Web Development, SEO & SMO

WordPress add-ons make it easy to take your blog from ordinary to extraordinary, with little skill needed. Most of what you need comes in plug-in form. Here are some of the essential additions bloggers need for success.

1. AddtoAny

Bookmarking helps readers find a blog. AddtoAny gives blog fans the opportunity to send posts to their favorite sites such as Digg, Facebook, Stumble Upon, plus many more, raising the blog and posts higher in the internet ranks.
Download

2. All-in-One SEO

Search Engine Optimization, or SEO, is king when it comes to increasing page ranks. With All-in-One SEO even the most novice of bloggers can improve website visibility to search engines “naturally.” Every post and page has a special All-in-One SEO section for keywords and summary, complete with quick reference to what works when it comes to SEO.
Download

3. Easy Privacy Policy

Privacy policies are important in the world of blogging. Sites such as Google Adsense require one for use of their advertising services. Easy Privacy Policy creates a page in as little as a couple of steps, with customization for whatever type of blog it is.
Download

4. FeedBurner FeedSmith

FeedBurner itself is an essential tool for bloggers in itself. Using FeedBurner FeedSmith helps users easily track vital statistics of readers to the blog. FeedBurner FeedSmith boasts 100% of feed redirect for this important task.
Download

5. WP-SpamFree

Spam is an inevitable part of blogging. With WP-SpamFree, almost all spam is eliminated in blog comments, keeping it from cluttering the site. It works completely behind scenes without the need for pesky features such as CAPTCHA, which can be an inconvenience for readers.
Download

There are thousands of plug-ins available for WordPress, but these are must-haves for bloggers, both new and seasoned. With these useful tools, any blog can be successful with minimal technological effort.

Search engine optimization is a strategic combination of SEO knowledge, proper web page design, keyword or key phrase relevant content, and old-fashioned common sense.

If you outsource the design of your website be sure to hire a designer that is well-trained in, and makes use of sound SEO design practices. If the website designer is a true professional in all respects then there will be no need to consult with a search engine optimization specialist later on. As such it pays off in the end to be willing to pay the higher fees of a profession rather than hiring a dirt cheap amateur.

If you know HTML and plan to build your website in-house, then you’ll need a basic guide to follow to ensure the highest rankings possible within the search engine results pages, or SERPs as they are more commonly known.

1. Page title tag

The page title tag should include the title of the article on the page. If it’s a blog page then the main subject and keywords would the focus of the page title.

2. Meta tags

The meta tags are placed within the header for a purpose: to help search engines pick up on an accurate description of the page along with relevant key terms. Make the best use of these as possible.

3. H1 tags

Use H1 tags to emphasize the title of the article or entries as the case may be.

4. H2 tags

H2 tags surrounding subheadings that contain key words and phrases can further enhance your SEO efforts.

5. File and image names

File and image names are often abbreviated and are rarely descriptive. The reason this practice is so common is often for the sake of simplicity. Image “alt” tags too are often ignored. These are huge mistakes to make and can mean the difference between your web page amongst the top dogs on the first page of the SERPs, or buried somewhere in the great beyond.

6. Breadcrumbs

Breadcrumbs are another great way to call attention to the subject of your web page.

7. Page’s subject

As much as possible, keep every content item on the page related in some way to page’s subject. There’s a grey area here to be aware of because too many instances of your main keyword may result in your site being considered a spam site.

8. Relevant content tag

Make use of the relevant content tag that Google provides to separate the main content from anything that would detract from the relevancy of the page.

9. Links to related articles

It’s perfectly acceptable to include links to related articles within the vicinity of your main content.

Search engine optimization really isn’t all that difficult. It just requires knowledge, patience, and attention to detail. Always adhere to industry standards and avoid black-hat techniques and at least some of your content will stand out to searchers. The more content you have available for the search engines to crawl, the more chances you have of driving highly-targeted traffic to your site. And of course, more traffic equals higher revenue.

Making money on the Internet often seems like a pie in the sky dream. On one hand you have thousands of get rich quick schemes that always seem to need some of your hard earned cash up front. On the other hand, you have websites like Amazons’ Mechanical Turk where you literally pennies per hour, certainly not enough to live off of. Although it seems hard to see, there is a comfortable middle ground. Many sites offer genuine ways to support yourself using only the Internet and your brain. You probably won’t become a millionaire with this method, but you won’t be in the poor house either. Growth can be infinite, or you may not grow at all. This all depends on your abilities and creativeness.

SEO Marketing for beginners

This method is for the most ambitious, creative people who want to make money online. Search engine optimization is a little understood concept. Basically it entails writing articles that will rank highly in Google and other search engines, so that the most people will see your article.
For example: if one were to type “plasma TV sale” in Google, the search engine would search through ALL of the pages with that phrase. Google is a smart search engine, so it is hard to trick it with fake content, or just posting the phrase all over. Most professional SEO marketers believe that your content should contain 2-10% of all the words as the keyword. So, you would want 2-10% of the words on your page to be “plasma TV sale”.

Unexploited keywords

Another key to SEO Marketing is finding unexploited keywords. If a million people have articles up for “plasma TV sale”, you might want to consider “Samsung model 123 TV sale” in order to find a smaller niche of buyers. This will also increase the amount of legitimate people who want to buy the product because they are searching for a specific page. Good base keywords involve specific models, prices, stores, or discount coupons.

Now you may be thinking, ok I have my articles up, HOW DO I GET PAID!

There are many, many legitimate options for cashing in on your SEO success. 3 of the biggest names in online marketing are companies you know. Amazon. eBay. Google. All three of these companies spend millions of dollars paying SEO marketers for traffic to their sites. You want to check out the Amazon Associates program, which pays you every time someone clicks through one of your links and buys something, usually 4-15% of the total sale price.
eBay has a similar program, paying you for every sale that comes through one of your links.

However, the company that spends the most money for online marketing is Google. You can place something on your site, a link or widget (which is a fancy banner ad) and every time someone clicks through, whether they buy something or not, you get paid. Google also pays additional bonuses for products purchased.

Most SEO marketers use free blogs, like blogger.com, or wordpress.com. On these sites you can create your own webpage in minutes to upload your content to, hosted absolutely free. I would recommend beginners start here. Once you get a little more advanced you can purchase your own domain names at a domain host, like godaddy.com

Just remember - Find a niche for your product, be creative and never give up. There is plenty of money to be made.