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Archive for the ‘WordPress’ Category

What you need to know about WordPress and Google

Wednesday, May 26th, 2010

We stumbled across this video presentation made by Matt Cutts, Google’s Anti-Web Spam Guru, at last year’s WordCamp San Francisco. There are some really helpful tips on the video we would like to share. The video shows many, many ways that WordPress can increase your website’s overall search engine optimization.

A few quotes directly from Google’s Matt Cutts:

“WordPress is a fantastic piece of software.”

“WordPress automatically solves a ton of SEO issues.”

“WordPress takes care of 80-90% of the mechanics of Search Engine Optimization.”

Tips for making the most out of WordPress

Now that you’ve watched the entire presentation, you now know how you can extend the power of WordPress to attain your search engine goals. Update and post often with quality, relevant content to your audience. Choose a niche and stick with it and most importantly — simply love what you write.

Gain a reputation

  • Provide useful information
  • Do original research and reporting
  • Give great information and tips that can’t be found elsewhere
  • Find a creative niche
  • Live blog an event
  • Make List (“5 Best Widgets That Will Save Your Life”)
  • Create Controversy
  • Connect with People via Twitter, Facebook

Essential Plugins

  • Fight Comment Spam – WordPress has built in Akismet (requires a WordPress.com API Key) or Cookies for Comments which gives real users a cookie before allowing comments.
  • Solid Redirects – Force either www. or non-www via WP htaccess Control

Power Tips:

Enable descriptive postname permalinks:
http://www.example.com/?p=123 vs. http://www.example.com/engaging-post-about-wordpress/

Use keywords in url: example.com/my-keywords/

  • Dashes are best
  • Next best is underscore
  • No spaces is worst

The default “postname” permalink will use your page or post title. Change tenses of certain words in your permalink to compensate for other possible search queries or keywords.

Use Descriptive categories – “Search Engine Optimization” is better than “Cool News”

Utilize Heading Tags – Divide your text into sections and focus on keywords.

Show related posts – Engages users to continue to browse some of your similar content.

Use Google Analytics – Update your top posts often and consider writing similar posts.

Use Google Webmaster Tools – Check for strong incoming links and reduce possible 404s (Page Not Found) errors.

Finally, keep your WordPress installation up-to-date. This will patch security holes and both reduce spam and potential hacks.

Posted in Google, Search Engine Optimization, WordPress | 1 Comment »

Connect your WordPress blog to your LinkedIn profile

Saturday, May 22nd, 2010

LinkedIn LogoNow you can add your WordPress blog posts directly to your LinkedIn profile. With this WordPress App, you can now sync your WordPress blog posts with your LinkedIn profile, keeping everyone in your network in the know.

Updates are automatically sent to your LinkedIn network for instant notifications.

Posted in Social Media, WordPress | No Comments »

WordPress 2.9 Released

Monday, December 28th, 2009

The newest features include:

  • Global undo/”trash” feature, which means that if you accidentally delete a post or comment you can bring it back from the grave (i.e., the Trash). This also eliminates those annoying “are you sure” messages we used to have on every delete.
  • Built-in image editor allows you to crop, edit, rotate, flip, and scale your images – putting you better in control of your media.
  • Batch plugin update and compatibility checking, which means you can update 10 plugins at once, versus having to do multiple clicks for each one, and we’re using the new compatibility data from the plugins directory to give you a better idea of whether your plugins are compatible with new releases of WordPress. This should take the fear and hassle out of upgrading.
  • Easier video embeds that allow you to just paste a URL on its own line and have it magically turn it into the proper embed code, with Oembed support for YouTube, Daily Motion, Blip.tv, Flickr, Hulu, Viddler, Qik, Revision3, Scribd, Google Video, Photobucket, PollDaddy, and WordPress.tv.

With other upgrades and improvements WordPress 2.9 is another leap forward of the world’s most popular blogging platform. For more information about WordPress or Content Management contact us at Southern Web Group to see how to improve your online presence and gain better control of your site

Posted in Social Media, WordPress | No Comments »

What Type of Personality Does Your Blog Have?

Thursday, March 26th, 2009

You have a fabulous idea for an online business. You registered a catchy domain name, found reliable web hosting, put together a stellar website design and linked it to an awesome WordPress blog. Now that you defined your target market, you’re ready to take the Internet world by storm, right? Well, maybe not.

Much like people, websites and blogs have their own “personality”. The language we use reflects what motivates and interests us. The key is to figure out the patterns that interest various personalities as they relate to your brand, product and content. In other words, if you’re not talking your visitors’ language, you’re not likely to experience major success.

The research surrounding these personality variables is called psychographics. Let’s consider the Wikipedia definition: “In the field of marketing, demographics, opinion research and social research in general, psychographic variables are any attributes relating to personality, values, attitudes, interests or lifestyles. They are also called IAO variables (for Interests, Attitudes and Opinions).”

So how can you find out more about the current personality of your blog? Check out a new tool called Typealyzer. The website is dedicated to a research project about how the language reflect our psychological type. By entering your blog address at the Typealizer website, you find out your blog’s “personality”. This useful info lets you know if you are reaching your target market or just striking out in another direction.

Now that an increasing amount of business is done online, your website and blog have to speak to people. In days gone by, you would personally make the presentation made on your website today. Think about if you had to speak to your prospective customers face-to-face. What would they want to know? What are their interests? How can you be more approachable and likable?

If your blog doesn’t have the sparkling “personality” you want, let the experts at Southern Web Group perform a website review analysis. We will help you tweak your website design and create a custom WordPress blog to really speak to your visitors. When your blogs speaks in a language your customers understand, you’ll see profits soar.

Posted in Domain, Web Design, Web Hosting, WordPress | No Comments »

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