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What to do Prior to Launch
Sunday, January 15th, 2012
So you’re in the midst of building your website. You’ve got some content posted, maybe a widget here and there, you scored a deal with a $4.50 unlimited host and overall your site is starting to come together and you just can’t wait to launch. Well hold your horses because there are some things you may want to consider doing before launch that will not only make your launch more successful but also help you further down the line.
The Art of Finding Keywords
Thursday, October 27th, 2011
The Art of Finding Keywords
Several years ago, finding keywords was a breeze. Most of us can remember when coming up with a competitive keyword phrase was as easy as finding a niche market, buying an exact match domain name, and loading up pages with one- or two-word keyword phrases was about all there was to search engine optimization. Today however, things have changed. There is a definite art to finding keywords, which usually requires moving towards the long tail and getting a bit creative. But as long as you create a solid plan and pay attention to what other Internet marketers are doing, finding keywords isn’t really much more difficult than it used to be.
Using a Mind Map
In 2007, Google’s VP of Engineering, Ubi Mander gave a report on search volume and read one statistic that surprised quite a few Internet marketers. According to Mander, as many as 25 percent of the keywords that would be searched that day would be keywords that Google had never seen before. Today, the more than 15.4 billion searches that Google users perform each month haven’t yielded much different results — with around 20 percent being entirely unique each day.
For Internet marketers, this means that mind mapping has become one of the most effective ways to generate intelligent and profitable keyword phrases. Mind mapping is an excellent tool as it requires your own mind to generate keyword ideas, not other peoples’ publications or tools. In general, mind mapping is simply guessing which keyword phrases will gain traffic, based on popular phrases. Those popular phrases come with large competitors, and their large budgets. But you can target more specific phrases to get the smaller, and often more profitable, traffic volumes.
For example, consider the keyword phrase “wireless Internet” — a very competitive phrase. Now consider which searches are more likely to end in conversions. Many people that include terms like “buy” or “reviews” are in a buying mood. So, we can change up the keyword phrase a little bit to target a specific buying niche — like “2011 clear wireless reviews” or “clear wireless vs. AT&T” to cover wider buying areas and search trends. Finally, you can choose a much smaller niche within the same idea to narrow your customer base to even more targeted traffic. A keyword phrase like “CLEAR 4G reviews” would cover a niche area with a special interest in a current wireless Internet trend – without having to compete with the big box wireless Internet marketers.
Keyword Research Tools to Bookmark
Of course, there are also a variety of solid keyword research tools that you can use to generate high traffic keyword phrases, especially if you’re not the creative type. The Google Keyword Tool is fantastic for determining which keyword phrases get the most traffic. But there are a couple of tips to keep in mind when using it:
- Make sure you check the “Match Types” section on the left side of the screen on Google AdWords. You should always switch the Match Type from “Broad” to “Exact” for the most accurate results.
- You don’t have to enter any keywords at all to get solid keyword search data. Most beginners forget about the “Category” search available that can be used to check out search trends without having any ideas beforehand. Simply choose a “Category” just below the “Word or phrase” search box and check which keywords are getting the most traffic, with the least amount of competition of course.
- Pay very close attention to the “Global Monthly Searches” column to decide if you need to take a world view on your website. For example, searches that show high worldwide search volume but low local search volume may justify considering writing your website content with a world view (like not referring to the United States with phrases like “in our country”).
If you don’t get good results from the Google Keyword Tool, there are other similar tools that you can try, all of which either offer substantial free trials or are free to use. Some of these tools include:
UberSuggest — This tool is free and simple. Just enter a keyword phrase (we tried “wireless Internet”) and alphabetized ideas will be displayed. Some solid long-tail keyword options for the phrase “wireless Internet” were phrases like “wireless Internet for laptops pay as you go,” which could justify targeting some phrases containing “4G Internet plans.” Another solid phrase was a troubleshooting based one like “wireless Internet is slow.” Your lead generation website could offer your service as the solution to slow Internet.
Market Samurai — While you have to pay for the full version, the free version of Market Samurai is an excellent tool for identifying keyword phrases with low competition, and offers additional tools for analyzing your competition and organizing your website around your chosen keyword phrases. The people at Market Samurai also send out regular newsletters with keyword tips. But, as with all proprietary software, remember that anyone else with the program will have the same ideas as you get from the newsletters, so you might want to focus more on your own ideas.
Other Websites — Sites like SEOMoz.com, Viperchill.com, and SEOBook.com offer fantastic tips for performing keyword research. In fact, The Ultimate Guide to Keyword Research on Viperchill is one of the best guides to creatively finding new and profitable keyword phrases. SEOBook.com offers the best SEO forum in the world, although it does come with a hefty $300-a-month fee. However, I’ve been a member for two years and never regretted the fantastic tips that forum users have to offer. The fee also keeps the trolls and illegitimate marketers from spoiling the info on the forum.
News/Current Trends — If you run a news based site, or a blog for that matter, your best strategy is to keep your keywords fresh and current. Sites like Google Trends can help you identify keywords that people are searching for right now, that might not yet have much competition. One of the most profitable websites I ever owned involved checking Google Trends every morning at about 5 a.m. and checking which keywords had begun trending, usually involving celebrities or worldwide news, then writing a quick 250-300 word article targeting that phrase to get the maximum uptime throughout the day.
As you can see, there are many good options to find valuable keyword phrases without having to compete with large brands. The most important thing is to be creative when generating ideas. Your best ideas will come from your own experience and brainstorming sessions – so use those tools before resorting to any software or forums, which are open to countless other marketers. Remember to choose keywords that target searchers in a buying mood, not ones that simply draw non-paying traffic, and you should begin to see your website conversions slowly increase over time.
Free CSS Formatter and Organizer
Thursday, September 22nd, 2011
Web designers, coders of the world!
Are you tired of spending hours sifting through your CSS documents to find the right piece of code to edit?
Tired of organizing, again and again, your CSS for easier editing, only to have to re-organize and re-organize future versions?
Tired of wondering what organizational standard CSS code should have?
Tired of wasting time?
Then you might want to try the FREE and simple CSS Formatter at cssformatter.com. With this easy to use web application, you can organize your CSS code with the click of a button.
• Organize alphabetically.
• Organize in the order that the CSS is referenced in the HTML.
• Organize neatly, indenting sub-selectors and removing comments.
• And more!
All free at cssformatter.com!
Just copy and paste your code, hit “sort CSS,” and presto! Neatly organized, deliciously clean and well-formatted code.
The tool will ALWAYS remain free. No gimmicks. No strings attached. Just a little something by coders, for coders. Enjoy!
Display More Than 15 Posts with WordPress Recent Posts Widget
Monday, December 13th, 2010
The recent posts widget that comes default with every installation of WordPress allows you to display the hyper-linked titles of the most recent posts from a widget. Although (in widget configuration), you can set any number of posts to display, only a maximum of 15 posts can be displayed.
This can be a real pain for WordPress users who want to use the recent posts widget to display links to all of their posts in a widgetized area.
To eliminate the cap on posts to display, you’ll need to remove two lines of code in default-widgets.php, contained in the wp-includes folder.
At lines 542 and 543, simply remove:
else >if ( $number > 15 ) $number = 15;
If you don’t have code editing software that displays line numbers, simply search for ’15′ in default-widgets.php to find the above lines of code.
Once that’s done, you’ll be able to set the recent posts widget to display any number of posts.
Moving WordPress to a New Server
Friday, November 26th, 2010
Moving your WordPress installation to another server is just as easy as installing it the first time. There are at least three ways you can do it:
- Install a new version of WordPress (a fresh install) along with your custom themes and plugins on the new server. Then import the old database from an XML file using the internal build-in import / export tool.
- Download your old WordPress directory (which includes core files, themes, plugins, etc) and then upload it to your new directory via FTP. Then, on your old server, make a backup of your MySQL database with phpMyAdmin. On your new server, import the MySQL database with phpMyAdmin. You will need to edit your config.php file (in the root) to reflect any changes in database name and login info.
- Any combination of the previous two methods.
The OnlineMBA.com Awards are Part of a Deceptive Link Baiting Scheme Aimed at Bloggers
Saturday, July 24th, 2010
Hundreds of bloggers are falling prey to a deceptive link baiting scheme that I would like to expose.
The website OnlineMBA.com has a section for ‘awarding the web’. This award system is 100% illegitimate.
Removing Gravatars/Avatars in WordPress 2.7+ Themes
Monday, July 19th, 2010
In WordPress 2.7, the wp_list_comments function was introduced, putting all of the elements of comments in one easy function. The new function comes with an imitation of the old get_avatar function built-in.
So how do you remove the avatars without removing the wp_list_comments function, which is much needed for outputting all of the other elements of the comment section?
The answer is to use CSS to hide the avatar. Place the following code into style.css:
.avatar { display:none; }
Hat tip: rhysboy84 from Sitepoint.
Is AdSense Right for Your Blog? [Series] What is Google AdSense?
Thursday, July 15th, 2010
![google adsense logo Is AdSense Right for Your Blog? [Series] What is Google AdSense?](http://www.blogtap.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/google-adsense-logo.gif "google-adsense-logo"){kind=logo}
In recent weeks, Blogtap has undergone some very large changes.
- A new partner has jumped on board and he’s brought with him a ton of experience from the Web and IT industry.
- DoFollow commenting has been enabled so that every user that gives something to Blogtap (in the form of a comment), receives something in return.
- AdSense blocks were installed for a few days and then removed.
In this post series, I’d like to discuss the last item on the list above.
(more…)
WordPress Custom Post Taxonomies
Thursday, June 24th, 2010
Custom post taxonomies in WordPress are little different from post tags and categories. To borrow the words found in a reply to an inquiry email I sent to WordPress lead developer Mark Jaquith, “taxonomies are used to tie groups of posts (or any content type) together, and come with a URL structure to access them.”
Installing Custom Taxonomies in WordPress Themes
Saturday, June 19th, 2010
This guide is meant for individuals who want to learn what custom taxonomies are in WordPress, how to install them and how to display them in WordPress themes. You do not need to be familiar with the WordPress core coding or know the nitty-gritties of PHP programming to understand this guide.
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WordPress 3.0 Released: Merge with MU, Custom Post Types, Custom Menus and More
Friday, June 18th, 2010
What some once considered to be a leading open-source CMS and blogging platform that exchanged flexibility for a more difficult learning curve, has transformed over the years into the very essence of user-friendly web publishing.
After two beta releases and a release candidate (called RC1), the WordPress development team released WordPress 3.0 (dubbed “Thelonious” after the American jazz musician) jam-packed with enough nifty features to make any web socialite spin in his swivel chair in utter delight, right round like a record baby, right round round round.
Writing Image Paths in WordPress Themes the Right Way
Thursday, June 17th, 2010
WordPress themes with hard-coded image paths are nightmares in the making. If the location of the theme files are moved or if any of the folder names are changed, the theme will no longer work. That is why the WordPress development team took the time to create a very useful function that finds the location of theme files.
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