which supports the public library system up for a continuation proposal. Even though the Public Library system is a popular system to support, continued support of Measure B is unlikely. This will turn a very small percentage of sales tax back to county coffers for other items.

The amazon.com proposal could face one problem.

In its original tax legislation, sales tax in California was to be reduced by 1% with the decrease being filled with the online taxes.
State legislators could demand an increase in overall sales tax to levels above  the June 2010 level in part to compensate the state for lost revenue and in part to punish or disuade the voters from accepting the abolision proposition.


Financial Times Report

Creativity Acknowledged

Sometimes, we writers not only need to receive validation from our peers. Sometimes we need to have our work supported by the validity of cold hard cash.
A few days ago I created a poem for Yahoo Contributor Network. Called "The Moon's a Piece of Cheese" it is a nonsense poem but it was the first poem I have had accepted by another for payment.

This is the story:

Creativity Acknowledged

Looking Around the Market Place

Last week, I was looking around and found a site which has quite a good reputation for publishing items. It is called Squidoo.

I signed up Monday using Facebook rather than inputting my data myself. The problem with that was my Facebook accountfor some reason keeps resetting my default e-mail address to an old and out of date account.

This is annoying in this case because I cannot get access to that e-mail anymore and so did not receive an e-mail verification code.

I can write posts, lenses as they are called on Squidoo, but I cannot post anything yet.

I did write to inform them of the problem Monday and Friday, their first reply, received Wednesday, only addressed changing the default e-mail in their system, since the staff is small at Squidoo I waited till Friday, just in case someone else would answer the verification part, no-one did. So I wrote again to request a new verification notice be sent but despaired of hearing before next week.

I have however been writing a couple of lenses there and edited a little. I do not want to do too much just in case I have to close the account and go back to the beginning.

There model is interesting you receive fifty percent of their advertising revenue from several companies such as Google and Amazon. The interesting theory is that you should come out about equal with them compared to HubPages or your own website. They are able to push the big advertisers for better terms, so with Amazon they get 8% so you still earn 4% on your Amazon ads. You can also advertise with Zazzle and Cafepress merchandize from your own store or elsewhere and receive commissions on sales. You may also choose to take all of the cash you generate for yourself or you may asign 50% to Squidoo's own choice of charity or you may choose from a list of charities to share your income for all or some of your lenses. There is a wide variety of charities you can benefit. Giving from a few cents to 100% of your income.

As I mention this is all on hold at the moent as I wait on my e-mail address to be verified before I post a lens.

Additional Comment: At About the same time this Blog was Published Squidoo, manually verified my e-mail account. I am now able to post and Thank Squidoo's staff for dealing with the matter in a professional and curtieous manner.

Free Sign up to Squidoo here:

Squidoo

Think like a hunter

When posting any article online it is essential to plan if you are to get the results of bringing in traffic to click your advertisements.

You need to plan the project of posting like a hunting trip. What hunter would go out with a slingshot to hunt a bear or take a fishing rod to shoot deer?

Just writing an article off the top of your head will work, someone will read it even if that is only a friend, parent or spouse. They might praise you then massage your ego for a while then move on.

As a publisher of written work, you have two kinds of prey, the advertiser and the advertisers customer. The advertiser will be there if you only post a few words on your web page. They will appear because you call them with your keywords. They will hop around happily and safely, not spending one penny on your precious site because you have not attracted the readers who will click on their ads.
To bring in customers you can use the advertisers tool, Google AdWords. AdWords will tell you what both advertisers are buying in terms of keywords, it also tells you what customers are looking for in terms of keywords, because those keywords are the ones advertisers are buying.

Search keywords on AdWords and you will also see additional keyword choices for your topic keyword, these choices also show what people are searching for.

In terms of hunting, AdWords is like a map to the hunting ground. You see exactly where your prey, advertiser and customer are, you get to pick your weapon; the topic; the ammunition; the keywords or key phrases; and you make your way off to your computer to write your article armed and ready to bag both of them.

Again a little planning will help, research keywords and key phrases. Study the behavior of both the advertiser and the customer, research is rarely wasted, like the hunter studies their favorite prey, you will soon become able to adjust your ideas in order to obtain the results you desire.

For books on SEO go to:

Bretsuki's SEO aStore

Using Keywords

The use of keywords is an inexact science when publishing hubs or lists. Some people think to flood their posts with dozens of keywords, in every posibble combination they can think of. This tactic is ok in terms of bringing in traffic, but it leaves the reader lost. bewildered and frustrated as they search through a long list of keyword rich material or just bounce straight back off your page.

One can equate such use of keywords as like a hunter using a shotgun, he or she might hit everything in front of the gun, but do you want to kill the tree, rabbit, squirrel, and the prey all at the same time?

Better use one precisely defined keyword or term in a few well selected ways. You then write strong content around the keyword and produce a much tighter controlled article, which the search engines like and also a reader might like. They might even click on your advertisements too, or seek out your other articles.

This approach is more like the sniper with a rifle. One shot and one target. Getting the right keyword will bring your reader to you, by the search engine, the reader finds what they want and you have done a perfect job. They might even click on an ad to reward you.

Writing online should be just as much about providing the reader with what they want. OK you want earnings so place advertising on your site but if you do not provide the reader with anything more than meaningless words with no real information or entertainment, Why should you be expecting a reader to stay, read and look at your work, let alone click on your ads which you spent hours researching keywords for.

Remember keep the use of keywords down to a minimum. I have deliberately loaded this post with a particular keyword just to give an example. See if you can be your own search engine on this article, read it as English prose then consider it as text for a search engine looking for keywords.

Anyone care to tell me what the keyword for this article was?

I have also created an Amazon aStore which sells items intended to advise you about optimizzation of your website and posting to bring potential customers to your pages. You will find books (both paper and Kindle) along with DVD's and MP3 downloads. This aStore is linked to my Amazon Affiliate account and I receive a small payment from Amazon if you decide to purchase any item. I do not record any personal information about you, the aStore is connected directly to Amazon.com and all purchases are guaranteed by them under their normal terms and conditions.

Bretsuki's Search Engine Optimization Store